Legion of Secrets

by Polaris501

Rating: teen
Tags: Adventure, Alternate Universe, Dark
Length: 42328

The legions march once more. Twilight struggles under the burden of her crown as an ancient hatred comes back to plague Equestria. If Twilight doesn’t uncover the secrets kept from her and uncover a dark conspriacy, war is inevitable.

Harmony is dead and the Emperor has returned. Princesses Celestia, Luna, and Twilight struggle against a dark conspiracy that threatens the peace of Equestria. Old enemies renew a bitter hatred between the Crystal Empire and the Celestial Territories that threatens to renew an ancient war of annihilation. With long buried secrets and a dark history entombed under a shade of ignorance, Twilight searches for the answers that plagues Equestria. For if she doesn’t uncover the secrets of the past, she will be doomed to repeat it.

(I do not own any of the MLP:FiM characters, places, events, and etc. outlined in this fanfiction, Hasbro does, give them the credit.)

Published 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
Last updated 2014-02-27 19:32:18 UTC

Prologue: The Celestial Territories

Prologue: The Celestial Territories

(Disclaimer:  I do not own any of the characters, settings, or unoriginal events outlined in this fanfiction.  Most characters are owned by Hasbro’s My Little Pony.  Give them the credit.  I just added a couple things)

Lunuary 15, 1504 A.D. (After Discord)

Undisclosed Location Northwest in the Unicorn Mountains

‘7,501 years is a long time to live’, the emperor thought.  ‘Long enough to have seen the rise and fall of civilizations, leaders, and societies.  Long enough to have experienced great happiness and crushing sadness.  Long enough to have done great deeds and commit terrible sins.’

The black alicorn, dressed in trousers, a vest with a gold pocket watch, an old worn out soldiers cap tucked behind his obsidian horn on top of his grey mane and a black overcoat that covered his wings and soul mark, walked with a slight limp in his gait back to the forefront of his old fortress when he spoke aloud

“Why am I here?  To dwell upon ghosts long past or to run a simple errand?” he chuckled to himself in his raspy voice.  “Of course the décor hasn’t changed much over the years.”

Emperor Starfire stopped in his tracks and cast his eyes around and took in the sight of the worn yet well preserved masonry.  He was in a long hall etched in black stone that met in a tall arch above him some 145 hooves high, on both sides of the walls stood tall columns that twinkled like starlight, in front of him moonlight pooled into the recesses of the stone from the large opening flanked by thick iron doors to the outside, and behind him was empty darkness untouched by light that use to come from the burned-out lanterns.

“Still as silent and empty as the night I left aren’t you?” Starfire whined at the unresponsive fortress.

“If I had my way, you would be brimming with armored ponies filled with strong resolve and unconquerable determination.  The most brilliant minds would flock to your shelves and your knowledge would be put to good use once again.  Scientists of all kinds would gather to stargaze, experiment, and debate once more, and foals would run down your forgotten hallways and laugh again.”

The old alicorn cast a sad gaze full of memories as he mumbled.  “But alas, those days are past, and somewhat for the better I imagine.  For your primary purpose was war was it not?  With your thick walls, tall towers, and furnaces overflowing with fire to forge weapons of war to help bring destruction upon our old foes.” Starfire recalled many such uses and more for his old mountain fortress as he renewed his trek to the outside.

The average-sized pony looked inside his burlap sack again to make sure the items were still there, and after doing so pulled out his pocket watch with his magic to glimpse the time.

“I would think someponies would be very disturbed if they knew I had visited you once more.”  He told the empty castle, “But I think it would be worth it to see their faces if they found out.”  Starfire’s eyes twinkled mischievously like a prankster as he imagined the scenario.

His hooves clopped slowly as he finally exited his old haunt and turning around reached out with his magic to the doors.

“Perhaps I shall see you again soon my old friend, times have changed and perhaps you will be of use again.”

Starfire shut the iron doors and they closed with a loud clunk and a latch could be heard grinding into place.  He pulled out a small key that appeared as if from the air and inserted it, not into either door, but into a crack on one of the surrounding rocks that littered the mountain side.  With a wave of his horn, Starfire turned the obsidian key until he heard a satisfying clunk as the doors were locked and he then willed the key away.

“Until next time then, I need to return to Eclipse City to make preparations for my trip to Equestria” the old stallion said wispily to the mountain.

“It’s high time I met Celestia’s pupil and made a proper introduction of myself, I have avoided it for far too long.”

Starfire looked inside his sack once more, and after sorting through the books and rolled up parchments, pulled out the letter he had received some weeks prior. It had been sent to him from the Celestial Territories Head of Intelligence, Inquisitor Long Fang, a male thestral, (a bat-pony) that had been aiding him for some time.

Sir,

In the coming month, Princess Twlight Sparkle will attending the Equestrian Parliament with Celestia and Luna for the first time followed by a short reception to commemorate the event.  It is of my opinion and that of the military council that the reception would be a good opportunity for us to observe the newest princess and the Crystal Empire delegation.  Also, the possible target you have labeled as, “potentially dangerous” at our last meeting might be there.  In additon we have received word of a possible movement by the Crystal Empire towards Equestria that will be addressed during the next session of Parliament.  The details are enclosed in the package I sent you.  Senator Tejas would like your input for possible action he should take if this happens.

Awaiting your reply,

Inquisitor Long Fang

C.T.I.

As the old stallion read it again his thoughts trailed off and his eyes that shone like a solar eclipse drifted away from the mountain as his memories took a darker turn and dredged up old nightmares.  His slight smirk turned into a frown and he decided to end his thoughtless rambling as he slowly cantered down the mountainside.

He found the half-buried railroad line that led to a tunnel into the mountain.  The tunnel had been shut with thick stone bricks but the tracks still let out back south towards the old lands he once ruled.  Eyeing the rusted iron, he snorted at the disrepair and flicked his long iron grey tail as he cast his somber gaze to the stars.  He eyed the bright star Polaris to the north before he gathered his bearings and continued on his way.

Starfire began to recall what he had been told of Equestria’s newest princess.  He remembered bits and pieces that his “informants” had told him when he had last visited Canterlot.

Twilight Sparkle was a very studious mare, powerful with her talent of magic, a bookworm, and a staunch supporter of her friends and family.  He had also been told that she was a natural leader and an obsessive organizer.  His face broke out into a wide smile at that last thought, for he remembered others that shared the same trait when they were younger.  His white teeth reflected the moonlight as the cold wind kissed his long grey beard.

He then remembered a sobering thought that wiped the smile off his face.  Twilight had been the most recent bearer of the element of magic.  When the sun and moon had remained in the sky simultaneously , Starfire had demanded answers from the military council and the Intelligence network.  Inquisitor Long Fang, aided by Senator Tejas, had sent him a report after the Everfree Forest Incident had concluded.  The report had included the astonishing fact that not only had both Princess Celestia and Princess Luna been temporarily incapacitated by chaotic plants, but also that Twilight and her friends had returned the elements to the Tree of Harmony.

His face turned into one of extreme sadness as he remembered the original bearer of magic, and the events that had taken place that had caused the Tree’s appearance.  His last thought before he left the silent mountains behind him was, ‘Oh, if only you could see them now.  You would be so proud.’

Starfire followed the tracks for several miles until he spotted the glowing embers of Eclipse City twinkling in the distance.  The city sat on a wide plain that gathered at the foot of the mountain range.

It was very large for a city this far north, it could be said to be slightly smaller than Canterlot.  Long tall walls surrounded it with turrets showing up here and there.  There was a rail line that went south towards Stalliongrad to the distant south.  Another, older railroad could be seen extending back into the mountains, where Starfire stood.

The city was a patchwork of many different architectures, a reflection of the diversity of the residents of the city.  There were dragons, short ones (by dragon standards) that played nice with others, they were remnants from when dragons actually formed their own civilization.  Their cousins were large because they were descendants of greed-growth dragons.  Starfire looked into the city and could see a few griffons flying in the moonlight.  All three kinds of ponies were walking in the streets, going on their nightly errands under the newer electrical lamps.  Dominating the city skyline were five distinct shapes that Starfire could make out under the full moon.

One was the library, a very old one that contained knowledge from even before Discord.  It was carved out of white marble and columns and statues could be seen etched into the sides.

Another was the Senate building, it had a black dome above an obsidian colored building.  The newer wings that flanked it were shorter than the original and differed greatly in color.  The right wing has a subtle blue with black columns while the left wing had white marble for walls with gold-plated columns.

The Imperial Academy was next to be seen by Starfire.  It was home to the most talented minds in the surrounding countryside, sporting areas of expertise ranging from government, science, magic, strategy, farming, business, and even industry.  It was actually a series of buildings but they took the shape of a large mass clumped together.

The next landmark that rose above the city was at the very edge and a part of the walls.  This was the Imperial Military Complex, home of the garrison for the city and also the docks for the Imperial Fleet.

The garrison for Eclipse City was the legion named for it.  The Eclipse Legion was under the command of the General of the Imperial Army. A male earth pony named General Stonewall, who also served as their Centurion.

All the legions except one was a mixture of ponies, griffons, and dragons.  Each Legion had a total number of around 5,000 beings.

The Imperial Fleet, which was compromised of different class airships, was under the command of Grand Admiral Orion, a male pegasus who also served as the Centurion of the Eagle Legion.  The Eagle Legion was entirely devised of flight capable beings,

griffons, pegasi, and thestrals  (Dragons usually put too much weight on the airships and were not very agile flyers).

The other three legions, Iron, Solar, and Lunar were dispersed among other towns and forts in the region.

The last building that was older than all the rest put together was the castle that predated the city: Castle Nova. Unlike the other buildings however, the castle was dark and empty, as it had been officially unoccupied for 1006 years.

All this Starfire took in and more as he finally trotted up to the western gate of the city.  There were two guards outside the gates, a male griffon and a female unicorn.  They were uniformed in the standard dress of a Celestial Legionnaire.  Black armor forged in iron covered them from head to hoof, or talons in the case of the griffon.  They both had long, thick, rectangular shields that sported an eclipse in the center.  They were armed with spears and a short sword strapped to their sides.   Only officers and knights carried longer swords.

Starfire checked to make sure his cloak disguised his wings and added a concealing enchantment just in case before he limped up to the unicorn.

“Do you have an identification with you old timer?” she asked.

“Yes I do, just hold on a moment please.”

Starfire rummaged through his bag again and pulled out a small folded parchment.  Holding it aloft in his magic he unfurled it and showed it to the mare.

“Professor Papyrus Scrolls is it?”

“Yes that’s me.  I work at the academy here.”  Starfire replied automatically.

The mare nodded in acknowledgment and motioned to her compatriot.  “Everything’s in order so go on ahead inside.”  While she spoke the griffon opened the gates.

“Thank you, you both have a good night.” spoke Starfire as he cantered into the city, his hooves clopping loudly off the stone street.

After he got inside, the guards shut the gate and “Professor Papyrus Scrolls” proceeded down the main street past the market place to the forum in front of the Senate building.

He nodded to the senate guards and proceeded inside the main building.  The Senate Atrium was a gilded piece of art, Starfire noticed as always.  The first few floors had columns interspaced evenly in a wide circle that narrowed at the top.  In the center of the mural lining the dome was a gold and obsidian effigy of an eclipse.  Starfire both shuddered and smiled at it, remembering both traumatizing memories and recalling more positive recollections.  It wasn’t the atrium he had come to see though.

Starfire made his way to the senate offices until he stopped at a door with the name “Senator Tejas” on the front.

He politely knocked and waited for the expected “Enter” that was Tejas’s young and educated voice.

Starfire opened the door, and Tejas, upon seeing who it was scrambled to his hooves and began to say,

“Sir!  Your highness!  I didn’t…..”  He stopped speaking as he found a hoof in his mouth.

“Just Scrolls, or Professor if you must.” Rasped Starfire to the wide-eyed stallion.  “I’m incognito remember.”

“Oh yes,” Tejas apologized after the hoof was removed, “It’s just that…you’re…”

“A Professor of History and Archaeology at the Imperial Academy.  I came to discuss your next visit to Canterlot with you remember?  Long Fang sent me a letter saying you wanted my input.”  Starfire interrupted.

“Yes, of course.  I’ll get right on that then.” the brown earth pony said as they sat at opposite sides of the senator’s desk.

“As you know, Twilight Sparkle, Celestia’s protégé, recently ascended to being an alicorn and was granted a position as a reigning triarch of Equestria alongside Celestia and Luna.” Tejas waited for the disguised alicorn’s nod of acknowledgement before continuing.

“However, although she has been coronated, she still hasn’t gone before the Equestrian Parliament for a formal declaration of her status.  My trip to Canterlot, as the Celestial Territories representative in Parliament, is to be there for when she addresses Parliament for the first time.  My allies in Parliament have also informed me that Princess Cadence is also going to make an announcement on behalf of the Crystal Empire, which you know about of course.”

Starfire grunted in assent before he interjected and said, “I do not want she has planned to happen, the Crystal Empire and Princess Cadence are a nuisance that I would not want to deal with as another reigning princess of Equestria.  We must move quickly if we are to prevent the fruition of her proposal.  Here is my input you wanted.  I want you to affirm Twilight’s ascension, but reject anything Cadence proposes.  Pull out our wild card if you must, but I will not accept Cadence and her empire.”

Tejas’s eyes grew wide as he said, “**Truly** sir?  You know what the Celestial Senate here might do if I was counter her proposal with our "wild card" plan.”

“I do mean that, but you must only be serious if the Crystal Princess’s plans come to fruition.   I know the consequences, but that is something that I will deal with.  The Senate will undoubtedly jump at the chance if I grant my approval for this plan, they’ve been itching for the past century or two for almost any excuse to take that action” The emperor told the senator before continuing

“I will join you for this venture, I wish to meet Twilight and observe Parliament’s proceedings as well as an…. old friend of mine who recently was “reformed” if I recall Long Fang’s report on him.”

Tejas had paled and whispered, “Canterlot! With me!  Do you know what might happen if you are exposed to Twilight, Cadence, or the rest of Equestria!  They would panic and point hooves!  No doubt the nobility there would try to pull something!  And on top of that you might be put in jeopardy!  We can’t assign guards to a history professor without attracting attention!”

Starfire stared down Tejas until the latter relented and said, “Of course, you’re not powerless is what I mean, but the rest of us do have concerns for your safety should you be revealed in a foreign territory.”

Starfire kept his firm gaze before replying.  “I will not be dissuaded from this trip.  Am I clear Senator?”

“Yes sir, I will make the arrangements and sign you on as an aide of some sort.  I suppose you want tickets to the reception as well?” Tejas asked.  Starfire nodded in affirmation and then got up to leave.

“I will see you soon Senator, good-night.”

“Good-night professor.” Tejas replied as he closed the door behind the alicorn.

Starfire trotted down the hallway and exited the senate building.  He was turning down a dark street towards his residence when he said to himself,

“Equestria would indeed panic if I was discovered.”

Chapter 1: A Party of Parliament

Chapter 1: A Party of Parliament

Hayuary 11, 1504 A.D.

Books and Branches Library: Ponyville, Everfree Fief

Twilight just knew that today wasn’t her day.

“Twilight? Talk to me please.”

The lavender alicorn was trying to decide that if she ran now how far she could get.

“Twilight, don’t think that running away is going to solve this.”

Darn it.  She just couldn’t fool the little brother she hatched from an egg.  ‘Wait! I don’t have to run!  I can fly now!’ she thought.

“And Rainbow Dash would love to chase you down.”

Twilight was going to reap her vengeance when she experimented to see if baby dragons could read minds.

She looked down at her number one assistant and gave a weak smile.

“Sorry Spike, I’m just really nervous about all this.  I mean, what if I do something wrong in front of Parliament and embarrass the Princesses?  I’m just not sure if I’m ready for all this.”

Spike looked back up at Twilight, rolled his eyes and waved a claw in dismissal.

“You’re going to do fine.  You practically speak public addresses!  Just imagine that all the representatives have overdue books.  Lecture them.  It’ll be easy as pie!  You’ll see.”

Twilight stopped her thoughts in her tracks and did the calming exercise Cadence had taught her.  She folded her wings as her body and mind calmed down to a more manageable level.

“You’re right Spike.  I just want to make a good impression.  I won’t let Celestia and Luna down!  I can do this.”

Spike nodded in relief.  Whenever she started to panic, he mentally checked down armageddon.  He needed to send Cadence a gift, that calming technique was like a life saver.  He looked down at his feet, or rather where his feet should have been instead of books, and said,

“Now can we finish packing?  A storm is scheduled for today and your guard captain is sending for a royal chariot to pick us up to take us to Canterlot.”

Twilight nodded in affirmation and began levitating more books, quills, and parchment over to the pile before saying,

“You pack your things, I want to try out a new spell I learned.  It’s called a Dimensional Pocket spell, it allows me store anything in my own little pocket.”

Spike straightened in sudden dread and had the sudden urge to pray.

“Please! Please tell me that you will go experiment outside with your spell.  Preferably away from any dragon limbs.”

Twilight thought it over and decided he had a point.  New spells did seem to cause him some kind of pain whenever she tried them out.  She began to walk out her front door before calling back saying,

“Very well, it won’t take but a minute.”

As Twilight shut the door behind her, she took note of Ponyville.  The town looked like its cheerful self except that most ponies had went inside due to the weather and the sky was a patchwork of clouds as the pegasi put them in place for this afternoon’s storm.

Twilight found a rock to try her Dimensional Pocket Spell on and began to concentrate.

‘

Now’ she thought to herself, ‘the energy for this should be very small but the small rip in space will require exponential concentration as to make it big enough to hold this rock without unstabilizing both my magic and the dimensional pocket.’

The alicorn scrunched up her eyes and her horn glowed as she began her spell.

With a loud ‘Pop’ the rock vanished.

‘Good!  Now all I need to do is bring it back out of the pocket and here in front of me.’

Twilight concentrated again and released her magic, expecting to find the rock there in front of her.  But the area was stubbornly rock free.

‘Hmmm.  That’s not right.  I’m sure I brought it back.  Where could it be?’

Before she could pinpoint her error, the front door to the library opened and closed.  She turned around to see what Spike wanted but stopped when she saw him.

The baby dragon was holding an icepack to his head and his other claw had a slightly smoking rock.

Spike looked up at Twilight and said in an bitter voice,

“Even when I’m not there your spells backfire on me.  Not backfire on you.  ME”

Before Twilight could interrupt he continued.

“STOP.  Just stop.  Go inside and pack your things in a bag like a normal pony.  Captain Flash Sentry’s letter said that our chariot would arrive at precisely 1:00.  And everypony knows how precise you like to be.  You would sooner declare war on asparagus than be late.”

One of the reigning princesses of the nation of Equestria surrendered to the dragon’s demands.

“Alright Spike.  You win.”

Twilight teleported up to her bedroom and pulled out her Celestia-sized bags and began filling them with her things.

The girls arrived at the library a few minutes before 1:00 and began their usual chit-chat as they waited outside for the purple princess.

The cyan Pegasus was grumbling about how she had to ride in the chariot instead of fly herself.

“I mean, I know it’s for our benefit.  But I still don’t have to like it.  Twilight can fly so there shouldn’t even be a need for a chariot.”

The white unicorn hummphed at Rainbow Dash as she turned her eyes up to the complaining mare.

“Darling, not all of us can fly you know.  The idea is for us all to go together.  Besides!  We won’t have to carry our own luggage!  I’m sure Twilight’s Arcane Guards would just love to do it for us!”

The apple farmer sidled up to the prissy pony and tipped her Stetson hat before interrupting.

“Now ah know that ya’ll ain’t having this discussion again.   We went over this already Dash.  We’ll all ride t’gether.  And Rarity!  Twilight’s guards aren’t there for ya to dump that wagonload ya call luggage.  Why I bet even Big Mac’ would have trouble carry’n all that!”

“Oh lets please not fight.  Especially in front of the guards.  I can see them coming out of the clouds now.”

The timid yellow mare pointed with a hoof as she hovered above the ground at the sky and continued.

“It’s just a short ride anyway.  You wouldn’t even break a sweat Dash.  Right Angel Bunny?”

A small furry demon popped out of her pink mane and nodded vigorously.  His ears slapping his face as he did so.

Just as the devil in white stopped nodding, there was an explosion of pink and confetti as a pudgy pink mare appeared.

“All I know is that Twilight is getting a PARTY!  She told me that they were throwing one for her after her big speech!  I’m going to redecorate it and hang this banner that says, ‘TWILIGHT LECTURES PARLIAMENT PARTY’ in big purple letters!  I’m going to make punch and cookies and cake and……”

The others tuned Pinkie Pie out as she began to ramble.  They could make out the details of the chariot that was closing in on their position.  It was similar to the one that Twilight had used at her coronation.  It was bigger though so that it could fit everyone and had a luggage bin for their things.  Four white pegasi stallions pulled the carriage while two more pegasi flanked it.  One was the standard white while the other had a golden coat.  As the chariot landed in front of the mares, Spike waddled out of the library with a backpack.

The dragon walked up to the gold armored pegasus with a captain’s badge and said,

“Yo Flash.  What’s up?  I’m digging the new armor.  You sure clean up good now than before you transferred to Twilight’s new Arcane Guard from the Crystal guard.  You didn’t even say hi when you visited with Princess Cadence a couple weeks ago.”

Captain Flash Sentry bent down to the purple dragon and gave him a hoof bump and a smile before replying.

“Yup.  Being a part of the Crystal Guard was temporary as they only needed guards until Prince Shining Armor filled the ranks with Crystal Ponies.  It was a part of a deal between the Crystal Empire and Equestria when it returned.  I am sure glad to be back home.  The promotion was nice too.  I’m sorry I didn’t say hi but it was a drop and go operation.  The princess didn’t want any guards around while she spent the day with her sister-in-law.  Direct order to drop the package and return from Big-Brother-Best-Boss-Forever.  Now it’s almost 1:00.  Where’s the princess?”

Spike checked a watch on his wrist before holding up his other claw and started counting down from,

“3, 2, 1, and….”

With a flash of purple and a sound of magic, the Princess of Magic appeared in the chariot.

“What are you all doing just standing there?  It’s time to go!  The princesses are waiting on us!”

The five mares plus one dragon climbed up into the chariot post-haste.  Before he got back into position, Flash asked,

“Fluttershy?  Is that bunny coming with you?”

The mentioned bunny turned to Flash with a scowl on his face before slapping him and yelling at him with cute bunny noises.

“Oh.  I’m sorry.  Angel is just really anxious to get going and he really doesn’t like it when ponies question him.”

Flash rubbed his armored head with a hoof and turned around into his position as he mumbled something about a certain bunny getting put on the Equestrian terrorist hit-list.

Twilight called out to her guards in her “Prissy Purple Pony Princess Voice” as Spike called it, and said,

“Alright gentlecolts, let’s get going please!”

Flash called out orders and the chariot lurched as it was lifted into the sky towards Canterlot.

Hayuary 12, 1504

Parliament Building, Canterlot

“The nine hundredth and forty-eighth session of the Equestrian Parliament is now in session!  I will call out roll.”

Prime Minister Fancy Pants sat down in his seat at the chairpony’s podium before picking up a list in his magic.  He began to read.

“Prince Blueblood the X, Prince of Unicorns, Head of House Blueblood, and Representative of Canterlot Fief?”

“Here.”  The pompous prince drawled in his snobby voice.

“Lady Fleur Di Lis, Head of House Di Lis, Representative of Prance?”

“Moi is here darling, you know this.”  The prench unicorn replied.

Fancy Pants paused and looked at his wife before saying,

“Yes dear, I do know.  I was just saying it for the record.”

A snigger could be heard coming from a cyan pegasus in the viewing lounge before Fancy Pants continued.

“Lord Bismark, Representative for Germane Fief?”

“Ja, I am here.” The male unicorn said promptly.

“Lady Grace, Representative for the United Maredom Fief?”

“Here.”  The female Pegasus said between sipping from her tea.

“Duke York, Representative for Manehatten Fief?”

“President!  Oh, I mean present.” The male earth pony corrected.

“Duchess Gold Dust, Representative for Los Pegasus Fief?”

“If you find any gold it’s mine!” the possessive pegasus mare yelled

Fancy Pants continued without missing a beat.

“Lord Stuffy Tea, Representative for Trottingham Fief?”

“I prefer Lord Tea actually.”  The male unicorn said.

“Mayor Mare, Representative for Everfree Fief?”

“Here.”  The mayor of Ponyville told Fancy Pants.

“Mayor Cloudy Skies, Representative for Cloudsdale Fief?”

“Here.” The female Pegasus replied, sounding bored and gloomy.

“Marshall Comrade, Representative for Stalliongrad Fief?”

“Dab, I am here and it is too varm here!” the male earth pony complained in his thick accent.

“Mayor North Winds, Representative for Winnieappolis Fief?”

“Here.” The female Pegasus said shortly, her voice muffled as she preened her feathers.

“Sherriff SilverStar, Representative for the Equestrian Frontier Territories?”

“Yup, a’m here!” the earth pony yelled optimistically in his heavy southern accent.

“And finally, Senator Tejas, Representative for the Celestial Fief?”

“Here” the male earth pony said professionally as he leaned back in his chair.

Fancy Pants finished marking his sheet before rolling it up and handing it to a secretary to his right.  He then pulled out another sheet and continued.

“Today’s agenda is as follows; Princess Twilight will address this assembly, followed by discussion, Princess Cadence will also address this assembly, followed by discussion.  After those we will be open to new business.  I now hand the gavel to her royal highness, Princess Twilight Sparkle, princess of magic.”

Fancy pants stepped aside and Twilight took his place at the podium, stepping up quietly on her hooves.  She was wearing her new crown that had replaced the element of magic and her sleek gold slippers over her hooves.  For a regal effect she fanned out her wings behind her before looking out to the members of Parliament.

She remembered what Celestia and Luna told her shortly before coming in here.

Celestia looked down at Twilight with a warm smile gracing her face.

“Now Twilight, I know you have done public addresses before.  I even taught you how to speak in public and control the stress that comes with it.  Just stay calm and speak from your heart.  I’m sure that Parliament will listen respectively and appreciate what you have to say.”

“If all else fails, do what I do.  Use the Voice!”  the dark blue alicorn said helpfully to the frazzled princess.

Celestia looked over at her sister and frowned a bit but couldn’t help the grin that slowly spread across her lips.

“Luna, you and I both know that the Voice is not the proper way to address the extinguished members of Parliament.  There is also the small fact that they have to listen to us!  Imagine if we tried to address problems to a legislature that couldn’t hear us.

Luna looked up at her big sister from where she was lounging on a light blue cushion emblazoned with her cutie mark.  A mischievous smile danced on her face when she replied.

“You’re just grumpy because it works!  Besides, we could pass anything without them rejecting us it they couldn’t hear us in the first place!”

She snickered at her sister to show she was not serious before turning back to Twilight.

“I am sure you will be fine.   So go on in there and knock’em out!”

Twilight looked at both sisters and smiled.  ‘Whatever was I thinking?  They have complete confidence in me!’  She got up and the sisters followed suit.

“You’re both right, it’ll be short and concise but I will speak from my heart what I plan to do for Equestria.”

She paused before she winked at Luna.

“I’ll make sure they can hear me too.”

All three princesses laughed as they trotted out the castle doors and headed towards the Parliament Building.

Twilight zoomed back in on the here and now and began to speak.

“Extinguished members of Parliament, I stand here before you today in order to discuss with you my ascension, and what I hope to do for Equestria.  Let me put any fears you may have to rest.  I do not plan on making many changes as our beautiful land is blessed with plentiful food, happy citizens, and security for our people.  I do hope to ease some of the burden that has fallen on Princess Celestia’s and Princess Luna’s shoulders, and I believe myself ready for the task.  I also plan on helping with our nation’s education system as there is always room for improvement.  Lastly is that I will help with the security for our beloved nation as I have done so in the past and I hope to do it more effectively.  I look forward to working with all of you as we make Equestria a better place.  Thank you.”

Twilight stepped to the side of the podium after she finished.  She looked up and flicked her ears as Parliament stood and applauded her with the thundering of their hooves.  Sheriff SilverStar threw out a good-natured whistle to the amusement of his fellow members.

Twilight smiled at her fellow ponies and waved back as she blushed from the praise.

Fancy Pants stepped back up to the podium and readdressed Parliament.

“Now if any of you have questions, now is the time to ask.”

The applause died down and the members began to mumble as they wondered who would speak first.

“I would as a question of our esteemed princess, Chairpony Fancy Pants.”

Fancy Pants couldn’t quiet hide his scowl as he turned to the pony in question and replied.

“Prince Blueblood, you have the floor.”

The Prince got up from his seat and turned to Twilight with a fake smile adorning his face.  Twilight looked back at the prince and smiled, trying to encourage good sportsponyship.  Blueblood began to speak in his self-righteous voice.

“Now as I am to understand it, you were a unicorn before you ascended correct?”

“Yes.  I was.”  Twilight replied, trying to figure out where he was going with this.

Blueblood continued.

“Now because of that very important fact, will you support the noble unicorn houses above the other nobles?  You were a unicorn yourself, surely we deserve more support from you than the others.  In addition, you are the princess of magic, and nopony is more magical than our great race.”

Many of the members scowled and looked angrily at Blueblood but some unicorns nodded along with him as he spoke.

Twilight was not happy herself but she refused to get angry.  As a wise pony once said, If you get angry in a debate, you just lost.  She then changed her facial expression from one of goodwill to one or neutrality before she answered.

“Prince Blueblood, I am very aware of the unicorn’s contributions to our society.  Also I am glad of my unicorn heritage.  But I will, as I have always have, treat each race fairly and equally as is befitting of being a princess of our nation.”

A majority of the members stopped grumbling and smiled warmly at Twilight’s remarks.  But Blueblood wasn’t finished.

“Of course, only a unicorn that mingles with the common dregs of Ponyville would say that.  That is why you aren’t fit to be royalty.”

There was definitely grumbling originating from the members now.  Twilight could also feel Rarity’s glare coming from the viewing lounge.  If her eyes were bows, Blueblood would be a pin cushion.

Mayor Mare broke in with,  “Objection Chairpony!  He goes too far!”

Fancy Pants lifted the gavel in his magic and rapped it on the podium before turning to Blueblood again, not even attempting to disguise his scowl.

“Prince Blueblood! You will show respect towards Princess Twilight and keep your racists comments to yourself!  This is the Equestrian Parliament!  MY Parliament!  Not one or your Pro-Unicorn rallies!   So long as I am Prime Minister I will not allow any vile slander from you or anypony!”

Quiet laughter could be heard in the chamber.

The members grew silent and looked for where it was coming from.

Twilight grew confused as to why this would cause amusement for somepony.  She couldn’t spot the perpetrator so she looked back behind her at Celestia and Luna.  They were both looking in the member’s booth.  Following their gaze, her purple eyes fell on a brown earth pony.  Searching her memory, she recalled that this stallion was Senator Tejas, the representative for the Celestial Fief.

Tejas leaned back in his chair and stared across the aisle at Blueblood.  He was laughing quietly but the mirth didn’t reach his eyes.

His orbs looked cold, empty, and devoid of any sympathy towards the prince.

“If I may have the floor, Mr. Chairpony?”

“You may Senator.”  Fancy Pants nodded ascent as he spoke and turned his eyes back to Blueblood.

Blueblood looked slightly uncomfortable, like he had made a good joke but nopony was laughing.  He scowled back at the senator and awaited what Tejas had to say.

“Princess Twilight.”  Tejas said, turning to the alicorn.

Twilight looked back, her eyebrow crouching up her forehead towards her horn as if asking, ‘What?’

“I first wish to apologize on behalf of Parliament of the disrespect that some members have shown you.  You have done nothing to deserve their pointless, pompous, and erratic words.  I am sorry.”

Tejas dipped his head in respect towards Twilight before he began speaking again.

“Furthermore, you have shown great dignity, morality, and honesty before the ponies in this chamber.  I thank you for that.”

The mentioned alicorn smiled but tilted her head slightly.  Twilight was very happy with the praise she was receiving but slightly confused as to what he was doing.  Tejas then continued his speech, turning towards the prince.

“It is my belief that you are a good pony Princess Twilight.  One of the best I might say.  And if you are an example of the unicorn race then you have surpassed all other unicorns in you diligence to Equestria.  Thus I clap my hooves for the unicorns providing us with a great princess.”

Tejas clapped his hooves and the rest of the chamber, minus Blueblood, joined him.

Blueblood was livid.  His face had turned redder than one of Applejack’s apples.

Twilight connected the dots.  Tejas had insulted Blueblood by saying that she had surpassed all unicorns, but had phrased it to where Blueblood couldn’t speak out against what he said without insulting the unicorns, which Tejas had praised.

‘That was brilliant’ she thought.  Duke York then stood and addressed Fancy Pants.

“Mr. Chairpony, I believe this line of dialogue has been worn out.  I move to continue with the next item on the agenda.”

“Mr. Chairpony I second the motion.” chimed in Lady Grace.

Fancy Pants smiled and said, “All in favor?”

A chorus of “I” could be heard.

“All opposed?”

Blueblood bleated indignity but he was the only one.

“Very well, Princess Cadence will now address this assembly.”

Twilight jumped in shock.  ‘Oh my goodness! I almost forgot Cadence was here!’  She looked for Cadence as she descended the podium to sit in the Royal Booth with Celestia and Luna.  She hadn’t seen her all day, although Cadence had been in Canterlot for a short time along with her big brother Shining Armor after they made the trip by train from the Crystal Empire.

Cadence showed up from a door in the corner of the room and quickly ascended the podium.  She smiled at Fancy Pants as he stepped aside for her.

Twilight observed her and noticed something wrong.

‘She seems…older for some reason’ she mentally intoned.  ‘She’s definitely Cadence but something is off about her.  What could it be?’  Her train of thought was interrupted as Cadence began to speak.  She snapped her eyes back to her sister-in-law and listened intensely.

Cadence’s voice was like musical honey, charming and sweet.

“Members of Parliament, thank you for allowing me to speak today.  I know that this assembly does not usually listen to foreign heads-of-state but I am glad that you made an exception for me!”

Most of the members nodded and smiled encouraging at her.  After all, Cadence was one of the golden gals of Canterlot.

“It is with great pleasure, after I and my husband discussed it with the Crystal Noble Families, that I bring before you this modest proposal.”

Cadence seemed to pause for dramatic effect.

“The Crystal Empire would like to be unified with Equestria.  Not as part of an alliance, but as full and equal powers.  One nation.”

Parliament had a mixed reaction, some beamed and started clapping their hooves.

Some paled in shock and shook their heads.

A couple looked outraged.

“I know that this is surprising to most of you, as I have not mentioned this with the Equestrian princesses yet, but I hope that you will at least approve today to hear us out and consider our proposal.”  She finished and sat down again, waiting for questions.

Twilight was surprised but delighted, Cadence could become an Equestrian princess alongside her and the Royal Pony Sisters.  It might mean that they would stay here in Canterlot and she would see Cadence and her big brother more often.  She turned to talk with

Celestia and Luna about this exciting turn of events but stopped when she noticed they were looking at each other with intense expressions of worry.

Fancy Pants stood up again and began to speak in his educated voice,

“The motion on the floor is that Equestria will begin talks with the Crystal Empire’s proposal of unification.  Discussion is now open.”

The chamber quitted down again and two ponies raised their hooves, silently pleading for permission to speak.

“Marshall Comrade, you have the floor.”

The stallion of Stalliongrad looked intently at Cadence as he stood up and asked in a thick accent,

“Princess Cadence, iv the Crystal Empire is integrated into Equestvia, do you desire to step down from your voyal position and merely

vepresent the Crystal Empire in Parliament?”

Cadence's smile shrunk slightly as she answered.

“No marshall, we wish for Equestria and the Crystal Empire to have equal standing in a future together.  I would remain a princess.”

Comrade frowned further and said,

“Vould this mean that you vould have equal standing vith our princesses here in Equestria?  Equal in authority, vank, and privilege?”

“Yes.”

“Vould this mean that Equestria’s princesses have the same in the Crystal Empire?”

“….No.”

You could have heard a pin drop.  And Pinkie did, just to make sure.

Comrade spoke dangerously, “Explain please.”

Cadence seemed to pull herself together before she spoke again.

“While I would have equal standing with the triarchy here in Equestria, only I would have authority in the Crystal Empire, such was the deal I ironed out of the Crystal Nobles.  You have to understand that they come from a society that existed a thousand years ago.  They are not as integrated into today’s times as you would think.  Democracy such as you have here in Equestria scares them, and they wish to hold onto some semblance of the monarchy they have always had.  I assure you that the Crystal Ponies will calm down and that power between myself and the triarchy would even out eventually”

As Cadence finished, Comrade sat down and cast his eyes across the aisle at Senator Tejas.  Tejas cleared his throat and asked Fancy Pants if he could have the floor.  After Fancy Pants said yes Tejas got to his hooves and looked around the chamber.

‘He looks nervous’ thought Twilight.  ‘Why would he be nervous?’

“Princess Cadence, if I am to understand this correctly, you would have equal standing with the triarchy, as in the one of you is equal to the three of them?”

Cadence nodded.

“And the triarchy would have no authority in the Crystal Empire itself?”

Cadence nodded again.

“Doesn’t that seem unfair?  And it is very suspicious that your power would increase drastically while the triarchy’s diminished.”

Cadence snapped her head in irritation and asked,

“What do you mean?”

“The Celestial Territories, where I come from, my home, has a long past.  One that is older than the foundation of Equestria itself.  We have a very long memory princess.”

“What are you implying?”

Twilight’s head was spinning.  What was happening?  Why was this such a huge deal?  Cadence was a great princess!  She would never abuse her authority! And like she said, things would even out with time after the Crystal Ponies got used to being a part of Equestria!

“The Celestial Territories does not trust the Crystal Empire, there is bad blood between us.  The Crystal Empire is not to be trusted, nor its rulers.  They have a bad history of stabbing ponies in the back.”

Cadence looked at Tejas in shock and then scowled at him when she nearly yelled.

“If you are referring to King Sombra, I assure you, senator, that his reign and influence are long past.”

“King Sombra was but the last nail in the coffin!  I am talking about far worse ponies than that cretin!”

Cadence paused and looked genuinely confused.

“Then who are you talking about?”

“Queen Broken Heart,” Tejas spat, “the last alicorn ruler before you.”

‘What!?’  Twilight was shocked, ‘another alicorn!?’  She looked back again at Celestia and Luna but they mirrored her own confusion and surprise.

“I have never heard such nonsense!  The Crystal Empire as far back as our history can tell us has been ruled by unicorns!”

Tejas looked at Cadence condescendingly.

“Then your history is incomplete!  Almost all the world’s records of distant times past were wiped out by the reign of Discord!”

“Then where does you mythical mare come from!” Cadence fumed.

Tejas looked back at her with equal fury when he spoke once more.

“Some or our records survived!  And the story of how the Crystal Empire Queen betrayed the Celestial Territories was passed down, generation to generation!”

“And what does an ancient boogie-monster have to do with the Crystal Empire NOW Senator Tejas!!!”

“She’s your ancestor!!!”

‘WHAT!?!?’  Twilight was starting to thing Tejas was off his rocker.

“What proof is there of that!?!” Cadence screamed at the earth pony.

“Your Soul Mark! It tells us that you are descended from the rightful heir to the throne of the Crystal Empire.  Which at one point was Broken Heart.  That, and you were born an alicorn!  Only ponies descended from alicorns could be born as alicorns!”

Twilight gaped at the stallion, ‘That actually makes sense!’

Cadence decided that she had had enough, she was going to bring this argument to a close.

“Well!  Even if you are right, what will you do if the Crystal Empire joins Equestria!”

Tejas visibly sobered as the anger drained from his body and he wilted in sadness.

“Simple princess, the Celestial Territories will leave Equestria.”

Chapter 2: An Old Friend

Chapter 2: An Old Friend

Hayurary 12, 1504 A.D.

Parliament Reception, Canterlot Gardens

Spike couldn’t decide between the punch and the six-layered gem cake.

He was standing next to a serving table peering over the edge at the pastries set aside for guests at Parliament’s reception.  It was in the Canterlot gardens during the late afternoon since Parliament had ended session.

Spike also couldn’t decide who to cheer for in Parliament.

Some hours earlier he had been sitting in the viewing lounge with Rarity, Applejack, Rainbow Dash, and Fluttershy when the chamber erupted into pandemonium.

Immediately after Senator Tejas’s quiet declaration, all the ponies sitting inside, be it members, royalty, guards, or guests broke out yelling at Tejas and each other.  Shouts of “Traitor!” could be heard echoing off the walls and ponies began accusing each other of different degrees of treachery.

Fancy Pants reeled in the chaos and dismissed Parliament, postponing the vote on the Equestria-Crystal Empire Unification Act until cooler heads prevailed.  He then asked very politely for everyone to attend the reception that was being held in Twilight’s honor.

Celestia, Luna, and Twilight had immediately pulled Senator Tejas aside and were currently having a “polite discussion” over what he had declared.

Spike decided that the punch would be good and scooped some out with a crystal ladle. He then returned back to the table he was sharing with Cadence, Shining Armor, and the girls.

They were in an intense discussion about earlier.  Rainbow Dash being the most vocal.

“Those traitors!  How DARE they insult the princesses and threaten to leave Equestria!  Where’s their loyalty huh?!  I bet they’re just scared that Cadence would love them too much!”

Spike climbed up into a seat next to Shining Armor and began to take note of his friends and families faces as Dash ranted.

Cadence looked tired and exasperated, her debate with Tejas and the commotion afterward had drained her of her usual bubbly attitude.  Her eyes had bags under them and her wings were slightly ruffled.

Shining Armor was angry and alert.  He seemed to have a scowl etched permanently on his face and he had a foreleg over Cadence protectively.

Rarity looked absolutely miffed and had her nose stuck up in the air and she mumbled, “Traitors” and “So not fabulous” under her breath.

Applejack leaned back in her chair and was looking back at Rainbow Dash as the pegasus hovered above them.  She had a frown decorating her face and hay clenched between her teeth.

Pinkie Pie was trying to figure out why somepony would try to crash the, as she said, “The Big PARTY that is Equestria!”  She also would randomly snort “Party Poopers” and other party oriented insults as she “liberated” the gardens with her party cannon.

Fluttershy was silent and trying to hide in her mane again as the others talked.  Angel Bunny was doing plenty however as he made smoke signals with a hot cup of tea to get his point across to the others.

Rainbow Dash was taking a breath to continue when Shining Armor interjected.

“It’s not that simple Rainbow.”

Rainbow Dash looked miffed and flew in front of the stallion.

“It’s not?  Then explain it to me Mr. Prince!”

Shining Armor looked at Cadence before turning back to the rainbow-maned mare.

“Unlike the other fiefs in Equestria, the Celestial Territories was its own nation completely separate and independent before it joined 500 years after Discord.  One of the stipulations of the agreement their Senate had with Celestia and Luna was that they would retain the right to freely leave Equestria if they wanted to one day.”

“So?  If they started anything our army would smash them right?”

Shining Armor shook his head, refuting what Rainbow Dash had said.

“Another part of the treaty was that the Territories would retain its own army and navy instead of having Equestrian guards.  They are a very militaristic culture and take great pride in the skill of their legions.  They have kept their part of the northern borders safe and secure for the past thousand years with absolutely no intervention necessary.”

“When I was Captain of the Day Guard here in Canterlot, we had meetings with their head military chief, General Stonewall.  Technically they are subordinate to high command here in Canterlot.  In times of war, if there was a draft, they would provide any ponies that were needed and their legions would immediately obey any orders they received from the princesses or our generals.  They are extremely efficient and well trained.  Many of their traditions predate the foundation of Equestria.”

Rainbow Dash was grasping at straws.

“Yeah but Equestria is bigger isn’t it?  And our army is bigger!  So none of that would matter!”

Shining Armor paused and had a thoughtful expression.

“That is very true.  At the max, the Celestial Legions number around 25,000 soldiers total.  The land that the Celestial Territories occupy is not even a tenth of the size of the total land mass of Equestria.  Their regional capital is Eclipse City near the foohills of the Unicorn Mountains, which is also part of the territory they govern.  Eclipse City is the largest and is slightly smaller than Canterlot and the other towns are around the size of Ponyville and Appallossa combined.  But those are few and far between.”

“Furthermore they are extremely isolated from the rest of Equestria, it sits in the far northwest.  Only one rail line connects them to the Equestria, and it stops at Stalliongrad.  Hardly anypony migrates to the Celestial Territories and nopony comes out of it.  They are very independent-minded and proud of their heritage.”

When Shining Armor finished his lecture, Applejack piped up.

“How do ya know all this Shining?”

Shining Armor turned away from Rainbow Dash, who had sat down and started pouting, and answered the farmer.

“It was part of guard military school.  We had to learn about all the different parts of our military.  The Celestial Territories was always the oddball of our lessons and was subject to teasing from both our drill-sergeants and the military professors.”

Applejack nodded and looked thoughtful.  Rarity decided to join in and be a part of the discussion again.  She had finished her not-too subtle rant at how someponies could be so uncivilized in Parliament.

“I have a thought.  Why did the Celestial Territories join Equestria in the first place if they are so independent?”

Shining faced the fashioneta and crossed his hooves as he spoke.  A small frown replacing his scowl.

“I don’t know Rarity.  None of the Equestrian Guards do.  The events surrounding Equestria’s annexation of the Celestial Territories is not documented.  Celestia and Luna won’t talk about it and I asked General Stonewall once.  He said, “If you ever go to Eclipse City, don’t ask that question.  It’s a sore spot with everypony.”  That is all I got out of him.  Anypony else I talked to from the Territories evaded the question, changed the subject, or just said they didn’t want to talk about it.  Whatever happened, there entire population is ashamed of it.  All I know is that shortly after Sombra was defeated and the Crystal Empire disappeared is that the Celestial Territories swore loyalty to the Royal Pony Sisters and Equestria.  No details, no nothing.”

Rarity looked confused but intrigued at the same time.

“This is so mysterious.  I do hope Twilight has answers when she finishes her meeting with the other princesses.”

“Ooooooohhhhh!  Somepony is already having “royal princess” meetings and ignoring her friends?  Sounds like a good taco to me.”

Everypony except Fluttershy at the table stiffened in surprise and alarm.  Angel Bunny quickly hopped away from any carrots should they grow red eyes and a beard.

The disembodied voice cackled again, dripping with sarcasm.

“Whatever is the matter with everypony?  I came to spread some lovely chaos at this boring reception.  I’m reformed remember?”

Fluttershy popped out of her mane and smiled.

“Discord! How good of you to come!  I didn’t know if the invitation I sent reached you.  Where are you?”

There was a blinding flash of light and the draconeques appeared next to Fluttershy.

He towered above everypony but that wasn’t what warranted their attention.  Rarity gaped at Discord‘s attire and fainted in shock, landing on a fainting couch that appeared next to her.

Fluttershy giggled and studied the draconeques more closely.

“Oh my.  That is very nice Discord, how wonderful for you to dress for the reception.”

Discord was wearing a clown suit, complete with mismatched shoes that covered his feet, a puffy red afro that covered his horns, a polka-dot shirt, baggy pants, and a large, red, and round ball that rested on his snout.

“Do you like it dear Fluttershy?  I thought I would dress for the occasion.”

Cadence snorted, she was unamused by this and looked tiredly at Discord.

“How does a clown suit match the mood Discord?”

Discord wrapped himself around the alicorn, much to Shining Armor’s annoyance and replied in his oily voice.

“Why don’t you know?  Government is a three-ring circus!  It’s all of you who aren’t dressed appropriately.”

“But we’re not wearing anything at all silly!”  Pinkie Pie told the clown.

Discord straightened up and gasped dramatically, holding his lion’s paw in front of his face.

“You mean to tell me that you ponies went to Parliament NAKED!”

Rarity, who had recovered from her earlier shock, reoccupied the couch with a barely heard whimper and a noticeable thud.  She had forgotten entirely.

Spike was looking for a way to escape Discord’s antics when he saw Twilight trot up to the table.

She didn’t look happy.

She cantered up to next to Spike and plopped herself down on a cushion, which wheezed in protest.  Cadence turned to Twilight and asked what was on everypony’s mind.

“What did they say Twilight?”

Twilight turned to her sister-in-law and snorted in frustration.

“Apparently, Tejas’s claim is legal.  The Celestial Territories still have the right to leave Equestria peacefully.  Celestia and Luna were very distressed, and asked him many questions about why the Territories were so unsatisfied.  He didn’t answer many of them but apologized for any insult we felt might have been directed at us.”

“Tejas told us that it wasn’t Equestria itself or us that the Territories were angry with.  The Senate and the people there just have a deep-seated hatred for the Crystal Empire, I have no idea why.  The princesses asked if it was Sombra’s memory but he repeated what he said earlier.  The princesses have no clue as to who this “Broken Heart” was or if she even existed.  Tejas was vague and said the details were scratchy at best.  Most of the records had been destroyed by Discord.”

At this she turned a frown at the clown, who was suddenly sporting a halo, before turning back to Cadence.

“The senator made perfectly clear at the end of the meeting that if Equestria and the Crystal Empire unified, the Celestial Territories would leave and become independent again.  He then returned to his offices.  The other princesses are worried and they both went to their old archives to research the legal jargon.  I came here because I have had enough politics for one day.”

She sighed at her friends and family before continuing.

“I’m hungry.  Spike?  Where’s the food?”

Spike pointed with a claw at the feast in the corner of the garden.

“Thanks. Sorry everypony I’ll be back in a moment.”

Twilight heaved herself to her hooves and walked away.  They continued talking about what she had just told them as she moved in the direction of the food.

Many of the guests nodded politely or called out friendly greetings on her way there.  She acknowledged many of them out of courtesy but was too tired to do more.

When she got to the table, she looked at the food arrayed before her and began talking to herself.

“What to eat?  What to eat?  There is just too much to choose from!”

“Try the hay and daffodil sandwich with tomatoes.  It’s my favorite for events like these.”

Twilight turned around upon hearing the raspy voice that had greeted her.

The lavender alicorn looked at the stallion and thought to herself, ‘He’s certainly old-fashioned.’

The older unicorn was about the same height as her and had a coal black coat with an obsidian horn to match on his forehead.  He had a grey mane and tail with a beard that sprouted from his chin.

He was wearing a black suit with matching pants and tie.  A gold pocket watch could be seen hanging from one of his pockets.  He also had a thick overcoat that covered his sides.  His eyes twinkled like the corona of a solar eclipse as he spoke to her.

“You must be Princess Twilight Sparkle.  It is a pleasure to meet you at long last, I have heard a great many things about you.  Allow me to introduce myself, I am Professor Papyrus Scrolls.”

Twilight smiled back kindly at the seemingly frail unicorn.  She always liked talking to teachers and fellow scholars.

“It is nice to meet you as well professor.  What do you teach?”

“I teach history and archaeology, I have always had a thing for the past.  I sometimes get so deep into my teachings that my students tell me that I talk like I was actually there!”

He laughed good-naturedly at Twilight.  His laugh was deep and it rumbled from his throat.

Twilight laughed as well and continued questioning him.

“Where do you teach?  I use to go to Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns and I don’t think I ever saw you there.”

His eyes got a little darker as they lost some light and his smile grew smaller before he replied.

“I teach at the Imperial Academy in Eclipse City, located in the Celestial Territories.”

Twilight immediately frowned in reaction to his statement.

“Are you here to talk politics professor?  I have already had my fill today.”

Scrolls shook his head.

“Although I am a part of Senator Tejas’s retinue, I can see that you don’t want to discuss today’s events.  I’m sorry if you think that princess.  I merely wanted to meet the mare that is Celestia’s prized pupil, and a former bearer of the element of magic.  You are, as they say, “Walking, talking history.””

Twilight’s smile returned to her face.  She picked out the sandwich he had recommended and held it in her magic.

“Thanks professor.  Since you have been kind though, what do you have to say on the subject?”

Scrolls looked at Twilight full in the face with a gaze that spoke years of experience and wisdom.

“Only that some ponies do things when they must, princess.  That is all I have to say.”

Twilight suppressed a shudder at his words.  They sounded really ominous.  She nodded politely and started walking back towards the table with her friends.

“Alright then, it was nice meeting you professor.”

“You too princess.  Enjoy your meal, I hope to see you again in the near future.  Good-night.”

Prof. Scrolls turned away and cantered further into the crowd, disappearing from view.

Twilight was walking briskly back to the table when Discord popped in front of her.

“Princess Twilight!  How kind of you to grace us mortals with your presence!  Was your quest successful?  Did you find the lost city of sandwich?  Did you see the royal court of food?!”

Twilight stopped, she really didn’t want to banter with Discord.

“No Discord.  I did not.  Please let me through, I am tired and hungry from today’s events.”

Discord gave an exaggerated bow and swept the afro off his head.

“Of course, your royal purpleness.”

Twilight was walking past the draconeques when she noticed that he suddenly stiffened, straightened up, and turned around.  His eyes were searching the crowd.

Her curiosity getting the better of her, Twilight prodded Discord.

“I haven’t seen you that still since you were a statue.  What is it?”

Discord slowly looked down at the princess of magic before he replied in a guarded voice.

“Nothing.  It was nothing.  I just thought that I saw an old….friend of mine.  But it was nothing.  I’m just jumping at ghosts.”

He looked back out to the crowd as if to make sure it was nothing but a ghost.

“Yes, ghosts."

Chapter 3: Memories and Misfortune

Chapter 3: Memories and Misfortune

Hayuary 17, 1504 A.D.

Canterlot Castle

Celestia was distressed.

She and Luna had been pouring over the Canterlot Archives, searching for a solution to the growing tensions with the Celestial Territories and the Crystal Empire.  They were also trying to find any manuscripts detailing events that had happened between the two.

Nothing could be found.

Celestia could not believe that not a single codex, not even a torn fragment of anything could be found on the Crystal Empire or the Celestial Territories before Discord happened.  The Canterlot Archives were supposed to safeguard the oldest, most valuable, and sometimes most secretive works ever to be found.  Ponies had brought in all sorts of different types of written records from all the nations and territories.

It just wasn’t there.

After five days of scrambling over the entire archives, translating ancient materials, and flipping through books, Celestia and Luna decided to call a respite and have dinner in their private dining room.

Because of the impending crisis, they had canceled all their normal duties involving different appearances and the Day and Night courts had been suspended in order to get a grasp on the source of the problem.

‘I wish Twilight was here, she would love helping us search.’

But Twilight wasn’t here, she and her friends had returned to Ponyville after the reception was over.  Leaving Celestia and Luna in Canterlot.

It wasn’t that Twilight didn’t want to help, but the sisters had insisted she go home and relax.   They thought she had been through quite enough for one session of Parliament.  She was a new princess after all and was slowly being integrated into the government.

Of course Celestia’s conscience wouldn’t leave her alone.

‘That’s not why you sent her back to Ponyville and you know it.  You just don’t know how she would react to the truth.’

Celestia loved Twilight, like a daughter.  And she hated how she had kept information from her in the past such as Nightmare Moon, Discord, and the Crystal Empire.

‘But that had been necessary.  Just like this time.  Right?’

Celestia sighed, she couldn’t even give a good excuse this time.

Her conscience nagged her again.

‘You just didn’t want to admit to her that you had no idea WHY the Celestial Territories despised Cadence so much.  Despite you and Luna possibly knowing more than anypony in Equestria about the Territories.’

Celestia hated not knowing.  And she also didn’t like telling others that she didn’t have all the facts.

The tall white alicorn put these thoughts aside as the entered the private dining room.

Luna was already there, sulking and looking depressed.  She had probably been brooding over the exact same thing Celestia was.  Her normally vibrant starry mane had somewhat slowed and looked darker, matching her foul mood.

Celestia pulled up a nice, fat cushion and sank happily onto it, waiting for the servants to ask what they wanted for dinner.

“What would your highnesses liked for dinner?”

“A nice thick book stuffed with answers.”

Luna’s reply didn’t faze the servant and he turned expectantly towards the older sister.

“I think we’ll both have some hay and lettuce.  Sunflowers for me and some nightshade flowers for her on the side.  To drink I’ll have my favorite tea and Luna will have her nightly coffee.  For dessert give me a large helping of the cake leftover from the reception and for her a slice of moon pie with dark chocolate.  It’s been one of those days for us, we could use the sweets.  Thank you.”

Celestia watched the servant leave the room before turning back to Luna.

“I know we have hit some roadblocks but that’s no reason to be short with the staff.  They could still spit in our food.”

Luna didn’t laugh at Celestia’s joke.  Instead she looked back at her sister with a deep and bitter frown.

“You’re just as angry and frustrated as I am.  I just haven’t had a millennia to practice hiding my emotions.”

That hurt.

As Celestia turned away, trying to think of something else, Luna’s expression softened into one of regret.

“I’m sorry Tia, I’m just tired and frustrated.  The Territories have always been deeply loyal to us, and I hate not knowing why they distrust Cadence and the Crystal Empire so much.  If the Territories leave Equestria, then does that mean we……..failed?”

Luna looked to be on the edge of tears.  She sniffled and tried to hold it in.

Celestia felt her heart pang and she got up from her side of the table and joined her little sister, wrapping a swan-like wing around the smaller alicorn in the process.

“No.  Never think that, no matter what.  We tried our best after…. what happened and we then banished Sombra.   The world is finally rid of him thanks to Twilight and her friends.”

Luna leaned into Celestia’s warm embrace and began talking in a pain filled voice.

“I know.  It’s just that you have had a millennia to deal with the grief.  It wasn’t even a decade ago for me.  I was trapped inside Nightmare Moon for that millennia, the pain is just so much.  Is it because of me?  Do the Territories want to leave because of Nightmare Moon?”

Celestia clung to Luna tighter and held back her own tears.

“**No!* It is not your fault!  Don’t you even think that!”*

Regaining control her voice she continued.

“Besides, nothing’s happened yet.  We’ll be able to solve this and the Territories won’t leave us.”

Celestia held Luna until the darker alicorn left her embrace.  Celestia noticed that she seemed a bit calmer than before.

“Thank’s Tia, I needed that.”

Luna nuzzled Celestia affectionately before continuing, a confused frown on her face.

“I just don’t understand.  Why now?  What changed?  And why have we never heard of this ‘Broken Heart’?  I could understand why the Territories are cautious of Cadence and the Crystal Ponies if it dealt with Sombra, I might even join their caution.  But this ‘Broken Heart’ is unknown to me.  Who was she?  Did she even exist?  Why does the territories hate her so much?  And above all, why do we not know?”

Luna stiffened and turned to Celestia with a panicked expression filled with a child’s fear.

“Tia…….you don’t think it was….her do you?  You told me Cadence is a distant relative of ours.  And Tejas said that Cadence is Broken Heart’s descendant.  You don’t think that’s why we were never told, to protect us from the Territories wrath?”

“No.  It wasn’t her.  I know he kept many things from us, included where he buried her, but he would have told us if she was a monster.  That I know.  It just wouldn’t fit his personality.  I’m not sure how Cadence is related to us, I just know that her magic carries a trace similar to ours, marking her as a distant relative.”

Luna wilted in relief, her fears put to rest at Celestia’s explanation.  The serving staff chose that moment to come in and serve them their food.  They corrected the dining arrangements so that Celestia could sit next to Luna.  When they finished, they moved silently through the door, closing it with their magic.

Celestia decided she didn’t have an appetite after walking down memory lane, but she needed to eat.  She and Luna had eaten sporadically over the past few days at uneven intervals and she was hungry, so she dug in.

The cake was too good to ignore anyway.

Luna was three-fourths the way through her meal when she tapped her fork on the plate in thought.  She turned to Celestia with a question on her lips.

“I know I haven’t had the chance to go back much since my return.  And I didn’t before my banishment for obvious reasons.  But did you go back to Eclipse City at all during my exile?”

Celestia shook her head sadly and sighed again before answering.

“No I did not.  It would have been just too painful without you there with me.  All our childhood memories are there and I could not face making a trip knowing you were not there with me.  Perhaps if I had, the Territories would be more familiar with us and this situation wouldn’t have even arisen.”

Luna continued chewing her food and asked another.

“Why didn’t you tell Twilight anything about Eclipse City?  I know she's like a daughter to you, like a little sister to me.  Why would you have not told her?  She seemed to know of the Territories but she didn’t have many details like you and I do.”

Celestia nodded at her sister’s inquiry, this one was a little easier for her to answer.

“It never really came up.  She never really asked about my past in general, let alone my childhood.  The Territories are very isolationist, as you know, and hoarded much of the knowledge on their culture and history.  And as we have seen these past few days, the archives doesn’t have much on them anyway, so she wouldn’t really know anything other than that they're a territory of Equestria and that they joined shortly after Sombra was banished.”

Luna nodded her head in agreement and snorted.

“The Territories have always had their secrets, even when you and I lived there.  I don’t know whether it's comforting or silly that they have changed so little since I’ve been gone.”

Celestia was about to say more but stopped.  Her ears flicked as she caught the sound of thundering hooves getting louder as they approached the dining hall.

Luna also picked it up and looked curiously in the direction of the sound.  It sounded like a herd of ponies running at full gallop.

The doors burst open suddenly, and Wheeler, a male unicorn and Captain of the Day Guard, along with Night Wing, a female thestral that was both Captain of the Night Guard and Head of Equestrian Intelligence, burst in and both began checking the room along with the guards that joined them.

Celestia was alarmed.  To see her guards so frantic was disturbing.  A sudden feeling of dread overcame her and the table clattered as she and Luna both leapt to their hooves.

“Captain Wheeler, what is it? What has happened?”

Wheeler turned to his princesses and said in a panicked voice,

“Princess Twilight has been attacked!”

Chapter 5: Unknown Factors

Chapter 5: Unknown Factors

Hayuary 24, 1504 A.D.

Canterlot Castle, Royal Hospital Wing

Beep Beep Beep

That sound was annoying, Twilight wished it would stop.

Beep Beep Beep

But of course the sound didn’t stop, it took far too much pleasure in annoying the lavender alicorn

Beep Beep Beep

Finally fed up with the noise, Twilight reached out with her magic without opening her eyes and ripped off the cords that seemed to come in the direction of the beeping.

Beep Beep Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee…….

“She’s gone into cardiac arrest!  Nurse!  Get me the defibrillator STAT!!!”

“Wait doctor! I think she’s awake and she ripped the cords off of her.”

Twilight decided she wasn’t going to get any more sleep with noisy ponies standing around so she opened her eyes and prepared to make a royal edict banning all talking while she slept when she noticed this wasn’t her bedroom.  From what she could see, she was an unfamiliar all-white room that had a sterile-smell to it.

‘Where am I?  I don’t recall leaving the library.  Wait a moment….’

‘Sweet Apple Acres!  Fire!  The unicorns!’

Twilight tried to sit up but noticed that she was securely strapped into the bed she was on.  She started struggling but a stallion in a lab coat swam into her slightly hazy vision and gently held her down and began speaking in a soft, reassuring voice.

“Careful princess, you’re safe now, you’ve been through a great ordeal and you have just woken up.  You are in the Royal Hospital in Canterlot Castle.  The other princesses and your friends and family are just outside these doors and they are alright.  But before we do anything else, we need to make sure that you’re not going to suffer a relapse.  Okay?”

Twilight relaxed and sank back down into the bed, noticing that she was very tired and her mouth was dry.  She began to take into account the other details she had not noticed before.  She was indeed in Canterlot Castle, the royal seal was on the doors and she recognized the staff from her times visiting and living in the castle.  There was numerous medical equipment along the walls as well as a few chairs.  Twilight herself had thick bandages around her head, horn, and different patches of fur as well as thinner and more flexible bandages around her wings, which were also sore and lethargic.

The doctor and nurses checked her different faculties, running some tests and asking her questions from time to time.  They then felt that she was well enough to be unstrapped from the bed and that she wasn’t going to suffer a relapse.  But they gave her clear instructions to remain in the bed and to not overexert herself until she was discharged.  Twilight agreed with all their demands, knowing that patients had to obey the medics.  She may be a princess of Equestria but even she bowed to them in matters such as these.

Especially since they carried sharp needles.

Finally, they packed their notes and started walking towards the doors leaving one by one.  The doctor turned back to the princess before leaving himself.

“Alright, we’ll let your visitors in but don’t get too excited and exert yourself.”

“Yes doctor, thank you.”

He left and held the door open as her parents, Shining Armor, Cadence, Spike and her friends rushed in to see her.  Twilight saw Celestia and Luna but they both waited at the back while the others crowded her.  They all began talking at once but eventually calmed down and let family get first dibs.  Her parents, Twilight Velvet and Night Light hugged her and began talking.

“Oh Twilight we were so worried for you!  But thank goodness you’re alright!” her mother said.  Night Light also hugged his daughter and spoke, “We’re all glad that you’re ok, you took a nasty hit to the head there kiddo.”

Her parents reluctantly pulled away and Shining Armor, Cadence, and Spike walked up to take their place.  Spike would’ve immediately jumped up and hugged her but didn’t want to hurt her, so he contented himself with just holding a foreleg with a claw.

Shining Armor held onto her tightly and said,

“Thank goodness you woke up!  We didn’t know how long you were going to be unconscious, those unicorns hit you really hard.”

Twilight looked back at her brother and then turned to face the rest of the room’s occupants.  They all had relieved smiles on their faces and were looking upon her as she lay prone on the bed.  She decided to voice the question that had been nagging her since she had woken up.

“How did I get here?  I don’t remember anything after their spells hit me.  What happened to the unicorns that attacked me?”

Slight frowns seemed to ripple across all the faces in the room, turning to each other for answers before finally resting on the two princesses at the back of the room.  Taking their cue, they both walked up and sat next to Twilight after the others pulled back again before Celestia began speaking.

“As soon as Luna and I heard you had been attacked, we took the pegasi guards and flew as fast as we could to Ponyville while the others temporarily confiscated a train to follow us.  When we arrived at Ponyville, we could see the smoke from the fire and deducted that was where you where, and by the time we got to Sweet Apples Acres  your friends had already found you and your attackers.”

Celestia paused and looked back at Applejack, who began speaking for the group.

“When ya left me and Big Mac’ behind, we were followin’ with the equipment when we heard several loud bangs and flashes comin’ from where ya were headed.  We dropped the stuff and galloped to ya as fast as we could.  When we found ya, you were knocked out and had several burns on ya.  The unicorns however, were already out cold and looked as though they had takin a severe beatin, they were sporting bruises, broken bones, and a few cuts.  We thought it was you.  And it was, wasn’t it?  Did ya send any spells at em before they got ya?”

Twilight shook her head as her confusion grew, the other ponies also looked disgruntled at this revelation.  She spoke, her doubts dripping in the tone of her voice.

“No…. I was trying to fly when they sent their spells at me, I didn’t cast any spells and I didn’t even see them.  It was dark out still.”

Celestia and Luna looked worried at this and turned from Twilight to face each other, they shared an expression as if they were trying to piece together a puzzle when Luna spoke for the first time.

“Twilight, are you sure?  We searched the area once we arrived and could find no traces of anyone else but you, your friends, and the unicorns in the area.”

“No Luna, it wasn’t me.  They didn’t waste time attacking.  From what I remember, they seemed to have expected me coming to help Applejack with the fire.  I bet they are the ones that started it in the first place, to lure me away from Ponyville to a more secluded place.  What happened next?  And where are the unicorns now?”

Rainbow Dash piped up, she was standing instead of flying due to the low ceiling.

“After the smoke cleared, Fluttershy and I flew down and saw Big Mac’ waving us down.  I reached him and he told me that some unicorns had attacked you but they were out cold.  When Fluttershy here heard this,” the cyan pegasus pointed a hoof at Fluttershy who was smiling sheepishly from the attention before continuing, “she rushed to where you were and started bandaging you up.  Applejack was tying up the unicorns at the same time.  I then flew to Officer Book’em and Mayor Mare and told them what happened.  Book’em got his unicorn suppressors from his jailhouse and the mayor immediately sent our fastest pegasus, me of course, to Canterlot to tell the princesses.”  Twilight nodded as Rainbow Dash talked but a question formed in her mind at the same time.  Twilight interrupted here before the pegasus could continue and turned to Spike.

“Why didn’t you all have Spike send Celestia a letter?”

Spike looked nervous but Rarity spoke up for him.

“He was with me darling.  When you left, he came out of the library and met with me outside and we joined with Pinkie Pie on the way towards Sweet Apple Acres and missed out on everything.  We didn’t know you were hurt until we saw the princesses arrive, and I’m assuming that the mayor either forgot or didn’t know that Spike could contact the princesses immediately.”  Spike squeaked into the conversation, sounding apologetic.  He looked slightly ashamed of himself for what he thought was failing Twilight in a moment of need.

“I’m sorry Twilight, I didn’t know.”  Twilight heard the him berating himself with the tone he used.  She wanted to let him know that everything was fine and that he had done all he could.  She had left him behind for his own safety of course.

‘And a good thing I did.’

Twilight gave Spike a reassuring smile and pulled him into a hug.

“Don’t worry about it, no one expected it and everything’s all right.  Right?”  She pointed her question at the two princesses who looked reassuringly at her.  She still hadn’t gotten all of her answers and wanted to know what happened to her attackers.  But Cadence answered Twilight instead.

“When Celestia and Luna arrived, they flew you back here to the hospital while the other guards that came by train took the unicorns into custody.  They’re in the dungeons after we patched them up but they have refused to tell us why they attacked you or who sent them.”

“That brings us to our next issue.”

Twilight quickly took her gaze back to Celestia and Luna, her facing forming an expression of inquiry as Luna talked.  What could possibly have gone wrong now? She thought.

Celestia bowed her head, her horn barely not scraping the ceiling and her mane blowing in an invisible wind, and answered the unspoken question from her former pupil.

“We have not been able to keep your attack quiet so we could announce it calmly when we had all the facts and could calm everypony.  But with guards rushing through the city and Luna and I rushing to and from Ponyville, rumors broke out and ponies began asking questions of what was going on.  We’re not sure how but news of your attack leaked out and now Parliament has called for an official inquiry.  Fancy Pants called for it to investigate what happened, if you’re alright, and to ask who is responsible.  We’ve told them that you were going to make a full recovery and they decided to postpone the investigation until you had woken up so you can testify.  As soon as you’re discharged, the investigation will begin.”  Luna interjected and began talking in a very angry voice.

“Whoever these foals were, we will bring them to justice and we will stop them.”  She then spoke in a more controlled tone and her voice sounded a bit bitter. “But you have been unconscious for a week, and the members have started panicking and are on the edge of accusing almost everypony else in that chamber of the foul deed.  With the unicorns keeping their silence we have little to no evidence on who planned it, they were very secretive and have covered their tracks well.  My Night Guard has been searching everywhere, but it looks like Parliament’s investigation is the only way we will be able to cool everything off.”

Twilight sighed and looked down at herself, shaking her head.  She had an inkling of the amount of panicking Canterlot was having with a princess being attacked.  Twilight knew that the best option was to get well soon and end the panic.  She looked back at her friends and family and drank in their expressions.  The others in the room also looked disappointed and were casting gloomy expressions as they digested the information from the princesses.  Twilight wanted to get onto something else before the melancholy became permanent and forced a smile on her face.

“Well, I’m ok and I am going to make a full recovery and I’m sure we’ll catch those responsible and everypony will calm down.  O.K.?  We are going to be just fine.  Let’s talk about something else, this can wait until I get out of the hospital.”

Twilight was glad as the others smiles returned, although she noticed that Celestia and Luna remained stoically worried.  At her reassurances they all talked about how long until she got out and struck up other small talk with her.  Trying to mimic Twilight’s good attitude and filing away Parliament’s investigation for another time.

Meanwhile, somewhere in a hidden location near Canterlot…..

Two ponies stood under the gates to the old manor.  The manor had once been the home of a noblepony but had seen disrepair as the family line moved out or died.  Now it served as the headquarters for the conspirators.  One of the ponies was large and was wearing a cloak that disguised his features while the other was a unicorn with a similar cloak but with the hood down, revealing his face.

“Is everything in place?”  the disguised pony asked the unicorn next to him.

“Yes my lord, all the preparations have been made and all that is needed is for Parliament to begin its investigation.”

“Good,” he whispered “the attack on that weak mare Twilight will have stirred up Canterlot, perfect for the next phase of the plan.  Although I expected for the attack to succeed....hhhhmmmmm.  Did the princesses’ official report mention how our unicorns were defeated?”

“No my lord, the report says that our assassins were stopped before Princess Twilight was seriously injured while the assassins were captured.  Thanks to our training no doubt, our unicorns have kept their silence and will continue to do so.  Even in front of Parliament.  If I may ask sir, why send only unicorns?  Wouldn’t it have been better to send in more of a variety?”

The pony shook his head under the cloak, causing it to ruffle before answering.

“I wanted something quick.  That mare has avoided many dangers and earth ponies and pegasi would have had to get close to kill her.  A quick, unexpected attack in the dark by magic was our best option.”

“Very well sir.  May I be dismissed?  I want to go over the preparations for Parliament.”

The larger pony snorted in ascent before turning his gaze back toward Canterlot as the unicorn re-entered the old manor.

“All is going exactly as planned.”

Chapter 6: Accusations

Chapter 6: Accusations

**March 3, 1504 A.D.**

**Lunar Wing, Canterlot Castle**

The day had barely begun before the cool cusp of winter began to make way for the warm of spring.   Winter Wrap-Up in Canterlot had proceeded smoothly the previous week, the unicorns casting their magic to clear the snow and frost from the marble city.  The pegasi assigned to the weather of the city had also cleared the skies above Canterlot of any gray and gloomy clouds that cast shadows over the pristine city.

The mood that infected the city however, was not so easily smoothed.

In the week since the attack on Princess Twilight, the city had been in an uproar over her attackers as well as extremely nervous as it reminded them too closely of both the Changeling Invasion and the Everfree Incident.  Rumors had flown like wind through the city streets of who did it and why, each equally unlikely but the dread and mystery surrounding the attack still caused a pall of dread to descend on the inhabitants of the capital.

While Twilight was recovering in the hospital, soldiers were increased in the city both for obvious security reasons and to help calm the city and keep the populous from rioting in a panicked frenzy.  Several statements had been issued from the princesses that Twilight would make a full recovery and an investigation by Parliament was to be due any day.

That day was in fact today.

Princess Luna was rather grumpy, she had been changing her sleeping habits over the course of the previous week in order to be awake and alert for the beginning of Parliament’s investigation.

This was not the source of her grumpiness however.

“I’m sorry princess, but all the rest of the guard captains agreed that until the perpetrators behind Princess Twilight’s attackers are found we must accompany you.”

Luna looked over at her Night Guard Captain, Night Wing.  The female thestral was of average height, had a light gray coat with a dark blue mane and tail to match her near black bat-wings that were folded at the mares sides.  Night Wing was an accomplished fighter and in addition to her duties as a guard captain, she was also head of Equestrian Intelligence.

They were both walking to the front of Canterlot Castle, leaving Luna’s residence in the lunar wing of the castle behind them as they walked.  They and the other four Night Guards were preparing to meet with Celestia and Twilight who were both waiting for them with their respective captains and accompanying guards.

Twilight had left the hospital two days ago with her burns healing and her wings mending.  She had taken it slow with her friends and family helping her, doting on her like a newborn foal, a fact which Twilight found unamusing and that which Luna teased her about to no end in friendly gest.

Speaking of Twilight, Luna looked out a window as she and her guards walked down the hallway and spied Twilight’s new residence looming over the castle.

When Canterlot Castle had been built shortly after her banishment, (a fact Luna reluctantly admitted, she still felt awful for demolishing the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters in her nightmarish rage) her sister Celestia had planned it with a mind of Luna’s eventual return.

With this hope inside her, Celestia had the workers construct two wings of the castle with respect to the sun and moon.  The Solar wing, in which Celestia resided, and the Lunar wing, which was mostly untouched and preserved for the day Luna returned.  When Luna had returned in 1500 A.D., the rooms were ready for her immediate use but she instead spent the next several months sharing a room with her sister, finding comfort in the white alicorn’s presence after a millennium on the moon.  As Luna slowly recovered from both her banishment and the Elements of Harmony’s cleansing power, she moved into her new residence and rearranged things to her liking.

When Twilight had ascended, the sisters had discussed with the younger alicorn where she would be staying.  They had all agreed that Twilight would mostly remain in Ponyville with her friends for the time being but had also agreed for her having a permanent residence in the castle for her as well.  Twilight’s old quarters as Celestia’s student were too small, Celestia asserted, much to Twilight’s disagreement.  But as Twilight began to grow taller and thin out, she reluctantly agreed that a change would be needed.

What had then followed was the construction of the Twilight Tower.

This tower’s base was located in the middle of the hallway which connected the Solar and Lunar wings of the castle.  It wasn’t the tallest tower of the castle, that honor belonged to the Observatory tower which the princesses used to both view the stars and look out over Equestria.  The Twilight Tower was of mid-size in height but was very thick with lavender marble that sparkled like stars in the sunset.  Its rooms consisted of a personal library, a kitchen, a laboratory, a room for Spike, several rooms for guests, and a bathroom for guests.  At the top of the tower was Twilight’s personal quarters which contained a study, a bedroom, a personal bathroom, and of course plenty of room for more books.

Luna broke her gaze from the tower outside the window as they approached the front of the castle. Reaching out, Luna used her magic to open the doors to the front lawn of the castle.  She saw Celestia, Twilight, and their guards as they waited for her.  They all wanted to leave together before going through the castle gates to attend Parliament’s investigation.  Celestia was wearing her usual vestments while Twilight was wearing her coronation attire.  They had all agreed that while Twilight’s wings healed, it would be best to conceal them and the bandages they were wrapped in so as to not worry ponies.

“Luna!  You’re here!  What took you so long?  Parliament was supposed to start five minutes ago!”  Twilight told the blue alicorn as she walked up to them.  Luna looked back at Twilight and gave her a small smile.

“They’re just going to start the roll-call of the delegates.  They can’t proceed without us, not with you being the focus of the entire investigation in the first place.  Besides, we’ll make it there in time for everything else.”  Luna smirked at her fellow princesses, confidant in her reasoning, but Celestia frowned at her as they trotted through the castle gates into the streets of Canterlot.

“Luna, they can’t start without us.  Parliament follows very strict procedures, especially when it concerns us.  They will wait until we arrive, and it is impolite to keep them waiting.”  Celestia put her smile back on her face as they walked towards the Parliament Building, their guards fanning out to their front, sides, and behind them.  Celestia continued, “But enough of that, I wager we will hear enough lectures soon enough.  What kept you however?”  With that Celestia turned back to the lunar princess with her eyebrow arching up into her flowing mane.

The three alicorns were nearing the building as Luna replied, “I was doing some last minute reading over the most recent guard’s reports and the eyewitness accounts.  We should be prepared for whatever is brewing in there.”

They arrived at the building that housed Parliament.  The building itself was of small-height compared to the castle, but had a central dome where the chamber rested underneath and was surrounded by offices that handled different departments.  The royal guards at the door nodded to their princesses and opened the doors.  As they walked inside, Twilight turned her head to Luna, a searching look in her eyes.

“Has anything else new been discovered?”

Luna shook her head, “No, and the unicorns still refuse to talk, we still have guards searching however.  If they find anything I have given them orders to bring it in immediately.”

As she talked, an attendant led them to the chamber and opened the door for them.

The chamber was filled with the members in their seats, witnesses on the floor in chairs, and ponies ranging from journalists to concerned citizens filling the viewing booths above the floor of the chamber.  Luna and the others were walking to the royal booth as she noticed that most of the former elements of harmony were seated in the witness chairs, they were joined by the three guard captains, Wheeler, Night Wing, and Flash Sentry.

The princesses walked into the booth and took their seats.  Celestia then turned to Fancy Pants, who was patiently waiting at the Prime Minister’s chair, and bowed her head, letting him know he could begin.  Fancy Pants turned to the members and seized the gavel in his magic, he then rapped it on the podium in three short successive taps.

“The nine hundredth and forty-eighth session of the Equestrian Parliament is now in session!  I will call out roll.”

As Fancy Pants drolled out his duty, Luna thought that roll-call was redundant since she could clearly see that all the members were there.  She tore her gaze from Fancy Pants and her teal eyes looked about the room and gauged the general mood.

She first looked into the guest gallery.  The ponies they seemed both excited and nervous, the journalist scribbling notes and the citizens conversing quietly.

On the floor, the princesses’ guard captains sat with their famous stoic expressions and most of Twilight’s friends looked uncomfortable at being the center of attention.  The two exceptions were Rarity and Pinkie Pie.  Rarity was dressed more lavishly than anyone else in the room and simply looked like she was loving the attention.  Pinkie Pie looked like she didn’t have a care in the world as she defied the laws of magic with her random tricks and appearances.

Luna quickly turned away from the pink mare before a headache could set in, she very well knew that she would have more luck accurately predicting the number of rocks in Canterhorn mountain than explaining Pinkie Pie’s……well….. um…..Pinkie Pie is the best way to classify it, she thought.

Luna then looked over at the members of Parliament, the roll-call nearing the end.

Many of the members were focused and collected, ready to get down to business.  They were barely paying attention to Fancy Pants as he called out names.  There were a notable few however, that did not follow the norm.  Prince Blueblood looked bored as the proceedings began, Lady Fleur Dis Lis was gazing up at Fancy Pants with all of her attention, and Senator Tejas was sitting very still in his seat.

Luna frowned as her thoughts turned to the senator and what he represented and observed him more closely.  The earth pony was wearing a fine suit with the emblem of the Celestial Territories, an eclipse, emblazoned on it.  He looked very tired as if he hadn’t slept in a week but carried about him a very determined and confidant air about him.  But his eyes betrayed him, showing he was nervous and worried as the orbs flickered back and forth.

Luna carried her attention to Fancy Pants as roll-call ended.  The stallion then pulled himself together before speaking.

“We all know why we are here.  There has been an attack on Princess Twilight with fatal intentions.  This gathering is to investigate what happened and to see if we can discover the perpetrators behind it.  Princess Twilight has already submitted her testimony on the events to all of you from her point of view.  We have gathered witnesses to the events, and the guard captains in charge of our princesses’ safety.  One by one we shall call them to the stand and each shall give their testimony, after which you may question them.  Up first, Applejack of the Apple Family, former bearer of the element of honesty, and a personal friend of Princess Twilight.”

As Fancy Pants called her, Applejack stepped up to the podium in the center of the chamber, opposite of Fancy Pants.  Fancy Pants looked down at Applejack and gave her a large book to swear on with her hoof.  After doing so, he asked,

“Miss Applejack, as we understand it, it was your farm that caught fire.  Can you please tell us what happened from what you saw?”

Applejack nodded and took a deep breath.

“I was in mah house with mah family preparing fer bed, when I saw that some of our trees were caught up in a blaze.  I roused Big Mac’ from his slumber and he and I rushed out into field.   We were busy puttin out the flames with our equipment when Twilight flew in.  She quickly doused the flames by usin water from the city tank.  We had a brief talk about what happened when the fire restarted.  Twilight took off without us and flew towards the fire, leavin us behind.  Mac’and I were headed towards it when the fire went out and then the orchard let up with more lights, which we could see was magic.  We dumped our equipment and made a break for where the fire was.  As we ran, more magic lit up and we could hear several ponies scream.   When we arrived, Twilight was out cold and so were the unicorns.  Mac’ waved down the pegasi and Fluttershy bandaged up Twilight as I tied up the unicorns with mah lasso, thinking that they had attacked her.  We sent Rainbow for help, and then the princesses arrived and took Twilight back with them to Canterlot.  We sat on the unicorns till the guards showed up and carted them away too.  And that’s mah story.”

When Applejack finished she looked around for anyone that had questions.   Lady Grace waved down her attention.

“Miss Apple, did you see anything suspicious before the fire began?”

“No ma’am, twas as quiet as a field mouse when we tuckered in fer bed.”

Lady Grace looked satisfied at this and the others sat quietly in their seats.

“Is there any more questions for the witness?” Fancy Pants inquired, when there was none he dismissed Applejack and she returned to her seat.  “Next is Miss Rainbow Dash, head weather pegasus of Ponyville, former bearer of the element of loyalty, a close friend of Princess Twilight, and a trainee candidate for the Wonderbolts.”

Rainbow dashed to the podium and recited the same oath as Applejack before she began.

“I was in my cloudhome, hangin out, when I started smelling smoke.  I looked outside and saw that Sweet Apple Acres was on fire!  NOT COOL!  I quickly gathered the other pegasi nearby, and we started putting together rainclouds to put out the fire.  But…. we flew into a few difficulties.  It was hard to form rainclouds over the fire because of the heat, and even harder to fly them over the fire.  We couldn’t see through the smoke and it became hard to breathe if we stayed close for too long.  Then, all of a sudden, the fire went out, but the remaining smoke still made it too difficult to fly down, so we started gathering some wind to blow it away when we saw lights flicker in the orchard.  I later learned that was the unicorns attacking Twilight.  We sent the smoke away and Fluttershy and I flew down.  When we saw that Twilight was hurt, Flutters bandaged up Twilight and I flew to the Mayor.  She was with Chief Book’Em of the Ponyville police department.  I told them what happened to Twilight and the chief went to Sweet Apple Acres while the mayor sent me to Canterlot to tell the princesses.  When I arrived at the castle, Wheeler was there and I told him what had happened.  He rushed off to find the princesses and I flew back to Ponyville to check on everypony.  And that’s pretty much it.  Any questions on my AWSOME narration?”

Luna thought that was pretty straightforward, and she could tell that the other members agreed as none of them asked any questions.

Fancy Pants dismissed her and Rainbow Dash flew back to her seat quickly.

“Next is Miss Fluttershy, animal caretaker near Ponyville, former bearer of the element of kindness, and a personal friend of Princess Twilight.”

Fluttershy slowly walked to the podium and meekly gave her oath, which had to be repeated several times as nopony could hear her.  To fix this before continuing, Fancy Pants cast a voice amplifier voice spell on her.  Fluttershy then spoke at what could be considered a Royal Canterlot Voice to her but normal for everypony else.

“I was with my animals in my cottage asleep when they all woke up and panicked.  I didn’t know what was wrong until Angel dragged me outside and showed me the fire.  Rainbow Dash flew down and got me to help her with the clouds.  We kept trying until the fire went out and we saw the lights through the smoke.  After we sent the smoke away, we flew down to where Big Mac’ was and found Twilight.  I then bandaged her the best I could with the medical gear I had in my saddlebags.  One can never be too careful of course.  I continued to help her until the princesses arrived and took her away.  I then made sure the unicorns weren’t in fatal conditions and then the guards took them away too.  That’s it.”

The timid mare waited for questions nervously, and shrank back further as several members had their hooves up.  Sherriff Silverstar was first.

“Now who in tarnation is this “Angel”?  I don’t recall hearin about anypony else involved.”

Fluttershy looked back at the earth pony stallion with the large mustache and said,

“Oh…Angel isn’t a pony.  He’s a bunny.”

Silverstar looked skeptical of this.

“A small cute bunny dragged a fully-grown mare out of her home?”

“Yes.”

“You must understand why I don’t believe you.”

At this Flash Sentry poked up in his chair and addressed Parliament.

“The bunny is described under, “Possible Terrorist Cell” in your documents concerning Ponyville’s security.”

When he finished, the sound of rustling paper could be heard as the members searched their folders.  All of them had a grimace on their face as they read it.  Finally Silverstar looked back at Fluttershy with an incredulous look on his face.

“You live with that monster?!”

“Oh….he’s not a monster.  He’s a bunny.  And yes I do.  I also make him lunch.”

Silverstar was gaping at Fluttershy and the other members decided to move on.  Duke York phrased the next question at the yellow Pegasus.

“Miss Fluttershy, can you describe to us the extent of injuries you found on Princess Twilight when you found her?”

Fluttershy didn’t look any happier with more questions but persevered.

“She had several burns across her body, mostly on her wings and barrel.  But she had a large burn that I found on the side of her head, which is what I believe knocked her out.  Her wings had a few fractures and several of her feathers were burned.”

Duke York continued, “Now can you describe the wounds on the unicorns?”

“The unicorns were very beat up.  Many of them had burns that were similar to Twilight’s.  They also had several bruises on their heads as if hit with a blunt instrument in addition to several shallow cuts in specific areas like their knees and back legs.  They were all unconscious when I found them.”

As Fluttershy finished, Luna saw that many of the members had thoughtful expressions on their faces.  Each trying to figure out what had happened after Twilight was knocked unconscious.  Luna knew there was a missing piece to the puzzle.  Something had happened between the times that Twilight was unconscious and when the Apples found her.

‘But what?’

There had been no evidence that she knew of that had told them of anypony else in the orchard.  But the fact was that the unicorns were stopped before Twilight was killed, and nopony had saw what had stopped them, pointed toward an intervention.

‘There is another player on the board.  But who?  And why would they keep quiet?’

When there was no more questions for Fluttershy she descended back to the floor, and Luna thought she looked very grateful and happy that her questioning was over.

Luna barely paid attention as the members questioned Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike next.  But none of them had been near the events at the time it happened and so had nothing truly relevant to report.  Next would be the captains’ reports, with Captain Wheeler of the Day Guard first.

Fancy Pants looked very intently at Wheeler as he spoke.

“Captain, you are here to tell us what your role was in this and what you and the other Day and Night Guards found upon arriving.” When Fancy Pants finished, Wheeler looked up at the prime minister with a neutral expression before speaking clearly to the assembly.

“When Miss Rainbow Dash informed me of the attack on Princess Twilight, I immediately took guards to find her majesties Princesses Celestia and Luna in case it was a multiple attack.  I sent messengers to alert my fellow captains Night Wing and Flash Sentry of the events as well as orders to double the guards in the castle and to search for possible intruders.  My stallions and I found the princesses unharmed in their private dining-room and quickly informed them of the situation.  I then received orders from Princess Celestia to lead the unicorns and earth ponies to Ponyville by train while Captain Night Wing would go with them and any air-capable guards.  I took the grounded guards, both Day and Night Guards, by train to Ponyville where we were informed that the princesses had already taken Princess Twilight back to Canterlot.  We took the unicorns into our custody and searched them and the sight of the attack.  On the unicorns was a map detailing the area, a list of the princess’s habits and friends in the town, as well as instructions to quickly use magic to subdue the princess before killing her.  All of these including the instructions had no identifying marks on who gave it to the attackers.  At the site of the attack, we found the princess’s feathers, as well as hoofprints in the surrounding trees which is believed to be that of the attackers.  No other evidence was found.  We then left a regiment to continue searching while I and the rest of the guards took the unicorns back to Canterlot where we imprisoned them in the dungeons. “

When Wheeler finished, he shut his muzzle and sat stoically on his haunches.  Luna looked around the chamber and saw that Mayor Cloudy Skies had a question for the guard captain.

“Captain, may we see the instructions found on the attackers?  Its language might prove to be of some use identifying the culprits.”

Wheeler nodded and a subordinate hoofed him the instructions from the evidence folders nearby.  He began reading out loud the contents of the document.

“To Silent Slaughter,

Your assassin squad has been assigned by our lord to ambush and kill the alicorn Twilight Sparkle.  Included with this message is a map of the town of Ponyville, and a list of her habits and associates in the vicinity.  Our lord also advices you to ambush the alicorn out of the sight of eyewitnesses and to use magic to quickly subdue her, as she is an alicorn and is most likely dangerous if not put down quickly.

We Will Rise Again,

The Seneschal”

Luna saw Celestia put a wing around Twilight as the lavender mare shivered.  Luna also wanted to comfort her friend but the box was too small to scoot around in and didn’t want to make a scene in Parliament.  Instead she leaned over to Twilight and whispered to her.

“Don’t worry, we will find those responsible and stop them.  You’ll see.”

Twilight nodded her thanks and Luna turned back around to observe Wheeler as Cloudy Skies began questioning him again.

“Who is this ‘Silent Slaughter’?”

“We believe that is the code name of the leader of the group.  A mare that seems to be the main spokespony for the group.  The Seneschal is also a codename.”

“Do you have any leads on the “lord” of which the letter names?”

“No ma’am.  There are many dukes, lords, and mayors in Equestria.  Without any further evidence we cannot pinpoint if it is one of them.  Since most of the letters subjects were coded, Night Wing also believes that the “lord” referenced is a codename.”

Luna could see that many of the members were frustrated with the lack of any solid leads.  The lunar princess herself felt annoyed with all the secrets and mystery that stubbornly refused to be revealed.

Cloudy Skies sat back down, disappointed but satisfied with Wheeler’s answers.  When there were no more questions for the stallion he sat down in his chair on the floor and Flash Sentry ascended to the podium, looking very nervous.  Luna understood why, it was his charge that had been attacked after all.  Fancy Pants gave the rookie captain a disappointed frown as he addressed him.

“Captain Flash Sentry.  Your princess, Twilight Sparkle, was attacked by a group of unicorn assassins.  Explain why you, the captain of Princess Twilight’s Arcane Guard, and your ponies failed your duty in protecting our princess!”

Flash Sentry was fidgeting nervously and was very pale, he obviously felt the gravity of the Arcane Guard’s failure.

“We were not in Ponyville when Princess Twilight was attacked, my fellow guardponies and I were here in Canterlot.”

“Why were you not in Ponyville?  As I understand it, that has remained Princess Twilight’s main residency as she is gradually being assimilated into our government.”

Luna pitied the stallion, the poor colt looked sick as he answered the prime minister.

“Ponyville is a very peaceful town, and one of the closest towns to Canterlot itself.  We had been told by the princess that we were only needed when she visited Canterlot or other cities.  So we remained in Canterlot.”

Fancy Pants paused at this and turned around and faced the royal booth where Luna, Celestia, and Twilight sat.  He gave Twilight and incredulous gaze as he addressed the princess of magic.

“Is this true your majesty?  You asked your guards to remain here instead of allowing them to fulfill their duty in protecting you?”

Twilight looked like a scolded filly caught stealing cookies.  She had the appearance of being slightly abashed as she answered.

“Yes I did.  I’m still getting used to being a princess and I didn’t like guards following me around everywhere.  It made talking with my friends in Ponyville awkward and difficult.  Besides, Ponyville is very peaceful and…”

“Peaceful?!”

Luna snapped her head back to Mayor Mare as she interrupted Twilight in a disbelieving voice.

“Ponyville borders the Everfree Forest!  Was home to the Elements of Harmony!  We get monthly visits by a former chaotic tyrant of Equestria!  Cerberus, who guards Tarturus, plays ball with our citizens!  We’ve had dragons rampage through the streets!  Psychopaths enslave the town!  We’ve been enchanted with Want it’ Need it!

Twilight turned away at this, looking very embarrassed, but the mayor continued.

“Diamond dogs live in caves nearby!  Parasprites have invaded!  Ursa Minor attacks!  Timberwolves crawl nearby at night!  Nightmare Moon returned and first appeared in Ponyville!”

Luna ducked her head at hearing that, she didn’t like being reminded of her time of being possessed by the nightmare.

“And on top of all that, Ponyville is the home of the CUTIE MARK CRUSADERS!!!”

There was a collective gasp in the audience and several members turned pale.  Everypony had heard of the infamous trio.

Mayor Mare ended her tirade and fell back in her seat, looking winded from her rant.  Fancy Pants shook his head at her in pity.

“While I must berate the mayor for interrupting the princess, she does have a good point.”

He turned back towards the princesses and his face grew serious.

“Princess Twilight, these guards are here for your protection.  While this body cannot force you to accept them, we all highly recommend that you do so.  For your safety and that of the town.  Surely you must see that now in light of your attack.  You were very lucky and so was Ponyville that no lasting harm was done.”

Twilight didn’t look happy at all.  She seemed to mull it over in her head for a few moments before her head snapped back up and she addressed the chamber.  Her voice was filled with reluctance and a hint of regret.

“I understand.  Thank you Prime Minister, I shall accept Parliament’s request and my captain and I shall discuss suitable arrangements after today.  I was being foolish and prideful I suppose.  I will of course, make plans for a permanent branch of my guard to be garrisoned in Ponyville while I retain residency.  Is this acceptable?”

“It is your majesty, we want what is best for your safety.”

“Very well.  Captain Flash Sentry?”

The rookie looked up at his princess nervously, probably afraid of being lectured, Luna thought.

“I am sorry for not allowing you to fulfill your duties.  That was my mistake, not yours or my guards.  We have much to discuss after Parliament adjourns.  You are dismissed.”

Flash Sentry nodded gratefully and flew back down to his seat, looking like he had dodged an arrow.

Night Wing, Luna’s captain and also head of intelligence stepped forth.  Fancy Pants cast a weary gaze down at the thestral mare as she ascended, Luna knew that he had been stressed these past weeks.

“Captain Night Wing, as head of Equestrian Intelligence I hope that your report will shed some light on this conspiracy.  Please proceed."

Night Wing swore the oath of honesty and began in her high-pitched yet crystal voice.

“As Wheeler said, I assisted him in securing the princesses and I also led all flight-capable ponies with the princesses to Ponyville.  We recovered Princess Twilight and took her to the hospital in the castle.  Since then I have been scouring through everything to find the conspirators.”

Luna had to smile at Night Wing.  She always preferred her guards being short and to the point, she disliked how Celestia’s guards could be so long winded at times.

Duchess Gold Dust glared down at the thestral and her greedy voice piped up.

“You have been in charge of the interrogation of the unicorns captured.  I want to know everything you have been able to dig up on them.”

Night Wing shifted slightly in her seat, a movement that Luna found odd, since it indicated that Night Wing was uncomfortable with what she was about to say.

“Wheeler already told you all that no significant evidence was found on them.  We have interrogated them and they have yielded nothing.  No names.  No contacts.  No residence.  No conspiracy.  We haven’t even gotten their favorite food.  These assassins were trained well.  They won’t even talk about what attacked them.  When they didn’t confess anything we went through the cutie-mark registry and found… um…..”

“Found what captain?”

“Well…. they aren’t registered.”

Luna was shocked, and judging by the gaping, gasping, and looks of disbelief that appeared around the chamber, so was everypony else.  Every pony had to register their cutie-mark.  It was an easy way to identify ponies since each pony’s mark was individual and unique.  They had to be registered in order to apply for any government department help.  Registration was necessary for voting, marriage licenses, purchases, and even to apply for residency in a town or city.  The fact that these ponies weren’t registered was astounding.

Or it meant somepony tampered with the registry.

Luna could see Gold Dust come to the same conclusion.

“Have you investigated if the registry has been defiled?”

“As you know, the registry is kept here in the Parliament Building for record keeping.  It is well guarded and only the highest levels of clearance can access those records.  We looked up what ponies have been in the registry in the past month and it shows that only members of Parliament have accessed it.”

All the sound in the room dropped to nothing.  Mayor Mare looked scared as she asked that which haunted the chamber.

“You mean that a conspirator may be in this chamber as we speak.”

“Yes.”

As the members shifted their nervous gazes on one another, Luna searched them too, looking for any fidgeting that might give them away.

Unfortunately, they were all fidgeting.

Fancy Pants spoke up and addressed Night Wing directly, looking her in the eye.

“Have you found anything that might lead to identify a conspirator in this chamber?”

“No.  The registry access card just mentions a Member of Parliament.  If we had a definite identity, we would already have arrested them.”

Fancy Pants leaned back in his chair and was still for a moment, looking shaken, before turning his gaze to Parliament.

“Miss Applejack.”

The mentioned mare jumped in surprise and looked back at Fancy Pants, who was still looking at the members.

“Yesum?”

“Since you were the bearer of the element of honesty, are you able to tell when a pony is lying?”

“Yes.”

“I am going to ask each member to give an answer to who has accessed the registry.  You speak up if any of them lie.  I will test it first.”

Fancy Pants looked back down into Applejack’s eyes and pulled on his best poker face.

“I accessed the registry.”

Applejack shook her head.  “Lie.”

As Fancy Pants proceeded to ask each member, Luna glared at all of them and noticed that Celestia did too as they gave their answers, all answering truthfully under Applejack’s scrutiny.  When the questioning was done, three members confessed that they had accessed the registry.

Lord Stuffy Tea

Mayor Mare

Prince Blueblood

Each of the members stood in their seats as Fancy Pants interrogated each of them.

“Lord Stuffy Tea, why did you access the cutie-mark registry?”

The Lord of Trottingham looked confidently back at Fancy Pants as he answered.

“I was adding to the registry.  My fief is large and many colts and fillies earn their cutie marks.  If you check the date in which I signed in, you will see a submission by Trottingham on the most recent cutie-marks.”

The chief of the cutie-mark registration committee, who had been pulled in for this, nodded, confirming the stallion’s alibi.  Fancy Pants addressed Mayor Mare next.

“Mayor Mare.  It seems awfully suspicious that the head of the fief that the princess lives in accessed the registry.  AND a map of Ponyville was provided to the assassins.  Why did you access the registry?”

Luna could tell that the mayor was very insulted by being suspected, but she didn’t rise to the bait and replied calmly.

“One of the residents of Ponyville, Diamond Tiara, brought to my attention that there had been a mistake in her registration.  Calling her Tiamond Daria.  Since the registry is here, I came to Canterlot and fixed the mistake to remedy the situation.  If you must, you can ask her yourself.  Her father is Filthy Rich, one of Ponyville’s largest businessponies.  But instead you should just check her file, there should be corrections that are dated and under my signature.”

The chief registrar quickly went through his files and produced the document.  He checked it over and nodded affirmation once again.  Fancy Pants apologized for his suspicions and questioned Prince Blueblood next.

The spoiled prince of unicorns looked disdainful as he answered.

“I was checking the genealogical records that are attached to the cutie-mark registry.  A mare had caught my attention but I wanted to check to see if she was a pure unicorn first.  The mare was misleading however, and she was in fact the product of an earth pony and a pegasus with a distant unicorn ancestor.  She was decidedly not worthy of my affections as she would have spoiled my royal bloodline.”

Luna rolled her eyes in irritation at Blueblood.  She wished she and Celestia hadn’t promised to keep the unicorn royal bloodline as dukes and duchesses of the Canterlot Fief when the Equestrian Confederation had given them the Equestrian Throne after Discord’s rule.  Luna wanted very much to strip Blueblood of his title and lands for his arrogance and racism.  But he was unfortunately sly enough to stay out of trouble, and so the ancient treaty still stood.

Luna then caught something in the corner of her eye.  She looked back at Night Wing and noticed that another one of her thestral guards had entered the chamber and had handed something to Night Wing and had begun whispering urgently to her.  It was very quiet and quick, Luna doubted anyone else but her noticed as their attention was still on Blueblood and Fancy Pants as they talked.

“Prince Blueblood that is not a solid alibi, do you have any concrete proof that you had a legitimate reason to enter the registry?”

Blueblood scoffed at Fancy Pants and dismissed him with a hoof.

“I don’t know why you bother questioning me, Mr. Chairpony, you should instead being asking Tejas.”

Fancy Pants was confused at this and looked at Tejas, who shrugged, before turning back to Blueblood.

“Why should I be questioning Senator Tejas?  He has stated truthfully that he has not entered the registry.”

Blueblood’s face turned into an amazed expression, his eyebrows climbed up into his blond mane.

“You mean you don’t know?”

“Know what Blueblood?  Spit it out already!”

“That Senator Tejas doesn’t have to access our registry, the Celestial Territories keep their own separate from Equestria’s.”

The crowd murmered and whispered to each other at this.  Many of the members looked confused and so did Fancy Pants, who turned back to Tejas with a questioning expression.

“Is this true Senator?”

Luna could see where this was going, and from the looks of it, so did Tejas.

“Yes, the Territories keeps its own registration of Cutie-Marks.  It has been that way since we joined Equestria, it was part of the agreement with Celestia and Luna.”

Fancy Pants looked surprised at this, and so did the rest of Parliament minus Blueblood.

“I wasn’t aware of this.  Captain Night Wing?”

Luna’s captain snapped her attention from the parcel she had been given earlier and looked back at Fancy Pants.  She appeared to be distracted.

‘That’s strange.  She’s usually on top of things.’

“Yes Mr. Chairpony?”

“When you searched the registration, did your guards also search the Celestial Territories as well?”

“No.  We did know they keep their own records so we sent a letter to Inquisitor Long Fang, the head of intelligence in the Territories, with pictures of the assassin’s cutie-marks.  His reply was that their registry did not have a match for any of the unicorns.”

When she finished, she looked back down at the item the night guard had given her earlier.  Noticing her distraction, Fancy Pants seemed to grow curious as to what could have her attention more than the discussion at hand.

“What is that you’ve got Captain?  You seem preoccupied.”

The members interest piqued back up at this, they were all trying to see what the mare had in front of her.  There was a long pause as the thestral studied the paper with an unreadable expression.  Luna turned to Celestia after her sister prodded her.

“Do you know what she has?  It is most unlike the captain of your guard to be this distracted.”

Luna shook her head, her mane flowing in an agitated pattern, “No, but it looks like we’re about to find out.”

The princesses looked back down at Night Wing, who had remained quiet this whole time.  Fancy Pants was getting impatient with her continued silence.

“Captain!  What is the matter?!”

Night Wing snapped back at Fancy Pants with an annoyed face, hinging on anger.

“I don’t know!One of my guards gave it to me.  He said that it was found at the site of the attack under some of the ashes.  But I can’t read it!  The ash has smudged the writing on it and there are several holes where the fire burned it.”

Fancy Pants was taken aback by the thestral’s irritation but spoke kindly to her.

“If I might Captain, I know a few spells that could reveal what is written by cleaning the ash of the parchment.  May I?”

Night Wing nodded her head and hoofed over the burnt parchment to him.  Fancy Pants’ horn lit up and encased it for a few moments before looking at it.  His eyes looked intently at the page as he read it aloud.

“Your ……,

You must ………………Ponyville immediately, our spies in Equest………..w…….a…. conspiracy …..a…….kill Princess Twilight tonig……..ce you have be….th Tejas and are closest to Ponyville, ………you to …………………….being.  The princess being dead ………….everything.

Inq……..Long Fang

Celes…..………. Intellige……”

Fancy Pants looked shocked at the implications but looked closely at a symbol at the bottom of the page before looking up at the princesses.

“I don’t recognize this seal below the signature, can any of your majesties identify it?”

He floated it up to the booth in his magic and Luna grabbed it in hers before he let go.  All three princesses looked at the symbol.  Luna could feel Celestia stiffen next to her as they both recognized the seal.

Luna felt sick, the symbol at the bottom of the page was very familiar.  It was an eclipse surrounded by stars, the six stars had six different colors and surrounded the eclipse in a halo.

‘I haven’t seen this since before my banishment.  But who….?’

Luna wasn’t able to finish her thoughts as Fancy Pants interrupted them.

“What does the symbol mean?”

Twilight looked curious at it but shook her head.

“I don’t know Mr. Chairpony, I am not familiar with the study of different symbols.  Have you two seen it before?”

She was now addressing Celestia and Luna, but Luna didn’t want to answer and she knew Celestia didn’t either.

“Um, Celestia? Luna?”

Luna floated the page back down to Fancy Pants, about to feign ignorance, but Celestia sighed and answered him instead.

“I know the seal, it is the royal crest of the Celestial Territories.  It hasn’t been used since the Territories joined Equestria.”

Silence.

Fancy Pants turned to Tejas, a very disturbed look on his face.

“Senator, I find this very disturbing.  First, your registry, being separate from ours would be easy for you to manipulate.  Second we cannot identify the unicorns that attacked our princess.  Third, I know that your intelligence service, separate from Equestria, trains the best agents.  Fourth, your name along with Long Fang the head of the Celestial Territories intelligence is on a letter that appears to be connected to the attack on Princess Twilight.  And now a long forgotten seal used when the Territories was independent comes back into to use.  Do you have knowledge of any of these things?”

Luna felt awful, the ghosts of the past were coming back to haunt her and her sister.  She looked over at Tejas and could see that he was openly sweating, his fur matted with perspiration.  He seemed to be coming to a decision.

“Yes.”

Silence reigned in the chamber once more.  Fancy Pants’ jaw had dropped.  The members looked absolutely shocked at his admission.  The crowd in the viewing gallery was staring at Tejas with absolute confusion.

Fancy Pants collected himself and stared at Tejas with barely controlled fury.

“What do you know?  And why did you hide it from this Parliament?”

Tejas slumped back in his chair in defeat, Luna thought that his expression looked like a farmer who had lost their crop.

“I….I can’t tell you.”

Parliament broke out into chaos, if Luna didn’t know any better she would have thought that Discord ruled once more.  Ponies were shouting at Tejas, the members were openly accusing Tejas of treason, the guards all stood up and looked ready to pounce on the poor stallion.  Fancy Pants was banging his gavel on his podium, trying to restore order, but his gavel snapped off from the force being used.

Luna went over to Celestia quickly and tugged on her wings to break her out of her stupor.

“Sister, what is happening?  Why would the Territories attack Twilight?”

Luna was shocked to see that her big sister had tears running down her face.

“I don’t know Luna.  I just don’t know.  That seal shouldn’t even exist anymore, I thought it had been erased from history over a millennia ago.  But I fear that things are about to escalate.”

Twilight was shaking her head in disbelief as the ponies yelled abuse at the silent stallion sitting quietly in his chair.

“Princess, does this mean the Territories are behind my attack?  But why would Tejas stick out his neck for me the last time Parliament met if he knew I was going to be attacked?”

Before either princess could answer, there was a loud bang and a flash of light as Fancy Pants leapt onto his podium and restored order.  He looked down at Tejas with disgust and snorted.

“Senator Tejas of the Celestial Territories, you have admitted to knowledge of these events and have refused to answer them.  I will give you one last chance to answer.  WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!?!”

Tejas barely flinched as Fancy Pants yelled at him.  His gaze was lost in space.  His mouth opened and a regretful voice rang through the chamber.

“I do know about that letter, what is written on it, the royal crest, and some facts about the attackers.  But I have been sworn to secrecy, and I would never betray my friends.”

He looked solemnly back at the princesses up in the booth with tears welling up in his eyes, he seemed to have aged ten years in the space of a few heartbeats.

“But I swear, we would never harm the princesses.”

Fancy Pants continued to stare at him with disbelief.  He then broke his gaze from the reduced stallion and nodded at Captain Wheeler.

“Since you continue to refuse to answer, and you have admitted to knowledge of the attack on Princess Twilight’s life, you are hereby charged with treason, and conspiracy against the triarchy of Equestria.  You will be taken into custody until a trial can be set.”

As he talked, Wheeler and some Day Guards had approached Tejas and chained his neck.  Tejas didn’t flinch or resist, he just continued to stare at the princesses with the tears flowing freely down his face.

Finally, he turned away as the guards led him out of the chamber and to the dungeons that awaited him.  The chamber was silent until the door closed behind them with a loud boom, like the closing of a coffin.  Fancy Pants straightened his suit and sat back down before addressing the members.

“What do we do now with this new development?”

Comrade Marshall spoke up in his northern accent.

“Tis too obvious, Mr. Chairpony, ve Territories are bevind the attack.  Ve must act accordingly.”

“Hear, hear,” chimed in Lord Bismarck, “All that we have found points to Tejas and the Territories as the conspirators, but it still escapes me as to why?”

“Is it not clear too everypony except me?”

The members turned as one to stare at Blueblood.

“The Territories obviously attacked Princess Twilight because they couldn’t get to Princess Cadence in the Crystal Empire.  The Crystal Princess would already be on guard since Tejas showed hostility towards them in the recent session of Parliament, and as it has been revealed, Princess Twilight was completely unguarded and vulnerable in Ponyville.  What better way to get at Cadence than to kill her sister-in-law.”

Luna could see the members faces growing in comprehension as understanding seemed to light up the room, but Blueblood continued.

“What we should do is arrest all Celestial Territories citizens in Equestria’s borders.  It seems to me that they are already breaking away and this attack could be called an act of war.  Here in this chamber, we should so what we can and gain a valuable ally against the threat posed by the Territories.”

He paused and looked smugly at Fancy Pants.

“Mr. Chairpony, I move that Parliament immediately accept Princess Cadence’s proposal of unifying the Crystal Empire and Equestria in light of the attack on Princess Twilight and the threat of the Celestial Territories.”

Mayor Mare stood on her hooves and faced Fancy Pants.

“I second the motion.”

Fancy Pants looked about the room and raised a new gavel.

“All those in favor?”

There was a chorus of “Ayes” from all the members.

“Those opposed?”

The silence spoke for itself.  Luna looked over at the empty seat that Tejas had just occupied, nopony from the Territories was here to defend it.

TAP

“The ayes have it, this assembly accepts the proposal put forth by Princess Cadence.  Preparations shall now begin to unify our two nations.”

Fancy Pants looked tired and asked the assembly in a weak voice,

“I believe we have learned all we can today, is there any objection to Parliament being adjourned?”

None.

“Parliament is adjourned!”  TAP

As ponies everywhere broke out in light conversation and began to leave the chamber, Luna looked over at Twilight and Celestia.

Twilight looked excited that Cadence’s proposal had passed but confused still on all that had happened concerning the Territories.  Twilight was gently tugging on Celestia’s wing, Celestia looked sad and was staring out across the chamber.

“Sister…..what do we do now?”

Celestia looked back at Luna and said in a sorrowful voice,

“What we have to Luna, what we have to.”

Chapter 7: Looking for Answers

Chapter 7: Looking for Answers

March 24, 1504 A.D.

Books and Branches Library; Ponyville, Everfree Fief

If ponies entered the library this morning, they would have soon left for fear of getting injured by the maelstrom of books that flew through the library.

“There’s nothing here!”

After leaving the library, they would have relocated to their “Twilight Fallout Shelter” underneath their houses.  For all of them would have seen that their princess was stressed and bordering on the insanity that preceded the Want It’ Need It incident some years past.

Twilight’s friends were worried as they took shelter in Ponyville’s Library, their friend had been studying day in, day out, from dawn till dusk for the past week.  The five mares and Spike had barricaded themselves under several pillows and Twilight’s bed, they were trying to calm the panicked purple alicorn so the barrage of hardback books would stop trying to bludgeon them.

“Twalight!! Ya gotta calm down!”

“My hair!!”

“P-p-please stop… if that’s okay with you!”

“Ooooooh look!  A copy of Tea Parties Through History!!”

“This is so not COOL Twilight Sparkle!!”

As the others shouted, Spike peeked up from his trench with a helmet on.  He looked over at Twilight as she stood in the center of a tornado of literature.  He gulped in anticipation and put on his hoofball pads.  He tapped Rarity on the shoulder and the unicorn looked down at him.

“I’m going in!  If I don’t make it, tell Scootaloo she can have my comic collection!”

Before Rarity could reply, the young drake heaved himself over the walls of pillows and charged through the paper maelstrom.  He grunted as different novels pelted him, but he pressed on for the sake of Ponyville.  Nearing the eye of the paperback hurricane, Spike took in his target.

Twilight’s eyes were shifting back and forth rapidly as she searched through all of her books.  Her smile was a nine on the creepy scale and her hair looked more tangled than the chaos vines that had invaded Ponyville.  Her wings were outstretched and adding to the gale winds every time they flapped.  Her left eye was twitching as it read the pages and her tail was swishing back and forth like a razor sharp sword.

Taking his chances, Spike tried to get through the flying books put the barrage was too thick to penetrate.  He then spied a thick dictionary flying towards him and he jumped as it sailed underneath him, grabbing it with his claws he flew into the storm, looking for an opportunity to nail his target.  As he soared overhead, he let go and let out his best battle cry.

“DONUTS!”

As he sailed through the air, his claws outstretched and his mouth pulled back into a scaly snarl of determination he found the source of the unspeakable storm.

A purple horn, glowing with power.

With a mighty squeal, Spike landed on Twilight’s head, who barely noticed, and grabbed a book from the air and gave the horn a mighty slap with 101 Ways to Prank Your Friends.

With a yelp, Twilight stopped her magic.  All the books thudded to the floor and the five mares in the room broke in expressions of relief.

Spike, however, knew he was wounded and slumped off the alicorn’s back as she rubbed her horn where he hit it.

“Dragon down!  Medic!”

“Oh my goodness! Oh my goodness! Oh ….!”

Fluttershy quickly bent over the baby dragon, who had fallen limp in her hooves.

“Oh it’s not that bad Spike, just some paper cuts.”

Spike’s eyes snapped back open and his eyes frantically searched the room.

“Did we win?!”

“Yes, yes you did.  But was the slap really necessary?”

“YES!!” was everypony else’s answer.

Twilight looked around at her friends and smiled sheepishly at them.

“Sorry, I suppose I was studying too hard again?”

Spike walked up to her and prodded her in the side.

“If you had studied any harder, Ponyville would have become a crater.”

Twilight sighed and dropped her head, she hated worrying everypony.

“I’m sorry, I am just so frustrated and worried.  Ever since Parliament’s investigation, everything has slid down hill so fast.”

Twilight looked back over the past three weeks, recalling all the events that had transpired.

As soon as the Territories had heard of Tejas’s arrest and the passage of the Equestria-Crystal Empire Unification Act, they had officially split ties with Equestria and formally declared the restoration of the Celestial Territories as a separate nation.  Furthermore, they demanded that Tejas be released and that Equestria not unify with the Crystal Empire.  Parliament, with Celestia and Luna not taking initiative, had rejected both demands and countered that since the Territories seemed to have attacked Twilight, they did not have the right to leave and demanded they return to Equestria.

Part of the ancient treaty between the princesses and the Territories was that they could leave Equestria peacefully.  With the Territories the prime suspect of Twilight’s attack, Parliament had declared that the treaty was void and that the Territories did not have the right to leave, declaring the act as treason.

Some members of Parliament advocated using military force to seize back the Territories, but the princesses slapped down these proposals and reiterated that it was not for sure that the Territories were behind the attacks.  Celestia and Luna continued to advocate for negotiations, but the Territories refused because with the Unification Act passing, Cadence would have been part of the negotiations.  A point they refused to budge on.

So in the end, a very hollow stalemate followed.  With naught but silence coming from the Territories and bickering in Parliament over what to do.

Tejas was as stubborn as Twilight’s attackers, he refused to talk but he did remain polite and cooperative, unlike his fellow inmates.

Twilight was confused over Celestia and Luna’s reaction to the Territories secession.  Celestia wanted to continue to try to talk through normal diplomatic channels, while Luna wanted to just upright and go straight to the Territories and force a discussion.  Both of them seemed very distressed to Twilight, and they kept beating around the bush whenever Twilight asked them why the Territories bothered them so much.

So in the end, Twilight had done the only thing she could.

Study.

But her latest attempt ended up with the same results as the first attempt.

Nothing.

Twilight snapped out of her reverie and looked around at the room again, Spike and her friends were picking up and shelving the books.   There was a knock on the door and Twilight went to answer it.  As she opened the door with her magic, she began to see the golden armor that began twinkling through the door crack.

It was her Captain of the Arcane Guard, Flash Sentry.

“Good morning your highness, we just finished building the barracks nearby.  We thought you might want to come see it and we can discuss your security arrangements.”

Twilight was skeptical, she really didn’t want her guards here.  But accepted that she would need them here, just so that there would be more protection for Ponyville, her friends, and Spike.  She looked at Flash and began giving him her answer.

“Sorry Flash, but I…..”

“Now listen here missy, you don’t worry about the library none.  We got it.  Ya’ll go on and check the guards now ya hear?”

Applejack had approached and was gently pushing the disgruntled alicorn out the door.  Twilight tried to protest but Applejack heaved her out the door and slammed it behind her.  Giving another sigh, Twiligh turned back around and motioned for Flash to proceed.

“Alright Flash, show me what you built, it seems I have no choice in the matter.”

As they trotted through Ponyville, Flash began talking to her about her new protection.

“When we last talked, I know you didn’t want too much security, especially when doing daily chores and visiting your friends, so this is what me and my officers came up with.”

He paused and began pointing at around the town with his wings.  Twilight following the motion and saw what he was gesturing at.

“We have set up a route for our patrols to take that will maximize our coverage of the town and minimize any gaps.  With the patrols going around, any incursions into Ponyville will be immediately spotted.”

He then gestured to a few buildings that formed a square around the town.

“These four buildings were either being sold or were unoccupied, each will serve as a permanent lookout points.  The building to the north we have equipped with a quick fire signal, in case we needed to signal Canterlot for help, the building to the east serves as an armory and smithy while covering the Everfree Forest, the building to the south acts as a mess hall and kitchen, and then the west links with the train station and acts as the storage supply for the guards here as well as to watch suspicious characters exiting the train.”

He paused again as they headed towards the center of Ponyville and stopped.  Twilight followed suit and looked at the new building he pointed with his hoof.

The new barracks was three stories tall, as tall as town hall, was half as wide as the hospital, had an Equestrian Flag flying overhead, and Twilight’s Cutie mark emblazoned on a plaque above the main entrance.

“This is the Arcane Guard’s new Headquarters.  My office is here and this is also where the majority of the guards will be sleeping.  Built in is also a medical wing so we don’t impede the local hospital.  We have separate dorms and showers for mares and colts, as well as a recreation lounge for when the guards are off duty.”

Twilight looked impressed at the HQ and began to ask her captain the questions that had begun nagging her as he spoke.

“How many guards are stationed here?”

“With a town with a population of 8,504, we have 1,200 guards not including civilian staff.  We have 400 of each kind of pony; pegasus, unicorn, and earth pony.  Forming 12 companies of 100 ponies each headed by a corporal.”

“I see.  How about leave and pay?”

“Each pony gets one week of paid leave, one week of unpaid leave.  Illness, injury, maternity leave, and family emergency doesn’t count for either of those.  As for pay, the average is around 20,000 bits a year, divided equally between the months with the officers getting paid 2,000 more for each rank above a regular soldier.”

“Good.  I expect that all these guards are well behaved and won’t cause trouble?”

“Yes ma’am.   Out of the large pool of guards to choose from, we picked the ones who either didn’t have any infractions or committed the minor infractions such as tardiness or inappropriate attire.  And if any of them do cause trouble, we have protocols set in place that deal with it.  But I doubt it, many of these ponies grew up in small towns like this and will probably get along with the citizens just fine.”

“Very well.  What about chain of command?”

“Each company of 100 ponies has a corporal.  Two companies form a regiment of 200 ponies that report to a sergeant.  Two regiments form a brigade of 400 ponies that report to a colonel.  Each colonel reports to me, the captain, with the total of 1,200 guards.  But we all have to follow orders from you.  Mayor Mare, representative of Everfree Fief, is kept in the loop of our activities but she has no authority over us.”

“Excellent.  Now tell me about what you and the officers have planned for my security?”

“With the library being in the center of Ponyville, we will only station four guards for your personal residence.  Each with four hour shifts.  They will not invade your privacy unless certain of something being wrong.  If you are just walking around Ponyville itself, no guards will be necessary.  You will need to let us know however, if you plan for any excursions outside, particularly the Everfree Forest so we can assign you a small escort.  I understand you enter the forest often to visit a zebra friend named Zecora.  Unfortunately this also applies to your friends Fluttershy and Applejack since they live so close to the forest, but we will keep security there when you visit as minimal as possible so as to not make you uncomfortable.”

Twilight was nodding at each detail, very impressed with the efficiency that her Arcane Guards had set up here in Ponyville.  She then looked out over the Everfree Forest and had another thought.

“Flash, have you studied the layout of the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters?”

“Yes you majesty.”

“I was thinking of eventually restoring it, since it is so conveniently placed on top of the Tree of Harmony.  What do you think?”

“I think it an excellent idea ma’am.   A castle would be most suitable for you and the guard.  It is not far from Ponyville itself and a good pathway could probably be cleared with some effort.  We could protect you better there as well as guard a very important source to Equestrian National Security if we re-garrisoned the old castle.  The castle itself would need to be rebuilt, repaired, modernized, and probably expanded some.  But it would be good for long-term residency near Ponyville.”

Twilight kept her gaze over the forest for a little while longer, letting the silence stretch before deciding that everything had been covered.  She turned back to Flash and gave him a smile.

“Thank you Flash, that’s all I need to know.  Keep up the good work and let me know if you or the guards need anything.  Is there anything else you need to tell me?”

“No ma’am.”

“Good.  I’m headed back to the library now.  Thanks again and have a good day.”

“My pleasure princess, and same to you.”

Both ponies headed towards their respective residences, Flash to the new HQ and Twilight to the library.

As Twilight headed back, her mind turned back to her studies.  She groaned in frustration as she thought of how fruitless her research had become.

‘I mean, come on!  I searched through both the Canterlot Archives and the entire Ponyville Library!  They are both supposed to be brimming with knowledge on ancient history!   And yet neither of them have anything on the Celestial Territories!  The only other library that predates them is…..’

Suddenly it hit her.

She stopped in her tracks and quickly looked back over at the Everfree Forest, remembering another library that was well stocked with ancient, untouched history.

‘Of course!! Why didn’t I think of that before!  The Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters was built before Nightmare Moon’s Rebellion and is almost as old as Equestria itself!  If any library has a book on the Territories it must be in there!!’

Rejuvenated with her discovery, Twilight ran quickly to her library and opened the door looking for her friends.  They were sitting around a table having tea with Spike and looked like they had finished re-shelving all the books.  They stopped their conversation and looked up as Twilight entered the room.  Rarity was the first to speak.

“Why ever the rush darling?  You needn’t worry so much about your books.  We took care of it.  Now the library looks absolutely fabulous again.”

Applejack looked over at Rarity and shook her head before turning back to Twilight.

“Yeah, why the rush?  Ya barn on fire?”

Applejack then realized what she had said and muttered at herself, remembering the recent fire.  Twilight shook her head and directed a confidant smile at her friends.

“Nothing’s wrong, but I just thought of something!  We should go look through the library at the old castle!  I’m sure it’ll have something on the Territories!”

Spike looked skeptical and raised a claw and pointed out the window at the forest.

“Are you sure Twilight?  We didn’t find the information we were looking for last time.”

Twilight would not be dissuaded however, and lifted all her friends in her magic and began carrying them out of the library.

“No time for doubts Spike!  There must be something!  Now come on!  I have to arrange a guard escort so we can go into the Everfree.”

She closed the door behind her as she exited with her friends before setting them down and trotting at a brisk pace back towards the Arcane Guard HQ.  Her friends followed her.   They quickly got to the HQ and Twilight entered while her friends stayed outside and waited for her.

She quickly located the Captain’s office and the guards let her through immediately upon seeing her.  She walked through the doorway and Flash looked up in surprise at  her.

“Princess!  Is something wrong?  I wasn’t expecting you back so soon.”

Twilight shook her head quickly, not wanting to cause him distress.

“No Flash.  I do need you to organize a squad for me though.  My friends and I are going to the old castle to look through the books for information on the Territories.  Can you do it quickly please?”

Flash nodded enthusiastically and got to his hooves, leaving his office with the princess in tow.

“I’ll get a squad of twenty ready, including myself.”

“Thanks Flash, I’ll wait outside with the girls.”

Twilight then teleported outside with a flash of magic and landed between Spike and Fluttershy, who had been playing cards while they waited.

“Really Twilight?  I was just about to win Trotxes Hold’Em!”

“Sorry Spike, I really just want to head towards the castle library.  But we need to wait for Flash and the guards.”

They waited around a couple minutes until Flash reappeared with nineteen guards in purple armor following him.

He saluted at Twilight.

“We’re here princess.   Lead the way.”

It was cold near the castle.  The gray ruins rose over the cliff side like a forgotten sentinel mourning his old post.  The broken turrets poked out of the castle ruins and grazed the sky with their pointed stones.  Mist was rolling over the site but since it was mid-afternoon, it was low and easy to see through.  The building blocks that made up the old forest were covered in moss and vines.  Many of them were cracked and need to be replaced.  The old ruins just couldn’t shake the feeling of being forlorn and haunted.  A strange trait considering the Tree of Harmony was right underneath it.

As the procession crossed the bridge, Rainbow Dash floated lazily above them and looked down the stairwell that led to the cave where the Tree of Harmony was.

“Hey Twi?”

“Yes?”

“Did you ever figure out how the Tree of Harmony came to be in some stuffy old cave?”

Twilight followed her gaze as she crossed the bridge and frowned, that question had also been bothering her.

“No Rainbow I didn’t.  Nobody knew about the tree except Celestia and Luna until we found it.  It’s a mystery to them too.  They discovered the tree when looking for a way to defeat Dicord 1,504 years ago.  They told me that it seemed to be calling out to them, that’s how they found it.  After Discord was turned to stone, they decided to build their castle here above the cave.  As you know, they lived here until Luna turned into Nightmare Moon.”

As Rainbow was digesting this tidbit, Applejack spoke up with her own inquiry.

“Now how come Celestia left the castle the way it is?  With them books lying about, the old thrones still here, and the furniture and tapestries rotting in disrepair all namby pamby about the place.  Why didn’t she take anything wit her when she left?  Ah mean we even found her personal journal still here!”

The group had crossed the bridge and was making their way to the threshold of the ruins.  Twilight summoned the answers Celestia had given her some months previously after the Everfree Incident from her memories.  The lavender alicorn had wondered about that herself after that debacle.

“Celestia told me that as soon as she banished Nightmare Moon, the castle was too infested with dark magic to remain in safe habitation and the artifacts of the caste were infected too.  I think that’s where your “Pony of Shadows” legend comes from.  She abandoned the castle and started fresh in Canterlot.  Apparently, the dark magic continued to radiate from the place until we defeated Nightmare Moon, destroying all the dark magic in the process that was in the castle.”

They had passed through the entryway and were cantering down the empty hallways towards the library as Twilight continued.

“Celestia said that after Nightmare Moon was banished, the element of magic disappeared and the other elements grew stone cold.  She had to leave them here in the hopes that magic would one day return to reignite the other elements.”

She stopped her lecture as they reached the library.  Flash and the guards fanned out and began looking through some books, eager to help Twilight in her search.  Her friends did the same.

Twilight however, thought that she would go through Celestia and Luna’s secret library that Spike had discovered on one of their last visits months ago.  She walked over to the chair and pushed it back, activating the mechanism.

The walls rumbled and the guards shot alarmed looks around, trying to find the source of the sudden noise.  Twilight belatedly thought hat she should have given them some warning.

“Princess!  What is that?”

Flash quickly flew over to her but Twilight waved her wings at him and gestured for him to calm down.  Her friends waited and watched the shelves move out of the way.

“Sorry about that.  I should have warned you that there’s a secret passage to another part of the library.”

Twilight looked on and headed towards the entrance and turned back around to Flash and the guards.

“It’ll be too cramped if all of us go in there.  Would you mind staying out here and looking for anything on the Territories?”

They all shook their heads and smiled at Twilight’s concern for them.  Flash waved at them to start looking and smiled back at Twilight.

“We don’t mind princess.  Come talk to us if you need anything else.”

He then flew off and started shifting through different books.  Twilight turned around and walked through the archway to the private library.  Her friends were already searching through the books in the room.

Twilight flicked her horn and the torches sprang to life.  It always amazed her how intact this one room was.  It was very preserved compared to the rest of the castle, almost as if it hadn’t ever been abandoned.  She had a theory that since this was Celestia and Luna’s sanctuary, it was filled with positive energy and light magic that kept out the effects of the dark magic.

Pinkie Pie came up with the first find.

“Oooh!  Twilight come look at this!  It’s an old map without Equestria on it!”

She bounced over to the table in the middle of the room and placed the frail map on it.  Twilight looked over it with her friends hovering over her shoulder.

It was very old, Twilight didn’t even recognize the date on it.  It read 150 P.W.  The map had a rough outline of the world today but didn’t show any of the towns and boundaries that would identify Equestria or other modern nations.  She could see the Celestial Territories marked firmly in the north in the Unicorn Mountains, there was even a dot where Eclipse City was.  To the east, she spotted what must have then been the Crystal Empire.  Its boundaries were much smaller than what it was today, and looked weak when compared to the Celestial Territories.  The area where Equestria would be was labeled as unexplored territory.  The map expanded outward to encompass the rest of the world and identified several countries that Twilight had never heard of, many of them were small with unrefined borders as if they were new and expanding.  Curiously, there were two areas that were shaded darker than the rest of the map.  The large one, (which Twilight identified as what was in the present called the wastelands, where the Changelings lived) was labeled as the “Graveyard of Amazonia.”  The smaller one was shaded darker and labeled as the “Citadel Ruins”.  The legend on the map indicated that the shaded areas represented dark lands that were poisoned and dangerous.  Twilight looked over the map again and pinpointed several small dots in the more volcanic part of the world that said “wild dragon territory” next to them.

She looked up at her friends and shrugged.

“This is interesting, it shows the Celestial Territories but I can’t tell how old it is with this dating system.  Our history goes back 1,504 years to when Discord ruled, but anything beyond that is guesswork as nopony was able to tell time with the sun and moon rising and setting sporadically.  Also with all the chaos going on many records were destroyed and thus many of the sites and nations on this map are probably lost to history.”

Pinkie shook her head rapidly, her smile widening.

“You’re forgetting something Twilight!  Look on the back silly filly!”

Twilight cocked an eyebrow at the hyperactive pony but did so anyway.  What she saw froze her chest and almost stopped her heart.

There, on the back was a sun and moon in an eclipse surrounded by six stars of six different colors.

“Pinkie…this is the Royal Crest of the Celestial Territories that was on that letter they showed in Parliament.  The one which convinced the members of their treachery.”

Rarity was looking it over with her keen eye.

“Darling, read the script under it, I don’t have my reading glasses with me.”

Twilight did, she had been too busy reminiscing about that disastrous session of Parliament to notice the writing neatly inscribed below

the seal.

“This map was inscribed by order of the sovereign rulers of the Celestial Territories to write down and preserve a history of the state of our world a century and a half after the Hundred-Year War.”

Twilight looked up and looked around at her friends, confusion written on her face.  An expression that was mirrored back at her.

“Has anypony ever heard of the Hundred-Year War?”

“Nuh-huh.”

“Eenope.”

“Sorry.”

“Noperonie.”

“No darling.”

Twilight looked again at the crest and inscription before remembering something.

“Wait a minute.  The Celestial Territories is ruled by a Senate, I’ve never read anywhere of them having any royalty of any kind.  Why would this map say different?”

Her friends all nodded their heads and started looking back around for more information.  Twilight continued to sit at the table and ponder all the inconsistencies poised by the paper in front of her.  It seemed to bring up more questions than it answered.

Twilight heard a loud click in the room and looked up.  She saw Spike was pulling a book off the shelf but it was attached to a mechanism.  As she thought about what next trap had just been activated, a slot in the wall opened up and Twilight could see a box inside.

“Whoa.  This castle is spooky with how many tricks and traps there are.  I mean there are secret compartments in secret rooms!  It’s like a puzzle in a puzzle!”  Spike exclaimed.

They all gathered around the previously unknown cubby hole as Twilight approached.  She pulled out the box with her magic and set it on the table.

They gathered around again as Twilight lifted the lid, inside was a book, a rolled up canvas, and a solitary lettter.  She pulled out the canvas first and unfurled it.  What she saw shocked her and everypony else in the room into stunned silence.

It was a picture of Celestia and Luna.

A much younger Celestia and Luna.

In it, Celestia’s mane didn’t seem to flow and instead of being colored like an aurora it was a bright pink!  Celestia was also much shorter, around Twilight’s present size.  She wasn’t wearing any royal vestments and her eyes seemed to shine with happiness and a sheen that spoke of youth and not of the years of sadness from her sister’s banishment like the present Celestia’s did.  Luna was also shocking, she was even smaller than when she appeared after the defeat of Nightmare Moon!  Her fur and mane color were the same though and didn’t flow like it did now.  Her eyes sparkled like a prankster and her smile was brilliant and happy, her face didn’t carry the weight of her past mistakes like the present Luna did.   They both had their hooves around the other in a tight embrace and they were standing in an unfamiliar castle room.  There was a window behind them that showed the sun rising with a tint of the stars still twinkling in the sky.

Twilight couldn’t have been more surprised.

Here was Twilight’s mentor and her sister looking much younger than any previous paintings ever made of them.  There seemed to be an innocence on them that spoke as if they were just around the same age as Twilight herself.  Twilight never thought she would find something like this when looking for her answers.  Though now that she thought about it, she shouldn’t be so surprised.  This was Celestia and Luna’s private library when the lived here after all.

Slowly, as if afraid it might disappear, she turned over the painting looked at the back to see if there was anything of note.

Sure enough there was.

To Princess Celestia and Princess Luna

I hope you enjoy the painting, this is the smaller version for you both to keep personally.  I’ve hung the larger one in the castle hallways for everyone else to look at.  Enjoy and happy birthday to both of you.

Your friend,

Water Color

April 14, 3020 P.W.

“Look, there is that date system again.  And I can’t believe this was a birthday present!  I know the princesses celebrate their birthday on April 14, but it’s always a low key affair they have privately since they’ve had so many.”  Twilight said, gaping at the precious artifact of her fellow princesses in her hooves.

Applejack pointed a hoof at another inscription near the top, “Look there ya’ll at that stamp.”

This inscription wasn’t nearly as personal.

Water Color

Master Craftsmen of the Imperial Academy

Artemis Lane, Eclipse City; Celestial Territories

Rarity exclaimed loudly to the other ponies’ annoyance, “It’s an address!  This pony was from the capital of the Celestial Territories!”

Twilight was getting a headache.  How could it be that Celestia and Luna had this much from the Territories, even as much as a personal friend who gave them gifts?

Spike was poking Twilight, his voice dripping with curiosity.

“What’s the other stuff in the box?”

Twilight picked up the book next and her mouth dropped open again in shock.

“Why…this is a story book!!”

And sure enough, although the book was old, there was no mistaking that the small book was made for small fillies to read.  It was in good condition, and Twilight presumed that it belonged to both of the princesses.  She picked it up and opened the cover.

There was another inscription.

To Tia’ and Lulu,

I hope you both enjoy this book, it’s a first edition.  I helped the publishers with some of the stories.  Have Fun!

“There’s no signature.”

The others had noticed this as well, but didn’t think of it as such a big deal like Twilight did.  Rainbow Dash piped up and said,

“Yeah, so what?”

Twilight looked incredulous at Dash before speaking in a reverent voice.

“Whoever gave this to Celestia and Luna knew them so well that they knew their nicknames for them.  No signature tells me that the sender didn’t expect to remind them who gave them the book and therefore knew them very well.”

She looked back down at the book and began flipping through the pages.  Many of the stories were funny and had a moral behind them.  All of them were unfamiliar to Twilight and she thought this book was very old for all the folk stories to be unknown.  Folk tales were one of those things passed down generation to generation.  Like the Hearthswarming tale.  She was flipping through the book when a title caught her eye and gave her pause, this one she had heard, but only in passing.

“Girls?  Do you all remember how in that first session of Parliament, Tejas talked about how a past queen of the Crystal Empire is Cadence’s ancestor and supposedly betrayed the Celestial Territories?”

“I think this is the story he was talking about.”

The Tale of Broken Heart

Upon that day when flags were hung,

When friend and foe’s necks were rung.

There stood six friends steadfast and true,

But soon this day they would rue.

For among the six there were,

A traitor wearing crystal fur.

Brave Heart was her name,

And her kingdom she would shame.

As the battle came to its climb,

The war would be redefined.

No more were these friends harmony,

But instead became tragedy.

Brave Heart turned from her friends for gold,

And so her heart became cold.

Leaving a body in the dust,

Broken Heart's dagger began to rust.

Though she thought the battle won,

A miracle would her undone.

Turned her fortunes and so she fled,

Fleeing the past and the dead.

There at the battle of Sundered Loyalty,

Stood our hero full of royalty.

Looking upon Broken Heart in rage,

He would bring to an end this bloody age.

A sister’s tears could not dissuade,

The general’s master cage.

Trapped among the Legion’s fire,

Broken Heart attacked with ire.

And their upon his honest sword,

Broken Heart snapped like a cord.

As she lay dying in the dirt,

Her killer she did curse.

So fell the crystal traitor,

Her city burned to ashes later.

So remember descendants of the legion,

The Crystal Empire’s treacherous reason.

There was a very long silence after they read that.  The air could have been cut with a butter knife it was so oppressive.  Finally Twilight slowly closed the book and put it back in the box.

Silence.

Twilight looked around at her friends, they all were sitting back with different expressions.

Spike looked like he didn’t know what to think.

Pinkie Pie’s hair had deflated and she looked like somepony had forgotten her birthday.

Rarity wore an expression of surprise and shock.

Applejack’s face had the appearance of a mare looking at a hard truth.

Rainbow Dash’s body language said she wanted to fly away.

Fluttershy’s eyes were filled with tears, she turned to Twilight and said in a weak voice,

“That’s terrible.  Why would anypony put that in a story book?  You don’t think its true, do you Twilight?”

Twilight honestly didn’t know what to think.  Now that she really thought about it, she didn’t know much about the Crystal Empire’s past just like the Territories.  If this rhyme was true, the Celestial Legions had been betrayed by Broken Heart.  The Legions then seemed to have chased her down and killed her.  What betrayal would drive somepony to burn the Crystal Empire to the ground?  What horrors were the past hiding from the present?

Twilight had immediately trusted the Crystal Empire over the Celestial Territories in that debate over Cadence’s ancestry.  Why?  Because she thought she knew that the Crystal Empire was better than the Celestial Territories.  Why did she think that?   Because Cadence ruled over the Crystal Empire now, and everything seemed to shine like sunshine and rainbows.  But now she realized that basing past grudges by today’s present was an error.  The Crystal Empire could have a darker past, it had produced King Sombra after all.  Sombra, who had erased many historical records of their history from the library, which is what made the Crystal Heart so hard to find.

Crystal Heart.

Broken Heart.

More questions, no answers.

Twilight shook her head at Fluttershy.  “I don’t know.  But let’s look at what else is in the box.”

Slowly, as if the paper fragments could bite her, Twilight put the ruined manuscript down in front of her.  It seemed to be not as old as the canvas or the book but the letter was in far worse condition.  Several spots of the writing had been blotched out beyond recognition as if the paper had been rained on.  What Twilight could read was this.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna,

It is with the greatest shame and regret that I write you this letter.  When we marched to the Crystal Empire to face Sombra we expected a quick victory with our commander at the front to lead us.

But it was not to be.

We have been routed, the legions flee back to the Celestial Territories.  We have incurred heavy losses and can no longer continue the fight.  I know not if Sombra chases us, but our soldier’s spirit has been broken.  I do not know what action you should take, it is my purpose to tell you of our failure so that you will not be surprised should we fall.

There is more.

…………..great sorrow that I must …………….did not survive ……………speared…..Sombra …………lance of black……. while......................................…...the icy depths…….arctic.

….. never …..

………not know ……….. presume… worse.

I ………..sorry,

Centurion Falling Rock

Eclipse Legion, 456 A.D.

“I at least recognize the date system on this one.  This was shortly before Celestia and Luna banished Sombra and the Crystal Empire disappeared.  But I never knew that the Celestial Territories tried to fight him.”  Twilight wondered, she didn’t like how all her thoughts kept coming back to Sombra.  He was a dark pony she would rather forget about.  The conversation Twilight had with Celestia before embarking on that mission came back to the forefront of her mind.

‘Even my knowledge of the empire is limited.’

‘Banished to the Arctic Ice’

‘Heart as black as night’

Twilight shivered, Sombra had indeed been a dark pony.

Twilight looked around as her friends talked behind her, discussing the letter and its vagueness.  She thought about what to do next, she doubted that this library would yield more information.  But she needed more.

But where would there be more information on the Celestial Territories though?

Of course.

The Celestial Territories themselves.

“Girls. Spike.”

That stopped them.  Twilight’s tone of voice spoke volumes.  It was the voice she had used when she led them to face Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, Sombra, and the Everfree Forest.

It was her I am Twilight Sparkle and nothing will stop me voice.

She turned to fully face them, ready to commit treason of the highest order, her friends stared at her, wondering where she would lead them next.

“I want to go to the Celestial Territories.”

It was a cool night.  The air was brisk and the sky was dark as that night had a new moon floating above Equestria.  Ponyville slept quietly under the stars and the cloudless night, completely unaware of the ongoing escape.

The plan was simple.  Hop on a train headed towards Stalliongrad in Ponyville unnoticed and then travel by hoof to Eclipse City in the Celestial Territories.

The problem, was the guards.

The irony, Twilight had put them there.

Twilight finished putting out all the lights in her library and turned to the others.  They all were wearing dark clothing and wore saddlebags filled with things they would need for the trip.

Spike was carrying a backpack and wearing a mustache.

Twilight had told Flash after they had left the castle ruins that she and her friends had decided on a sleepover party later that night, that way they could all pack and gather together without rousing anything suspicious in Twilight’s guard.

They had all decided that the guards and by extension, Celestia and Luna, would never allow them travel to the Celestial Territories.  Not with the tension between Equestria and the Territories and Twilight’s attackers still unknown.

So they didn’t tell them.

Phase one:

“Oh boys, would you come in here and be a dear.  Twilight’s plumbing has broken and we need some help fixing it.”  Rarity whined at the four stallions.  She had peeked out the doors and gestured to Twilight’s four guards who had just started their four hour shift.

They came inside, their purple armor clunking and looked around.

Twilight, Spike and the girls were standing there looking at them.  The guards looked at each other, then looked back at Twilight.

“Princess, what’s wrong?  Your plumbing seems fine.”

Twilight looked at them and gave them a sorrowful smile.

“Yeah….I’m sorry about this.”

Before they could react, her horn flashed and the four guards fell on the floor, snoring peacefully.  Their armor was supposed to deflect magic from enemy attackers.

But they weren’t enchanted to deflect their princess’s magic though.

Spike and Fluttershy quickly dragged the four guards inside and made them comfortable as Twilight and the others quickly trotted outside.

Phase two:

When Fluttershy and Spike joined them, they cantered quickly to the northwest side of Ponyville.  There, they waited for the last train to leave Ponyville which was a freight train refueling with coal for the long trip to Stalliongrad.  They also had to wait for the proper gap in the guard’s patrol search to slip through unseen.

Twilight had requested a complete copy of the guard’s patrol patterns and times from Flash for, ironically in all honesty,“research purposes.”

The two unicorn guards walked dutifully past, their horns shining lights through the darkness and the posse waited until they were out of sight around the corner.

The train whistled as it left the station.

“Go.” whispered Twilight.

The six mares and one dragon quickly ran up to the side of the train track and hid beneath some bushes as the train pulled up the tracks and began to pick up speed.  They were waiting on the side of the train tracks that would conceal them from the guards when they jumped on the train.

Phase three:

As the train pulled up to their hiding position and passed them, Twilight gave the signal to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash who then flew to the side of the train and pulled open a box car door.  They climbed inside and waited for the others.

Twilight flew up with Spike on her back while Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkie Pie ran up and jumped on the train as it began chugging faster.

Rainbow closed the door when they made it inside.

They all smiled at each other, jubilated in their success, and Twilight spoke.

“Thank you all for coming with me, I know I was asking a lot but I really want answers.   I want to stop all this talk of war and bring back peace.  Thank you all for being here for me.”

They just smiled at the alicorn and then they all got into a comfortable part of the car as they waited out the ride.

“Celestial Territories here we come.”

Chapter 8: Long Live the Emperor

Chapter 8: Long Live the Emperor

March 31, 1504 A.D.

Outskirts of Eclipse City, Celestial Territories

The sky was overcast the morning Twilight and her friends woke up within sight of the walls of Eclipse City.  They could see the Unicorn Mountains looming over the city in the distance.   They jutted out of the flat plains of the north like skyscrapers in Ponyville, growing in size as far as the eye could see.

Fortunately for Twilight and her friends, nopony had come to chase them down yet.  Twilight had timed their escape just right so that they had the maximum amount of time to get ahead before the next shift of guards discovered the ones she had put to sleep.  Twilight didn’t know what was happening back in Equestria, they had left the last Equestrian city before crossing into the Territories borders, Stalliongrad five days ago.  Since then, they had hiked towards the capital of the now independent Celestial Territories, Eclipse City.

It was large, from where they sat in a tree line two miles south of the city they could see that the center of the city was the oldest, with newer buildings expanding outward until they hit the walls and stopped.  It was perhaps smaller in population size perhaps, but it covered more ground than Canterlot did.  Canterlot was built on a mountain side and so the ponies there built up instead of out, the Celestial Territories did the opposite.  There were five buildings or complexes that seemed to tower above the rest of the otherwise low buildings, but Twilight didn’t know what those were.

In fact, her lack of knowledge is what she and the others were discussing at the moment.  The six mares and dragon were sitting around a small campsite, trying to decide how best to enter the city, they had been watching ponies, griffons, and dragons enter and leave the city for the past two days.

From what they could see through Twilight’s telescope, anypony entering the city had to do so through one of the four main gates.  Each gate had at least two guards in front of it, checking ponies for identification to make sure it seemed that the ponies were citizens of the Celestial Territories.  Twlight had considered teleporting to the other side of the walls with the others, but after reaching out with her magic she discovered that the walls had magical wards that prevented anypony from teleporting through.  Rainbow Dash had considered just flying everypony over the walls, but Rarity had pointed out that the soldiers would soon spot them and they would be in a heap of trouble then.  Spike, trying to think of something, wanted to dig under the walls.  Applejack told him however, that the ground was too hard for them to dig a big enough tunnel under the ground.  She also said that with how thick the walls looked, the foundations would undoubtedly be very deep.  In the end, they had decided to try Pinkie Pie’s plan, and walk through the gates.

Of course, some preparation was needed for that and they had stolen an identity paper from a pony traveling with a group of merchants.  They felt bad for stealing from somepony and they watched him try to get through.  Fortunately for him, the ponies he traveled with that had proper identification vouched for him and the soldiers were lenient and let him through, so Twilight and the others didn’t feel too bad.

The identification papers weren’t complicated, they had a picture of the pony, their name, citizenship, and place of residence.  The only hitch was that there was a Celestial Territories seal on it that was stamped on it, making it very difficult to forge.  Rarity tried her best, being an expert in design, and managed to come up with something very close to the real thing.  They all came up with a false name to put on their identities, since their names as the former elements of harmony were probably well known.  For Twilight, she used Trixie (appropriate since she was trying to maintain an illusion), Applejack would be Apple Bushel, Rarity would be Sapphire, Fluttershy would be Angel, Pinkie Pie would be Maud Pie (her sisters name), Rainbow Dash would be Lightning, and Spike would be Scales.  They knew that their cutie marks would be a dead giveaway, especially Twilight, and so they decided to wear clothes that covered their cutie-marks, and Twilight’s wings.  Afraid the clothes might not be enough for her, Twilight also put an illusion charm on her wings, making it look like she didn’t have them.  Unfortunately, Twilight couldn’t hide that she was slightly taller and thinner than the rest of them and came up with an excuse should anypony ask.

Twilight had also finally gotten a knack at her Dimensional Pocket spell, and so had packed many things she thought they might need like clothes, food, maps, books, etc.  Their clothes were plain, much to Rarity’s discomfort, to make them appear as ordinary travelers.

With everything set, they hopped onto the road and approached the city as casually as possible, trying to act normal as they approached the southern gate.  The two legionnaires were a dragon and an earth pony, each had iron armor, a rectangular shield, a short sword, and a spear.

When they reached the gates the dragon called out in a loud booming voice.

“Halt!   Who approaches this city?”

Applejack was decided to be the spokespony for the group because they didn’t want too many soldiers getting a closer look at Twilight and her disguised wings.  Also, Applejack’s accent would mark her as a regular farmer and that’s what they were trying to sell.  So when the dragon challenged them, she stepped forth confidently.

“Mah name is Apple Bushel, and my fellow workers and I want to enter Eclipse City.”

The dragon cocked a scaly eyebrow and looked at the earth pony next to him.  He then looked back at Applejack.

“I can see that, you wouldn’t be trying to get by me if you didn’t want to enter the city.  Let me clarify.  What is your business here in the capital?”

At this Pinkie couldn’t help herself and bounced forward, startling the earth pony soldier, but the dragon just turned to face the bouncing mare as she talked.

“We’re here for the party silly!”

The dragon looked at Pinkie with a questioning gaze and a frown as the others silently cursed Pinkie’s over-talkative nature.

“What party?”

The others tensed up unnoticeably, thinking their cover had been blown, but Pinkie continued smiling at the large dragon.

“Why the Celestial Territories Independance party!  My friends and I could think of no better place to celebrate than here in the capital, so we came here for the weekend!”

The dragon smiled, showing a set of sharp and pointed teeth.

“Glad to know, in that case all I need to see is your identification and you can go on ahead.”

The others were very relieved to hear this, Pinkie seemed to have a knack for getting by slyly.  One by one they showed the earth pony soldier their I.D.s and he nodded at them, satisfied that they were the real deal.  As soon as he finished, he turned around and signaled at the gatekeeper at the walls and the gates swung outward to let them in.  As they walked through, the dragon called out to them.

“I would go to Castle Nova Square if you want to see the festivities, I heard their having a bonfire tonight.  Enjoy your stay in Eclipse City!”

The gates shut with a loud boom behind them and the group wilted in relief, glad they had made it through.

Rainbow Dash trotted up to Pinkie and poked her in the side.  “How did you know there was a party going on?  That dragon was trying to trip us up.  I thought we would have to bolt for sure!”

Pinkie just shook her head with a knowing smile, “Of course there’s a party!  I knew there ponies here would want to celebrate!  It’s like a birthday party for the nation!”

Twilight shook her head as she walked to the front of the group, Spike on her back, and marveled at the utter simplicity or brilliancy that was Pinkie Pie.

“Thanks Pinkie, I think that helped us get by a lot easier.  Now all we got to do is find a library around here.”

They all started taking in the sight of the city, now from inside the walls instead of out.

They seemed to be in a main street that went on for a mile before breaking in a T shape.  There were houses of all sorts for ponies, griffons, and dragons.  Each house was unique in shape and size but they all followed the same color scheme of black, dark blue, gold, silver, and white.  Many of the houses seemed to use black bricks for the walls.  The residents themselves walked along the street, everypony seemed to be in a good mood and they greeted each other warmly.

Twilight took the initiative and walked up to a griffon that was headed down the street their way and politely waved at him, grabbing his attention.

“Excuse me, we just got here and we were wondering if there is a library here?  And if there is, could you please tell us where to find it?”

The griffon nodded politely at her and scratched under his beak with a claw, mulling over her question before looking at her again.

“Do you mean the Solaris Library or the library at the academy?”

“Which one is the oldest?”

“Hmmmmm” murmured the griffon, he turned around and began pointing at buildings.

“The library at the Imperial Academy is the younger of the two, and Solaris Library is older, but I heard the archives inside Castle Nova are the oldest.”

“Thanks, we’ll head for the castle then.”  Twilight started to leave and the others began following but the griffon stopped her before she could get too far.

“You need to go to the Solaris Library, not the castle, nopony goes in there.”

Twilight turned back to the griffon and raised an eyebrow.

“Why not?  It’s the oldest isn’t it?”

The griffon shook his head at her, to Twilight’s chagrin.

“It is indeed the oldest, as Castle Nova is the oldest part of the city, but the castle has been closed and boarded up for the past 1,000 years.  Nopony has been inside it in all that time.”

“Oh.” said Twilight, caught by surprise.  She needed to end this conversation before she said something that gave the impression that they didn’t know much of the history of the city.  “In that case, just tell us where the Solaris Library is and we’ll be on our way.”

The griffon smiled and turned and pointed with a claw out over the city towards one of the large buildings they had seen earlier.

“Follow this road, turn right at Artemis Street and follow that until you hit an intersection, then turn left on Starlight Lane and the library will be a couple blocks down on your right, you can’t miss it.”

Twilight held at her hoof and shook the griffon’s claw, smiling at him.

“Thank you, have a good day.”

“You’re welcome, and same to you.”

With that the griffon walked away, and Twilight and the group began following his instructions.  As they walked through Eclipse City, they saw soldiers walking in groups up and down the streets, more houses, they passed what seemed like a city park with animals (Fluttershy wanted to stop but the others dragged her back on the street), and then saw a marketplace where food and wares were being sold.

Twilight could see that the large marketplace was filled with good-smelling food, trinket saleponies, and all sorts of venders.  Twilight could smell all the tasty food from the delicious aroma that drifted across the square.  She turned back to her friends and she saw that they too were distracted by all the fanfare.

“We’re not in a rush, let’s look around and see what there is too eat.  I don’t know about you but I am starving.  It’ll also be good to eat something fresh than what we have been eating.  Let’s split up and we’ll all meet back at the library.  Ok?”  They all nodded their heads and each turned in a different direction as they explored the marketplace.  Spike stayed with Twilight.

Spike cast his dragon eyes all around the market and the city in general and tugged on Twilight’s mane.  Twilight looked down at him as they walked towards one of the dessert venders.  She saw that he was in awe and wondered why that was.

“What is it Spike?”

“Twilight look at the dragons here!  They are living here, making homes here, and the ponies just accept them without batting an eyelash!  They’re like me and nothing like those other dragons we saw during the migration!  Do you know why these dragons are so different?”

That hadn’t occurred to Twilight, she had been so focused on her mission that she didn’t find it strange at all.  She berated herself mentally and let out a frustrated snort.  Twilight forgot how she took Spike’s civilized manners for granted, since he lived with her all the time, and that the dragons she had encountered in the past were a far cry from what she had seen here in the city.

She focused more attention on the dragons, trying to truly observe them.  The dragons were taller than all the ponies, far more muscular and bulky, but they seemed to fit in with the ponies just fine.  She then noticed that the proportion of ponies and griffons to dragons was 50 to 1, the dragons were more than what she had ever seen (except the migration) but were clearly a minority in the city.  These were also a lot more controlled, she thought.  They clearly felt like they belonged in the city and treated the ponies here equally than those dragon bullies she and Spike had encountered.  She turned back to Spike and spoke in a soothing voice.

“I don’t know, but tell you what.  When we go to the library you can look for the answer, I’m sure it’ll be there somewhere.” Dismissing the matter for the moment, Twilight turned to look at the dessert stand she had arrived at, the unicorn was selling all sorts of goodies, from fresh baked moon pies to sunflower cupcakes.  The orange unicorn smiled at Twilight and Spike and gestured with a hoof at the pastries.

“Hello there.  Is there something you’re interested in?”  the unicorn then saw Spike and quickly ducked behind her stand.  Twilight thought she was hiding until she popped back up with a small bag of cookies.  She gave it to Spike and said, “Here are some free samples for you little mister.  Those are cookies with obsidian instead of chocolate, I made them myself!”

Spike looked in wonder at the treat and quickly began munching on some cookies, a dreamy expression on his face.  Twilight decided it would be rude not to buy something and decided on a delicious moon pie, she dug in her saddlebag and pulled out the right number of Equestrian bits.

The unicorn gave her the pie and took the money, but her questioning gaze went back to Twilight.  “Pardon me miss, but why haven’t you traded these in yet?”

‘Traded what in?’

Twilight looked again at the unicorn and saw she was gesturing at the bits she had just given her.  Uh oh, she thought, she should have realized that they might not be using bits anymore since they separated.  She took deniability as the best option for her slip-up and gave the unicorn an exasperated frown.

“I’ve been trying to, but haven’t found out where to go to.  Do you know where I can trade?”  the unicorn nodded and gave her a smile.

“That’s Ok, I know it’s been confusing lately.  You go to the bank where they’ll trade these old bits for new ones.  They then take the old bits and melt them down to make the new ones.”  Twilight nodded her thanks and they left the vendor and started headed back towards the direction of the library.  She munched on her pie as they walked, depressed to be reminded of the Territories separation from

Equestria.

They reached Solaris Library after navigating through the streets, the others were there waiting for her and Spike already, sitting on the steps eating their food.  They sat down in a companionable silence as they ate, gazing out over the city, it was then that Twilight noticed something.

The sun was about to set.

“Girls, it’s almost sunset!  The library might be closing!”  They all quickly got up and scarfed down whatever food remained before entering the library.

Twilight stopped on the threshold and cast a loving gaze over the inside.  The library was filled from floor to ceiling with books, artifacts, statues, and all sorts of goodies.  She mentally squealed like a school filly on the inside but kept a level head, she didn’t want to attract too much attention.  She walked up to the front desk where an elderly pegasus was sitting.

“Excuse me, could you tell me where the history section is?”

The old mare nodded and pointed with a wrinkled wing toward a section at the back of the library.

“Right over there youngster, enjoy yourself.”

Twilight happily trotted over to the designated spot and began looking for the right book.  She was in her element.

After an hour of search, Twilight realized she hadn’t been the only one looking for a background of the Celestial Territories history.  As she and her friends perused the shelves, they noticed that there were many gaps where books would have been.  With nothing presenting itself to Twilight, she had returned to the front of the library to where the librarian sat.

“Ma’am, are there any more history books detailing the Territories past, particularly pre-Discord history?”

The mare looked sadly at Twilight when she answered in a quivering voice.

“Sorry young mare, but since leaving Equestria, there has been a huge-surge in fascination of our history.  All the history books that you’re looking for have been checked out, there weren’t many pre-Discord books to begin with anyway, sorry.  Also, I’m afraid we’re about to close, there is a celebration tonight and we’re locking up early.  Could you get your friends please?  I have to inform the other patrons.”

Twilight sighed again, feeling defeated inside, before nodding to the elderly mare and trotted slowly back to where her friends were.

When she got there, she looked up and saw that they were all reading a couple books that Spike had in his claws.  Spike looked back up at Twilight as she approached and ran excitedly up to her.

“Twilight look!  This is shorter than I think you wanted, it’s an abridged encyclopedia, and I also found out why these dragons are so different!  Read these!”

He gave her the first book entitled Hoofster’s Encyclopedia:  Revised 1504 Edition, Spike pointed with a claw at a passage and Twilight could see it was about Equestria, the Crystal Empire, and the Celestial Territories.  It read:

**Equestria:* Ruled by three princesses called a triarchy and a Parliament consisting of both ancient noble families and elected representatives of different equestrian territories.  Equestria was formed by the Unicorn, Pegasus, and Earth Pony Tribes following the harsh winter and pony exodus of 3,350 P.W.  After the reign of Discord, the ruling nobility ceded governance to the Royal Pony Sisters, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna.  Recently, a unicorn named Twilight Sparkle, who was Celestia’s protégé, ascended to an alicorn and was crowned as a princess of equal standing alongside the Royal Pony Sisters, forming today’s triarchy.*

**Crystal Empire:  Ruled by a monarchy and a council of crystal pony nobility.  This empire was founded by alicorn nobility millennia before the Hundred-Year War.  After the killing of Queen Broken Heart by the emperor, ending the Hundred-year War, the emperor allowed a non-alicorn ruler to sit on the Crystal Throne.  King Sombra took over the crystal empire in 496 A.D. and was defeated the same year by the Royal Pony Sisters after Sombra routed the Celestial Legions in a battle in the frozen north.  The Crystal Empire disappeared by Sombra’s dark magic however, and didn’t reappear until 1502 A.D. Sombra also returned but was defeated by the current bearers of the Elements of Harmony.  Upon reappearance and Sombra’s second defeat, Princess Cadence, a previously unknown descendant of Queen Broken Heart, assumed the Crystal Throne as the Crystal Princess.

**Celestial Territories:Older than Equestria, the Celestial Territories traces its roots to the Solar and Lunar Thrones that inhabited the Unicorn Mountains before the Hundred-Year War.  Now it is formally part of Equestria but is governed by a fiercely independent Senate that sends a representative to the Equestrian Parliament.  It was independent of Equestria and ruled by an emperor and the Senate before it was peacefully annexed by the Royal Diarchy shortly after Emperor Starfire’s death in 496 A.D.

Timeline:

B.W. (Before Hundred-Year War) 10,000+ years

H.Y.W.  (Hundred Year-War) 100 years

P.W. (Post Hundred-Year War) 3500 years

D.D. (During Discord; unknown years)

A.D. (After Discord) 1504 years

Twilight smiled up at the group, joy filling her heart.  She finally had some answers! Twilight didn’t know if this dating system was correct, but it was at least seemed somewhat reasonable.  And it also seemed that the Territories didn’t like the Crystal Empire because of several past conflicts that had occurred between the two.

Twilight still had no idea who this Broken Heart was and why it mattered that Cadence was a distant descendant.  But she did understand if they were bitter because of a past defeat by Sombra.  Also, this “Hundred-Year War” kept cropping up, Twilight still didn’t have a clue what that was or whether it was historical fact.  More questions were also raised, like the brief mention of an “alicorn nobility.”  As far as Twilight knew, Celestia, Luna, Cadence, and she were the only alicorns in existence, past or present.   Without further evidence, Twilight doubted the outlandish claims of the author.

Then there was this brief mention of a deceased emperor of the Territories named Starfire, she wondered why the emperor’s death would compel the Territories to join Equestria.  Still so many questions.

She felt Spike’s claw pulling on her.

“Look at this one, it has all sorts of information on dragons in here!”  Twilight smiled at how enthusiastic he was and quickly read the short passage:

Dragons;

In the ancient past, these scaly creatures had an ancient civilization in the more volcanic regions of the world.  They didn’t build any structures or cities but inhabited caves and shared nesting grounds.  They only worked together rarely and only had a single king.  A King was only needed to settle disputes between dragons and to lead them in times of war.  The King was a title that referred to the dragon that won the position from the previous holder.  Any dragon had the right to challenge the current king for the position.  Younger dragons today demonstrate this with their “King of the Hoard” games.  Unexpected deaths resulted in tournaments for the title of king.

Today’s dragons are descendants of two lines of dragon lineage.

The first and most well-known are the wild dragons.  These ferocious beasts are the descendants of dragons that went mad from greed growth.  They are generally stupid and only care for themselves and their hoard.  Also important is that their diet turned carnivorous over time.  The only semblance of order is that of tribes, they also have taken the ancient dragon’s homes as their nesting grounds.

The much smaller and reasonable group of dragons are the descendants of the army that marched with King Draco, the last king of the dragons, during the Hundred-Year War.  After extremely heavy casualties and the death of Draco during the war, the last of these dragons migrated to the Celestial Territories and integrated into its society.  These dragons are much smaller, wiser, smarter, kinder, and have an unusual diet of gems and plant food when compared to their wilder and unreasonable cousins.

“This is great Spike!  That book sure does clear things up a bit about the dragons that live here.  It was very interesting and we found out a bit more about the culture history here.  Go put the books up though, we’re not checking anything out.”

Twilight turned back around to her friends as Spike but the two books back on the shelf, she gave them a disappointed expression.

“I wish we could have found more, but the librarian told me that there weren’t that many pre-Discord books to begin with.  Also, we have to leave since the library is closing in a few minutes.”  She turned to leave and headed out of the library and heard her friends following when she felt a tap on her shoulder.  Turning her head to the side, she saw it was Fluttershy.

“Hey Twilight, what do we do now?  We can’t wait for those books to be returned.”

“I’ve got an idea!  Why don’t we sneak into the old castle!  That griffon said earlier that nopony goes in there and that the oldest books are there!”  exclaimed Rainbow Dash as she flew outside the library back into the street.

Rarity looked up at Dash with a beaming smile as she trotted down the steps.  “I think that’s a splendid idea.  With the castle being closed, all the books should be there!”

Twilight wasn’t so sure, it sounded like to her that these ponies were very sensitive about the castle.  It was also probably very secure since nopony was supposed to go in there anyway.  Although she reasoned that it was probably their best bet to find out more about the Territories.  She was distracted from her train of thought as Applejack walked in front of her and pointed a hoof into the distance.

“Look at that ya’ll!  Thars a big herd a ponies a gatherin!  What do ya think their doin.?”

Twilight looked at what Applejack was talking about and saw a very large group of the city’s residents moving towards the center of the city.  She went back over today’s earlier conversations and realized what it could be.

“Oh!  This must be that festival the dragon soldier was talking about.  They must be headed towards Castle Nova Square.  I bet that’s right in front of the castle.”

Rainbow Dash flew upwards a bit, scanning the growing crowd and flew back down with a mischievous grin.

“Twilight’s right!  They’re all moving towards the front side of the castle.  I bet that with all those ponies there, none of the guards would notice us slip inside!  It’s perfect!”

“Oooooh!  We can also see the party going on!  Can we see Twilight?!  Please oh please oh pleeeeaaasseee?!?!” whined Pinkie at Twilight as they followed the crowd at a discreet distance, so they couldn’t be overheard.  Twilight thought about it.

On one side, she really wanted to find our more information.  Also attending the festival sounded interesting, she wanted to see more of the city and what was going on.  Rainbow Dash had come up with a good point too, with all those ponies at the festival it would be much easier to get inside without anypony noticing.

On the other side, breaking into what was probably a very important building to these ponies was not a good way to stay low.  She also didn’t know a thing about the castle and if it was even safe to enter after being closed so long.

She thought them over, rolling the ideas over in her head and came to a decision.

“Alright girls, let’s go and see the festival and then while their celebrating, we’ll find a way into the castle.

Twilight didn’t see it, but she could feel all her friends’ excitement at continuing their mission.  No doubt they probably hadn’t felt nearly as excited looking through books at an ordinary library compared to sneaking into an old abandoned castle.

That always seemed to come up in their adventures, Twilight thought, sneaking into old abandoned castles.

When they arrived at Castle Nova Square the citizens were all there talking excitedly and making a clear space in the middle of the square, where there was a tall stack of wood.

The castle loomed over everypony.  It was around the same size as Canterlot Castle, but was extremely different.  Where Canterlot Castle was white, gleaming, and elegant, Castle Nova was a black, rather gloomy, and solid looking fortress.  The stone was cut of a very black rock and Twilight could see many of the windows bricked up and there wasn’t a single light shining throughout the entire castle.  If Twilight was in the air and had looked down at the city, she thought the city would be a large circle of lights with a black and empty center.  Like a donut with sprinkles.

Or a black hole.

Twilight motioned for Spike and the girls to come over to the where she was, an open spot near the walls of the castle.  They all gathered and looked over to the open square, waiting for the festival to start.

They didn’t have to wait long.

Twilight could see a small crowd of decorated legionnaires, moving towards the center with a group of ponies that looked to her much the members of Parliament.

“Those must be some of the ponies of the Senate here.”  She told the others.

One of the senators, a unicorn, led the others and got onto a platform in front of the pile of wood before Twilight sensed him casting a spell to amplify his voice.  He spoke in a loud, deep, and booming tone as he called out to the mob.

“Citizens of the Celestial Territories!!  It is time to celebrate our new independence!!

There was a roar from the crowd cheering his words in approval.

“It has been over a thousand years since our flag flew alone, but with the dreaded Crystal Empire returning, we must stand against this new threat!!

Much to Twilight’s disappointment, the crowd booed when the senator mentioned the Crystal Empire.

“Yes it is true my friends!  Not only has our old enemy returned, but they are now ruled by the vilest of their race!  Princess Cadence!  The spawn of our old foe Broken Heart!!”

Twilight hated listening to this speaker, and she could see the others felt the same way too.  But they couldn’t escape with them backed up to the castle walls and the crowd.  The crowd roared in anger as the speaker spoke, they hissed and booed as Cadence was named.

“Equestria would have us bow down to that usurper and be ruled over by that traitorous mare!  The Equestrian Parliament arrested our representative on a false accusation and imprisoned him!!

“Booooo!!!!”

The speaker then took a calmer tone of voice as he addressed the crowd again.

“BUT, there are still among you those who doubt leaving Equestria was the right thing to do, that doing so means that we betrayed our beloved princesses, Celestia and Luna, who have protected us for the past millennia.”

Twilight grew confused as the crowd murmured and looked disappointed as he mentioned Celestia and Luna.  They didn’t grow angry as when Cadence had been called, instead they grew quiet and many of them looked sad.

The senator spoke on in a mournful voice.

“I am sorry to say but the princesses have abandoned us.  If you doubt my words, just look behind me at this castle.”

Twilight and the others could see him point a hoof at Castle Nova, and the crowd’s eyes followed to where he was pointing.

“Look!  Look!  Castle Nova lies abandoned, quiet, and cold!  The Celestial Throne has sat empty inside the castle’s frozen halls for over a millennia since we failed to defeat Sombra!  If the princesses truly cared for us, this would not be so!  They would not coddle the pretender that seeks to expand her power!  Even as we speak, Cadence grabs more tyrannical leverage over all of Equestria!”

The crowd began yelling abuse at the mere mention of Cadence again.  Getting a tad angry, Twilight didn’t want to stick around and started searching for a way into the castle.

“And what of Princess Twilight Sparkle!!”

Twilight froze at the mention of her name, the others gathered around her protectively, shielding her from the view of the crowd.

“She was the wielder of the Elements of Harmony!!  She succeeded where we failed and cast down the vile Sombra!!  When Discord broke loose, it was her that led her friends and restored harmony to the world!!  When Nightmare Moon returned, she cleansed Princess Luna of her nightmarish possession and reunited the Royal Pony Sisters!!”

The crowd grew quiet as he talked, not knowing whether he was trying to praise Twilight or insult her and waited for his next words.

“But she is forever lost to us as our friend!! For her own brother has married the treacherous Crystal Princess!!   I heard that when our representative, Senator Tejas, was arrested on false charges, Princess Twilight did nothing as they led him away in chains!!  It is clear to us in the Senate that it is time for us to stand alone once again.  For we will never bow to the wretched tyranny of the Crystal Throne!!  Long Live the Celestial Territories!!”

The crowd broke out cheering, waving their flags and the senator motioned to a group in the crowd to step forward.

“To commemorate this event, we have put together something special for the bonfire!!”

To Twilight and her friend’s horror, a large wooden horse was wheeled out from behind a building and unicorns placed it on the pile of wood in the center of the square.

It was Cadence.

But Twilight could see that the makers of the wooden Cadence had darkened her pink colors and twisted her loving smile into a ferocious snarl with pointed teeth.  Her crown was large, pointed, and sharp, much different from her normal and petite one.

The senator stepped down from the platform and gestured to the bonfire kindling as he backed away.

“Let the festivities begin!!”

When he finished speaking, ponies and griffons lit torches and threw them at the bonfire pile while the dragons breathed fire at it.

Twilight thought she would be sick as she saw the wooden Cadence catch fire and she heard the crowd screaming in affirmation of the Territories Independence.

The six mares and Spike could only watch in petrified attention as embers and sparks drifted into the night sky from the bonfire, casting a red haze of smoke full of hate over the glimmering city.

The castle was a dark, sad, and empty place.  Rotting tapestries long faded to gray hung from rusting bars, there was no natural light as all the windows had been bricked up, the floors were slick with mildew and mold like the deepest cave.

But the worst part was the silence.

After the bonfire started Twilight had snapped out of her shock, grabbed her friends, and headed around toward the backside of the castle with all haste.  The crowd had taken some force getting through but they managed it.

When they reached the backside of the castle, nopony was there as everypony else was at the bonfire or in other parts of the city, it appeared to be a back alleyway anyway.  Twilight didn’t want to fly over the walls, for fear of being spotted, and so instead set to work seeing if they could teleport to the inside.

When Twilight reached out with her magic, getting a sense of enchantments, she detected several old and powerful spells designed to guard the castle.  The first was a layered enchantment that could be activated to throw a shield over the castle, much like Shining Armor’s spell that protected Canterlot.  Another main spell prevented anyone from flying over deliberately, Twilight sensed that if they had tried their wings would have snapped shut and they would have plummeted to the ground.  The last spell was an anti-teleportation spell.

Twilight couldn’t disable the enchantments without setting off a light show that would have alerted the entire city to their presence, instead she would have to make a small temporary hole in the enchantment and punch through into the castle while maintaining the spell.  She couldn’t have done this earlier with the walls around the city because those spells were constantly monitored by live unicorns.  This enchantment was set up a long time ago, and was not constantly powered.  Nevertheless, Twilight doubted anyone that was not an alicorn would be able to get through, this enchantment was powerful.  Twilight reached out with her magic and opened a small holed in the enchantment and puched through.  After she had teleported them inside, they had immediately began searching for the library.

But it eluded them.

In retrospect, Twilight realized with a grimace, the castle was very large and they had never thought about where in the castle it might be, only that it was in here somewhere.  On and on they searched through the hallways, looking into old abandoned rooms that only had mildew and dust in them.  Twilight could smell the rotting decay of the castle, this wasn’t like the Castle of the Royal Pony Sisters, where everything was open to the air, no, Castle Nova was like a tomb that let nothing out.  Contaminating the air with the foul smell of disease and sickness.

“Twilight!”  Rarity squealed “This castle is horrible!  Why ever would the ponies in this city let this place rot?”

Twilight shook her head, stopping in the hallway to look back at her friends.

“I don’t know Rarity.  That’s why we’re here, because we don’t know.”

“Well I think we should go back to Equestria.”  pouted Rarity “The ponies here obviously don’t like Cadence, that’s all we need to know right?  Besides, we’ve overstayed our welcome, the longer we stay here, the more likely you’ll be exposed Twilight!  And you saw what they did out there, they will run us down like an angry pack of Diamond Dogs!”

“Yeah Twilight!”  shouted Rainbow Dash “This old castle is empty and BORING!  Look at the place, nopony has even set hoof in here in years!”

Clop Clop Clop

The whole group froze, looking at each other, seeing if it was one of them.

Nopony was moving.

Clop Clop Clop

Spike jumped onto Twilight’s back, scared out his wits.  Twilight could hear the sound of hoofsteps coming from the end of the hallway and around the corner.  A small light was getting brighter as it was about to come into their hallway.

She had to act quickly.

Before the other ponies could panic, Twilight’s horn glowed as she encased them in a silencing spell and another spell that would allow them to talk to each other without anypony else listening.

“Quick!! This way!!”

She galloped at full speed, the others right behind her, towards the opposite side of the hallway, rounding the corner and rushing through the next hallway.

As she ran, she saw up ahead a large open doorway leading to large room, the only door she could see that wasn’t closed.

“This way!!  We’ll hide in there!”

They galloped as quick as they could, the light growing in brilliance as it closed the distance behind them, but Twilight could see that it was slow, like they didn’t know anypony else was in the castle

She leapt through the doorway and stopped, taking in the room before her with wide eyes.

It was the Throne Room.

The darkness clung to the room like sheets on a bed, making the shadows seem deeper and malevolent to Twilight.  There were dark columns stretching along the walls that met with an arch that expanded the ceiling upward like a cathedrals.

There was a throne on the exact opposite end in front of Twilight.

It sat alone on a large platform, and was a solid jet black of obsidian, looking uncomfortably solid and unmovable.  At the top of the back of the chair sat an eclipse with an opaque center and a golden corona, reflecting brightly the purple light from Twilight’s horn.

Clop Clop Clop

There wasn’t anymore time!  Tearing her gaze from the throne, Twilight looked in a frenzy for a place to go!  A place to hide!

The walls were solid though and the windows bricked.  No doors either.

Clop Clop Clop

Twilight looked back and could see the light approaching slowly, her friends had moved out of the way of the doorway so nopony saw them.

“Twilight!!” whispered Fluttershy “What do we do!!  There’s no place to hide!!”

Her panic rising, Twilight looked above her and saw the rafters on the ceiling.

“Hold on!!”

She quickly lifted Applejack, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, and Spike up to the rafters using her levitation and each pony clung to one for dear life as Twilight, Rainbow, and Fluttershy flew up to them.

Clop Clop Clop

“Shhhh!!”  Twilight whispered frantically “Stay quiet!!  I’m casting an invisibility spell on us!! But it’ll cancel the spell that prevents them from hearing us!!  If you make any noise, they’ll hear us!!”

The others shut up quickly while Twilight lowered the silence spell and cast her invisibility spell, watching the others disappear.

They waited.

A couple minutes later, Twilight watched with baited breath as the pony that they had heard earlier steped fully into the room.

She knew this pony.

Although it had been a brief and short meeting, Twilight’s sharp memory kicked in as she eyed the black unicorn.

It was Professor Papyrus Scrolls.

‘What’s he doing here?!’

The black unicorn, standing around Twilight’s height with his grey mane, beard, and tail, slowly trotted across the room, his eyes fixed on the throne on the other end.  He was wearing the same vest and cloak he had been wearing at the banquet Twilight had met him at after her first session of Parliament.

His horn was lit up with a mostly yellow light, tinged with black, as he reached the platform at the base of the throne.

As Twilight was trying to figure out what to do next, she saw Scrolls pull out of the air the last thing she expected.

A tea set.

‘What!  He’s in here to have TEA!’

She could sense through her spell that she was maintaining that the other’s reactions were similar.

She continued to watch as Scrolls conjured up a small table to set the tea on, and a burner to warm up the tea.  He seemed very relaxed to Twilight, he had a small smile on his face as he sat below the throne.  He kept looking towards the other end of the hallway.

“HAH, there you are!  I knew I would find you in here, sitting back and drinking tea!”

Twilight almost cried out in shock.  While she had been watching Scrolls, she had completely miss the other pony enter the room.

He was a tall and sturdy looking thestral with amber draconic eyes and black bat wings.  He was wearing a long cloak similar to the one Scrolls had on and had a wide smile plastered to his face.

“Ah, Inquisitor Long Fang.  I’m so happy you could join me for tea tonight.  I know you must be very busy with all the fanfare outside.”  Scrolls said with a small smile as the thestral approached.

‘Long Fang?  Wait a moment!  That name was on the report Luna’s guards found that landed Tejas in prison!  He might be the one behind my attack!’

Twilight glared at the thestral, trying to figure out if Long Fang had indeed plotted against Equestria.

“Hhhmmph” snorted Long Fang “I have plenty of keen eyes watching out there for me, and I didn’t particularly enjoy the opening ceremony.”  He cocked an eyebrow at the stallion in front of him.  “Did you sir?”

Scrolls was shaking his head, a disappointed expression on his face.

“I found it revolting.  Especially the speech the senator made, it was poorly made and written for a mob.  I also didn’t like the insinuations he made.”

Long Fang nodded his gray head an agreement and shivered a little bit, looking about the room.

“Why are we here your majesty?  The castle has nothing in it.”

‘Why did he call Scrolls “your majesty?”’

Scrolls shrugged and grasped a tea cup in his magic and sipped it before answering.

“It’s the most deserted part of the city, and almost nopony can get in here.  Perfect for our discussions I might say.”

Long Fang nodded and shivered a bit, his wings wrapping around himself more tightly, Twilight could see his bright eyes rove about the dark room as he turned his head.

“Would you mind lighting up the torches, it’s cold and dark in here.”

“Very well,” Scrolls said sadly “It’s a lot emptier than it used to be and I don’t like looking at it.”  His horn lit up and lights shot forth from it, dancing across the room and finding their spots in upholsters along the walls.  The room had new warmth to it and Twilight could see the room better.

Scrolls was right, it was empty.  Whatever had been in the room had long since been removed, leaving the throne as the only furniture in the room.  Twilight did see though, that there were murals along the walls, depicting scenery she recognized as the land outside the city walls.  On the floor, the tile depicted the Royal Crest of the Celestial Territories, an eclipse surrounded by six stars of six different colors.  Right above Twilight, the ceiling was studded with gems that depicted the sky, with the sun in one corner and the moon and stars in another.

“Why is the castle so empty anyway?  Why didn’t they keep it up after Sombra?”  Scrolls inquired, he was holding his tea cup in his magical aura as Long Fang sipped from his cup.  Long Fang returned a sad smile to the black unicorn.

“After Celestia and Luna took control of the Celestial Throne, anything of personal or emotional value they took with them to Canterlot along with much of the artwork and books.  Whatever was left was either sold or stolen.  I found the records in the Senate building regarding the transactions and what the sisters took.”  He laughed a bit and his eyes closed in mirth.  “Why, locals still seem to think that there’s anything of value in here, like treasure or a long-hidden library.”

‘Drat’

Scrolls had been nodding along as Long Fang talked, he sipped his tea again.

“So,” he said “Have you heard anything from your spies in Equestria?”

Twilight listened more closely at this, knowing this was important information.

Long Fang regarded Scrolls with a nervous expression, and his wings shuffled, like he didn’t like the answer he was about to give.

“Yes but you’re not going to like it.”

“Oh?  Do tell.”

“Twilight Sparkle has gone missing.”

Twilight stiffened at this, sweat breaking down her back.  She sensed the others were nervous too.

Scrolls straightened up and stared at Long Fang through narrowed eyes.

“Explain please.”

Long Fang nodded and talked fast in his deep voice.

“My spies said that a week ago today, she, her dragon, and the other former elements vanished from Ponyville.  They didn’t leave a note or anything.”

“How do you know that?  You’re good but not good enough to intercept dragon fire mail.”

“Celestia and Luna’s actions gave it away.  They have left Canterlot with a contingent of guards and they are searching Equestria as we speak.  I was told they were panicked and feared something has happened to her.”

Twilight’s gut clenched in guilt and her throat caught up in her throat.  She didn’t mean to panic the princesses, they were practically family.  Long Fang continued.

“I wouldn’t like to be Flash Sentry, the princesses were outraged that he couldn’t keep track of a single princess surrounded by 1,200 guards.  One of my reports said that both princesses grew so angry, that he had to report to the medic for temporary deafness after getting demoted to a private.”

“The Royal Canterlot Voice?”

“The VERY Royal Canterlot Voice.”

Scrolls snorted in amusement as if the Voice were a joke and tapped his chin with a hoof, deep in thought.

“Hhhhmmmm.  It’s understandable they would draw the conclusion that she was kidnapped or attacked, but I doubt she’s in trouble.”

Long Fang tilted his head slightly as Scrolls poured him more tea.

“What makes you say that?”

“Oh, a hunch.  If it was just Twilight and Spike that disappeared I would be worried.  But for all the other elements to disappear without anypony noticing is ludicrous.”

“That makes sense, I suppose she and her friends went on one or their little “adventures” their known to go on and knew the guards would slow them down.  They did defeat Nightmare Moon, Discord, Chrysalis, and Sombra almost entirely by themselves after all.”

Twilight saw Scrolls shake violently as Long Fang listed of the names.  Long Fang looked on in shock before comprehension lighted up his face.  He then waited for Scrolls to calm down before speaking up in a remorseful voice.

“Oh I’m so sorry Starfire!  I forget how you don’t like it when I mention them.”

‘Starfire?  That sounds familiar, where have I heard that before?’  Twilight thought, frowning at the pair of stallions below as she searched her memory.  Then it clicked, Starfire was the name of the last emperor of the Territories before it was annexed by Equestria in 496 A.D.  Twilight thought it was strange for Long Fang to call Papyrus Scrolls that, but then realized that Papyrus Scrolls was probably an alias, and Starfire was the black unicorn’s real name.

Starfire looked at Long Fang in reluctant acknowledgment of the apology before shifting his back  left leg and reached out with a hoof, itching his sides.

“Blast it!”  He said “I haven’t been able to get much sleep ever since I found out about those four.”

“You’ve been having night….I mean bad dreams sir?”  Long Fang asked.

“Yes!”  Starfire said indignantly, “After being on ice so long, my sins keep cropping up in my dreams, reminding me of my failures.”  He fidgeted again before he started to take off his cloak.  “And I hate having to wear this cloak all the time!  It makes me feel claustrophobic!”

To Twilight’s and the others complete shock, when Starfire pulled off the cloak, they could see very clearly a pair of large, black wings with yellow tips on the feathers.

Twilight couldn’t believe her eyes, sitting right below her was another alicorn that nopony knew about!  She closed her eyes and opened them again to make sure she wasn’t hallucinating, but the wings were clearly still there as Starfire preened the ruffled appendages.

The hidden lavender alicorn started putting two and two together and came up with fish.

Starfire was the name of an emperor that supposedly died over a millennia ago.  Long Fang called him ‘your majesty’.  Starfire was very familiar with the castle.  He was an alicorn, one that nopony knew about.

The Emperor of the Celestial Territories lived!

Suddenly, the Territories secession from Equestria made much more since.  If their true ruler, the one before Celestia and Luna, had returned after a thousand years, of course they would want to separate.  The only conclusion that Twilight could draw was that Starfire was responsible for the Territories leaving and that the black alicorn was fanning the flames of hatred between the Crystal Empire and the Territories in order to reclaim his throne!

Twilight looked back down and saw that Starfire had finished preening and had put his cloak back on.  He had also put away the table and tea set and he and Long Fang were slowly walking back out towards the open doorway.

“Better sir?”  asked Long Fang.

“Yes, very much so.”  Answered Starfire, “You understand how wings get when their covered.”

“Yes sir.”  Long Fang nodded in reply.  A thoughtful expression came across his face and he turned back to the emperor as they reached the middle of the throne room.

“Sir, what have you been looking for?”

Starfire stopped and raised a questioning glance at the thestral.

“What do you mean?”

“When I walked through the castle earlier, many of the doors were open.   They’re usually closed if I recall.”

‘Uh oh’

Starfire shook his head in rejection of the thestral’s statement.

“No, I haven’t been searching for anything.  Are you sure?  When I modified the spell protecting the castle, I made it so that only you and I could pass through.”  He chuckled, “Why, the only beings who could modify or bypass my enchantment would be ………..”

He stopped, his amused smile dawning into horror as understanding came to him.

“A what sir?”  Long Fang asked, concern written on his brow.  They had paused just before the doorway to the throne room.

“……another alicorn.”

Long Fang also looked shock and they both turned their faces to the doorway.

“Twilight Sparkle has gone missing.”

“She and her friends are known for going on adventures.”

“She is worried about us, the Territories.”

“The rooms in the castle have been searched.”

Starfire quickly turned to Long Fang with a fierce expression of determination, sending chills down Twilight’s spine as she and the others prayed they wouldn’t be discovered.

“They must still be in the city, I’ve been here every night and the castle hasn’t been disturbed until tonight.”

“Orders Sir!!”  Long Fang dropped his informality and snapped to attention as Starfire took a commanding tone.

“Find General Stonewall and tell him to lock down the city.  Send out orders to search for any visitors, and to spread the word that she is here!  I will start searching the city while maintaining my disguise.  She must not escape!”

They both quickly ran through the doorway and galloped down the hallway, their hooves clopping loudly on the stone floor, the echoes growing quieter as the distance grew.  The noise then dropped off to nothing.

Twilight dropped the invisibility spell and teleported them all to the stone floor.  They all had distressed expressions flicking across their faces and they looked very skittish to Twilight.

“Twilight!  What do we do!  We’ll be trapped!”  Screamed Spike.

Twilight herself was scared but was trying to remain calm and in control of the situation.  She tried to speak but the others were crying out in alarm too and her voice was lost in the cacophony.

“We got to get out of here!!”

“We can’t all fly away Rainbow!”

“They’ll find us for sure!! No more parties!!”

“I’m too fabulous to go to prison!!”

Fluttershy just fainted, her legs sticking up in the air.

Twilight had had enough

“Stop!!”  she yelled, clamping their muzzles shut with her magic.

“We’ve got to calm down and get out of the castle first, we’ll find a way out.  Don’t worry.  They haven’t discovered us yet.”

“I’m afraid it’s far too late now, Twilight Sparkle.” An old voice said behind them.

Twilight and the others froze, Fluttershy jumping awake, and slowly turned to where the rasping voice came from.

There standing in the doorway to the throne room stood the black alicorn.

Emperor Starfire.

He had a small grimace on his face that spoke of sympathy towards the group in front of him.  His eyes flitted nervously between all of them and finally rested on Twilight.

“Princess Twilight Sparkle, it is good to see you again.  However, I wish we could meet under…..better circumstances.”

“Twilight?  Do you know this stallion?”  Rarity asked.

“Yes…..”  Twilight replied, wary of Starfire “…he was at Parliament’s reception in disguise when I met him.  He told me his name was Papyrus Scrolls though, a professor at the academy here.”

“Ya filthy liar!!  Ya’ll have been the one’s responsible for the Territories leaving!!  All this trouble too ah think!!”

Starfire blinked and looked at Applejack, his posture non-threatening and his voice polite.

“You are Miss Applejack, correct?”

“So what if ah am?”  Applejack asked suspiciously.

“I do not appreciate being called a liar, it is not in my nature.  Something you of all ponies understands, being a former bearer of the element of honesty.”

He paused before looking back at Twilight.

“I did not lie, princess. I do indeed teach at the academy under the name of Papyrus Scrolls, a necessity to hide my return.”

He stopped and looked a tad remorseful.

“I will not deny however, that it is by my doing that the Territories seceded from Equestria.”

“So,” Twilight began “You are the one that stirred up this hatred between the Territories and the Crystal Empire.  I bet you were even behind my attack.”

Starfire shook his head gently as he slowly approached Twilight.  The lavander mare backed up slowly accordingly, not wanting to be any closer to the stallion.

“I’m afraid my disagreement with the Crystal Empire is not your business princess.  And it was not I who attacked you, nor my men.  I have no quarrel with Equestria, the opposite in fact.  But our talk must end here.”

He drew himself up and flared his wings, looking intimidating to the group in front of him.

“You know too much, I cannot allow you to leave this city.  I am sorry.  Surrender and come quietly, I promise you will not be harmed.”

“Why should we believe ya?  Ya’ll are causing a whole lots of trouble.”

“Indeed, I agree with Applejack.  You are simply not to be trusted.”  Said Rarity.

“Um… please just let us go.  We don’t mean any harm.”  Whimpered Fluttershy.

Starfire looked apologetic as he looked at the shy Pegasus.

“I cannot do that Miss Fluttershy, you all being here threatens to destabilize my plans with the Crystal Empire.  You cannot leave.  Please, calm down and surrender.”

“Plans?”  Twilight said, flaring her own wings back at the black stallion.  “Your plans for the Crystal Empire?  I won’t let you!!  Cadence is my sister-in-law, I will not back down when she is in trouble.”

Starfire sighed and looked sadly at Twilight.

“We have more in common than know Princess Twilight.  One last chance.  Stop or I will be forced to detain you.”

Twilight gathered up all her courage and shouted back at the alicorn.

“NO!!  You will not harm them!!”

Twilight saw Starfire beginning to gather his magic and Twilight did the same.

Before Starfire could unleash a spell, Twilight gathered up herself and her friends and barreled through the magical barrier surrounding the castle, teleporting them outside and shattering the old enchantment.

Twilight fell and lay panting on the cobblestone of the city streets, she had used almost all of her magic to break the anti-teleporting barrier.

Behind her, the barrier was reacting to her breaking it and it exploded like fireworks, waking up the slumbering city and alerting the garrison.

“Twilight!! Are you O.K.?”  Fluttershy picked up her prone friend and put her on her back.  Twilight nodded weakly.

“I’m fine, but weak, breaking magical barriers that quickly used up all of my energy.  I can hardly stand.”

“What’s the plan Twilight?”  Asked Rainbow Dash quickly.   “That Long Fang guy is sure to have sent patrols out by know and that alicorn will soon be following us.”

Bells started ringing through the city.  Not pretty ones that a pony heard during Hearth’s Warming eve, but the kind the spoke of imminent danger.

The city knew they were here.

Taking stock of what she knew about Eclipse City, she quickly deducted that getting out would be almost impossible, she couldn’t break the second anti-teleportation barrier on the city –walls, and soldiers were bound to be searching the air and guarding all the gates.

How do they escape?

Over of the ringing of the bells, Twilight heard a train whistle and looked to the east side of the city where she saw a train station.  There was a train that had just stopped and pulled up.

Twilight smiled, the plan coming together.

“Girls!!  Make for the train station, we’ve got to board that train and leave city.”

“Halt!!  You’re under arrest!!”

From Fluttershy’s back, Twilight spied a squad of soldiers led by a griffon knight pouring into the castle square, their armor and drawn weapons glinting in the moonlight.

Twilight tried to get up but was too exhausted.  Fortunately, Applejack took charge.

“Fluttershy, you carry Twilight, she’s too tired to run.  Spike, hop on my back!!  Rainbow, fly ahead and find us a pathway that isn’t crawlin with guards!!  Pinkie Pie!!”

“Yeseronie?”  the mare said.

“Distract them.  Meet us at the train station” Applejack ordered pointing at the approaching soldiers.

With that, they all took off down the street leaving Pinkie Pie behind.  Twilight could see the soldiers trying to catch the bouncing pink ball as she giggled and shot confetti at them out of her party cannon.

‘Sending Pinkie Pie at them, why didn’t I think of that?’

Rainbow was flying ahead of them as they galloped through the streets, dodging citizens who had woken up from the barrier exploding.  They ran fast and didn’t stop, Twilight was feeling nauseous from bouncing up and down on Fluttershy’s back.

“Stop in the name of the emperor!!”

A squad of legionnaires, led by a dragon, ambushed them along the way from a narrow alleyway.  Acting quickly before anything could happen, Twilight gathered the remains of her magic and sent a concussive beam of energy at the tall dragon.  It was difficult to aim from being jostled so much but Twilight found her target.

“Aaaaaarrghhhh!!”  The dragon screamed as the powerful beam collided with him, sending him back into his comrades and causing them to topple like dominoes.

“Good goin Twilight!!  That’ll teach um!”

“The train station’s just up ahead!! We’re almost there!!”  Rainbow Dash yelled.

Sure enough, they galloped into an open square where they stopped in shock, gaping at the sight in front of them.

It was Pinkie.

She was in the cab of the train wearing an engineer’s cap.

“Heya guys!!  I finished playing tag with those meanie mcmeanie pants and now I get to wear this neat hat!”

“But…behind us…miles! Impossible….”  Twilight stuttered, gaping at the pink conundrum.

“No time for science darling!!  Everyone into the tender!!”

They all climbed up into the engine’s coal car.  Spike started shoveling coal while Pinkie Pie pulled a cord, letting off a loud whistle.  Fluttershy set Twilight down gently.

“Rainbow!!”  Twilight shouted at the cyan mare, “Unhook the train from the cars!!  We don’t need to pull extra weight.”

The Pegasus saluted and flew down to the couplers, bucking the pin holding the tender to a freight car, unlatching the train.

“Applejack, push the throttle into full speed!”

Applejack pushed the lever with her hoof and the train lurched forward, gaining speed as Spike shoveled in more coal using his tail as a shovel.

“Look girls!!”  Pinkie Pie giggled gleefully, “They’re throwing a going-away party!”

Twilight jerked up at what she said and peered over the lip of the coal bunker.

Approaching fast was Starfire at the head of at least fifty soldiers running towards the train.

“Stop!!  You cannot leave!!”  the emperor yelled at them, his yellow eyes wild and desperate.

The train pulled out of the station, leaving the angry alicorn behind.  Twilight wondered why he didn’t fly after them but suddenly felt his magic reaching out to the train.  Giving it her all, Twilight threw up a magical barrier around the train that prevented any arcane influence from penetrating.  She sweated and strained as the emperor’s blunt force pounded at her shield, but still she held on.

Twilight could see the gates closing up ahead and knew that if they shut, they would be trapped.  She looked up quickly at Rainbow and shouted to her.

“Go to the tower where the gate winch  is, stop them from closing it or we’re done for!!”

Saluting at the princess, Rainbow flew ahead as the train sped closer to the city walls and disappeared inside the gate house above the tracks.  Twilight couldn’t see what happened but did see two earth pony soldiers fly out unceremoniously.

With a screech, the gates stopped lowering and began their climb back up into the thick stone walls above the railroad.  Rainbow Dash flew through the gate as the train ran through also, leaving Eclipse City behind.

As the city grew smaller behind them, Twilight looked back over the tender back through the gate they had just escaped through.

There, silhouetted amongst the lights of the city stood the familiar outline of the emperor, Twilight could almost feel him staring at the train as it chugged out quickly to the west.

Shivering with fear from how close they were to being trapped, Twilight thanked her lucky stars as the train rattled beneath her.  Twilight looked back up at her friends.

“Girls lets go home.”  They all nodded back at her.  Spike came up and settled up next to the alicorn, falling asleep while he munched on some coal.  Pinkie Pie and Applejack took turns running the engine while the others fell asleep.

Before she fell into dream land, Twilight could only imagine how Equestria would react to the revelation of another alicorn, one that might not be friendly.

It would almost be like Nightmare Moon and Discord all over again she grumbled to herself.

As she fell asleep, the city disappeared under the horizon, and they left the Celestial Territories and its returned emperor behind.

Chapter 4: Every Farmer's Fear

Chapter 4: Every Farmer's Fear

Hayuary 17, 1504

Ponyville, Everfree Fief

Earlier that Day

The books had betrayed her.

Although her mentor had told her to relax, Twilight went ahead and searched through all her library books on any information relevant to the crisis between the Celestial Territories and the Crystal Empire

Twilight was up to her hocks in books, bags were under her eyes and her mane was in complete disarray.

Twilight put down the last book she had searched and flicked her ears as she searched for Spike, who had been helping her.

‘Where is he?’

A loud snore was the response to her question, coming from the direction of a large pile of un-shelved books that she had placed there hours ago.

Twilight sighed in resignation at how hard she had pushed him.  She knew that the baby dragon needed his sleep and her all-night study sessions weren’t helping.

She put down the books and reluctantly acknowledged that the library in Ponyville was lacking any and all information on the Celestial Territories history.

The lavander alicorn got up and stretched, her wings fanning out and her mouth widening as the yawned cutely.  She then walked over to Spike and smiled as she looked at that adorable dragon.  Spike was curled up in a ball surrounded by books and he was sucking on his tail, a sign that he was in a very deep sleep.

Twilight picked Spike up in her magic, the purple aura surrounding him, and carried him upstairs where she tucked him into his basket.

She then went back downstairs to observe the mess that was the royal residence of her majesty, the princess of magic.

Not so long ago, Spike had complained about how many times he had to reshelf all the books and how ponies like Rainbow Dash kept causing the books to fall off their resting place.  In response to his reasonable protest, Twilight developed a spell that could be used to reshelf the books into their proper places.

Her horn glowed as she began the spell.  When she was developing the spell, she had first given each book a small magical signature that her magic would pick up when the spell activated.  Twilight had then locked that magical signature into place in their corresponding spots on the shelves.

The books, held in her magic, picked themselves off the floor and flew to their designated places, dodging furniture and the princess as they took flight.

The first time she had done this, she had forgotten to add in a matrix to the spell for the books to dodge each other, inanimate objects, and sentient life forms.  The result had been several bruises to both the alicorn and the baby dragon, whose indignation at being hurt was remedied with a tub of emerald ice-cream.

Once the spell was finished, Twilight heard a rumbling sound and blushed sheepishly as she recognized it as her stomach informing her of its emptiness.

Deciding that Spike was fine upstairs asleep, and wanting to eat out tonight, Twilight opened the front door to her library and walked out into the mid-afternoon.

As she walked long, deciding to head to the Hayseed Café, Twilight took in the relaxing atmosphere that was Ponyville.

Ponies were trotting happily as they went about their errands, some shopping in the market place or going to visit friends in the more suburban part of town.  Ponyville was centered around the town’s courthouse, where Mayor Mare had her offices.  Around the courthouse were many shops, restaurants, and different businesses in addition to the Ponyville Memorial Hospital.  Rarity’s Fashion Boutique shop was here in addition to Sugercube Corner where Pinkie lived.  The Books and Branches Library where Twilight lived was on the edge of this precinct of the town, and beyond that were mostly residences.  The schoolhouse was on a hill on the edge of town, where the fillies and colts could have plenty of room to frolic and play.  Beyond the town was Sweet Apples Acres to the north, Fluttershy’s cottage to the northwest, and the Everfree forest looming over them like a behemoth from a forgotten time.  Rainbow Dash and a few other pegasi lived in cloud houses that had no distinct placement and drifted around frequently, causing a headache for the local mailmare.

Twilight noted all this in her mental map of Ponyville as she reached the town square on the way to the Hayseed Café.

“Darling!  What are you doing out here?  We haven’t seen you in days!”

The princess turned to her right, finding the owner of the voice, and smiled warmly at the white unicorn.

“Hello Rarity, I’ve finished searching through all my books and was hungry, so I am going to the Hayseed Café to eat this evening.”

“Where’s Spike?  It’s not like him to not be at your side.”

“He is asleep back at the library, the poor little guy worked himself to sleep.   I’m letting him rest, he’s deserved it with how much he’s been helping me.”

Rarity caught up to the purple mare and smiled before speaking again.

“Would you mind if I joined you?  I’m going out to eat myself, I just finished a few orders from some ponies in Canterlot that wanted some new clothes for an upcoming social dance at a nobleponies house.”

“No I don’t mind at all.  In fact this will make the meal that much better having a friend to talk with.”

The matter decided, they reached their mutual destination and a waiter showed them to their table.

As they sat looking at the different food choices on the menu, Twilight had a thought cross her mind and she decided to voice her question to Rarity.

“Rarity?”

“Yes darling?”

“You mentioned earlier a nobleponies party.  What noblepony?  I know that a lot of them don’t usually hold parties this late in winter, it’s too cold outside most the time.”

Rarity put down her menu and locked her blue eyes on the alicorn in front of her.

“It was that marshal from Stalliongrad whom we saw during that session of Parliament a few days ago.  If I remember my geography correctly, it’s cold there most of the year being so far north.  The designs I made were winter clothing so that would make sense.  Why do you ask?”

Twilight tilted her head in thought.

“I’m trying to keep track of all of the different nobles and what they have been doing, especially in light of what happened at Parliament.”

“You know, now that you mention it, I think some of them mentioned that the party was to show Stalliongrad’s support of the Celestial Territories.  They also specifically asked for clothing that styled both the sun and moon, a common theme that is found in the capital of the region, Eclipse City.”

Twilight frowned at hearing this.

“The Territories have been causing nothing but trouble lately.  From what I’ve been able to gather, they are gathering support to block the vote on the Equestria-Crystal Empire Unification Act.”

At that moment the waiter came up to take their orders, Rarity looked up at the stallion and said,

“I’ll have some broiled lettuce with some daffodils if you please good sir.”

“I’ll take a dandelion sandwich with some applesauce.”

As the waiter left with their orders, Rarity picked the conversation back up.

“How much support do they need?  And have they gotten it?”

Twilight looked back at her friend with a sad expression.

“They need a majority, and from what I’ve heard, their teetering on the edge of gaining just that.  They have a lot of support in the northern fiefs because they protect the borders there and the territories have also appealed to the frontier fiefs such as Appaloosa, who sympathizes with them.”

Rarity’s eyebrow rose up her forehead and her face formed a confused expression.

“Can’t you and the princesses just order for the Unification Act to pass and just let the Territories leave?  It sounds like there just causing trouble.  The Crystal Empire should make up for anything lost and they seem far friendlier than these northern traitors.”

Twilight shook her head as the waiter served their food.

“The princesses and I deal with Equestria’s overall security, propose budgets, hold court, and handle numerous domestic departments such as agriculture, education, and transportation.  We also are in charge of international relations.  But Cadence came to Parliament with this because to add another fief, it needs to be approved by Parliament.  The princesses and I can make laws, but if Parliament has to approve of them as well, for fear of a dictatorship.  Also, the Territories can legally leave as long as there is no violence involved.”

Twilight took a deep breath before continuing.

“Celestia and Luna desperately don’t want the Territories to leave, I’m not sure why and they haven’t told me anything about that.  When I see their expressions when we were discussing the Territories leaving you would have thought that it looked like a friend was moving away.”

“They have been ruling Equstria for a while, I’m sure they feel this way about all of them.  Like a shepherd and her sheep, they probably care for all the ponies in their care and don’t want to see them go.”

Twilight acknowledged Rarity’s statement with a nod of her head, she was about to answer when some movement caught the corner of her eye.  She looked in the direction what she saw and saw some unfamiliar unicorns.  There was an assortment of stallions and a mare dressed in different cloaks that covered their soul marks and in addition had a hood.  Rarity saw her distraction and followed her gaze.

“Who is that Twilight?  I don’t believe they live here in Ponyville, Pinkie would have invited us to her, ‘Welcome to Ponyville’ parties.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes as the unicorns left her sight and traveled down another street.

‘Why am I so paranoid?  It was probably nothing.’

Twilight turned back to Rarity and shrugged her shoulders.

“Probably just some visitors, Ponyville has been attracting many more outside customers in the recent past.”

‘That’s probably my fault for becoming an princess’

“If you say do dear.  Their cloaks were just ghastly to look at.”

Rarity looked down at her aempty plate and then at Twilight’s.

“Oh, how time flies when you’re with friends.  I need to get back to my shop, and you look like you could use some rest.”

Twilight agreed with Rarity, she sure was tired.

She got to her hooves as Rarity did and they both began walking back down the street towards the library.

“Good-night Twilight, you need to get some rest, studying can happen later.”

“Thanks Rarity, I’ll do that.  Good-night, I’ll see you later.”

The mares departed from each other, both going to their respective homes.

Twilight opened the front door and closed it behind her, locking it with her magic.  She climbed up the stairs to her bedroom where

Spike was still snoring peacefully.  She climbed up into her bed, tucked herself in, and blew out the candles.

‘Rarity was right, I need some rest.’

The lavender alicorn gently fell asleep, her mind entering the realm of dreams.

A bright light woke her up.

‘Uggghhh.  Celestia please put back down the sun, it’s too early.’

Twilight turned in her drowsy state, trying to fall back asleep when she looked at her clock.

‘Wait a moment….. it is too early.’

She got out of bed and went to her balcony, searching for the bright light.

‘And that’s not the sun.’

“FIRE! FIRE!! Everypony wake up!! There’s a FIRE at Sweet Apple Acres!!”

Twilight woke up quickly as the mare ran through the town, screaming her head off.  She looked into the distance where Sweet Apple Acres was and her heart froze in her chest.

The apple trees were ablaze, half of them were already on fire, with more catching fire by the second.

“Gaaahhaah!!  Twilight, what is it?  I swear I didn’t do it!!”

Twilight turned back around quickly, Spike had woken up.

“Spike!  There’s a fire at Sweet Apple Acres!  I’m going to go help, stay here where its safe!”

Without another word, she galloped to her balcony and leapt off, her wings stretching out as she caught the air.  She flapped her wings as fast as she could, trying to get to Sweet Apple Acres quickly.

‘How could this happen?!  It’s too cold and there hasn’t been any lightening.  What caused this?’

As Twilight flew, she got a better look at the destruction.

Many of the once beautiful trees had been reduced to twisted twins with burnt bark that smelled of ash.  The air was thick with the smell of burnt wood and grass.  The fires on the trees licked the trunks as they scared them, leaving traces of black on the once brown wood.  Smoke drifted into the sky, flecked with glowing embers that flickered dangerously with heat.

As Twilight got closer, she saw Rainbow Dash and the pegasi trying to move couds into position, but the smoke from the fire kept getting in their way, making them wheeze and suffocate from the lack of air.

Twilight searched for Applejack, knowing the farm pony would be defending her trees.  She finally spotted her, the farmer was covered in soot and sporting a hose that Big Mac pumped with his strength, showering the burning trees with water, steam rising off of them.

She landed next to her friend quickly, gathering her magic and reaching out towards the town reservoir, which was nearby.  Without saying anything, she grabbed a large amount of water and floated it over the trees.  Releasing the magic, the water splashed to the ground, soaking the trees and putting out the fire.

Releasing her held breath, Twilight turned to Applejack and Big Mac.

“Tanks, Twilight.  Would’ve tak’n us forever without your help.”

“Eeyup.”

“You’re welcome.  But what happened?  This was too large to be caused by nature.”

Applejack turned with an angry expression towards her defiled trees.

“Ah don’t know Twi, and ah hate not knowin.  It just sprung up like a flower in the desert.  No warnin whatsoever.”

Her face turned into disbelief in a flash, her face reflecting an orange glow as trees in the back of the orchard caught again.  Twilight

also turned in surprise, shock on her face.

“What in tarnation?!  Those were out but a moment ago!”

Twilight starting running towards the fire her wings lifting her into the air.

“I don’t know Applejack, but I’m going to find out!”

She flew towards the fire, leaving her friends behind.

“Wait Twi!! We can’t keep up with this hose an’ stuff!!”

Twilight barely heard her, she just kept flying.

She fast approached it and landed in front of the blaze, the trees crackling in agony as the flames licked them.  She encased the trees in a magic bubble, suffocating the fire with a lack of oxygen.  Soon the fire wheezed out and darkness returned to the orchard.

“Told you she’d come.”

Twilight turned in fright, the voice was gruff and unfamiliar.

“Who’s there?!  Show yourself!”

“Not likely princess.  Alright boys, let her have it!”

‘WHAT!?’

Just as Twilight was going to leap into the air, six bursts of lights crashed into her.  Burning her fur and maiming her wings.  One of them connected with her head.

And Twilight knew no more.