Good Heart

Frogs are swimming in the nearby ponds and birds are flying between the old rooftops of Alicornia. Green grass and small rivers covers the entire region. The sun looks radiant from the heights because all the fluffy clouds have just sailed away into the horizon.

This beautiful landscape soon reaches its end because storm clouds start to cover the once blue sky above the city of alicorns. Just as the storm messengers cover the region, the giant stone Clock Tower struck 15:00, making its bells be heard throughout the entire city.

At the same time the chimes echo, some alicorns canter through the streets towards the Great Square in front of the royal palace, north town. The ambience is soaked with curiosity and fears, ignoring the weather above them.

“That’d be 20 wings, please,” said Celestia with a smile to a customer who intended to buy a chocolate cake from her bakery.

“Sorry Luke, but do you know where is everypony heading?” asked the eternal being to her customer while she grabbed the golden coins with the help of her magic.

“Didn’t you hear? Today at 15:30 the town mayor is going to tell us if we enter into the war or not. Everypony has been talking about that the entire week since the kidnapping,” replied the surprised customer to his friend.

“I see, thank you Luke,” replied the white alicorn with sadness.

Just as the young customer left, Celestia started to think about the words she just heard. She couldn’t help feeling worried. A war, after all, sounded like a very serious problem for the entire region to her.

To find out more about the city’s decision, the eternal being decided to close her bakery and follow the crowd to see what she could find out from the gathering north town.

“Please everypony, quiet, quiet now!!!” shouted the town mayor to the crowd, standing in a rudimentary podium made of some wooden crates and barrels so everypony could see him.

“The decision has already been made, because as we all know, Alicornia...” said the mayor, trying to explain what it appeared to be some sort of paper scroll nailed to a stone column behind him.

Celestia finally arrived to the square, but due to the quantity of villagers gathered in there, the white alicorn stood very far from the stone column in the middle. This caused her to have some trouble in hearing the mayor speak.

“What? What is he saying?” asked Celestia.

“Hush now, I can't hear with you talking!” replied a nearby alicorn.

Abruptly, everypony started shouting all manner of things at the mayor. The mayor just flew back to the palace behind him with his guards. Some alicorns started to retreat away from the square while others started to discuss between themselves.

In the middle of the bitter arguments, Celestia trotted towards the stone column because she wanted to read what the paper scroll contained. Up in the gray sky above them, a thick rain started to fall gradually over the crowd in the square, making all the disputes disappear because everypony started to retreat.

The white alicorn continued with her slow trot towards the column in the middle of the storm, standing right there where everypony had just left. In big black painted letters, a menacing title informed Celestia the decision the city has made.

“WAR!” the wet scroll map stated.

“Oh, no…” said Celestia to herself. She could only sit over the wet tiles of the floor as she regretted the decision of her fellow villagers. Mistaken as raindrops, tears came out from her big eyes.

The rain continued falling from the heights and from the distance, the Clock Tower’s bells started to be heard once again. This time, its sweet tune was silenced by the powerful strokes of the thunders.

*********

Not much is known about alicorns and why these mystical creatures possess the abilities and strength of all the different kind of ponies. But it’s said that Alicornia was founded centuries ago when a young alicorn found an unclaimed evergreen land in the Wilds surrounded by forests and crystal rivers.

The young alicorn invited his equals to found a city in the discovered land and it was then when the great empire of the alicorns started. All the different and scattered alicorn tribes from Ponya finally found a single place to make their homes with their families.

As a reward for his noble acts, the young alicorn was chosen to rule the new city as the Emperor of the alicorns. Since then, he has ruled the land as the only legitimate deity for the task.

Over time, Alicornia growth in wealth and power, making it a target for the western nomad unicorn tribes or the pegasi pirates from north. The city, soon, built walls and formed an army to defend itself from the raids.

From all the attacks the city has suffered, the most remembered one is the Great Fire of the year 735 of the fourth age. Started by earth ponies merchants, the fire consumed the city and the royal palace in hours, leaving only the exterior walls standing.

When the emperor and his fellow villagers returned to the city remains, they found a brown stone from the old palace which survived the heat from the fire. The stone was intact and its colors were still vivid despite the charcoal over it.

With it, the ancient Clock Tower was built alongside with the reconstruction of the city. The Clock was meant to be a symbol of pride and hope for the alicorn race because “no matter how grim things could be, there’ll be always hope of a better future as long as we have faith in ourselves…” read Twilight in a history book Celestia brought for her.

“Wow, so that’s the meaning of the Clock Tower for them….” said Twilight to herself as she closed the book with her magic. Amazed with the story, the talented unicorn stood there for a moment to think about what she had just read.

Suddenly, the house’s door was opened and Celestia entered.

“You’re back!” shout Twilight with excitement as she got up from the carpet and trotted towards the former solar princess.

“I was reading the history of your city and it’s surprisingly similar to Canterlot’s…”

“Princess, you’re all wet, what’s wrong?” asked Twilight as she looked up at Celestia’s sad face. The eternal being’s face reminded her of the sad look on the other Celestia when they were in Ponyville.

“I’ve some terrible news Twilight….” said the white alicorn with sorrow.

*********

No bird, cricket, frog or owl could be seen or heard since the official announcement of the Eternal City's involvement in the war against other cities. Now, the only thing one pony could hear was the metal hooves of the soldiers striking the ground as they cantered through the city streets and its exterior paths.

One of the many things that also changed since the war declaration, was the permanent prohibition of unicorns inside the city whether they were merchants or not. The once crowded Market Place became a desert, rarely stepped in by even citizens of the city.

The lack of commerce brought a famine for all the shops in Alicornia, because commerce was their only way of getting raw materials to work with. Many stores were forced to close and many others seemed to be heading to the same ending. Only one month had passed.

Luckily, Baked Dreams was one of the few stores that still were able to sell their goods during these hard times. With Celestia’s bakery being the only one available in the entire city, her work started to double, making her need more help.

“But princess, I mean Celestia, I’ve no bakery talents like you do. I’m only good at reading, practicing spells and even making experiments but no baking, trust me,” said the gifted unicorn to Celestia in the living room of the house.

“I know you’re good at studying, I’ve seen it, but I really need some help. Please, it’d mean a lot to me because I’ve always wanted to teach somepony else what I can do,” replied the tall alicorn with a smile to Twilight.

“Alright Celestia, I’ll do it but I’ll need some lessons first or something because I don’t know anything about cakes, cookies or bread…”

“Ha-ha, of course little one!”

*********

“Thank you for coming, enjoy your cake!” shout Celestia to a customer while she waved at him from the bakery’s door.

When the customer couldn’t be seen anymore, the white alicorn looked both ways before getting in. The door closed with the help of her magic. Purple drapes came down from the ceiling to cover every window and front shop of the bakery. The store’s front and backdoor were locked.

“Alright Twilight now it’s safe, you can come out,” said Celestia.

From a wooden cabinet inside the kitchen, the talented unicorn came out from her hiding spot. Twilight had been helping Celestia for two weeks now in her bakery. Whether cakes or cookies, the purple unicorn learnt to make all kind of baked sweets thanks to the lessons of Celestia.

“Wow princess, I still can’t believe how many ponies you’ve met because you always call them by their names,” said with excitement the purple pony.

“Well of course Twilight, because when you have a store for as long as this one, you get the chance of meeting everypony. Sometimes, you can even get to know their likes, dislikes and even hobbies,” replied Celestia with a smile.

“For example, Mach likes to carve birds in small pieces of wood to kill time. Theo hates mint, but his wife loves it so whenever he buys some cookies for her, I like to include some butter cookies for him to enjoy at home.”

“Everypony is different and everypony has something to offer, even when we sometimes can’t see it…” said Celestia, this time, with a little sadness.

Twilight noticed her change of attitude because her face took on a very serious tone. The talented unicorn started to notice some time ago this kind of behavior in her friend whenever they started talking about themselves.

“Princess, there’s something I’ve always wanted to ask you since I first met you, but I’ve been afraid of asking you because it might hurt your feelings…” said Twilight with a serious expression on her face, caring about Celestia’s reaction.

“I know what you’re going to ask me, I can feel it, but I don’t want to talk about it…” replied the tall alicorn, moving her face in other direction trying to avoid looking at Twilight. Her voice now sounded sadder than a few moments ago.

“I’ve tried not to mention it to you hoping you would never ask me, but whenever you talked about it in your stories of Equestria and Canterlot, I understood that my efforts were futile because you already know about it…”

“From that moment forth, I tried not to show you my true feelings every time I heard your stories… but I guess I can’t hide forever…”

“Princess, where’s your sister Luna? Why isn’t she with you or in this city?”

“What happened with her?” asked Twilight.

“Luna… Luna was my little sister, just like in your stories but many centuries ago, one day, she started to feel overshadowed by me… so she decided to escape from our home,” said Celestia with tears on her eyes, this time, looking down at Twilight.

“That was a thousand years ago I think… since then, I’ve never seen her again and I don’t know where she is or what does she does these days…”

“I’ve thought many times in selling all of my possessions like this bakery and my house in order to travel around Ponya and search for her. But whenever I was about to do it, my mind reminded me that outside these walls, we are not welcome in any city because we are considered their enemies for some reason.”

“Also if I moved to another city or place, I thought, she’d never find me so I decided to stay and never leave Alicornia since then. The months became years and the years centuries and just like that, before I knew it, a thousand years passed right before my eyes.”

“But then, when I started to lose hope, you appeared one day in front of my house telling me you know me from a place called Equestria in which I was a princess alongside Luna, my sister.”

“I secretly enjoyed hearing your stories because I could picture her with me in that Summer Sun Celebration or at Nightmare’s Night. But I always ended remembering that these memories weren’t part of my reality…”

“Oh princess, I’m sorry,” said Twilight as she hugged Celestia, trying to relieve the pain from her mind just like she did some time ago in Ponyville right before her arrival.

“Don’t be little one, I might look sad but I feel better, somehow… curious,” said the eternal being with a smile on her face again while she cleaned her tears with a tissue.

“Thank you Twilight, I really needed to talk with somepony…”

*********

A full moon watches over the night sky of Alicornia. The Clock Tower continues counting the slow and infinite pass of time through its metal gears and giant bronze bells. Torches lights the city streets and a lone wooden wagon can be seen outside Baked Dreams, right in the back alley.

“Twilight, are you ready?” asked Celestia to her friend.

“Yes princess, just give me a minute!” shouted the talented unicorn from the inside of the bakery.

“Done princess, I just put the rose essence in the top shelf,” said Twilight as she exited and closed the door behind her using her magic.

“Alright, let’s go home,” replied Celestia as she opened a secret compartment in the wooden wagon using her magic so Twilight could hide in it. This way, the purple unicorn was able to enter and exit the city without worrying for the fierce patrol of the guards at the entrance.

With the decoy wagon ready, Celestia started to pull it across the streets of the city towards the large front gates. Twilight couldn’t see anything inside the secret compartment, but she could hear the sound of Celestia’s hooves trotting and the wooden wheels hitting the stones of the floor.

Just when both ponies were about to leave the city behind, a well-armed squad of alicorn guards intercepted them. Eight guards surrounded the wagon while they hold lanterns with their magic to enlighten the road and the cart. A ninth guard approaches to Celestia.

“Good night there. I’m Arador, the leader of this squad and we have orders to inspect your wagon tonight,” said the alicorn guard, watching Celestia’s reaction.

“Good night! Of course you can check it, please, go ahead…” replied the white alicorn trying to not to make him suspicious about her or the cart.

“Say, why are you pulling an empty wagon outside the city at this time of the night? Is anypony outside waiting for you to come?” asked again the guard while he surrounded the old wagon.

“Oh well, that’s because my house it’s outside the walls nearby the forest,” replied Celestia with a smile even when he couldn’t see it.

“Wait, you live outside? WHY? Isn’t the city good enough for you?” asked Arador while he returned to Celestia in a rush. His face looked angry.

“Oh no, it’s just that I… I prefer having more space, that’s all…”

“Aha, and the wagon?”

“I used it for bringing my material from home to my bakery in the city…”

“You know what Miss White Alicorn, I think you’re lying to me… so you wouldn’t mind if I and my guards here take your wagon away, right?” said Arador while he and the other guards approached closer to Celestia and the cart.

“What? No, you can’t do that and you are not allowed to take it!”

“I’m innocent and I’ll protect it…” replied Celestia as she stood in front of Arador without fear. Her only worry now was to protect Twilight from them who lay helpless inside the decoy wagon.

Suddenly, another alicorn guard landed near them, interrupting the argue.

“Stop it Arador! She’s Celestia and I've known her since she was a little filly. She’s one of our best citizens so let her be!” said Mach, an old guard who apparently knew Celestia for a very long time.

“What do you know Mach? This wagon might be holding illegal supplies for our enemies out there and perhaps she’s part of them,” replied the angered guard.

“No way, she has always been loyal to us so you better leave now or I’ll report you with the mayor,” replied Mach, this time, putting himself in front of Celestia.

“Fine, I’ll leave but this isn’t over…”

Just when the young guard and his troop were about to leave, a loud sneeze was heard coming out from the wagon. Twilight sneezed. Mach stood still, so does Arador because he finally understood what was going on.

“Who’s in the cart, TRAITOR?!” shout the young guard to Celestia as he unsheathed his sword with the help of his magic. The rest of the guards did the same, all of them except Mach. The old alicorn guard backed away, looking down.

“Twilight, hang on!” shouted Celestia to the gifted unicorn right before shooting a powerful flash with her horn to momentary blind all the guards. As the guards tried to recover from the spell, the white alicorn trotted away from them as fast as she could trying to escape with Twilight in the cart.

After a short instant, Arador and the rest of the guards recovered their sight and started to chase Celestia in the middle of the night.

“Hurry, she’s trying to get away!” shout Arador as he took off towards the fugitive pony. The rest of the guards followed him immediately.

Celestia was trotting over the brown path trying to get away from the city as far as she could. Meanwhile, Twilight came out from her hiding spot. The gifted unicorn could see from the back of the wagon how the flying guards approached to them closer and closer.

When the alicorn guards were close enough to the couple of fugitives, they started to shoot at them magic spells trying to stop them. Celestia dodged them as she continued trotting with the cart.

The multicolored spells impacted the ground near Celestia and Twilight. These became more and more precise when one of them, suddenly, impacted one of the wagon’s wheels.

In that moment the cart abruptly impacted the ground, making Celestia lose her balance and trip over the stone path with Twilight. The chase was finally over and the guards approached to the fugitives.

Celestia couldn’t stand, she was too tired and hurt from the chase just like Twilight. The wooden wagon was completely destroyed from the fall.

“Twilight, I’m so sorry…” said the white alicorn with tears on her eyes just as the guards surrounded them again with their lanterns.

“Celestia, you’re under arrest for treason…” said Arador as he took out a pair of iron shackles from his armor using his magic.

*********

“Enter now pony!” shouted an alicorn guard as he threw Twilight inside a dungeon cell back in Alicornia. Twilight, quickly, tried to stand up when the jailor closed the gate.

“Tell me, please, where are you taking Celestia?” cried Twilight trying to find out about the destiny of her friend. Both ponies were separated during the arrest.

“You mean the traitor? If she’s not here in my cells, she was probably sent to The Forbidden Wilds… but if I were you, I would care more about myself because you’ll never leave this dungeon purple pony,” said the jailor while he placed the cell keys on his saddle bag with his magic.

“Until next week little pony…” said for the last time the guard as he trot away from the cell, whistling.

Twilight tried to knock down the gate, but it was futile. She wasn’t that strong and her magic was disabled before she entered the cell. The gifted unicorn tried to look for a gap between the bars or the cell’s bricks, but her efforts were fruitless.

The only open space she had besides the iron bars, was a small window up in the stone wall. By stacking her bed and a small barrel she found inside her cell, Twilight was able to look through the tiny window.

“I can’t see the Clock Tower nor the forest. I must be in the northern part of town,” she said to herself from atop the improvised stair.

Unaware that she was being watched, Twilight descended and when she turned her eyes to the corridor, she finally gazed at her strange visitor.

“Normally beds are used to sleep, but not as ladders purple pony…” said an alicorn guard curiously from the corridor to Twilight as he approached the cell’s iron bars. He was different from the one that put her inside the cell.

“I… I needed to know in what part of the city I am,” the gifted unicorn replied with fear as she approached to the iron bars too.

“Why? Do you intend to escape little pony?” asked the guard, but no answer came from Twilight.

“Tell me, what would you do if you were free once again?” asked again the alicorn.

“I… I must find my friend. She was arrested with me last night and I’ve not seen her since then. Her fate worries me…” replied Twilight, sobbing a little.

The guard stood still. He continued watching at the talented unicorn’s reaction, but he spoke no more words. The silence between the two strangers reigned, leaving only the sound of the crickets be heard.

“…well, this was interesting but I have to go now. Take care little pony,” said the guard before trying to leave Twilight’s cell. While he trotted away, the alicorn guard tripped with one of the stones from the floor. Some of his items fell from his armor.

Twilight noticed that some of the dropped items were a knife and what it appeared to be a wooden carved figurine of some kind. The gifted unicorn remembered something and approached in a rush to the bars.

“The wooden carving… you must be Mach, correct?” asked Twilight with excitement.

“Yes, but how do you know that?” asked the intrigued alicorn as he picked his items and returned to the cell’s bars.

“Celestia told me you like to carve birds in your spare time…”

“You were the guard who defended her from Arador last night, right?”

The alicorn guard refused to reply. Perhaps it was the excitement or the fear he was feeling in that moment while hearing such words. Mach could only look down at Twilight with amusement.

“I don’t understand, why you? Why you and not some alicorn else…?” replied the old guard as he continued gazing at Twilight.

“Everypony was astonished during the trial last night by the way Celestia talked about you. No pony could believe it, an alicorn being friend of a non alicorn pony like you.”

“I mean, we’ve never heard or seen such a thing in centuries!”

“But then, before she was taken away, she said something that made me question my life and my relation with the others. Something you taught her...”

“Friendship.”

“I’ve lived in here since the Clock Tower was built, but I’ve never made any friends…”

“I used to think that Celestia and I were friends, but the truth is that I’ve only know her between those brief moments every time she crosses my door. Friendship is more than just talking, it’s about caring like she did with you on the trial…”

In that moment, the alicorn guard shot a powerful spell at the door, making it come down. Twilight was now free thanks to the actions of Mach, who only stood on one side of the corridor looking down.

Twilight exited the cell and approached to the old guard. He was sobbing a little while he continued looking down at the floor, ignoring Twilight’s direction.

“Thank you my friend,” said the talented unicorn as she tried to hugged him. Mach stopped crying as he hugged Twilight back. From the window of the cell, the sound of the Clock Tower’s bells started to be heard.

“Oh no, four o’clock! Hurry little pony, we must rescue Celestia!” said Mach with fear as he looked down at Twilight.

“But where? The guard who put me in here told me she was sent to the Forbidden Wilds? What does that means?” asked the gifted unicorn.

“The northeastern desert, The Forbidden Wilds. That’s where we used to send our prisoners when they were sentenced to the exile,” replied the old alicorn.

Noises started to be heard coming from the opposite side of the corridor.

“My, guards are coming and once they find out about your escape, they’ll chase you to return you to this dungeon,” said Mach as he trotted to the opposite side of the corridor towards the noises.

“I’ll stop them and I’ll give you enough time to flee out of the city limits… but you must take the map I have in my station at the main gate. It’s the only map of the desert that exists nowadays…”

“Follow the hall, then go to your right and trot all the way over the city walls. Here, the copper key opens the chest…” said the guard as he threw to Twilight his keys with the help of his magic. The talented unicorn caught them with her magic too.

“GO NOW and good luck… my friend,” said Mach with a smile on his face before trotting to the corridor with the noises.

Twilight started to trot to the opposite side when suddenly, she stopped at something that caught her attention. Up in the middle of an archway, the royal palace’s emblem was stenciled.

“That emblem… it’s a blue heart just like the one from the Crystal Empire…”

“…the Crystal Heart!!! That was Sombra’s weapon when he attacked us in Ponyville back then. The Elements and the Crystal Heart disintegrated in the air when our powers struck at the same time…”

“This land… this land is Equestria without harmony!”

“Harmony... CELESTIA!” said Twilight to herself in the middle of the corridor.

Shouts and the sound of a lot metal hooves trotting started to be heard more and more loudly, making Twilight exit her trance after the revelation of what she just has discovered.

Twilight continued trotting as fast as she could over the city walls towards Mach’s station to get the map. The sun was starting to hide in the horizon behind the Clock Tower.