Playing the Heart's Strings

The doors to the throne room were opened by Twilight’s lavender glow. She led the way to her friends. Once Bon Bon went inside as the last, she shut the door again. From the glass panels at both sides of the royal room, the dying day shed its last lights inside. Both Luna and Celestia were standing at the bottom of the stairs leading to the thrones. Both their faces were framed by light frowns, which Twilight noted first. The group walked until approaching both.

“Welcome, everypony. Thank you for coming now.” Celestia addressed the group in a quiet voice. Luna looked at the whole group, in silence; her eyes gleamed briefly.

“I’m glad to see you finally up and about, Twilight.”  The lavender unicorn felt quite flushed by the maternal gaze the ruler of the Sun cast upon her, avoiding her eyes. “A mass teleportation spell like that; a very lucky pony would need weeks to recover. You have shown once again why you are the embodiment of Magic. I’m proud of you.”

“I’m also very proud of all of you. You have been very calm these days, despite being disconnected from your loved ones. I know these last days have been really long ones. It has been a real trial for all of you and we, Luna and I, commend you on your admirable reception of it.”

“Where’s Albert, Princess?”

Twilight’s voice cut through Celestia’s speech as a sharp knife sliced a leaf in two.

Her purple eyes broke through the princess clear blue ones. After some moments of silence, in which she saw herself reflected into her student’s pupils, Celestia nodded in silence, and pointed a hoof in front of where she and Luna were standing.

“Please gather around.”

The group quickly complied, Twilight was at the center, facing the two sisters. At her left stood spike, next to Rarity, Rainbow Dash and Applejack, in front of Celestia. At her other side Fluttershy, Pinkie Pie and Bon Bon, looking at Luna.

Both sisters looked at each other, nodding slightly before turning their faces back at them. The last ray of sunlight passed away, delivering the room into the clutches of a darkness that wrapped around all of them.  Both of the horns of the royal sisters shone alight. Sets of candles standing in high chandeliers at both sides of them flickered alive one by one. Bon Bon and Fluttershy looked around; now an eerie atmosphere reigned over the room and the pegasus started shaking, despite there not being any air currents inside.

“We have vanquished him,” said Celestia flatly.

Eight pairs of ears perked up. Twilight, as well as Fluttershy, Rarity, Spike and Bon Bon took a step backwards. The light from the candles flickered and danced around them, casting shapeless shadows all over the place.

“Excuse me, Princess?” Twilight approached Celestia, her ears still standing, as she approached her mentor. The royal pony looked over to her. She and her sister now were covered by shadows, but Twilight could definitely see now their tired visages, reflected in eyes lacking any shine.

“Without Chaos, there cannot be any Harmony. They are two forces that oppose each other, but also help define their counterpart; if you lacked any chaos in your life, how would you be able to appreciate what is righteous and ordered? That is why we have places such as the Everfree Forest or the perpetually frozen Northern lands, where the weather manages itself, as it did in the whole of what is now Equestria a long, long time ago.“

Celestia fell silent. She walked over to one of the walls, looking at the scenes depicted at the stained glasses, which went from the most recent great event in Equestrian history to the days of the migration of the three races, the awakening of Discord and the Sisters. All the eyes were fixed on her, until Luna’s voice resounded, making they all look back. The younger sister stood seemingly much more composed than Celestia, though still with the weariness etched in her face.

“When Discord first appeared, he reigned for several weeks. He was finally ensnared, but the effects of the uncontrolled Chaos he had brought were still felt upon the land for a long time afterwards. My sister and I struggled in those early days to help the ponies construct what would be their new homeland. Developing farming, as up until that time, ponies just lived from what they could find around, reigning in the rampaging weather, building living spaces, settling down quarrels. Those were very busy days, and that is why we did not keep an eye on those humans that had appeared. As everything was in a general disarray, we payed no mind to it. As the years passed, an orderly approach finally began to establish itself, but we still were required to watch over it, and we never had a chance to interact with them.”

As the group continued listening to Luna, Celestia came to sit behind them silently.

“The recent return of Discord was much shorter, but it still left its mark. And it is in Ponyville, where he established his new reign, where its effects are stronger, as evidenced by what I have read on your reports to Celestia.  Then this portal was opened, and Albert came to our land. Everything then increases tenfold suddenly and ponies get nervous. In the back of their minds, there is a wisp of the memory of ancient times. They get borderline violent. That is why you are here now.“

As Luna’s discourse went on, an air of sadness fell over the group. Pinkie’s hair was beginning to lose it bounciness, but they still stood listening.

“This was in no way his fault. He got carried here by forces he could not even fathom before arriving. But it does not cloak the fact that he had a great quantity of chaos energy pent up into his body. And so we called him over yesterday.

There was a way to remove all of it from him. Had he wanted to, we would have transformed him into a pony, while excising all the negative energy from his new body. But he refused. He hung to his identity as a human, despite the face of him being the only one of his race existing in Equestria.”

“And so we had no choice but to erase him completely.” Celestia finished Luna’s words and then both sisters ended their speech.

“WHY?! Why did you do that?!”  Rainbow Dash sped, and in a moment she was in front of Celestia. Her magenta eyes pierced the princess.

Fluttershy and Bon Bon cried copiously, while Rarity, also on the brink of tears, held a hoof to her mouth. Pinkie was silent, her mane and tail completely deflated, an empty look in her eyes. Applejack gawked, her mouth opening and closing. Finally she managed to articulate something.

“Ah can’t believe that...”

Twilight was as struck and silent as Pinkie, barely feeling when Spike clung to her foreleg. “Twilight...”

She lowered her gaze to look at him but didn’t really register his presence. Everything in the room presented itself as surreal and far away; the voices and sobs only grazed her ears.

“We are deeply sorry, Rainbow Dash, but there was no other solution available to preserve the peace on Equestria and for himself.”

“But... but...”  The cyan pegasus lost all momentum. She slowly slid to the floor, resting on her hind legs. Her mane lost all the shine and she just looked at the floor tiles, unmoving. “No...”

Luna walked around them, to join her sister. “I know what you are feeling right now. You know as well that this is the burden of the rulers of Equestria. We are making no excuses for what happened. This is another thing my sister and I will have to live with.”

Bon Bon stopped crying, gathering herself as much as she could, and trotted over to Pinkie, catching the pink mare in an embrace. Pinkie didn’t move from her place, but she turned her head to look at the cream colored mare. Their eyes met silently and Pinkie returned the hug. Rarity went next to Fluttershy and slid a hoof over her back, pressing herself to the pegasus. Applejack stood next to Rainbow Dash, nudging the colorful mare, who didn’t budge an inch.

“Come on, Dash, stand up.” The addressed pony looked up, into Applejack’s green eyes.

“But Albert is dead.  He’s gone, Applejack!”

“Ah know, gal, ah know. Ah---”  The earth pony suddenly cut herself mi-sentence, as she felt her own eyes watering, and the tears flowing freely. Dash cried as well, her sobbing and cries filling the air with despair.

Twilight walked over to Celestia, with Spike by her side. The lack of any tears in her eyes didn’t belittle the turmoil of her soul as she looked at her mentor and her sister standing side by side. She opened her mouth to speak, but found no words coming from it, just another void.

“Nightmare Moon was excised from Princess Luna. An evil mare who tried to cast the whole land into a curse of eternal night.”

Luna backed before the gaze of Twilight.  Celestia answered calmly

“That is a story past behind us now. You yourself were trying to get Luna a reprieve from it all, weren’t you, Twilight?”

“Yes, i was. She is gone now, truly. But Discord, the father of Chaos got encased into stone. Chrysalis, who invaded our lands, hasn’t been sought for after she was expelled from the kingdom.”

“We will deal with Chrysalis as we are wont to do. I can’t give you anymore than that. We couldn’t seal him, because he wasn’t actively damaging Equestria; for the Elements of Harmony he was no threat. We deeply regret this course of action. But we didn’t have any other.”

The lavender unicorn turned back to see her damaged friends sticking to each other; her tail flicked around.

“We’re going back to Ponyville, if that’s fine with you, Princess.”

Celestia nodded, even though none of the group was looking at her, with Twilight’s back in front of her. The lavender unicorn was embraced to Rarity and Spike, while the others approached them. She opened the doors, calling one of the guards standing before them, relaying instructions to have carriages to Ponyville prepared.

Outside of the castle, the vehicles awaited for the group. The princesses ordered for a collection of sweaters and jackets from the royal wardrobe to be brought, and they were soon outfitted for the chilling night.  They trotted out of the castle in silence, with Spike riding on Twilight’s back, as the Princesses watched them departing.

They made it to the four carriages stationed outside. Twilight and Spike jumped to one, Rarity and Fluttershy occupied another, Bon Bon and Pinkie took the third and the last one received Applejack and Rainbow Dash, the former casting a quick glance towards the general direction of the gardens before getting on and the latter being in no disposition to fly anywhere. Celestia and Luna watched the carriages taking off, and disappearing into the distance, until becoming nothing more that a tiny dot in the distance, among Luna’s stars. They looked at each other, and Celestia turned to head inside the castle.

“Good night, sister. Sleep well,” called out Luna, as she kept looking towards the black night sky.

The four chariots crossed the sky swiftly, its pegasi carriers didn’t seem to be affected by the chilling air or the lack of light as they made their way across the open air. The seven mares and small dragon aboard them simply awaited arrival in silence. They landed at Ponyville’s park, not too far from the Library. Twilight thanked the pegasi and they settled off back again to Canterlot.

Looking around her, Twilight saw that most ponies were tucked in the safety of their houses, with the odd pony trotting around that sped off when seeing them.

“Let’s go to the Library? We can spend the night there, and in the morning, everypony can go home.”

They all nodded and headed towards Twilight’s home, finding, to their surprise, the lights on as they approached the tree building.  They came to a halt at the front of the door, looking around nervously.

“Consarnit, just what we needed. Y’all think those fanatics were waiting for us the whole time?” Applejack snorted, pawing at the floor with a hoof.

“But there aren’t many sounds coming out from the inside. Rainbow, can you tell us what you see?” asked Twilight, with her ear pressed against the door. The pegasus complied silently, flapping her wings without much energy and looking around the windows. She circled the tree and came back to land next to the group.

“Can’t see anypony around, just a bunch of lights turned on. The door to the balcon is closed, but everything seems to be alright.”

“At any rate, let’s go inside. Better confront all this right now than going around aimlessly. What else can be there for us...”

Twilight opened the door and the seven ponies plus Spike entered to find a library with half the books tossed around. Owlowiscious hooted from his perch from the top of one of the shelves; next to him, Peewee slept peacefully. Twilight gasped and ran to check on the volumes lying on top of tables and everywhere on the floor, with the help of Spike. None of the books seemed to have suffered significant damage and she let out a breath of relief, when she heard the hoofsteps coming down the stairs and turned along with the others to see Lyra coming down from them.

The musician grinned widely upon seeing the whole group in front of her and ran to meet them. Somehow she managed to embrace the whole of them, her tail flicking madly around. She finally let go and sat on her haunches with a sheen on her golden eyes that managed to bring a tiny smile to Twilight’s lips. The lavender unicorn stepped forth and met her marefriend with a strong embrace, burying her face in her mane. Lyra received her with a perplexed expression.

“I’ve missed you too, Light,” said the stunned Lyra, feeling the tears scurrying down and hearing Twilight’s muffled sobs. She looked around to the group, who was simply standing around quietly.

“What’s the matter, everypony?”  She caressed slowly Twilight’s mane, keeping a hoof on the back of the sobbing unicorn. Her eyes flickered towards Spike at one side of the group. Rarity, Rainbow Dash, Applejack, Bon Bon, Pinkie and Fluttershy. She backtracked, her gaze falling once again on Spike.

“Hey, girls, where’s Albert?”

Twilight’s crying became louder and deeper, as the lavender unicorn pressed herself against her marefriend, whose golden eyes opened widely all of a sudden.