See The Mirror...
The sound of Celestia's hooves clapped against the ground in steady, practiced intervals as she made her way along the corridors of her castle. As often she repeated the walk, it wasn't so common she did it feeling as worn out as she was then. The once usual friday had turned a little unusual by the evening. With a burglary and a mugging taking place in the space of 12 hours she had a lot of paperwork to get through by the time she would reach her personal quarters. That wasn't to mention the odd sightings of strange shadows being reported to the guard. She had a feeling that the coming days were going to well out of the ordinary.
She turned a corner and arrived in another corridor, only one more after her current heading left until she reached her resting place for the night. Aligning herself in the center of the corridor, her hooves began to make soft padding noises as the floor changed from bare marble to an ornate dark red carpet. Her gaze shifted down to the carpet as she walked. The shade of maroon it took fit in nicely with the white scheme that covered most of the rest of the castle. The edges of the carpet were lined with alternating gold and silver thread, creating a very regal looking carpet indeed. It was utterly spotless as the castles caretakers were top-notch workers who cleaned the entire place literally non-stop all day. If it wasn't for their shifts, they would probably end up as part of the carpets themselves!
Celestia looked up again to see the portrait at the end of the corridor coming into focus of her eyes. Within the fancily designed frame was a painting of a large white pony. An alicorn. It's wings were wide and well preened, and a large horn sprouted from the top of it's head. Around it's neck and hanging down a small portion of it's chest was a very expensive piece of attire that shone gold like the sun. And several jewels adorned it's surface. The eyes gleamed with happiness and just a small bit of pride hiding in there as well. The mane flowed in an ethereal stream of pink, blue and green, and finally a crown sat nicely in front of the horn. This was a painting of her.
The painting was a little worn, just like herself. However it still made her smile every single time she looked at it. It had been painted just after her coronation as princess, so she loved to see the old reminder of her younger self still standing tall every-time she walked down that particular corridor. As she got up close, she started to slow down, almost a stop. Her hooves left the carpet and were once again starting to emit louder clops of hoof against marble. Her slower pace allowed her to steal a final few seconds of admiration time before she turned the last corner so she could get closet to her room.
The expression of the Celestia in the painting had a hint more pride than she had initially realised. It was not only in the eyes, but the smile too. The curve of her lips was somewhat smug, the kind of look a pony would give a friend when they got praising the friend didn't. This caused real Celestia to break a small smile herself. Looking back at her younger self always made her see just how far she had come after that day. At the coronation there was enough noise to keep the predators awake all the way back in the Everfree, and so much colour that when it came to the after party she had no clue what to look at. But the best part was easily the cake...
... Celestia grabbed the knife with her magic, letting the handle glow with a soft pink, and slowly made a cautious glance behind to check no-pony was looking. She saw several different VIP's who were indulging in conversation with others: Senator Hawk-Eye, the griffon ambassador was talking with Demasye, the zebra ambassador. Neither of them paying her any attention. "-Okay, but what about...-" Her thought process quickly shifted to others as she turned her head the other way to find her teenage sister, Luna standing awkwardly with the Griffon prince Gold Banner. They were both engaging in shy and under-practiced social skills they rarely used, as Celestia's mother was discussing children with Gold Banner's father, King Silver Talon. Again, they were completely ignoring her.
Now was her chance.
She turned back to the delicious looking cake before her, in all it's spongy glory. Taking the knife she brought it down viciously on the cake to cleave a large slice from the main body of the perfect confectionery piece. She quickly but gently lay the knife to rest on the table again before picking up the over-sized slice in her magic and raising it to her opening mouth. She couldn't wait any longer, she had stood chatting with foreigners only able to gain a quick look of the cake for over an hour, and now she was salivating furiously. At last her predatory jaws came crashing down upon the cake and she bit away a decent sized piece of her slice. Finally! She could taste it now: It was so sweet! It was so ludicrously sugary! It was so, so...
"Tia?" Her chewing stopped and she froze like a rabbit in lantern-light as she heard her mothers voice come from behind. Directly behind. She had been caught red hooved. Slowly, with possibly the biggest blush ever concieved in equine history, she turned her head to eventually see her mother standing beside king Silver Talon with the same expression plastered on the faces. It was a mixture of a somewhat quizzical frown that was slowly upgrading itself into an amused grin. Taking a nervous glance at her mother's crown, she could see her own reflection.
Her mouth had more than a couple of crumb patches around it, completely destroying what her table manners were supposed to be like. She swallowed the piece of cake in her mouth as Both Silver Talon and her mother started to make the beginnings of tiny smirks. In a moment of brilliance, she decided on a quick getaway method. She lit up her horn and cast a teleportation spell, whisking her away in a brilliant flash of light. Once she was gone, the two party pooping royals began to explode into a fit of un-controllable laughter.
Celestia came back to the present to find that she had overshot the door to her quarters and was nearly at her sisters room. She stopped and turned with a smile that said 'I'm an idiot, deal with it'. Once she had made a 180 degree turn, she muttered a light hearted, self aimed insult about her cake habit.
"Over two thousand years old and you still can't get off the cake." She laughed quietly and started up walking again. She found herself on yet another carpet, except this time it was much more complex. Since this corridor served as the entrance to her quarters and the stairwell that spiraled all the way up to her sister's, the carpet was embroided to represent the shift between the day and the night. On Celestia's side, the sun was in the day's corner and cast a bright white light before the blue sky faded in. The shade of blue was exactly like the day-time sky, with a few clouds dotted here and there. A few pegasi were even tending to clouds, but they were so small it was impossible to implement any characteristics. In the center the carpet shifted to a beautiful and deep orange, and the clouds were transformed into the elegant Cirrus variety.
After that, the gradient took the carpet to a blue again. Except this time it was far more subtle and quickly got darker and darker as it reached the spot Celestia was standing at. Stars slowly faded into view as the clouds dissipated and the sky darkened to form a near black by the time it ran behind her. Then was the amazingly complicated part: The final section the carpet showed the fine work that went into creating the vision of the galaxy that was visible in the deepest nights. It stood so elegant against the dark night sky and it she could see how it was often described as looking like 'two un-shelled eggs stuck on each other's bottoms.' Apart from that the galaxy was made out of gas, at least from what ponies could tell. And finally, the crescent moon was in the opposite corner to Celestia's sun. Although not quite as awe-striking as the galaxy, the moon looked striking in appearance. And the embroidery was good enough to be able to see the outlines of craters on it's surface. Celestia looked up again to see she had arrived at the doors to her quarters, and thus had to stop her admiration.
She took hold of the door with magic and pushed it open. Walking through and closing it behind her, she arrived to her homely chambers: A nice violet rug with a long, soft pale yellow sofa and a foot table next to it that, low and behold, had a nice pile of documents stacked neatly on top of it. She then noticed that the windows to the balcony were open, and the curtains were blowing gently into the room with the wind, creating a quiet whistling noise. Her eyes scoured the corners of everything she could see before having to move, but in the end she just walked straight to the windows and shut them.
The noise stopped and the curtains floated down to their normal hanging position. Celestia huffed before drawing the curtains and made her way back to the center of the main room where the large stack of documents lay on the foot table. One by one she slipped out of the golden shoes she was wearing and used her magic to remove the golden regalia she was adorned with. She placed the shoes by the door and all but collapsed onto the sofa. She lay there for a few moments, releasing a heavy sigh before reverting her attention to the documents.
"May as well get these over and done with." She stated before floating them over and placing them in front of her where she could see them. The first thing were a set of documents clipped together and signed by Captain Shining Armor himself. There were two of them, one for a mugging and one for a burglary. She scan read the details, as she had already been informed on most of them already. But at the end, she found a few notes on the first one that looked to have been added by quill after the type writing finished. These caught her interest and she focused on them.
The burglary seems to have been performed for nothing but gold, silver and valuable trinkets, just like a typical house robbery. However the investigators noticed a set of prints heading directly into a wall before disappearing. Bricks at the top of the wall were knocked off, suggesting either a teleport or a small flight to the top of the wall. The prints are what disturb me, and I would like to suggest a notion of caution with your movements in Canterlot, Princess. The prints do not match any know creature and they seem to be quite adept in the arts of stealth as well as having experience or talent in vandalism. Please be careful.
Captain Shining Armor.
Reading this note, she looked back to the closed windows and narrowed her eyes. She decided to check around her quarters, just to make sure there was definitely nothing hanging around. She set the papers down on the ground in a separate pile from the un-read ones, and slipped off the sofa. She walked calmly back over to the curtains and pulled one over to the side, then she opened the window behind and let the sudden rush of cool night time air hit her senses. The whistling of the wind started again and said wind tickled the hairs on her ears, making Celestia lay them back against her head.
She walked out onto the balcony, and sure enough there was nopony there. She took the few steps needed to stand next to the balcony and she looked out over the city of Canterlot. The streets were empty and all of the street-lights were lit, casting a good amount of light over the main streets of the capital. After scanning the roof tops, she quickly decided that there was nothing waiting outside. She turned tail and made her way back into the main room again, closing the window and curtain behind her. There were two more rooms to her quarters for her to check, and both lay through a closed door to her left. She walked over and turned the handle with her magic.
Opening the door, she was greeted with the other darkened half of her quarters. She knew there was a candle mounted on the wall to her right, so she enveloped the candle with magic and performed a small spark to light the wick. With the wick setting alight, she could see the room's edges and corners define themselves in an ominous fashion most would expect to find in a Nightmare Night tale. The pale orange light shone bright enough for her to be able to spot other candles which she gladly lit as she started to travel across the room. With each candle, the room got bright enough for it to be comparable to that of a lat summer's day.
The space identified itself as her bedroom. There was a bed at the far end which was, for all intents and purposes: huge. Easily big enough to fit another two ponies her own size and stature before some[pony would end up toppling off in their sleep. At the sides of the bed there were more tables which housed a large lamp on one side, and an ornate statue of herself on the other side. Her sleeping quarters were still styled in the newest fashion she could find without being ugly. However much she wanted to keep in touch with her subjects, she wasn't so desperate to get to know them that she'd make a fool of herself.
The room's wallpaper was quite expensive, and it certainly looked the part. It was coloured using two different hues of her sun: flowers of dusk's orange set on a background of morning gold. In the hooves of a lesser artisan, the whole thing could have turned out to be quite tacky, but when one was willing to spend, the results could be magnificent. Rousing herself from her momentary admiration, Celestia strode to her wardrobe, her horn lighting up as she threw it open with her magic. Hung within was a line of formal gowns, positioned just so. She didn't often dip into this selection, but she'd made sure that when she needed it, it would look as crisp as the day it was sewn. Lining the wardrobe's bottom were her many pairs of hoofwear. Most ponies would recognize the golden set she typically wore in her duties as Princess of the Sun, but her eyes were drawn to her favorite by far - bunny slippers. They were warm and comfortable, perfect for when she just wanted to wrap herself in a blanket and sink into her soft bed. Of course, they were also incredibly cute, and to be perfectly honest, she had a huge soft spot for cute things.
She chuckled lightly to herself, thinking about how the press would react if they ever caught a snap of her in the fluffy pink slippers with ears. She could imagine the headline: 'Princess Celestia, fluff enthusiast!'
"Some of us never really grow old." She said with a smile. The truthful statement was followed by a short period of silence as she pondered all the different pieces of evidence that proved she herself, had failed to fully mature. The slippers of course were the first that came to mind, however they were mostly novelty. The main one was how she still thoroughly enjoyed making fools out of idiots... sometimes. Normally she could out up with even the most aggregating ponies imaginable, but sometimes they all needed a reminder that they were not the best thing that had ever happened to the country. The best bit was figuring out the most satisfying way to embarrass them, one of her classics was to-
*Bump*
*Whistle...*
Celestia was thrown clear of her musing by the sound of something colliding gently with something else. Her smile was immediately wiped clean from her face and her expression dropped. The sound caused a spike in nerve, consequently making the hairs on the back of her head stand up. Her head whipped around to see that the windows were once again open, and the curtains were blowing about for the third time. At this her eyes narrowed, and she decided to investigate. Keeping in mind what Shining Armour had mentioned about experienced and/or talented vandals in the city, she also resolved to take 'extra' precautionary measures.
Lighting up her horn cast a small yellow back lighting to everything around her, and tiny sparks leaped away from the powerful arcane energy. She turned, lowered her head and started toward the open door in a single slow but steady action that took her from recalling old memories to being ready for a small confrontation in less than ten seconds. As she walked onward, she could hear a slight rustling coming from her living space. A rustling like the movement of clothing that must have come from the intruder.
She made sure to ensure that her hoof-falls were as muffled as she could make them, and stopped just before she reached the door. Her resulting breaths that she took for the confrontation to come were deep but not quick. Thus, they were silent for the most part. It was likely that the intruder was simply attempting to steal from her as a form of prestige. Like: 'I stole something from the monarchy.' That sort of thing. Besides, who would be so dumb as to try an overpower the most powerful non-chaos being in recorded history?
After her final breath, she pushed the front of her body around the door-frame, expecting to find a pony, griffon or maybe even something else going through her many belongings to find something worth taking. To her absolute surprise, nothing. There was absolutely nothing in her quarters other than what should be there. One of Celestia's eyes twitched as she tried to come up with a solution to her predicament. Then she had and idea. Invisibility or 'cloaking' spells were not that uncommon throughout the crime world. Not that there was much crime in Equestria at all, but most thieves would cloak themselves in an invisibility spell to make their capture several times harder.
The spell preparation being forced through her horn subsequently changed from shocking sparks, to a soft glow that seemed to do nothing but obscure her horn in a yellow smudge. It seemed like small twinkles were being radiated from the glow, sinking downwards and away from the spells casting point: The tip of the horn. Once they got far enough away, they appeared to slow to a stop before floating back up again only to be forced back into the pattern. Kind of like an upside-down convection current. When she performed the 'Reveal' spell, her horn let out a high frequency stream of magic into her surroundings which would supposedly cause the continuous aura of a cloaking spell to falter and fizzle out. The room shone brightly and sharply with magic, but no effects were immediately visible to the princess.
But when she looked closer, she saw the outline of something against the background, like the colours were being distorted around the abject to prevent light particles from reflecting away and into her eyes. The object looked organic, like it was breathing. It's 'body' moved in a steady rhythm which helped back up her initial thought process. But the confirmation came finally when the top section twisted and a pair of striking blue lights flashed before her where she figured the head may be. She recoiled slightly and gasped with a single heavy breath.
Then her spell timed out.
So much light was removed from the room that her eyes seemed to see the room as darker than it really was. The body of distorted light faded away and a louder, no longer hidden scuttling broke out. Celestia had no clue what to do. From her split second analysis, she determined that the sound was heading toward her, and fast too. The lowered her head once again to light up a defensive barrier spell, her horn was covered in a very angular coulomb of yellow light which almost static in comparison to the casting of her previous spells. She allowed the energy to flow through her horn but it was stopped before it could reach the suitable point for casting. A pair of what felt like claws made from a dampening material, wrapped around her horn and exerted a pressure large enough to interrupt the transfer of magic and forced her to pause the spell.
Celestia was no stranger to these tactics, it was also common in the guard that a unicorn guard was able to clamp their own magic around the horn of a criminal in mid casting. Magic from two different unicorns tend to cancel each other out when they are forced together with enough energy. Casting a spell takes more energy that sustaining one for a short period of time, so if the guard timed his or her spell correctly, they could cancel another unicorns spell before it is cast. However, thousands of years worth of experience in magic had taught her a few ways of bypassing a dampener.
Instead of cancelling her spell and trying to remove her horn from the invisible creatures grasp, she cast the barrier spell using a release point far below where the spell should be cast at, which is roughly three quarters of the way up the horn. Instead she cast it just below the claws of the creature, about a third of the way up. This caused the power, and subsequently the range of the spell to be significantly shortened. A layer of magic burst out and covered her body only a mere 10 centimeters away, including her horn. This small magical explosion forced the creature away and to Celestia's satisfaction, disrupted whatever cloaking effect the intruder was utilizing. A flash of electric blue light flashed through the room and a low pitch 'hum' sounded shortly while the creature stumbled backward, and then the true form was revealed.
A biped. It was held up by it's two legs and it's torso was only a little shorter than the legs, but the head made up for the difference. It sported two pairs of arms, only the upper pair looking like they attained a greater form of dexterity as the lower pair only had three digits per hand. Almost the entire body was covered in armour, head to toe. Most of the plating was of a clean white and looked to be simply constructed to make an effective shield from physical damage. Parts of the armour was covered by a dark red cloth, including a cape which trailed down to just below the torso. The cape held tell-tale signs of age and wearing, mostly due to the clusters of small tears and some singeing around the edges. Through the helm shone four blue lights, exactly the same as those that had flashed up after her Reveal spell. The helmet itself looked like some form of breathing mask below the eyes and where she would have guessed the mouth was. Above the eyes the helmet traveled back in a gentle slope until a pair of horns curved around to point forwards. After she was finished taking in the spectacle before her, Celestia came back to her senses and did the next logical thing.
"Guards!" She yelled into the air. Through the open balcony window and the sheer quietness of the night, more than a few of the city's guard would have heard her cry. It was likely that her sister was still awake at that time and would soon come to help her, and divines help the poor soul if it ever harmed her. For Luna definitely would not. The creature must have known what she was attempting to do, as it gestured hurriedly behind her and spoke in an alien language she did not recognise. Before she could react, she felt something tug her left hind leg away from it's grip on the floor and it collapsed to make her fall onto her haunches. Their must have been another one in her bedroom the entire time. But that was irrelevant as the next thing she knew was that the revealed one in front of her was advanced with something held withing it's grasp. It looked like some sort of metal cane, except it held electricity arcing from the handle all the way up to a concentrated point at the tip.
She began to prepare another attack and channeled a concentrated power of her own all the way up to the end of her horn, an attack charged at full power. Lowering her head, she was on the verge of releasing the spell and vapourising the invader when her head was grabbed from the invisible foe behind her. It was violently pulled back by the mane, causing an intense stinging sensation to run through the back of her neck and she let out a small scream. Said pain made her lose her focus and she accidentally poured too much energy into the spell, causing it to overcharge. The spell was released pointing up to the sky and a thin but incredibly potent blast of raw magical energy was let out into the heavens. The resulting noise created from the spell destroying the roof above her and the sound created by the beam itself was enough to drown out her final scream of pain.
The creature in front of her jammed the electric cane into her belly and she felt like she had been struck by a continuous bolt of lightning which made her muscles spasm, sending her whole body into a state of total cramp. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Even being subject to the power Queen Chrysalis had when she was defeated by her was all in on place. This though... After a few seconds, the lightning was too much for her brain to take and she blacked out. The creature pulled the rod from her body and let it fall into it's arms, only just able to take her weight and stop any undue brain trauma. For their purposes, they wanted her in decent health.
It was now time for the intruders to escape. The doors to Celestia's quarters flung open, banging against the walls and almost pulling the door from it's hinges. In the now open doorway stood the sister of Celestia herself, Luna, looking defiant and giving the attackers an furious avenging glare. When she saw her sister damaged and unconscious, her mouth gaped open for a second in shock. Thoughts raced through her head: "How dare *they!", *"You're going to pay dearly for *this!"* Her mouth clamped shut and anger exploded throughout her body. She lowered her horn and charged an attack with her full, un-scaled power. The spell was almost complete when with a blinding flash, the invaders and Celestia disappeared from sight like they were never there. Consequently, Luna's spell missed and flew out of the window to collide with the mountains miles away from the city.
Luna went silent and the only sounds to be heard were the echo of an explosion in the distance, and the clattering of armoured hooves on the floor. Pure anger filled her body as a squadron of royal guard burst into the room, magic, crossbows and spears ready to fend off an attacker. There was no offender to capture, as they were long gone. The guards flooded into the room and it was now possible to hear the panic of ponies living near to the castle as they all came out into the streets to see what was going on. As the guards started their investigations, Luna stomped onto the balcony and looked over the small crowd of tired and worried looking ponies who looked up at her with a mixture of fear and curiosity. She gave out a solid and stoic glare.
"Did'st anypony capture sight of the monsters who took my sister!?" She yelled in desperation. All of the ponies gave their resounding no's, but then they started to glance between each other as they figured out exactly what that meant. Princess Celestia had been kidnapped.
"We will find you..." Luna growled coldly under her breath. "...and we will make you suffer." She looked out onto the barely visible horizon before whipping around and walking angrily back into the castle.
