An Alicorn's Purpose

“We’ll be fine.” Celestia says to the two guards before her throne. “Just make sure you keep everypony out of the room.”

“Yes, Your Highness!” The guards say at once, bowing down before quickly galloping out of the room. Now Celestia was alone in the throne room with Twilight, waiting for Gespenst to arrive.

“Shouldn’t Princess Luna be here as well?” Twilight asks, looking up at her mentor.

“Gespenst took Luna’s rejection rather…poorly.” Celestia says with a hint of disdain. “He all but threatened to send her back to the moon, forever, should he ever see her again.”

“O-Oh…” Twilight turns her head to the long stretch of floor before her, trying not to think about what might happen.

“Don’t worry, Twilight.” Celestia says, as if she read her thoughts. “He isn’t one to lash out at others. He’ll only be angry at me.”

“That’s what I’m worried about!” Twilight looks Celestia right in the eye. “I don’t want anything to happen to you because of me!”

Celestia leans down to nuzzle Twilight. “You haven’t done anything to warrant any anger from Gespenst; only I have. If given the chance, I may have done things differently, but I would still have you be an alicorn. Even if he’s angry for a while, Gespenst will see this was the right thing to do.” Celestia looks over at the windows, seeing the light shining in. “We should close the curtains. Some of the company Gespenst keeps prefers the dark.”

Both alicorns start weaving their magic around the room, pulling tassels and letting the drapes fall over the stained glass windows. Once their half of the throne room was darkened, a shadow crept out from under the throne and spun on the ground in front of them. Twilight took a step back but Celestia stood firm, eyeing the shadowy vortex. A form slowly rose out of the vortex, stretching its shadow-like claws out and onto the floor in front of it. The swirling beneath it stopped as it looked up at the pair with its eyeless face.

“You…” Twilight lets out in a whisper.

The creature bows before them, lowering its head to the ground.

“Your Majesty.” It says in a lighter voice than last night, looking up from its position on the floor. “I apologize for the abrupt appearance.”

“Shade Strider.” Celestia says, looking down at the creature. “I thought it might have been you Twilight saw last night.”

“Heh, guilty.” He says, relaxing a bit as he raises himself up. “Look, we don’t have much time here. I was sent ahead to…alleviate some problems.”

“What do you mean by that?” Celestia asks.

“Well, long story short, I just got back to our place before sunrise. I told one of my bosses what happened and he thought it would be a better idea to not tell Gespenst about there being another alicorn around. You know, considering what day it is today?” He receives a nod from Celestia and a cocked head from Twilight before continuing. “Right, so, his plan was we say it was some unicorn that wasn’t registered as one who could see spirits. You know: lots of ponies in Equestria, easy to miss one or two. It happens.” He gives a shrug and carries on. “So, you’ve already talked with the pony, so that’s said and done. Gespenst comes in, chews you out for slacking off or something, and leaves. Everypony gets to keep their internal organs…internal, and we leave this problem for another day.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Twilight steps closer to the shadow. “Wouldn’t lying to this stallion be worse in the long run?”

“For you or Celestia? Not a chance. For my boss? Most definitely. Besides,” He looks up at Celestia before speaking, “He’s got that scary-happy thing going on. You know the one.”

Celestia gives a small shiver at the thought. “It’s not a perfect plan, but it’s better than the alternative, I suppose.”

“Perfect.” He says. “Now, Princess Twilight, you need to—”

A loud whooshing noise cuts him off. Behind him, another shadowy spiral spins on the ground.

“Ah crap!” He yells. “Quick, teleport!”

“This room is protected against teleportation of anything larger than a letter!” Celestia says quickly.

“Well…think of something!” He yells again, melting into the floor and zipping to a corner of the room. “And remember: I was never here!”

Celestia quickly looks around the room before looking at her throne itself. She wraps Twilight in a magic aura and pulls her behind the throne. She then casts a spell over Twilight, making her invisible.

“Stay here until this is over.” Celestia whispers to her. Twilight nods as Celestia returns to the front of her throne. Twilight peeks her head around the throne to see what was coming.

As the whooshing quiets down, six figures began emerging from the shadow. Off to the far right comes a unicorn with albino fur and violet eyes. She has a curly, flowing yellow mane and a bright smile on her face. On her flank is the skull of a pony with a pair of bones crossing each other underneath it. She looks around the room in awe before settling on Celestia.

“Oh, boy!” She says, her voice dripping with excitement. “I’ve never met a princess before, heh!”

Off to the left comes a pony with a grey cloak and solid white mask depicting the skull of a lion. A hole near the top of the mask leaves room for a white horn to protrude through, as well as two eye holes for the pony’s glowing red eyes to pierce through.

“Calm down, Repose.” The second unicorn says in a neutral tone. “We’re here on business.”

Behind Repose comes a griffon. His feathers are white and his fur a dark grey. Even his talons match the group’s so far pale coloring with they’re black hue. His dark brown eyes casually look around the room, half lidded, as he yawns and stretches his black wings.

“Had I known you’d be so noisy, I’d have stayed back and slept.” He says, drowsily.

Barely behind the griffon comes Shade Strider’s form. The shadow that hid itself in the corner quickly zooms up and merges with him without notice from the emerging group.

“All you ever do is sleep, Garret.” Shade states matter-of-factly, trying to blend into the conversation.

Left of the griffon comes a diamond dog standing on his hind legs. He has a dark red cloak over his black vest and light brown fur. He stands barely taller than Celestia and has his arms crossed, though he doesn’t say anything.

In the center of the group comes a stallion with fur as black as night and a pair of wings to match. His horn is a bright golden hue and his mane and tail are like red-orange fires whipping in an invisible wind. He stands only a few inches taller than the diamond dog and stares at Celestia with his burning red eyes.

Twilight can see his cutie mark, or rather…

‘Three?!’ She stares at the marks on his flanks with bewilderment. ‘How can he have three?’

His marks are in a triangular position to each other. At the top appears to be a golden cross with rays of light spreading out from it.

‘No, not a cross.’ Twilight looks over the first mark again. ‘That’s an ankh. That’s an old hieroglyph for life.’

The second mark she notices is the lower-left one.

‘It looks like a piece of rock, perhaps a meteorite, wreathed in flames. But there’s green and blue mixed in with the brown. A planet?’

The last mark she notices is the bottom right one. However, this mark…

‘It can’t be.’ Twilight looks carefully at the red star on the stallion’s flank. It’s surrounded by smaller yellow stars of similar shape. ‘That’s…my cutie mark!’

“Well, Celestia.” The alicorn says with a dark expression on his face, not alleviated in the slightest from the small grin escaping his mouth. “It seems we have a problem.”

END CHAPTER