The Twilight of the Crystal Heart

Chapters

Chapter 1: The Ponies Cannot Hear the Alicorn
Chapter 2: Things Fall Apart, the Crystal Cannot Hold
Chapter 3: Mere Anarchy Is Loosed Upon the Herd
Chapter 4: The Blood-Dimmed Tide Is Loosed
Chapter 5: The Ceremony Of Innocence Is Drowned
Chapter 6: The Best Lack All Conviction
Chapter 7: Passionate Intensity
Chapter 8: Some Revelation Is At Hoof
Chapter 9: The Second Coming Is At Hoof
Chapter 10: Hardly Are Those Herds Out
Chapter 11: A Discordant Interlude
Chapter 12: Spiritus Mundi
Chapter 13: A Troubled Sight
Chapter 14: A Lion Body With the Head of a Pony
Chapter 15: Gaze Blank and Pitiless as the Changeling
Chapter 16: The Darkness Drops Again
Chapter 17: Interlude- Twenty Centuries of Stony Sleep
Chapter 18: Rocking the Cradle

Chapter 1: The Ponies Cannot Hear the Alicorn

CANTERLOT HERALD SPECIAL EDITION

PRINCESS TWILIGHT SPARKLE DIES IN FORBIDDEN RITUAL "TRAGEDY" AS ROYAL GUARDS CHARGE IN
"PAID FOR HER CRIMES", PRINCE BLUEBOOD SAYS - PRINCESSES NEARLY MURDER PRINCE IN ROYAL RAGE
REMAINING "ELEMENTS OF HARMONY" TO STAND TRIAL BEFORE LORDS AND COMMONS FOR HIGH CRIMES
PRINCESSES ASK PONYDOM, WORLD TO "REMAIN CALM" IN LIGHT OF EMPIRE DISASTER, MASS SPELL FAILURES

(warning: lots of Very Unhappy Ponies ahead - the Author.)

Princess Celestia's bedroom was a storm of tatters and feathers that had once been the Royal Bed. A few splintered bits of wood and tufts of cloud were flung from one side to another in absolute fury as she expiated insomnia, grief, and fury in stomping on the one thing that she was ALLOWED to stomp on.

Because Blueblood had become strictly off limits- even to the highest of high. Her -own guard- had stopped the maddened monarch, even as Blueblood himself had rapidly sealed off the dining room (as the crime scene of magic most foul that had resulted in the death of a crowned head of Equestria), asked the House of Lords to put HER in "mourning" (and effectively out of power) due to her "grief for what must be Celestia's daughter-by-another-mother driving Our Solar Highness to a state of temporary incompetence to govern" - and the foalish herd had used the law she'd disbarred Luna with over a thousand years ago for the second time on HER. And her rampage in the throne room? They'd voted nine hooves for every one against after THAT got out- in less than an hour after poor Twilight had perished.

Her sister? She'd raised the moon that night and the entire castle had suffered a brief snowstorm in the process. The castle was rife with the act being a sign that the Windigo Time was upon the land, brought by Twilight Sparkle's madness. The Night Court literally had the chill of winter in it as blue-maned Luna sat, as dispassionately cold as Celestia was burning hot.

The final rock under the saddle had been having to walk with a full-double-shift of Royal Guard behind her to the Diplomatic Quarters to inform Twilight's parents that a few days after their son was missing, their daughter had blown herself to bits trying to make everything better. To her shame, they had tried to comfort -her-. Thanked her. Twilight Velvet had -hugged- her while she wept midway through the speech she'd prepared in her head on the long walk, instead of the other way around. Celestia, Great Ruler Of Ponies, being comforted by the mare who'd just lost her only two children to tragedy in a single week. And with that thought the anger left her, hollowed out. The day-bright light of fury that had been shining out of her balcony at midnight faded to a dim glow which, if you'd been stumbling around the wreckage might have been enough to keep from stepping on something. Deep inside Celestia's heart of hearts, something was lost, and nothing replaced it.

Below Canterlot Castle, five ponies sat, each in their own cell with a stonefaced guardspony watching them- three on one side, two on the other. The rough stone was padded by a thick layer of hay, and only decorated by three buckets. One for gruel, one for water - and one for whatever you got after enough gruel and water.

No talking was allowed, but the prisoners could think all they like. Blank walls and bland food with a seasoning of silence encouraged bad ponies to contemplate their deeds and behave, after all.

Applejack sat in the middle of hers, her hat pulled down over her head. She'd done what she'd done, and she'd told herself it was for the good of everypony, time and again without a doubt with all of her heart. Then she'd seen what Rarity was reading in the cell across the way.

Then that stupid goldarned fancy Element had turned her into some kind of killer zompony, and then....then...what were they gonna do without her? Granny, and Big Mac...and Apple Bloom. She knew was all the mama that little filly had...and if she was locked up in a dungeon for all of her days? A vision of endless rock-breaking in a black-and-white striped outfit under the desert sun ran through her mind's eye and trampled her hopes to death like a broken-backed rattlesnake. Nothing replaced it.

Fluttershy...was troubled. Not alone, since she was sharing the hay with a nice family of mice, but some things you just couldn't talk to mice about. A mouse would tell you that life was short, eat the cheese, and one day, the snake or the hawk comes and takes you away. Fluttershy had watched Death swoop down with it's claws and...she had squeaked like a dying little mousie when their neck gets broken before they're eaten and- she closed her eyes and tried to sweep more straw around her to keep a chill that had nothing to do with the stone or the air away. Blueblood's face, starting to turn red as she began to crush his throat under her hooves. He was beyond "meanie"...she hated him for what he said about Twilight. With that, something snuffed out inside Fluttershy. Nothing replaced it.

Pinkie Pie wrestled with the greatest challenge of her life. Twilight was gone. Everyone else was sad or mad and all she could think about that would fix it would be Twilight...but Twilight was gone and everyone else was sad or mad and all she could think about that would fix it would be Twilight with just the right idea they could save the day with but Twilight was gone and everyone else was sad or mad and all she could think about that would fix it would be Twilight with just the right idea they could save the day but Twilight was gone and she wasn't coming back and everyone would be sad or mad forever. Pinkie's mane had long lost it's puffy happy state to hang in long stringy strands across her sides as she walked in circles, but the circular thoughts are what had exhausted any idea of "fun" in the pony's head. Fun dribbled away into the dry grassy stalks, down her face, off the tip of her nose, left little white streaks as it dried and died. Nothing replaced it.

Rarity, from some generous benefactor had been given a few newspapers from the past few days- the Herald, the Hoofington Trotabout, Fillydelphia Free Press, what have you. The implication that someone had greased the guards with some extra bits for her had left her feeling good at first...until she read the news. While the articles had a dozen different names on the bylines, they damned Twilight Sparkle and the rest of them with pointing hoof. She read the accounts of the few who had been close enough to witness but far enough to escape the ravenous blast, tale after tale of the Elements spreading a burning radiance that had killed and blinded without a thought for what lay below their hooves. HER hooves. Celestia and Luna had kept the press far at bay while they recovered, almost sequestered in the palace...but here the whole story was, as everyone else saw it. Even if they had been slaves to whatever horrible thing had been hiding in the Elements, there was no proof, only results. She saw the courtroom, saw herself pleading before a faceless judge before being led out in chains to the cries of an hungry mob. What could she give to show her contrition, how could you pay back the loss of so many lives, so many ponies? The tally of the dead stretched into a bill no number of bits would pay, no mountain of clothing would warm, no time enough given could amend. She poured her future into that gaping wound in her soul, and it drank it dry, to the bitter dust and dregs. In the end, she had nothing more to give, and nothing alone rested in the ledgers of her heart.

Rainbow Dash hovered in place at the center of the cell, the straw having fled the sulking pony to hide in every corner of the room lest she tear it in her teeth for daring to think they could hang out. Everything was stupid. The guard was stupid because he wouldn't let her keep punching the stupid wall. The way they looked at her when they shoved another bucket of whatever in was stupid because they looked at her like she was a bad pony for doing the right things, for being awesome, for helping Twilight and all of her friends save everything and oh sweet summer sky why did I just follow whatever Twilight said to do like I had blinders on and not stop her from doing something so totally STUPID LIKE DYING.

And with that, she punched the wall with a chipped hoof, sending another stab of pain up her foreleg and rattling her head. The echo of the punch addled her still-shaky brain, leaving the pegasus to flutter drunkenly about the cell like a rainbow-colored bumblebee.

"HEY!" the guard finally uttered and thumped the door with a spearshaft. "That's enough of that, or I come in there with wing hobbles and you can SIT for the rest of your stay!". Stupid guard. They're all stupid for locking us up and not trusting us and Fluts and AJ and Rarity and Pinkie are all SO STUPID BECAUSE NONE OF THEM STOPPED TWILIGHT AND WE'RE ALL SO BUCKING SCREWED. I AM SO BUCKING SCREWED. STUPID, STUPID, STUPID! Rainbow Dash's thoughts ended as her increasingly disoriented flight turned into a head-meets-ceiling experience. The stunning impact left the pegasus in a tangled pile on the floor, thoughts running like a bowl of spilt spaghetti as something inside her skull came loose. What was lost, nothing replaced.

Twilight Sparkle floated in the Astral sea, senseless and bodiless, a vaguely purple glow on the endless ocean of light. While she would likely have preferred nothing at all to be there with her, many somethings eagerly awaited her to pull herself together. Judgement and reckoning was at hand, and it rested on curly horns and woolen hooves for the proper time.

Chapter 2: Things Fall Apart, the Crystal Cannot Hold

Timelessness passed in the Astral for a little glowing purple cloud of light, surrounded by eight glowing blots that discolored the endless white with their own tones. They waited, patiently enough by mortal standards as a day, a week, or a year to them was generally not all that much time by the standards of spirits whose "life" could be measured normally in aeons.

The red one crackled first as it "spoke" in tones that would only be familiar to those being incinerated by dragon's breath.

"SHE HAS NOT MOVED. DO WE CAUSE THE MOTE FEAR?"

Purple responded with the sizzle of a thunderhead being danced on by the population of Cloudsdale.

"The mote does not understand being without form. Shall I give her a shell?"

White, Black, Yellow, Green, and two different shades of Blue agreed, in both a rare fit of unity and impatience.

"It would be polite to wear a shell for the mote as well, lest we confuse her further."

Seven of the colors swirled and let their normal disorderly energies form into forms that made considerably more sense to mortal eyes, while White refused to even acknowledge Purple's statement.

Two wooly, massive hooves patted the mote into something pony-shaped, molding a horn, wings, and the very semblance of life itself into the small glowy bit of Astral debris, then let a single fat spark leap from his horns to set the results.

Ectoplasmic pony fur and large amounts of static electricity do not mix.

Ramuh gently drained away most of the charge, letting the mote settle from puffball to the more proper form of one Twilight Sparkle, slightly berift of bodily ties.

She opened her now-functional eyes and took in the infinite breadth of the spiritual realm, the majestic forms arrayed around her, elemental and radiating power beyond that most mortals can experience firsthand without being reduced to a lifeless cinder.

And Ramuh, who by Twilight's calculations measured roughly to scale with an Ursa Major. A very fluffy Ursa Major.

"Welcome to your final reckoning, Twilight." the gargantuan ram intoned solemnly. "I do not think you will like it, but by managing to be here, we are required to deliver it.". Somehow, the ram managed to make "eternal judgement" not sound like anything more dreadful than "laundry day".

"But...but...THIS IS WHAT HAPPENS TO PONIES WHEN THEY DIE?", Twilight attempted to hyperventilate. Lacking air or the need to breathe, or indeed not realizing she wasn't vibrating molecules to produce speech like flesh requires, the attempt failed other than producing a somewhat adorable look of absolute panic.

"You are somewhat more than a mere pony, Twilight., Ramuh countered.

"Not much compared to Sombra. He doesn't get himself killed casting spells.". Ebon hooves on twice as many legs as any stallion should have waved disparagingly at the blot in their midst, and two cinder-red eyes peered down. "No wonder Alexandrite was able to ride you so easily. Weak and pathetic."

"THE FLESH IS ALWAYS WEAK, WHY DO YOU THINK WE DIDST SEEK TO REMOVE IT?", emanated from the bright cloud of light that occupied the spot opposite Ramuh's. "IT CORRUPTS. IT DESTROYS. THIS FLESH HAS RUINED AN ENTIRE WORLD WITH IT'S ACTS."

"You mean she did it better than you could, you oversized ball of photons.", snapped the black, eight-legged stallion. A single spear of light lashed from the cloud, but shattered harmlessly on an unseen barrier. "She's at least smart enough to realize we're all sealed safe and sound while the ritual continues, at which point you'll go back to being locked in your little trinkets and I'll be home to watch the rest of you dying out like the failures you are."

"CAN WE FINISH THIS BEFORE THE END OF ALL THINGS, YOU TWO? IF THE WORLD IS TO BURN, I WOULD PREFER TO BE DOING THE BURNING BEFORE THE MOTE LEAVES ME NOTHING TO CONSUME.", gouted Red, now filling the rough shape of a great wyrm. The inside of it's mouth let out a molten lick of sun-hot plasma to curl against the seal holding the fire-beast in it's place.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, I ENDED THE WORLD?"

"The mote at least has learned to match you in volume, Ifrit." , rumbled the minotaur-shaped mountain of earth to Ramuh's left. "If the mote can speak so, the mote can listen as well. Enough. The land would have it's due."

"Let the mote know of it's deeds, and see what future it has wrought for us."

Alexandrite's swirling patterns of dizzying light intensified. "CORRUPT, YOU CORRUPT. BRING CORRUPTION TO ALL THAT YOU TOUCH."

To her right, Jolfr added- "Held, you behold. And beholden for all that you've done." The dark spirit seemed pleased at the thought as it finished, steepling it's four pairs of hooves together in neat pairs.

Next, the green-tinged aether of an jade-plumed griffin cried out with a squawk more appropriate to a parrot than a predator- "Spell! Cast a spell! Cast a spell on the country you run!" -and clashed her beak, snapping at Twilight only to be blocked by the same etheric wall that had thwarted Alexandrite.

The titanic minotaur continued. "Pay. You must pay. You must pay for your crimes against the earth." But it did not move to claim what it clearly desired, only transfixing Twilight Sparkle with two boulder-eyes of jasper and topaz.

Ramuh followed. "Risk, ye will risk. Ye shall risk all their lives and their souls."

A leviathan of oceans and white-capped waters hissed to Ramuh's left. "Deaaaath. You bring deaaath. And desssstruction to all that you touch!", and it's scales rushed it in long loops through it's cage with the sounds of a river flood.

"HEX! FEED THE HEX! FEED THE HEX ON THE COUNTRY YOU LOVE!", Ifrit roared. It, too seemed amused by what it expected to happen.

The final spirit did not roar. It did not cry, and indeed, it's words simply slid into Twilight's head on a thread of frozen blue. The icy form of an Ursa, azure glacial flows studded with stars of glittering ice and a mouth that simply misted out:

Beg. You will beg. You will beg for their lives and their souls.

The monstrous forms swirled into a blinding yet familiar blend of colors and Twilight spun with them, her spiritual form stretching like taffy as it was whirled through not-space to a vision of the past.

From above, Twilight Sparkle beheld the majesty of the Crystal Empire, the crowds that flowed through it's streets and the joy that she could almost smell, like the essence of a carnival. For a long moment. Joy turned to chaos, windigoes and black unicorn, fighting and demons and madness as six very familiar ponies rose in a halo of unremorseful light, the Elements of Harmony clasped firmly to their flesh.

The ponies wielded their light like a whip, scourging the streets of the demons and the ponies that fled them alike, then above the ruins claimed a glittering prize and began to focus on the bit of crystal floating in their circle.

The spirit-alicorn knew they meant- she meant- to cleanse the world as they had cleansed the city, in light and burning and purity without mercy. The six bent horns of light to lance through into the Crystal Heart...

...and at the last moment, a black spear struck the Heart first, rebounding the spell on it's casters. The six were cast into the ruins they had made, and the Heart fell to earth with them. Two specks of flesh stood before the Heart, holding the shuddering, wounded thing together as strokes of lightning and anger tried to reduce them to ashes. They only held on for a brief time, and the final thing Twilight saw before all became white was herself, wings outspread to teleport her friends to safety.

The light faded. In a broad circle miles wide, the Empire was washed away from the land in with the fury of magic and a cloud of dust. What had been living and dead blown outwards, to stain the virgin snow grey and sorrowful. All that stood were two statues of crystal the very eye of the apocalyptic storm. The vision's eye dived like a hawk.

To her horror, she beheld the frozen forms of her brother and Cadence before her mind's eye rose again into the white, and the material realm faded to a ghostly image over the flow of the magical realm. A miasma of darkness spread where the glowing colors of life and joy, blotting them out with death and the echoes of pain the surge of power had etched into the ether. Memories of anguish and suffering fed on the miasma, and the bones of the dead pulled themselves together to trot across the scoured and blasted plains, while dessicated pony-skins filled with the essence of windigos and suffering rose to float like obscene balloons in a nightmarish parade. At it's center, a single spot that was darker than black- indeed, it was the very emptiness of color - hovered in the aether where the Heart had been. The Emptiness- for Twilight felt it, and it was not merely a "nothing" hungered, but it could not latch onto what it desired.

Her ghostly ears twitched to the sound of her own voice, chanting.

"Let the power of the world be as it should be once more!"

She could feel a pull towards the Emptiness form as the spell called what had been there back to it's place. Glowing lights swirled about the Emptiness as the ritual drew them downwards...and the first, small, light reached the border between Something And Nothing.

The Emptiness devoured the light and obliterated it, doubling in size and sending tendrils of Not in all directions to stab into the dancing hordes around it, piercing each and every one with it's grasp. Though only a few were drawn in, the tendrils only stretched as the force that held the spirits close suddenly snapped and the tormented essences flew away in all directions.

The web of oblivion simply thinned but did not break, and the fearful spirits only stretched it across the world. Where the web touched the bright stars of living creatures, they began to dim as a bit of Emptiness latched on to feed...and as the light slowly began to fade, the hole in the Astral began to grow further, and further...

Ramuh's voice echoed in her perceptions as she prayed for the vision to be false, for any rational escape from the logical progression of what she had begun to spring into her head, something to save the world from becoming Nothing.

"You acted without truly thinking, demanded our power without asking, and cast billions of years of Being into the jaws of oblivion. It gnaws on us all, save you, who fed it so well. It would devour you last. For what you have done to us all, you cannot pay- but there will be justice."

"Twilight Sparkle, spirit of Magic -we take what the world has given you, as you have taken so much from the world."

The colors flowed into her open mouth and out every orifice of her ethereal shape, and with it her perception of the Astral dimmed to the dull greys and whites of near blindness, as her magical gifts melted away and cataracts grew to muffle her perception. The glowing, vibrant purple of her spiritual form faded to an almost colorless, ancient tone, and the ache of centuries seemed to fill every joint, every bend, every space that could become the dying embers of life instead of the flames of a mare in her prime.

"Go to your fate knowing that we will use it to try and hold back the Emptiness long enough to let the world die with dignity- or die before it is consumed, so it knows no more of the pain you have brought it."

At that, the withered old mare that had been Princess Twilight managed to wheeze out a few words before her body refused more.

"Please....please....save...please...friends....help......save...hel-kkk."

"We consign what remains to the Emptiness it has created."

And with that, Twilight Sparkle found herself flung into a spot of unbeing that grew to become an all-encompassing Nothing in every direction. The world...she could not feel the world, see, hear, smell...oh, Celestia! She could not...not...not....

Time became timeless again as even time was devoured and obliterated, freezing the mind of Twilight Sparkle into what felt like the forever-contemplation of the abyss.

In the world that remained, five ponies who had been friends of Twilight's were marched to trial at the hooves of the Houses of Lords and Commons.

Chapter 3: Mere Anarchy Is Loosed Upon the Herd

In one of those oddities of language, little ponies use the word "stable" generally for two purposes- one for stability, and the second for politics. Literally, a "stable" is a place where any pony can have a firm, equal footing- in legal terms, namely as a place of governance.

The Canterlot Stables then tend to surprise most tourists expecting hay-covered floors and perhaps a few cows, as they represent both the elected and hereditary center of the Equestrian legislature, serving the esteemed and most honorable Diarchs of the Kingdom of Equestria. That is, the milling and energetic course of the House of Commons, and it's equal in number but inherited-by-title positions of the House of Lords (despite being plentifully studded with Ladies in the modern era, most of the original House had been military, stallions, and the founders of a bastion of political tradition, and buck political correctness- even some of the mares preferred "Lord, sixteenth in their line of Lords" to presuming to break the chain with a mere "Lady".).

For every titled mare or stallion, an elected pony of the land (or rarely, another species), and through oft-raucous caucus and the best spirit of compromise, churned out an endless stream of laws for the Princesses to sign and thus keep the nation in balance and harmony- literally, Stable. Designed with pegasus construction, built with marble and limestone quarried by earth ponies and decorated with precision by unicorns, the whole arrangement of comfortably-sized yet cheek-to-cheek alcoves a random checkerboard of cloud-seat, 'corn-cushion, or a more sturdy arrangement for the hindquarters of a earth pony, all sparsely decorated and surprisingly simple, split into six sections (dating back to when the Stables were strictly arranged by race) that surrounded a broad stone circle at the center, half sun, half moon.

Every alcove was filled. Six rather nervous ponies stood in the center, to the loud and chaos-strewn cries that flew over their heads as six-hundred-and-sixty of their peers warmed up. Above them all, Celestia and Luna sat in a resplendently decadent balcony, four pegasi guards keeping a careful watch for wads of stray paper or perhaps a quill tossed in anger that found itself misdirected to the heights (or, in one infamous incident, a banana that had nearly coated the Celestial Crown in treasonous pulp). Celestia sat, looking decidedly dimmed and ragged, while Luna's mane had taken on a positively stormy sheen, which matched her mood perfectly. Their faces were veiled with black, and the mourning-lace could be seen spotting nooks in every direction as loyal subjects shared in their grief.

Prince Blueblood, Lord Of The Canterlot Seat was not one of them, and he was indeed cheerfully polishing an imagined smudge off his working desk, energetically arranging a stack of papers, and had even set a small vase full of tiger lilies up in one corner for good measure. The six ponies, themselves surrounded in their circle by three times their number in guards watched him with a mix of looks, none kindly, but all were kept silent. Rainbow Dash's mouth formed more than one soap-worthy word anyway in the unicorn's direction, and though Blueblood clearly saw it, he only grew more cheerful each time the pegasus scowled and made a nasty face, then waved a friendly hoof at the furious mare after a few of her more naughty lip-contortions.

Dash slid to the floor and sulked, exposing Fluttershy, who had been hiding in the center. She squeezed in turn behind Trixie and Rarity, snuggling under the cushioned and ebon-ribboned saddles each of them wore. Wordlessly, the two gently pushed their hips together and flank-hugged the shivering pegasus- who hadn't stopped shaking since they'd led them out of the prison cells and into the open. Some ponies had taken a very specific pleasure in screaming "MURDERER!" at the wing-hobbled creature, as each accusation had struck her like a sharp rock in the withers before the six had been loaded into a carriage and spirited through the streets to the Stables.

The only comfort they had was each other. At best, the guards were formally polite, worst cold and almost ready to pounce if one of them had stumbled into "trying to escape". Their families had not been allowed to visit, nor had even the Princesses been given more than the most formal of visiting time spent, with dour-faced government chaperones in a well-dressed cloud of official doom hovering near in every direction.

A gavel pounded out a staccato tap that the chamber's walls reflected into a TOK TOK TOK. The sound settled the legislature into a mild burble of restrained whispers, and their heads turned to a raised podium set opposite to the Princesses' seats. A mare with a golden-bugle cutie mark stood below and raised her voice:

"OYEZ! OYEZ! THIS MEETING OF THE HOUSES OF EQUESTRIA IS CONVENED, THE RIGHT HONORABLE LADY UNION ROSE PRESIDING!"

The red pinto mare shook out her mane a bit and set the gavel aside. With the cultured tones of a Bittish with excellent breeding, she set the charges out like rows of ordinance, ready to explode and neatly tailored to the utter ruin of whatever poor ponies happened to have them dropped on their heads. The only one to be relatively short-stinted was Trixie, whose offenses only extended to the final charges of "participating in mystical acts that led to the demise of a pony of noble standing", and finally ended:

"...regis filia Celestia, regis filia Luna, non potest dici."

For even of such acts, even if the Princesses themselves were involved, by law they were not spoken of unless the unheard-of act of impeaching the royal station was required (a law that had stood for over a thousand years and even at occasional urgings from the Princesses to use on THEM, never put to use.)

"We call the first witness to these accused acts before the Houses...", and a sapphire-sparkling crystal pony with bitter eyes was escorted to a post, where she began a barrage of words that covered five of the accused in shame and horror, and Trixie herself to shudder more than once despite having witnessed much of it personally.

Many of the witnesses bore bandages covering burns. Some, including one stallion chose not to cover them all, letting the wounds speak as much as their tongues did of the day. By the second witness, Fluttershy was hiccuping and unable to stand. By the fourth, Rarity joined her on the floor. The half-grown colt who stared blindly out as he recited the last thing he saw...

"And the nice pink pony that gave me a balloon the first day? She looked down at me all flyin' in the air, then I couldn't see no more."

...Pinkie didn't so much cry as she became the source of a new river in the Stables, one that could have easily cleaned the floor had it not been redirected to the seapony-decor fountain outside the chambers. And it continued, mercifully, for only a mere four hours, sixteen witnesses, fifteen minutes a piece. At that, the accused were allowed to give their defense.

Without Twilight, that was less than an eloquent one, and half of the accused were beyond doing much more than obvious and complete remorse.

"We...we were in these crazy glowing gem things! It wasn't us...well, it was us but we wasn't us in us so it WASN'T US! NO PONY WOULD DO THOSE THINGS! NO PONY! I'm...I'm a good pony...I'm a good pony!", Rainbow Dash managed to get out past chattering teeth- and then seized briefly, turning one side of her face into a rictus of bared teeth and causing the representative from Hoofington to faint from the sight. Sinking to her knees, the pegasus put her hooves over her aching head and silently begged it to just stop...

"We ain't no pony-killin monsters! We done fought monsters, we even kilt some...but...I ain't no pony-killer! That ain't me...it CAIN'T BE ME!", Applejack finally began to scream. "AIN'T NO APPLE IN HER RIGHT MIND WHAT'D DO SUCH A THING! IT AIN'T ME, AND IT AIN'T MY FRIENDS AND I DON'T CARE NONE WHO SAYS IT WAS! THEY AIN'T KILLED NO PON-"

A winged shadow grew over the cluster of prisoners as a collective gasp rocked the assembly.

Princess Celestia settled to the House floor within the circle of the accused and raised her head. Her mane fell limply and nearly without life, like a flag on a broken standard, and her eyes were tinged with the colors of a bloody sunset.

"Enough. The deaths and pain of these little ponies was not theirs, and I will see them tortured no more by this trial."

"M-majesty!", Union Rose spoke from her lofty perch. "The law states that royalty shall NOT stand with accused or defender, lest the law be biased by your favor!"

"The Throne IS the accused, madam Speaker.", Celestia replied. "The witnesses have spoken truly to the acts they have witnessed, but they could not, neigh should not have known what stood behind them. It was..."

The time for a single breath was all it took to have every eye fixed upon Celestia's lips.

...it was me. What I have wrought in the name of Harmony turned upon it's bearers, and the fault is mine. It has been twice mine, and I will confess it before my little ponies, and judge me true for my works. I took a spirit of great power and bound it's sixfold parts into the Elements, and with my Sister unknowing, we did usurp this spirit's powers to do great works, banishing threats to the land like Sombra, purifying cursed lands, and finally...when my Sister did fall prey to the Nightmare, I wore all six together to use against...against her. And the spirit in the Elements had waited for that moment, and did nearly turn me into a slave of her will, to kill mine own Sister and then to make the Sun a tyrant destroyer of all ponydom had wrought."

"I did turn it's killing blade aside but a whit with all the love I could rally against it, and banished mine own sweet sister to the moon for a thousand years instead."

The clatter of a single chair falling the long span to the floor was all most noticed of Luna's sudden rise to her full height as she stood, wild-eyed and staring at her sister.

"I swore that never the Elements would be wielded by one, never again, and for a thousand years I held to that oath and more, for I gave the six pieces to the most true and good ponies I could find in the realm, for the time where they could be used without corrupting a single, foolish bearer to be it's puppet...and they saved my sister, and the realm in the time of Discord, healing and preserving all of Equestria with their deeds. You should bless them all, not curse their names! Curse....curse my own. I gave them the Elements when I could not bear them myself. I did not realize that the bonds of friendship would make them as one, so much so that the spirit within them would take ALL of them to cause such woe and pain. If I could...I would heal every mark, bless every troubled brow, make all the world right again for you, my little ponies. Please...please...forgive me for being such a fool. Take your anger and pull the feathers from my wings, the crown from my head, paint my mane with tar and hurl me into the rivers to drown. I will run, I will crawl, I will die to do what I can to make amends, and when you think I can do no more...do what you will."

"For the only bad pony here is me."

"And you are even worse a pony than you think, dearest aunt."

Celestia recoiled from the hate-filled voice as it whipped her ears and made her face duck close to the floor in shame. Blueblood rose to his hooves, the height of his seat putting his eyes on a level with Celestia's wide-eyed stare.

"I have an additional witness I would add to the list in light of the confession. Madam Speaker, will you allow it?", Blueblood almost crowed as the ponies around him began to inch away slowly, their sweaty flanks pressed as far into the walls of their alcoves as they could. One unicorn ducked down and shivered, only a green horn waving above her desk like a peeled twig.

"This- this is MOST irregular, Prince Blueblood!", Union Rose said in a fashion more suited to "The House is afire and about to collapse" than to "procedural irregularity".

"A Princess is interfering with the business of justice is irregular, Madam Speaker! I demand an additional witness to clarify the crime in light of this... of blatant pandering to the people!". The clopping of paperweights and the stomping of hooves began as a few clatters, but rapidly spread to bathe the room in thunderous agreement.

"HEAR, HEAR!" "Blueblood speaks for the ponies of Fillydelphia!" "WE DEMAND A FULL HEARING!" screeched the lone non-pony, a griffonesse from the Brooks Range Protectorate.

"Great flaming dragon doodles, where did this idiotic inbred hornhead find THAT to say at a time like this, to his own aunt?", Union Rose thought in a fit of disgust. "In light of these SMALL IRREGULARITIES, Prince Blueblood...one witness. Five minutes. No more. Call them, since you CLEARLY have decided to add someone I do NOT have on the witness list, in what I find to be a MOST irregular fashion."

Blueblood filled his lungs and let the contents roll out across the floor.

"I call to the podium, Princess Sunset Shimmer, consort to Prince Blueblood of the Seat of Canterlot, once-student to the esteemed Princess Celestia to give her statement regarding the criminal acts of the accused before us in the circle."

Celestia wobbled like a newborn filly as her knees gave out as her wayward, slightly battered but utterly self-assured and un-faithful student walked up to the small platform from which each witness had testified. A golden ring graced the base of her horn, and though it was clear that whatever journey had taken her to this place, she was more than ready to put it to good use.

"In addition to the horrible, horrible acts Celestia and her minions have done to the ponies of the Crystal Empire, she has had forbidden, dark magics by which she acts upon other races, hidden from good ponies behind a magical mirror she would allow none to understand save herself. I journeyed through this mirror when she forbade me and discovered the truth! Princess Celestia has hidden the mythical humans from ponykind. They are real! Any who would pass through the mirror would become like one, and they accepted me as one of their own, and by great acclaim made me their Princess, for the humans elect their Princess every year. For three years, I served in their magical lands as their crowned head, only to find a few days ago that magic, PONY magic, the magic of Celestia's Elements blasting through the portal to tear my kingdom from the earth and draw it to it's doom. Did you know how many innocent humans, MY humans you slew? Dozens? Hundreds? THOUSANDS! None could tell, for you gave them a grave between worlds where their poor, torn bodies will never know peace! Did you hate me so much that you killed them all to be rid of your "wayward student", the only pony Blueblood truly loved? It was a miracle that I escaped, that my darling Blueblood had sent his brave stallions to search for survivors in the Crystal Empire. It is DEAD, all of it DEAD! I have seen the dead pony walk, the howling ghosts in the broken buildings, and it IS YOUR FAULT!". With perfect timing, Shimmer's eyes watered with crocodile's tears. "You! YOU! YOOOOOOOU!" and with a third jab of her horn, she fell to the floor in a puddle of her own salty weeping. Blueblood leaped from his place and landed with a clatter of hoof-on-stone next to his wife, and gently led her from the chamber.

As Blueblood's aura pulled the door shut behind him and his "beloved", anarchy descended upon the rest. Ponies screamed at one another, pointed at Celestia, pointed at Luna, bucked the doors to their alcoves in anger until they clattered to the floor, shouted about criminal and innocent and bandied words even fouler than "horseapples!" and "darn!" that would have easily made a scandal on the politics page any other day. Today, no polite word spoke enough of how ponies felt. Union Rose broke her gavel hammering it in an effort to get order before resorting to flinging the broken thing away and bucking her hooves against the metal door of the Speaker's Stall. Sparks flew from her shoes and after a minute, the screech of bending brass and kicking legs quelled enough of the cacophony to let her yell above the lot:

"THERE WILL BE ORDER, BY THE SUN AND MOON, OR I SHALL BE FORCED TO CALL FOR PIES!"

And with that, the four guardponies opposite her produced discs of pastry topped with cream from beneath their wings and balanced them menacingly upon the tips. The threat of melee meringue finally reduced the politicians to silence.

"THE HOUSES SHALL CONSIDER THE WORDS OF THE ACCUSED AND ACCUSERS IN -PRIVATE- AND RETURN A VERDICT UPON THE DAWN OF THE SECOND DAY HENCE! LET THE CHAMBER BE CLEARED OF ANY WHO DOES NOT HOLD A SEAT AND THIS CHAMBER BE SEALED UNTIL SUCH TIME AS JUSTICE HAS BEEN SERVED!"

And with that, the two Princesses and their six friends found themselves herded down the marbled center to the stares and foam-flecked breathing of the rightful denizens of the legislature, past the fish-tailed equines of stone gamboling in their fountain, and onto two pegasus-drawn chariots. As they flew toward the castle, a crowd at the entrance to the Stables could be seen growing and beginning to boil...

...and in what was a seeming forever frozen eternal, a single crystal feather began to slip loose from Twilight's withered wings.

Chapter 4: The Blood-Dimmed Tide Is Loosed

In the Emptiness, Twilight Sparkle was suspended. No sense of then or now, up or down, here or there, and only the faintest feeling of I am to reject the concept of simply dissolving like ink into an endless sea of black. That, and the gentle gnawing of the void on what was left of her. Had she been there only a moment? Forever? The abyss even stole away thoughts as fast as she could recite a multiplication table (had she done it before, even two times two is four? The idea vanished along with the uncountable thoughts that had gone before, for Twilight Sparkle had a busy mind, but even it could not fill it's surroundings with enough thoughts to sate it. Even the memories of having been cast into this place had eroded away, leaving the withered alicorn confused, almost senile with deprivation of sense and mind.

A single, crystal feather slipped from what had once been a broad if clumsy wing. Time slipped back into gear, the frozen clock thawed, and her eyes, craving something, ANYTHING to see gazed at the bit of petrified plumage. Something looked back.

A tiny purple unicorn filly, bouncing around an examination room squeaking "YES YES YES YES YES YES YES!". The filly looked up onto high, straight into Twilight's eyes, and said:

"Princess Celestia, I'm gonna be the best student EVER!", then rubbed her head adoringly against a tall white leg. A spot deep inside mended itself within as the scars of failure melted away in the hopeful eyes of a faithful student...perhaps more?

The vision faded to a gleam of sunlight, trapped in the feather like an insect in amber as it bounced around. The barest hint of warmth radiated from the glow, something Twlight could not have seen or felt but for the absence of anything else around it...but it was like a warm ember of life, and she craved it like she had craved nothing else in her world. Her neck creaked alarmingly as she bent her mouth down to her wing, but she plucked another feather between her teeth and let it hang before her face.

The most adorable thing in the universe looked at her from under the rain-soaked bush. Long ears (for such a little thing), a button nose and the tiniest little hairs that poked out like...whiskers! Like Daddy's whiskers when he forgot to shave. The rest was all fluffy and white and two little black eyes like thunderheads in a big ol' cloud bank stared back. He looked kinda scared. So was she. But if she was with this little Angel, even the GROUND wouldn't scare her.

She slowly pushed her head under the bush and nuzzled the baby bunny with the care a mother gives her child, and the little Angel squeaked in what had to be baby bunny talk. Something wiggled up her head to hide in the warm maze of her mane.

A lonely place that had always been cold suddenly found itself filled with kindness. The animals loved her, and she was going to love them all right back!

Two tiny lanterns shed their light, and with it the beginnings of rational thought, of "first this, then that" returned to the not-space, even as she became aware of the Emptiness still stealing away what little strength Twilight had. She shook out her cramped and palsied wings and pulled out an entire mouthful of magicite, a brief tweak and a few floating droplets of red blood giving color and matter to a place that had neither. The clump of feathers seemed to ignite as they did, a miniature bonfire of strange memories that lent her a tenuous grip on her own.

The first kiss of her most perfect, wonderful husband mixed with sitting around the table with Apple Bloom and Granny and her big brother Mac, the biggest royalty check she'd ever seen as oh my goodness this Daring Do was going to be HUGE and she was the whole world, my new little Rarity that barely filled two hooves...

A tiny jolt of embarrassment sparked as she realized she'd just gotten to see what it was like to kiss her own brother and Mom really hadn't been kidding about how she paid for getting Shining Armor through school...and that Rarity really did look a lot like Sweetie Belle as a baby. And that whatever was around her, it was trying to take it all away. She could feel the void trying to sneak around the light where it could to snatch at her and steal the treasures hidden inside her wings, dilute the light of memories until all faded away once more.

A droplet of blood tinged the edge of a glowing feather. It soaked into the feather and for a moment, the feather softened before colliding with another and welding the two together into a sparkling "X". She studied the strange construct, brushing a shaking wing against it. The two feathers had glued themselves together and although not a spot of blood remained, they would not come apart. An idea formed, and tried to skitter away...only for Twilight to frantically pull more feathers out, the surge of foreign memories staunching the bleed of inspiration even as it tore another set of scraped tooth-marks across her wings. She tried to grasp the feathers with her horn.

Nothing happened, save a dull ache. Instead, she swept the pulled wing-feathers closer to her hooves and arranged them into a thin sheet of translucent glimmer. She could -see- the nothing as it streamed around the plane of feather-stuff, like wind blowing around a wall. Yellowed teeth cracked into the first smile she'd had in...well, she couldn't remember that right now. But enough walls make a house. She grit her teeth and set to the painful task of plucking her wings bald, a task that got worse as the glowing lights made her more and more aware of the sad state of her own body. Had she been here so long she'd gotten old and forgotten?

No. The memories of her friends were alive, so they were too. And she'd find them...but first, shelter. Eight panes of feather-glass- a four-sided tetrahedron glued together with blood from a raw wingtip, then a second, with a single feather on the inside of each to let her guide them into place with her teeth, then seal them together in a octahedral shell with her in the center.

The two halves became one, and as they did, the emptiness seemed to drain away and reality established itself, a claustrophobic chamber floating in the still endless un-world that held her little crystal of light. She hurt. Her wings scabbed and -everything- ached. And without the numbing theft of self, Twilight Sparkle found herself very, very tired indeed. Exhaustion and the need for sleep leeched thought into dream, wakeful into restful, and curled in her seed of love, Twilight's soul dreamed of spring and friends, the ponies she cared for, Spike, Ponyville, a big book and a lovely plate of daisy sandwiches...

The dreams rose, and the sleeping seed was carried with them- up, up, and through nothing until finally, the gleaming tip of Twilight's sanctuary found it's way from nothing into the something of the Astral. It floated free of the Emptiness, resting it's bottom on the very border...and finally unhindered by the black, hungry ocean it began to burn with a rainbow of light in every direction, sealing the void beneath it with divine radiance. Flecks of essence drifted in the current the Emptiness had created, but found themselves caught in Twilight's nest to feed the fire still brighter. Though the barest draw of malice still remained, it only drew more of the primal world-stuff to plug the crack in reality in Twilight's crystal. None escaped, none was lost, and the stone sent it's captured fuel back into the spirit-realm in the form of light and energy.

Oblivious to the miracle, the mangy, wrinkled and plucked-bald ball of alicorn provided a very humble wick to the lantern that held back the dark, as love and light and the harmony that held the world together filled what was finally an untroubled heart.

"She has proven us wrong, and in doing so, we have wronged her.", the electric-swirl that was Ramuh spoke. "She lives, and now we are bound to give more than we have taken- for she has saved us all."

"Quite broken in the process and has the small flaw of being a mortal without a body. What will you waste on giving a bit of life that will expire the moment it tries to flee back to it's fleshy shell?", Jolfr snickered. "Truth, I plan on giving her plenty. It'll only hasten the process of her little mote crumbling into the ether when she burns out trying, and I'll just have it all back."

"THE MOTE IS....UNWORTHY OF DISSOLUTION, JOLFR.", countered Alexandrite. "IT HAS PROVEN ITSELF CAPABLE OF GREAT ACTS OF PURITY. I WILL WELCOME THIS "TWILIGHT" TO THE REALM BEYOND IT'S WEAK FLESH...SOME WERE LOST BEFORE THIS ACT. SHE WILL BE USEFUL IN REPLACING THEM."

"I suppose you'll just have to put even MORE into keeping her mote from burning out, then. I say "thou dost crumble", you say "thou dost not dust"...it will be a pleasure watching you fail, Alexandrite. Again." The two elementals of dark and light shadow-boxed at the ethereal barriers that separated them, Jolfr teasing his opposite with illusive tendrils that only seemed to pass close enough to be struck.

"The mote shows great craft to form such a stone from her own essence, and the mortals do form themselves from me. To wish dissolution upon her would be unto wishing it upon myself. She shall have my blessing, if it will please her." , the horned bulk of Titan spoke with the scrape of an earthquake's grind of plate against plate.

"SHE HAS BEEN TEMPERED, AND NOT FOUND WANTING. A TREASURE TO BE KEPT. SHE WILL LIGHT A GREAT FIRE OF CONFLICT IN THE MORTALS IF SHE RETURNS.". Ifrit-wyrm shook it's horned brow and sizzle-hissed it's feelings in the tone of a forest-charring firestorm.

"SSSSSSHE BENDSSS AND FLOOOOWSSSS,", the leviathan-serpent spumed, "FOOOLISH TO WAAASSTE. TROOOUBLE AAAALIVE.". It curled in a Gordian knot woven from oceans, unsure of itself.

"FREE! FREE! FREE!", screeched the Garuda-Griffin. "FREE IT TO SPEAK! FREE IT TO SCREAM THE WORLD! FREE FOR ALL TO KNOW!"

"You speak of forgiving. You forget that we are the ones who need to be forgiven.".

And with that, the icy Ursa bent down to the crystal heart of their circle and breathed a frozen cloud of snow to drift across the sleeping Twilight.

"Forgiveness, I humbly beg. Be generous to we who have taken wrongly, and we shall walk besides thee, and your children's children for as long as pacts may endure. For long is the time for a penitent one to amend for their sins of brother against sister, eldest to youngest. This I give, this I swear."

"FOR YOU AND YOUR KIND, WAR COMES. DRAW STRENGTH FROM IT, LET YOUR ENEMIES BECOME THE KINDLING TO BUILD A BRIGHTER WORLD.", and flames set the crystal to dance with orange and red across it's facets. The flames melted the ice, soaking the stone as they writhed across the surface.

"A THOOOUSSSAAAAND PATHSSSS FLOOOOW. QUICK SSSSSHAAAALL YOOOUUU BE WHEN THE BRAAAANCH FOOORKSSSS!", and from two waterspout-fangs, the seas washed to follow fire. Steam hissed and wreathed Twilight's resting place.

"A spear to pierce a long-held fate, to pay a debt forgotten save by moon and dragon. Here the path writ in lore and lightning, from my horns to ease thine way. A book for a book, to teach thee of a new world." Lightning chased storm-serpent, crawling.

"Strong the hoof, strong the haunch. Those who are made from me will know no challenge they cannot find a way to defeat.". The seed of crystal found itself wrapped in a shell of stone, leaving the lightning to quench itself within it's earthen confines.

"SPEAK! SCREECH! CALL! THEY HEAR! THEY ANSWER! WILD! FIERCE!", and a frantic beat of gargantuan wings dried the muddy stone to dust and carried it away on scouring hurricane.

"Destroy, or thou shalt be destroyed. Blessing to curse, draw down the stars from the sky and war even against the heavens, for you must forever be tested to be worthy until the end of days. Destruction I give thee, strong foes to make strong hearts until the Ragnarok. And I shall send for the strong as they fall, to keep in the halls of the worthy for the final days and give them joy for seeking dark places. Test and trial, ordeal and reward. Pass and find eternal glory.". A shroud of darkness calmed the storm, though beams of crystalline light shone through it like stars in the night sky.

Light shattered the shroud, sending cracks of bright into the shell of shadow until it tore asunder.

"MEND AND GROW BRIGHT, LITTLE ONE. ONLY THAT WHICH IS IMPURE CAN FAIL, PURGE PAIN AND SUFFERING FROM THE FLESH SO IT MAY SEEK THE TRUTH OF THE SPIRIT AND DISCARD IT'S WEAKNESS. MY LIGHT, I GIVE TO YOU. EVEN DEATH IS A LIE TOLD TO THE FLESH, IF YOU HAVE FAITH IN ME. RISE ABOVE, AND KNOW THAT WHEN YOU BANISH ALL FALSEHOOD FROM YOUR KIND, I SHALL BE WAITING TO WELCOME THEE TO THE TRUTH, SHIELD AND SAVIOUR. MAY YOU ACT AS I WOULD."

The energies left miniature stars orbiting the still-sleeping form, then they too faded away.

Twilight still slept, peaceful even amidst the tumult that had surrounded her. For all the shouting and blessing and magic, it might as well been the eight making charades for all it seemed to rouse the still-decrepit pony, though the crystal shimmered and gleamed all the brighter.

"AHEM. RISE. AWAKEN.", rumbled Alexandrite.

The alicorn continued to snooze peacefully.

"Thou art truly a rousing performer, Alexandrite.", needled Jolfr.

The other six spirits peered curiously at Twilight Sparkle.

"IT SEEMS TO LACK A CERTAIN ROUSING SPARK.", Ifrit rumbled.

"The pony sleeps because it is missing what it needs to wake. A body."

"Why does it not form one from the dust like all flesh does? ,Titan questioned.

"Mortals do not manage that very well unaided, Titan. She needs a spark, something to start her up.", Ramuh added.

Ifrit rumbled and inhaled.

"The material realm, Ifrit. Something there that has to do with life and death, and it has to be right there where she came from to here."

Twilight rolled over in her sleep and soundlessly snored, a bit of ectoplasmic drool hanging from her mouth as the elemental forces puzzled over the problem.

"GOT IT!", roared Ifrit.

Twilight twitched briefly and vanished from within the crystal.

For the material realm, the day had come for a pony with a golden trumpet for a cutie mark to deliver to a very special court- for two Princesses, six little ponies, a scroll bearing what could be a very unhappily ever after. Wakeup Call, the House Herald had come with their final decision...a decision the Princesses would be obliged by law to deliver on the spot.

Chapter 5: The Ceremony Of Innocence Is Drowned

Ponies, even highly intelligent (and magical) little ponies have their racial stereotypes. Herd-think is a big one. That is, if you have enough ponies thinking something out loud, pretty soon the other ponies around them are thinking it too- and will tell you that they had been thinking the same thing, even if the pony in question didn't have a clue on the subject to begin with. In good times, this can mean an idea is acted on with remarkable unity.

In bad ones, it means a large group of ponies can become a mob in no time at all.

Canterlot in two days of waiting for a verdict had become a very rowdy mob as Princess Celestia's heartfelt confession had leaked out of the House chamber and spread across Canterlot with a cloud of ugly rumors: That Celestia had used her "Elements" as patsies for destroying a rival Princess and the Empire, Twilight Sparkle had discovered the truth and been magically sabotaged and eliminated for knowing too much, that the Element's families were being "guests" guarded by freakish monsters to keep their good behavior, and dozens of more outlandish theories that brewed faster than the local bars could plunk down mugs of cider and sassafras beer.

The lockups were straining to hold more ponies than Canterlot expected to ever need- locals, refugees that'd had a few too many and broken a few windows or brawled over lost homes, lost friends, and lost land while trying to drown out bad memories. Tents had spread out around the castle as crystal ponies had gotten antsy about the limited space in the courtyards proper and moved to slightly greener (or at least roomier) pastures for their temporary housing. The weatherponies had taken to walking clouds down the grounds in and around the castle to keep things rinsed mostly clean and cool, but even pegasi couldn't kick the haze of bad feelings that was darkening the sky over Canterlot like a flight of gremlins.

Celestia had not been seen in public since the trial. Luna, her mane shifting from one highlight to another (first having her mane's "stars" go almost nova, then dim to the charred dusk of a dwarf star) had been raising and lowering both celestial bodies. Dark-maned, she had quietly gone to the Element's families and sent them away, despite protests, yelling, and tears. She spoke to them quietly, of dreams and what she had seen in the sleep she snatched between court and clatter, sun and moon.

"Twas not to send thee away from thine family and children, but so they would not fear for their kin."

A stallion-team pulled a three-car train of "relief supplies" away the second night, destination Ponyville.

An hour later, the clouds of gloom burst wide upon the city.

Sunset Shimmer walked along the balcony-lined path that marked the edge of Canterlot- a view that gave a sweeping vista of the lands below the mountain and an occasional updraft to refresh the passerby with a cool draught of mist from the plunging waters as they poured down into the valley below. Blueblood walked beside her, and the young unicorn was thoroughly smitten by her tall husband.

Or so you'd think, unless you looked deep in her eyes to see the green glimmer of enthrallment that had her "happily" loving her dear Blueblood and brainlessly pleased to finally be the princess she'd always wanted, locked inside fantasies of taking over Equestria and ruling it as King and Queen, just as soon as that nasty Celestia and her sister (who everyone knew was Nightmare Moon in disguise) were dealt with....

Two pegasi guards in silvered armor trotted along a few paces back, bored as the couple mouthed sweet sugar-cube nothings at each other on their evening romantic trot. A shady balcony beckoned the two, and they stopped under a swaying willow tree to share a smooch, the kind two pony newlyweds managed ten minutes or so rest between at best. It was photoworthy. Indeed, Quick Pic was busily sketching the make-out scene from a safe distance for the Old Nag Rag, a fine example of Equestria's free press that had captured many of Blueblood's most romantic moments for posterity.

It made the earth pony the perfect witness to the couple's finale as Blueblood's two guards sent the unicorns flying off the edge with a galloping charge, driving into their victims with lowered steel shoulders. Sunset Shimmer let out a piercing scream as she plunged into freefall, the two pegasi simply opening their wings to float off into the night like feathered angels of death. Blueblood himself only grunted in surprise as the two vanished into the darkness below.

He stared deep into Sunset's eyes for a long moment, a hellish green spark stunning the mare into a dizzy spin...and opened two membranous wings to glide onto a cliff face where two changelings hefted a limp white unicorn between them. As she fell past, they tossed the flopping body to accompany Sunset in her dazed decline. Trailing a few sticky bits of what had once been a changeling's cocoon, the real Bluebood's lips curled back as he dove face-first into terminal velocity.

A gust of wind shoved the two into the path of the torrent that poured down below the castle's walls. A white hoof flailed briefly above the plunging river current before the hungry waters consumed the two unicorns without a trace.

"Well, that takes care of THAT little problem.", the false Blueblood said as he stepped into the shrouded nook. Green flames leaped to catch shadows suddenly cast by rough rock and blackened chitin, and he became she, tall and crook-horned. With a flick, she launched the horn-ring declaring his-her eternal love for Sunset Shimmer off the edge to join the two unicorns in their long fall to the bottom.

"It will be SUCH a story. Celestia's own royal guards tossing her troublesome nephew and ex-student off a cliff to their doom, with only a brave little pony hidden to witness the depraved act.", the true form of Chrysalis crowed. "But why rely on one to spread such wonderful news when five will do?"

The two guard-pegasi landed, and with another wash of venomous energies, five changelings became four "ordinary" pegasus stallions and a mare that shared a brief laugh before leaping off the narrow ledge and howling with feigned horror.

"SOMEONE'S FALLEN INTO THE WATERFALL!"

"OH, CELESTIA! WE WERE TOO LATE!"

"CALL THE GUARD! CALL THE GUARD! TWO UNICORNS FELL INTO THE RIVER!"

The faux-fliers circled like vultures over the foaming pool where the waters finally came to meet earth. Nothing surfaced below them save bubbles. Above them, more voices and the heads of curious ponies peered down to listen to the mournful screams of the "witnesses" as a squad of Canterlot police stampeded through the crowd with Quick Pic leading the way, who stopped to point as a flight of guards swooped in to investigate the commotion.

"Officers! It was two of THEM that gave Blueblood and his beau the deep six!", Quick Pic shouted.

Police whistles and arguments between clashing authorities floated down (with a few feathers) as dozens of castle staff, guards, police, and random onlookers turned into a all-nighter of nasty words mixed with three-ring crime circus, a Royal Guard officer horn to head with a Canterlot Watch mare as they argued over who got to bring Quick Pic in for questioning and more than one winged servant of justice tangled in midair trying to clear the skies and the crime scene, badges and armor flashing in mouth-held lanterns bent to shine into the silt-filled waters for a sign of the lost.

The changeling pegasi let themselves be herded off easily by random ponies-in-"charge" of the madness and caught a thermal that let them float lazily over the mountain road that led to Canterlot's front gates, a spiral that carried them away from the angry babble of outrage.

"Drones? Keep an eye on the river. Find what's left of those two and make sure you're there when they wash up. I want lots of VERY angry, sad ponies to hear how Celestia had them pushed. Every pony should hear about THAT."

"My Queen? What will you do now?", Six-Seventy-Five hissed in a voice that no pegasus could manage without enough prosthetics to star in the next Nightmare Night on Elm Street movie.

"Oh, I thought I'd revisit an old face, Celestia's lost so many Princesses lately she'll just DIE to see this one...", and the black-winged pegasus mare went to ground. Her ebony fur turned pink as her hooves touched the earth. A crooked horn stretched from her head to form a cracked, half-broken spiral of rosy ivory, and patches of pelt became bruised with the signs of a desperate journey on hoof through miles of snow and wasteland.

Limping on a blackened, gangrenous hoof, Princess Mi Amore Cadenza slowly made her way back in the dark to the foot of the mountain. The cackle of evil glee sent a few bats fleeing from nearby trees to swirl about her seemingly useless horn in escort. At a good shamble, she expected to be at the bottom of the road to Canterlot right after breakfast- not that she hadn't had a decent meal lately, but there'd be an all-you-can-eat feast of crystal ponies just -waiting- for a miracle to love in a few more hours to take them away from the horrors of Canterlot.

And the adoring mob would even carry their poor, broken Princess anywhere she liked. Straight to the promised land. Where she'd promised all her lovely brood a crop of crystal ponies to hide in, feed on as they loved their Cadence and kept Celestia's murderous cronies far away from where the swarm would drink deep until nothing was left but loveless, bitter husks to discard. By then, Equestria would have it's defenses broken and ready for her well-fed horde to trick the rest into utter destruction.

She barely managed to turn a second cackle into a pained, choked wheeze of suffering. Wouldn't want any ponies catching on, would we?

Chapter 6: The Best Lack All Conviction

Princess Celestia was not a night pony, but she walked through the halls as dusk fell and Luna pulled her Sun from the sky to set the Moon in it's place. She'd actually been walking, almost non-stop for over a day straight, ever since she'd gotten back from the trial to watch her little ponies taken back to their dungeon home, bent and crushed under the weight of what she'd finally spat out in front of everyone who'd mattered.

I am a bad pony. I hurt you! If it wasn't for me, maybe you wouldn't have ended up puppets on a mad goddess's strings and used to destroy an entire city! Blame me! Curse me! Just...just stop hurting everyone else when I did it!

Yet, the expected torrent of abuse had yet to pour down on her head, officially. She could -feel- the stares of dozens of ponies judging her every time she passed a window, or poked her nose out to get a glimpse of the outside. Her ears picked up the sounds of angry ponies fighting from time to time- even in the castle grounds - but if she got so much as an ear in sight of the ponies, they inevitably stopped...and just stared.

Celestia hadn't slept for over two days, and it showed. Her mane did not wave so much as it occasionally twitched, tangled in the black netting that she'd worn and since ignored as it gathered knots of dulled hair in the mess. Her tail had become a broom that carried bits of debris and a half-sucked lollipop. The rest was beginning to take on a distinctly ripe odor.

I went along with Twilight's plans because I trusted her. Loved her, the little filly that had grown to a mare I could see Luna in, all over again...before everything thing went wrong. Before I nearly killed HER, too. Now, Luna surely detests me as well.

Celestia's horn scraped against an un-noticed wall as she simply forgot to pay attention, staring at the haggard alicorn that accused her in a well-polished slab of marble flooring. The bloodshot eyes mocked her, then became timid pools of guilt that wavered at the sight. A few tears rolled down to the stone to deform the image, and the spell broke.

Pulling away from the corner she'd walked into, the Princess resumed dragging her feet down yet another castle corridor. Blindly, she felt her flank bounce off another pony. Had she knocked down some servant trying to help? What if she'd hurt them? Sunset-in-summer, her eyes met the next of her victims. Dusky blue, with the night sky drifting across her face.

"Sister?", Luna said as she rubbed her nose against Celestia's slightly drippy one. "I....I do think it is time thou didst cease this maundering pace and visit the dungeons. T'would be right for you to go there."

Finally, somepony has the heart to condemn me to my place!

Celestia nodded, almost imperceptible, but enough. The two Princesses made the long walk down stairs and hallways alone, each seemingly swept clean of lesser ponies as if by magic.

Nopony wants to see me, anyway. This way, nopony will EVER see me again, and Luna will rule them. I will rule the mice and the bare stone walls, where there is no sky to mock me. Deep below, where I should be buried for all time so I can't hurt anyone I've ever loved.

The only sounds were alicorn hooves plodding against stone and the occasional *crack* of the sweet in her tail as it dragged like a sugary ball-and-chain off a tuft of tail. Finally, the two came to a large locked door, which Luna easily opened with a flick of her horn. Wordlessly, she beckoned, and silently, Celestia entered, staring at the thick layer of hay on the cell floor. The last of her dim spirits flickered and barely past the door, she ground to a halt.

Two delicate yellow wings hugged her neck and their owner sniffled a bit.

"Princess? You ain't lookin' too good. Don't tell me you slept none since we last saw each other, did you?", twanged a familiar voice.

"Well, it's clear she hasn't touched a brush- good grace, is that a jawbreaker in your tail? Heavens!"

*crunch* "Nope! Cinnamon-swirly Lots-O-Licks lolly. They're really good if you take like six at once and..."

"Pinkie! You so did NOT JUST EAT CELESTIA'S TAIL FOR A LOLLIPOP. Eeew!"

"Trixie does not think Pinkie lets anything get in her way after this long without sugar."

"Hey! Five second rule!" "Trixie also thinks that Princess Celestia has had that there longer than five seconds." "She's only been IN here for five seconds! Oh, thanks for sneaking that in, prison food is HORRIBLE."

The alicorn couldn't help herself and snort-chortled at the sheer absurdity, sending golden bits of dried grass chasing each other across the stone. She shook a bit, gently de-latching the Flutterhug in progress and nuzzled the pegasus as she brought her head above her shoulders for...she couldn't remember.

Standing around her with looks of concern, affection and even a bit of disgust (at Pinkie, who was still crunching the used sweet in her mouth along with a bit of pink hair that was most certainly NOT hers) were the same six ponies she had seen slinking back to their cells the day before.

"What...how...you...you're not mad at me? You don't HATE me? After all that I did....after Twilight...buh....but..."

"We were scared and we didn't know what happened, and you stood up for us all.", Fluttershy started.

"You told all them big-hoof ponies to their face what happened, no matter what the law said about you having to keep your mouth shut. Even if it meant telling yer own sister she nearly got kilt instead of a thousand years on the moon.", Applejack added. "Ain't nopony here who's going to look funny at a mare who steps to the line, and I'll whup Blueblood."

"I know all about what feeling like a scandal in Canterlot is like, Princess. And you tried to take it all and save US.", Rarity continued. "And if part of the cost was looking like THIS, I may only have a few buckets of water to work with, but I will undo every knot in that mane before you can say "Official Stylist To Royalty.".

Pinkie spat out what was left of Celestia's masticated tail-strands. "And we know it was whatever nasty-icky ghostie was in the Elements that did all those bad things with us, not some Discord-y Evil Pinkie and Friends. There's only one thing to do! We make it better. NO ghostie makes so many ponies hurt and sad around ME and gets away with it!".

"Would a Wonderbolt-in-training let her Princess down in a time of need? NOT. Besides, you're...Twilight's first best friend. If it hadn't been for you, none of us would of been friends, or had all the incredibly awesome stuff that led to...OK, this isn't so awesome. But we -need- to be awesome. For everypony else. For Twilight. For YOU.", and Rainbow Dash walked a curve of a straight line to put a hoof against Celestia's leg. The shaky pegasus unbalanced on three legs and tipped over...

Trixie steadied the wobbly pegasus before she could hit the hay. "Trixie is all too familiar with the sting of well-deserved shame. She will NOT let Princess Celestia drag her tail in the dirt when there is only one way to take away the pain."

"You eat your pinecones and you hit the road, you admit what's wrong and you do it right again and again, until it's better and you're the magnificent pony that Princess Celestia has always been, once more."

Celestia gaped at the showpony as the weight of Canterlot Castle seemed to fall from her wings and dissolved. Trixie, looking out for anyone but herself? For THESE ponies?

"Trixie has seen you admit to more wrong than she thought anypony could get into, but....you did it for Trixie, who doesn't deserve it. And even more so, you did it for Trixie's friends. And your sister, who loves you even more than anyone Trixie could know, and you banished HER to the moon. We can do no less, the show MUST go on."

"It's been the most terrible week of my life, but everypony here...", Fluttershy drew a line that crossed the room "...they had a terrible time, too. And when Luna put us all in the same cell together instead of apart, we talked. And we hugged a lot. And we cried a lot. We found something here in this scary dungeon, and everypony who lost it when the terrible things happened needs it back. We're going to give it back to them."

"Hope. You need hope. YOU need hope, Princess. Hope, and love, and ponies that when everything is terrible, they remind you that you can always get to a better place again if you don't trade hope for it. Twilight Sparkle never gave up hope."

"We won't."

The dam broke, and the Princess and her companions would talk. And hug. And cry. A lot. All night. But when Luna returned after raising the Sun once again, she peeked into the unguarded, unlocked door. Like a mother hen with chicks, six ponies slept under Celestia's widespread wings, and the dank stone had been made warm as the morning light as the alicorn's head lay upon it. For her, the thin flocking of hay had become the softest pillow in the land. Peace and slumber smoothed away the bitter lines that had begun to etch themselves in Celestia's face, replaced with the smile that comes from a wistful dream.

They had raised the Sun all on their own, in the darkest of places. And with that, Luna closed the door and bleary-eyed, went to bed.

Chapter 7: Passionate Intensity

It can be said that when Sunset Shimmer and Blueblood plunged down their watery fate that not all was bad in the world. Celestia and six of the best ponies Equestria had were sleeping off a truly bad week. Luna was, for once the big sister and handling things quite well, considering magical disasters, changeling infiltrations, and losing not one, but two Princesses in a week's time.

Gravity was doing it's best to add a third to the list before she'd managed three days with the somewhat falsely obtained title.

The icy shower of river water bitch-slapped Sunset Shimmer into coherence almost instantly, leaving the unicorn with the unpleasant sensation of body-wide brain freeze and a few observations.

First, there was a big chunk of driftwood lodged in the rocks that would be a bodylength or so out of reach.

Second, there was the body of Blueblood, tumbling along in the water next to her.

Third...

Her horn lit and the sedated stallion found himself wedged firmly in the driftwood branch. His beautiful, perfectly groomed and conditioned tail streamered in the river like a golden flag. As Sunset was pulled past the two, her teeth snapped down like a vise.

The tail-yanking results of having a (thankfully not quite full grown) unicorn mare hanging off your backside were quite painful enough to shatter the magical anesthesia that had left Blueblood dopier than a Vicoltdin addict on a full bottle. The meticulously fussed-over hair finally served a useful purpose and failed to tear off the foppish stallion, even if it -felt- like it should.

First, Blueblood realized he was stuck in a tree branch in the middle of a waterfall, and it was a LONG way down.

Second, a barely-legal and rather good-looking mare was hanging on for dear life to his tail and it hurt like blazes.

Third...

Blueblood removed his wakeup call from the water and set her on the outcropping of rock that'd caught the branch that'd caught HIM. Stoned horn-high, hot young mare, thrown out into Auntie-knows-where and stuck under a waterfall on a slimy branch...

Wasn't what happened in Los Pegasus supposed to STAY in Los Pegasus? With some help from his companion, Blueblood was unwedged from his rather tight squeeze and joined Sunset on their narrow wedge of rock.

"Well, if I'm to be stuck in this horrible situation until my guards arrive, at least it's with something decently attractive. What's your name...", Blueblood gave Sunset's cutie mark the once over, "...Sunny Delight?"

"You....you don't know your own wife?", Sunset quavered. With a *ping*, a golden circle smacked Blueblood in the back of the skull and rolled to the green-coated stone. The bedraggled mare picked it up with a glow and settled the ring on Blueblood's horn, where it snugged to a perfect fit. "The...the guards threw us off the cliff! They were going to KILL us! And...and they hurt MY Blueblood! We've been so HAPPY together! You made me your PRINCESS!"

As she stomped on the rock for good measure, once, twice, three times, FOUR the fragile shelter decided that having two ponies on it was just too much. The rock cracked free of the mountain, sending the two screaming unicorns into freefall. Flailing, Blueblood grabbed on for dear life to the only thing he could- Shimmer. His mouth found itself full of mare as the pair pulled themselves frantically together in an instinctual embrace before the end. For a long four-count, Sunset kissed her husband goodbye as she saw foaming death waiting in the pool below- still entwined, flesh stabbed into black, muddy water.

And then they saw nothing at all.

Scale Balancer kicked back on her heels and listened to the pre-dawn *clackity-clop* of a team of stallions pulled their trio of railway cars over the bridge. It'd been the only thing to disturb the night-time fishing and netting, and the unicorn's blue-water fur barely ruffled at the sound.

She'd pulled in a fine crop of freshwater bladderwrack along with a few actual fish, what with the eddies at the top of Saddle Lake being extra fine. The pegasi had bumped rainclouds in every direction away from Canterlot, and that meant a strong current to pull the weed from it's riverbank nooks and into big mats of drifting, salty goodness. Most ponies preferred the daytime, but Scale Balancer kept an eye on the weather schedules upstream. The big wash from Canterlot would hit Saddle Lake like clockwork in the few gray hours before dawn, and that meant the best hauls were to be found at the hours only earth ponies or Luna's own found to be awake.

And there was another nice mat of the stuff floating down towards the bridge, a few bits of driftwood sticking out in odd directions. A brief bit of white lit the dancing-on-tail-fish cutie mark on her flank as she pulled anchor and let the rudder guide the boat back into the current to meet it.

The aura reflected off a gleam of metal, caught in the tangle. "Oho, a bit of salvage!", Scale thought as she made to toss a broad net over the entire mess. A bit of something, hooked on a stick...

...and a moment later, she realized the "stick" was a mud-encrusted HORN.

Floating in the carpet of weeds was the bodies of a unicorn stallion and mare, strands of bladderwrack wrapped around them in a parody of the embrace the two ponies had with each other. The fisherpony felt something twist gut-deep and narrowly avoided chumming the waters with her breakfast at the sight, flicking the net to snatch the horrifying mess from the waters and gently lowering it to the deck. Frantically, she cut at the tangled green strands with a boning knife until they gave up their hold. Hopefully, she put an ear to the mare's muzzle as Sunset flopped bonelessly against the wood.

The barest tickle of breath bit on Scale's ear like she'd hooked a sea serpent.

Determination pushed the nausea aside as she began to push water out of sodden lungs with her horn and hooves, sending streamers of lake to runnel back into it's home. A few minutes of hoof-pressing the stallion and carefully squeezing streams of water out of the mare's windpipe with a gentle vise of aura rewarded her with the most beautiful hacking, wheezing, and gagging sounds she'd ever heard as the pony-flotasm greedily gasped air into their lungs. The two mostly-drowned victims found themselves dragged on a blanket into the steering cabin and nearly mummified in thick cloth pads Scale normally used to drag heavy boxes of cargo on.

Smelling of fish and worse, packed together like sardines, they drifted on a soap-bubble of awareness and warmth into the dawn.

Circling like buzzards, four faux pegasi remorselessly searched the waters for their corpse-prey. Cold eyes scanned each drift and sandbar for the drenched remnants of their Queen's victims, but hour after hour passed without a sign. As the sun rose without bodies or crowd of ponies having found them, the searchers found themselves covering the quarters of Saddle Lake, each shoreline and quiet swirl holding no more results than the one before.

Spying a small fishing boat below, Six-Seventy-Five decided that the next best thing to dead unicorns was spreading the word about dead unicorns- and his wings could use a rest anyway. The four changelings briefly sparked in mid-air to become grey, armor-clad guardponies and spiraled down to begin spreading the sad news of Blueblood's assassination...

Chapter 8: Some Revelation Is At Hoof

It can only be a sign of the times in Canterlot that a broken-horned, swaybacked Princess of Love would be considered good news.

Chrysalis, with the dramatic timing inherent to most Equestrian supervillians made her way to the bottom of Canterlot's mountain road precisely at dawn, limping and groaning loudly enough that some people would have mistaken her for a grandmother of six (which is entirely too few- she's actually closer to the grandmother of sixty thousand, give or take.).

"A little stumbling, and the poor fools will be running over to help their "Princess" in no time at all. Then, an easy trip to the gates and the love of my very own herd of ponies to devour..."

And indeed, before the faux royal had gotten very far, she was greeted by ponies running break-neck and downhill to meet her, a cloud of dust obscuring the road behind them. The Queen's storage sac growled with anticipation at the incoming meal ticket and she put her best "Look at me, I'm soooooo pathetic" look.

"They love their little pink namby-pamby "Princess of Love". My little "throw Blueblood off the cliff" bit must have worked even better if they're coming to me THIS fast..."

...and the crowd swept past her without taking half a look, screaming all the while.

"RUN! GET OUT OF THE WAY! FLY, YOU FOOL!"

"Fly...from...fool...WHO?"

aaaaaaaaaaaaaAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIEEEEEEEEEE!
*WHAM!*

Canterlot greeted her with screams and a great deal of noise, followed by smashing the faux-gimp-royale into the bushes.

It was not entirely her fault that a runaway wagon on three and a half wheels with two screaming colts proceeded to ram her squarely in the face, but if she hadn't been so intent on looking quite so pained, maybe the changeling queen wouldn't have ended up an emergency braking system. To her credit, she managed to hold her shape through the concussion, but not much else.

"That pegasus saved those poor children! Someone help her!"
"...it's a pegasus. No, it's a unicorn!"
"Hgxlptl."
"Good gracious, it's Princess Cadence and I think she needs a doctor!"

Chysalis indeed got herself a crowd of adoring ponies, but they were busy trying to pick her out of the wall of gooseberry bushes she'd ended up impaled on. While the spiny mass did next to no real harm to the chitinous creature, dropping her form to slide the false body free would have been rather counterproductive. Besides, between the headache and the steady diet of attention and the delicate grooming/detangling her wings were getting from a swarm of exultant "subjects", not moving felt rather good.

With an occasional encouraging squeal of "owie" or two to her entourage, she watched the crowds swell with crystal ponies anxiously awaiting the first words from their "barely alive" princess. The sobbing (in a good way) if somewhat wagon-squashed parents of the grubs who'd rolled her over joining the chaos to thank their savior would have normally gotten them podded and fed to the hive for striking a Queen, but gratitude and adoration was just so tasty, she'd let it slide until later.

"Time to herd my little aphids back to their new nest."

"W-water....please...I...I have to speak to them..."

The water rinsed the disgusting taste of berries out of her mouth, and she wiggled her jaws a bit. Nowhere near as easy as using a decent proper set of spiracles to suck in air.

"My....my little ponies...I've come so far to take you away from this horrible, horrible place.", "Cadence" managed to squeak out of a throat that sounded like it'd just swallowed the yearly gravel crop out of the Pie farm. The words "horrible" and "take away" were passed through the throng by increasingly confused pony voices. And a few changelings that merely looked the part. Every herd needed it's herders, after all.

"We...we were betrayed by Canterlot. Our home is ashes, and the wicked Celestia is to blame. So many...so many *sob* GONE! Her little ponies, even Twilight Sparkle tore the Empire to pieces and left me to die while I tried to save you all. They destroyed the Heart and they herded you back here to finish the job.", she spat through dark (gooseberry) stained teeth and lips.

A very convincing imitation of Lily Valley "fainted" at the revelation. Some distance away in the crowd, the real one unwittingly mimed along.

"And....and..." Chrysalis pushed her recent swallow of water out from her eyes with a little mucus to make her eyes nice and smeary for the big finish. "She took my love, the father of my little filly-to-be and blasted him to DUST along with everything else! Shining Armor, my prince, the stallion for my little Skyla to love and call "Daddy"...they....they KILLLLLED HIM!". If the crowd had been an piano, she'd have jangled all the keys at once. The crowd hissed (not difficult, considering the ones in it hissing weren't really ponies) different names to go with "they"- a litany of the Queen's least favorite ponies, Princess this and Princess that with an occasional Element of Harmony thrown in for variety.

There were plenty of real ponies in the chorus at this point, memories of a shining ball of light that burned and furrowed their homes pushed past the thin scabs of a few days peace. The news that there was an heir on the way did not go un-noticed either, especially considering her decrepit "condition".

"No more killing. No more of *hack* Celestia's herd to take our people away. We will go to Lovey Dovey Smoochy Land! It is a place of kindly creatures, and we will make it a Kingdom of Love, where none of Canterlot's hateful creatures will EVER go!"

"The luvcats were getting a bit sparse and ponies can't help but take care of the things, anyway.", she thought.

She toppled from her thorny crucifixion, shedding a few feathers as she "fell" into adoring hooves and played the senseless, wounded pony she looked to be. The cursed wagon was pressed into a makeshift carriage, a team of six crystal ponies harnessed to pull their Princess as far away from the nightmarish, un-natural place Canterlot had become. She could easily pick up the mocking-ponies salted amidst the crowd urging them to gather their things and follow along, and the sweet sounds of her new herd of beasts to milk for love made as they began to think of themselves not as "one of the ponies", but a herd in a dangerous place with who knows what of Celestia's minions plotting to kill and burn them again. A few harsh words here, a bitter stare there and dozens of crystal ponies had formed a protective circle around "their" princess and began walking away, more rolling and trotting or even galloping through the gates with wagons or carts or only a saddlebag to join the exodus.

As they did, a dark shadow lifted above the walls and flew on hissing batwings towards the far more humble wagon below. Princess Luna circled in her royal chariot, her eyes opened to full-moon size as they took in the exodus.

"WHAT DO YOU MEAN, TAKING MINE NIECE FROM HERE? DOST THOU NOT SEE SHE IS SORELY WOUNDED, IN NEED OF AID? CLEAR A PATH, SO WE MIGHT TAKE HER TO A CHIURGEON!"

Rocks flew at the chariot, bouncing off the gilded bottom.

"You can't have our Princess!"

"You killed our Prince, you destroyed our city!"

"Fake! Fake!", spat a disguised changeling as his mouth was cleared of a rock. A hail of stones, a few sticks, and a well-bucked cushion flew into the air, most falling short as the chariot's guards pulled it up. Only the last remnants of an Empire sofa managed to reach Luna, the padded missile bouncing off her chest and tumbling to the floor of her ride. The grand-stallion who'd hurled it bent over and flicked his tail up in contempt at the airborne conveyence.

It might as well been a spear for how it pierced her chest as she wheeled above the wrath-filled horde, foam-flecked and frenzied in their efforts to shield their precious cargo. An army would have broken through them easily enough, but no army in Canterlot with a heart would have tried for fear of having the crowd tear themselves to pieces on the ponies who were trying to protect them.

"RETURN!", she cried above the tumult and the chariot gained altitude as it followed the road back to the Canterlot gates. Cheers for Cadence and jeers for Luna burned her ears flat as they retreated for the castle walls, but if she could not safely rescue yon Princess from her own subjects, perhaps two Princesses would do? The purple-and-silver chased chariot streaked back for it's home, Luna leaping from the back as it made it's approach to the runway to dive for the entrance to the Royal Dungeons.

The guards would be preparing to bring the dungeon's six prisoners up right about now, and Celestia would be with them.

Author's Note

For those somewhat confused by luvcats and "Lovey Dovey Smoochy Land", refer to the MLP comics, #1-#4. And why haven't you read them already? :)

Chapter 9: The Second Coming Is At Hoof

The first thing Trixie Lulamoon saw as she topped the staircase exiting the Royal Dungeons was red. Of course, this was on account of the rather squishy tomato passing close enough to her nose as to make her eyes cross. The flying fruit dumped it's content of pulpy insult across the hooves of one of the guards, then with a end-over-end roll, tried the same with Rarity. Only a Pinkie-worthy vertical bounce saved her from the horror of rancid ketchup stains.

The anonymous "Sorry, Trixie!" from the fruit-thrower in the crowd was the second shock. The unicorn could read a crowd easier than a book, and this one was ugly, the kind that normally would get her in the mood to pack a wagon and get out of town- but for once, almost none of it was aimed at her.

No, the manticore's tail was up and dripping venom for the other ponies that'd shared her stay in the cell. The crowd hissed as the five other prisoners got their first look at the morning sun, then broke out in a chorus of ear-flattening boos for good measure.

"Uh-heh-heh...Trixie normally doesn't get this kind of audience until AFTER the show!", she deadpanned. Her fellow prisoners didn't notice, wilting visibly under the barrage of (thankfully, without further rotten produce) anger from the crowd. Puffing her chest out, Rainbow Dash began to lift off to return the harsh words. To her surprise, Fluttershy was the first one to do something about it, headbutting Rainbow Dash hard enough to make her bobble a few inches off the ground.

"These are nice ponies, Dashie! They've just had a lot of horrible things happen, and when someone sticks a pin in your tail, you snap at anypony you thought put it there!"

Applejack shook her head as if to flick off a especially bothersome fly. "And they ain't heard what the Herd had at the trial, so they don't know nothin' about what rightly happened in the Empire. We're gonna get this over with...and...and..."

Pinkie finished for her. "And we're going to go home. And hug. A lot of ponies. And find Twilight, and-"

The resulting "WHAT?" was enough to bring the procession to a grinding halt. Celestia wheeled about in a clatter of golden shoes, body-checking her sister halfway across the path.

"Pinkamena Diane Pie, Twilight's GONE. You saw her die! I saw her die! We-WHRMPHLE.", the Princess exclaimed.

Pinkie's bandaged hoof had attached itself like a suction cup to the wild-eyed monarch's lips.

"My mane went all flat and I was really, REALLY, REALLY not-happy and sadpressioned and everyone was all crying and Twilight isn't dead cause if she had been I'd have gotten my tail wrapped around my left hindleg the same way I did when Auntie Marble got all squishy when that column she was buck-sculpturing fell on her and I couldn't stop myself from giggling when they called her a "pillar of the community" at the funera- SNERK!".

Rainbow Dash took this moment of silence to quietly collapse into a heap, narrowly beating Rarity toppling into the embrace of a topiary stallion.

"Thou didst only NOW desire to tell us you believe Princess Twilight is ALIVE, Pinkie?", the un-liplocked Princess Luna managed to sputter.

"Well, when someone threw that really splattery to-ma-toe, it reminded me of Auntie Marble and that reminded me about my tail and I hadn't been thinking very much about anything but I was all "I-DEA!" like Rarity and that's when I knew Twilight couldn't be kaput! I mean, we kinda blew her up with the Elements that one time and THAT didn't do it so I should have thought about my tail and-" -it is a testament to the springy rubber-pony resilience of Pinkie Pie that resulting gang-hug failed to render her even flatter than her late auntie.

The moment was ruined by the outright snarl as the manticore of a crowd decided that group hugs were not going to improve their mood, turning it into an accidental team huddle. Or perhaps the fact that somehow, Pinkie's mane and tail had decided to hug everyone into a knot while they were squashing her between them.

"They ain't gonna take Pinkie's tail for an honest-to-Celestia witness- beg pardon, Princess I know YOU believe her - so we're gonna have to go through this roundup anyhows...you know you ain't gonna have no more dungeon if they lock us back in there with Twilight alive, right?"

"Trixie knows some very good tricks for escaping from a locked room and angry mobs. Some even work for both at once."

"Well, Rainbow I'm sure won't let a few guards- is anyone sitting on Rainbow Dash? Darling? No, that's Luna's wing I'm on, dreadfully sorry..."

The slightly ruffled Dash hadn't moved an inch from where she'd settled, a few feathers randomly poking out like a giant blue pigeon as the hug-conglomerate separated out into it's pony-parts. Two noses, one dark and one pale gently lifted the apathetic pegasus back onto her feet.

"Art thou well, Rainbow Dash?", Luna said. One of Rainbow's eyes drifted as it tracked the ruler of the night.

"Ugh....kinda seein' doubles and I got a really bad headache. Anyone got a nice stormcloud I can cover my head in?"

"Nay, not well. Guards! Lend this good pegasus your wings and bear her gently to the throne room. And summon a physick."

Soarnus Methodus gently prodded at the head in front of him and frowned.

"Has someone been using this pegasus as a battering ram? There's fresh bruises and if I had a unicorn that actually could work a healing spell, she'd have a horn in her ear faster than thunder after lightning. Concussion, aggravated by repeated blows to the head and flight, and if you weren't going to march her into the throne room this instant, she'd be going to a hospital bed instead. As it is, if you let those droning politicians keep her on her feet, I will turn the pony responsible back into a blank flank with my teeth."

A moment later, a griffin-sized cushion slid under the wobbling patient, the gentle motion being enough to pitch Rainbow Dash into an undignified if comfortable spraddle.

"Fortunately, you have a unicorn who can carry her friend in comfort.", Rarity said. "It is a pleasure to be able to return the favor.". The pillowed surface fluffed in places, gently supporting Dash's abused skull. "Now, shall we make our entrance and finish this dreadful appointment? All it needs is a bad tail dye and polka-dotted hoof polish to render it a complete travesty, but somepony is going to find the next best thing."

And with that, the throne room doors opened, to the sight of a royal herald about to blow her sun-on-moon emblazoned trumpet...which found itself whisked away and gently bent in two by Trixie's horn.

"Don't you know our friend is trying to rest?", Trixie quipped.

"Announcing us when everyone already knows we're here is so gauche, anyway.", followed Rarity.

Bearing the pegasus between them, the two unicorns led the rest of their party down the carpet, noses up as if they'd been carrying the royal diadems on their backs instead.

To the side of the Princesses on their thrones stood the messenger of ill tidings, Herald of the Herd Tally-Ho. A thick scroll she held by it's seal, ready to unroll and unleash it's contents upon the poor creatures that stood marked before it. The white-on-silver, sun-and-moon tabard across her back marked her as being the Herald Royal for the day's court as well, though no loud announcements were to be made. Indeed, as Tally Ho nodded her readiness to begin, even the murmurs of "inside voices" soaked into the walls and dried up. One could hear a pin drop as the herald's teeth began to grind down on the seal...

*ptink*

"Pinkie, give the guard that pin please."

...and the wax crumbled away. With a shake, the scroll unrolled. And unrolled some more, to at least two ponylengths of text so small the mare had to attach one end of the scroll to a podium, then put on a pair of reading glasses.

"We will dispense with the reading of the full charges. Abridge the announcement to the portions regarding the innocence of yonder ponies, Herald.". Luna's voice already held a measure of frost at the sheer long-windedness the Herd had sent in it's decision.

Tally Ho managed to raggedly tear off most of the front third of the scroll in the process.

"...in lengthy deliberation...with all due precedents and amendment..."

A faint growl. Perhaps it had been Celestia's stomach. Perhaps something else.

"Your Highnesses, in the matter of mass equiscide, the Herd finds the defendants...guilty of the lesser charges of involuntary ponyslaughter in all counts."

From the crowd, bubbles of disgust, satisfaction, and shock. From the thrones, the press of air any pegasus knows as "storm warning", and a silence that was only marred by the sound of jaw muscles barely managing to freeze noble faces into a stone mask of impartiality. The five so condemned huddled together as if winter had plunged their tiny circle into a killing frost.

"For their crimes, they are hereby banished to their town of residence and placed under threat of the fullest weight of the law should they go beyond it's bounds, nor higher than the roof of the highest building that rests upon the ground in Ponyville. Their property and any titles, honors or gratuity is hereby forfeit to the Crowns, where it's proceeds shall be given to the survivors of their heinous acts as recompense. When not under direct supervision of a representative of the Crowns, they shall be hobbled and horn-bound lest they cause still more grief to the innocent. Any fruit of their labors hereafter shall be reviewed by said representative, who shall take the greatest share under the law to further benefit those ponies who have been so aggrieved. This edict shall stand until such time as the Herd determines the guilty have paid to the fullest for their crimes against the Crowns, Equestria, and all decent folk. Long live the Princesses."

The barest hint of smoke wafted from Celestia's nostril, a scent quite clear to Tally Ho.

"I will render the second decision to their Majesties with equal alacrity, of course."

"In the matter of participating in acts that led to the demise of a pony of high and noble standing..."

A gold-shod hoof struck the floor hard enough to send chips of stone flitting through the air, one of which drilled a small hole in the already abused scroll.

"Neigh, Herald. Neigh and no, for you do not have all the guilty of such a crime standing before you. Every pony who participated in such a crime shall share in the punishment when they are gathered before you to hear it."

And with that, the Princesses descended from their thrones to stand with the huddled mass of misery below, each with a wing over the little ponies. Luna gave the herald a stare more griffin or hawk than pony..

"And lo, we are gathered here, knowing our crime. Read you the Herd's wise and merciful decision, and it shall fall upon us all in equal measure. Before you all, this we decree as the law in this matter."

Celestia's burning and level stare made it abundantly clear Luna spoke for them both.

Tally's composure crumbled. "P-p-rincess Luna, the decision was not meant for your-"

"I am the Night and the Moon, ruler and Diarch. Certes, this I do speak in perfect clarity. Thou shalt declare this doom on mine self and my sister as you do it on every pony who stands charged with this crime, and we shall bear it together."

"Majesty, I canno-"

The torn and perforated scroll found itself floating a horn's-length away from Tally Ho's nose.

"Do you my bidding, or thou shalt find the Crown's displeasure poured upon thee in generous measure."

The herald's mouth became ashes and bitter moondust. Swallowing the acrid taste, she took a deep breath and read aloud, like a filly who had been required to recite a half-read textbook by an angry teacher.

"...of noble standing, Princess Twilight Sparkle, we hold the accused guilty of aiding in the demise of a noble of highest regard. In this, there is but one punishment the law allows, and the Herd declares that before the Princesses, the guilty shall be subject to petrification for no less than one century and a day, whereupon they may be considered for parole at the Crown's merc-"

The scroll was snatched away in a flash of orange feathers and a raptorous cry. Gathering the tangled lengths of the document in sharp claws, Philomena perched on the podium and scorched the vellum like so much birdcage lining, kneading the now utterly mangled legalese into blackened crisps.

The brazen act managed to turn the eyes of the Princesses (and most everyone else) away from the sweating herald, much to her relief.

"Philomena, that was a VERY bad phoenix! We do NOT steal things and burn them for no good-"

The phoenix turned her head to the ceiling and began to sing joyously and without restraint, the squawking tones burning away at the solemn decorum of the proceedings as quickly as claws had cindered parchment.

"And why are you singing THAT?". Celestia shook her head. "You've got years before your next-"

The cracked and half-ajar doors that had led to the dining room smouldered. What lay beyond began to glower with a heat that rivaled Celestia herself, sucking a whistle of air into what had to be a small inferno beyond. Philomena took to the air and beat against the panels, crooning a victorious sound between pecking demands to be let past.

And with that, the doors flew open and revealed the heart of the warmth- a single red feather, bursting into flame.

Chapter 10: Hardly Are Those Herds Out

One of the most reassuring things to a ground-pounding Guard pony is to see a patrol flight of pegasi circling above without a care in the world. Watchful, like having Celestia's own wings covering your cutie marks from any surprises. The eight stallions pulling a very special delivery to Ponyville knew that sure as the rising dawn was kissing their tails, nothing was getting past the watchful eyes of those pegasi circling above the tracks that crossed Saddle Lake.

Six-Seventy-Five, wearing a feathered skin watched as three flights of changeling warriors plunged out of the rising sun and smashed the blissful looking lovesacks like so many beanbags. Some of them didn't even get a chance to scream, having found themselves in a hoof-enforced naptime from direct hits to the shiny, easily targeted helms the pony-soldiers wore. Seriously, could you ASK for a better bombing marker?

The only pony on the train that managed to even try anything was a white unicorn in a straw hat, but the stupid drone only managed one hastily-choked off cry as two changelings clonked him hard enough to leave the woven bit of grass tangling their feet. The pair slapped the roof hatch shut and threw the locking bars across with practiced efficiency. Slam. *SLAM* *SLAM* *SLAM*

The train's doors were locked. From the outside. Stunned and battered soldiers were efficiently glued to the underside of the tracks with mucous and cocooned, drained for a quick pick-me-up, and mirrored by their captors. In under ten minutes, the three cars were under way once more, silent white stallions pulling their well-secured cargo off the bridge and southbound. Above them, a watchful flight of faux-pegasi glided on the warm winds of morning.

Ponyville was off the list of stops. Six-Seventy-Five hadn't had to lift a hoof to help, a fact which pleased the changeling drone greatly. Whoever was on the boat, however was going to have to go. Nobody to run back to their little nests and get their stingers all a-shaking, after all! He looked forward to breakfast after watching all that feeding going on. Looking properly officious, the changeling pegasus knocked on the door to the crew cabin to make introductions.

Blueblood snorted in the near-coma the noblepony generally defined as "early morning nap". Given, most of Blueblood's late mornings were followed by breakfast in bed and six hoofservants primping him to the epitome of stallionhood a prince must maintain at all times in public, but even after last night the instinctual revulsion against getting up any time near Auntie Tia going to work held strong. Nearly drowning didn't help any pretensions of early-birding it, of course. He dreamed of a horrible night, surely Auntie Luna tweaking him- plunging down a waterfall, cold water streaming into his nostrils, a strangely cute-looking unicorn thrashing him like a crocodile as they tried to keep from sinking...

A rapping on wood penetrated the dazed dandy's mental landscape. He resolved to have the offending servant either fired or given a raise, depending on whether they had anything for this truly horrid hangover. This dream couldn't get out of his head soon enough!

The young mare next to him was equally oblivious, gripped in her own personal bad dreams. Celestia stood over Sunset Shimmer, spread-eagled across a black stone table. A strangely familiar pegasi guard fetched a cloth and a large bucket of water.

"You've been a very bad pony", the monarch sneered as the cloth wrapped itself across Shimmer's face.

"Confess."

Water cascaded across the covering, and Shimmer convulsed against the harsh ropes tying her hooves to the slab, gagging as the liquid flowed over her nose and mouth. Terror knifed through the mare's already exhausted mind, spurring it to rise in spite of an already horrid ordeal...

Scale Balancer made her way from the cargo bay to the crew cabin as the knocking grew louder.

"Hold your hock, you! I've had enough of a night as it is!"

The grumpy fisherpony yanked open the door to reveal the quartet of Guard pegasi who'd come to visit, one of which had the gilded armor of a flight officer.

Six-Seventy-Five gave breakfast his best smile and remembered not to let his fangs show.

"May we come in?"

The unicorn's tired eyes opened wide. "Search and rescue? I haven't even gotten a chance to ask- yes, yes! I've got two ponies here that would love nothing more!". Standing aside, she let the first of the disguised changeling soldiers in.

Behind her, a gurgling, thrashing cry rose from the mound of padded sheets and with a whistling *TWHOCK*, a scaling knife found itself buried halfway to the handle in the eye of her new guest. Sparks of opaline magic shot from the end as Sunset Shimmer shoved the knife into her victim until *SNAP*, the short blade snapped off inside the skull.

A screeching squeal no pegasi could ever make erupted from the changeling's throat as agony drove a herd of fire-colored unicorns against the burning lance that had replaced it's eye. Green flames raced over the body as the monster's brain before the shapeshifter's true form collapsed to the ground in a puddle of slimy ichor, spraying from the ruined socket.

Six-Seventy-Five jumped backwards as a blizzard of objects were horn-flung through the door, a random piece of debris drawing a thin scratch across the false skin and scoring the true-skin beneath. Shimmer's hysterical surge finally trickled out as she slammed the door shut, and the mare slumped back down into the tangle of cloth she'd been wrapped in, rolling across the other lump in the sheets. Other than the trickle of drool that occasionally twitched at the end of a lolling tongue and the heaving of her chest, the unicorn had begun a long journey to the dreamy lands of a less frightening Princess.

Scale looked down at the dead changeling. She looked at the door, slightly ajar. As if someone hadn't just butchered a changeling in front of her, she pushed it shut with a hoof and locked it. The reassuring *click* of the lock set off a sympathetic vibration in her lip.

The dead changeling twitched one last time, a slippery chitinous hoof brushing against her foreleg to foul the clean fur with the horror of it's rapidly cooling juices.

Blueblood awoke to one mare anchoring him to the floor, a second one screaming her lungs out, and green gunk EVERYWHERE as the cacophany introduced him to a lovely summer morning getaway from the troubles of Canterlot.

"Change of plans. I don't think there's much love in there for breakfast. Break the door down and kill them all.". The masks fell away from the surviving trio of changelings and black-armored hooves began to batter their way through the thin door. Even with the first crash against the cabin, wood splintered away from the frame. Very shortly, they'd have two ponies to "cry" over and a third ready for their final accidental drowning...

Chapter 11: A Discordant Interlude

The early pre-dawn morning hours of Ponyville are for very few ponies, though you probably think fondly of a few of them. Farm ponies, who tend to get to bed early and wake up early like the Apples or Carrots. Bakers, certainly. Pinkie Pie was raised on a farm, and it made that schedule of early-whirly-breakfast-swirly cooking natural, especially with Mr. Cake's fondness for a big ol' coffee brew (extra sugar, light on the bean juice and a hint of milk or baby formula, depending on how awake Mrs. Cake was and how awake the kids had been. The taste of the latter sorta grew on you.).

One that was NOT would be Discord. The combination of this with a certain morning pony would be a moment of destiny.

"You're sure this place is where the Princesses wanted us to go, kupo?", a nervous voice chirped. The flutter of batlike wings marked the speaker's position a few feet above the ground.

"Of course. The Princesses said to make you at home, this is my home, and mi casa es su casa, as the ponies say."

The bunny on the ground had something to say about all that, but Discord wasn't translating for Squeaky Mister Kill-Joy anyway.

"Now, where DID I put those keys..."

From mostly nowhere, six sparkling, magical keys appeared, neatly looped on a circle of wire. "No, wrong episode." *poof*

A lion-headed key appeared. "Not very useful." *poof* A second key, hawk-headed. "Wrong fantasy." *poof* A claw snap later, and a single black wing sprouted from Angel's back, sending him half-hopping and half-flapping through the air. "Wrong fantasy and wrong angel." *poof*

The furry meteor plummeted out of the air, de-winged and made a one-point landing on the doormat with his nose.

"Aha!", Angel's tormentor cries and pulls a slightly tarnished key out from under the stunned bun. "Under the mat. Thank you so much for pointing that out, Angel."

"Now, we'll just have you two over here and you two over there. No, don't worry. A little twisting of space-time and it'll be larger on the inside."

"OI! WOT are you doin' with Miss Fluttershy's cottage and lettin' all these monsters in here!"

A white object THWACKED the mismatched monstrosity, interrupting Discord's attempt at housewarming via dimensional manglement.

The defender of Fluttershy's property rights waved another newspaper with furious intent in it's teeth. A satchel full of more ammunition strapped across his back, Pip growled as menacingly as a small pinto colt can be assumed to manage and hammered the rolled up copy of the morning special repeatedly across a scaly foot.

"Oww-ooh! You are a feisty little fellow..."

...the colt vanished in a puff of smoke and found himself much smaller. And dog-like.

"...shall we see who's REALLY the bad dog here?", the suddenly enlarged (well, from Pip's point of view) and irritated chaos beast inquired. He smacked the discarded media missile against his paw.

Pip-puppy barked up a storm.

"Bother. I don't speak Yappanese." *snap*

"-and I challenge you to a duel, you jigsaw puzzle of perfidious-ness!"

"What's this? A duel? With such a dangerous pony? What will it be? What -deadly- weapons shall we contest with, which trials of our vigor? Knives? Swords? Children's card games?"

A fan of the offending objects switched with each twist of the clawed wrist, until he tossed the cards up into the ceiling, where they stuck like a royal flush of razors.

"Now, little Pip...you have come into my home, stained me with cheap ink, slandered my good name." Red pupils lit in yellowed eyes, drawing two little dots at Pipsqueak's feet. "I do believe I feel like a fight. If I win...you're going to be the newest pet for my darling little Fluttershy. I do hope you like kibble, because you're going to be eating it. For MONTHS!", the last word roared from the fanged maw.

"Choose. Your. Weapon."

The door shut behind Pipsqueak with the sound of finality. The dimness was lit only with the red, baleful glowing glare of Discord, reflecting off of two pairs of goblin eyes. A shivering pom-pom behind the sofa marked the hiding place of the other pair,

"C-c-c-c...", stammered Pip as he held up his hoof to point.

"Yeeeeeesssss?", hissed his opponent in anticipation...

"C...CANDY BOG!", the papercolt finally spat from beneath his teeth, pointing at a box on Fluttershy's table. Adorable (tooth-rottingly so) art work of colts and fillies dancing through a chocolate swamp towards a sparkling peppermint candy castle in the distance decorated the box.

The red glare shut off as the lamps came on. Discord gave a brief sigh.

"It's all I can get Fluttershy to play with me, too. Very well, then."

*snap*

The startled challenger found himself parked on a cushion before the board.

*snap*

With Discord sitting on the other side,

*snap*

And two startled goblins-

*snap*

-plus two moogles for a bit of balance on the other end.

"Of course, it takes four to play, Pip. So here's the deal. We play till I win, or you lose...because I am THE house undefeated champion at Candy Bog. When you lose, you're in the doghouse until I feel like telling Fluttershy what her new spotted hound really is. And if you even try to give it away, I'm making you into a goldfish."

"I'd never lose to a scoundrelous house-crasher like you-self, mister Discord!"

"That's about as true as you being a pirate last Nightmare Night, paper-swasher." A neatly folded nautical hat (of the morning edition, of course) popped onto Pip's head.

The quartet not involved in the repartee looked back and forth in utter confusion.

"Oh, don't you worry. The rules are quite simple, a small, demented child could learn them." *snap*

The game-piece sized Discord danced along the twisting trail to the Peppermint Princess Castle.

"You roll the dice and skip your merry little pony along the board until you arrive at the darling peppermint castle to win.. If you land on one of the taffy squares, you're stuck until you roll doubles to get out. But if you roll doubles three times in a row...well, into the chocolate swamp you go for galloping too fast." Discord pointed at the brown spot at the start.

The offending spot at the beginning of the board gave off a bubbly BLORP and a fudge-scented fountain of swamp gas for good measure.

"And then you're back to the start for being a foolish foal who ran into a muddy, messy end. I keep trying to convince Fluttershy they just sink in and never are heard from again, but she just won't change the rules to make them better. Tsk. Now roll to see who goes first."

Macguffnox dug into a pouch. "Dice? Ain't nothin' better."

The bronze, 100-sided die klonked to the table after a quick roll across the board, nearly squashing the diminutive player before coming to rest on...

"Hey! That's cheating!"

"House dice only? Lil' gobbet's ain't demented at all, Discord." The goblin picked up the die and rattled it a bit. "How'd you know I pulled out the fooler, kid?"

Pipsqueak blinked. "I...I just knew it was the bunk, um..."

"Macguffnox. The loverly lady's Macgyvix. And the two milksop flappers over dere are Kupollux and Kupofrieda. So, ya gonna roll dem ivories?"

Six games and hours later....

One pony, one mismatched melange of monster parts, and two moogles looked on in despair as the little green pony made it's way to the Peppermint Princess Castle. Again. Dawn had bled into morning, and morning nearly to lunch-time, though Discord had been good enough to make tea. It had tasted a bit funny with chocolate milk, but foals can't be beggars.

The two masked goblins gave each other a victory high-five.

"Nobody can do that. This time you didn't even hit one dashed taffy puddle. Not ONE!", Pipsqueak moaned.

"And not a drop of magic. Not that I'd imagine anyone would try casting anything on those dice...that would be cheating!", Discord paused to polish at a mote of dust that had dared land on his shining golden halo.

"Nobody would be so low as to cheat at a children's board game."

"Don't you know the old saying, kupo? Roll with a goblin, get blown away."

"Ain't my fault you don't practice your dice like a real gobbie....heh, heh, heh. This keeps up, maybe we can play for keeps...got any of them bits on ya, Discord?"

"You are a horrid, horrid killjoy to our epic duel, goblin."

"Well, since yer comin in last, Pipsquawker- youse gets to roll first this time. Make it count! *hssk* "

Taking the white and brown cubes in his mouth, Pipsqueak tossed the implements of fate across the board. Double twos, and the little red pony missed a puddle by one space. A hard eight put him a comfortable twelve spaces down the line, unmolested by candy.

The Moogles managed a completely average seven on their roll.

Discord rolled...a three. Straight into the very first puddle. "Aw, sh-"

..."-ortcake! Short. Cake."

"Shortcake Stream is on the other side of the board, kupo!"

"And I dearly wish I was there instead, my bat-winged brethern. Shortcake."

Macguffnox rolled an easy double fours and tagged the dice over to Macgyvix, who blew on them and added a pair of sixes on the next roll.

"Pair of scorpions, gals and gobbies! Six legs, six legs, read em and weep!" as the goblin-pony-piece marched past Strawberry Stream and over the bridge, already a third of the way to the castle at the end.

Pipsqueak barely blinked as he watched the goblins rolling merrily across the board. Something had clicked in his head at the word "cheat" again, and for all that the two were jovially playing, those rolls seemed to be precise as Time Turner setting his entire shop for noon.

As Macguffnox rolled his third time, one hoof jostled the table. Just a bit of a tweak as the dice landed.

One die rolled twice as far as the others, coming up on...a pair of threes. Bloop.

*SNORT* "What was that, yew doofus?", Macgyvix grumbled. "Ya rolled us straight into the swamp!", and she slapped their game piece back on the start.

Pipsqueak grinned and kept his hoof on the table.

The game trotted along at a breakneck pace. The occasional dry cough or eager lean from Pip left the goblin's precision game in the dumps, and if the two noticed, they didn't say a word- just plunged on at a bipolar pace that left them stuck in the taffy two turns running, only to make up most of it the next. Discord and the Moogles gradually outpaced them, with hardly a double but high rolling none the less. Pip himself narrowly escaped a triple-double swamp-out and although he couldn't roll much better than a six, they DID mostly end up doubles, so he found himself staring at the Peppermint Princess's castle only a space behind when his turn came up. Sixteen squares to victory, though you had to roll exactly to get on the castle...or you'd just end up going backwards the same number of spaces instead. The goblins were stuck in the taffy again behind him, and he'd just finished passing the guffawing gobs for the fifth time this game.

The moogles rolled themselves another seven squares into mediocrity. Ten to go. Discord spun the two cubes on his claws and let them bounce off the ceiling. A pair of fives put the jester's motley of a piece an easy roll away from the castle...

"I do believe this game is about to go to the dogs, everyone. Are you ready to howl at my victory?"

...and an eleven bounced the little lost pony back four spaces and into the last taffy swamp.

"Oh, f-. F- Ffffffff...iddlesticks! Flufflepuffs! FIG NEWTONS!"

Discord's last expletive sent squishy fruit cookie shrapnel flying in all directions, forcing the rest of the players to duck the confectionary cursing. Pipsqueak sampled one, found Discord to be obscenely delicious, and swept up a pile of the nearest naughty words to snack on later. Swallowing the crumbs with a mouthful of tea left his mouth open for another roll...

Double ones. Pip's pony crawled forward, but he had another roll- double ones, again. The peppermint and licorice drop stared at him like a pair of mismatched eyes as he slid the figure forward another apathetic pair of spaces. Twelve to go, and one more double would likely literally leave him in the doghouse with how Discord was playing...or having to play the goblins AGAIN.

...wait. There was one, slightly humiliating path to victory.

Pipsqueak rolled the dice around in his suddenly dry mouth as if trying to memorize the cubes with his tongue. A ghost of a long-dead scent of overlicked candy-flavoring on the dice hinted at mint and licorice to mix with the bits of fig stuck to his palate. Close your eyes, ignore the tingly feeling in your flanks and....

"PTOO!"

Bounce, bounce, spin....and....

Double ones. Yes!

Discord mock-pouted. "Oh, you poor little pony. Back to the swamp you g-"

"Nope!"

"...I don't think you have any say in the matter, Pipsquirt."

"And you ain't read the rules!"

"Well of course I didn't read the rulebook. Rulebooks are boring. I had Fluttershy tell me."

Pipsqueak pawed the tattered copy open and read:

"The Princess Rule: If a pony rolls double ones three times in a row, the Princesses have noticed the player and offered their aid! With a simple spell, the pony does not go to the Chocolate Swamp, but instead may go forward any number of spaces a normal roll would allow and ends their turn. And I choose...twelve!"

Pipsqueak triumphantly pushed his pony-pawn to the castle.

"And I win!"

Red lights suddenly flared and from absolutely nowhere came an horrible voice.

"Ah-ah-ah, Pipweasel...you didn't do the magic spell."

"But..."

"Do it, or I think we'll see how YOU do in a chocolate swamp."

"It's for silly fillies!"

"Magic words and spell. Or swamp."

"Aww...."

Pipsqueak hunkered down low and...

"Sunshine, sunshine! Ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves! *klonk klonk* and do a little shake!". Hey, feels a little funny back there...

"Oh, congratulations! Does the spell stick dice on you too, kupo?", Kupollux inquired.

"Dice, eh? Wut..."...and Pipsqueak looked back at his flank.

A pair of dice looked back!. Sweet biscuits, I got me cutie mark!

Board, tea, and figgy crumbs flew in all directions to escape the wildly gyrating, ecstatically bouncing blur that had been the winning player as the goblins ducked behind a couch to avoid the entertaining shrapnel and the moogles ended up hiding behind a ceiling beam, staring at the crazed colt who was doing his happy dance without a care for the world.

Discord, however was more of a sore loser.

"Fine, you little Pip. You win. You've eaten my words, so I'll eat mine too. You ARE going to be a little pirate for scallywagging your way out of being Fluttershy's pet!", his claws rubbed together with a *SNAP* -

And a riot of colored light washed through the windows to cover them all.

Chapter 12: Spiritus Mundi

The resting place of Twilight Sparkle, alicorn, magician, occasional heroine and librarian (which, in her heart of hearts was a greater title than "heroine", considering it let her read more books) was a warm place filled with the very breath of life.

This is a polite way of saying that it had turned into a containment chamber for a miniature, purple-red sun's worth of enough magical life-energy to obliterate a small continent. Not that Twilight was into obliterating entire continents. In truth, the mind of Twilight Sparkle was currently tripping it's hooves off on the gifts she'd been given by the elemental titans of the astral planes.

She was exploring the stellar engine at the heart of the Equestrian sun. Listening to the utter black silence of a cave forty miles deep that had never so much seen the touch of light or even life. Drifting along at the glacial pace of...the heart of an ice flow in the northern polar regions. Pushing a swarm of Breezies gently through the sky, touching them in an intimate way only the wind could manage. Enjoying the taste of a fine blend of scandium-yttrium-equuite as her senses trickled down a 12-mile vein. Riding the product of a wild, massive thunderhead as it plunged dozens of forks into the sea, down, down into the whirling currents that took her to a gaping chasm of hissing lava vents, preparing a new island to rise.

And she rose. And fell. Spun. Drove along at the speed of light, immobile as a pebble welded to a high cliff wall. And she Was them all and none at once, connecting, sparking bonding splitting-

twilightcanyouhearustwilightitscelestiaweweresoworriedweloveyouwakeupletushelpyoupleasepleasepleas-

The spirit in the world briefly collapsed down into a single point of pony, All became merely one bit of All as it realized that really, it really shouldn't be Magic with a capital M if it wanted to be Twilight Sparkle and found itself being reminded that indeed, it really wasn't all the magic if it wanted to be something else. But....but...she/it could be all the magic! ALL the Magic. The Magic. Know. It. All.

Considering the delightful concept, Twilight Sparkle began to draw herself inward, preparing to send herself outward into the cosmos in a grand leap of knowledge and infinite exploration. Compared to the dark painful dreams from before? Best. Dream. Ever!

That this would make the Crystal Empire going up look like a firecracker by comparison had completely slipped the currently immaterial, power-drunk Twilight's mind, but the concept hadn't been missed by others.

"This can't be happening!", Celestia thought as her horn desperately drank in the gouts of power that would otherwise have shattered the walls of her erstwhile dining room like so many bombs. Luna, equally confused and amazed held up a shell of energy that sheltered six little ponies behind it.

Nothing even remotely mortal should hold that much power- could hold that much power in one place, and it was only getting stronger. Twilight was in the middle of it, nothing more than motes of glittering purple in the congealing ball of mana that was pulling itself rivers of essence from every ley line on the planet. Spells that would have left even an alicorn exhausted for weeks were trivial to cast even in the eddies of the torrent- and if they had not, there already would no longer have been a Canterlot, or her little ponies, and likely a new sea before Twilight burned away even that to turn herself into a star to rival Celestia's.

But she was. A unicorn filly having an uncontrolled surge of power as she came into her own had been enough to turn ponies to plants, eggs to full-formed dragons. Twilight Sparkle was having her second childhood come of age, and an alicorn connected to the primal forces of the world was a much, much more dangerous cutie-ceanara.

Her horn shivered and twinged as Celestia realized Her own sun was quite happy to go nova if she kept using it as a mana sink and informed her that yes, all this delicious energy would be quite enough to bake the planet to a cinder, could I have a bit more please?

"LUNA!!", she blasted through the solar roar.

That would be the last thing Princess Celestia would remember until the end, as the proto-star of Twilight eagerly sucked Princesses, pony-friends, and all into it's fulminating mass and proceeded to finish what it'd started when she'd had that unfortunate disembodiment.

The arcane-nuclear chain reaction that was Twilight Sparkle found itself suddenly full of eight pony-shaped control rods, neatly tied to her by her own ritual. Near-cosmic awareness plunged to a much more uncomfortable self-awareness, much akin to waking up the morning after Cider Week in Ponyville.

It came to Twilight in the natural yet absurd form of a checklist.

One: I am currently ponifed plasma excited to a highly aetherial state. Check.

Two: Ponies do not do well as highly excited plasma, and I am beginning to express very unponylike things like massive gravitational fields, lethal amounts of radiant mana, and a desire to explore the cosmos via stellar expansion. Whether I want to or not. Check. (Becoming part of a G5 Binary, no less. A small part of Twilight's suddenly sober mind gibbered that at least she'd be an INTERESTING stellar formation.)

Three: If I don't express this potential energy via a controlled manner (ie, spellcasting), I will start a chain reaction that will turn Equestria into the newest star in the Faustian Cosmos, or perhaps an asteroid belt. Charbroiled.

Four: Consider what on Equestria could channel so much potential energy in a controlled manner?

"Told you that not even magic can make a cutie mark appear before its time."

The last three forlorn footballs faded from Apple Bloom's flank as Twilight bowed her head, exhausted.

"It's hopeless! Hopeless!"

If Twilight Sparkle hadn't already been generating enough light to drown out Los Pegasus during tourist season already, one might have been able to glimpse a light bulb conjuring itself into existence about where she'd have a head, if she HAD a head, squared her hypothetical mental hooves, and chose the most hopeless spell she'd ever cast, focused every erg of energy from the runaway channel of mana she had become...and threw the spell out into the world.

An eight-colored sigil of power formed in the room, a ball of prismatic, burning energies that surged into eight lines of color that fed into six little ponies and two not-so-little alicorns. The colors flowed into Twilight's first targets of her spell, turning them into pony-shaped effigies of magical light- and then gushed from their flanks in twinned threads of light and dark, white and green, yellow and purple, blue and red. The threads wove into a tornado of colors that rose to the ceiling, melted it away as if it had never been to rise into a column of sparkling glory, and tightened, tightened, twisted and wrapped themselves together-

And as all glory does, it passed, the threads bursting at their tangled seams into a rain of luminous shards that would find themselves in every corner of the world, a harmless light show that seemingly pierced through skin and hide of every species without so much as a tingle, eventually to vanish as they buried themselves into ground or water, burned themselves out in the air, melted into a campfire or faded into the frozen hearts of glaciers.

Save for ponies. The excess of energy from the gifts Twilight Sparkle had received from the spirits found them all- earth and sky, sea and deepest cave, even unborn foals waiting for their first breath to the eldest granny finishing her last one. Each and every pony in Equestria suddenly felt a bond they mostly didn't even think of suddenly...loosen a bit as Twilight's magic set cutie marks worldwide to imitating a firefly convention, and even blank-flanked fillies found their haunches tickled and spitting sparks like a unicorn's horn. A few even found something extra, as the tales would tell.

None of them had a clue to what happened then of course. But in the years to come, it would be known as the beginning of the Age of Adventure.

The nine ponies at the center of it all were sprawled across a marble floor so clean you could have used it for dinner AND open heart surgery in a roofless castle room in Canterlot. None of them were awake to appreciate that eight had indeed become nine, nor what else had happened to them. Pony number nine slept on the warm, sunlit stone, curled up with her nose tucked under a glittering wing. Bits of gleaming magicite in fanciful shapes of apples and suns and crescent moons and other shapes surrounded her, and her cutie mark indeed did sparkle, as if someone had painted it on a foundation of glitter.

I would like to say that they were left to wake up, tranquil and well-rested after what had to be truly one of those days from a nap even Rainbow Dash would have found sufficient unto the day. Really, after a day like this, you deserve a nap. A hero's reward.

The Royal Guard managed to get there at about three minutes into Day One, A.O.A and mess the whole thing up.

Chapter 13: A Troubled Sight

As Twilight Sparkle embarked on saving the world from herself, Scale Balancer began saving herself from the world.

A world full of bug ponies. With green ick. That might have been guards.

Looking down at the dead changeling and the dark legs smashing down her door, she decided she didn't want to know what happened to the guards. Or be the next one.

A crate full of bladderwrack mushed the corpse against the splintering boards. Then another. A table, a few charts fluttering to the deck. A pile of padding blank-

Blueblood squalled as his battered, weed-tangled form was ripped untimely from it's womb as it went to stuffing the hole in the door.

"What are you insane mares DOING? Why is all this disgusting GOOP in this room? I SMELL LIKE A RANCID FISH!"

Scale Balancer just gave him a pitying look. Driving a gaff into the crate (and the perforated changeling leg trying to widen the hole in the door) gave her a moment to reply-

"Your marefriend saved your life, the goop is from the bug ponies outside that apparently want to eat us, and you're on a fishing boat after trying to be fish bait. Oh, and you're WELCOMEEEEEEEEEK!"

Splinters rained down on the mare's neck as Six-Eighty-Five's goon squad began to try to stomp through the ceiling instead, mixed with a few splatters of mucous-laden drool.

"They're in my maaaane! They're IN MY MANE!", Scale screamed as the stream of alien slime dribbled across the back of her head. She shook the disgusting tendril mostly off, letting it fly across the room in an elastic, wobbling path...

...and neatly slapped itself across Blueblood's mouth in mid-pout. Suddenly, the stallion had a disgusting and yet faintly familiar, addicting taste in his mouth. Like a jam sandwich that had been out too long at the tea party...unthinkingly, he smacked his lips instead of spitting the streamer out. Fuzzy, happy place...

...and Scale Balancer retched as she watched Blueblood slurp the rest into his mouth and settle back to the floor with the tranquility mostly associated with lobotomy patients and narcotic overdoses.

"I don't get sick on a boat, I don't get sick on a boat...", she repeated, even though her cutie mark wasn't supposed to help with slime-slurping freaks.

The trampling and definitely unpony-like noises coming from the cabin roof did nothing to ease her stomach cramps.

Far to the south, a young greyish earth pony was examining the train tracks, unaware of the changelings. Actually, the tracks were hardly interesting, but the ballast was fascinating. A layer of quartzite underlaid with a rich layer of limestone, in big enough chunks that the telltale diatomaceous maul indicated that the entire load had been hauled clean out from Neigh Orleans.

She'd never been to Neigh Orleans. Ponies told her it was an exciting place. None of them had mentioned what had been dredged from the bottom of Lake Ponychatrain, but clearly this must have been what they meant.

She resolved to take her sister up on the offer for a weekend. Or perhaps a Tuesday. Why a day was "fat", she had no idea, but Pinkie had been delighted at the idea of going on it. As the word "Pinkie" crossed her mental road, a sudden spasm banged Maud's nose against the rails. Hooves rattled and shook, sending stones tumbling off their neat pile and scattering them in a distressingly random shower of unsorted pebbles, chunks, and samples.

"Family trouble on the tracks", Maud's twitchy-twitch-twitches told. An almost imperceptible frown crossed the impassive reach of her cheeks as she looked up, then down the rails. In the distance, a flash of sun on metal. Whatever it was, it didn't like Pies.

Maud detested only a few things. Ponies who couldn't appreciate the sedimentals, and anything that crossed a Pie the wrong way. A faint rumble from the steel told her that the second was coming to cross her.

For the umpteenth time, the butt end of a spear poked through the vents in the roof of the dimly-lit rail car. Big Mac took a sidestep from his spot. Again.

The slow burn that had become Macintosh's thoughts briefly bubbled up a thought of grabbing the pole in his teeth and yanking the disguised changeling "guard" around, but that would mean the other end of the spears would come through the next time. And no place to go if they got serious. Somepony might get more than a bump from that.

Reckon he'd wait a mite longer. Across the too-warm and stuffy cage their ride had become, Clyde shared a meaningful stare that spoke volumes, if you were the kinda earth pony to listen and not gabble all day.

For all the trouble up top, they'd gotten along right good. Igneous, that is. They'd gotten to proper names 'stead of the usual nicknames that most townies stuck on ponies near before they'd learnt to trot. Or Pinkie did, for that matter. Weren't bad to be "Big Mac", but his mama had called him Macintosh and two decent stallions were just fine with that. Sides. Felt right havin' Mister Pie call him by the family name. And callin' Igneous by his. Not that the third stallion in the bunch knew better- he was so swelled up on them hoofballs on his flank that "Magnum" was it, even if his real name was Hondo.

The car lurched as outside, the changelings picked up the pace a bit. A buzzy baritone managed to find it's way through down the spot of sunlight to twitch Mac's ear.

"There's some dumb pony on the tracks? Pick it up a bit. No stupid worker is gonna get in the way of a train full of warriors."

Whish. Whish. SCREEEEEEEEE CLUNK!.

Six-Seventy-Five watched as another changeling found itself snared by the stupid unicorn, with a fishing pole. The idiotic soldier bug had half a reel of fishing line tangled around one foreleg and frantic attempts to fly away only met with Scale Balancer giving her catch a little play before whipping her catch back against the deck for another bludgeoning. The pony was laughing at him.

He drove a spear through the offending tangle while the dimgrub was thrashing around on solid wood, freeing what had clearly fallen far too many times to the bottom of the breeding pits before molting. The sun was high in the sky. He was tired of stupid ponies. Stupid minions. Stupid boats. He wished he could just drop the entire lot into the lak...

*smek*

"Warriors! Cease and desist!"

Both of the changelings did, not that it helped the one stuck in the door. The back end of the pole neatly popped him between the eyes, leaving him the catch of the day.

"It's just bait....really big bait...what kind of fisherpony can't handle bait?" came from the gap. The voice wasn't exactly rational anymore, but the half-crazed mare had improvised a better defense than the entire contingent of Royal Guard. For that, Six-Seventy-Five would kill her. And the other two. Thoroughly.

"Climb!"

The drone and his lone remaining soldier rose, the boat shrinking to become a plank on the blue as they buzzed for height. The sky was clear. The target was immobile and helpless.

And a changeling on full burn could punch holes into rocks, never mind a shoddy piece of weed-gathering wood.

"Burn!"

The soldier caught with a wavering flame as he turned burning stolen passion into magical heat.

"DIVE!"

The green meteor plunged for the center of the boat, and Six-Seventy-Five followed his living missile down at a slightly more gentle angle to observe the results. Whatever floated back up from the wreckage would be held down with a spear until it stopped floating. Or breathing. Assuming anything survived the impact.

He half-hoped as much. Blind terror was what changeling soldiers fed best on, and it was just in time for lunch. He'd already missed breakfast.

Despite the train getting up to a juggernaut of eight stallionpower running at near full gallop, the worker hadn't moved.

The changelings certainly didn't care, save for the potential brief rough patch from trampling said pony underfoot, followed by the three cars turning it into wheel lubricant.

The mare cared even less, considering the furious contortions her tail was making while the equimotive engine rolled ever-closer. The classic battle of immobile rock and unstoppable object. High noon.

Maud whispered to the white-grey stones beneath her hooves, a few words of encouragement as the glittering helms and tossing heads of the train's engine became clearer. They were good rocks, after all. They knew what to do, but you never could go wrong with giving a few compliments to good strata. A final thank-you, and her forehooves blurred briefly as she sent eight well-rounded pieces of quartzite ahead as a welcome.

I mean, those guard helms. Could you ASK for an easier thing to aim for?

The octavian tone of denting metal reduced the dash to a blind, tangled mess of changelings, still being shoved forward by momentum but without a hint of grace, disguise, or much beyond concussions.

Maud calmly stepped off the tracks (being sure not to catch a hoof in the ballast, it was only polite.) and watched the train grind to a halt. Her tail continued to wiggle in it's uniquely Pie code.

"Beware of falling objects?"

The message, alas was not much faster than the power-diving "pegasus" drilling her into the unforgiving earth. The best the earth offered was a mild concussion, which Maud earnestly accepted as two hooves smacked her head into the gravel.

"Toss her in with the rest. A little extra despair adds spice."

The plunging meteor neared the point of no return as it rocketed toward the boat.

Two winged changelings went to haul the stunned Maud to join her family for a long ride to Pony Hell.

Twilight Sparkle's gift to the world arrived about three seconds before either succeeded.

FLASH!

When interviewed, the few creatures who had actually been the focus of the Elements of Harmony described the experience as many things, but even the "pain" from being purged of centuries of evil wasn't bad. "Like having all of your cramps melt away under a hot bath", or "the bright light that makes you blink before realizing what a glorious morning it was". Indeed, apparently even being petrified was a mildly invigorating experience.

Twilight's Gift was often compared to anything from a good cup of tea to a quintuple espresso from Starbucked on a worldwide level. Of course, some ponies more directly related to the ritual found the experience even MORE stimulating...

The disorienting burst of light was enough to send the green arrow awry- and the changeling ended up corkscrewing off-course to skip along the lake like a rock until it ended up tail-up in a sandbar, wriggling uselessly as residual heat left the poor thing half encased in a crackling of glass. Surprisingly, the trauma left the creature entirely intact when bits of bug should have scattered in a nice splatter on impact...

Six-Seventy-Five's response was untranslatable to anything mammalian, but suffice it to say if you happened to be an insect, it'd have made your antennae wilt.

Below him, two of the three unicorns found the world behind their eyelids had gone rainbow-mad. Self-awareness busted down the door of dream-time, demanded everyone get on the floor and WAKE UP RIGHT NOW-

Two sets of cutie marks briefly turned from compass star and two-toned suns to crystalline supernovas, a thousand points of light making the perforated cabin into a maritime disco ball before the light faded away.

Maud Pie's back legs shoved the earth pony up into a forward hoofstand, then all four pistoned her into a neat vertical line.

The two changeling fliers made ballistic arcs over the roof of a train car and tumbled off into the brush with a clatter, guard-skins sloughing off in peels of torn illusion.

While the bruising hit still hurt, the fog had vanished. Maud's hoofstand-kick turned into a cartwheel, and she stood four-footed and sure. Turquoise cabochons flecked with bits of rainbow light tracked across the furious, fluttering foes as the ten remaining false guards formed up to make sure she STAYED down the next time.

The grey stones on Maud's flanks had developed a bit of color, too. Almost as if they'd become a bit metamorphic themselves.

She uttered only a few words as realization struck and her attackers swarmed in:

"I know hoof fu."

Chapter 14: A Lion Body With the Head of a Pony

Changeling venom, often delivered by oral contact shares certain virtues with the bites of many parasites- it both loosens the inhibitions of victims and delivers a potent narcotic kick that renders the struggles of prey being violently drained of emotions feeble, at best. Both serve a changeling in gathering food with a minimum of fuss, and even a kiss to an unsuspecting victim can easily pass enough along to leave the target a dopey, vulnerable puddle of love snacks.

It is also a popular component in Zebrican alchemy, rendered into a less toxic "Milk of the Legends" used by many shamans to explore their spiritual and mystical past. Such brews to peer into history require massive infusions of mystical energy, either over months of preparation and ritual or powerful magi on the peer of the most powerful of unicorns or even the Princesses themselves.

Or, you know. You could always just swallow some changeling spit and get zapped by an alicorn-powered ritual. We don't suggest that.

Roughly one thousand, two hundred years before the present day:

Blueblood opened his eyes to the scene of carnage. Ponies, changelings, pieces of ponies and changelings scattered across a field that had been scorched down to blackened earth. In the midst of the charnel field, tents had been set up, a camp where ponies in battered armor moved with the weary sway of a victorious but exhausted army- tending the wounded, burying the dead, burning the remains of the enemy. The first cool breezes of early evening only brought an eloquent description of exactly how much remains remained to Blueblood's nose, mixed with a miasma of maimings and mordant misery.

Any trace of bliss vanished, replaced with a serious need to be violently ill.

Ducking into the nearby triage tent to stop seeing the battlefield was not helpful.

The second, larger tent he ran into in search of a discreet bucket would be, beyond his wildest dreams- even if he didn't notice the banner hanging above it. The scents of charred and abused flesh vanished behind the tent flaps as if by a gate, replaced with the scents of candles, fragrant oils, and a familiar mix of scents that soothed as much as the outdoors had outraged.

He gasped in the tranquility like a drowning stallion, an experience he had plentiful experience at of the late.

The three other occupants of the Royal tent seemed not to notice. Two Princesses...and Blueblood. Another Blueblood. Well, a rather rough copy, but dashing none the less for his lack of polish. Nothing quite like the original.

About ten deep breaths and one open set of eyes later, he realized he was standing about twenty feet from his aunties and the somewhat brutish "Blueblood" before them. Clearly, etiquette had left them studiously ignoring his moment of horrid grooming and brusque entry, and without thinking, old colthood memories kicked in. He hid in a corner like a good little Blueblood and snooped.

"What would we do with thee, hero?", Celestia said in a distinctly noble accent that would have made the Canterlot nobility deliver a standing ovation for sheer snobby properness.

"Duke Blueblood, who hast led the flower of yon army into the Bridlelands and slaughtered a horde of the wicked changelings."

"E'en as a second horde attacked his army in turn, saved but by our actions most drastic.", followed Luna. "They have dubbed what was verdant plains the "Badlands", for after mine sister laid about with her Sun to burn the hive to the very bottom, the earth ponies say it will ne'er grow crops or a sheaf of grass again."

The tall white unicorn facing them was unbowed, even angered. Plentiful lines across his coat marked freshly tended wounds, and old ones, crossed and recrossed through the white. Clearly, he had been through a war and was ready for more.

"Aye, Princesses. We cleansed the nest of the filthy crawling things that had been stealing our bodies and throwing the horned heads that lead your little kingdom into chaos, because you wanted to talk to them. While we found the ponies who'd called for diplomacy with the blackshells had already been replaced by their brood and were planning to enslave us all! And you STILL had the temerity to chatter of "negotiations" and "co-existing", "patience" while HALF OF MY ENTIRE FAMILY was rotting at the bottom of one of those hives?"

Present-Blueblood cringed at the sound of his doppleganger's voice. Huddling behind a broad table, the crack of the last snarling line was enough to flatten his ears in distress. Such....such disasters were not the proper talk of a noblepony, destined to be above the mud and...and...

Luna muzzled the unicorn in a coating of magic as he opened his mouth to berate them further.

"Your kin were ne'er in that hive to begin with.", she said, gentler than her sister's snob or his boiling anger.

Four boxes floated from behind the wood-worked thrones that sat in the shadowy reaches of the canvas-ringed space. Each was opened. What had been a mare, a half-grown stallion, and two foals filled them, reduced to bones. Some gnawed.

"Twas the Duchess Garland, thine cousin Argent Squire, and your daughters Golden Crown and Silver Tiara. We did find them hidden, when an earth pony prospector in the San Palomino discovered a changeling hive exploring what he thought was an abandoned mine."

The muzzle dissolved into glittering moonlight.

Past-Blueblood looked at the boxes as horror, sorrow, and rage competed for the inadequate space within his skull. A faint gobbling noise managed to escape the back of his throat. Present-Blueblood was spared the sight of what rested in the boxes, but the words alone were enough to paralyze him down to the bottom of his hooves.

Celestia did not relent.

"The changelings used thee to strike at a rival they could not otherwise- replacing your kin and pointing horns at another hive, one they wanted out of the way. Then, they waited until you had gone to war and swarmed your hindquarters whilst the rest of your army was locked hoof-to-hoof with the hive We had been negotiating with in the name of "defending their brood-sisters against the unwarranted aggression of the ponies and their lying Princesses." The Hives will no longer negotiate, and if another hive is attacked, they will bring the full weight of the entire swarm upon Equestria. All of them, Blueblood. Because to save your little ponies and most of the spears of Equestria, you have made me kill an entire hive of innocent changelings down to the last grub."

The gobbling noise became words from the unicorn, even as tears streaked down his muzzle.

"But...my wife, my foals...they're filthy lovesuckers, they murdered my...and you won't let me..., Spirits, WHY?"

"The price for your revenge would be war. And war like this, where fire and magic would kill the very land until everypony, everyone would end. YOU struck first, in the midst of what should have been our friends or neighbors, and now...we cannot. Destroying one hive has united what would have been an uncaring audience into a horde ready to prevent another."

"We will claim thine family was found here, Blueblood. If we do not, the war you started will roll on, and every pony will join them.", Luna added. "It ends here, or Equestria will be fire where the Old Lands have ceded to ice."

Pride remained, and took it's swing uncaring of mere rationality.

"I...I am the DUKE! The blood of my little fillies is on their ugly hooves! It is my DESTINY to guide ponies in war, and it tells me to END them. One! All! EVERY ONE, or by my cutie mark, they will have you in a cocoon in your own throne room in the end!"

Past-Blueblood's cutie mark seemed to glimmer in the candlelit tent, a match for the one on Present-Blueblood in every way.

"I...cannot. I...SHALL NOT! You will tell me where the hive that took my Garland from me was hidden, and if I have to cleanse it single-horned, it SHALL BE DONE! And if I fall, my son will take up the task, and HIS son, until the honor of ponies is cleansed in their green, slimy blood! Not just for me, but for everypony who has lost so much to the....to....to..."

"Dorme diabolos, Blueblood."

*klonk*

The compulsion to nap briefly washed over present-Blueblood, but faded as the warrior-unicorn fell to one side and began to snore. Luna's hornlight, barely visible, faded to nothingness.

"What wouldst we do with such a stallion, sister mine? If he wakes, he will not stop until Our ponies are locked in endless war- and if the fires do not consume them, the Windigoes will. Or other spirits. Verily, discord seems to stir to a life of it's own and reaches out to muddle all into the muck. Do I...end this? One for many, one for all?"

Luna's horn lit again, the brighter blue of witchlight and worse.

"Twas a head wound, unseen and unknown until he collapsed while receiving Our accolades for his heroism. For his services to the land, we shall name him and his heirs honored kin to the Royal Family. Posthumously, in his case. He passed without pain."

Present-Blueblood covered his head with his hooves at the ice that crawled under Luna's voice. A faint thread of black crawled up the spirals in Luna's horn, and deep down, he knew that when it reached the tip, it would strike, and the end would be swift.

White struck against blue-black, and Celestia's horn banged against Luna's hard enough to break the growing spell and the hungry look in Luna's eyes.

"Nay, we shall NOT! No more killing, or murder- for this would be no execution for the Kingdom, but as vile an act as the changelings who brought Blueblood to this. But..."

The eldest Princess stopped, trapped in the spell of thought.

"...canst thou keep him in pleasant dreaming? Of what was, before all fell into sorrow and revenge? Til' dreams bring forgetfulness of what he learned here, blurs the lines of hatred and grief into scars in the memory alone? Once he wakes, the tale will be but the one we have told the kingdom, that the matter was sadly but truly done."

Luna looked doubtful. "In dreams I can keep him, for you know I am their steward. But the wounds in his heart are deep, and it may be...years. More. Aye, it can be done. Better an old stallion at peace than....this, you say? When he spoke at the end, twas more truth than I liked. Truly, he sees Equestria's heart in a changeling cage. Thine or mine, or both. Would you have that?"

"I would bow my head to a changeling queen if it would give my little ponies a thousand years of peace. Because ponies like this would save me, whether I wanted it or not. They...mortals...are like that. The loyalty of a lion in a pony's heart, and the longer we have to let the changelings cool their anger, the better we shall turn their next stings. For that, I am sure. Tend to him, Luna. Sleeping, sweet dreaming to draw the poison from his heart. So dear to Equestria that We shall care for our adopted brother, Prince Blueblood, and his son, and his son's sons until the sun rises not and the moon is dust."

"For if the warrior wakes with a heart filled with war, sun may fall and moon end all too soon..."

At the word wakes, present-Blueblood's flanks began to burn, and a curious notion began to consume the vapid fumes that had been his spoiled, egotistical existence.

"I am a warrior, of a line of warriors, and....and Auntie Celestia told me my cutie mark was for a leader. But it's to lead ponies to FIGHT? To....save other ponies."

"To be a Blueblood is to fight for other ponies. That's what he said before Auntie Luna made him sleep- that a real Blueblood will do that, because that's our destiny."

Twelve centuries of Bluebloods being guided firmly AWAY from what their cutie marks had been telling them dissolved in the light of revelation. And as it did, something settled in the soft pompous noble that had nothing to do with an inherited title and everything to what the title was supposed to MEAN.

"I am Blueblood, the changelings have come again, and the time for a Prince is war. Let me be the Prince a Blueblood should become, please!"

"PLEASE!"

The tent dissolved into relentless radiance.

"Hey! Hey! Equestria to fishbait! You in there?"

"Blueblood? Beloved?"

"Gar.....land?"

"Geez, that changeling gunk is tripping him out."

A cold dousing of water poured across Blueblood's face and horn. From the chill, it wasn't the first.

The prince rose to his hooves like he hadn't been half-drowned or drugged for days. Dozens of minor aches and annoyances that would have sent him to outrage an hour ago were...ignored. A Blueblood ignored such things when it was on the battlefield, after all.

That this wouldn't have crossed his mind an hour ago, EITHER did not matter. He was as sure of the fact as the stars on his flanks, for that was where the thought had come from. Speaking of those stars...

Blueblood levitated a crystalline copy of his cutie mark from where it'd rolled into a heap of netting, shaking off a few flecks of green goop.

"Now, who came up with such a lovely piece of artwork? Sunny?"

The barely-legal mare looked annoyed.

"Sunset, dear. No pet names in front of the commoners. Even if they saved your life."

Blueblood's head swiveled to take in the other pony in the room. A fishing pole floated like a spear, covered with green gore on both ends. The very dead changeling hanging through the cabin wall had a hole to match.

"You killed it?", he inquired. The same tone he'd have used to ask for another slice of honeydew from Auntie Luna, who took no horseapples or flank-kisses.

"Yep!", Scale Balancer returned, in a chipper tone that told Blueblood deep down that this one wasn't all that balanced at the moment. "Blackshell-shocked", an ancient not-memory spoke.

"Good. You're enlisted."

"WHAT?"

"Prince's Own. Captain. We'll work out the pay later. There's a war on. And Bluebloods lead armies, when there's a war."

Something in Blueblood settled over the overworked fishermare, firmed up the shaky bits, smelled like "herd leader", and in a few seconds:

"Yes, sir Blueblood!", followed by saluting with a somewhat battered pole. That snapped in half.

A dead changeling's spear floated in Blueblood's grasp until it leaned against Scale's neck.

"First order, Captain. Guard the Lady Sunset. I'm going on deck."

"But....but..."

"Lady Sunset, you are too young for this and in a delicate state of mind. Stay with the Captain."

And with that, he hefted a somewhat rusty woodcutter's axe from the scattered junk and pushed the cabin door open.

The lady in question huffed, settled down, and slid out an equally glittery sun-stone to study besides the copy of Blueblood's cutie mark.

"So, Lady Sunset...did you make those?"

Sunset Shimmer ignored the question and stared at the two chunks of magicite.

Scale's hoof gently tapped the translucent, sparkling symbol of Blueblood.

Her cutie marks spat fireworks across the room in a spray of white sparks, and sent the blue pony into a dizzy, reeling spin before her head cleared from what had felt like touching a cloud filled with lightning bolts.

Sunset moved her hooves very carefully away from what she'd been about to poke and examined her involuntary test subject.

A sparkly line-copy of Blueblood's cutie mark had added itself to the scales on her guard's flank- which had also gained a few layers of muscle in the process, giving the mare an almost stallion-like build. In fact, she very much resembled...well, one of Celestia's guards minus the armor!

"Well, I don't want to look like someone on the hoofball team. We'll be putting that someplace safe right now before you turn yourself into a minotaur or something."

Scale was too busy admiring her new muscles or something. Whatever.

The "cutie crystals", as she decided to name them were stuffed in two sacks, which were put in two MORE sacks, and tied across her back as impromptu saddlebags. She didn't want her cutie mark covering every filly flank in town. Who knows what they'd end up doing with it?

Being stuck in the cabin with a musclebound jock instead of flanking her Prince's....erm....flank was already bad enough!

Chapter 15: Gaze Blank and Pitiless as the Changeling

Queen Chrysalis was, for a changeling, in heaven.

Heaven happened to be a somewhat raggedy wagon pulled by four crystalline stallions, upon which the faux Empress of the Ex-Empire rested her "battered" self. Two of the stallions weren't the genuine article either- no Queen was foolish enough to leave her hive without guards, and the crowd of refugees had been swollen by groups of excited but utterly fake ponies talking up the trip.

Safety and sanctuary from the mad Princesses. The Empress had returned when all was lost to lead her subjects to a land of love!

Oh, how they trusted and adored their little pink alicorn. Adoration, to a changeling is like freshly baked bread to a pony- wholesome, nutritious, and best fresh from the oven. The crystal ponies adored their Empress. The "empress" soaked in the sea of good feelings, and passed the bounty to her children. The drones and workers were energetic and all-too-happy to help their "fellow refugees", and the energy was contagious. Hope. Excitement. Even joy.

It was easy to do, because those feelings were mutual. Equestria's Princesses had been a trail of tears for the Hive, a trail of a thousand years and more.

The Burning Of The Hive. The failed attempt at revenge by suborning a junior queen on her mating flight to assault the seniors. Being denied the chance of mastering pony magic to finally have some parity with the relentless march of hooves, finally trapped in a pony-hive for months. Moving far away to a fresh source of equine emotions...and having the hive first invaded by things that stalked through the undercity of the Crystal Empire (thankfully, they had avoided notice), then being forced to abandon everything they'd built as once again, a scourge of bright destruction reduced the hive to a smoldering crater. Miles away from escape tunnels, the tattered remnants donned their false-skins and joined the throng of refugees, crawling back into Canterlot.

Fortunately for the hive, their Queen was three steps ahead.

"I want every last rosebush picked clean- by hoof!", Thorny Bloom informed the somewhat haggard earth pony. A carmine aura plucked an insect-speck from under a leaf, and crushed it. "Prince Blueblood must have only the most perfect and juicy petals for his salads, and that means NO bugs!". And with a snort, the unicorn in charge of the Prince's gardens moved on to the next pony in the crew to terrorize into ever-more frenzied efforts.

Chief Garden Assistant Helper (Fangs, could ponies NOT think up sillier names?) "Midnight Flower" Chrysalis felt oddly sympathetic as the pony walked away, nose in the air. The poor aphid was only trying to get a meal, and it wasn't like there wasn't plenty of bushes to go around. Gently bending a leaf up, she carefully scraped at the little white dots, thinking about how to get Thorny into a nice quiet closet where she could move up the ranks to the Prince...

Her hoof suddenly stung in half a dozen places, making the imitation pony wave her leg in a spastic semaphore that spelled out the very unponylike words she wanted to screech. A few black ants fell away from the welts they'd made on the tender spots, and others crawled up the stem to wave their antennae fiercely to scare away the interloper.

The bug, protecting the food it was farming.

Queen Chrysalis stared her tiny, distant cousins and every plan in her scheming head vanished, replaced with a single, shining path.

And so, she had carefully plotted her way to replacing the Prince, with an eye not towards devouring every scrap of love she could steal (From Bluebood? Thin pickings!), but farming ponies instead. Blueblood had estates far distant from Canterlot, or indeed much of anypony's demenses- in truth, the Princesses encouraged them and his diligent care of them whenever possible. The Prince had proven almost laughably easy to capture- she copied a maid, "accidentally" broke something, the Prince had sent everyone out to castigate her clumsy hooves. Minutes later, "he" was informing the staff that Duster had fled the manor in terrified shame, never to be seen again.

And she was in charge, just like that. Blueblood's usual rate of turnover in staff was kept up, with stranger ponies replacing them- again, not at all strange with Blueblood. The local help had already learned Blueblood's employment was a miserable row to hoe. The "Prince" toured far and wide, leaving the usual trail of fired help and the replacements as loyal hive-workers, who of course served most efficiently and obediently. They thrived and passed a steady trickle of love back to their Prince-Queen as she/he returned, and the pressure began to ease on the real ponies. Nobody noticed the "fired" staff was a changeling simply switching to a new skin, and even with a handful of feeding workers, it was still nicer for the real ponies working Blueblood's scattered homes. The mood lightened, a steady flow of friendship and even love between true-ponies sustaining the false-ponies doing their best to keep the goodwill coming.

The hive, protecting the food it was farming. They prospered. It could hardly not have happened, considering she'd replaced the most idiotic drone in pony history with a proper royal female. The only thing he'd done worthy of his rank was lord it over his superiors, letting her occasional rough spot as the "Prince" seem as Blueblood simply being Blueblood. The thoughts of using the Prince as a means to attempt to destroy the Princesses faded, replaced with the pleasant weeks of simply partaking of the bounty whilst her rivals turned their cake-stuffed rumps aside with relief at not dealing with their insolent prig of a nephew. Of course, she took advantage of her new form to poke them anyway. They all deserved it.

Then her entire horde came crawling and hungry to Canterlot, and with more mouths to feed, suddenly the false Prince needed some new bushes and a great deal more four-legged aphids. Stealing the crystal refugees once she was certain Cadence wouldn't find her way out of another pit, disposing of Blueblood so she could use a more familiar and flexible (and properly queenlike!) form, and making sure the pony-queens would have PLENTY to deal with whilst she spirited her herd of meals far and safely away, where they would be....lovingly cared for. Equestria would sting itself to death, she would have her lovely ponies to sup on, and the hive would finally, FINALLY thrive, revenge attained.

In the distance, the peaks of the Appaloosan Mountains began to form from the faraway edge of the sky, the halfway mark to the abandoned lands of the luvcats, whose bare homes and fields fairly begged for the hoof of a homeless, poor pony to easily set them right.

And a queen to rule her love-orchard there forever more. Let the Equestrians thrash and die in their own poisons whilst a few disposable squads of her loyal soldiers threw them into confusion. They would find no hive to burn, no queen to kill, only an adopted Empress who had every reason to keep her subjects away from the evil Equestrians who had slaughtered their families.

Why, it was worth singing about!

" This day is going to be perfect

The kind of day of which I've dreamed since I was small ..."

she chirped. Both races cheered their ruler, if for different reasons...

Chapter 16: The Darkness Drops Again

Wet sand and curses flew in random directions in the middle of a shallow bit of lake, the legacy of Six-Seventy-Five's burrowing hooves. Every now and again, he took out some of his frustrations by smacking the near-comatose changeling across it's exposed hindlegs.

Of course, he failed to mention not doing much himself other than letting every-ling else get beaten up or killed. Considering the occasional moan, so far the changeling with his head in the sand had outdone the rest, and curses or not, Six-Seventy-Five at least knew he had the best, last way of getting the dirty work done without having to get near those crazy horned maniacs. Once he dug him out, anyway. At least the cowering ponies weren't going anywhere-

The creak and clatter of Blueblood pushing out of the ruined cabin put that line of thought to an end. One inbred, prancing unicorn, standing on the deck waving something around he had no possible idea how to use. The one idiot that made the grub under his hooves look like a paragon of warriors.

A final shove with a spearshaft popped the sandy grub into the air, bumbling in a beeline for the Prince. Six-Seventy-Five followed, spear gritting between his teeth.

Offer the enemy a bait to lure him; feign disorder and strike him.

Blueblood capered a bit more, just to make sure the two changelings would commit. Mostly, he thought about tearing their wings off like flies and grinding them into green mush, but he knew, without knowing that a fierce show would only make the things too cautious to kill them both. He had no intention on letting either one escape to find reinforcements, and the one with the spear was clearly the leader. Given a chance, the drone would flee and bring back more.

The first changeling was, thankfully unarmed save for hoof and fang. A swift duck disguised as a cower let the beast drag it's hooves through the air inches above Blueblood's back on the first pass, while the flat of the axe encouraged it to come back for a second run with a clumsy-looking swat that said "Look at me, I can't even hit you with the sharp end of a weapon!".

A near-miss from a flying hoof on the second pass provoked a surprising reaction.

Blueblood's hide sparked as the bruising strike landed on one shoulder, an angry red that gouged a thin spread of sparkling crimson from the impact before fading into the air- but aside from a bit of dirt, the flesh underneath worked as well as before. Only a lingering feeling of lessened energy remained, but in exchange a strange feeling of pressure remained, one that only increased as he nicked the mockery of a tail on the changeling warrior with the axe.

It, too left a brief spray of color, green rather than red- and though the thing clearly felt the glancing blow, there was no sign of ichor leaking from what should have been a narrow cut across it's backside. The distraction proved doubly painful as a line of fire drew itself along Blueblood's side, the other changeling taking a pass with it's superior reach to hamstring the unicorn...

...and the point slid through Blueblood in an agonizing tear, like his leg was being torn in two...

...only to reform behind the slashing spearpoint as if nothing had happened in the first place. Something vital had drained away in the process of leaving him standing, but despite the increasing feeling of emptiness somewhere in the unicorn's spirit, the body remained- as if the bruises and stabs had only gnawed away at some inner reserve in him.

And the pressure built, like a full-body desire to find the nearest little pony's room and get rid of a gallon of champagne.

Feign weakness...

The axe wobbled and dipped back as if to fend off the already departed changeling, and the warrior changeling dove in with fangs bared to sink them into Blueblood's throat...

...and strike!

The axe fell neatly into his tail, and the feeling of pressure surged through the contact, into the weapon as he spun in place.

Two explosions of green marked the thrashing trail of the axe blade as it met the changeling's skull with a brutal one-two drubbing, and the thing tumbled full speed into it's foe- only to lose cohesion as black met white, crumbling into insubstantial motes that briefly coated the floor.

As the defeated monster vanished, Blueblood felt something pass from the dying thing. Something magical, that soaked into his spirit and as it did, an unknown limit within had been surpassed. The feeling of lost vitality vanished, renewed vigor and then surpassed as the energy seemed to rewrite parts of his own body- strength, vitality, and even the edges of his thoughts gained as if a whetstone had sharpened them.

Six-Seventy-Five screeched in abject terror as the unicorn had obliterated his warrior with a rusty axe. "What kind of freakish pony magic do you unicorns HAVE?", he howled as he turned to fly away. Far away. He'd get the main force of changelings with the hostages, bring them here, because NOTHING was getting him near that stallion. There wasn't a force in the universe that would convince him to get near something that could reduce a changeling to dust with a weapon like that. Nothing.

For his own part, Blueblood cursed as the feeling of power distracted him from a chance to kill both the lesser and the greater changeling- already, Six-Seventy-Five was turning and rising out of easy reach. A red rage gathered at the edges of his vision, scorn and mental venom that he cast at the cowardly retreating thing like a spear.

The resulting blast of sound and fury was utterly unexpected.

A blinding feeling of HATE tore into Six-Seventy-Five's mind, obliterating the desire for flight and replacing with an unreasoning need to put the spear in his hooves through Blueblood's heart. A small piece of the changeling realized that somehow, the unicorn had gifted him with a bit of his own bloodlust as he rocketed down at his foe, all thoughts lost but for the furthest he could put the point through his enemy's guts before the weapon broke in two, hopefully after it'd gone through the prancing horn-head and out the other side..

Axe swung. Spear stabbed. Neither managed to vent their wrath fully on the other, though both traded hits. Once. Twice. Thrice, as the strange pressure built in both, stoked with each blow that struck home and every sparking moment of pain as the two tore into each other in a bloodless yet brilliant show of light and fury.

Six-Seventy-Five looped around for a fourth pass and the pressure turned into a ghastly green nimbus of flame that enveloped him from spearpoint to broken-branch tail as he dove at Blueblood, the impact leaving the unicorn looking like a smouldering log crushed under an iron horseshoe. Bloody sparks fountained in every direction as the spear gouged through and left the changeling digging a smouldering line in the deck. An ordinary pony would have been gutted by the blow, and indeed, the impact had left Blueblood staggering...

...but not down. And as Six-Seventy-Five gathered himself to take to the air again, the raging axe of Blueblood came down in a double-crossing blow that whipped the drone into the deck. A horrid, drifting feeling replaced the pain of the blows, and the beast's body failed to respond to every panicked demand to move, to attack, to flee...anything. White light narrowed the monster's vision to a tunnel filled with Blueblood's eyes as the sound of hooves moved closer, closer...

"W....what...how...imp-p-possible!"

Six-Seventy-Five looked down to see his chitinous form shudder like a sand castle, conquered by the waves of the sea.

"Whaaaaaaat did you do to MEEEEEEEEEEE!"

And with a final jarring scream, he dissolved from the hooves up, a look of absolute terror frozen on his face as the last pieces of his form vanished into the air. Again, Blueblood felt something pass from the broken changeling, but whatever it was, the second time it was not enough- and he could feel his grip on the world was loose and threadbare, as if another blow would spread him across the deck to mix with the dust of his departed enemies. The changeling's final charge had very nearly ended him...but there were no black-shelled fiends left. Victory by the skin of his horn, but victory none the less.

Slowly, with the feeling of his half-torn spirit a ghostly puppeteer to every step, the winner of the battle returned to his wife and guard.

Author's Note

And so, Blueblood became the first pony in history to experience leveling up!

Chapter 17: Interlude- Twenty Centuries of Stony Sleep

Author's Note

A brief diversion from the main storyline. Feel free to skip to the next chapter, but chronologically this happens right about "now".

Chapter 17: Interlude- Twenty Centuries of Stony Sleep

Twilight Sparkle would recover from her near-lethal brush with omnipotence without further harm (a fate sadly unshared with all of those who pulled her back from divine immolation), but with a few interesting side effects.

As Sombra might put it, side effects relating to cryyyystals.

Cloister of Winds, The Gryphon Empire

For a dweeby, nerdy little fledge of a glorified housekeeper, they sure get mad when you use their stupid rock for a nap.

"unacceptable!" barely managed to carry it's way up the dull, blackened rock that Gilda had decided was ideal for being left alone. NOBODY came up here. All there was in this big dumb cave was a rock with some dull stories about being the "egg from which the First Flight sprang", but really. All it was good for was the little flat space on top that nobody noticed. Most of the time. Except the one gryphon that by some dust-covered, utterly-forgotten lame tradition was supposed to take care of...the rock.

And the drab runt of a gryphon that kept the place clean (and supposedly prayed there, but seriously. Praying to a rock.) wasn't even flying up to tell her off. And if she couldn't say it to Gilda's face, then she wasn't worth listening to. Or loud enough to really annoy, even. Fluffing up a bit, she buried her beak between her forepaws and let the feathers muffle the already-inaudible cries from below. Besides, this was her spot. She just hadn't needed it for a while when her parents ended up assigned to the Cloudsdale embassy, but now that she was back home? Her roost. Because living with Mom and Dad was a chore and a free bird's gotta have her own space, y'know? Someplace where Dad biting her tail about "tradition" and "sacred guardians of the wing and claw" and spear practice and UGH just didn't happen.

Mmm. And it was nice and warm, too. There'd been a perfect little rounding in the stone that begged to be all nested up in when she'd claimed her spot, and it fit her perfectly once she'd grown up.

An annoying greenish light worked it's way into Gilda's eyes. Was that overblown janitor using a mirror or something to get her annoyed? She was gonna go down there after her nap and whomp that-

The hurricane of jade that suddenly sprang forth from her perch replaced that with pure, instinctual droppings of terror. And other droppings, but those ended up reduced to infinitesimal particles by the aerial blender the gryphon found her self suspended in, a tumbling pebble at the heart of a river of air.

That rapidly took form, even if it felt more like a really firm cloud. Gryphon form, with her old perch suspended inside, gone from a grey lump to a floating prism of glittering light and warm breezes that left no shadow unbanished and no nook with so much as a speck of dust. Other than the kowtowing young cleaning-gryphon plastered with her beak to the floor, every bit of (to her credit, they were few) debris had been ceremoniously swept out the exit and was busy finding it's way down to the valley floor far, far below.

"Mother is home, my little zephyrs. Have you been good and kept the pegasi away while I slept?", uttered the behemoth gryphon. Two boulder-sized orbs of carnelian focused on the shivering mound of feathers. "I could hear you, all this time in the Heart. Your prayers for others, your wishes for fair winds and safety from storms. You, my vestal and your ancestors before you. Two thousand years and more the People have kept their word and their honor, and my blessings upon you."

The weather patterns above the Empire shifted and smoothed to a gentle climate that would make a weather pony weep tears of joyous perfection. Or get in a double nap, depending on the pony.

"Rise, vestal of the Crystal of Wind, prayer-bearer of the Cloister...what is your name?"

"a--agnes aerie"

"What?", as the winds shifted from "gentle scouring" to "tickle a feather".

"Agnes Aerie, m-Mother Garuda. Vestaling Agnes Aerie."

"...and you have cared for my home for..."

"Ten years, since I was nine. The Mother Vestal said...I was too meek to do anything but clean and pray."

"For ten years. Loyally. Without complaint. As vestaling. ALONE. Since you were barely older than a hatchling."

Dozens of miles away, a grey-feathered gryphonnette found her wings suddenly no longer provided lift on her morning glides above the Imperial Castle. A minute later, she also found the castle battlements at terminal velocity.

"The highest has fallen from her perch, and you shall take her place. Rise to the sky, O Vestal of Wind, for you have kept my house when all others have forgotten. But for one other. Your Keeper, she is...is..."

The cloudy avatar of the winds looked puzzled as her head tracked back and forth across the chamber.

"How is it I cannot find her? She is here, as if right between my eyes."

Gilda, being tumbled helplessly in the avatar's "head" only managed to gargle something incoherently while spinning at vomit inducing speeds. That is, if she hadn't already emptied her crop earlier.

Agnes pointed a single claw.

"She...um....sort of is between your eyes, Mother."

For the record, a being made completely of clouds is quite capable of looking embarrassed.

"Oh. Pinfeathers. I'd forgotten they like to perch up there on the crystal."

A ball of feathers found itself (gently) ejected from the whirling chaos to roll out into a floppy, giddy Gilda.

"I apologize, Keeper. It's been thousands of years since I manifested and..."

"Gilda. *hurk* And I am SO not a keeper. Daddy's a keeper, Mom always said. Har, har, harrrukph."

"A vestaling in charge of the shrine, and no Keeper to protect her. Yet..you, Gilda. You..."

"Dad's a guard. For the diplomats."

"They...um...used to be the Vestal Guard. The Emperor decided we didn't need them anymore. Or the shrines."

The winds, for a single horrible moment grew utterly still.

The Emperor's palace suffered another tragic bout of luck as a freak gust of wind proceeded to topple His Majesty's Perch, raining broken stones across the courtyard below. The only casualty was the previous Mother Vestal's body as it was being carried ceremoniously through the castle, which was squashed by a multi-ton chunk and obliterated.

"You are of the proper bloodline, at the right time, and my Vestal will not go without protection. War will come. My shrines will need wings to lift and claws to protect. You will be my claws, as Agnes is my wings. She is meek and devout, you will be brave and brash. You will do this."

The tone reminded Gilda that it was a very long way to the bottom of the mountain.

"Yeah. Brash. Agnes isn't real good for brash. I'm gonna be brashy for her. Good idea."

"It was not an idea. It is the way things will be. Breathe me, into you."

"Wait, what? Breath whagheeeEEE!"

Cloud-flecked light streamed from one misty clawtip into two mortal beaks.

A sound akin to a deflating balloon squeaked from Gilda as Garuda's paw infused her with power. Exactly what caused the squeak, the author refuses to discuss (but all that wind had to go somewhere). Agnes received her blessings with a dignity most modern gryphons only associate with executions. And much less squeaking.

The flow slackened and ceased.

"My Vestal, sky-kept, wind-blesser. Protect my flock, and call my storms to smite those who would despoil them."

The mousy-brown feathers of Agnes had been tipped in curls of white and green, and she radiated...dignity. Sanctity. And a bit of fluttery, since the tips never seemed to stop moving.

"My Keeper, Val-kyree" -

And the joyous screech of a diving bird of prey was the end of the name, no mere word. Gilda's ears heard prey to Agnes' pray.

"Prey-chooser, talon that takes and claims the worthy. Death you will bring to those who would threaten my people, and to Death you will bring the chosen. My Vestal is the soul of gryphons, and My Keeper is their fierce heart."

White wrapped itself from head to tailfeather with the kiss of a springtime gust- a winged helm, barding that trailed spearpoint spikes, bristling like a skirt across Gilda's hindquarters. An alabaster spear-shaft spiraled into being between her forepaws, golden wings spread to guard a foot behind the clawpoint head.

A sudden need to dive, spearhead dipping as she formed a wedge of air that blistered it's way to the ground like a pale bolt of thunder. The innocent boulder beneath was impaled on a line of gold, crushed beneath leonine paws that kicked the crumbling stone into the wall as the impact became a reversed-pounce that brought Gilda skidding to a stop at Garuda's feet.

The roaring rebirth of the Gryphon Empire poured from Gilda's throat, a challenge-cry that echoed from beak to beak as it rolled down the valley, across the mountains of Gryphonstan, and into history.

Or so the histories would tell on that last line.

"MOTHERPLUCKER, I totally RUBBLED that rock. So what does that make me, Gilda The Great or something?"

*WHANG* went the gently correcting staff of the Vestal. Er, broomstick.

"Our Mother is right there, you dimwitted mangefeather!"

"OW! You scuffed my armor, you little chickenwing!"

"Impious pigeon-hearted chicken!"

"I already called YOU a chicken!"

"Um....you're a chicken-hearted pigeon!"

"Nice comeback, nun-derhead."

"Mangy.....pigeon!"

"One more like that, and you get talon noogies."

"You regurgitated in our Creator."

"That's it!"

The heart and soul of the Gryphons proceeded to scuffle briefly, followed by the heart holding the soul down and rubbing the soul's head hard enough to send feathers flying.

"AHEM."

Gilda stopped in mid-noogie and had the grace to look slightly ashamed.

"What? She called me a chickenpigeon!"

"We do not give Vestal "noogies". In fact, consider that a divine commandment. Nor do we chastise the Keeper with articles of sanitation. Commandment number two."

"I should smite her. A little. Righteously. Are Vestal noogies a mortal or venial sin?"

"No smiting. Save that for the infidels."

Even for an immortal elemental spirit, it was going to be a long day.

Chapter 18: Rocking the Cradle

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