The guards had arrived without warning one crisp autumn day, shortly before Morning Glory's father was to head out for the day's work. She'd wanted to go with him, to watch him work and laugh at his stories, and look for hazelnuts in the little tree by the brook while he prepared his vines for the coming winter.
They said they had been looking for her.
At their head, a pure white unicorn, garbed in gold and rich purple, with a helmet crested by a six-pointed star. The same star that flew on every flag and pennant, that stood atop every public building, shone from every stamp and headed every public decree. The Star of Binding. The Star of Unity.
They hadn't bound her wings or capped her horn, for she had committed no crime save to be birthed with both; yet even as the guards surrounded her, treading with quiet reverence and downcast eyes that refused to look at her face, she knew she was as surely their prisoner as a pony bound in iron and locked in a cage.
Their Captain, his coat radiant as the sun that shone in the milky-blue sky, held forth letters of warrant and proclamation, and bade her parents to return indoors and forget they ever had a daughter. At first her father had refused, gathered his magic to his hooves and raised his hornless head to the guard. A draft pony from a long line of draft ponies, he had stood almost a full head higher than the guard Captain, and had looked down on him with barely restrained anger twitching in his eyes.
Without a word the Captain had turned away, refusing even the small dignity of answering her father's unspoken challenge. All the while, her mother had screeched insult and profanity at them from the door, forcing useless magic to her horn, only to let it crackle and discharge into the stout timber frame.
Finally her father had spoken. "Flax, peace," he had said, without turning, and her mother had fallen silent. And then so had he, for a while, his jaw working and grinding as the guards had prepared to leave.
"She's my daughter," he had managed, though his voice had cracked. His lip quivered as he looked to her. He might have tried to smile, to reassure her, but the tears prickling his eyes had said everything that could be told.
The Captain had looked over his shoulder as he trotted to the lead of his column, and had shaken his head. "Not any more."
At a grunted command the column had marched away by twos, with her at the centre, hemmed on each side by unicorns in heavy armour. She had watched pegasi fly above in loose formations that scoured the land and sky for unseen threats, and to her left and right had caught glimpse of fleet-footed deer jumping from cover to cover, never standing still, always eyeing the horizon.
The road to the village was not long, but it had felt like an eternity as the guard had repeatedly halted to wait for reports from the scouts. Each time they had stopped she had thought that perhaps it was a mistake, soon to be rectified; that she could return home to her parents and go out to pick nuts and pretend that there had never been any soldiers coming to take her away. Yet each time the order to march had sounded and they had resumed their trek, and her home had receded a little farther to the horizon.
They had reached the village by noon. Little Nickering was a quiet place, a little collection of houses and workshops high on the curving bank of a river that her brook emptied into. At the top of the village, an abandoned pond stood still and green under the ruins of an old stone mill, pouring out beneath the rusted remnants of a waterwheel that hadn't turned for more than a century. The main road ran past it, past the green that hosted their annual games, past the Chapel of the Sisters that marked the far end of the place, before trailing across the lowlands to Hundringen.
Today the village fair bustled with life, its population almost doubled by the presence of an entire battalion of the Guard. She had noted the airship hanging in the sky some miles back, tangled in glowing knots of spellwork far more complex than anything she had seen before, and had wondered at its presence for a while. Another sat on the green, which still glistened with a hoary frost in the shade of the ship's bloated envelope. All around, the villagers tried to carry on their day, while knots of soldiers stood at lazy attention in spots just inconvenient enough to frustrate without actually keeping ponies from their business.
She had seen all this as she was ushered toward a tent on the far end of the green, close to the Chapel and the old village well. Now she stood outside, eyeing the guards who refused to look at her and pondering her fate.
The Captain stood at her side. He was more slender even than most unicorns, but she could see the wire of his muscles beneath his immaculately brushed coat, and the magic that ran through his body marked him as an extremely powerful mage. Even with his helmet removed and his blood-red mane trailing the side of his neck to below his shoulders, he carried himself with the air of a pony who knew he would not be beaten by anyone.
He glanced at her, brief and to the point, before turning back to face the closed tent flap. "Do not disappoint her," was all he said moments before the flap was flung aside. A wizened old mare peered out at them. Her back was swayed by age, her limbs thin as hazel branches, and her coat had grizzled and run to a powdery grey, but her eyes still shone bright and clear, and her magic flowed free as a yearling's.
"Thank you Captain Silenus, you may leave now," she said, with a surprisingly powerful voice. The Captain bowed his head low, pausing briefly to look into the mare's eyes and giving her a heartfelt smile. Then he turned and marched away.
The elderly mare sighed wistfully as he left. "To be young again," she murmured, and sighed once more. "But that is not a thing I have been for a very, very long time. Come inside, my dear, we can't keep Her Majesty waiting."
With a flip of her streaked grey mane the old mare turned. Her walk, though slow, was steady and sure despite her advanced years.
"Now then," she said, as the shade of the tent closed around them. "I am Nonpareil, Consul-elect and personal advisor to Her Majesty. In private you may address me however you wish, though of course I prefer Nonpareil. In the presence of others you shall address me as Lady. Further, you shall address Her Majesty as Your Majesty on your first greeting, and subsequently shall refer to her as Your Highness, or ma'am. She may ask you several questions. She is not a pony to be trifled with, so you shall answer truthfully and promptly if you wish to remain in her good graces. Clear?" She waited for an answer, and smiled when the younger mare nodded. "And how are you addressed?"
"I don't—I—"
The elderly mare huffed and rolled her eyes. "Your name, dear! I grant you have had little of material value in your life, but surely you at least have one of those, yes?"
"Um..."
The youngster fluffed her wings nervously and dropped her head. The tent, already warmer than outdoors, now felt stuffy and closed-in. Her wings itched; she fluffed them again, letting the magic within them leak out to cool the air a fraction.
"Morning Glory," she muttered. When she looked up, the elderly mare was watching her with narrow eyes, nodding slowly. Abruptly her face broke out in a wide grin.
"Well then, Morning Glory, I am glad to meet you. That was a most impressive display if I might be so bold as to say so. You are almost certainly the pony Her Majesty seeks." Nonpareil's smile faded a little as she looked over Morning Glory's wings. "Though a shade darker than I would have thought, given... but no matter. No cutie mark yet I see? Not unusual for a mare of your unique stature in this day and age. How old are you, dear? Twenty, nineteen?"
"Sixteen, Lady." Morning Glory dipped her head again, belatedly remembering the admonitions of her mother from the time they had entertained Deacon Lavender. Not that she thought it would do her much good now.
"I see. That's a little younger than I had expected. You are rather well-built for your years." Nonpareil's frown had returned. She shuffled around the tent, muttering to herself as her magic gathered up apparently random scrolls and sheets of paper. "There's nothing to be done about it in any case. You are what you are, and that's all that matters."
She tucked the papers into a pocket in her robes, patting it twice when done, and nodded her head toward another door in the tent.
"Shall we go?"
It wasn't a request, a fact that became apparent when a loop of magic tugged subtly at Morning Glory's shoulders. With her head raised high, Morning Glory stepped smartly toward the inner chamber of the tent and followed Nonpareil within.
The first thing she saw was the throne, crafted from ancient mahogany, inlaid with silver, gold and any number of other precious metals that formed a relief spanning the throne's entire, enormous base. Over it hung a star, the Star, flanked by the crescent moon, crystal heart and burning sun of the Hallowed Sisters.
In between...
Power. Primal, raw power. Magic so strong that it almost hurt to look at it, so all-encompassing that she could feel its oily pressure against her flesh, teasing at her horn, playing with her wings, touching her very bones. Never had she seen so much magic in one place. So powerful was it, so intoxicating, that it overwhelmed everything around her and left Morning Glory lost in a blissful miasma. She might have heard Nonpareil speaking, introducing her by name, but she paid little heed to the words, or to the answer from whatever being she stood before.
It was then she realised that the power wasn't merely passive in its touch, but actively seeking something within her. She leaned into it, revelling in the intensity of its touch until, without warning, the power winked out. It was as if the sun had been shut off, or as if she had lost her sight. Morning Glory whimpered and fell to her haunches before the throne, unable to comprehend what had just happened to her.
Through the tears filling her eyes, she looked up at the pony seated before her. Where moments before had been being filled with the very fire of life itself, Morning Glory found an alicorn. The Alicorn: The living embodiment of Harmony, the one true Goddess of Magic. She who had tamed Discord, cast down Tirek, slain the great dragon Brynstingr, united the world beneath the twin yokes of her benevolent reign and the Book of Harmony, and who alone had lived, the legends said, when the Three Sisters had walked the earth.
And she who had taken Morning Glory's magic and snuffed it out with barely a thought.
Twilight Sparkle. The Sunset Queen.
Ignoring the blubbering heap of pony before her, the Queen turned to Nonpareil. "Inform Captain Silenus that the guard is to be recalled. We're leaving the moment the Celestia's Radiance can launch."
"Highness," Nonpareil replied, bowing her head. She turned to leave, but then paused at the chamber threshold for one last look at Morning Glory. "Queen Twilight—"
"I am aware of her state, Nonpareil. I shall deal with it as I see fit. You may leave."
Nonpareil departed in silence, leaving Morning Glory alone with the Queen. Alone and bereft, stripped from her parents, from her home, and now cast adrift in a lightless, empty world.
The thump of a hoof on wood set Morning Glory shivering with renewed anguish. When she looked up, she found the Queen standing before her, staring down at her from a great height. She was frowning, as if unsure of what she was looking at.
Queen Twilight stepped away to a table at the tent wall, on which sat several cups surrounding a gilt crystal jug. She stared at the cups for a moment, before looking back at Morning Glory.
"Your power is uncontrolled, and without training its continued use was potentially very dangerous. I have sealed it." She turned away and lifted the jug. "For now."
"But I can't s-see any of it any more!" Morning Glory wailed. She let her head drop and closed her eyes. "You took my magic..."
"Your magic is not gone, little pony. As I said, your power is merely constrained. You can still cast as well as any other filly your age." Queen Twilight filled a cup of water and held it out to Morning Glory with her hoof. There was an emptiness between cup and hoof, where normally Morning Glory would have seen the tenuous, misty glow of magic binding the two together.
The Queen pressed the cup forward. "Take it. You're probably thirsty anyway."
Sniffling and wiping her eyes with one hoof, Morning Glory reached the other forward to take the cup. The Queen huffed and snatched the drink back out of Morning Glory's reach.
"B-But you—"
"Use your magic."
"But you stole it!"
"Humour me."
Queen Twilight held out the cup and raised an eyebrow. After a moment's hesitation, Morning Glory closed her eyes and tried to grasp the cup with her magic. Straight away she felt the flow; a mere trickle compared to what she was used to, cramped and confusingly alien, but there all the same. By fits and starts she wrapped the cup in her magic, straining slightly as the full weight of it impinged on her aura. She'd never felt such weight! As she took the cup from the Queen's hoof, Morning Glory opened her eyes, caught between the triumph of still having her magic and horror at how weak she had become.
She set the cup down on the floor at her hooves and stared at it. The tears were gone, not that she would have had many left to cry anyway; in their place, curiosity, confusion and, by the frantic thudding of her heart, more than a little anger.
"What—what did you do to me?"
Queen Twilight paused in pouring herself a cup of water to look at Morning Glory. "I sealed your power. You have only the magic of a unicorn and a pegasus now."
"But that's what I had before..." Morning Glory looked down at the cup, frowning. "Isn't it?"
Queen Twilight shook her head. With a single draft she emptied her cup, and wiped her lips as she set it aside. Her hooves thudded on the temporary floorboards of the tent as she made her way back to the throne, and as she turned to sit her cape swirled and floated on the air, briefly revealing a slender body wrapped in silver armour over a white doublet that couldn't quite hide the scars around her throat.
She lowered her face toward Morning Glory. "What do you think you are?"
"A... a pegacorn?" Queen Twilight frowned. Though her anger was forgotten for the moment, Morning Glory found herself shying away under the close examination. She dredged up her memory of the book her father had gifted her just the previous year and forced herself to look the Queen straight in the eye. "A, um, rare blending of compatible unicorn and pegasus genetic lines that results in obvious physical attributes of both subspecies manifesting at the same time."
She looked up at the the Queen. With a peculiar half smile on her face, Queen Twilight silently nodded her head for Morning Glory to continue. The young mare blinked furiously as she tried to frame more of her knowledge, though the increasing noise of soldiers marching back and forth beyond the tent walls made it difficult to concentrate.
"Um. Fewer than, uh, one in five-hundred thousand ponies are born with the necessary genetic heritage to become pegacorns, and of those very few will actually display the traits of both lines. Those that live are said to blessed with long life and powerful magic—"
"That'll do." Queen Twilight leaned forward in her throne. "Tell me, my little pony, is your magic powerful?"
"It was until you took it," Morning Glory muttered, unable to keep the sullen sneer from her voice.
"You're certainly as stubborn—" Queen Twilight snorted and shook her head, before turning away from Morning Glory to stare at the canvas wall. "Your mother taught you to use your magic?"
Morning Glory mumbled an affirmative, though by now she had little reason to answer this belligerent Queen beyond the hope that her magic would be restored to her. Queen Twilight nodded slowly at the reply. She was frowning again.
"It was obvious from your lack of control. She probably seemed confused by the way you spoke of some things," Queen Twilight continued. "But she taught you as well as she could. Your family has raised you well, young one. You should be proud of them."
You took them from me as well, Morning Glory wanted to say, but she had a suspicion that this wouldn't go across very well. Holding her heart and her tongue in check, she bowed her head.
"Momma said most unicorns can only do magic that helps their cutie mark. She was a weaver. She couldn't see..." her voice trailed off as she looked up. Queen Twilight was watching her; that half-smile was back again, as if the Queen had seen some joke that Morning Glory couldn't understand.
"What did you see, Morning Glory? When you looked at me, what did you see?"
"Fire."
The word escaped her lips before she could even think. Morning Glory closed her eyes, waiting for the wrath she suspected this Queen would surely pour down upon her. Yet the punishment never came. Instead she heard Queen Twilight laughing quietly.
Queen Twilight's laughter abruptly ended as she covered her mouth. She nodded once or twice to Morning Glory, then leaned forward. "Fire, my little pony, was one of the earliest manifestations of my ascension. In the golden age of the Sisters, I once took on the form of a sun-bright mare, with a mane and tail of white-hot flame. Legends say that in the righteous anger that accompanied my transformation, I burned whole cities to the ground. In truth I was simply annoyed at one of my friends..."
Queen Twilight's voice trailed off to silence. For a while she stared at the floor across Morning Glory's shoulder. Slowly, the Queen closed her eyes and lowered her head.
"The fire you saw was the manifestation of my true power as an alicorn." The Queen reached out to lift Morning Glory's chin, before looking into her eyes. "When you look at ponies you see beyond their mortal form. You look at earth ponies and see the burning fires of the living earth in their bones. You look at pegasi and see the lightning that flows in their blood. You look at unicorns and see a filigree of magic threading their flesh and connecting them to the world. You see these things and you believe that all ponies must see them, but in your heart you know they do not. No mere pony, not even a pegacorn, has the power to see such things."
"But I see them."
Queen Twilight's hoof slid from under Morning Glory's chin. "When I look at a pony, I too may choose to see their magic if I wish. So often it is mundane, a simple energy, barely even a spark. Some are strong, strong as I was when I was a mere filly. Some, a scant few, are stronger still, but all are... simple. Bound by their form, bound to their tribe."
She leaned back. The smile, what little there had been of it, was entirely gone now. Her eyes roved over Morning Glory's body.
"When I look at you I see... the sun. The moon. The stars. I see light and darkness rolled together as one. A power far greater than the mundane magic of the tribes. I see it for the same reason you see it."
"B-Because you're strong?"
"My magic is strong," Queen Twilight replied. "Likely stronger than that of any pony alive, but it's not mere strength that allows me to see it. Think: what am I?"
"An Alicorn."
The moment the word left her lips, Morning Glory felt her throat close up as if in the grip of a windigo's jaw. She choked and swayed drunkenly while her heart seemed ready to leap from her chest, and had she been standing she would have fallen to her haunches. As it was, she barely managed to remain upright at all.
"You understand," Queen Twilight said.
"No!" Morning Glory pushed back from the throne, but her legs refused to cooperate. "I'm just a filly, I can't be..."
"Oh but you are. You, Morning Glory, are the first alicorn brought into this world for more than a thousand years." The Queen tipped her head to one side and smiled, without warmth or humour. "And I have been looking for you for my entire life."
* * *
The landscape that drifted beneath the keel of the Celestia's Radiance was as changing as it was endless. Though she knew how to fly, Morning Glory had never spent much time in the air and had never flown particularly high or far – certainly not far enough to see anything like this. After a day the cultivated fields of her home county had made way for orchards that had stretched for miles, before petering out into bleak, grey moors punctured by patches of bright purple heather.
Now the Radiance floated over an endless forest; a bright, bobbing sea of green and grey and orange that stretched away to the horizon in every direction, with only the occasional slender guard tower puncturing the canopy as proof that they were anywhere near civilisation. She watched as the ship passed slowly by the nearest tower, seemingly so close that she felt she could reach out to touch it. Tiny shapes flitted about the tower like mayflies around a reed: perhaps pegasus guards, or perhaps griffins. She'd never seen a griffin before.
In her anger and frustration, Morning Glory had initially locked herself in her cabin, but soon the tantalising glimpses of the world outside had drawn her out again. For the rest of that first day and the day that followed, she had watched all of this from the ship's main lounge, at the prow of the passenger gondola, where a bank of windows wrapped around the entire structure.
The couch on which she had settled was luxurious. Rich red and soft as a down pillow, it was difficult for Morning Glory not to simply curl up on it and fall asleep. Instead she sipped on a cup of strange, weak tea that had been brought without prompting by a quietly competent maid in a simple uniform, and listened to the distant creak of rigging, and to the hypnotic tumptumptump of the airship's engines.
She had just lifted her cup – still so heavy in her magic that it felt as if she were lifting the entire moon – when the thud of hooves on the deep-piled carpet of the lounge announced the arrival of another pony. Just a few days before, Morning Glory would have sensed that pony's arrival before she even heard them. She would have known who they were, whether they were using their magic and possibly even what they were using it for. Now she couldn't even tell if there was one or two, though it sounded like only one. A large pony, but not heavy.
A shadow fell across her. Morning Glory turned as Queen Twilight settled herself on the next couch, bearing a tray with a steaming teapot and cup to a low table between them. A book followed, its binding battered and blackened by time; it came to rest just by Queen Twilight's hooves, where it was promptly ignored as the Queen set about pouring herself a cup of tea. Morning Glory eyed the book cautiously, but apart from its age there didn't seem to be anything particularly important or special about it. Sighing, she returned to watching the view.
"You've been very quiet," said the Queen. She sipped her tea, not looking at Morning Glory as she spoke. Instead her eyes watched the horizon, where a distant range of mountains had appeared some time in the last hour. "If I were in your position I'd have at least asked where we were going by now."
"Unless the answer is 'home', I don't care."
Queen Twilight's only response was to sip her tea and slowly stretch out her wings, lifting the cloak that had covered her back until that point. This time she wore no armour, but instead was dressed in a close-fitting tunic that covered almost all of her body from the neck down. Yet far from hiding anything, the dark material accentuated the Queen's unnaturally slender frame and left Morning Glory with a number of distinctly uncomfortable thoughts. She fluffed her wings, irritated that her anger was so easily subdued by a nice view and a comfortable seat, and looked away.
In silence they watched as the world rolled slowly beneath them. Ahead of the ship, another guard post stood proud of a cloud-wreathed mountain that towered over the forest.
"Besides, we've been heading south for the entire journey. It's pretty obvious you're taking me to the capital."
Queen Twilight shook her head and took another sip of her tea. "The obvious answer isn't always the right one."
She set the cup down and finally turned to look at Morning Glory. She was smiling again. In all the pictures, Morning Glory had never seen the Queen smile.
"I know you're not happy with me right now, Morning Glory. I've kidnapped you from your home and taken you out into the middle of nowhere without any explanation. I've taken the power you grew up with and forced you back to using tribal magic, and I've told you things that have turned your world completely upside down. I wouldn't blame you if you never forgave me for any of it."
"But why? If you feel so bad about it, why do it?"
For a moment, Queen Twilight seemed unable to reply. She took a breath and looked away to the distant tower, though her gaze seemed to be on something far beyond it.
"I have a responsibility to protect this world. Your power was already immense when I first learned of you and it has only grown since. Without training it would have eventually grown to overwhelm you and would have become a threat to everything you ever loved. You would have destroyed your home and your family," the Queen said, turning her face back to the tower.
"So just hire me a teacher! or something!"
"Or something," Twilight echoed sadly. "You're an alicorn, growing into a power that nobody on this world but I can ever understand. It's too dangerous for me to train you where you lived." The Queen lowered her head, blinking at something that might have been tears. "If I had found you earlier then perhaps things could have been different. That was my fault. I'd seen so many failed potentials..."
The Queen stood, stretching languorously as she slid from the couch. Despite her apparent grace, Morning Glory noticed that Queen Twilight subtly favoured her left leg, moving it stiffly compared to the others. The limp in her step as she walked to the window was almost unnoticeable unless you were looking for it.
With her attention back on the windows and the view, Morning Glory noticed that they were still approaching the tower she had noticed earlier. Now they had closed on it, she could see it was a lot larger than she had originally thought; no mere guard tower attached to a mountain, more a fortification of some sort. Perhaps this was to be her home now. A remote outpost in some uncivilised wilderness where this Queen could make sure she never hurt anyone. Maybe they would lock her at the top of that same tower and never let her out. Not even to fly? She could believe anything at this point.
"It's not what you're thinking."
Morning Glory tore her gaze from the tower, to find Queen Twilight's reflection peering right at her from the window. The Queen turned, showing another of her humorless smiles.
"You don't stay on the throne for one and a half millennia without learning how ponies think," she said, before turning back to the window. "Come. Take a closer look."
At first Morning Glory refused to move, and revelled in the tiny act of rebellion until it became clear that Queen Twilight wasn't going to move either. As the stalemate drew out between them, Morning Glory felt her wings starting to itch; with a sigh she hauled herself from the couch, stretching and flapping her wings to relieve their tension, and made her way to Queen Twilight's side.
"Okay, I'm here. Now what?" Morning Glory looked down at the canopy, then to the mountain that grew ponderously before them. The structures on it couldn't be called any sort of tower now. She could see buildings, streets, bridges. Rivers flowed freely between ancient walls, and the whole thing was overgrown by trees and vines. "What is this?"
"This is the land of your ancestors, my little pony; a sight very few now alive will ever see. The valley we're travelling down was once the centre of Equestria." Queen Twilight licked her lips, staring down at the abandoned city. The ship turned a degree as its captain adjusted their course around the city, but her eyes remained fixed on the ruins and the tower. "This city was my home, for a while."
"Your home?"
For a moment the Queen didn't speak. Instead she moved closer to the window. Morning Glory followed, unable to hide her curiosity. This close to the city, she could see more than the ravages of time and decay. Rubble lay all around the base of the tower, and around a massive rent torn in the side of a monolithic hall that jutted from beneath it. The top of the tower looked to have been sliced clean away.
"What happened?"
"I did," said the Queen. She turned from the window, no longer bothering to hide her limping leg, and returned to her couch.
Morning Glory turned her gaze back to the ruined city. Now that she looked closer she could see the same signs of destruction all over it. Craters, buildings sliced clean in half and tossed far from where they should have been, walls melted to weird, twisted shapes by unimaginable heat.
"It was about four hundred years after my ascension. I fought a great battle, one of far too many. A lot of ponies who trusted me to keep them safe died by my acts." Queen Twilight laughed bitterly. "Some princess of friendship I turned out to be. Oh Tia, if you could see me now."
Morning Glory turned to the Queen, and with her heart beating in her chest, took a step toward her. "Why?"
"I believed I was defending my ponies from a great threat. I had done it before, but this time I misjudged how powerful I truly was. That was the result." The Queen bowed her head and sighed. "Now imagine yourself with that sort of power and no way to control it. Imagine what it would do to your home, or your family. I was able to stop. You wouldn't even know how."
As the Queen spoke the sunlight that had all morning shone so steadily from the left of the lounge shifted. Morning Glory watched the light crawling along the carpet to the bow of the ship. She looked up; they were changing course, turning south-west. The shattered ruin slid quietly to the side of the ship, and soon the view all around returned to featureless forest.
"Where are we going now?" Morning Glory looked over her shoulder at Queen Twilight. The Queen lifted her head and smiled.
"Home."
* * *
"It's a tree."
Morning Glory froze at the sound of her own words and waited, expecting... well she wasn't sure what she was expecting, but it probably wouldn't be pleasant. Queen Twilight's reputation as mercurial and easily-angered had yet to bear up to the reality of her experience, but it was always possible that she was simply hiding herself.
Whatever wrath she might have anticipated never came, however. Instead the Queen paused at Morning Glory's side and looked up at the ancient, broad-limbed oak that stood out in the open before them.
"You're right," she said. "Very observant. Well done."
The rattle of armour announced the arrival of a squad of guards, dressed in the finest armour Morning Glory had seen so far. The old mare Nonpareil accompanied them, as did the Guard Captain, Silenus, who had first taken Morning Glory from her home. Without his barding and helmet he seemed a lot more friendly, or at least a lot less threatening, though he still wore the permanent half-smile of a stallion entirely confident in his ability to kill anything he saw.
"All posts report no unusual activity within the Monument, Highness," he said bowing deeply. "A small number of pilgrims were found near the southern boundary. They've been accommodated."
"Good. Hold them for a few days and then escort them back to Trotiers. They can make their own way home from there."
"Highness."
The Queen barely acknowledged Captain Silenus' bow as she turned to Nonpareil. The elderly mare bowed in turn and smiled at the Queen, before passing over the same book Morning Glory had seen earlier.
"How long do you intend to stay this time?"
"A few months perhaps." As she tucked the book into a pack beneath her cloak, Queen Twilight glanced up at the sky and shook her head. "I'm sure the Senate can cope with my absence for that long. You have my seal if anything unexpected occurs."
Queen Twilight stepped back and bowed formally to Nonpareil, then to her Captain once again. They bowed in turn, as did the guards, before noisily returning to the airship.
Together the Queen and Morning Glory watched as the ship's engines roared to life, scaring up a flock of birds from the treeline. The Celestia's Radiance rose ponderously from the ground, before thundering over their heads and climbing to the western sky. Only once the ship had turned south did the Queen look away from it, casting her eyes across the wide open meadow that surrounded them, until her gaze came to rest on Morning Glory.
Something in the way the Queen looked at her set a chill in Morning Glory's spine. She ruffled her wings and turned to look at the meadow – though in fact 'meadow' was probably the wrong name for it. They stood close to one end of an enormous clearing that stretched so far into the hazy distance that even Morning Glory's eyes had trouble making it out, while to her left a broad, slow river curled out of the forest and away down the valley.
The dense-packed grass that seemed to grow across the entire meadow was short and soft under her hooves, like an old, well-tended lawn. Though if it was a lawn, it was in a garden larger than the whole of Little Nickering. Aside from the tree and the grass, nothing else grew there as far as she could see.
Warm wind gusted across the clearing, bringing with it a floral scent, alien and enticing. As the breeze lifted her cloak, Queen Twilight closed her eyes and raised her wings to catch the sun. For a while she stood there, still as the tree behind her, before abruptly drawing her wings back to her body.
Silently she turned to face Morning Glory. For a moment she didn't move, but stared at Morning Glory as if seeing her for the first time. Then her head bobbed, and she blinked like a foal waking up. "Time to make ourselves at home," she said.
Morning Glory made a show of looking around the empty landscape. "In the tree?"
Queen Twilight rolled her eyes. "Don't be silly, I haven't lived in a tree for fifteen-hundred years!"
She moved toward Morning Glory with the same disconcerting look in her eye as before, then abruptly set off toward the river at a slow jog. After a short pause to watch the Queen gamboling like a foal across the grass, Morning Glory set off at a trot to catch up. Their paths met just short of the river bank; Queen Twilight glanced over her shoulder at Morning Glory, then across to the edge of the forest on the river's far side, where a narrow path led away beneath the trees.
"That's where we're going," she said, nodding toward the path.
Without waiting for Morning Glory to respond, Queen Twilight stepped into the river, wading deep into the water until even her elegantly long legs were completely submerged. She looked back at Morning Glory again and grinned as she pressed forward.
"Are you coming, or are you just going to sit there all month?"
"What if I run away?"
Queen Twilight laughed as she clambered up the far bank. Water cascaded down her flanks and thighs, and her tunic and cloak hung heavy and wet about her as she turned to face across the river. "There's nothing but forest for hundreds of miles in every direction. You'd be lost in no time."
"I could fly." Morning Glory raised her wings and leaped to glide across the river, executing a near-perfect landing at the Queen's side.
Queen Twilight turned away with another laugh. It wasn't malicious or crowing; at least it didn't seem that way. She bounced toward the forest, shaking her legs and body to rid herself of more of the water, then paused again at the threshold.
"I should warn you." She looked at Morning Glory. "This wood... it holds a lot of secrets. At one time there was a wild forest here, a place ponies never touched or even entered if they could help it, so wild that even the weather took care of itself. There are still remnants of that wild magic lurking even today. Its effects are impossible to predict."
As she stepped onto the path, Queen Twilight's horn glowed with magic. An aura surrounded her body, lighting up every part of her until Morning Glory could see steam rising from the Queen's back. After a few moments her clothes were bone dry.
Morning Glory coughed as she passed through the humid cloud the Queen had left behind. "You could have flown over the river."
"Perhaps."
Queen Twilight quickened her pace, and soon they were surrounded on all sides by the deep, green-grey shadow of the wildwood.
The path they trod was surely as ancient as everything else Morning Glory had encountered in this place, yet it looked so untouched that it could have been laid just a few days earlier. No muck or grime had worked between the stones and no plants encroached on it. She could feel the tingle of magic beneath her hooves as she walked.
The strangest thing about the place was the silence. Out in the clearing there had been the distant twitter of birds and the rustle of grass and leaves in the wind. Here there was nothing but the sound of their hooves on stone. The trees were still as statues, and if anything lived in the woods it was keeping quiet about it. The result left Morning Glory with a horrible crawling sensation along her spine. She instinctively reached for her power, meaning to wrap herself in its protective force, but she found only emptiness and the pitiful spark that Queen Twilight had left her.
Ahead, the Queen twitched her ears and half-turned her head to Morning Glory, as if listening for something.
"We're almost there," she said. Then she slowed and looked back at Morning Glory. "I know what you're thinking. Stay on the path. There are soft places beyond it."
"I wasn't—"
Morning Glory grit her teeth and sighed, for she certainly had considered making a run for it. She let her wings drop at her sides and lowered her head as she plodded along behind the Queen.
"What's the point of this?" she growled as they turned a corner. "We have wings, we could have flown. Luna's tits, you had an airship! Why waste time walking?"
"You'd think after a thousand years it wouldn't hurt to hear people use my loved ones as profanity," the Queen muttered, shaking her head. She slowed at the sound of Morning Glory's sputtered attempt to reply, but then dismissed it with a shake of her tail.
A few steps farther, Morning Glory emerged from the forest, blinking and wincing in bright sunlight. The thunder of a raging river reached her ears, accompanied by the a cacophony of birdsong and the crackle of trees caught in a breeze. Another clearing stood before Morning Glory, filled with a riot of colour and life.
The path on which she stood rose up a short incline to a broad stone bridge across a canyon. Morning Glory walked carefully along the path, following in Queen Twilight's hoofsteps. Beyond the bridge stood a castle so ancient that it seemed impossible it could even exist. Some parts had been rebuilt, but the contrast between their neatly-cut stone and the softened, weather-worn structure they were grafted to only enhanced the impression of age.
It was nothing like the pictures she had seen of the soaring Royal Palace in the capital, or the slender pillared towers of the Triune Cathedral that were her only memory of a childhood trip to Trottingham. If anything it was more like the abandoned old guard keep that sat and mouldered a few miles outside Little Nickering, built in the days when the town had been on the frontier and the threat of war had been more than a bad plot device in pulp romance novels.
Around the middle of the bridge she caught up to Queen Twilight once again. The Queen was staring up at the keep, but turned slightly when she noticed Morning Glory at her side.
"I didn't answer your question," she murmured. "That was very rude of me." Queen Twilight bobbed her head toward the door and set off at a quick trot, trailing Morning Glory in her wake once again. "It's fair to say that flying is difficult for me these days, but aside from that, nothing and nobody can fly directly here no matter how far they travel. This entire place is sealed away from the outside world. That path we took is the only way to reach it."
"Oh."
Morning Glory slowed as they reached the steps to the castle gate. The gates were open wide; from the bushes and vines that grew over them, they likely hadn't been closed for quite some time.
"Why?"
"I value my privacy." Queen Twilight stopped and turned to face Morning Glory. She smiled. "Right now there are only two ponies alive who have set hoof in this place. Me..." she leaned forward and touched Morning Glory on the chest. "And you. I want you—"
Queen Twilight's voice faltered. She lifted her hoof from Morning Glory's chest and raised it before her own face, frowning, as if she'd never seen anything like it before in her life. Then without a word she turned and walked through the gates, heading for an arched door on the far side of the sizeable courtyard.
"Find yourself a room," she called over her shoulder. "Any room you like, but be careful around the books."
The door closed with an echoing thud. Morning Glory waited a moment, looking around the courtyard and listening to the distant rumble of the gorge. There was a fountain close by as well, tinkling and chattering along to accompany a chorus of over-excited birds. She turned on the spot, staring at a nearby wall, then turned again to peer through the gates. Another turn brought her back to face the door the Queen had entered.
For a while, Morning Glory stood still, waiting.
"Fuck it," she muttered, and wheeled for the gate. A gallop took her back across the bridge and down toward the edge of the forest. She didn't bother taking to the air; she had no idea how the magic hiding the place would affect her if she tried to fly through it, nor did she relish the thought of finding out.
Soon she was back beneath the canopy of trees, thundering along the path. The tingling magic was back again, teasing at her hooves. She'd always had very sensitive hooves; the sensation was almost enough to set her giggling. Almost.
After a few minutes, Morning Glory allowed herself to slow to a steady, panting walk. She raised her wings to cool off, flapping them a few times in a vain attempt to flush the itchy first flecks of foaming sweat from her back. How long would it take for the Queen to realise she was gone? They had been alone for hours. There weren't any guards, and if the Queen had been telling the truth there wouldn't be any for miles.
As a foal she'd always been good at hide and seek, though if she had to admit the truth, she'd cheated more than a few times. But even with her power 'sealed' whatever that meant, she still had her wits and her skill. If she could make her way south, she might be able to—
A distant call echoed down the path. Morning Glory halted, panting and twitching her ears back and forth. After a moment she heard the voice again, and with it her name, echoing between the trees. How had the Queen noticed she was missing so fast? Her hooves danced and skittered on the clean white stone as she havered over which direction to escape. The path offered no respite: the Queen would simply follow her to the clearing and capture her there. Going back was obviously out of the question. Flight would give only a moment's respite from the chase.
Taking a deep breath, Morning Glory forced her legs to still and pulled her wings close to her side. She took a breath, and before her quailing heart could convince her otherwise, plunged from the path and into the deep forest beyond.
The moment she stepped from the path. Morning Glory found herself stumbling through vines and tangled roots that seemed to have grown from nowhere. She gasped in surprise, and her lungs and nose filled with the cloying, greasy stench of rot and decay. Struggling against the sucking mud of the forest floor, Morning Glory hauled herself forward out of the roots and onto a moss-crusted cage of rocks and vines.
She collapsed to her stomach, panting against the heat and clinging humidity that had left her exhausted by even that small effort. From outside, the forest had seemed cool and airy, but now it felt close and turgid, as if she'd stepped into an entirely different world. A quick glance up told her there was no obvious exit through the canopy, but if she could find a clearing she'd be able to get above this mess. Of course that would mean navigating through the filth, a thought that wasn't particularly appealing, but then it would be better than the alternative, she reasoned as she looked back the way she had come.
The path was gone. Morning Glory felt as if she had just plummeted from a cloud with her wings tied. She looked around with tears already filling her wide eyes, but there was no sign of the path in any direction. With a terrified whimper she hauled herself upright, unable to quite stop her hooves dancing against her rocky perch.
Gnarled, ancient trees rose in every direction, wreathed in mist and tangled by vines and underbrush. Keening at the cold weight that hung in her gut, Morning Glory took a hesitant step first in one direction, then another.
"H-Hello?" she called. "Is anypony there?"
The cacophony of animal life fell silent for a time at the sound of her voice. Morning Glory shivered, despite the uncomfortable warmth. In the distance, Morning Glory heard the sound of something pressing through the brush. A nearby tree shuddered as some unseen creature thrashed against it, and then the forest echoed with an ear-shattering roar.
Morning Glory screeched and leapt to the air, hauling with all the might of her wings, just as an enormous creature crashed from the undergrowth. Mud and grime stained its coat up to its shoulders and its leonine mane was straggled and filthy. It didn't wait to examine Morning Glory, but only roared and pounced, claws outstretched and flashing in the forest twilight. Morning Glory let out an incoherent wail and surged skyward, but it wasn't enough. The creature's claws raked her flank and she fell, screaming, to the forest floor.
As she fell she reached for the power that had always kept her safe. Her horn sparked and failed her as the tiny well of magic she still held gave out. With nothing left to her she wailed, curled her limbs about her body and closed her eyes.
The impact never came. Instead she felt the cold tingling grasp of magic around her and heard a voice shouting her name. Then, just as she opened her eyes, the forest was torn by the rippling scream of mage fire.
"She was not yours to take!" the Queen thundered as she crashed to the ground between Morning Glory and the creature. "You bring no harm upon my subjects! That was the bargain!"
Morning Glory blinked and looked up in wonder at the sight before her. Wings spread and head bowed low, the Queen stood between her and the creature. Her body burned with unnatural fire that rippled up and down her mane, and when she glanced back at Morning Glory her eyes shone with impossible light.
Laughter echoed around the forest, and a voice spoke, seeming to bounce between the trees as if it came from all around. "Usurper! Thief! Speak of bargains all you wish! This subject you claim as your own shall make my beast a tasty dish!"
"A deal is a deal, zebra," Queen Twilight shouted. She ignored the renewed laughter around them. "You serve my purpose, I protect your realm."
"My realm that none outside must find as long as it is mine to mind! And still they stumble to this muddy place, but only for this winged one have you ever shown your face." The voice laughed again. "Protect this land as you protect the innocence of your subjects, oh Queen. I know there is a side of you this little one has not yet seen."
"Be silent," Queen Twilight growled, turning to face the creature. It took a swipe at her but then cowered back beneath the fury of her gaze. "Remember your vow, Zecora. Remember that this realm exists at my sufferance. I could end it, and you, as surely as I ended him."
The voice didn't answer, not even to laugh. With a final, dismissive growl the creature turned from the pair and fled into the mist. Then the silence that Morning Glory hadn't even noticed was broken and the endless cacophony of the forest's life resumed in earnest.
The fire that burned around Queen Twilight extinguished. She lowered her head and turned again to look at Morning Glory. The disappointment in her eyes was almost tangible.
"When the most powerful mage and ruler of the entire planet tells you to stay on the path," she said, from the end of a deepening tunnel of darkness, in a voice that rapidly faded to echoes. "You stay on the path!"
* * *
The sun had long set when Morning Glory awoke, in a bed larger than her bedroom at home, beneath enough quilts and sheets to keep a small bedding shop in business for quite some time. She was laid on her side, with her forelegs tucked to her chest and her wings pulled tight to her body. On the far side of the room a window gave her a view of the night sky, with a pale crescent moon hanging low on the horizon.
In between sat an old lantern, with just the hint of a flaming guttering around the end of its wick, bringing only the barest of light to the dark room. As she watched, the flame made a last valiant effort to stay alight, then disappeared in a silvery curl of smoke.
Morning Glory closed her eyes and took a breath. Her head felt as if it were filled to the ears with cloudstuff, though it wasn't too bad as long as she remained perfectly still. The air from the open window was cool and fresh, and carried the scent of every sort of flower she could imagine. It was almost enough to distract from the persistent itch in her hip that had made its presence known the moment she awoke.
Slowly, she stretched her back legs until a tearing pain burned across her skin. She hissed and winced, and felt the pain again as her leg twitched within a swaddle of bandages. Morning Glory forced herself to lie still until the pain subsided, though she couldn't help the quiet, anguished gasps that escaped to that point.
At least she'd thought they were quiet. Moments after she had settled herself, the door creaked open and Queen Twilight – who else could it be? – stepped into the room. She held aloft another lamp in her magic; her eyes glimmered in the dim light as she looked up and down the bed.
"Are you awake?"
Morning Glory considered feigning sleep, but then another stab of pain reached into her leg. She clenched her eyes and tried not to groan. "Yeah. I am."
Queen Twilight made her way to Morning Glory's side, setting the lamp down next to its spent sister. The cloak and tunic were gone now, replaced with a flowing white gown that carried the tenuous scent of camphor and aged cedar.
"I'd better take a look at that wound," she said as she seated herself at the side of the bed.
Without waiting for Morning Glory's answer, the Queen tugged back the sheets and leaned close to Morning Glory's side. The room lit up with the glow of magic. Morning Glory winced as she felt the heat of it invade her flesh, but whatever discomfort she felt was lost behind the sensation of familiar magic winding through her body again – the 'power' that Queen Twilight claimed she had sealed. It was something like taking a dip in the spring-fed pond behind her home after a long day of chores.
She sighed and relaxed into the magic's touch, until it left her all at once. When she looked up, Queen Twilight had leaned back and was examining her from a distance once more, tugging at the bandages and pursing her lips.
"It's healing well. There aren't any infections or any of the parasites you can catch in that place..." She wet her lips slowly and turned to frown at Morning Glory. "What were you playing anyway, running off like that? You're lucky you weren't killed!"
"I would have been fine if you hadn't taken my magic." Morning Glory tried to roll onto her front, but the pain in her leg held her in place.
"Yes, well you're lucky it only caught your hip and not something important," the Queen replied. She briefly flexed her wings as she toyed with the bandages.
"What was that place, anyway?"
Queen Twilight's ears folded back against her head. It was the first time Morning Glory had ever seen any display from her other than empty smiles and it left her with an odd, cold feeling in her gut. The Queen rose from the side of Morning Glory's bed and paced to the window. She waited there for some time, gazing up at the stars and the moon.
Eventually she took a deep breath, in through her nose, and slowly out through her mouth. "One of my oldest regrets."
The Queen tore her gaze from the moon to look at Morning Glory for a moment. She smiled, but it was a sad expression that clashed with the endless depth of longing in her eyes. For the first time since they had met, Morning Glory began to understand just how very old Queen Twilight was.
"But not the first," she murmured, turning back to look at the moon. "And not the last."
Queen Twilight lingered for a moment longer, perhaps waiting for Morning Glory to speak again. Eventually the silence seemed to draw her back from whatever realm her mind was wandering; she stepped away from the window and returned to the bedside. As her magic tugged the sheets back into place, she looked over Morning Glory before finally meeting her eyes.
"You know, you're a lot like her," she said. Slowly, with the lamp firmly grasped in her magic, the Queen turned from the bed.
"Who?"
Queen Twilight paused at the door to look back at Morning Glory. The smile was back, and the longing. She blew out the lamp, leaving her little more than a light-fringed shadow against the dimly lit chamber beyond.
"Luna," she said, before closing the door.
* * *
The room blazed with sunlight when next Morning Glory woke. At first she lay still, revelling in the rare experience of not having to be out of bed at dawn to ready for the day. Her mother would have been livid to see her now and would probably spend the whole day shooting her bitter looks, while her father would likely just have laughed at the pair of them.
Would she ever see them again? Morning Glory rolled onto her back to contemplate the ancient, faded fresco on her ceiling. It was a question she had avoided asking herself since boarding the airship, but now reality had finally begun to impinge on her thoughts. If what the Queen said was true...
Morning Glory let the thought hang in her mind, unfinished. She rolled back to face the morning sun and let it warm her face, but soon the habits of her short life caught up with her. With a reluctant sigh, Morning Glory forced herself from the bed and trotted toward the door.
Only once she reached the corridor did she notice that her leg wasn't screaming agony at her. Morning Glory paused to peer at the bandaged limb, frowning. She gave it an experimental stretch, then pulled it close to her belly. Whatever pain she had felt before had been replaced with a red heat, deep in her flesh. Cautiously she lowered her hoof to the floor and let her weight rest on the limb.
For a moment she considered tearing off the bandage, but then dismissed the idea. It would probably just end up hurting again. Instead she walked – carefully – through the corridors of the Queen's ancient castle, tracing the vague memories of her journey in the opposite direction until she found herself at a set of enormous doors.
These weren't the doors she had entered by, she knew that much. Those doors had been plain, ancient wood bound with great iron hinges thicker than her head was wide. These doors, though just as old, bore paint that still looked fresh as the morning sky. On each was a crest: Not the Great Star of Unity, with its accompanying trinity of the Sisters, but instead the moon and sun, interposed one atop the other.
The door gave way to her magic with more ease than she'd expected. She frowned at the door as she stepped through into the room beyond, before turning her attention to a bookshelf on the wall beside it. Her magic reached out to seize one of the books, but rather than gently levitating toward her, the book flew from its perch with a loud bang that sent Morning Glory skittering backwards across the floor until she tumbled over a stack of its cousins. She fell on her back with a yell, while the books tumbled across her body and outstretched wings in an avalanche of rustling pages and cracking spines.
Morning Glory struggled briefly with the books pinning her wings, but at the sound of hooves crossing the broad stone floor she gave up, and let her head flop back against the ground. A shadow fell across her face, and when she looked up she found the amused face of Queen Twilight staring down at her.
"Are you finished destroying my library yet, or should I leave you to it for a while longer?"
"I didn't mean it," Morning Glory grumbled as the Queen lifted the books from her wings. She flopped to her side and then rolled to her belly, flexing one wing and then the other, as if a few books would have done them any serious damage.
After nosing through her feathers – only one had cracked, but it was due to moult anyway – Morning Glory turned her attention to the stacks of books that littered the hall. She poked around until she found another book lying by itself and tentatively reached out to brush her magic against it.
The book took off across the floor like a rocket, ending its short journey with a loud crack at the foot of another wall of bookshelves. Morning Glory's head jerked back at the sight.
The Queen was smirking when Morning Glory looked up at her, but she didn't speak. Instead she walked to the book and picked it up the examine its badly scuffed cover.
"I suppose this one needed rebinding anyway," she said as she looked over the book, turning it this way and that in her magic.
"What—what's going on?"
Queen Twilight placed the book down on a nearby table as Morning Glory scrambled to her hooves and stumbled around a stack of books to face her. They stared at one another. The Queen was resplendent in her ever-present clothing, which left Morning Glory feeling even more ragged and ruffled in comparison. She fluffed out her wings and pulled herself to her full height.
"Your unicorn magic is asserting itself," the Queen said. She tipped her head back as she walked around Morning Glory, pausing briefly to look down at her, before continuing across the room to yet more shelving.
"My what?"
"Unicorn magic." The Queen tugged another book from a nearby shelf. She glanced at the cover, shook her head and put it back, before moving slowly down the shelves. "I know you're convinced that I took your magic. I suppose I didn't explain it all that well at the time, but neither of us was in the best frame of mind."
Queen Twilight drew back from the shelves and hopped onto a couch close to a low table. A pot of tea and two delicate silver cups were laid out there, along with a plate of pastries. The sight reminded Morning Glory that not only had she not eaten any breakfast, but she was absolutely starving. Worries about her magic forgotten, Morning Glory hopped over the intervening books and settled on the couch next to the Queen.
By instinct she reached her magic out to a fat, round dough-ball of some kind that she'd never seen before. Then the memory of the books returned to her, and she quickly extinguished her magic before she sent the tasty treat spiraling to the ceiling.
"You learn fast," Queen Twilight said as Morning Glory carefully lifted a pastry between her hooves. "That will make things easier."
"Maybe I'll figure a way out of this place," Morning Glory said around a mouthful of pastry. She chewed at it for a while, trying to identify the odd flavours, and then swallowed.
"And what about your power? I sealed it, remember?"
"I'd figure something out..."
The Queen watched Morning Glory for a while as the younger alicorn retrieved another pastry. "You probably would at that," she murmured, turning her attention to the tea. "Truth be told, that seal is only a temporary measure. Eventually your power will grow to overwhelm it. By then you'll either understand, or... or it won't matter."
"You keep talking about this power like it's some special thing. Magic is just magic, isn't it?"
"That's a common misconception," the Queen replied. As she turned to pour the tea, Morning Glory quickly snatched up another of the pastries and dropped it on her plate. "What did your magic feel like before?"
Morning Glory's reply died in her throat. Now she thought about it, the magic she had been left with did feel different. Her magic before had been... if she had to put words to it, they would have been things like dark, warm, wet and—
"Musky," she muttered, and then shook her head. Queen Twilight raised her eyebrow at the word and smiled, just a little.
"And now?"
"Cold," Morning Glory replied without hesitation. Her horn lit as she lifted another pastry to her plate. "And bright. Sort of like..."
The realisation of what she was doing with the pastry finally sank in. Morning Glory's eyes went wide as a flush of panic stabbed through her chest and the pastry disappeared in a bright flash of magic. In its place floated a somewhat confused butterfly. It flapped about in Morning Glory's aura until she let it free to flutter away.
"I think I did something like that, once," said Queen Twilight. She turned to watch the butterfly until it had flown out of a window high up the wall, then looked back at Morning Glory. "Alright, cold and bright. What about your pegasus magic?"
"But that—" Morning Glory's voice trailed off as she lifted her wings and felt a tight fizzing sensation across her back and down her spine, to the very tip of her tail. She took a gasping breath and bit her lip. "Oh wow..."
"I think you're starting to understand." The Queen deposited a cup of tea in front of Morning Glory and then turned to take a delicate sip of her own.
"B-But I never felt anything like this before! It all felt..."
"The same?" Morning Glory nodded mutely, prompting another small smile from the Queen. "That was your Alicorn nature overwhelming everything else. You were using alicorn magic as a substitute for your innate talents."
Morning Glory swallowed as her gaze fell to the table. A pattern was laid into it, repeating the same motif she'd seen throughout the castle of a sun and moon. No heart, no star. The Queen kept talking about ascension as if she'd once been a normal pony.
"It's true, isn't it?" She looked up at Queen Twilight's face. "Why me?"
After a pause, the Queen set her tea down on the table. "Balance. Harmony. Call it whatever you want, but it always wins in the end. I have lived over a thousand years as the only alicorn in the world, but that isn't the order of things. That isn't how it works. You can't have day without night. You can't have the freedom of love without the binding of relationship. When I ascended and joined my sisters, I became the final piece in that balance. I was the bond between them. For that single moment we became whole..."
Her eyes had settled on the table, and now they were glistening with barely visible tears. She smiled briefly, little more than a tightening at the corners of her mouth, while her hoof reached out to stroke the nearest imprint of the moon.
"I miss them, every single day. Even after all this time. Especially—" The Queen blinked, once, twice. A shiver ran down her body; she tugged her hoof from the table and turned to look at Morning Glory again. "Balance is why I sealed your power," she said, her voice calm and steady, as if the last few moments hadn't happened. "Your innate magic was suppressed but still growing. Without the seal, that magic would have festered like a cyst. Eventually would have broken out in an uncontrollable surge far beyond anything even the strongest magic user would experience. At best you would have died in the maelstrom you unleashed."
Morning Glory paused with another pastry halfway to her mouth. She set it back on her plate. "What could be worse than dying?"
"Living as a monster," the Queen responded. For a moment that distant look was back in her eyes. Then she glanced around herself, before looking up at the windows. "I have to leave for a while. There are a few books that I'd like you to start reading in the meantime."
Morning Glory looked up as the Queen's magic plucked a number of books from seemingly random shelves around the room. "What sort of books?"
The question of how she knew which books to choose battled with how she could control so many at once. Queen Twilight's magic didn't falter as she turned to answer.
"Theoretical magic, mostly. If I'm to train you to maintain the balance between your innate and alicorn natures, you'll need a comprehensive understanding of both." She dropped the pile of books in front of Morning Glory and place her hoof on top of it. "Forget everything you've learned. Your mother made a good effort, but she was trying to teach a hurricane how to be a light breeze.
"I'll be back around sunset." Queen Twilight stood, sweeping her cloak about her shoulders to cover her wings. "If you get hungry you can eat from any tree in the garden. You're free to read any other books in the library and explore the castle, but don't try and walk off the grounds. You'll only get yourself in more trouble and I won't be there to help you this time."
Morning Glory turned slowly to watch the Queen leave. She glanced down at the pastries, then at the books stacked all around her. There had never been much of a library in Little Nickering and her own meagre reading stock was mostly made up of books her father had scrounged on the rare days he had to go to market.
Her hoof reached for another pastry. "What if I try to escape again?"
The Queen paused, but didn't look back. She shook her head. "As long as you stay on the path. And take the books with you."
Queen Twilight left in silence. A moment later the door slammed, leaving Morning Glory alone in the cast chamber. She looked up at the floor-to-ceiling shelves, following their neat lines of books around the walls to the far end of the great hall, where a dais and a pair of crumbling thrones stood beneath a cluster of colourful stained-glass windows.
Alone. This time she was completely alone, if the Queen had been telling the truth. She could escape, make her way home, try and figure out how to use her magic better. Would Queen Twilight come after her? Probably, but this time she'd be ready. She could...
What? Fight? And have her home turned into another nameless ruin? Or she could go somewhere else, hide out in the forest and be hunted for the rest of her life. And then probably explode when her magic got out of control.
"I don't want to explode," she muttered, before idly biting down on another pastry. Whatever they were, they tasted amazing. Little balls of dough filled with some sort of creamy filling. Maybe when this was over she could take some back to her parents.
Whenever that might be.
With a resigned sigh. Morning Glory finished off her snack and turned to the books the Queen had left for her. Most of them looked like the same dull volumes that lined the walls. Thick, old, brown-jacketed and probably filled from cover to cover with the kind of boring lectures that she got from the teachers in the travelling school.
She flipped one book over, then another, but stopped at the third. Instead of the drab covers of the other books, this one was decorated with a faded picture of two pegasi, one bright blue, the other a murky tan colour. The title was hidden by a scrap of paper with a note written on it.
"For when you get bored," Morning Glory read. She tugged the note away and read the title. "Ring of Destiny?"
She put the book aside and looked up at the sunlit windows once more. Maybe if... but there were still some pastries left, she realised. And frankly, the only way she was going to solve this magic problem would be staying right where she was. Sighing again, Morning Glory picked up the first book and began to read.
* * *
Again she awoke to the light of the moon streaming through the library window. Morning Glory clenched her eyes and stretched out on her couch, then paused when she noticed the blanket pulled over her. There hadn't been one before. She sat up, knocking her half-read copy of The Ring of Destiny to the floor.
She was alone, but it was obvious the Queen had been here at some point. Books had been re-organised around her and a plate of greens had been left on the table, so freshly cut that the stems were still weeping. And of course there was the blanket.
Morning Glory pushed the blanket aside and dropped her hooves to the floor. She made a quick snack of the food before turning to stumble, bleary-eyed, around the stacks of books and out of the hall.
Moonlight shafted down from high windows in the corridor beyond, lighting patches of the floor like beacons. Morning Glory walked from one to the next, pausing now and then to yawn or rub eyes that had spent far too long staring at dense-printed text. The ink had been faded in the first book, but for some reason, perhaps sheer stubbornness, she had persevered through to the third chapter before giving up to read something else. Most of it had gone over her head anyway.
She soon found her way back to the room the Queen had left her in the previous night. The lamp by the bed was still empty, but the room was nevertheless brightly lit by the moonlight pouring through the window. The short walk had cleared Morning Glory's head a little; curious at how bright the moon shone, she stepped up to the window and peered out into the night.
Her window overlooked an open glade of trees. Morning Glory hadn't really paid attention to it the previous day, but now she could see statues standing among the slender trunks. Their smooth marble skins shone silver in the bright night. From this distance they appeared almost alive, waiting to move. Perhaps to dance.
On a whim she would never be able to explain, Morning Glory hopped up onto the windowsill and then launched herself into the air, letting her body fall in a shallow glide toward the ground. She landed close to the edge of the glade, just shy of a statue of an earth pony. A wizened apple tree hung over the statue, its branches speckled with tiny, unripe fruit.
The statue bore no name or anything to identify it, but she knew enough of the Book of Harmony to recognise the Virtue of Honesty. The other statues were just as easily discerned by some element of their posture. Kindness, Generosity, Joy, Loyalty. She counted them off as she walked by, until she reached another, much smaller statue. It looked like a dragon, though it was so squat and chubby that Morning Glory couldn't imagine it crushing buildings or burning fields like its legendary cousins. It had been depicted sitting on the floor, holding a stylised heart in its claws, with its head tilted just a little up and to the side as if listening for something. The beginnings of a smile curled across its stubby snout.
She reached out a tentative hoof to the statue.
"I didn't think you'd wake."
Morning Glory jumped in shock, but had enough presence of mind to flap her wings, spinning her to face the newcomer. Queen Twilight stood in the glade, her hooves surrounded by a pale mist and her wings raised to catch the glow of the moon. For the first time since they had met, the Queen was unclothed, save for a slender silver torc draped about her shoulders.
"I, uh..."
Morning Glory grinned as if that would hide her nerves, but couldn't quite pull her eyes from the Queen's body. The scars she had glimpsed that first day had been only a hint of the reality. Pallid grey stripes curled beneath Queen Twilight's chest and up to her neck. More arced across her shoulder, and down her side. Another set crawled across her flank and over her croup. Not even her cutie mark had been spared; the Grand Star that adorned the Queen's hip seemed shattered in two by a ragged, vicious wound.
"I needed some air," Morning Glory continued, glancing back at the statues. "I think."
The Queen gave her a distracted nod, but had already turned away. She was staring at one of the Virtues with an odd little smile. Her gaze wandered back around the glade until it found Morning Glory again. She frowned.
"You didn't leave."
"No."
"I only wanted to help, you know," the Queen said. Her voice was low and shook in a way that seemed entirely at odds with the confidence of a goddess. But then, she wasn't a goddess, was she? "I tell myself every day, everything I've done was for the good of Equestria. For the world. Everything..." she bowed her head, taking a deep breath of the cool night air. "What else could I have done?"
"You could have asked."
The Queen's head lifted. She turned to Morning Glory with eyes wide as a newborn foal. "I could have asked," she echoed, nodding slowly. "I should have asked."
The clack of Queen Twilight's mouth snapping shut echoed between the trees. She turned from Morning Glory and walked away to a dense wall of trunks at the far end of the glade, lowering her wings as she went. Moonlight seemed to sparkle across the Queen's coat, tracing pale streamers along the scars wrapped around her body and glinting from her feathers and mane like sparkling motes of sand. For a moment Morning Glory hesitated, torn between following the Queen and retreating to the relative safety of her room.
She chose to follow. Her hoofbeats were muted by the spongy turf, but she saw the Queen's ears turning to follow her.
Ahead she could see an ivy-covered pillar sprouting from a patch of crazed paving. A few sections of low wall dotted the ground around it, mostly buried beneath the same vines, or hidden behind thickets of slim-trunked birch and hazel. Mist rose between the trees there, glowing with ethereal light beneath the moon. Morning Glory caught up with the Queen just as she reached the pillar. They rounded it together and stopped in the shade of a paved arbor.
Three more statues were posed before a barrier of trees, their stone leaden and dull beneath the shadow of the trees. Alicorns. Morning Glory ignored the urgent instinct to genuflect that had been drilled into her from the moment she could walk, and instead forced herself to look up at the statues.
"They look so life-like," she murmured. The Queen grunted a wordless reply as she stepped toward the nearest of the three, the statue of Luna. "The statues in the chapel at home look more like grumpy cows."
"Then they were probably modelled after Cadance. She could definitely work up a fury when she thought she wasn't getting her way, especially after Celestia..." Queen Twilight's words faded. She was looking up at the largest statue. Celestia's serene face looked back at them. With her beneficent smile and wings held wide, she looked ready to embrace the whole world. "I know why she left, now. At the time I didn't understand, but after so long..."
Slowly, Queen Twilight lowered her head. She settled back on her haunches, not even bothering to hide the trouble her leg gave her now.
"I never believed I would be able to make the kind of choices she did. Choosing between my friends and Equestria. Choosing for the sake of harmony between one evil and another. Choosing to destroy those closest to you, even if it meant that the rest of the world could be made safe.
"She banished her sister, once." Her head turned until she was looking at Morning Glory. "And then she spent a thousand years alone. I always wondered how she could go on, knowing what she had done, until I realised that she had the hope of her sister's return some day. The hope of redemption. After I lost them, I had nothing. No sister to return to me. No magical trinkets to cleanse the madness of my soul. No redemption. But for the need of my ponies, I would have ended it there and joined my sisters wherever they had gone. Instead I remained. Alone, scared, isolated by sheer weight of time, but still living. Eventually I remembered the lessons Celestia had taught me so long ago. I found new friends. They would never last. No friendship lasts forever, but I knew then that whatever sacrifices I might make, my friends would guide me, and comfort me.
"And then I found hope."
A smile crept to the Queen's face. She held out a wing toward Morning Glory, but before it had stretched its full length she winced and jerked it back.
"I found it in the Harmony to which I had sacrificed so much. I realised, eventually, that new alicorns would be born. I knew they would return to the world, that I would have companions who could truly understand. I could—" The Queen's voice caught. Her breath came in heavy, rattling gasps as she lowered her body down to the ground. "It's been so very long. I don't want to be the only one any more. I don't want to be alone."
"But you're not alone."
Queen Twilight raised her head, and Morning Glory found herself staring deep into her eyes. She wasn't sure why she had spoken, but it felt right to say it. A tiny twitch of a smile tickled at the corners of the Queen's eyes.
"Thank you," she murmured.
Beneath Celestia's endless gaze, they fell silent. Slowly, hesitantly, Morning Glory laid herself down next to her Queen. From this close she could feel an unnatural heat radiating from Queen Twilight's body, far beyond that of a normal pony. In its own way it was comforting, though she wasn't entirely sure why. It felt almost like the magic she had lost. Before she knew what she was doing she had laid her head against the Queen's shoulder and closed her eyes. The sheer power washing from Queen Twilight's body tingled in Morning Glory's horn and wings.
"Your training won't take long." Queen Twilight was looking up at the statues again when Morning Glory's eyes opened. "When we finish, you can... return to your family. I have no right to keep you from them." She lowered her gaze to the paved floor and took a long breath. "But I would ask you one thing."
The Queen turned again, fixing her eyes on Morning Glory's face. The longing in her eyes was unmistakable this time. Her soul was as bare as the scars that traced her body. Then she lowered her head, swallowed, and closed her eyes.
"Come back to me. Tell me there's an end." She swallowed once more. "Tell me I can have a sister again."
Morning Glory bit her lip. She looked up at the statues. At Luna, who guarded the lost and the lonely. At Cadance who, the Book of Harmony said, brought ponies together and made them whole. At Celestia, whose light touched the heart of every living thing and whose guidance all ponies sought every day of their lives.
Uttering a prayer to the being she knew would never hear it, Morning Glory leaned close to Twilight, and gave her answer.