Ponies and a dragon trailed along the halls on their way. This travelling herd was spread relatively thin, so that more than a dozen ponies were spread above three body lengths apart on average. In practice, they grouped into miniature herds, bunched together and even further apart from others. Princess Celestia took the lead and Luna guarded the rear.

Near the back, paces in front of Princess Luna, Night Glider got Starlight Glimmer to herself. Although there, Trixie was pushed to the side of this conversation, as Night Glider grinned wide eyed at Starlight.

“So, Starlight, when’re you coming back to the village?”

Starlight rolled her eyes to the right. “Oh, I think I can put some time aside to visit.”

“No, not visit.” Night Glider shook her head. “When are you coming back for good? Our town needs its mayor!”

“May- what?” Starlight flinched. “Night Glider, I wasn’t your mayor, I was your cult leader.”

“Yeah, okay, sure, fine.” Night Glider waved that off as if being a high-functioning, albeit recovering, sociopath that performed extensive psychological torment and, at least, borderline black magic was a minor detail. “But now we’re a town and we need a mayor.”

“I don’t think it should be me though.” Starlight did not think it was a minor detail.

Go ahead, seize the power the power that is given to you, said something like a thought, whispered in dark corners or, more accurately, from Starlight’s shadows.

A more mocking though came. You are a puppet master, it is your destiny to make others dance upon your strings.

“I think it should be!”

She is your leader, you are lost without her! Thought Night Glider’s shadow.

You are a slave of invisible chains.

“I-”

“HALT!”

“-IIIIEEE!!”

Starlight shrieked and jumped, her head slamming into the midnight blue roof above her. More specifically, into Princess Luna standing above her. The resultant noise brought everyone to a halt, staring back at them. Starlight looked up at the princess while Luna stared to and fro between patches of lighting.

Grimacing in distaste, Princess Luna looked up. “I apologize, everypony. Today has me nervous, and I’m jumping at shadows.”

With a dubious look shared by everyone, they collectively shrugged and moved on, and the herd continued. Luna breathed a sigh of relief before her aura grabbed a hold of Starlight once again.

“A word, however.” A glance at Trixie and Night Glider told them to stay back as Luna dragged Starlight back to rear.

A little further up ahead, Rarity found herself enjoying being sandwiched between three very fine specimens of muscled femininity.

“It sounds like there’s quite a story there,” Daring Do whispered, glancing backwards. “Night Glider, she talked about that Starlight Glimmer in glowing terms. A little too glowing, like pyrite.”

“That’s fool’s gold,” Rainbow said down the line to Applejack.

Applejack arched a brow. “Ah.”

Daring Do continued, “I had heard she was a former cultist, but not so former after all. She was still well enamored with this Starlight Glimmer and her leadership.”

“Yeah, I mean, when we last left that place, they was all up in arms against her,” Applejack said. She raised a hoof. “We’d done exposed her hornswogglin’ but it seems like they went right back to thinkin’ she was the bee’s knees.”

“Indeed,” Rarity said with half-lidded eyes, looking distant. “Starlight rather thought she was going to be ponysona non grata after that debacle and I- well, I found them to be rather forgiving, like good ponies are, but this reaction is too much.”

“It makes sense, the kind of programming that goes on in these cults is hard to break.” Daring Do glanced back again. “But you said Starlight Glimmer stepped down willingly, right?”

Rainbow frowned. “Uh, not from the cult leader thing. We kinda started a rebellion and she bounced. After that, she came back for Twilight looking for revenge but then Twilight talked her down.”

“What did she do?”

“Ah, some crazy thing with time travel, tried to stop me from pulling off the sonic rainboom when I was a kid. It turns out I’m the chosen one, though, so when she stopped me from being awesome, it destroyed Equestria.”

Daring Do looked at her dubiously, glancing over to Rarity and spotted her rolling her eyes. That might be any number of things though.

A little further down the line, four ponies crowded around an infant alicorn, cooing in delight at the magical aberration. Cheese leaned over the three mares as each of them encouraged the baby to burble with delight.

“Those eyes are just like a snake’s!” Fluttershy coo’d. “Isn’t she beautiful?”

“She’s like an exotic alien princess!” Pinkie said. “She’ll be a real hit on Nightmare Night.” She paused and looked up, glancing at Fluttershy. “I mean-”

Do you remember that one time you made her cry?

You never did apologize for it. Did you even realize what you did?

Fluttershy noticed that sudden paused and looked up. “Pinkie?” She tried to search her face. “Is something-”

Do you remember that one time you made her cry?

They only ever forgave you because they thought it wasn’t your fault.

“Yeah, she’s pretty rad,” Tree Hugger said as she hefted the baby.

“Oh, Flutterbutt, I’m so sorry I wasn’t sorry even though I was sorry! Sorry!”

“Pinkie, I’m sorry too!” Fluttershy threw herself at Pinkie at the same as the other did, and the both of them crashed into a pile of hugs. “Wait- Flutterwhat?”

No, nonono! You were supposed to let this fester! Cursed one shadow.

The other shadow shrugged. Not what I expected to happen.

Barren, blasted burrows of Baator! Ponies and their forgiveness!

Cheese Sandwich glanced at the two mares hugging it out on the floor now, shrugged and went back to the baby. “Tubular!”

“I’m sure you’ll love Gathaga, Twilight. You and her have so much in- Twilight?”

Celestia glanced back, frowning with concern at what she thought she saw. Her eyes darted about, but nothing more of the shadowy flicker seemed to materialize. She looked away and back to her student, briefly sharing a worried look with Spike riding behind her neck. Twilight marched forward, her eyes dead set forward.

“Twilight, what are you thinking?”

Her student, former, didn’t answer immediately, keeping on straight ahead in pace and stare. It took her half a minute to open her mouth. “Gathaga?”

“That’s right.” Celestia’s voice tilted with anticipation.

Twilight looked back at her. “What’s she like?”

This made Celestia smile warmly. “My faithful princess, of that you’ll find out shortly.”

“Could you tell me how you two met?”

Celestia sniffed briefly. “As many of my relationships in the past have had to start, it began with deception.”

Twilight tripped on a step. “D-deception?”

Spike turned back and yelled down the hall, “Hey guys! What do you call a bar where single ponies go to meet other single ponies?”

Applejack called back down, “That’d be whatchu call a ‘single’s bar’, Spike.”

“Thanks!”

“Consarnit, Pinkie Pie! F-Fluttershy? What’re you two doin’, rollin’ around on the floor in front of everypony?”

“Applejack, I’m so sorry!” Pinkie suddenly embraced the cowpony, causing her to yelp in alarm.

“Land’s sakes!”

“Rarity!” Fluttershy glomped her friend. “I’m sorry too!”

“I- uh- yes, dearest!”

“Rainbow Dash!”

“Oh my gosh, Rainbow Dash!” Both Pinkie and Fluttershy turned on her but she made ten feet into the air in one tenth of a second.

“Nope!”

Spike blinked at that unfolding miniature drama before he shrugged it off. “Anywho, Twilight, c’mon, can you imagine Princess Celestia going to a single’s bar looking for a special somepony?”

Twilight did imagine exactly that, stumbled, crossed her legs while recovering, screamed and hit the marble floor face first. Still, she decided that the images in her head of Princess Celestia drunkenly flirting over a beer bottle still hurt more. “Ow, my brain.”

“See? My point exactly. So the the princess has to be sneaky.”

Celestia looked back at him. “Well, you’re not completely wrong, Spike.”

Twilight picked herself up, rubbing her nose, and noticed they were near the end of the hall before it branched in two directions. Two guard stallions stood sentinel there, a cherry red pegasus with the three chevrons marks of a sergeant for his cutie mark and a big pink earth pony with a glazed donut of all things.

“Princesses present!” The red stallion shouted, presumably to his companion without turning toward him. “Saaaalute!” Both stallions stood at attention, albeit the pink one smiled a great deal more than normal.

“Private Glazed Donut,” Celestia greeted warmly. “Sergeant Sergeant.”

Spike looked over him. “Your name is Sergeant?”

The stallion nodded. “Affirmative.”

“And your special talent is…?”

“Being a sergeant!”

“Right.”

“Sergeant,” Celestia referred to him by his title. On special occasions, she was far more familiar and simply called him by his given name. Only he seemed to know the difference. “We were heading towards the observatory to see Gathaga, is she still there?”

“Negative, your highness,” Sergeant replied curtly. “Subject Zeta has relocated to visual historical archive gamma.”

“She’s in the third fancy history painting gallery from the throne room!” Private Donut explained helpfully.

“Thank you, gentlecolts.”

“She’s with those three really big stallions,” Private Donut said.

Twilight arched her brows. “Really big stallions?”

“Yeah. I’m kinda jealous, really. Surrounded by three, huge, burly stallions and showered with their-”

Rainbow Dash landed next to Twilight, whose eyes were widening with shock. “Hold on, I suddenly started paying attention.”

“-rich historical knowledge.”

“And you lost me.”

“Ah, the brothers are here,” Celestia said with calm. “Once more, thank you, gentlecolts. Come along, everypony, Spike, I know exactly where we’re going.

The halls were particularly empty as the herd approached. Luna had sidled her way to the front by then and she gestured for them all to pipe down. The acoustics of this place carried a nearby conversation

Around the corner, there was a solemn toned voice like slowly grinding gravel. “-to this day, he remains to be called The Despoiler. Even his own people refer to him that way, as they will not deny what he was, but the caribou also call him The Liberator.”

A female voice, with the barest hint of a screech to it. “So, zose stories aren’t true?”

“Oho!” Laughed a voice like a firm, stiff breeze. “My dear, one does not get called ‘The Despoiler’ by politely askin’ for your people’s freedom, plus recompense, with peaceful protests. Dainn was more vicious and mad than a fox in a hen house.”

The gravelly voiced grunted. “Nothing quite so systematic as in those, mm, ‘stories’, but his people were male-ruled, his forces were raiders and pirates and his agenda was half liberation, half vengeance for three centuries of enslavement by all the races of the continent, to be paid by one race in only a decade.”

“And cowardly colts joinin’ his cause and later sayin’ they was hoodwinked. So yes, yer goshdarn right rapine and mutilatin’ happened.” A whinny, a rapidly shaking head. “Dear, what brought up this dreadful subject?”

“Ze, mm, ‘stories’.”

“Right, those. It’s no wonder somebou is up in horns about this.”

As the herd drew closer, Rainbow leaned in towards Twilight. “What in the hay are they talking about?”

Twilight frowned in thought, remembering some particularly unpleasant passages. “It sounds like the Reindeer Rebellion, also known as the Caribou Invasion. It’s an obscure piece of history.”

“Obscure, is it?” Luna said, looking back. “It set about freeing an entire race from slavery, and marked several drastic changes in political policy throughout the continent.”

“Haha, yeah, and it also got made into some really grody porn,” Said a giant blue unicorn.

“I snuff Dainn’s madness with mine own hooves and they make-” She stopped and stared at the new speaker, standing in her way. She seemed only mildly surprised to see him “-oh, hello, Aequor.”

A blue unicorn, lanky and tall enough to fit the same build as the princesses. His mane resembled waves, his tail a waterfall. From top to bottom, he went through every shade of blue, darker and darker towards his hooves, like an oceanic cross section.

“‘Ey, yo, wassup, Luna. You lookin’ fine.” With a flat expression, Aequor’s magic lowered the comic of what was not Fallout: Equestria, Luna’s favorite. She stepped forward and wrapped a wing around Aequor, pushing his head under her chin. She turned and looked at the pages, her face twisting.

“Oh, that’s some pleasant imagery,” She drawled.

Aequor grinned. “Yeah, I heard it’s got Tarandroland losin’ their moose apples.”

Celestia walked by them with just a brief glance, little ponies trailing behind her and staring. “Actually, we haven’t heard anything from Tarandroland. It’s the Equestrian Caribou Anti-Defamation Society that’s been quite up in horns about this.”

Luna turned. “Don’t they know what that spells?”

Aequor raised a hoof. “And more importantly, do they have apples up that far north? Would it be pinecones? They be losin’ their moose pinecones?”

Celestia carried right on around the corner. “Gathaga!”

Right in the middle there, there was a monkey. And I’m not coyly referring to a human, I mean a vaguely anthropomorphic monkey, with orange body fur and a tail and everything. There was also another pair of giant stallions, but Twilight didn’t care about them, here eyes were on Gathaga- Twilight presumed this was-

“Twilight, this is Gathaga.”

Right.

Gathaga she was and ooked in delight at the sight of the princess. “Cee-lestia!” She hopped away from the two stallions, prehensile tail curling and she sprung up the side of the taller equinid form. She wore a burgundy vest that jangled with many odd metal devices, pressing that metal against Celestia as she hugged her neck.

“Gathaga, this is Twilight.”

Like, the other ponies glanced over at this happening, but a far more dominating sight in this hallway was the Princess-sized pegasus and an earth pony that certainly took the cake in the term ‘giant’. Both of them shared that cross section pattern as the last giant, of the atmosphere and geological layers respectively.

For Twilight, all thoughts were on this creature instead. In any other circumstances, she’d have so many questions hinted at by the stallion pair’s presence-

“So, like, what’s your guys’s deal?” Rainbow Dash asked them and I’ll totally get to that in a moment.

-but far more important to Twilight was the monkey. Her mind whirled about, which isn’t that unusual for the pony. Catarrhinid, like Sun Wukong, but likely a different race, unless- well, if Sun was anything like Celestia, he was taller than the rest of his kin. Was she a kong? And, more importantly, why is she currently on top of Celestia!?

This is the person the princess is d-d-d-d-ddddd-

Gathaga swung down from Celestia’s back and took one of her front hooves in her paws to shake it vigorously. Suddenly, Twilight was reminded of Applejack and their first meeting. She half expected a southern drawl from her.

“Vunderbar!” That’s what she got instead. “It is so nice to be meeting you at last, Fraulein T’ilight Spockle! Cee-lestia, she has told me so about you!”

“Fffffunny,” Twilight dragged out, her whole body shaking still from the vigorous greeting. “She never mentioned you.”

Gathaga quirked a bemused smile and looked back at Celestia who, of course, looked embarrassed while Luna looked smug. “Is zat so? Liebling, I am knowing zat you vanted to keep it a secret but I sought T’ilight vould be in ze know, mm?”

“Yeah,” Twilight growled. “I thought I would be too.”

Gathaga stopped, her mouth falling into a frown and doing a double take on the very tight expression slowly growing more taut across her face. Luna was right there with Gathaga, eyeing the Twilight Timebomb with growing caution. She and Gathaga both turned to look at Celestia while stepping out from between Twilight. Their expressions read, “You did this, you fix itthis.” Celestia sighed, deflating and stepped forward to partake in a rare sort of satisfaction.

Defusing her own mistakes.

“Twilight, would you like to discuss this privately, elsewhere?”

Eyes narrow, lips curled, Twilight very tightly answered, “Yes. I would.”

Celestia surrounded them both in the warm glow of the dawn before disappearing elsewhere. I’ll get to that in a second, but first-

“So, like, what’s your guys’s deal?” Rainbow Dash asked the two giants moments ago. More specifically, while flapping up to get face-to-face with the giant-iest of the giants. That is, the one who might actually qualify as a giant and not just being non-alicorn pony who can look either princess in the eye. The earth pony made a sound that might be a growl and a face that might be a scowl, or might be him going, “Uh,” with a really gravelly voice and a grimace of a thinking face.

The pegasus, he had a coat that resembled a schoolhouse poster detailing the atmosphere and all the different clouds in the sky. He never gave the earth pony a chance to respond, and instead interrupted with a delighted laugh, stepping in between him and Rainbow.

“Ah, my dear, ain’t’ch’yu quite the curious one?”

“Uhhh…” The earth pony continued to “Uh.”

Rainbow looked between them, settling a scowl on the pegasus, less than impressed and crossing her hooves. “Yeah, you guys are a buncha big weirdos hanging out with the princesses-”

The pegasus kept smiling, seemingly more amused himself. “Well, as a matter of technicality, we were here with her swain.”

“Uuuh…”

Rainbow shook her head. “Yeah, I’m not even gonna touch that one. Twilight already looks like she’s gonna have an aneurysm.”

“Uuhh-”

The giant pegasus glanced over at the meeting between Twilight and Gathaga, still taking place at this moment and hummed in discontent. “Yes, that does seem to be a bit of a mess happening there.”

The earth pony opened his mouth then and solemnly intoned, “We are the three brothers, born of the ele- mm!” The pegasus shoved his big fluffy tail in the earth pony’s face, cutting him off.

“Suffice it to say, my dear, we are just another coupla of them ageless folks that the Princesses invited here for the council summit.”

As a reminder that there are more than a dozen individuals in that hallway, Applejack and Starlight took the time to enter in from stage left.

“Well, you three are ponies, I wasn’t expecting that,” Applejack said, tilting her hat back. “We saw that Monkey King feller and just kinda assumed all the other folk comin’ would be all kinds of different, well, folks.”

The earth pony tilted his head back from that tail. “Most of them will be. Ponies have an unusually high number of ageless, yes, even with-” He paused before saying more and shook his head. “-but I believe you have seen all the ones you ever will. The rest coming are non-ponies.”

“I expect you’ll be seein’ folks from all over, my dear,” the pegasus added with a nod of his head.

Applejack tilted her hat back, smiling appreciatively at him. Starlight seemed fairly interested herself, opening her mouth to ask something when a pink blur zipped past her.

Pinkie Pie hopped on top of Applejack, to the pegasus and landed on the giant earth pony. She settled on his back, laying down. While the other two looked about in surprise, the earth pony turned his head and looked at her placidly.

“Hey there!” She beamed brightly at him. “My name is Pinkie Pie! What’s your name?”

He sighed heavily like a settling mountain. “Tellus.”

Pinkie shook her head. “No, no, you tell me.”

Rainbow covered her mouth to snort at that one, especially as Tellus scowled in further confusion, trying to figure out what she meant. Applejack rolled her eyes and Starlight frowned worriedly.

Starlight turned to the last giant and pointed with her hoof. “We heard Luna call the unicorn ‘Aequor’, so I guess that just leaves you, right?”

The pegasus stepped forward and took that hoof as if it were proffered. “Well, allow me to introduce myself, madam.” He bent his head down, pulling her hoof up, stopping short of kissing it, perhaps because he saw Starlight cringing. “I am called Caelum.”

Applejack stepped in then, taking off her hat and offering her own hoof. “Well, a right howdy to you, Caelum! I’m Applejack. Now, is it Prince Caelum? Cause I’m none too sure about the protocol here.”

Caelum didn’t try anything fancy with Applejack, taking her hoof and shaking it vigorously. “Well, a right howdy to you too, Miss Applejack. ‘Prince’ might be one of my titles, but I insist-”

Tellus rumbled, “Once, long ago, we were called kings, but in our foolish- mmf!” He got another face full of fluffy cloud tail.

Pinkie shook her hoof in frustration. “C’mon, give us a lore dump!”

Cheese, from atop Tellus’s head, repeated the motion and sentiment. “Yeah, lore dump!” Tellus seemed unperturbed as he looked up at the sudden new passenger with that same stony expression.

Daring Do hovered next to Rainbow, leaning her head to the side. “I’m actually pretty curious too.”

Rainbow snorted, rolling her eyes. “I’m not. I just wanted to know who in the Tart’ they thought they were hanging out with Princess Celestia’s special somemonkey and acting like they own the place.”

“Right.”

This collective socializing came to an abrupt end with the subdued flash of Celestia’s teleportation taking her and Twilight away. Another glow brought Spike back to the group, away from his perch on Celestia’s back. Wiping his arms, he sighed. “Well, glad I’m away from that awkwardness.”

Aequor stepped up to the group of ponies talking to the other giants, staring at the spot where Celestia disappeared from. “Huh, that happened.” Turning back to the others, he said, “Hey, I heard my name, wassup?”

Starlight looked up at him and started to raise her hoof before putting it down. “Hi there, my name is Starlight Glimmer. I was just asking your- uh…”

“Brothers.”

“Oh, brothers!” She looked them over. “Yeah, I was asking their names and I mentioned you.”

“Oh, cool. Starlight, huh? Sup.”

Starlight darted her eyes. “Um, not much? Just coming to this summit, ee- yo. Wassup with you?”

Aequor snorted, chuckling with his eyes closed as Starlight got red in the face. He finally looked at her with a sidelong glance and seemed to have some recognition. “Hey, aren’t you that crazy warlock cultist I heard about?”

Starlight was now a nice shade of red pumice. She strained a smile and pumped a hoof. “Eheheh, eeyup, that’s me.”

Nightglider swooped down and landed not-so-gently next to the unicorn giant, glaring up at him. “Hey, you leave Starlight alone! She’s not- well, okay, we were kind of a cult. And- and that spell of hers was pretty dark. But she’s not crazy! She’s mentally unwell!”

Starlight gave her a half-lidded stare. “Thanks, Nightglider.”

“Anytime, Starlight!”

Trixie, grinning all smug, sidled up next to Starlight. “Don’t worry, Starlight, you and Trixie can be cellmates in the asylum together.”

Starlight grit her teeth. “Thanks, Trixie.”

“Oh, anytime, Starlight.”

Meanwhile, Rarity stared at the dissipating afterglow of Celestia’s departure too before walking past that and over to the monkey girl left behind, holding out her hoof. “Hello, darling. Miss Gathaga, correct?”

Gathaga took the hoof into her paw as daintily as it was offered. “Ja.” She sounded deflated and Rarity picked up on that.

Wanting to distract her, Rarity asked, “So, is that something like a Germane accent I hear?”

Gathaga perked up. “Oh, ja! I am from ze Barony Of Affrenkfass, or ze Gerzmankey Barrelny as you ponies call it, as it is fery close to Germane.”

“Really?” Rarity leaned in with interest. “What part of Gerzmankey did you come from?”

“Vell,” Gathaga looked thoughtful, her dexterous paws idly playing with the gears and tools on her vest. “Before I am comink here to Equestria, I am liifink in Kastle Chimpenbach, zat is vere I am first starting letters with mysterious colleague zat turns out to be Cee-lestia. But originally I am just gizmonk from Monkanisberg.”

“Well, Monkanisberg, that’s your hometown. What’s that like?”

“Oh, it vas-” Gathaga blinked and looked at Rarity. “I am sorry, fraulein, I has never got your name.”

Rarity covered her mouth to laugh. “Ohoho! No need to be sorry! Really, how rude of me, I never gave you my name. I am Rarity.”

“Fraulein Rarity-”

Rarity waved a hoof. “Oh, please, just call me-”

Gathaga interrupted her right back, shoving one of her digits against Rarity’s mouth. “Fraulein Rarity, I am know vat you are doink and I am appreciate it, I am. But ze mare of my affection is in clear distress wiz somepony fery important to her und I cannot do anythink about it und I am not sure I vant to.”

“Um, pardon?”

Gathaga put her hand on her face, looking at Rarity between her fingers. “Ze beginnink of our courtship vas fraught wiz subterfuge und deception. I am knowink now vy she held so much back from me but at first I did not vant to keep beink vith her ven she told me ze truth und frankly I am quite pleased to see it bite her in ze flank once more.”

Rarity looked wide eyed and flabbergasted at the gizmonk. “Oh.”

Speaking of what’s going down between the oldest and youngest princess, let’s see how that’s going.

“You’re dating and you didn’t TELL ME!?” Twilight screamed.

Oh.

Author's Note

Gizmonks

I hardly consider anything here mine, even the characters I technically made-up whole cloth. If you see anything in here you really like and wanna reuse for your own writing, go for it, I'd be thrilled.