Evening Star Also Rises

by Starscribe

Rating: teen
Tags: Science Fiction, Starswirl the Bearded, Profanity, Adventure, Violence, Princess Celestia, Alternate Universe, Human, Princess Luna, Drama, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic
Length: 141084

Princess Luna is tired of living in her sister's shadow. She petitions Starswirl for help, and what she receives is far from what anypony expected. The real question is whether Equestria will survive her mistake.

Princess Luna is supposed to be her sister's equal. She watches over 12 of every 24 hours, after all. But she isn't, and everybody knows it. Equestria adores the one who brings warm, sunny days, and ponies sleep through her nights. Even her sister sometimes seems to forget that she's supposed to be one of Equestria's ruling diarchs.

Luna seeks help from the only pony she thinks can make a difference: Star Swirl the Bearded. He provides a spell, one she can use to change herself into the pony she wants to be.

Unfortunately for her (and the rest of Equestria), things don't go quite as expected.

Updates Wednesdays, though it may update a little quicker at first as the Fimfiction version of this story catches up to the one posted on Patreon. Cover by Zutcha, as always. These just keep getting better, don't they?

This is a Patreon-sponsored story, written for Aurora Gleam. So tremendous thanks to them for making this adventure possible.

Published 2017-08-02 13:00:06 UTC
Last updated 2018-08-29 16:58:46 UTC

Chapter 1: Demonic Meeting

Hayden was slow to wake, in the cold and the dark. His memory was a mess, and what he did remember just didn't make any sense. His weekend hikes were always an adventure, even though he was walking trails he had visited many times before. He remembered the voice, a voice that came from his earbuds over the music he'd been listening to. It hadn't been a call—that was the first thing he'd checked. There was no service in Denver’s mountains. That was the whole reason he came out in the first place.

Then the sky opened. He had tried to hold onto the mountain, tried to fight the surge of gravity ripping him up into the air. But it hadn't worked—the whole hillside had come too. Every tree, every rock, everything. Then came pain, pressure from all sides, and darkness.

But Hayden could tell it hadn't been a dream from the aches he felt from every joint, every bone, every sinew. When he tried to move, his whole body responded with a surge of agonized pressure from all over. He tried something simpler, just opening his eyes.

That worked better. There was cloth nearby, and something soft under his back. His whole body was surrounded by the same fabric, or at least it felt that way. As his mind returned to wakefulness, he began to notice other details. Something dark and soft-looking seemed to be right in front of his face, like he'd been tied with a mask he couldn't quite feel.

Come to think of it, he couldn't feel any of his clothes. He couldn't feel anything but what was clearly a bed, and had a hard time seeing much past that. He had obviously lost his glasses in whatever disaster brought him here. But exactly what was that? Was I kidnapped? What would be the point? Hayden was nobody—another cog in the machine. He didn't have any family in the city who might've made enemies. He wasn't involved with politics or religion. He wasn't even rich.

Maybe this is a hospital. Somebody saved me, brought me here. That might explain why my hands feel numb.

Hayden lay in bed for another few minutes, hoping that some of the strange things he was feeling would sort themselves out. He could feel too many limbs, couldn't feel other things he had known to expect, and there was far too much hair. Whatever he was seeing was obviously wrong. Unfortunately, what he was seeing didn't seem to change as he watched.

Eventually, he resolved to get up. If I've been drugged, I can at least ask a nurse what they gave me. Call… Who? He didn't have anyone to call. Elizabeth had moved out last weekend, she wouldn't want to hear from him "If you're the fucking last man on Earth." Maybe he could call the police. Assuming the authorities hadn't been the ones to rescue him in the first place.

Hayden stretched his neck, then sat up. The sheets fell away from beneath him as he did so, his body finally responding more the way he expected. Well, parts of it did. Even as his head lifted from the bed, another limb extended from somewhere behind him, pushing his skin against a mountain of soft pillows. But it wasn't enough to stop him from getting up, and finally getting a good look down. Even without his glasses, he could see a few feet before the world turned into a blurry mess.

What he saw made no sense. There was something furry in the bed here, himself. The body beneath him had grey fur, and stumpy legs instead of arms. The belly vanishing under the sheets didn't look even remotely like it should have, and when he moved his arms and legs both didn't bend the way he remembered.

He couldn't help it: he screamed. The shout of confusion and rage came out more like a high-pitched "eeeeeeeee!" much too high to be his own voice. He jerked, tumbling and bouncing off the side of the bed. He bounced several times, before landing with a thump on the ground.

It hurt, but mostly just his pride. He couldn't remember a day when he'd been flexible enough to bend the way he had as he fell, landing with his butt above his head and long yellow and white hair trailing in front of his mouth. He fell sideways with a moan of pain and frustration, trying to rise. But instead of get up, he only flopped about on the floor, his spine refusing to bend as he instructed when he tried to stand.

"I anticipated you would be... somewhat more coordinated," said a voice from over his head. It was surprisingly close, close enough that it could've been mixed in with the blurs of the rest of the room without him noticing. Close enough that it had probably watched him fall out of the bed, and was looking at his bare ass right now.

He turned to face the speaker, who was advancing on him. Close enough that they had resolved into a dark blue outline. Not a person, exactly—they were far too long, and not nearly tall enough. But they talked like a person. "Where am I?" he asked, finding his voice came out even higher and more terrified than before. It was even higher than the distinctly-female speaker. "What drugs did you give me?"

"Relax," the speaker commanded. Something seemed to wrap around Hayden from all sides, moving his limbs without his command. He felt himself move as though a gigantic hand had lifted him right up, and turned him so the ground was beneath all four of his limbs. It lowered him gently back to the ground, and his legs tightened by reflex, holding him in a standing position. "The transit changed you. I do not know if adapting to those changes will be difficult. But if we are to communicate, you must be calm. Can you do that?"

He thought about screaming and trying to run away, but not for long. He nodded. "Y-yeah."

"Good." the speaker stepped close enough that he could make her out even without glasses. She looked a little like a horse, a horse with blue fur and a darker blue mane with faint lights in it. Despite her distinctly alien body, Hayden could detect hints of sympathy in the way she looked at him. "My name is Luna. You should be loneliness, introvertedness, reclusiveness. You should be my fear of the reactions of other ponies. You should be, but I suspect you are not."

Hayden nodded vigorously. "I'm... Hayden Powell," he answered, his voice more like a terrified freshman-age sorority-sister. Certainly not the way it was supposed to sound. "I don't know what the hell the rest of that was. I guess I'm introverted? Maybe I was lonely..." He shook his head vigorously, causing more of that long hair to go cascading around him, covering up his eyes. Well, maybe it wasn't hair. If he looked anything like "Luna," it was probably a mane. Matches with everything else I've seen so far. I must be what she is, only smaller. "Where the fuck am I? What's wrong with my body, with m-my voice?" His limbs had started to shake, and he very nearly fell over again. It took everything he had just to stay standing, and look this creature in the eye.

"I will have to consult Star Swirl." She sighed, turning away. "His examination may prove more fruitful." Something yanked Hayden on one side, pulling on something that shouldn't be there. One of the too-many limbs he had. It stretched out longer than one of his legs. At least it wasn't covered in fur like the rest of him. "I can't imagine why you would look this way. You're like one of my worst nightmares, come to life. Frightful wings, predatory eyes, pointed teeth..." She shook her head. "Are you certain you aren't a monster spawned of the abyss, come to spread chaos everywhere you walk?"

"Am I..." Hayden trailed off, speechless. "That is the fucking dumbest thing I've ever heard, Luna. If I was whatever that is... would I tell you?" He backed away, or at least tried. He managed to make it a few steps without falling over. "Look... I don't know where I am, I don't know why I'm here. But you need to send me home. Wherever you got me from, just pop the reverse and zip me back, and this can all work out." He didn't have his gun on hand... or any hands to fire it with, but that didn't mean he was just going to give up.

"I will speak with Starswirl. His studies of goetic magic are more extensive than anypony in all Equestria. If a solution can be found..." She trailed off, lowering her voice suddenly. "Until that time, it would be wise to leave you somewhere you will not be discovered. My sister would be somewhat... disturbed... to find you. I can't imagine what she might do, if she knew you were a creation of summoning spells... but I suspect it would end with seeing you banished to Tartarus, or worse." She turned away, flicking her tail through the air in a gesture Hayden thought was nervous. It was hard to be sure what a giant talking horse was feeling. "Celestia never visits my chambers. I don't have any servants, so... so long as you remain here, you should be safe."

"You're just going to..." Hayden stammered, trying to find the words that would make this creature let him go. Of course, nothing she had said made any sense. Magical thinking was nothing new even from the people he had known back home, but something that could physically bring him to another world certainly was. At least, he hoped this was another world. He didn't want to think about what any of his friends might've thought if they had seen him. "Could you at least give me my stuff back while I wait? I'm so nearsighted I'm almost blind without my glasses. Where'd they go?"

"Oh." Luna strode past him, hooves clopping faintly on the carpet with each step. "Certainly, 'Hayden.' Your possessions are all secure. Please explain what a 'glasses' looks like, and I will try to find it for you."

"Explain what..." Hayden swore under his breath, trying to follow Luna across the room. He could feel the carpet change to tile, and see that wherever he was standing was obviously gigantic, because there were no walls other than the bed behind him. "They're glasses. You know, like... what people wear when their prescription is too bad for contacts but they can't afford LASIK?" Luna did not look as though she were making sense of what Hayden was explaining, so he continued. "Black plastic frames, clear glass lenses as thick as coke bottles. About this big." He held up one hand to try and show the dimensions—but of course he didn't have a hand, and he nearly fell over.

"Ah. I think they may've been damaged. Hold on, I know a spell for fixing broken glass."

"Don't do anything to my damn—" There was a flash of light. The light blurred like everything else, and might very well have been someone turning on a light in a nearby room. Anything that far away was impossible to tell apart for sure, particularly when he was in a new place and didn't know the details of his surroundings. "What the hell did you do to my..." Something was zooming towards him, something with a fuzzy blue glow around the edges. It was his glasses, apparently flying through the air.

They landed on his face, and for a second the whole world came into focus. Hayden wasn't standing in a blurry Van Gogh, but an opulent tower with stone walls, crystal chandeliers, and dark wood furnishings.

Unfortunately the glasses were no longer the correct size— they were positively gigantic,as though he was a small child who'd stolen a parent's glasses. They also weren't curved to match the shape of his face, so they didn't actually cover his eyes all the way. Almost the instant they'd been set on his face, they went tumbling to one side.

"Oh, uh... apologies. It appears the... transition did not affect inanimate matter. Perhaps if I..."

Hayden jumped backward as the inexplicable glow returned, this time only a few inches away from his legs. It was close enough to see clearly—his glasses hovering in midair, entirely unsupported, appeared to be contracting, bending and shrinking without snapping. Neither plastic or glass should've been strong enough to resist such pressure. Both did, and soon enough he felt the same pressure on his face. This time it was familiar, the light touch of plastic on the bridge of his nose, though there was nothing to hold it to his ears. Still, they'd been curved so much more they seemed to be staying on this time. The lenses were also the right size, instead of being gigantic hunks of glass that extended well beyond where they needed to in order to help him see.

"Oh." He settled back, sitting down without meaning to. The front of his body was still higher than the back, a little like a dog sitting down. "Thanks. That's... that's much better."

Now it didn't matter that Luna was standing more than five feet away—Hayden could still get a good look at her. When he did, he felt himself wishing just a little that he hadn't been able to see her so clearly. She was taller all right, broader of build and thicker too. She had enormous wings folded against her sides, covered with feathers as fluffy and broad as a swawn's. Not only that, but she had a horn on her head, extending well over a foot to end in a spiraling pointed tip.

Strangest of all though, was the mane. It was like looking at a planetarium light show, but printed onto one of those experimental flexible clear displays and woven into someone's hair. Stars twinkled, moved like the animal mane was not hair, but instead the chilling depths of space. How could something that looked like this be alive?

She didn't get a chance to ask. As the first rays of sun beamed slowly through the stained glass window, Luna practically jumped with surprise. "My sister will be expecting me! I must go, Hayden. Please, for your own sake, do not attempt to escape my tower. If you are discovered..." She didn't wait another moment, just vanished with a faint pop, the space she'd been standing in suddenly empty.

Hayden opened his mouth to argue, to swear, or to shout. Then he dropped to the ground in the empty room, and cried instead. He didn't have the energy left for anything else.

Chapter 2: Nightbreeze

There was nothing wrong with crying, except that it was a total waste of time. Hayden stopped crying, wiped away the remaining moisture from his face, then set about exploring his surroundings. So, he was a captive—he could at least learn more about his captors. Maybe that would help him negotiate for his release.

Besides, having glasses meant he could see where he’d been imprisoned, could take in details that he might’ve missed when everything was a blur. And what a prison it was.

On the one hand, it looked like something out of medieval history. Uneven stone blocks were held together with thick globs of mortar, the windows were small and the glass pooled near the bottom. Yet on the other hand, there was more luxury here than anywhere he’d seen in his life. Tapestries hung on the walls looked like they’d been hand-woven by master artisans, depicting the stars of the night in intimate detail. Hayden went to stand in front of that one first, searching for the details of familiar constellations. It seemed a little like he could see them, but whenever he concentrated, the details were always wrong.

Everything in the room looked like it had been made by hand, with so many gemstones inlaid into common objects like tables and chairs that he couldn’t even imagine how rich Luna must be. “Makes sense…” he muttered to himself, though still his voice sounded incorrect. Sooner or later he would have to be honest about what that implied, but not just yet. “Someone with the resources to experiment is always wealthy. It wouldn’t be the poor.”

Moons, stars, and other heavenly bodies were a clear design motif of everything in the tower, with a spiral staircase wrapping around the edge of the room and leading up. Hayden ascended the steps slowly, having to concentrate on every step he took with his hooves, lest he fall and go bouncing down the sides. Whoever had built this tower had done their best to make it as elegant as possible, but there was no mistaking the fasteners from his architect’s eye. Nothing more than iron beams, driven into the stone walls then covered over with plaster. All evidence points to middle ages.

But what was he supposed to make of everything else he’d seen? The least of which was the simplest—his new body. No human power could create an illusion this complete. He’d tried VR, and it could show some impressive things. But it couldn’t create sensations for limbs that weren’t supposed to be there. It couldn’t convince him he was really a naked horse without any limbs. It couldn’t simulate feeling in membranous bat-wings that flexed and moved at his command, and sensed the slight perturbations in the air.

What am I? What was Luna?

He reached the top of the tower, and pushed a little door open. It was dawn outside, and his eyes burned at the sudden illumination. He hadn’t noticed just how dark the tower had been, letting in only shafts of light.

Even after adjusting for a few seconds, a mild discomfort persisted until the transition lenses in his glasses finally darkened. Then he could walk away from the tower, walking out to survey the world all around. Probably not the best for staying hidden. I’ll only take a quick look. Luna had sounded sincere when she said Hayden’s life was in jeopardy.

Hayden was standing atop the second-tallest tower in a massive castle, made from the same creamy white stone as the interior. Its buttressed battlements and exterior walls blended seamlessly with a city further out, one surrounded by the trees of a thick forest. As he looked out, the thatch roofed wooden buildings eventually gave way to the end of the forest, and rolling plains.

Everything he saw suggested a society somewhere equivalent to the high middle ages. There were wooden carts drawn by horses, or at least creatures that looked like horses. But I guess I look like one too, so those might just be people. Despite the fresh smell of the forest, he could detect far less pleasant odors in the city below. Manure from poor sanitation, smoke from hundreds of cooking fires, and worse.

This isn’t Earth, he thought, looking out at the forest beyond, though the trees were so distant that he couldn’t make out specific details.Of course, it wasn’t as though he’d needed to come out here to know he wasn’t on Earth anymore. If there had been aliens like this anywhere on his planet, he would’ve known about it. Unless this is the past, or the future, or… no, stop being stupid. He didn’t have the information to speculate about any of that, not when he was looking out on a world like this.

There were objects here atop the balcony, objects he hadn’t noticed as he stared at the city. A table sat beside the building, with a book beside it. The book was open to another star map, with the look of something crafted only after many hours. There was no telescope, though. It would be a pain to write all of this by hand. But they didn’t seem to know about glasses, so they probably don’t know anything about optics.

But there were other towers, and at least one of them was taller than this one. There were soldiers walking along balconies and battlements, and some might be able to see him. So, he turned, tail flicking about in the wind behind him as he hurried away from the balcony and back through the still-open doorway. There were more important things to do than stare dumbly off into the distance, waiting to be discovered by whichever guard happened to look up.

“It doesn’t make sense for this to be an alien planet…” he muttered to himself, as he walked back down the stairs to the opulent bedroom. “They wouldn’t speak English, but Luna understood me fine. Unless there was more ‘magic’ for that.” But there hadn’t been any sign it was. “How would I even know… how could I know anything about this place?” He slowed as he wandered down the stairs, hearing someone rummaging about on the ground below. Had Luna returned so quickly?

Then he heard something familiar: his phone started playing music again. A classic Foreigner piece, the one he’d been listening to while he was hiking. Only he didn’t have headphones plugged in anymore, so it just came out through the speakers. Even from a distance he could pick out the tune, as well as its exact direction. The pile of junk towards the back of the room.

Someone squeaked in fear, and hurried away from the sound, retreating towards the massive entrance. But Hayden wasn’t about to let that happen. Whoever this was had seen her belongings, was at this very moment listening to Mick Jones instructing them to carry on. They couldn’t get away with that knowledge if it would mean discovery for Hayden.

Hayden jumped off the edge of the stairs. There was no railing, so it was easy to do. Without knowing what he was doing, or even how he was doing it, he extended his wings, gliding straight down towards the doorway. It was a drop of nearly fifty feet, so it was a good thing his wings worked. He went soaring over the head of another of the quadrupedal creatures, landing at a staggered trot that took him thumping the rest of the way towards the door.

What the hell am I doing? He very nearly fell over at the mere thought, his head suddenly spinning. Jumped off a balcony over a sheer drop to a stone floor? He didn’t fall over though, and skidded to a stop a few inches from the door right as Jones suggested that he shouldn’t cry anymore.

“I beg the princess’s indulgence!” squeaked a tiny, terrified voice. “I had no idea she was in her chambers! She is always at breakfast during this early hour, or else I would’ve chosen another time…” She trailed off, about the same moment Hayden finally managed to turn himself around and face her.

This was one of the aliens all-right, though she was a little shorter than Hayden and much more brightly colored. Blue and yellow to be precise, with a pattern of green dots playing through her mane. It would’ve been cute on a child’s doll, or maybe a creature in a petting zoo. Not so much on an animal that was almost Hayden’s own size, wearing a dress that was unmistakably a maid’s uniform with little openings for her brightly-colored wings. It was even marked with little moons, just like some of the furniture in the bedroom. One of her servants then.

“You aren’t the princess…” she muttered, looking down again. “Forgive me, noble lady, I did not know the princess had a guest at this early hour.”

“Noble lady,” Hayden repeated, annoyed. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He turned, walking away from the servant and back over to the pile of his belongings. It was apparent someone had gone through it while he was unconscious, because the backpack was completely empty. His camping gear was all over the ground, and sorted into configurations suggesting whoever had gone through it had no idea what they were doing. His folding solar charger was resting next to the camp pillow like a tiny blanket, while his straight-razor and toothbrush were placed alongside the portable kitchen. A few items, like the handgun, were conspicuously absent.

Of course, just because he could walk to the phone didn’t mean he could turn it off. He reached down and touched it with a hoof. “Okay google, pause the music,” he said. Nothing happened. Of course, it’s only supposed to listen to my voice. I don’t sound like myself.

The maid didn’t take her chance to escape while Hayden was distracted, instead following him across the floor. “Y-you aren’t?” Her ears flattened, and Hayden could even detect a slight change in her scent. Very subtle. “A… consort… then? Those wings of yours are most exotic… what kind of magic are you using to hide the feathers? I didn’t know—”

“I’m not a concubine,” he said firmly, stomping one hoof on the ground. Hard enough that it hurt. Then the guitar solo started.

“Is the spell connected to that awful noise?” the maid asked, crowding a little closer. She seemed to grow more relaxed the lower Hayden explained his status to be. “Silencing it will remove it, yes?”

Hayden struggled to draw the locked pattern, and failed. Eventually he gave up, bracing the phone against one hoof and touching the volume-down buttons with the other until it went silent. Then he looked up. “Luna called it a spell, whoever you are. But I don’t know how it works. I don’t know the first thing about magic.”

“Oh, of course.” She waved one hoof through the air, giving Hayden a knowing wink. “Alicorns are powerful creatures, it can be an adjustment living with them. You must be quite close, to permit such a spell to be used on yourself for…” She glanced back at Hayden’s rear, eyes narrowing. “Such purposes. But why wouldn’t she have mentioned you to me? If she had a concubine…”

“I’m not!” he shouted, stomping one hoof again and huffing angrily. “Whatever that is, I’m not. I’m just Hayden. Someone who doesn’t want to be here, doesn’t belong here, and wants to escape as quickly as possible.”

“‘Jest Haydon,’ I’m Nightbreeze. Steward of Princess Luna. If you are remaining here with us even for a day, it will be my pleasure to serve you as well. Does the lady require a bath to be drawn, or perhaps—”

“No,” Hayden said, his voice firm. “I am not a lady, I don’t need a bath… I don’t need a steward here at all. But I also don’t need you telling anyone about me! Luna was very clear about that… no one is supposed to know…” He paused, thinking. “Wait, if you’re her steward, you can tell me—has she brought anyone here from another world before?”

“Has she…” Nightbreeze blushed. “Well, who am I to speak of the princess’s interests? I suppose a dragon may’ve found their way through these halls… Why is that your business?”

“No,” he grunted, sitting down on the ground and looking away. “Whatever. Thanks for…” he waved towards the door. “Just don’t tell anyone you saw me.”

“I shall inquire of her majesty before I do so,” she said, before prancing away towards the door. “Feel free to ring the bell if you change your mind, Jest. Somepony will be here for you. No guest of the princess need be a stranger in her house, no matter her station.” She left, shutting the door behind her.

Hayden immediately got to his hooves and started looking for a mirror.

Author's Note

And with that, this story is now current with the Patreon. Sadly, that means updates will slow to once weekly (on Wednesdays) until its completion. Still, I'm excited to see where this story goes! Thanks for joining me on this little starting section.

Chapter 3: Star

Hayden’s search for a mirror paid dividends in very short order. The tower had a bathroom, though like everything else it was built to a medieval standard. That meant it was part of the same room as the bedroom, with a woven screen to separate it and nothing else. The rest of the facilities were… similarly primitive, betraying an underlying ignorance of sanitation and hygiene.

What I could do with a handful of general contractors and a trip to the Home Depot… but there were no general contractors here. There was no sign at all of anything human.

At least they still had mirrors. Unfortunately for Hayden, being in front of a mirror confirmed everything he had feared. To some extent he had been able to feel much of what he was seeing, but the body was so alien he hadn’t been able to reconcile what he was feeling with his suspicions. Now, though… Hayden’s imagination was satisfied in painful detail.

As if she had needed more reasons to curse Luna for this magic, and to wish for speedy return to her home. Denver wasn’t a perfect place to live, but it was better than the damn horse middle ages. Even the unexplained things she’d seen—the ability to change bodies completely, or float objects through the air, or transport between worlds. All those things were interesting, and would’ve changed her view of the universe forever.

If she had still been herself. If she’d still been herself, this might be an opportunity. Hayden hadn’t worked for a prestigious firm, she’d done grunt work designing civil buildings for the city and barely making enough to live on. What she knew about design might be able to make a real difference in a world where royalty didn’t even have running water.

But instead I’m this. Hopefully Luna can send me home like she promised.

She didn’t send Hayden home that day.

Luna did return in later afternoon, accompanied by another alien. This one was shorter than she was, though also more thickly built, and with a distinctly masculine smell to him. As though Hayden needed any more convincing that these creatures did use the standard mammalian model, and she was in fact now completely misplaced within that model.

The alien had pale fur and a mane that seemed white more as a matter of age than color. His body was a little shriveled in ways the others hadn’t been, suggesting far greater age. He had a horn like Luna did, but no wings. He walked with a slight limp with his right foreleg, though despite the many steps outside the door he had apparently made it up without issue.

“Ah, Hayden,” Luna said, hurrying across the room. “I hope you’ve been well in my absence. Haven’t tried to escape into the castle, that’s good. This will be better for both of us if you remain cooperative.”

Hayden was still in the bathroom, but she walked away from the tile to meet Luna in the center of the room, on the carpet. “Is this guy going to send me home?” she asked, nodding towards the stallion. “I’ll cooperate with anything you like if that’s what he’s here to do. I have work tomorrow, and I can’t miss it. Skyrise is really strict with their vacation days.”

“Return you home…” the male said, walking up beside Hayden and looking her over. “I see she speaks our language. And appears much like any other mare.” Hayden felt something tickle the edge of one of her wings, like a pair of invisible fingers gently pulling it open. She resisted the desire to jerk away, afraid that doing so might snap her weak bones.

The stranger extended the wing all the way, looking at her wings through the light streaming in from the window. “Well, almost like any other mare. Some of these mutations are entirely unique. Are you certain you weren’t trying to create them, Princess?”

“Entirely certain,” Luna said, her voice glum. “I was trying to summon a goetic demon, Star Swirl. Hayden here is clearly not that. She has her own identity, her own possessions, and apparently a culture and history—”

“Oh, I wouldn’t be so confident of that.” Whatever was holding Hayden’s wing finally let go, and she folded it quickly to her side.

“Excuse me—I’m right here. Please don’t talk about me like this is some laboratory experiment.” That silenced Star Swirl, who stared at her with an expression of mild surprise. “I have a home I want to go back to, whoever you are. A fam— a life, anyway. It wasn’t awesome, but it was mine, and I worked hard to have it. The sooner you can send me back where I belong, the better.”

“Hmm.” Star Swirl stared at her again. A faint glow emanated from the horn on his head, though this time Hayden didn’t feel anything but a general, diffuse warmth throughout her entire body. “I will admit, the mental faculties seem somewhat more advanced than other attempts I have studied. But… Hayden, you said? Other than her behavior and mental abilities, everything suggests the spell worked.”

“Excuse me?” Luna said, pointing at Hayden with one exaggerated hoof. “This isn’t what you described at all!”

The stallion bowed. “Forgive me princess, but this is exactly what I described. Tell me… aside from questioning this creature, have you examined her pattern?”

Luna blinked, looked back at Star Swirl, and then her horn began to glow as well. This time Hayden could feel it, like a low-level electric charge passing through her whole body. It was what she imagined airport x-ray scanners to be like, except of course there was no way to feel those. This, though…

Star Swirl must be her teacher. Her… magic teacher? If he’s better at this than she is.

“Oh.” Luna’s horn stopped glowing. “It did work? But… but her possessions! Her manner of speech… how is this possible?”

“Excuse me,” Hayden said again, a little louder this time. She spread her wings as she spoke, making herself look bigger. “Can someone please tell me what the hell you’re talking about? Is this ‘goetic demon’ a technique to send me home? Maybe a machine you’re hiding somewhere?”

They both stared at her. Luna seemed annoyed, but Star Swirl… he seemed to be seeing her for the first time. Or maybe this was just the first time he’d met her eyes. “You aren’t a person on your own, pony Hayden. Princess Luna wanted to create something… a piece of herself she could use to improve her own nature. It appears one of two things has taken place. Either she brought a being from another world and transformed you into her demon, or else the spell worked as intended and we do not know the internal worlds as well as we thought we did.”

“Is that possible, Star Swirl?” Luna asked, staring at Hayden again. “She’s so lifelike. So intelligent… and the objects she brought didn’t fade as you suggested they would.”

He shrugged. “It defies the rules of the Orinos as I understood them. But we have no record of this magic from the Alicorns. It is possible this effect is natural for you. Maybe Alicorn souls are more… real… than the rest of ours. Who can say?”

“I can,” Hayden said, stomping one hoof. “I am from a planet called Earth. My people are called humans—we walk on two legs, and we’re a damn sight more advanced than this.” She gestured at the building all around them. “You’ve kidnapped me. My world will not be happy about it when they discover I’m gone.” Of course, Hayden mostly meant that his boss would be pissed when he didn’t come into work tomorrow, then probably fire him when he failed to answer his phone. The police would be called, and eventually someone would find his car parked at the trailhead. Maybe they’d find the mountainside ripped right off the cliff. But even if they did, what would they do about it?

“Remember everything I told you about a demon, Princess. Like it or not, this being has become exactly what I described. She represents those aspects you wished to excise from within yourself. If she dies, they will be destroyed. If she is changed, you will change.”

Luna began to pace back and forth in front of her, expression getting darker by the moment. “Don’t her threats worry you, Star Swirl? How many creatures could stand before an Alicorn and say such things? Maybe she is telling the truth—maybe these ‘humans’ are terrible enemies. We should return her.”

“Perhaps.” Star Swirl shrugged one shoulder. “But remember, she is made of your power. Why should an Alicorn be afraid of her reflection? She is you, Princess. Your power, your soul, and whatever else you were dredging up.”

“Loneliness,” Luna whispered. “Alienation, social ineptitude, cowardice.”

“Hey!” Hayden strode right up to Star Swirl, so that she was looking up into his face. Male or not, taller or not, she wasn’t afraid. She’d fight her way out if that was the only option left to her. “I’m not asking whether you want to send me home. I’m telling you, send me home. Or I swear, you’ll live to regret it.”

Star Swirl laughed. “Social ineptitude, princess? Perhaps. But hardly cowardice. Clearly you weren’t as afraid as you thought.”

Luna sat down on her haunches, watching Hayden again. Her eyes had gone cold and calculating. Not the least bit intimidated by Hayden’s anger, or moved by her threats. “Suppose she is correct, Star Swirl. Can she be returned to her world? I must have done the spell wrong in that case… she could be from anywhere. How would we find it if her only sympathetic connections are to me?”

Star Swirl nodded towards the pile of junk. “She might be a part of you, Princess, but these objects are not. Their survival in this world means they come from a strong realm. If even one of them has a connection to another person, it could be followed back. Otherwise… a search of the multiverse would be doomed to fail. You might wander for a thousand years and never find her home. Even if you found it, time might not move at the same speed. Without a tether to another soul, you’ll never find your way there.”

“And if we don’t send her back,” Luna continued. “The purpose of the spell would still function as you discussed. Even though she’s… like this?”

Star Swirl nodded again. “It could, Princess.”

“Very well.” Luna rose again. There was something regal in her motion, something stern in her eyes. For a second, Hayden thought she might sense some of the power Luna had described. She didn’t just have a horn, she was unlike every other pony here. Star Swirl’s “magic” might be better, but they had nothing on this. “Human creature called Hayden, I have made my decision. You wish to be returned to your world. I wish for something else. You will help me, and in exchange, I will try to send you back. Assuming you are not merely a figment of my spirit, destined to be destroyed and absorbed when your independence is removed.”

Hayden opened her mouth to argue, then she saw Luna’s face. Alien or not, there was clearly no arguing with her. So, she nodded. “That is fair, Luna.”

“Princess Luna,” she corrected. “While you are here, you will demonstrate proper respect to me in my own house. The others will not exempt you from our laws, so I must not.” She gestured to the wings. “Star Swirl, she looks like a monster. Do you have a spell for that?”

He laughed again, as jovial as he had before. “Forgive me Princess, but I have never encountered anyone quite like this.” Hayden felt a brief surge of intense pain from her head, and a few hairs from her mane came loose, drifting through the air towards Star Swirl. “There, now I have samples. It may take some time, however. Perhaps you should bring the master clothier. Or… perhaps a costumier. Were it not for her wings, she might pass for a pegasus. So long as she doesn’t smile.”

Chapter 4: Settling In

Hayden looked in, surveying her new living quarters. Her wings twitched a little as she did so, betraying some of her worry that this might be a trick. How easily would it be to trick her into a cell, where she could be locked away and made to be quiet. They still hadn’t given her back her gun, which hardly filled her with trust.

But it wasn’t a cell, didn’t seem to have a lock at all in fact. In terms of living quarters, Hayden would’ve compared it with an upscale hotel… or at least an upscale hotel in an extremely backwards country. There was no running water, nothing more than a wooden tub and an opening in the wall for those sorts of things.

But the rest of the room was spacious. An ample workspace, one she could use for drafting or building or anything else that captured her interest. The bed wasn’t a sprawling four-poster that could sleep six, but it looked comfortable and luxurious. It might not have glowing chandeliers filled with magic lights, but it did have a single window and lots of sconces with unlit, fresh-looking candles.

“Congratulations, Hayden, you’re now the first of my ladies in waiting. The only lady in waiting I’ve ever taken, as it happens.” She pawed at the stone floor, ears flattening to her head as she spoke. “I may have to take others now, as a matter of course. My sister has dozens.”

Hayden fidgeted, wanting to scratch at the fake feathered wings she wore over her real ones. Perhaps helpfully (or perhaps as a curse) she had no fingers to untie the ropes that kept them bound to her. It took one of the aliens to attach them, or remove them. “And… and this is where I’ll live?” she asked, making her nervous way into the room. Looking at the back, she could see walls and walls of bookshelves stacked on top of each other and rising at least fifty feet into the air. This room wasn’t in the same tower, but it apparently took advantage of similar architecture.

Behind her came a slow procession of aliens. Well… this was their planet, so she should probably start using the correct word. Ponies. These didn’t have wings or horns, but still they managed to balance Hayden’s things on their backs with ease, stored in a few plain wooden boxes. They set them down in a small pile by the door, gently enough that even her glassware wouldn’t have broken.

“Indeed, Lady Hayden. I am dreadfully sorry to hear of your taking ill on the trip here.” That didn’t sound as much like concern as it was an order. “That you’ve taken so sick, in fact, you will see no pony but myself and healer until this condition of yours improves.”

“Condition?” Hayden asked, turning back to face the princess. “You mean—”

Luna gestured, and the servants who had brought her gear retreated without a word. The door glowed, and gently clicked closed. “We must practice your decorum,” Luna said, in a very quiet voice. “You must rehearse your story. It must convince the others at court, even my sister. Otherwise…” She shivered. “I don’t know that they would give Star Swirl a chance to explain. Perhaps Celestia would listen… but I doubt it. The others would likely attack you as a matter of honor, or throw you to the streets. That would… made integrating you into the court somewhat difficult.”

“I still don’t understand why you want me ‘integrated’ in the first place, Princess Luna,” Hayden hissed. “How is integrating me supposed to help you?”

“The magic is beyond you,” she said, pointing at the shelves. “You may study it, if you wish. Star Swirl selected each of these volumes while you were with the clothier. You… do know how to read, yes? You speak like one who is educated.”

The “clothier” had made her a pair of fake wings and not much else. There was apparently a dress on the way. Hayden still didn’t have the heart to point out how little wearing that interested her. Still hadn’t pointed out that she wasn’t supposed to be female at all. But given everyone’s assumptions, it was probably best to just let them keep assuming. Unless there’s magic for that too. She would never find out if she didn’t ask. But she didn’t want to ask today.

“Okay,” Hayden said, feeling as defeated as she sounded. “Yes, I know how to read. Pretty sure I’ve known that since I was like, four.” She shrugged, making her way over to the boxes and removing one of the lids. “Will you be more specific with your demands? Maybe if I knew what you wanted, I could learn it better. The sooner I get it figured out, the sooner you let me out.”

Luna walked past her, over to the window. The glass here was transparent, though uneven, allowing them to see out at the city below, along with all the verdant growth of the forest. It was hard to see where one ended and the next began. “I… don’t know.” She said, very quietly. “Hayden, you were brought here to help me with something. It’s… a delicate problem, one I have never spoken of to another pony before.”

“You need a doctor?” she asked. “I’m not a vet. I don’t know anything about ‘sensitive’ problems.”

Luna glared at her from across the room, eyes as cold as comets drifting in the void. “I see you are not ready to listen. We can discuss it another time, then.” She turned away, back towards the door. “Settle well, Hayden. My scribes are working as we speak to ‘research’ your history. They should deliver it to you by evening. It will be your responsibility to memorize it, and to begin your study of that.” She pointed up at the bookshelf. “Start with decorum, if you would. The court will eat you alive otherwise. Believe me, I remember.”

“Uh…” She turned, watching Luna as she walked away. “I’m a scholar, Princess. I don’t belong in a court.”

“Neither do I,” Luna muttered, as she made her way out. “That’s why you’re here.” She shut the door behind her. The thump echoed through Hayden’s vaulted space, with a sound of disturbing finality.

Hayden did not immediately start studying, as Luna had suggested. Instead she began removing her belongings from wooden crates, or at least the ones they’d let her keep. Almost everything was here, except for the weapons.

Hayden rolled her solar mat out in the window, and plugged her now-dead phone back into it. The intervening hours had made manipulating things without hands a little easier, though she still had to move slowly and deliberately with everything she did. She held the phone out towards the glass, watching the words “no service” with eager anticipation.

There was still a hope, however distant, that this might still be Earth somehow. If, maybe, she had been kidnapped, then subjected to who-knew what kinds of hallucinogenic drugs. Maybe she could use an object from her past to break free of the conditioning and escape. She could call the police, and they could come and take her away. A few hours in a hospital and maybe she could start thinking straight again. Even if she had suffered permanent brain damage, at least she wouldn’t give her kidnappers the satisfaction of having done anything with her.

But the status text didn’t change. It was instead joined by the “no GPS signal” icon. Not surprising either. There’s one thing I can do, she thought, thinking back to something she’d learned in high school. Cell phones could always dial emergency services, even if their own carrier did not have coverage. If anyone had a network on compatible bandwidths, the call would go through.

Hayden dialed, pressed speaker, and waited. There were a few seconds of silence, then it started to ring. It kept ringing for several minutes straight, not connecting. Hayden left it in the window, where she could still hear it, as she started unpacking the rest of her possessions. If the ponies won’t send me home, at least I can start making this place a home. She could still hear Star Swirl’s words in her ear, and she resisted the urge to start considering if any of her possessions would meet the requirement. Another day.

She set her sleeping bag atop the bed, though she wasn’t sure if it would make a difference. She opened her camp latrine supplies in the bathroom. She didn’t set up her tent indoors, though she was tempted. Except I might not fit through the doors. It wasn’t like she had ever gone camping with anyone else, so there was only room for one.

Her wireless speaker came last, joining the phone on the charging pad. It was still filling the solar with the sound of dialing, so she gave up on that for the moment. Maybe that means there was really a line. I’ll try again at a different time. But if she didn’t get some charging with the rest of the sun, she wouldn’t have her phone all night. That sounded almost as bad as being banished to a planet full of horses where she couldn’t even stay male.

By the time it was getting dark, someone knocked quietly on Hayden’s door, then pushed it open. Nightbreeze entered pushing a small tray in front of her, which had a large plate of food along with a brightly-lit candle.

Hayden looked up from the desk, where she’d been reading… from her now plus-sized Kindle. Granted everything of hers felt big now. “Lady Jest,” she said, inclining her head slightly to her. “I’m here with your supper, and light for the night if it pleases you.” She looked around the room, squinting. “Have you been sitting in the dark this entire time? There’s flint and tinder in the drawer!” She paused, watching Hayden with growing disquiet. “Those eyes… it wasn’t my imagination.”

Hayden blinked, finding she had to squint as well. The candle was an unwelcome addition to her quarters. Not when it was already so bright. Though… now that someone had pointed it out, the charging light had gone out on her phone, and only starlight came in through the window. That was curious. “I don’t know what you could be referring to,” Hayden said, her tone firm. She set the Kindle down on the table, not bothering to switch it off. The backlight could last for weeks, after all.

“Forgive a foolish servant,” Nightbreeze said, looking to one side. “I may not have understood the princess as well as she expected of me. When she suggested your condition was lasting… I didn’t know what that meant until now. I hope Star Swirl finds the cure quickly.”

“Yes, I… I would like that very much,” Hayden said, not sounding any surer than she had been before. “I guess you can light things up, sure. I must’ve just… adjusted to it, was all. And maybe then you can explain what you’ve brought me for dinner.” Even as she said it, she could feel her stomach rumbling deep in her chest. She could smell something delicious under that cover. Whatever it was, she wanted to rip the silver off and devour it right there.

“Certainly!” Nightbreeze took the candle-holder in her mouth, making her way along the outside of the room, and lighting each candle she passed. They took easily, crackling to life.

I wonder what animals they use to get the tallow. Probably not horses.

There was a small dining table near the window, and Hayden made her way over. She unrolled both sets of dining utensils and plastic tableware. She was never wishing she’d just happen to meet someone interesting on the trail, no sir. She hadn’t packed enough of one camp meal for two people either.

“I… don’t know what the noble lady is doing,” Nightbreeze began. “But you must not be thinking of inviting me to your table.” She pushed the wheeled tray over, lifting the cover and setting the single platter in front of Hayden. There were no utensils.

Duh. What am I supposed to use them with? “You don’t eat with me?” she asked, staring skeptically down at whatever it was Nightbreeze had brought. Vegetables in some sort of creamy broth, with crispy cooked grass on the side. It looked like hay, but obviously it couldn’t be hay.

She sniffed. It was hay.

“No!” Nightbreeze giggled. “I eat with the other servants, Lady Jest. I’m not fine enough for a meal like this.”

“It smells amazing,” Hayden agreed, sitting down awkwardly on the cushion. It wasn’t a chair exactly, though it did have a back of sorts, and that helped.

“If you think that, wait until you’re Luna’s guest at high table!” Nightbreeze exclaimed. “The smells that drift from there could feed a mare and four foals, I tell you.”

“Right,” Hayden said, looking awkwardly down at the food. Then she reached to the side and casually took a scoop with her spoon. She didn’t think about it at the time, just moved her hoof very carefully, brought it to her mouth, took a bite. It wasn’t as good as it smelled. It was better.

She had trouble identifying the different tastes involved—it was the sort of thing that richer people ate, who could afford fresher ingredients and a professional chef. The ponies obviously knew how to appeal to their own tastes.

“What is that?” Nightbreeze asked, staring down at the spoon with obvious interest. “You’re using a… like a ladle? Only… smaller. Silver?”

“Titanium,” she answered, slowing down. As she did so, she realized she had no idea what she was doing, and the spoon tumbled out of her grip and onto the table in front of her. How had she even been holding it in the first place? “Silver is heavy and it bends too easily. Titanium doesn’t. My second set is aluminum, though.” She pulled them closer with one hoof, so Nightbreeze could see. “Not as nice, but I didn’t have enough money for—”

“Celestia above.” Nightbreeze bowed again, lower than she ever had before. Almost as low as she had for Luna herself. “Forgive me, Lady Jest. I had no idea you came from a family of such high renown. I assumed because I did not know your name… clearly, I did not know the nobility of Equus as well as I thought I did. Please take no offence.”

“I… have no idea what you’re talking about.” Hayden reached over, pushing up on the pony’s shoulder to force her back into a standing position. “I just told you I couldn’t afford two sets of silverware, and now you’re bowing?”

“Aluminum,” she repeated, staring at the second set, scratched, and dented from many meals as it was. “Only Celestia herself can afford such wealth. Whatever nation sent you here… must be wealthy indeed. Where is House Jest from, anyway?”

“Luna hasn’t… Princess Luna hasn’t told you yet? I thought you were helping keep my secret.”

“I… yes, but… she just said you were from far away, and that I was to repeat the story she gave me whenever anypony asked after you. She didn’t say I wasn’t allowed to ask.”

“I’m from very far away,” Hayden said. “Another world. A world beyond your understanding. Well… I say that, but there’s lots here I don’t understand. So maybe don’t take it to the bank quite yet.”

“Remarkable.” Nightbreeze bowed again, retreating. “Forgive the interruption. I don’t mean to pry, Lady Jest. It is always my business to know everything I need about her grace’s guests to serve them better. This is the first time I have ever had one as exotic as you.”

Hayden wasn’t sure she liked her tone, so she just looked back to her food, focusing on the spoon again. But now that she was looking at it, she found making it move the right way was immensely difficult. It kept falling from her hoof, no matter how she tried to grip it. There was a little fleshy part in the center ringed by harder flesh, if she could just get it to prop the metal up against… but no luck. She gave up and set it back down.

“You’re forgiven,” Hayden said. “Just… please stop calling me that. Where I come from we really don’t believe in nobility. Everyone just called me Hayden, you should too.”

“Hay-don,” Nightbreeze repeated, fumbling the word in her mouth. “I will try, Lady, but your name is strange. The tongue is difficult for me. I don’t know how you can say it so well. You must be almost as experienced in your translation as the princess herself.” She bowed. “Forgive me for being so forward, lady. I will… leave you to your meal.” She did exactly that, so fast that Hayden couldn’t protest.

But in some ways, Hayden wasn’t upset to be alone. No one watching meant that she didn’t have to fight to use utensils her body was no longer suited for in order to keep up appearances of dignity.

No sooner was the pony gone than Hayden lowered her head to her plate and devoured everything on it. She couldn’t tell what was garnish and what wasn’t, and frankly she was too hungry to care. At least if she was a prisoner, she would be a well-fed prisoner. Small consolation that will be if I’m here for weeks and I don’t have a job when I get back. What would happen if she didn’t get back in time to pay rent?Would anyone even notice she was gone?

Those were questions for another time. For now, it was time for her to get as much rest as she could. Tomorrow she was going to have a lot of studying to do.

In a way, it’s an opportunity. Thousands of books about an alien culture, and I can somehow read them. If I ever get home, nobody’s going to believe a damn word I say. But that was a problem for future Hayden. Present Hayden got into bed and started struggling with her legs, searching for a comfortable position. There were none, not with fake feathers wrapped around her wings. That’s something to ask Nightbreeze about. I need to remember to get her help with that tomorrow. Assuming I’m not already gone by then.

But she’d seen Luna’s face. There was no chance this would be resolved that quickly. Whatever Luna really needed was buried deeper than could be extracted in a few hours.

Chapter 5: Contractor

A few days passed in uneventful study. Each day Luna would visit, asking about what she had learned and quizzing her at random. She kept trying to call emergency services, though each time there was nothing more than an endless ring.

Each day Hayden tried to learn when she might be going home, and each time she was rebuffed. She memorized a complex series of lies, which taken together would explain who she was and where she’d come from. Only her unique physical traits—slitted eyes, sharp teeth, and bat wings—wouldn’t be easily explained away via that method. At least her glasses were distracting enough that ponies could (hopefully) be made to believe that what they saw was caused by the glass. Hopefully.

There was no explaining away her wings, and nothing to do about her teeth except keep them covered.

The more Luna explained how it was going to work, the more it felt like a fool’s errand. “They aren’t going to believe I’m one of them!” she finally exclaimed, after her fifth day of studying. “I have every detail of that story memorized. Let’s pretend I get all these books memorized too. What does that do? I laugh at one joke, or eat something, and they see my teeth. Or maybe one of them sees me in the dark instead of bright light, and they catch a good look at my eyes. It won’t work! It’s too precarious!”

Princess Luna didn’t argue with her. She didn’t shout her rage at Hayden’s lack of respect, which she was constantly forgetting. “You’re probably right,” she eventually said, sitting down on her haunches, and staring down at the floor. “We might be able to fool one or two ponies in carefully-controlled conditions. But the court is anything but. That’s my problem. It’s easy to do what they want when you know what they expect. But you can never predict what that’s going to be. Every day is a new challenge, and the rules change so fast. Faster than I can keep up. That’s my sister’s gift, not mine. But… Star Swirl should have a spell for you soon. Something you can wear that will hide you from observation. The court is already abuzz with you. Everypony wants to meet you. We can’t just take you away now. It might be worse for me than if the court saw you were a monster.”

“I’m not!” she shouted, slamming the book closed in front of her with one wing. “I look almost exactly like you do. I don’t fly around sucking blood, I don’t haunt crypts or chase kids around with chainsaws. Why would your people think I was a monster?”

Luna chuckled. “I don’t know what most of that meant… but your question has the same answer either way. You look and act differently than they do. You’re not from the herd. That means you’re a monster. All I do is spend most of my nights awake, and yet to hear some of the sermons preached about me, you’d think I’ve sworn myself to Chaos Himself.”

“That’s stupid,” Hayden said. “You’re not serious.” She hesitated, but Luna’s expression didn’t change. “Woah, you’re serious.”

“Unfortunately,” she said, nodding. “Are not your ‘humans’ as closed-minded as ponies? Or are they a more enlightened race? I… did not see them well, when I brought you here. My chance to study was limited.”

“They’re…” Hayden paused, thinking. “We’ve had our superstitions over the years. Killed over them, a long time ago. I guess… I guess they’re still killing over them in some parts of the world.”

“Perhaps we are more alike than different, then. Ponies do not kill each other, but we have fought wars. Griffons, dragons, minotaurs… we have fought them all. And won, to Equestria’s great pride. But when the battles are over, and the swords begin to rust, there are those among us who itch for enemies. I suppose I fill that role for some ponies. Night is a frightening thing—too dark to see in without a light, where in days long ago we feared teeth and claws coming for our foals. Some of that memory must remain.”

It was her turn to shrug. “Would you… mind telling me what you want me to do, Princess? It must have something to do with integrating me into the court. I’ll be able to do it better if you explain. Then I can do it for you, you can send me home, and we’ll both be happy.”

She chuckled. “For now… continue your studies. I’m sorry, you’ve convinced me about the…” She gestured at her own eyes. “We will not be able to convince the nobility you are ordinary. Leaving this room must wait until then.”

“So I’m stuck,” she said, glumly. “Reading books in a tiny cell. I’m a prisoner.”

Luna nodded sadly. “It’s for your own safety, Human Hayden. I have done everything I could to make your time here comfortable. If there is anything else you require…”

“What about supplies?” She gestured at the “facilities” on the far side of the room. “I can do better than that shit. Just give me the tools… doing something physical would be good practice for moving around, and it would give me something to do to work off the stress of being trapped here. Like… prison pushups. Only they end with indoor plumbing.”

“Indoor… plumbing,” Luna said, her voice growing distant. She stared out the window again, eyes losing focus. “Metal tubes that produce hot and cold water on demand.”

“Yes!” Hayden exclaimed, hurrying over to her and looking up into Luna’s face. “That’s exactly what I mean! Have you seen it before? Are there humans somewhere on this planet?”

“No.” Luna turned abruptly, ears flattening to her head. “I was just remembering… when I was younger, I…” She shook her head. “It is nothing. Deliver your list to my steward. Nightbreeze will provide you with anything you require. So long as it doesn’t involve digging your way through the wall.”

So that was what she did. Learning that she might not leave at all until someone had invented a new kind of “magic” to hide what she looked like was more than a little depressing, but at least she had something to distract herself with. Having a project she was excited about could make even a bleak few weeks feel interesting. Her bedroom was… an extremely desperate project.

Fortunately she had a whole lifetime of experience to work with. Hayden had spent years doing general contract work. She’d put in walls, done basic plumbing and electricity. Everything she would need for a project like this. Assuming she’d been in her own world, with access to a home improvement store. Without the supplies, she soon discovered she would have to reinvent a great many wheels.

Princess Luna would only permit so much of her time each day not be spent on studying, so that meant she had to use what time she did have as efficiently as possible. She drafted a basic design to give her bedroom running water—a design that began with a gravity-fed tank on the floor above her, trickling down to a secondary tank over her fireplace (to be kept hot by the fire she kept burning all the time) which would feed a basic sink, toilet, and tub. Waste would still drain right out the castle walls as it had been doing (she couldn’t install sewer lines in the whole castle, after all), but water should hopefully make things slightly more sanitary than they had been.

She had no fasteners, no pipes, not even concrete.

At least Luna hadn’t been lying when she said she would give Hayden anything she asked for. That ended up including an enormous tub on the top floor to use as her tank, plus dozens and dozens of clay pipes fired in same kilns the castle used for making fine porcelain. She had to teach them a better recipe for mortar, and provide more designs for the sinks, faucets, and toilet.

Whenever possible, she did the manual labor herself. But she wasn’t very coordinated, even after weeks of practice. So she needed help, and that help often came from Nightbreeze. She was still the only pony permitted with her alone, other than the princess herself.

Hayden had done her best to prepare the site as she would’ve for any other job back on Earth, which meant she’d covered anything of value on that side of the room, laid down cloth to catch leaks and prevent damage to the floor, and kept her tools in good order. Tools the castle blacksmith had made for her, probably at enormous expense.

“I struggle to see the purpose in all of this,” Nightbreeze said, hovering in the air in front of the wall where they’d just managed to attach the next section of clay pipe. It held when she removed her hooves, the fastener as secure as Hayden had hoped without cracking the pipe as her last attempt had done.

“I’m guessing this isn’t the sort of hobby most of your guests prefer,” Hayden said, checking the position of the pipe against her design. It took a little concentration for her to avoid looking more closely at the pony flying there—something she tried to ignore with greater determination each and every day. They’re animals. I shouldn’t be noticing how they look. But just because she thought that, and knew it on an intellectual level, that didn’t mean her brain was as easily convinced. The longer she remained here, the easier it was to forget the differences and remember the similarities. The touch of one warm body was what she really wanted after all this time locked in this room. The rest was just details.

“No, it isn’t.” Nightbreeze landed a few feet in front of her. “I’ve known some to sew tapestries for their own walls, or to compose beautiful music to fill their halls. Common mares make candles, or coats for winter. But construction? You’re not even an earth pony! Your cutie mark suggests more important work than this!” Then she blushed, ears flattening as she looked away. “Forgive my boldness, my Lady. I know it isn’t my place to ask such things. But…” She stared at her uncovered flank, at the design there.

It looked a little like Princess Luna’s moon design, in reverse—a waning moon instead of a waxing one, mostly obscured by cloud. Hayden had learned from her studies that “cutie marks” were incredibly important for ponies, and those that depicted heavenly bodies were considered portentous. But she did not know why. In the last week she’d spent far more time building than she had studying, despite what Luna thought.

“I have no idea,” she said, honestly. “Where I come from, I didn’t have this. But Princess Luna’s magic brought me here, so I guess they’re connected. Ask her what it means.”

“You don’t know what it means?” Nightbreeze sounded pitying. “That’s… I’m sorry Hayden. I don’t know how I would live without knowing my purpose.” Nightbreeze’s own mark was a flagpole, a plain white flag either half raised or half lowered.

“Really?” Hayden’s eyebrows went up. “What’s an ass tattoo have to do with your purpose?” She lowered her voice to a mutter. “Couldn’t you just take it to mean whatever you want it to?”

“No!” Nightbreeze turned away from her, ears flattening. “Honestly, Lady Jest. For a pony as noble and rich as you are, you can be ignorant sometimes. A cutie mark isn’t a tattoo! And we don’t get to decide what it means! A pony’s talent is what it is.” She trailed off abruptly, turning sharply to face the closed (and locked) door.

Hayden heard it too, thanks to her gigantic ears. Luna was coming down the hall towards them, very quickly. She could only tell it was Luna thanks to her voice, which came through the shut door high and anxious.

“Really there’s no need for your involvement, sister! I can resolve the situation—”

Hayden felt her heart sink. Whenever Luna spoke of the dangers to her living here, Princess Celestia was always the first on the list. Celestia was the one who had the power to banish her from Equestria… or kill her, if she decided it was necessary. And here Hayden was, standing completely naked in her room. She’d removed the fake wings to avoid damaging them while she worked with plaster and clay and filled the room with dust. But what could she do now? The hoof steps were almost here.

Nightbreeze apparently thought quicker than she did. She reached into the wardrobe, removing a long cloak in dark gray cloth Luna had her wear whenever she walked anywhere in the castle. She’d worn it each time she went to see the wizard Star Swirl, and nopony had been able to see her through it. Hayden stiffened, helping Nightbreeze settle it on her as the lock began to turn on its own.

Hayden lowered her head, flattening her ears and letting the cloth come down over her. She could barely see the door anymore, yet she heard Nightbreeze drop into a bow. She did the same thing, turning her bow into an awkward curtsey halfway through when she remembered that prostration was only for the lowest class. She’d studied that… but she doubted it was a rare mistake to make.

Even only seeing a pair of long white legs, Hayden could sense something in the room with her she’d rarely sensed from Princess Luna. It was like a live high-voltage wire had just walked into the room, with charged plasma arcing periodically between her limbs. The smell of plaster was replaced with ozone.

“Y-your highness,” Nightbreeze squeaked, barely louder than a whisper. “F-forgive the lady’s condition. It is my fault she is not more presentable, I…”

“Nonsense.” The pony that must be Princess Celestia gestured. Hayden couldn’t see it, but she could see Nightbreeze rise to shaky hooves. Hayden did the same, hoping it was the right thing to do. “I did not announce myself… my surprise visit wouldn’t have had much point if I did.”

Hayden couldn’t make sense of her scent, but her tone changed, suggesting she was smiling now. She could feel the eyes on her, like the guidance system of a ballistic missile. “I want to have a word with the mare interesting enough to become my little sister’s first lady-in-waiting.” She chuckled. “From what I can see, she’s every bit as interesting as rumor suggests.”

Chapter 6: Celestia

Hayden kept her eyes defiantly on the ground—there would be no concealing their strange pattern from this ruler once she saw. No concealing her wings, if she asked her to remove the robe. I hope Luna was wrong about you, she thought. Otherwise, I’m dead. Her colleagues at work had always joked she would be killed by a wild animal on one of her hikes. This probably hadn’t been what they had in mind.

“Rise, Lady Evening Star,” Celestia commanded. “That… is your name, is it not? My sister just informed me, please correct me if I am mistaken.”

It was news to Hayden, but she didn’t plan on correcting the princess anytime soon. She kept her stupid mouth shut. So much for that idea. Hayden couldn’t defy the princess to her face—that would only make it worse when she discovered what Luna had done. So she straightened, still avoiding Celestia’s eyes.

Celestia walked past her, into the room that had been ripped apart with construction. Hayden didn’t watch her closely, but she did see Luna spare her a sympathetic glance before following her sister over. “This is exceptional. You aim to do with gravity what some have proposed we do with magic.”

Hayden nodded. “Yes, Princess. Where I come from, having water on command is common, and there are…” She coughed. “Somewhat higher standards for sanitation.”

“Is that so?” Celestia didn’t turn around. “Nightbreeze, you may depart. Instruct the guard to permit no entry to this chamber until we are done here.”

“Yes, Princess.” Nightbreeze bowed again, then vanished with a flick of her tail out the door. It clicked closed behind her.

“Sister, there is no need for this,” Luna said. “Evening Star’s presence here is at my command. I have taken every necessary precaution. You should return to court.”

Princess Celestia ignored her. Her mane brightened somewhat, changing from the flowing shades of pink and green to something hotter. Hayden felt the room grow warmer, like someone had switched on a large propane heater. The feeling of energy from Celestia got stronger too—what she really wanted to do was hide, wait for the storm to pass. But the storm had come for her, there would be no hiding from it.

“My sister does not remember Carcosa as I do,” Celestia said, her voice low and dangerous. “She was too young.” Celestia stepped forward, closer to Hayden. Each step brought another few degrees of heat to the air. Hayden was already sweating in her robe. But she couldn’t take it off—that would only make things worse. “I did not know there were other survivors.”

“I don’t know what that is, Princess,” Hayden said. “I am not from Carcosa. My hometown is Colorado Springs. I don’t know where that is, b-but I’m… pretty sure it’s not on your planet.”

Celestia didn’t slow in her approach. It must be at least a hundred degrees in the room. This should help my mortar to set. Too bad I’ll be dead before I can enjoy it. “That is an interesting story, ‘Hayden.’” She stopped. “Remove your robe. Now.”

Hayden did, and for the first time the slight awkwardness to being naked didn’t even enter her mind. There was no room for that when she felt so much fear.

“Sister, you must listen to me. Hayden is not an Outsider, nor is she some warped creation of the Old City.”

Celestia’s expression only became more intense. Before Hayden could protest, she found herself lifting into the air. Hayden couldn’t feel hands—it was more like the entire world around her was conspiring to pick her up, flinging her backward against the wall. She screamed, then grunted with pain as she smashed into the bookshelf.

On her back, something snapped, and she found it suddenly hard to concentrate. Words came through foggy, replaced with a throbbing agony from her wings.

Hers wasn’t the only scream. Through watery eyes, Hayden could see Luna drop to the ground as well, clutching at her entirely healthy wing. There was no blood visible through her feathers, though Hayden could feel it trickling down her own skin.

“What—” Celestia’s eyes widened, confused.

“She isn’t a demon!” Luna screamed, her own mane blazing to life as Celestia’s had done. The heat of noon vanished, replaced with a blowing chill, whipping about the room. Hayden couldn’t make out the details, and frankly she was in too much pain to care. “I summoned her from within, sister! She is…” She whimpered, and her eyes stopped glowing. “If she knows of Carcosa, it is from my memories.”

The invisible wind holding Hayden to the wall stopped abruptly. She tumbled to the ground, landing with a painful thump. Painful only because of the shock it caused her wing. “Then why is she a monster?” Celestia asked, her anger cooled a little. Still there in her tone, unmistakable. “Why not a pony, or some other creature?”

Luna shook her head, tears streaming down her face. She looked like she might be about to answer. Then she said, “Ask Star Swirl, maybe he knows. He helped me with the spell. We’re working on a treatment, to fix the way she looks. It’s probably a—”

“No,” Celestia said, her voice commanding. She gestured again, and Hayden felt herself flung through the air. She whimpered, covered her face, and prepared for another terrible wound… but none came. Instead, she felt herself rise into a standing position, warmth gathering around her wing. There was another brief surge of pain, a cracking sound, then nothing.

Hayden dared a glance behind her, and to her astonishment there was no more trace of her injury. A break that should’ve taken months to heal was gone in seconds. If she has that kind of power, can she send me home too?

But she didn’t have the chance to ask. Celestia was still speaking. After what had just happened, Hayden wasn’t about to interrupt her.

“I forbid you to do anything that would conceal this thing. If you intend to keep it, then all will know. Ponies will see and know the danger that surrounds them. They will react accordingly.”

“Forbid?” Luna repeated, expression darkening. “Sister, we rule together, as equals. I will do what I choose.”

Celestia’s eyes hardened. “And if the castle guards see her breaking my express command, they will do as I order.”

Hayden retreated a step, out of the space between them. The longer the interaction continued, the more she wished she was somewhere else. Getting between these two seemed about as smart as climbing into the center of a live reactor.

Luna recoiled as though her sister had slapped her. The door to the bedroom slammed open so hard the knob dented against the stone wall. “My sister is finished here,” Luna bellowed, loud enough to address a crowd of hundreds. “Good luck in court.”

Celestia spoke in a low whisper, quiet enough that Hayden was certain none of the guards would hear. Only she would, and Luna. “Summoning is dangerous magic, sister. The sooner you end this experiment, the safer Harmony will be.” Princess Celestia didn’t spare a backward glance for either of them.

Luna slammed the door shut before the guards or servants could enter. Then she slumped forward onto the ground, covered her face, and started to cry.

Hayden spent the next hour or so doing her very best impression of a rock. She huddled down against the ground, doing as little as possible to remind Princess Luna that she was present.

Luna apparently had power like Celestia, yet Hayden had spent all this time treating her like an equal. She could’ve picked me up and beaten me to a pulp whenever she wanted, and I couldn’t have done a thing about it. Worse, it seemed like Celestia was on Hayden’s side when it came to going home. Every time she asked about being sent back, she would be reminding Luna of this.

Are you two really sisters? How could family let their relationship fall apart this way? Of course, they were also rulers of an apparently powerful country. Human royalty had been known to kill each other, maybe ponies weren’t that different.

Then Luna sat up. Her mane still disheveled, no longer glowing with an infinite starfield as it had been. She looked like a teenager who’d just broken up with her boyfriend, and didn’t want anyone to know about it. “I’m sorry you had to witness that,” she said. “I did not anticipate… Celestia rarely takes an interest in my activities. I expected it would be months before she met you. By then, you would’ve had a proper disguise, would’ve been coached in etiquette… it’s all ruined now.”

Luna approached her slowly. Hayden couldn’t help but recoil, expecting an attack, but of course none came. Instead, she felt a slight tingle of magic around her, and all the dust and bits of splinter blew away from her coat. It was soothing, almost comfortable. “Admitting you to court is a fool’s errand now. We’ve failed.”

Hayden took a deep breath. It was probably smarter just to stay quiet. But at the same time, she found she couldn’t. The sudden, crushing loneliness she felt did not originate from within. The powerlessness, the desperate clawing for love and respect.

In that moment, she realized she’d been feeling those things all along. Ever since arriving in Equestria, she had felt what the princess did. Hayden only had two ways of reacting to such feelings—since she couldn’t go hiking, she’d used the only one left to her and started building things. That had worked, for her, but it appeared healing did not travel along this strange connection.

She felt the pain when Celestia broke my wing. Now I feel what she’s feeling. “I probably should reverse the spell,” Luna said. “You brought so much with you—it shouldn’t take more than a day to find an object with ties to your realm. I will have to find another solution.”

“Maybe… not,” Hayden squeaked.

“What?”

She couldn’t meet Luna’s eyes, with all that intensity focused on her. “The damage of my being gone is already done,” she finally said. “It’s been weeks. I already lost my job, my apartment…” She hesitated. “My family probably already thinks I’m dead. I don’t want to worry them, but a few more weeks won’t make things much worse.”

Luna blinked, apparently lost for words for the first time. Hayden surged bravely forward. “I don’t understand what you want from me. Maybe that required going to court—or maybe it wouldn’t. There might be another solution. Maybe we could work together to find it.”

A little of the pain coming from Luna was suddenly gone. She made no visible sign of it, but she couldn’t hide her injuries from Hayden. Now she could feel her hope. “You think so?”

“Yeah.” Hayden straightened, smiling slightly. “I’m an engineer, Princess. Maybe… maybe your world doesn’t have many of those. But in mine, we’re the ones who solve problems. There’s nothing that can’t be worked out with a little ingenuity. If you were clear about your problems, maybe the two of us together could figure something out. Then when you send me back, at least one of our lives will be intact.”

The princess laughed, though her eyes were still red and watering. “T-that is the most forward anypony has ever been with me, Hayden.”

“Is that bad?”

“I’m… not certain. But I think I prefer it to veiled threats.” She took a deep breath. “I know you’ve been studying magic, but this is… somewhat beyond what you’ve covered. I do not believe you will understand.”

She raised a hoof before Hayden could object. “I will try anyway. You already know we’re connected.” She flexed her own wing, where Hayden had felt the break earlier. It was still sore, though any outright damage seemed healed.

“This connection is deeper than pain. You’ve been tied to my nature, Hayden. This means that changes to you change who I am.”

“And vice versa,” Hayden guessed.

“No.” Luna didn’t look reproving at least. “And yes. You represent a specific aspect of my personality, Hayden. The part of me that ponies fear. That stops me from winning their hearts, as my sister does. You represent the reasons ponies spend all day awake appreciating my sister’s work, and sleep my nights away in their homes. It is not the beauty of my creation that’s lacking, it is me.”

“I… I’m not sure I quite understand,” Hayden admitted.

That got a slight smile from Luna, the first one she’d seen all day. “I couldn’t change you back, because you would have already changed for me to change in the first place. But changes to you move the other way—much more directly. That’s the purpose of the spell. I wanted to change my nature. So far, the spell has not gone… quite as expected. It appears I’ve imposed the properties of a goetic demon upon a citizen of another realm.” She hesitated, but Hayden could practically hear her thoughts. Or someone who thinks they are.

Luna had defended her by insisting that Hayden was a part of her. It was possible that she was right. Maybe the world she knew was less real than the place she lived in now. No. My things came with me. She said that meant I was real.

“The others don’t accept you,” Hayden repeated, speaking slowly. “And you think that changing me so that I’m… good at social interactions and stuff… will fix your problem. Right?”

Luna nodded. “That’s the simplified version, yes. But I don’t know how that could be accomplished. My sister does not issue empty threats—she intends to have you arrested if you ever leave this tower while disguised.” Luna lowered her voice, looking away. “If I didn’t know better, I’d suspect she knew what I was doing, and was trying to sabotage me. Suspect that she wants Equestria to herself. But… that can’t be it. She’s my sister, she wouldn’t do that.”

“Yeah,” Hayden agreed, though she wasn’t inclined to think highly of Celestia after her experiences today. “She’s probably just trying to keep everyone safe, like she said. But she didn’t say you couldn’t still try. This experiment… maybe it could still work.”

Luna raised her eyebrows. “Bring you to court anyway? Looking like that?”

“Why not?” Hayden asked. “I don’t care what I look like—feathered wings would be just as much a freak as these.” She held them out, flexing. “I’m sick of this damn tower. It’s time to do something."

Chapter 7: Court

“Don’t you think this is a bad idea?” Hayden asked, shifting uncomfortably on her hooves. After spending well over a month naked most of the time, putting on so much clothing felt strange. The fact that it was an overblown, elaborate dress certainly didn’t help matters.

Hayden had finished construction in her room, or at least most of it. Even so, Luna had insisted they would see her clothier on the other side of the castle. A crowd of gawking ponies lingered just outside, passing by the shut door far more often than Hayden suspected traffic normally traveled.

Hayden now stood in the center of a raised platform, with mirrors on three sides. This gave her a good view of what the clothier was doing—pretty much what she would expect. There were measurements to take, measurements of every conceivable part of her body. Now she was measuring the fit of the dress, occasionally pinning something up and asking for Hayden to move.

“I’m not at liberty to question—”

“Forget that for a second,” Hayden interrupted, glaring at Nightbreeze’s reflection in the mirror. She seemed to get the message. “Yes yes, you agree with all your princess does. You’re a loyal steward fine fine. Suppose another princess brought another stranger from far away, and she had my manners. Would it be wise for that princess to bring that stranger to court?”

Nightbreeze hesitated, as though contemplating the loophole. She spoke slowly, hesitantly. “There is… some reason to suspect it might not be the worst decision.”

“Oh, great. That’s—” She squeaked suddenly, as the clothier tightened something around her barrel. “Whatever you just did, put it back. That’s too tight.”

“Some lady you are,” the portly mare huffed, somehow talking with a mouth full of pins.

But how an earth pony could do this job at all, Hayden didn’t know. They were all handicapped by their bodies, yet few of them seemed to notice. The whole society shouldn’t be possible without thumbs, but apparently nobody had told them.

“Likewise.” Hayden thumped one hoof. “Looser.” Then she looked back to Nightbreeze. “How is it not the worst?”

“Well, the princess is bringing you to a presentation of houses… it’s all ritual, all formality. Only the lords and ladies of Equestria’s great houses will even speak. Most of them say the same lines every year. The chances of one of them addressing you are miniscule.”

“There’s a party after,” she pointed out. “Luna said so. Said it would be the best food I’d ever had.”

Nightbreeze and the clothier both winced as Hayden said just “Luna.” But Hayden hadn’t yet broken that habit. “Yes.” Nightbreeze looked away. “But Princess Celestia dines with the lords and ‘adies. Princess Luna eats with the troops. And you know military ponies.”

She shook her head. “Not really. I don’t think my military had much in common with yours.”

Nightbreeze chuckled. “You wait and see. Not a pony in there will dare ask about you. They won’t address you, unless you speak to them. All you have to do is remain silent, and… and nothing could possibly go wrong.”

“You sound convinced.” Hayden rolled her eyes, flicking her tail backward towards the door. “You saw the crowd, didn’t you? Don’t you think the lords and ladies of whatever are going to hear? I want to help the princess, but… from what I’ve been reading, your customs are complex. I need time to memorize everything. I’m already breaking the prime directive by being here, can’t you at least let me try to blend in?”

“I have no idea what that is,” Nightbreeze said, unamused. “How much longer, Pinstripe?”

“Not much, thank the moon,” Pinstripe said, looking back up from her work. “I’ll have it ready by tomorrow mornin’, you can count on that. A few more, and I’ll be able to let the suffering captive free.”

“I’m right here,” Hayden muttered. “I can hear you.”

“Good,” Pinstripe grunted, looking back at her. “Then you know I mean it.” She lowered her voice to a mutter, glaring at nothing. “Wigglin’ like a filly, complaining all the time…”

Hayden resisted the temptation to argue with this mare. One of the first who hadn’t treated her like a superior, even though she was one of Luna’s staff.

“So, there’s no chance of any of the really bad things happening?” Hayden asked, a little of her fear returning. “Even though Luna will be taking me as a lady of her house? The… only lady of a house that’s literally never had one?”

“Such as?” Nightbreeze laughed again. “Sometimes I wonder if the lady spends too much time in books—Jest, we aren’t barbarians. Do you see any beaks on us, or claws? What do you expect, carnivores?”

What I wouldn’t give for a steak right about now. Each time she had asked for meat with one of her meals, Nightbreeze thought she was joking. The books Luna had her reading were explicit on the same point—ponies were herbivores. Hayden felt no disgust when she contemplated the idea of a rare steak, maybe served sizzling off the grill with mushrooms and a tall glass of beer. Her mouth watered even now, just thinking about it.

“No, I guess not,” she said. “But what about duels? If Luna gets challenged, I’m the only one who could defend her honor! I’d have to accept on her behalf!”

Nightbreeze laughed again, and this time even Pinstripe joined in. “Challenge a princess?” she finally asked, grinning. “You haven’t forgotten who her sister is, right? That would be like Celestia letting the Royal Guard fight a battle with the army. That could never happen and never would.”

“All done,” Pinstripe proclaimed. “Hold still now. We’ll get this off.”

Hayden groaned, but held still. It would probably take at least ten more minutes to get her free. “They seem pretty mad at each other right now.”

“Families fight,” Nightbreeze said. “That’s not the same. Those are for the great houses to settle disputes among themselves… and when they do happen, ponies never get seriously hurt. Stop having nightmares about nothing—you have Princess Luna to watch over you. Everything will be fine.”

Hayden walked slowly behind Princess Luna, exactly one body-length behind and one third to the right. It was a position of high honor—the highest anypony could have, without being the princess’s husband.

What the castle servants had done a few days before had nothing on this. The castle had more than just servants in it this time, but hundreds of visitors—more ponies in each hall than Hayden had ever seen in one place. She was stunned at their variety—all three tribes were represented here, and almost everyone was dressed in stunning array. Noble suits for the stallions, trailing down their backs, and huge gowns for the mares often glittering with jewelry.

Hayden had asked for a suit, but Pinstripe had laughed at that request the same way she laughed whenever she “accidentally” jabbed Hayden with a pin. And she had to begrudge the royal clothier that at least—she knew how to make a dress.

Hayden caught her reflection in mirrors, in glass, in crystal sculptures, and each time she scarcely believed it. Her gown was made of several semitransparent shades of gray and blue and white, which gave the illusion of twinkling stars when she walked.

Modesty seemed little to do with the way ponies dressed, because there was no rhyme or reason to what any of the outfits covered. The entire purpose was decorative, and Princess Luna had apparently spared little expense decorating her.

True to Celestia’s orders, the dress did not conceal her wings. She had trimmed the fur around her ears a little, but that was all. There was no way one of the ponies could look at her body and mistake her for anything but a freak.

Hayden had never felt like a freak before. More accurately, she had never thought different wings and better night vision made her a freak. But she felt like one now—every hallway they entered fell quiet, every pony they passed stared at her back as though slabs of rotten meat had been stapled there instead of wings. She couldn’t hear most of what they said—they were too discreet about their whispers. But from the looks on their faces, she could tell it wasn’t friendly.

But Luna’s procession wasn’t just her—it had a dozen soldiers—strong stallions in silvery barding, with real spears on their backs and sharpened blades on their wings. They didn’t move like the castle guards in their fancy gold armor, either. They prowled, eyes scanning every passerby, every doorway, even the air above them.

These men have seen action. Recently. Why haven’t I ever asked if Equestria is at war?

There was no time left for asking that—Nightbreeze wasn’t here. Speaking to the princess in public would be monumentally stupid—she knew enough for that. Luna wanted to send me home. I’m the one who wanted to stay and help. Time to man up.

It was hard to do that when she was no longer male.

At least she didn’t have much further to go. She wasn’t walking through a hallway so much as a spectacular ballroom, with a ceiling several stories high and glittering chandeliers glowing with self-illuminated crystals. The ballroom itself already smelled like delicious food, with table after table surrounded by servants scrambling to prepare it for the party that was to come. A band was setting up by the other side of the room, though Hayden didn’t recognize many of the instruments. They looked like they belonged in ancient history, just like the architecture and the customs.

A pair of three-story doors was already open, with more castle guards waiting at them. They all straightened and saluted Luna as they entered, though the motion seemed a little begrudging. That’s right, Celestia is in charge of these. Celestia controls the police while Luna runs military. Guess they don’t get along.

Of all the ponies who gave her dark looks as she made her way through the castle, the solar guard were the worst. They glared at Hayden as though they thought she might leap on one of the ponies and try to suck their blood. She glared right back, grinning with her pointed fangs. I only look like a vampire, stupid. Horse meat is much too tough for me.

The room was packed. Towards the back, Hayden got her first glimpse of common ponies—most of them were naked, and smelled like bathing was an infrequent practice for them. Well… the nobility smelled that way too, only they had perfumes and oils to make the smell more bearable.

If anything, the back rows were less unpleasant. Just smells like a barn.

The room was lit by towering windows on either side, almost as tall as the door and flung open to permit a breeze. Tapestries hung beside them, each one depicting something interesting, but Hayden didn’t get a chance to look. I’ll have to come back and study these later.

Further up in the room were the merchants and leaders of guilds, the ones rich enough to afford a place on wooden benches (and a spot at the feast to come). A mare near the back stopped, pointed at Hayden with one hoof, and screamed.

Her voice was faint, lost in the din of a thousand voices. But Luna heard it, her head snapping back to glare at the mare, silencing her immediately. Hayden stiffened, but she didn’t stop walking, didn’t stumble. That’s right, freak out all you want. You’re all horses pretending to be people, I’m the one laughing. It was like the underwear trick Hayden had heard for public speaking, only easy mode. Humans in underwear couldn’t look half as stupid as a room full of renaissance faire barn animals.

At the very front of the room was a towering throne, wide enough at the top for two ponies to sit. Benches were erected in tiers on both sides of the room—one set overflowing with ponies in the richest clothing yet, and the other empty save for a smattering of ponies in military-looking uniforms. The front row was completely empty.

It was exactly like the halls leading here. As they made it to the front and ponies saw who was following Luna, all of them hushed. The silence passed through the whole room like a wave, and Hayden could feel the weight of thousands of eyes on her back.

Some were scared, some were angry. Princess Celestia was harder to read, though even she was watching Hayden with skepticism. That, and maybe a little surprise. You didn’t think I had the balls. Well, just because Luna took them away doesn’t mean I can’t be braver than anyone in here.

Hayden decided in that moment that she didn’t care what they thought. This wasn’t her world, not her countrymen, not her concerns. Luna was a princess—she didn’t have to follow the trends, she could set them! Hayden would do likewise. They’ll be wearing our blue jeans and listening to our rock music in no time.

Hayden took her seat in the very front row, acting completely oblivious to the stares. She didn’t do the elegant prance all the other mares were doing either, sitting half-exposed so that their backs did something she could only guess was supposed to be seductive. Instead, she imitated the military ponies already sitting down, plopping down onto her haunches with a thump and staring straight ahead.

Nopony laughed. Nopony spoke.

Until Celestia did. “Well, now that my dear sister Princess Luna and her… guest… have arrived, we may begin.”

Author's Note

Sorry this got posted later today than my usual--classes just started, and I had limited time. Still, didn't miss the day!

Chapter 8: Pieces on the Board

But Nightbreeze had been right about the ritual, just as she had been right about a great deal. There was nothing dramatic, at least not to her. Hayden listened to the ponies as Princess Celestia and Luna formally accepted oaths of loyalty from each of the house lords—which thankfully didn’t include her. She was here as a member of Luna’s house, so all she had to do was sit and listen as quietly as possible.

She got many stares, whispers, ponies pointing at her, but that was all.

When the ceremony was over, a soldier announced that those invited to the banquet could wait a few minutes while the common visitors were ushered from the hall. They dissolved immediately into conversation, at least on the other side.

Luna’s delegation didn’t break into eager talk with each other so much as a few of the generals waved a hoof or a wing towards each other in faint salutes. Those close by whispered so quietly that not even Hayden could hear them, despite her apparently enhanced hearing.

One of the generals in the row above rose from her seat, hopping forward onto the lower level so that she was beside Hayden. “Hello, stranger. We’ve never had the pleasure of a civilian on the stands.”

The mare was a unicorn, with a blood-red coat and pink mane cut short in the military style. She wore the same uniform as the other ponies all around them, though she was also the first mare Hayden had seen among them. But if Luna can be in charge, then there are other mares too, right? Maybe there just aren’t as many.

“Civilian life is great,” Hayden said, rising to her hooves so she could take the offered hoof from a respectful standing position. “Mostly being able to get enough sleep. That’s the best part.”

The mare laughed. “That isn’t quite what I expected from you, Lady…” Respectful or not, the pony didn’t hide her inquiring eyes on Hayden’s wings.

“Evening Star,” Hayden answered. “And you are?”

“General Sunspot,” she said. “Where did you serve, Evening Star? It must be somewhere far away, that I haven’t heard of your, uh… tribe.”

“Quite far,” Hayden agreed. “Afghanistan. But that was over a decade ago. I… try to think about it as little as possible, to be honest.”

Sunspot mouthed the word Afghanistan, trying, and failing to say it correctly. Then she shrugged. “Must have been a secretive campaign. Everypony on this stand is curious about you. But I’m the only one brave enough to ask. What tribe are you from?”

What tribe? Hayden’s mind spun, momentarily confused. The tribes were the three types of ponies she read about, divided into their semi-formal boundaries by ability. Only the Alicorns violated that rule, generally, by combining all three. But Hayden wasn’t an Alicorn—she didn’t have super strength, and she couldn’t do magic. So, she didn’t fit into any of the neat boxes in the pony worldview.

“I’m, uh…” She flexed her wings. She had half a mind to say “Satanic.” But that didn’t seem like a terribly good idea. “Thestral,” she said instead. Granted, she wasn’t skeletal, or invisible to ponies who hadn’t seen death. But it was better than her first idea. “I’m a thestral.”

“Right,” Sunspot said. “Well Evening Star, it’s good to have you here. The commander-in-chief has been lacking ponies to represent the army’s interests in court. Sending soldiers to represent us just… hasn’t worked.”

Hayden realized now what this pony was doing, and she didn’t care. “That’s part of why I’m here,” she said. “You ponies deserve Equestria’s best out there. And I suspect you haven’t been getting it.”

Sunspot laughed again, this time loud enough that the other soldiers on the stand noticed. “I think I’m going to like you, Lady Evening Star. Our princess is as wise as ever.”

“I’m glad you approve,” said a voice from behind them, so suddenly that Hayden jumped. She seemed to hang in the air for longer than she should have, before drifting slowly back, touching down facing the other way.

Princess Luna was behind them, dressed in her formal regalia. Hayden realized then she hadn’t noticed the stands opening. Everyone was probably at the feast already.

General Sunspot didn’t bow to the princess, or stiffen up like a recruit. She did salute, her gesture crisp and formal. “Sir.”

“We ought to get going,” Luna said. “Introduce my lady-in-waiting to everypony, alright General Sunspot?”

“Yes, sir,” Sunspot replied.

Luna nodded, then vanished with a faint flash of white light, leaving them alone on the stands.

“Come on then, Lady Evening Star. Thestrals like feasts, don’t they?”

She hesitated. “That depends on how many people are hungry while we’re eating.”

Sunspot had no answer to that, just gestured for her to lead the way down the steps. Hayden did so, reaching out more than once for support. She may’ve fallen, if it wasn’t for the general’s magic. It was much harder to walk when she couldn’t see her own steps through all the fabric.

Eating with the military was much as Hayden remembered it. Or would’ve been, if she’d been a visiting civilian politician eating with the officers.

At first the ponies were strictly formal with her, barely speaking to each other at all, expressions stern and barely even seeming to notice they were at a feast. Then General Sunspot explained a little of what Hayden had let her guess, and everything changed.

Hayden learned each of their names, matching them to alien faces. She learned what part of the Equestrian military each one oversaw, and what they wanted from the court.

In short, Hayden spoke to them as she imagined Princess Luna might’ve done, if the princess hadn’t been eating at the head of the room at Celestia’s gigantic table.

Hayden learned what she had already suspected: Equestria had recently suffered a devastating war. Some of the details were a little hazy, since a few of the ponies spoke of events over a century ago as personal memory.

But she couldn’t get clarification without giving away just how much of a sham she really was, so she just nodded as though what they told her made perfect sense.

“And now the rest of the world is looking at Equestria like a ripe field of wheat,” said a male general with one eye clouded with blindness and wings that looked too frail to fly. “Every month we get more scavengers along the eastern border, testing our defenses. The griffons always deny it… king insists they’re outlaws with no connection to the throne, but…” He shook his head. “They’re predators. You know how they think.”

She nodded as though she did. “Our troops on the south are equal to these ‘barbarians’?”

Bitter laughter from around her. “Hardly. After Discord, nobody wants to join the army. All the best unicorns want to go into civil service. The strongest pegasus ponies would rather make rain for farmers’ bribes than die fighting barbarians in the sky.”

“That sounds like a complex problem,” Hayden said, meeting the pony’s eyes. That was one of the things she’d practiced with Nightbreeze, and one of the things the generals seemed to admire. If anything, she had the advantage, since even they had trouble meeting her gaze for long. “Princess Luna doesn’t control what careers ponies choose. What could she do to bring in better recruits?”

Sunspot shrugged. “Before Discord, ponies with family debts or time in prison could serve a tour instead. That didn’t make sense against Discord, for obvious reasons…”

Hayden nodded again, the same practiced lie she’d used a dozen times. She didn’t have a clue what a Discord was, but it wasn’t like she couldn’t pretend. Apparently, it’s whatever they call the time when lots of ponies died. She didn’t know more than that, and maybe she didn’t have to.

“But he’s gone now! Dead, thanks to our noble princesses. There are plenty of ponies rotting away in prison who would kill for a chance to make things right. Exchanging debt for service would be no great burden to the crown’s coffers, either. Since they’re exchanging their future pay, it isn’t as though the princesses would have to pay all their debts for nothing.”

“And for most of them…” added Sunspot. “We’re talking negligible amounts. I’ve met soldiers who signed up for ten years to pay a hundred bits.”

Again, Hayden nodded. “Does the princess know about this?”

They all hesitated, glancing between each other at the table. There was a long silence before the old, half-blind general answered her. “Princess Luna has enough on her plate, Lady Evening Star. It’s all she can do to secure the bits to keep our soldiers armed and armored. All she can do to keep the grain and wages flowing back. Time she took for subtler direction would be time she couldn’t spend keeping the troops fighting. It’s… not worth the time to distract her.”

“We aren’t unhappy with princess Luna’s work,” Sunspot added. “We understand she cares as much for this…” She gestured around the room, at the dozens of tables with laughing and joking nobles. At the floor further away, where ponies played music and others danced. “As much as we do. But she endures it for the good of Equestria. That’s why we’re thrilled to see her taking the chance to… delegate. To you.”

Hayden forced herself to smile. “I’m not going to lie to you people and pretend I know what I’m doing. I’ve never been near a court before. But I can promise to try. Give me time to learn, and I’ll be your voice. Better than you’ve had, anyway. I’d have to be pretty bad to be worse than nothing.”

Someone moved from behind them—dozens of ponies were passing by all around them, so it wasn’t something Hayden had noticed. But this servant cleared his throat again, and even the generals were looking at him now.

Not one of the castle servants, but wearing light with gold filigree. He looked better groomed than many guests at the feast—better than anyone at the table for sure. He also had a pony who was clearly a guard following along beside him, judging by his thick build and angry expression.

“Excuse me,” the servant said, as though he thought those at the table ought to be asking him for it, and they just hadn’t realized it yet. “Your presence is required elsewhere, Lady Evening Star. Lord Glow has instructed me to bring you to his private table. He wishes to solicit you for a dance.”

Hayden didn’t rise from her seat, though from the insistent gestures she could tell that was what the butler expected. That might be what he expected, but it wasn’t what he would get. “Inform Glow I will have to decline his invitation,” she said. “I am flattered by his interest, but I am still weak from travel. Inform him I will be happy to accept on a later occasion.”

Hayden recited with perfect poise—and she ought to. She had memorized that precise phrase, had to repeat it dozens of times before Nightbreeze was satisfied.

The servant—who still hadn’t introduced himself—looked as though Hayden had spat on his face. “I’m afraid that won’t be acceptable. Lord Glow did not make a request.”

Hayden smiled. She didn’t know this pony—contemporary politics hadn’t come up yet in any of her studies. But she could guess the type. If even his servants acted this way, the stallion himself must be worse.

“She gave you her answer,” General Sunspot said from beside her, rising gently to her feet. She stepped just one hoof closer to Hayden’s chair, between her and the guard. The earth pony looked over twice her weight, maybe more, but Hayden could detect no emotion from her but contempt.

“I did,” Hayden said, unmoved. “Convey my regrets to Lord Glow. I look forward to accepting on a future occasion.”

The servant made a sound halfway between a cough and a snort, and looked almost like he might reach up and try to drag her off like a child. Then he stormed off, hooves clopping loudly as he went.”

Sunspot laughed loudly as soon as the servant and his single guard were out of earshot, with several of the others joining in. Hayden felt the soldier on her other side knock her jovially on the shoulder with a hoof.

“I’d like to see any of Celestia’s mares refuse a summons with Lord Glow. Yet Luna’s lady-in-waiting does it on her first day!”

“I did mean what I said,” Hayden croaked, blushing. “Also, I don’t know how to dance. Well… not what they’re doing.” She glanced at the floor, where ponies moved in practiced, boring-looking processions. It was even duller than anything she remembered from Earth. An impressive achievement.

“Don’t take political advice from us,” Sunspot added, though she sounded as amused as the others. “If we knew how to move through the nobility, we wouldn’t need your help in the first place.”

Hayden nodded, and opened her mouth to reply, but hesitated. Everyone was staring over her shoulder again. There were angrier hooffalls, the same ones she’d just heard leave. She reluctantly looked up.

“Forgive me,” the butler croaked, as though Hayden were ripping out his teeth. “Lord Golden Glow requests you join him for dessert at his table.”

You don’t have to talk to anyone, Nightbreeze had said. Don’t talk to anypony. Just make that the rule. You don’t know what they know yet. They’ll ask questions with answers you don’t know. You only get one chance for a first impression.

But what kind of first impression would she be making to refuse a pony this important?

Hayden rose to her hooves, bowing slightly to the generals. “Thank you all for your company,” she said, turning away from the table. “I would be delighted to join Lord Glow for dessert.”

The butler harrumphed again, relaxing slightly. This seemed to be more the reaction he had been expecting the first time—instant obedience. Aren’t I higher than this pony? He’s a servant of an important lord… what does that make me?

The identity she had memorized was the daughter of a countess in a corner of Equestria so remote it could only be reached by those who could fly. But being adopted into Luna’s household changed all that—she was a lady by courtesy. No land of her own, but a relative of an Alicorn.

This is too complicated. I’ll never figure it out. Hayden whimpered, slowing in the middle of the floor. There were so many eyes on her. Hundreds of ponies stared at her—half the hall had noticed her. Stopping only made it worse—made her look as confused and overwhelmed as she really felt.

“Lady Evening Star. Our betters are waiting.” The butler tapped one hoof impatiently on the floor beside her.

Is this what Luna feels on her throne? As soon as Hayden thought that, her whole body tensed. No, she didn’t know what she was doing. She could let herself be overwhelmed, run away before she made things even worse… or she could make herself become the sort of person who could handle this. What’s the worst that can happen? Luna said she’d send me back.

What was Hayden afraid of? She was walking through a petting zoo, not a noble court.

She straightened, returning to the dignified pose Nightbreeze had taught her. “I was appreciating the art,” she said, loud enough that more than the servant would hear her. “The crown does have fine tapestries.” She started walking again. This time she used the whole length of her legs, quickly outpacing the servant. Forcing him to run along to keep up with her.

Hayden didn’t know where she was going, exactly. She was just moving towards the biggest groups of ponies wearing the same colors. No one else would have the nerve to try and drag her away from her table. Sending a guard, really?

“It’s… this way, Lady Evening Star,” the servant said, directing them up a flight of stairs to a balcony overlooking the main floor. There were more of the unarmed “guard” ponies at the base, shooing away the lesser nobility who approached.

Strange for them to sit above the princesses like this. Ponies in the room surrounded the princess’s tables, bowing, and scraping as they approached. Yet on this balcony, a second clique had formed. Just how powerful are they?

There were only a handful of tables up here. Her guide was headed for the largest, yet also the emptiest. Golden plates were filled with food, overflowing with good things that she hadn’t seen at any of the tables downstairs. Yet only one of the chairs was occupied. By the best-looking pony she’d ever seen.

Chapter 10: The Glow

“There,” Nightbreeze proclaimed, after twenty minutes of painfully slow work. “Not that you’ll wear that again. But if you did want to, you’d be able to.” She carried the last of several hangers into the wardrobe.

“Thank God.” Hayden stretched each of her limbs in turn, feeling as though she’d just had shackles removed from all over her body. “Every time I moved I thought I was going to tear something.”

“Well… you did. Damage the dress, I mean. Not that it matters—one of Luna’s ladies in waiting wouldn’t wear the same dress twice.” She shut the wardrobe, making her way back across the room towards where Hayden stopped, right in front of her shower.

“Oh. Great.” Hayden rolled her eyes. “That sounds like a perfect use of resources. We haven’t invented mass production yet, so let’s just use the labor of dozens of people on my vanity. Shouldn’t they be out… building highways or something? Doing something useful?”

Nightbreeze stopped right in front of her. Close enough for Hayden to smell her. In her way, Nightbreeze was far more interesting to her than Golden Glow. Smelling her was like smelling Elizabeth again, like waking up to her in bed each morning. It had taken this long to stop Nightbreeze from bowing and scraping as she had early on. But now…

“You spent weeks doing something that wasn’t useful,” she said, pointing at the bathroom. Now that the walls were back up, there was little sign of all her hard work. Except for the blacksmith-forged equivalent of human fixtures. The shower she was most proud of, particularly given the water pressure she had managed with such limited resources.

“Wasn’t useful?” Hayden grabbed her with one wing, dragging her towards the sink. “You just haven’t been paying enough attention if you don’t think this is useful. Look.” She pushed the tap with a free hoof. “See? Cold water. Drinkable too, unlike what passes for water around here normally.” She turned on the hot water, mixing it to warm. “Now this. For shaving, or brushing your teeth, or…”

Nightbreeze did not look convinced. Instead she wore a knowing smile, like a parent watching their child slowly realize they’d been wrong all along. “You told me what it would do before you built it,” she said. “Yes, I’m very impressed you made it work. But I don’t see how this is different from what the other nobles do. Some garden, some compose, some design weather. You trapped a stream in the walls.”

Hayden groaned. “I had a rough day, Nightbreeze. You’re supposed to agree with me.” She turned off the water, tugging her up to the shower. “What about this, huh? This is awesome, isn’t it?”

Nightbreeze raised an eyebrow. “A tiny room with tile walls. Yes, a monumental achievement. None in Equestria have ever seen its likeness, before or since.”

Hayden punched her in the shoulder. “Haven’t you noticed that I stopped stinking like everyone else?” She pushed the wooden door open (glass would’ve been far too expensive to have built at the sizes she wanted, and too weak to support itself given Equestria’s limited understanding of material science), before turning on the hot water. It showered down from above, filling the little area with steam that began to drift into her bedroom. “Doesn’t that look just a little bit better than being disgusting all the time? It’s one third of civilization, Nightbreeze! Hot showers, electric lights, and a comfortable bed. Ponies had one. I’m setting up the other two. It’s more fun than whatever else Luna expected me to be doing in here. Composing music, expecting servants to bathe me like I was an invalid? Stupid.”

Nightbreeze reached out, sticking one hoof into the flow. She wasn’t wearing anything—sometimes she wore a hat, or an apron, but generally not even those. More restrictive outfits were the domain of servants with less important roles. “I was… somewhat disappointed,” she admitted. Her ears were flat now, her wings twitching nervously. “I haven’t assisted a noble lady in years. There are lesser servants for that. But you… I’ve enjoyed spending my time with you. Haven’t ever met another mare quite like you. Well… except for Luna herself. But she’s a princess… even as her steward, she can hardly even see me.”

Nightbreeze reached out with her wing, brushing some of the mane out of Hayden’s face. “You’re like her. Her passion, her power, her beauty… but still a mortal pony.”

Hayden took several long moments to find her voice. If she’d been herself, if Nightbreeze had been human, this would be easy. She’d know exactly what to do next. But she was an alien, surrounded by aliens. She didn’t even know where to begin.

Well, maybe she did. She’d seen ponies kiss before. She tried that, silencing Nightbreeze before she could keep going. Then maybe she could try out a few other things she could do in a shower.

Nightbreeze didn’t wake Hayden the next morning, as she had done for so many months. Hayden didn’t resent her for it anymore, even though her body never seemed to adjust to waking in the morning. Though the ponies seem to be able to do it fine.

For the first time in recent memory, Hayden slept in. Slept until afternoon, when sunlight started streaming in from the other side of the tower.

Of course, there was no beating the company. Hayden could feel the weight of the other pony in bed with her. The bed was large enough that she could’ve shared it with several quite comfortably. But she hadn’t needed to share it with several, only one.

“Should probably be getting up,” said Nightbreeze from beside her, half buried in blankets and pillows. “Catering to your strange whims isn’t my only duty. I have accounts to balance today. I can’t leave the princess to manage them herself.”

Hayden could make out one of her legs stiffen and flex, and the shadow of one of her wings on the wall behind her. Something about it looked wrong, but she dismissed that feeling immediately. She needed to find her glasses.

“Yeah, yeah.” Hayden rolled out of bed, fumbling around until she found where she’d tossed her glasses the night before. She put them on, and instantly the room came back into focus. There were still towels and things on the ground, left over from the mess they’d made and not cleaned.

Good thing Nightbreeze hasn’t gotten around to getting me ordinary servants yet. Wouldn’t want them to walk in on this. She made her way over to the window, opening it with her mouth. That felt like a fitting reversal. “You might want to pop in for a quick shower before you leave. Unless you don’t care if the princess finds out. Get my smell out of your coat.” She would do the same, but she could wait.

“You’re not just good at tearing holes in the castle,” Nightbreeze observed, getting out of bed herself and stretching. Hayden turned to stare, appreciating her friend’s anatomy in a way she hadn’t dared before.

At least until she noticed what had changed, and her eager feeling was replaced with shock. Hayden backed up a step, her flank pressed against the wall. A few weeks ago, and she probably would’ve fallen over completely.

Nightbreeze didn’t have feathery wings anymore. Her coat had gone darker, her ears a little fluffier. Her teeth looked sharper, like Hayden’s own. Oh God.

The former pegasus didn’t seem to notice. She raised an eyebrow, stalking slowly towards Hayden, swaying a little. It might’ve been seductive, if Hayden hadn’t just seen what she had. “I know you want me to stay, Evening. But I can come back tonight. Bring our dinner myself. Or maybe you’d rather have it atop one of the other towers. We’re together so often, nopony will suspect…”

She stopped in front of Hayden, leaning close for a kiss. Close enough for Hayden to see her slitted eyes.

She let her kiss her anyway, though she broke away quickly. “Nightbreeze,” she whimpered, pulling away. Not because her friend looked any less attractive. If anything, she seemed even more interesting. But that wouldn’t make this any easier. “Look in the mirror.”

“If it’s my mane, I already know. It always goes crazy in the morning. I have to really fight it to get it to lie down.” She made to kiss Hayden again, but this time Hayden stepped back, flicking her tail towards the bathroom, and its scavenged mirror.

“Look at your reflection, Nightbreeze. You need to…” She sniffed. “You need to see.”

Even if Nightbreeze didn’t seem to understand her feelings, by then it seemed that some of Hayden’s concern was making an impact. She jumped into the air, flapping her wings a few times and gliding to a stop in front of the mirror. She gasped, staring down at her reflection, pure shock on her face. Then she looked down, inspecting her wings, extending them in the light so that the bones were visible through the transparent skin.

Only then did she look up, tears welling in her eyes and pain in her voice. “Y-you didn’t tell me it could spread! Hayden, I can’t be a bat! I must do my job! My…” She slumped to the floor, covering her face. “I failed my princess.”

“No.” Hayden embraced the bat with one of her wings, holding her close. There was nothing sexual about it this time. “Don’t say that, Nightbreeze. Just…” She swayed on her hooves, trying to figure out what she would do. Her friend looked so pitiful, so desperate. So much for being a mare making this safe.

But she had made this mess. Really had ruined her friend’s life, if it couldn’t be reversed. “Maybe it’s temporary! Maybe…”

“Was it temporary for you?” Nightbreeze shouted back, eyes wide with anger. The first time Hayden had ever seen it. “How could you let me… why didn’t you stop me?”

“I didn’t know!” Hayden whimpered, fighting back her own tears. “I’m not even supposed to have hooves, Nightbreeze! Nothing should’ve happened.” She turned away. “You just stay here, okay? Get cleaned up. I’m going to find Luna.”

There were very few ponies who had the authority to visit the princess without an invitation. Her ladies could, though it was a power she almost never used. Luna did not like interruptions. Knowing her schedule, Hayden would be waking her in the middle of her sleep.

Sorry, Princess. You’re the one who created this problem, not me. You should fix it.

It didn’t take her long to cross a few hallways between towers, and to pass the several guards who stood on watch between her and the entrance to Luna’s tower. She didn’t climb the steps, but flew up them instead, wings filling the tower with wind and sound as she did so. This was far too urgent to wait.

She reached the top, and the massive wooden doors separating Princess Luna’s chambers from the outside. There were two more guards here, both of which rose hastily as they saw Hayden land. “The princess is asleep,” one of them said. “She doesn’t usually take visitors for another few hours.”

“I know,” Hayden answered, striding right past him. “But this is urgent. She’ll want me to tell her about it.” Hayden didn’t know that, but she sounded like she did, and that was apparently enough. The guards just shrugged, and went back to the card game.

Hayden banged loudly on the door with one hoof, betraying a little of her nervous energy. “Princess Luna!” she shouted, as loudly as she could. “It’s Hayden! I have something urgent to discuss with you!”

There was a distant sound, though Hayden couldn’t make it out clearly. A groan, perhaps? Then she heard a voice, still dazed with sleep. “Enter.”

Hayden tugged the door open, snapping it shut behind her.

The princess’s chambers were exactly as she remembered—spacious, beautiful, and lonely. The bed at the far end of the room was even bigger than the one Hayden had. Come to think of it, the tower seemed far more spacious than it looked from the outside. Could there be magic involved, or some illusion?

She didn’t have time to care just now. The princess herself sat up in bed, her eyes half-closed with sleep and her mane lacking any of its usual patterns. “I am… hopeful you have a good reason for this, Hayden,” she said. “I have a long night ahead of me. I do not plan on spending that night deprived of sleep thanks to needless interruptions.”

“Sorry.” Hayden stopped in front of the bed, not sounding sorry at all. “Something happened, Princess. Something bad. You need to know about it, before… before news gets out some other way. I don’t know the damage it could do.”

Luna blinked, taking a moment to soak that in. Then she nodded. “Very well. Explain.”

Hayden swallowed, considering a way to share without revealing what she’d done. Hayden didn’t know anything about the rules of sexual conduct among these aliens, after all. The books professed only strict propriety between married partners, but what she had seen and heard suggested that was only a polite fiction.

“Something happened to Nightbreeze,” she eventually said.

“My steward?” Luna raised an eyebrow. “We’re safe in the castle, Hayden. Not even the dragons could breach the walls.”

“Not an enemy.” She blushed, her ears flat against her mane. “She, uh… went to sleep a pegasus, like normal. But when she woke up, she… looked like me.” She held out her wings to demonstrate. “Like a bat.”

Luna stared up at her from the bed, speechless. Then there was a flash of light, and suddenly she was only inches away, meeting Hayden’s eyes. “What happened?”

She swallowed, but didn’t look away. She can’t hurt me! She’d only be hurting herself. She told herself that, and felt a little better. Even if she knew it wasn’t completely true. “We, uh… spent the night together,” Hayden eventually said.

Luna’s eyes widened, and she stepped back a little. “You and the steward? As…”

“Yes!” Hayden cut her off, tail tucked between her legs like a chastised animal. “We didn’t think anything would happen! I’m sorry if I broke the rules or something, but that’s not really what matters right now!”

“Yes.” Luna sat back on her haunches, smiling for the first time that morning. “That is… not the reaction I expected, Hayden. Everything you say about ponies was always tinged with disgust.”

“Is that really the take-away from this?” Hayden retreated, her embarrassment replaced with frustration. “Princess, don’t you care about Nightbreeze? Don’t you care what ponies think about her? What happens to me if ponies start thinking I can spread my curse around?”

“Apparently you can,” Luna said flatly, rising again. “But you’re right. As happy as I am to hear Nightbreeze finally accomplished her goal… we need to intervene on her behalf. Did this occur in your quarters or hers?”

“Mine,” Hayden answered. “And no, nobody saw.”

“Good.” Luna levitated her regalia over from where it hung beside the wardrobe on a row of neat hooks, each one glittering and polished. “I will instruct Star Swirl to meet us there in all haste. I have no doubt his magic is the equal to whatever… strange effect you have produced. The laws of magic preclude permanent transformation spells from lasting when cast on organic targets. Whatever you’ve done we will reverse—either through spellcraft, or simple waiting.” She strode past Hayden, still grinning. “Relax, daemon. You have not done more harm than can be repaired. I will meet you in your quarters.” She vanished in a flash of light, leaving Hayden alone.

Hayden might not know that much about magic, but Nightbreeze’s changes did not look anything like temporary. God, I hope you’re right, Princess.

Chapter 11: Full Bat Consequences

By the time Hayden returned to her room, she found a pair of Lunar Guard soldiers standing in the hallway on either side. Even the guards seemed a little intimidated by her strange appearance, though. They got out of the way as she approached, bowing, and scraping and moving so quickly it looked like they were afraid she might attack them.

She was too upset with herself to let that feeling spread to anyone else. I ruined it. I can’t believe I was so stupid! She was an animal! I’m an animal! None of this makes any sense! If it hadn’t been for Nightbreeze’s reaction, she wouldn’t have known if this sort of thing was natural in Equestria. There were so many tribes, after all, maybe ponies could move between them by being transformed.

She could hear voices from inside her room even before she got the door open—none of which sounded new to her. She opened it as quietly as she could.

Inside, somepony had opened all the windows, filling the room with an unnecessary amount of light. Nightbreeze stood on the raised platform near the wardrobe Hayden herself often used to show outfits as she was dressed. Only there was nopony here to make her wear fancy clothes—Luna and Star Swirl appeared to be performing a magical exam of some kind. One of her wings was stretched to its full length, with Star Swirl’s horn glowing all the time.

Star Swirl released the wing, slumping back onto his haunches. “Well… that’s everything I could’ve possibly searched for.”

“You’ve found the spell?” Luna asked. She hadn’t been examining Nightbreeze so much as pacing violently back and forth near the end of the room, wearing a groove into the floor with the anger of her steps. “Dispel it at once! Before word of this spreads.”

“I…” Star Swirl bowed. “Forgive me, Princess. I have determined this isn’t a spell.”

“Impossible.” Luna vanished in a flash of angry light, appearing almost instantly beside Hayden. She nodded towards her. “She doesn’t have a horn! Obviously she couldn’t have cast anything! Whatever aspect she unknowingly spread, we need only to discover it, and…”

“No, you misunderstand.” Star Swirl rose to his hooves again, walking along Nightbreeze. The poor steward was shivering in place, silent tears streaming down her face. She didn’t look up—not at the princess, not at Star Swirl, not at Hayden. Even from across the room Hayden could smell her profound sense of shame. “There is no spell because no active effect is upon her. Her pattern is as though there was no transformation at all. There is no trace of what she was—even her magic is fundamentally changed. Her weather magic is gone, replaced with… something I do not recognize. Even her cutie mark seems darker, which should not be possible.”

“I-I’m… I’m…” Nightbreeze stammered. “Princess, I’m sorry! If I… I know I shouldn’t… Lady Evening Star had no idea… it was entirely my f-fault…”

“Silence.” Luna made a harsh gesture with one hoof. “You had no reason to suspect this would happen. You will not be punished.” She looked away, back at Star Swirl. “If she was changed once, then she may be changed again. We must recreate its circumstances and observe closely. Once we observe the spell in action, we should be able to replicate it.”

“Yes…” Star Swirl said. “But did you listen to her explanation of how this happened? I don’t think, err…”

“It was my fault,” Hayden said. She took a few steps towards Nightbreeze, as though intending to stand beside her to give emotional support, but the bat only reacted with fear and discomfort. She didn’t approach any closer. I can still be the one to make it explicit. Not force her to do it. “I shouldn’t have slept with her. I thought since we were both mares, there wouldn’t be any danger of…” Her ears flattened to her head, hooves shaking as she spoke. But she didn’t balk from telling the truth, whatever the discomfort. It’s okay. Acting like sex doesn’t exist isn’t going to change the fact it happened. “Permanent consequences,” she eventually finished.

“It would, ordinarily,” Luna said, completely unmoved by her admission. Star Swirl, on the other hand, seemed profoundly interested in the floor all of the sudden. “It seems your duty will soon be to recreate the experiment.”

“No!” Star Swirl and Hayden exclaimed at the same time. Star Swirl was the one to continue. “Princess, that won’t help. Your steward has already been changed, the transformative effects are unlikely to target her a second time. Moreover, I suspect it wasn’t physical intimacy that was the culprit, but emotional. Merely bringing another pony from your staff and encouraging…” He trailed off, looking increasingly flustered. “Even if it would work, even if we knew for certain we could recreate its effects, would it be moral of us to condemn some other pony? Would it be moral to condemn another pony to living their life this way if we are unable to reverse the magic?”

Nightbreeze whimpered, but didn’t say anything further.

“Suppose one observation wasn’t enough? How many more ponies would you leave this way? How high will our chances of discovery rise?”

Princess Luna visibly deflated at that, some of the stars winking out of her mane. She looked like she might be about to fall over, and very well might have had there not been so many watching. Hayden knew what that could feel like. And this disaster is my fault. Even if she hadn’t known about the consequences of this relationship, she knew it wasn’t okay. If only I’d been more responsible, we wouldn’t be in this situation.

“So, what do we do?” Luna asked. “I can’t abandon her to this. Nightbreeze has always been faithful to me. Her family goes back to Equestria’s founding. I have a responsibility to protect them.”

“So you do,” Star Swirl said. “Forgive me, but your question exceeds my understanding. I do not know what method might be used to insulate her or her family from the consequences of… this. That is your decision to make. Though…” He lowered his voice, becoming quiet, somber. “I suspect if your sister were to learn of this, her reaction would be… extreme. There is no touch of the void on poor Nightbreeze, but Celestia is… prone to paranoia on the subject. Considering what she witnessed in Carcosa, that makes sense. You weren’t old enough to see what she did.”

Hayden waited, wondering if perhaps Nightbreeze might come up with something. But she didn’t—the silence stretched on and on, with Luna looking down at her hooves, Nightbreeze crying, and Star Swirl’s horn glowing again as he resumed his examination. Maybe Luna hoped his search would turn up some new detail, but Hayden was skeptical.

“I’m making some assumptions here…” Hayden began, her voice quiet and tentative. “From what you had me study.” She waited a moment, waited for Luna to shout her down, or throw her against the wall with terrible magic. Maybe to banish her entirely. But Princess Luna did none of those things. Star Swirl and Nightbreeze both looked up though, apparently surprised by her daring.

Hayden didn’t wait for her to second-guess herself. “My, uh… history… contained quite a bit about your ancestral lands. Those taxed by your house, which pay your portion of Equestria’s upkeep. You have many smaller palaces on this land, and lesser nobles, including my ‘family’. Does this sound right so far?”

Luna and Nightbreeze both nodded, though Nightbreeze herself wasn’t coherent enough to form words. Tears continued to cascade down her face.

“We could, uh… double down on the fiction you’ve created. Maybe all that fancy magic of yours could make her look… normal… for a little bit. Have a huge row, dismiss her in disgrace…” Her words were not helping poor Nightbreeze, not even a little. Obviously not, based on the surface of what she was proposing.

Probably sounds like I’m trying to cover up my mistake as much as Luna is. I’m so sorry. It was, a little, but it also wasn’t. “Once that’s over, you secretly send Nightbreeze away to one of those palaces… maybe close to where I came from. Get her a new identity… related to my fake one, maybe. You’ve already got so much invested in making it plausible, so just throw another branch on the family tree.” She gestured with one wing, holding it out for a second so her thin bones could serve for branches.

Nightbreeze stopped crying. The others looked only confused—Star Swirl most of all, though even Luna seemed a little perplexed. “What good does this do? What have we accomplished, except to publicly disgrace one of the oldest families in my land?”

“Well… Nightbreeze can stay out of the way, out of mind, until things settle down. I don’t know how long that takes for rich ponies, but if they’re anything like rich humans it shouldn’t take more than a month or two. Pick someone out for your replacement steward who’s awful at their job… and when things get bad enough, you bring in a replacement from my house. You’re so happy with the job I’ve done, you see, you take a lesser cousin of mine. Your sister’s court is already bloated with nepotism, so it wouldn’t be strange for you.”

She gestured back to Nightbreeze. “She’s a different pony then, new name. Just make sure she dresses and acts a little differently, and nopony’s the wiser.”

Luna sat back on her haunches, no longer confused so much as astonished. “You… came up with all that on your own?”

Hayden nodded. “Well… sorta. I ripped part of it off from a historical drama I saw once. But it’s not history here, so nopony should recognize it.”

“Interesting.” Star Swirl’s horn stopped glowing, and he turned to her. “You are changing, Lady Hayden. If your skills become Luna’s at any appreciable rate, there may be one success in this. Despite the, uh… consequences.” He looked back at Nightbreeze, not shying away with his eyes as Luna or Hayden had done.

“But even so, Princess, there is a more pressing matter here.” He walked over, until he stood beside Hayden. “Transformative magic like this has never been seen outside of Alicorns. We knew she might be able to manifest your powers. But is it ethical of us to allow something like this to remain? With the future danger she might pose to the kingdom, will you allow her to change more ponies as she did to your steward? Perhaps the time has come for her to be sent back, just as she wished. Before things get worse. There are more traditional ways to improve your image. Tutors, and trainers and such. I’m sure your sister—”

“No,” Princess Luna said. Hayden had felt the words even before they were fully formed, permeating the air and into her own mind. Luna was very confident about this decision. Hayden couldn’t imagine why, given the chaos she’d just caused. “Hayden will not repeat this… indiscretion in the future, will she?”

“No,” Hayden answered immediately. “It was only because I didn’t know. If I’d thought there was risk involved…”

“Enough,” Luna waved her off with one hoof. “The spell is working, like you said.” She walked over to Nightbreeze, stopping only when she was right in front of her. “Loyal steward. It is I who bare the blame for this. You could not have known that a relationship with my… experiment… would have such a serious consequence. I give you my word that no matter what becomes of your reputation as a result, your family will not ever fall from my memory. I will continue their support exactly as I have done for all these years.”

“I-I know…” Nightbreeze croaked. “I-I… I’m grateful for everything my princess has done for me. F-for whatever mercy she decides to share, after this… mistake.”

Despite everything, Hayden felt just a twinge of pain in her chest as she heard that last. Entirely deserved, considering everything she’d been saying about Nightbreeze until now.

“Star Swirl and I will endeavor to reverse your condition as quickly as we can. Star Swirl, I know your duties here are far too important, but would you have an apprentice you might send? Someone who could remain with her, in case there is some treatment that could be divined with further study?”

“Certainly,” Star Swirl said. “But now, you must act. Before rumor spreads of whatever happened here. Before… before the consequences play themselves out. If it becomes general knowledge that Hayden’s unique condition can be spread, it won’t matter that the circumstances are specific and intimate. I do not doubt that the consequences would be very severe. If that happens, I expect you’ll have to return her to her realm. Whatever realm that truly is. The princess must not forget the dire consequences of having her daemon slain.”

“I haven’t,” Luna said. “I am sorry for what will come next, steward. Star Swirl, cast your illusion. Before my sister comes to investigate, and attempts to forbid me again.”

The next few hours saw Hayden’s plan put in motion, or close to it. Luna had only one palace of any notoriety near the fictional home of Hayden’s family, a pegasus village located in the clouds with a cloud palace to match. Nightbreeze would live as a minor noble there, as though in training to take over running the nearby village and the weather it made. Nightbreeze would have moved up in the world, not down. Except that her condition made her a freak, and everypony who saw her might react with fear. Hayden lived with it every day, and she did not wish it on one she had cared about intimately enough for what she’d done.

She did not get a chance to say goodbye, but then maybe that was for the best. Nightbreeze barely even looked at her during the next few hours, even though illusion spells covered her whole body. She carried the act through with skill, culminating in the row that got her “dismissed” from Luna’s staff, the flight in disgrace, everything. An impressive job.

Under cover of midnight, a solemn detachment of the Lunar Guard delivered an unmarked case of “magical samples” and one of Star Swirl’s young apprentices to study in a distant outpost. Only their captain knew their true destination—even Hayden didn’t know all the details. It sounded as though once she had come up with the idea, Luna had a better idea of how to put it into motion than she did.

For Nightbreeze's sake, she could only hope it worked.

Chapter 12: Doing it Better

Hayden found herself alone on the roof of her tower that night, staring up at the stars. She hadn’t bothered with clothes, hadn’t bothered with a blanket or even a pillow for resting on. She just sat on the floor, with the phone in front of her. She’d rigged a stylus for it by wrapping a thin rod in a little metal foil taken from a gum-wrapper, and that worked well enough so long as she was careful. Her solar charger still worked, though she knew even that had a limited lifespan. If she stayed in Equestria for any length of time, everything she had brought would stop working. Even working for her entire lifespan, whatever that ended up being for Equestria, would not get the society anywhere close to the level needed to maintain what few objects she had brought. It was the work of whole generations, and there simply wasn’t time.

But that doesn’t matter. At this rate, Luna won’t keep me around. And maybe I should just ask to go back anyway. True, Luna had argued to keep her after this one disaster. And maybe its rare circumstances would prevent another one in the future, now that Hayden knew the danger.

Hayden probably should’ve felt guilty that the pony she felt most sorry for was herself. Nightbreeze had been such a loving assistant, shepherding her for over a month, teaching her how to be a pony. She’d been an excellent lover, and Hayden had looked forward to having a girlfriend again. Looking forward to correcting the mistakes that had ended in her relationship with Elizabeth disintegrating the way it had.

But all that was gone now. So far it seemed Luna had escaped the rumors that would spell the end of Hayden’s time in Equestria, but for how long? If even one servant suspected, if even one had peeked through a hole or a window when nopony else had noticed… that might be it. Eventually, the weight of public opinion would force Luna to act.

“What do I care if she has to send me home?” Hayden asked the empty balcony. “It’s not like this world wanted me here! It’s not like I’ve really done that much good!” Yet as true as those statements were, there were others boiling just under the surface. Such as the knowledge of the world waiting to receive her when she returned. She’d certainly been declared dead by now. Perhaps her assets had been distributed, or soon would be. If she returned to Earth now, it would be picking up the pieces of a broken life. And I could never tell a soul what had happened, or else end up in a mental hospital for the rest of my life. Or worse, if she returned not as herself, but in the body she occupied now…

“But if I stay, I could make a difference. Not just helping the princess be better with her subjects… not just the jobs she wants me to do. But what I know.” She wasn’t really talking to anyone, though the phone was right in front of her. She could’ve recorded an audio diary if she wanted to. “I could stop living in a tower and try teaching some things.”

Hayden was no scientific polyglot, but she knew a great deal. Her kindle had tons and tons of reference books, kept there more because she never had to delete anything than because she expected to read them. And she knew enough about basic fields—germ theory, construction, even the monetary system and currency. All those things might improve the lives of ponies in quite tangible ways.

Something settled onto the tower behind her. Hayden didn’t look back, though she knew it must be a winged pony. One wearing shoes, judging by the sound of metal they made when they touched down. A guard, perhaps.

“The stars give you solace, do they?” asked a voice. Not a guard’s voice, or a stranger’s. Princess Luna’s. She walked slowly across the wooden deck, before settling down into a comfortable sitting position a few feet away. “I often stare up at night, searching for significance in their patterns. Those who ordered the first creation must surely have hidden their secrets there, if only I could find them. Perhaps they arranged events so that their light passing through the eons would speak to me when it came time for critical moments in pony history. If only I watched at the right moment, I might see.”

Hayden chuckled. She didn’t look up, didn’t bow as was proper. But there was nopony around to see, and anyway Hayden was quite bad about formalities. Nightbreeze had to constantly remind her to keep using them when they weren’t in public. But so long as there was nopony around to see, Luna didn’t seem to much care.

“I don’t think that’s what the stars are, Princess. But I think you already know.”

Luna’s amusement momentarily mirrored her own. “Yes, I do. Better than most of Equestria, anyway. We have greater concerns. Soils that overflowed with riches a generation ago now grow fallow. Cities sicken and die faster than ponies can flow into them. The constant threat of invasion on the north, one we might not be prepared to meet.” She looked down, over the edge of the balcony and into the city. It was a beautiful city; however small it was. Harmony, the capital of Equestria and home of all its most important elites.

“Ponies today look out and see Harmony and they are filled with awe. But Equestria is only a shadow of itself—a specter ravaged by war, a vulture surviving on the bloated remains of a greater civilization now destroyed.”

That sounded a little too dramatic to Hayden, but she didn’t say so. She did say something else. “I might have some ideas. Simple concepts from my world that yours hasn’t discovered yet. There’s no reason that they couldn’t be useful to ponies as well.”

“You mean like that room of yours? All that effort just to have hot and cold water whenever you wish it. A fantastic luxury at so high a price.”

“Well… it’s not the most useful thing I could teach. But the idea of sanitation that’s behind it might be. The reason your cities are so sickly, for instance.” Medicine in Equestria went only as far as unicorn healing spells. Some of those could do miraculous things, but others seemed entirely fictitious cures. Hayden hadn’t been out of the castle to know how much of each one was present. “Maybe if you’d give me a few days, I could prepare a… presentation or something. I don’t know if you have an executive board, or nobles or whatever…” But she did know.

Luna did not rule as Celestia did, who oversaw almost the entirety of the nobility. Luna owned the allegiance only of those nobles who lived on her land, the so-called “Shadowed North” for its poor soils, long winters, and frequent broken ruins of ancient structures made from crystal.

But aside from these handful of nobles ruling over the least-productive land in Equestria, Luna only had the army. Which based on what she’d seen so far were underfunded and undermanned at a time of severe risk. Ponies would rather have parties than send food to the army.

Luna sat back and seemed content to let Hayden chew over these facts one at a time, saying nothing until Hayden finally spoke again. “There are some changes that might be implemented by a… does your army have anything like a corps of engineers? A group of special soldiers who build bridges and infrastructure and stuff?”

“Never heard of it,” Luna said. “We typically call on locals whenever the army needs skills other than fighting. It’s rare enough that we need to. Which of Equestria’s difficulties did you mean?”

“Let’s… step back from thinking about the whole country,” Hayden said. “I know that’s out of my scope. But maybe… are there any cities in the Shadowed North?”

Luna stamped and pawed at the ground in front of her, hissing with frustration. “Even you have to call it that?” No wait for an answer. “Yes, one. The capital of the domain of the Flurry family, Icefalls. The northernmost reach of Equestrian society. Poor Nightbreeze won’t even reach it for another day, at the earliest.”

Hayden winced, suddenly looking away from the princess. “If I thought apologizing would…”

“It would not,” the princess answered, preempting her. “Besides, I cannot blame you. I created you to change, to improve my abilities. Celestia is always having secret dalliances from ponies the world over. I suspect they might even be part of the deals she strikes with her nobility… It would be good to… be able to act as she does, with such dispassion.”

“That isn’t what Nightbreeze and I were,” Hayden said. Her voice had lost any of its meekness and subservience, lost all emotion at all in fact. She only sounded cold. But Luna hadn’t noticed. “We’ve been getting closer since I got here. It wasn’t a relationship of convenience, or desperation. I really liked her. It’s not fair that she’s the one who loses her lifelong position and I’m unharmed.”

“I shouldn’t be so surprised,” Luna said, her voice bitter. “And neither should you. Life is unfair. There is no justice in our course, only the slow inevitability towards death. We keep the void at bay as long as we can, but not forever.”

Hayden sighed. Princess Luna had particular dominion over such things, or so ponies believed. She had a personal role in the death of ponies. Whether or not that was true, Hayden had severe doubts. She hadn’t really investigated any closer than the claim that they both moved the sun and moon. Obviously preposterous, so why question it? Earth had its Sun King, there were just two of them here.

“Well, I still think it would be a good idea. Maybe you can get me… some soldiers or something, who know how to build. Or city magistrate, or…” She trailed off, eyes widening as a more coherent idea formed in her mind. Plotting and scheming had never been Hayden’s strong-suit, but this might’ve been her second plan in one day.

“I don’t have to be with you to improve. If I get better, you do too. Isn’t that how it works?”

“Yes,” Luna said, raising her eyebrows. “Though as you should realize by now, your safety is paramount to my own. I would suffer permanent harm if you were killed.”

“Nobody wants me to live more than I do,” Hayden said, grinning at her. “Why don’t you send me to Icefalls too? Give me the authority to act on your behalf, plenty of soldiers who don’t mind becoming engineers, and the bits to pay for it all.”

Luna laughed again—not a quiet, subtle gesture, but so loudly and energetically that Hayden was surprised that none of the guards walking the walls on lower levels could hear them. “Forgive me… for as clever as your plans seemed earlier, Hayden, a question like that… You realize you cost me my best and most loyal steward today? You realize you very nearly cost the success of this entire plan? Now you want me to give you resources and authority over…” She trailed off, grinning at her. “Are you sure you aren’t a stallion? The balls on you.”

Hayden didn’t say a word. She hadn’t realized what Luna was now pointing out to her, though of course it made perfect sense. The princess was right to refuse her. But if I can’t really do anything useful here, maybe I should try and get home.

Luna stopped laughing, coughed, then straightened. “Let’s say that I’m intrigued by what you managed to accomplish in your quarters, but that my trust is yet granted only provisionally. I will allow you to meet General Sunspot from the army. She handles provisions… I suspect you met her on your first public appearance. Convince her, and she is free to act with all the resources afforded her as she thinks will best serve the armed forces of Equestria. I will not imply she is under any obligation to use any of what you suggest. If you can convince her, and if your ideas prove successful… then maybe we’ll talk about Icefalls. Until then… it’s the only city ruled under my banner.” She looked down, glaring at the floor. “I’m certain they’d rather have Celestia just like everypony else. Sending you in to introduce sweeping changes you haven’t even explained to me… no.”

“That’s fair,” Hayden said. “I understand. And I would understand if you preferred to send me back to my world as well. Getting rid of me like Star Swirl suggested did sound like it made sense.”

“You want to go?”

“I want to go eventually,” she said. “But after months already missing, I don’t know that leaving at this moment would be worse than leaving a year from now. But…” She hesitated, but not for long. “Do you think when you send me back, I’ll return in the body I had?” She lifted a hoof. “I didn’t have these, and I actually was a stallion. I’d like to be put back the way you found me.”

The trace of a smile returned to Luna’s face. “Really? That explains…” She cleared her throat. “Well, yes. I haven’t asked Star Swirl about this, but I will do so at the next opportunity.” She rose to her hooves again, spreading her wings. “The night’s duties call to me. My new steward will arrange your meeting with General Sunspot. Assuming he doesn’t just forget. We didn’t choose the most qualified candidate.” She left into the night.

I wonder what she does up there. Nightbreeze had spoken as though Luna created the displays of stars and galaxies and auroras visible at night, and that was why they were so beautiful. Hayden doubted that very much, but not enough to ask Luna why ponies believed it. It wasn’t her place to change Equestria.

The next day, Hayden set about the plan she had proposed to change Equestria.

Explaining the basics of germ theory and expecting ponies to take it on faith were far more than she could hope for—beliefs about the sun and moon notwithstanding. So, she prepared a long list of required ingredients and forwarded it on to the steward. He got them all to her—eventually. Ponies already had everything they needed to make microscopes—they already had clear glass, and sufficiently fine metalworking to hold everything. So, Hayden built one, a basic light-reflective piece that would use simple slides to put the microscopic world on display for ponies for the first time in their history. She would also recreate the pasteurization experiments, to show how food treated with salt or stored in airtight containers would resist spoilage.

Least desirably, she had obtained samples from the city of Harmony’s “waste disposal” gutters, for display on her microscope. It took nearly two weeks to get everything right, but that was about how long it took the new steward, Nightcap to get her an appointment with Sunspot anyway.

As she had expected, Hayden’s presentation of purely practical matters to a purely practical pony like Sunspot went well. And she left promising to gather her own inferiors together later that same week to make some changes to the local military complex. “And if this can really stop our grain from going bad before it reaches the border, we wouldn’t even need as much from the farmers! If we could grow it anywhere and transport it ourselves, we’d only need one part of Equestria to be cooperative!”

After that, it was just the matter of waiting. Waiting to see if what had worked for humans could work for ponies as well. Who knows? A few years down the road, maybe they’ll trust me enough that we can start a proper industrial revolution. There were many factors that might go into something like that, and most of the historical details were lost on Hayden’s memory.

But that didn’t matter. If her simple proposals about sanitation could be observed—maybe followed up with a few key inventions to make plumbing scalable in pony cities—that alone might save tens of thousands of lives. It seemed like a good start.

Chapter 13: Defiance

About a month later, and Hayden was shuffling nervously back and forth in her room, fussing over what she’d packed into her saddlebags and wondering how long she would have to wait. She had packed everything she could think off—her old belongings were more than enough for survival in the wilderness when she’d been human, but there was no telling how useful they might be, or how much they would even be needed.

We’re not camping, we’re not crossing the wilderness. It’s okay. It’s only a day’s flight away. A day’s flight was part of why she was so nervous in the first place. Flying had gotten easier for her—not so much because anypony had taught her as the movements and gestures always seemed to come to her when she wanted them. As though she were accessing deeply recessed memories, ready to rise and serve her as soon as she needed them.

But having to fly for a whole day straight, on my first day out of the palace… Still, Hayden had started this path. She could’ve pressured Luna to send her back to Earth, and she hadn’t. She could’ve kept her stupid hooves to herself and not gotten herself into a relationship with Nightbreeze, and she wouldn’t be out here either. Nightbreeze would have known how to set this up, Nightbreeze would’ve known closer bases than Fort Defiance to try out Hayden’s instructions about food preservation and water sanitation.

“But you have to see it!” Sunspot’s letter had read, only two days before. “Not one pony in the whole fort has been sick for a week! No deaths in winter, with such bad air and bad climate… it’s almost impossible to believe. I wonder if there is more that could be done, but I suspect your personal visit would help with that. Visit and see, then maybe you’ll have better advice. I’m sending an escort, and I have already obtained the princess’s permission on your behalf. Your escort should arrive a day after this message finds you.”

Well, it had been another day, and sure enough Luna had confirmed that she was being allowed to visit the fort so long as “You remain with the escort at all times and travel the most direct possible route to and from the fort.” Luna had described this trip as a low-risk way for Hayden to earn back some of her trust. It was within Equestria’s borders, not near any of the contested areas where conflict might arise, and far from a civilian population that might react badly to such a strange pony visiting them.

Someone knocked on the door, short and sharp. Hayden shifted once more in her winter coat, flexing in her warm boots affixed to each of her hooves. She liked the contrast the white fabric gave to her coat, even though she never would’ve admitted it. Pinstripe hadn’t ever been told why Nightbreeze had been dismissed, but she like much of the castle suspected Hayden had ordered it.

And in a way, she had. Having half the castle hate me is far better than the alternative. I’m the one who deserves it, anyway.

“Come in!” Hayden said, standing as straight as she could. Warm jacket and boots did not cover her wings, which did unnerve her a little. With so much exposed skin instead of warm feathers, she was quite nervous about what the effects of cold exposure might be. Nopony could know—except maybe Nightbreeze herself, but she hadn’t returned any of Hayden’s letters since arriving in Icefalls.

The door swung open, and a towering stallion walked in—a pegasus so tall, he would’ve been almost as tall as Luna herself, sans horn. His armor was bright gold, his spear and lance both sharp, though both were sheathed. He also wore tight saddlebags, and smelled like he’d been flying all day. “You’re Lady Evening Star?” His coat was almost as white as her jacket, his eyes gold like a bird of prey. The smell was almost more overwhelming.

“Y-yeah,” she squeaked, looking away. “That’s me.” He didn’t stare at her wings, as so many others had. Didn’t even look at them. “You’re my escort?”

He nodded. “My name is Captain Lodestone—I’m the officer in charge of Fort Defiance.”

Hayden’s eyes widened, and her attention snapped instantly back to him. Why would the officer in charge be here? Acting like a grunt… did something go wrong? “What happened?”

He blinked, startled. “What happened?” He walked up beside her—a fair bit taller than she was, despite her height. She looked away, tried not to smell him, and that helped a little. “I’m told you’re the pony responsible for the changes at Fort Defiance, is that correct?” His tone was flat—no hint at what he might mean.

She nodded timidly. “Y-yeah. Those are… s-some of my discoveries.” A little lie—and some part of her felt guilt for taking personal credit from so many human inventors. But going into detail like that with the average pony—explaining Pasteur and Fleming and the others, well… that would complicate matters far further. It was easier for them to believe that an eccentric genius had come up with things than a traveler from another universe.

“How much did you know about Defiance? Did the princess tell you it is the most important fort in all Equestria? That more than half our troops pass through there during their training? That more soldiers live there than in most cities?”

Hayden swallowed and shook her head slowly. “W-what… what happened? Sunspot said…”

Lodestone’s expression broke, and a faint smile appeared on his face. “I came to personally thank you. If somepony had told me a year ago that I could keep troops in such concentration without losing them, I would’ve told them they’d been licking too much salt.” He met her eyes. “Now if you can just keep my stallions from going hungry through winter, we might have a statue made.”

Hayden forced herself to laugh. The sound came out a little awkward and forced despite her best efforts. “W-we’ll see,” she said. “The princess cares about your well-being, I’m just… her latest plan to help the ponies she cares about. Defiance was just the first place to get these changes—I want them shared with the whole country eventually.”

He got a little stiffer. “Yes, well. Harmony or even Canterlot might be able to benefit, but that’s not the decision of a pony like me. I was hoping I might be able to ask some questions about the method as we travel, in fact.”

“Sure!” She brightened a little, before walking over and settling her saddlebags on her back. It was good to be back in familiar territory. “Like what?”

“Sunspot only gave me instructions. She never explained what about making my men dig latrines away from the river or any of the other changes would work to stop ponies from getting sick. Which… I guess wasn’t much of a change. Unicorns never say how their magic works. But with so many sick, we just didn’t have the unicorns to go around. If you’re not an officer, you’d have to chance on honey water and hope you got better.”

“I’d be happy to explain it, Captain. I’m not a teacher though, so I’m not certain if I’ll be able to do so to your satisfaction. But I can try.”

“Then if you’re ready, follow me.” He gestured with a wing back to the open door. “We have a long flight back. If we don’t start now, we might be sleeping in the clouds instead of the quarters I had prepared for you. I don’t imagine the princess would be pleased to learn that.”

I wouldn’t mind sleeping on a cloud with you, she thought, or at least some deep, instinctive part of her brain thought. She choked it back as quickly as she could, letting her natural disgust drown out the unnatural emotion. I’m not going through this again. Hayden wondered idly to herself if Luna had some hand in the decision to send a stallion to escort her, which under most circumstances would’ve been the more unsafe option.

Unfortunately for me, Luna’s wrong about me being gay. Or maybe she wasn’t, depending on one’s point of view. It wouldn’t be easier, that was the point.

They took off from Harmony using one of the many balconies. Nopony gave them a second look, at least once they were a little way off the ground and Hayden’s wings could’ve belonged to anypony else. Hayden found it nearly impossible to look down at the ground without losing her confidence to fly, so she kept her eyes on Lodestone as often as she could. That was fine, in its way. There were worse things to look at in the world.

It was a shame she was too afraid to watch the city below very carefully. Even what little she saw suggested some of the most beautiful elfin architecture, buildings of white marble melded with the trees and somehow in harmony with them. Maybe that was where the name came from.

Flying north, they passed over sparse countryside filled with the odd farm, then over the provincial city of Canterlot, with its ugly stone fort atop the peak.

They flew close together, close enough that they could speak without the wind drowning out their conversation. Lodestone proved as intelligent as he was attractive, asking all the right questions and apparently understanding what she had to teach with minimal effort. But it would be hard to question the science after seeing his fort stop getting sick.

“Once I heard the symptoms I knew it would work,” Hayden continued, many hours later, when the sun had gone down. They were still flying, though Lodestone seemed to think their odds of reaching Defiance before it got too dark to navigate weren’t good. “I don’t really know how you’d have a similar disease, but that didn’t matter. Just breaking the life-cycle was all we had to do. There are… lots of other illnesses, but we’ll wipe out most of them just by keeping your stallions clean, isolating the sick, and washing their hooves whenever they do anything dirty.”

“Remarkable,” Lodestone said. “Sadly, more remarkable than my flying ability in this darkness. I know you’ve been blessed by Luna’s magic Lady Star, but I have not. Would you object to making temporary provision in the clouds? It’s too cold to do so on the ground, as you can see.”

She could see the snow, blanketing everything. It just looked like Canadian wilderness to her, broken by the occasional lone house or barn. Far too cold for any consistent industry. There weren’t even any roads below them, or if they were they’d been completely buried by the even blanket of white.

“S-sure,” Hayden squeaked, finding her voice suddenly came only with difficulty. “Yes, we can stop. I wouldn’t want us to get lost out here… though I was looking forward to trying whatever it is your men eat.”

Lodestone laughed again, though his voice was still subdued. He was clearly trying to conceal just how tired he was. By the sound of it, he flew through the night to get to me, then turned right around and started flying back. There were birds on earth capable of things like that, but somehow, she doubted many ponies had the build for it. I still don’t really understand how we can fly in the first place. Magic, obviously. Any question she didn’t know the answer to, that was always it.

Such as walking on clouds. Lodestone found a white, fluffy cloud for them, circling around it, and dragging one hoof along the surface until he called back that it was sturdy enough to sleep on. Hayden had heard ponies like Nightbreeze talk about walking on clouds, but until she saw it…

Hayden saw it then. Would’ve thought the captain was lying to her, were it not for how obviously his wings were folded. As she came in for a landing herself, she was surprised that she could feel the clouds quite distinctly on her hooves—like a particularly light snow, which would give under her weight, or compress if she put too much pressure on them, but otherwise hold steadily. “Are you sure we can just sleep on this?” she asked, as the captain flattened and cleared a section of clouds with formal, almost ritualized practice.

“Ponies don’t sleep on clouds where you’re from?” he retorted, not even looking up from his work. “You’ve denied yourself quite the luxury if that’s the case. No cot is as comfortable as a cloud, I promise you. And unlike fancy bed, any pegasus can have a cloud if he or she wants one. We’re more… enlightened that way.”

She almost argued that it was the world just happening to provide what was good for ponies, no effort on their part, but she didn’t see much point in that. It’s okay, it’s just for a night. I can keep myself from doing something stupid just for one night.

“We never did,” she admitted, though she knew the subject of her origin was one of those explicitly forbidden by Luna’s instruction. She couldn’t give specific answers, and being unable to answer questions was a great way for ponies to figure out that her whole history was a lie. It wouldn’t matter where it had come from, once the rumor got going.

“Well, I’ll remember what you said about sharing their food,” Lodestone said. “Our guests from the capital tend to say noble things, but doing them is…” He shrugged. “Maybe you’re different. We aren’t going through a constant cycle of sickness anymore in Defiance, so that’s different.” He sat down in the very center of the spot he’d made—such that there was nowhere for Hayden to rest without either being on the cloud she didn’t trust or being in contact with him. Is that the point? Is he trying to suggest we should do something together, or do ponies just have different standards about intimacy? “If the lady would permit me to ask a frank question?”

It was hard to generalize human history to ponies, particularly regarding sex. Magic had done thousands of years ago what automation and machinery had done to humanity—it was a powerful equalizer.

She nodded, before settling down onto the ground as far from him as she could without resting her weight on the still-fluffy parts of the clouds. It won’t matter if I fall through, I’ll just fly…

But she didn’t fall through. Just like her fear of the high-altitude cold, it appeared mercifully in vain. “Sure, Captain. But I can’t promise I’ll answer. The princess has placed restrictions on me, and I will obey her.”

“Of course.” He nodded. “I understand following orders. I just… and I know it isn’t my place to ask… but what compensation are you getting for this? What did Sunspot have to promise you to get your help? There are so many ponies who think the coffers of the military are endless… or that they’re too full, with no war presently raging. But Equestria doesn’t have those bits to spare. If they’re enriching you, then some soldier somewhere else doesn’t have a bed to sleep on, or grain in his belly.”

“Oh!” Hayden looked up from where she’d been staring off the edge of the cloud, gradually growing more afraid of heights. “Nothing, obviously. This isn’t even my world, I don’t care about your money. I just want to try and do what I can while I’m here.” Her eyes widened as she realized what she’d said, and her heart began to race…

But the captain didn’t react with any surprise. “In that case, I can respect you,” he said. “I hope you will forgive my skepticism, Evening Star. Equestria has had its fair share of well-to-doers over the years, so many that I’ve come to disbelieving them on principle.” Without warning, without invitation, he rested his wing over her shoulder. The gesture pulled her closer, though not with much strength. Or even much sensuality.

She stiffened at first, watching Lodestone with a growing sense of fear over what he might try next… but apparently, he had nothing in mind. He didn’t even look at her.

“I know you must be itching to get those boots off, or even your saddlebags. Don’t—they’ll fall right through. Just get what rest you can. I know your wings won’t insulate as well as mine. We’ll be off again as soon as it’s light enough to see.”

“T-thank you,” she croaked, though she wasn’t terribly cold. Only her wings felt the chill, and even then, not much. It was still nice to have something warm so close.

Chapter 14: Unified Standard

The night passed without much incident. Captain Lodestone didn’t try anything with her, and she managed to resist whatever instinctive part of herself wanted to get closer to him in return. The only strange thing about the experience was her dreams, which seemed quite unfamiliar to her. She’d never seen so many ponies in armor in her life. But Hayden dismissed it as a dream brought on by her work, and woke at first light along with the captain.

He filled their canteens by squeezing out the cloud, before swearing under his breath and apologizing that he hadn’t realized their cloud was drifting. “Still, it’s only another few hours added to the trip. We’ll be there by lunchtime.”

And they were. Hayden could see what would probably become the camp long before they reached it—there were roads up here, stretching from east to west more than north to south. “What’s keeping the snow off all those roads?” Hayden asked, as the first one came into view. Over ten feet of accumulation surrounded the road on either side, which had become more of a tunnel than a simple passage.

“Magic,” Lodestone answered. “Cast on the stones. Keeps the snow from sticking to it, blows it off. Still have to do maintenance—it’s getting close in places that we have to worry about a collapse. That much will overwhelm the magic.”

“Woah.” The fort itself came into view shortly after—the fort and the wall that went with it. Not nearly as impressive as in Game of Thrones—it was no icy mountain hundreds of miles long, so much as an old stone structure about twenty feet high, though it seemed to line the northern border in a very similar way.

The camp itself was just as impressive—mathematical rows of identical buildings, regular paths between them. Beyond the fort’s own wooden walls were a few scraggly looking fields of strange white-leaved plants, which seemed to be struggling to survive out in the snow. Kind of amazing they’re still alive at all.

She didn’t ask about that, but she discovered the answer quickly enough anyway. As they angled down for a landing, she felt them pass through several layers of warmer air, as though descending through an invisible onion. By the time they were getting close and Hayden was beating her wings desperately to try and land, she was uncomfortably warm in her winter coats.

There were soldier ponies everywhere. Many of them wore guard armor, just as their captain, though many more were in simple brown vests, with identical signifiers but none of the weight of metal armor. Captain Lodestone took them down near the front of the fort, where two dozen ponies had gathered as they flew in for a landing and rose to attention as they touched down.

Well Captain Lodestone touched down elegantly, anyway. Hayden landed going too fast, tumbled head-over-ass, and only came to a stop after several embarrassing seconds of rolling. She rose as quickly as she could, testing her strained limbs. It didn’t feel like anything was broken—a small miracle, or a testament to just how strong these bodies could be.

That didn’t do anything for the shame and embarrassment, unfortunately. She could hear laughter, and plenty more soldiers resisting the urge to laugh. “It’s okay, you can go ahead and laugh,” she said to the nearest line of gruff-looking earth ponies, where at least two of the soldiers were obviously fighting to keep silent. “I would.”

Despite her apparent permission, the sound abruptly died. There were only stares as Lodestone looked over. “Is everything alright, Lady Star?”

She nodded. “Yeah. I don’t get out much. You can tell.”

“Nonsense.” The captain snapped one of his hooves down, and immediately the ponies throughout the courtyard rose to attention. “This is Lady Evening Star,” he called, loudly enough that all the silent watching ponies would be able to hear him clearly. “She’s the reason we’ve had such a good season. The reason our doctors are treating sprained ankles and ingrown hooves. Princess Luna sent her personally—her most skilled artificer. You will treat her with the proper respect while she’s visiting Defiance, is that clear?”

“Yes sir!” shouted a thousand voices from all around her. It was so loud, so abrupt, she almost fell over again. Hayden had seen footage of military parades in North Korea and such places, but to hear all that energy in person…

“Good.” Lodestone turned back to face her again. “I’m afraid my responsibilities call me to service, Lady.” Even as he stood there, a pony came galloping up—a bright green earth pony with urgency on her face and a pile of books as her cutie mark. “I’ve assigned our quartermaster Unified Standard to you for the duration of your visit. If there is anything you need, tell her, and I’m certain she will treat your requests with all the diligence she would my own.”

“Of course, sir,” she said. Unified Standard came to a stop panting and out of breath—visual evidence that not every pony in the military was equally fit. She was on the pudgier side, just not so much that she couldn’t fit into her uniform. “Lady Evening Star, if you would come with me? The sooner we… get you situated… the sooner we can get started.”

“Sure.” Hayden nodded politely, and Standard led her away from the courtyard. By then the soldiers had long since stopped laughing, though many of them still stared. She wasn’t sure she liked the expressions in their eyes. But would I have minded if Lodestone looked at me that way?

Defiance was a tent city, but not in the way she was used to the term. These tents were sturdy structures unto themselves, many of which were two stories of thick cloth. There was no need to insulate for the cold weather—the cold had no way of penetrating the camp. But there were a few stone structures for the upper officers, and it was there Hayden’s quarters would be located for the duration of her inspection.

“It’s about time they untie Luna’s hooves,” Standard muttered as they walked. Hayden couldn’t quite tell if the mare was talking to her or else just muttering to herself as she walked. “Small wonder Equestria hasn’t torn itself apart with Celestia administering it. Completely unconcerned with what matters…”

“That’s why there are two princesses,” Hayden offered. “They can oversee different things. Individual focus when it’s needed.”

They stopped at the door to Hayden’s small room. From the look of the other open doors, it was larger than the officers here got, but not by much. The bed was bigger, and there was enough floorspace for a large desk and work area, but other than that there was just a narrow alley to access either one. The stone was thick, and the window barely a slit. Either for arrows or built before there were pegasi to keep it warm. She had no way of knowing which.

“The noble ideal,” Standard said dismissively. “No duty is less important than any other. We’re all doing our part to build a harmonious Equestria just by doing the best job we can where we are. We’ve all heard that.” She waved one hoof with obvious frustration. “Yet how many needless losses have we suffered because we didn’t have enough blankets or enough doctors?”

“I-I…” Hayden just stood in the doorway, opening her mouth to answer but unable to produce a response.

Standard didn’t wait for her. “Since I started serving here, thirteen-hundred ninety-five. Exactly. Oh, up in Harmony they’re just bits and gold. But out here? Those are ponies’ lives. Ponies who could’ve held spears the day the Griffons come back.”

“Don’t you think Princess Luna understands that? That’s why I’m here. These innovations go to you first, not the cities.” She wasn’t going to mention that she hadn’t even thought of testing them in a military base. Standard didn’t need to know that. “Water sanitation is just the beginning, Unified Standard. I mean to change the world.”

The earth pony stopped, looking her over with a mixture of mild confusion and contempt. “You mean Luna does, right?”

She shrugged. “Princess Luna wants the best for you, as I said. That’s why she sent me.” She made her way to the end of the room, peeking out the open window. There was an impressive view out there—not just endless snow, but an ocean inlet, only partially iced over. A distant beach, and far across the half-frozen water, a tiny desolate island peeking up from the waves.

I’ve seen that view before, she thought, staring out the window with sudden intent. What the hell was she seeing that the island looked familiar to her?

The quartermaster grunted. “Is something wrong with the view, ‘Lady’?”

“No.” Hayden straightened, quickly turning back to face her, and tossing her saddlebags onto the bed. That mystery would just have to wait for another time. “It just looks familiar, is all.”

Standard laughed bitterly. “Must be your imagination, noble lady. No civilian has ever been up here. The army owns the whole island and all the surrounded territory. Celestia’s generosity on proud display out there, giving us a frozen rock!”

The longer she spent with this pony, the less Hayden liked her. You’re not like the captain at all, are you? He didn’t like nobility coming here, but at least he gave me a chance. She almost said something extremely stupid, like pointing out the two tours she’d served in Afghanistan. Bet I’ve seen things that would make you ponies shit yourselves. But Hayden didn’t much want to think about those things either, and letting ponies like this know inconsistent details about her past was exactly the sort of mistake Luna would be afraid of.

“Lots of pine trees out there,” Hayden said instead, after taking a deep breath and cooling herself off. “Can build a lot with pine. Easy to work.”

Standard laughed again, even more bitterly than before. “Working requires tools, noble lady. Notice how we’re all living in thousand-patched tents? Bricks require mortar, and the crown’s provisioners refuse to send lime. Cutting down trees takes a saw, then many hours of work nopony has the energy to do because we’re on the edge of starvation.” She raised a hoof. “And don’t you even say that we have earth ponies and pegasi and we should be able to grow our own. All the magic in the world couldn’t make grain grow in the acidic soil we’re living in. The only reason Icefalls has any farms at all is Princess Luna’s magic, and it doesn’t reach this far. If it weren’t for the measly carts of potatoes…” She seemed to realize she’d been shouting, possibly because several ponies from down the hall had peeked in to stare at them.

She blushed, ears flattening, and she lowered her head in a forced bow. “Forgive me, Lady Star. It isn’t my place to complain. It is no fault of yours that all the crown could give us in such desperate straits is some tinkerer who would give us all more work to do digging latrines and hiking out into the snow to piss every night.”

Hayden thought she did a good job not showing anger at the remarks. After all, she hadn’t caused any of the problems these ponies were suffering. There was no reason for her to feel guilty about bad things she hadn’t even known about. If Luna was better at her princessly duties, if she wasn’t constantly overwhelmed in Harmony, maybe she could’ve dealt with these issues. But Hayden suspected she knew, and didn’t have the resources. All the forts in Equestria are probably like this. Ponies don’t care about maintaining their army until the next war comes around. I wonder why they don’t all just desert.

“I am not a ‘tinkerer,’” Hayden finally said. “I’m an architect. Or a general contractor, if you prefer. General Sunspot sent me out here to help deal with all your concerns, not just getting sick. From what I’ve seen so far, you’ve all done an admirable job with water sanitation… that’s a great first step. But I’m not just here to inspect your latrines and then fly back to Harmony—that would be a waste of your time, and mine.”

She took a step closer to the quartermaster, who seemed to be too out-of-breath from her shouting to respond. “Every problem you’ve mentioned has a solution. If I’d known your condition was so serious…” If she’d known she would be abducted during her backpacking, she probably would’ve stayed in the city. But she also could’ve loaded up on references materials! “Well, there’s much we can do if your ponies are willing to work. It sounds like food is the most immediate concern. So, let’s get the inspection of your water practices out of the way, then we can talk about quarrying limestone.”

And indeed, little time was required for her inspections. While the fort lacked the resources to build anything approximating a plumbing system, it had relocated all the associated functions outside the border of the camp, except for a single location reserved “in the event of attack or emergency”. The source of Standard’s resentment was immediately obvious then, and perhaps the other soldiers as well. Adding a half-mile hike to any use of the privy was a tough thing to ask, as she learned herself the next time she needed to use it. It worked. They’re not getting dysentery. She probably should’ve been afraid that such a disease even existed in Equestria, given how different it was in other ways. So many similarities. Even geographical. Star Swirl better be wrong about what Earth is. It’s a real place! I know my memories are real.

There were more important things to worry about than just an unpleasant walk into the cold in the middle of the night when soldiers needed to use the facilities. Food was still spoiling, and more than that there just wasn’t enough of it despite the contributions of “earth pony magic.” The supply problem was a little more long-term, but she discovered the solution to the storage problem in just a few hours, when Standard gave her a tour of the granary. The whole facility was underground below the castle that formed the officer’s building.

“And that’s exactly the problem. You said the winter up here goes on forever without pegasus ponies to get rid of it, right? So why aren’t we taking advantage of the cold to keep everything from spoiling?” The answer seemed obvious to Standard and the other officers—if all the fort’s food was stored somewhere else, then that somewhere else became an easy target in any future attack.

They found an immediate compromise. Unfortunately, it would involve an incredible amount of work, work soldiers would have to do without enough food in their bellies. She brought her proposal to Captain Lodestone the very night of her arrival, during dinner in the officer’s mess. Despite what he’d said on the trip up, he offered her a plate of apparently fresh fruits and vegetables like the other officers were eating, not moldy potatoes and gruel. “Wait…” One of the other officers stared down at her quick sketch. “You want us to excavate a dozen feet into the rock behind the back of the granary? Are we finally expecting adequate provision from Harmony?”

“No,” she admitted. “I’m not part of those decisions. This space is for refectory brick, and a layer of insulation, then another layer of brick. And that separate access… those are for ice-carts.”

“I don’t understand,” Lodestone said. “Why would we keep carts in a granary?”

Unified Standard rolled her eyes. “It’s true the cold can keep off decay—this isn’t new information. We’ve just been waiting for the crown’s enchanters to start casting preservation spells on the grain they send, like they promise. You can see how far that got us.”

“It’s a simple proposal, really,” Hayden continued, finishing off her plate. It was obvious what they were serving her was quite expensive, considering how little had been on even the general’s plate, so she didn’t ask for seconds. “We’ll build a dozen sledges… exactly like this. See the big, open trays? We fill those with water, then leave them out beyond the fort. They’ll freeze, and we take them in this new ramp in the back of the granary. We seal the place up, only open it once a day to remove the day’s ration. Under those conditions, and with the insulation I propose… we should only need to rotate the sledges every few weeks. You’ve got a river, and the cold is free…”

“The cold is free,” captain Lodestone repeated. “But masons aren’t. Do we have the supplies to create this, Lieutenant Standard?”

She shook her head. “No, sir. The labor would be trivial—I know plenty of ponies who would be happy to have something useful to do. Unfortunately, we don’t have the skills to make any of this. No masons, no bricks, and the straw she wants to use for insulation was meant to be eaten. I just don’t see how we could do it. I already told her so. She shouldn’t have wasted your time, sir.”

More eyes on her. Hayden didn’t even blush. “I have all the requisite skills,” she said, sitting up a little straighter in her seat. “Bricks, mortar, woodworking. If no pony in Defiance can do them, I’ll teach them.”

“You can’t make bricks from thin air,” Standard argued, glaring at her across the table.

“No. I’ll fire them from clay, the way bricks are made. And I’ll make mortar from limestone…” She looked away from the contentious mare. “Captain, I know the land around us seems desolate, but it contains everything we need. The skills your ponies would need are not difficult to teach. Making our own raw materials will be… time consuming, but it seems to me all your ponies have is time. Aside from those running patrols of the border, everypony here just looks bored. Perhaps it’s time to give them something productive to do?”

“How long…” Lodestone began, before taking a deep breath and starting again. “How long do you intend to remain here, Lady Star? Long enough to give us a list of demands?”

“Long enough to take responsibility if I’m wrong,” she answered. Honestly, I think the longer I’m out of the castle, the better. “If you give me the chance. Please—you ponies aren’t the only ones who are suffering. General Sunspot explained that Defiance was a typical fort in Equestria. Somepony must be the one to try these changes first. My first suggestions worked, didn’t they? Imagine how much better we can make the lives of Defiance’s ponies.”

Chapter 15: Shaking the Firmament

Hayden had almost nothing of what she needed. She didn’t even have the passable set of tools she had commissioned from the castle blacksmith. But Hayden had spent years of her life as a general contractor, and years before that in the military. In neither of those careers had “not having what she needed” been an excuse. She wouldn’t let it be in Defiance, either.

Besides, though she lacked almost anything of what might’ve been considered essential by others, she had the one thing that just couldn’t be done without—labor. Princess Luna had not given her a deadline, nor would her absence be much felt in Harmony. She hadn’t done much yet to integrate herself into the court there, and anyway her tutor had been banished because of their brief tryst.

The longer she lived with the soldiers, the less urgent the need to return to Earth seemed. Being ponies did not make their suffering any less poignant, as perhaps she might’ve felt less compassion for the state of a factory farm or some other group of animals back on Earth. Even if I do make it back I’ll probably be a vegetarian for life after this. And I don’t think I’ll ever look at glue the same way.

There was one way to soften the skepticism of Defiance’s ponies, and that was success. A few weeks later, and they’d finished the “icebox”, complete with everything her plans had called for. By the time a month was out, her newly appointed “geology team” had discovered deposits of limestone, gypsum, and iron pyrite. Everything they would need for the next stage of her plan.

Success won support—first from Captain Lodestone, then from his men, and eventually even from the ever-acerbic Unified Standard. They built kilns, limestone furnaces, and a forge. By the time two months were out, every soldier without a duty shift was putting in a few hours somewhere, either with new construction projects, lime, or with the expanding agriculture operation. By three months, they had enough trust in Hayden to risk next year’s grain ration (what part of it wasn’t moldy) in the newly fertile fields.

Quality of life changes came too—a water wheel on the river meant they could grind grain for flour instead of mashing it into a disgusting gruel. A skilled blacksmith to make molds and endless pony-hours with nothing to do meant she could start mass-producing pipes. Pegasi to control the location of rainfall meant she could fill a huge water tower to drive the whole system without even inventing pumps (which was good, since she had no idea how to make anything more advanced than an Archimedes screw).

What communication they got from the castle was never good. Princess Luna wrote her only to say that the situation in court “wasn’t improving,” and that “nasty rumors” were starting in Icefalls. Somepony had apparently connected “Evening Star” to them, though Hayden couldn’t imagine how that might be. Luna had not said—possibly because it was infrequent court messengers who delivered the messages, instead of anypony from the army.

As for shipments of needed supplies for the soldiers, there were none. Had it not been for their ability to control the weather, and create a pocket of spring in the ocean of endless winter, Hayden didn’t doubt that the whole fort would’ve frozen and starved long ago.

She spent much time with the soldiers during those months—really did eat with them, as she’d promised she would (and that had been what spurred her to suggest a water wheel for grain instead of the awful mash they ate). Hayden’s small quarters expanded to a wooden workshop of fair size, along with a half-dozen assistants to act as messengers and scribes. “Lady Star” spoken with spite was replaced with “Specialist Star,” which she liked much better. She even started wearing a uniform like the officers, though without any rank or medals. Her fictional noble rank entitled her to both, but she didn’t claim them. Somehow, it seemed like the ponies respected her more the less she took advantage of such privileges.

Most surprising of all, the soldiers fighting on Equestria’s northern border seemed completely unconcerned with just how strange she looked. Very rarely did they stare, even upon their first meeting with her. Most of them just seemed to assume she was a pony from “somewhere far away and always dark.” Hayden encouraged this rumor, though she continued to refuse to give specific details.

Life for the soldiers of Defiance got better, and every new (old) innovation she stole from human history opened the door to more. Harvesting the remains of cookfires for potash gave way to chemistry, and a handful of “alchemists” Hayden set to work isolating useful elements from the fractional distillation of charcoal production waste gas.

Still, she knew there was a ceiling upon what she could teach these ponies. Everything she’d given them so far required no special technology to implement (like germ theory) or had been well understood by the time her own species had reached the middle ages. Some of it (like making lime) was already known to pony society, just not the army.

But the longer they worked, the closer they came to a level of development that could not be overcome without an entire society worth of supporting infrastructure. There was only so much twenty thousand bored soldiers could do on their own.

Every innovation became a new headache for Hayden, and she was filled with fear anew that some difference in Equestria’s laws might not permit her ideas to work. She wasn’t a scientist and never had been, so she couldn’t have said the reasons why. But she still had that fear, even as it was consistently disproven.

In the end, the disruption to Hayden’s work did not come from anything she had done, or even the work of the other soldiers.

Hayden was wearing one of her blank uniforms when she entered Captain Lodestone’s office. She greeted his secretary with a polite nod, and the captain with a bow. Not a salute, since she wasn’t actually military.

“Sir, did you want a report on the forge? It’s on-schedule. At this rate, we should be casting iron…”

Lodestone waved a dismissive hoof through the air. “No, Evening Star. Nothing to do with the forge.” He gestured to the cushion on the other side of his desk.

Hayden sat, taking a moment to appreciate the design—the desk included an intricate carving of the fort, an accurate model with the locations of troops and supplies in the wilderness for hundreds of miles around. Icefalls itself was even marked with a tiny dot, on the furthest extreme of the desk. Only the area right in front of Lodestone on the other side was kept flat for use in writing or reading. There was an official-looking scroll there even now, thick paper bound with blue and black ribbon. An official message from the princess.

“What do you know about the princess? Have your sources in Harmony told you anything?”

Hayden shook her head. Her sources didn’t exist of course, but everypony seemed to think they did. In reality, Hayden had only a constant, low-level knowledge of the princess’s emotional state, which would bleed over into her own if she wasn’t careful.

Having something to build was a great distraction, so she didn’t get her own feelings crossed very often anymore. She let her mind drift a little… and very nearly fell out of her seat. There was so much pain, fear, distress… how had she missed all that for so long?

Lodestone appeared to have seen her expression, because he nodded gravely. “You already know, then. I admire your restraint in not sharing this information with the soldiers here. I’m afraid we’ll have to share this with the others, though—if information spreads through Defiance as forbidden rumors instead of confirmed facts, it’s going to undermine everything you’ve done for morale at a time when it’s desperately needed.”

“Tell them what?” she asked, her voice quiet. “My information was vague, I don’t have any specifics.”

“That’s because there aren’t any.” Lodestone reached out towards the scroll, rolling it up with one wing. Impressive dexterity from a limb without any fingers. “All we know is the attempt on her life wasn’t successful. We know nothing about who was behind it, or their possible motivations. Apparently the princess is badly hurt but expected to recover.”

I doubt that. If she was hurt, shouldn’t I feel it like she did when Celestia attacked me? That means the message is a lie. The despair Luna was feeling right now was so intense Hayden could scarcely sense it for more than a few seconds before pulling away again. There was a gravity to it, like a black hole threatening to swallow her too. Hopefully she can sense my feelings. Maybe I can be an anchor for her. But it wasn’t physical pain. There was no reason for her to lie to her soldiers, so why would the scroll have said otherwise?

“What else does the letter say? Any word on whether Equestria is under attack, or if I’m supposed to return?”

“It… explicitly forbids your return, in fact.” Lodestone didn’t bother trying to hide his surprise. “Which makes no sense. I thought you were our princess’s most trusted confidant. Wouldn’t she want you back at such a sensitive time?”

She might, or she might not. Her sister, though… “I assume you’re going to act as though Equestria might be under attack?”

Lodestone nodded sharply. “I’ve already passed the message along to the forts along the border, and they will have to do the same. I’m afraid this means a return to combat drills for my soldiers—they won’t be available to help with improvements to Defiance for the near future.”

At least he didn’t look smug or satisfied as he said that. A lesser commander might’ve been thrilled for the excuse to end her bossing the soldiers around—though she had always used the proper channels, always only put in requests and recommendations, they both knew who’d been running Defiance for the last few months.

“I wonder if…” She hesitated. “I might be permitted to keep a dozen of the ponies I’ve been training the most. My engineering team. A dozen ponies wouldn’t be so many to sacrifice out of thousands—even if we wouldn’t be enough to run the mines or finish building a forge, we would be able to keep working on smaller projects. Prototyping, plumbing…”

“I’ll consider it,” Lodestone said. “Get me a list. I’ll give you a dozen non-command ponies. But if we’re going to do that… we’ll have to consider that field promotion again. You can’t command anypony if you’re a civilian.”

“Fine.” Hayden shrugged her wings. “If that’s what it takes. And I know it means I’d have to go through… training or whatever, that’s fine. I’ve been through all of this before. Just so long as I can go back to Harmony if I need to. If the princess needs me…”

Lodestone nodded. “If you need to leave, you could just resign the commission. Your house gives you that ability, so long as Equestria isn’t at war. That scroll says we aren’t, but… I am skeptical. My officers will be as well, I have no doubt.”

“All the more reason to keep my team intact,” Hayden said. “If Equestria went to war, I can’t imagine your supply problem would get better. Civilian populations would go from unwilling to support you to unable. The path we’re on leads to self-sufficiency. Prosperity, even. What we really need to do is spread what we’ve been doing to the other northern forts. All Equestria’s fortifications, eventually. Imagine the whole army being self-sufficient!”

There were serious problems with that proposal—after all, an army that wasn’t dependent on the state might very well decide it should become the state. But so long as Princess Luna was leading them, Hayden couldn’t imagine that happening. They all love her. If anything, they’d probably just overthrow her sister and make her queen.

“That isn’t my decision,” Lodestone said. “But General Autumn might be willing to consider it. We need to go to Icefalls…” He lifted up the scroll with one wing. “We can’t walk on the edge of a knife like this. We need our orders—should we be mobilizing to defend the interior? Should we prepare for an attack? We need to know!”

He gestured frustration with his wings, and she rose to her hooves instinctively. “I’m departing tomorrow morning at first light. If you’d like to accompany me to make your proposal personally, you may. A field commission from General Autumn would be more authoritative than mine.”

And maybe I’ll be able to see Nightbreeze again. Princess Luna had a palace in Icefalls, after all. She should be easy to find. “I’m guessing we’ll be flying? So I can’t bring anypony who can’t fly.”

Lodestone nodded. “I can’t risk my absence from Defiance any more than a day. It’s quicker to Icefalls than to Harmony, so there’s no chance of being delayed. With the roads as they are, it would take over a week to walk.”

Hayden made her way out as quickly as she could. She had a limited time to capitalize on this new information before it became general to the camp—she would have to use it well. In particular, to secure the loyalty of her engineering ponies.

First came her chemist, a pegasus named Honed Edge she had recruited from the blacksmith. His talents had been wasted in sharpening spears, and he’d taken to what chemistry she could teach him with only minimal instruction. Just now, she wasn’t sure what she’d do without him.

“Sure, I’ll join your team,” he said, when she explained there was about to be a change in command. “It doesn’t make much difference to me. Working here in the lab, or out their sharpening weapons… I’m not a pony you have to convince.” But she could hear the lie in his voice. It was obvious he preferred working in the lab than doing the same dull, identical tasks day after day.

“Good, because you’re the pony I want to come with me. We’re flying to Icefalls tomorrow, and I want a pony who wasn’t an officer to be there to vouch for our success. Someone to tell General Autumn how well we’ve done.”

Edge stiffened, and he puffed out his wings suddenly. “W-wait a minute. General Autumn is going to be there? I have to… testify before her?”

“Yes.” Hayden waved a hoof dismissively. “But don’t worry. I know you’ll do fine. Just tell her everything you’ve seen, answer her questions. No speeches or anything like that.”

He looked over at her from across the distillery. She couldn’t tell at a glance what he was making today, but her nose told her it was acetone. The glass wasn’t clear like a laboratory distillery back on earth might’ve been, so it was hard to see exactly what was going on inside. Hayden was impressed enough that a pony glassblower had been able to make it.

“Not excited about this,” he said. “Not that part. But a trip to Icefalls? Do I have permission to tell the others I’m going?”

It was her turn to raise her eyebrows. “You can’t tell them why. Or that there’s a change in command coming. I don’t want ponies fighting over who gets to stay on the team and who must go back to their regular duties. Almost everyone is going to be going back into duty rotations, so that’s an argument nobody wins.”

“Oh, nothing like that. I was just going to collect bits and buy supplies from Icefalls. For a… modest fee.”

She shrugged. “Whatever, I’m not your commanding officer yet. Just don’t cause any trouble in camp, or you’re not going.” She made her way through the lab, recruiting her chosen ponies one at a time. Every single one of them was excited for the chance to remain with her—loyalty was one of the criteria she’d used to choose them, after all. Too bad about this apparent assassination. A year from now, and I would’ve had electric lights.

That was an exaggeration—but not entirely untrue, either. Shouldn’t this be working for you, Luna? I’ve been out here learning all kinds of things about command and politics. Have you learned my lessons back in Harmony?

Apparently she hadn’t, because somepony had tried to kill her. What happens to me if Luna dies? She didn’t know, but for the moment it seemed the mystery went even deeper. Not only had they received an “official” message lying about her injury, but somepony didn’t want Hayden back in Harmony. It seemed strange that it would be Luna, who had expressed no desire to have her back during all the months Hayden had spent in Defiance. Would Celestia lie about her sister being hurt? Why not want me to come back? Maybe the smart thing to do was head straight back in defiance of the instruction. But then, if Luna had sent it…

Hayden’s self-appointed purpose in Equestria thus far had been improving the lives of its citizens via human technology. That gave her something to do, and that was good. But there was something deeper, something she couldn’t dismiss.

If Luna’s in danger, I have to help her. It wasn’t a whim, but an absolute in the back of her mind. Luna had done little to earn her loyalty, but she had it all the same. It didn’t matter what the scroll said. If they learned anything in Icefalls to suggest that the princess needed her, even a hint, Hayden would go. The ponies of Defiance would have to make do with what they’d learned so far, and the plans she had made for the future.

They’d saved enough lives. It wouldn’t be a bad legacy to leave behind.

If she did have to leave, she would regret never having had the chance to get to know Lodestone better. Maybe before I’m promoted. There’s still time on the flight over.

Why can’t anything be simple?

Chapter 16: Bats!

Evening Star could hear the drums long before she could see the city through the clouds. This was by design, of course—flying above the clouds meant they could avoid the worst of the currents that might’ve knocked an inexperienced flier from the air. It meant they could spend the least effort, and rest whenever they wanted just by gliding down a ways.

The distant beats sounded nothing like anything Star had heard during her time in Defiance, watching ponies in their military drills. The beat sounded strange in her head, irregular.

“That’s… not possible,” Lodestone muttered, slowing to a stop in the sky. “Or it shouldn’t be. Wait here.”

Honed Edge stopped with ease, though Hayden had to circle and spread her wings, gradually eating up her momentum until she came to a stop, flapping twice as often as he did to stay airborne.

Lodestone himself dove straight down towards a point in the dark clouds, tightening his body as though he were trying to dive as deeply as possible through water. Then he vanished into the clouds, leaving a hole where he’d been.

Hayden couldn’t hover for long—it was much harder than simple flight, and her wings were already getting tired. She lowered herself onto the cloud, no longer afraid it might give way underneath her. Her night sleeping on one had disavowed her of that notion.

Peeking through the hole, she couldn’t see anything beyond a single patch of ground covered in snow. She could follow Lodestone… but that seemed like a bad idea. Whatever those drums were evidently wasn’t good. “You know what that is?” she asked Honed Edge, who landed beside her a few moments later.

“Yeah.” He shivered all over, reaching down to inspect his weapon. Considering the length of their trip, he carried only a thin sword, a little like a rapier. He didn’t answer until he’d unbuttoned the strap holding it in with his mouth, and drawn it out a few inches. As though making sure he could get to it in a hurry if he needed to. “That’s the Stonebeak clan. They’re… the worst kind of griffons. The ones mares tell stories about to their foals so they get home on time. All the worst things you’ve heard—they’re all true. Yes, there used to be half a dozen cities to the north. Yes, they really allied with Sombra himself and helped him conquer. Yes, they’re still taking slaves to this day. And yes, they do…” He swallowed, shivering all over. “E-eat their captives.”

“And Princess Luna is alright with that?” Hayden wasn’t sure how much of what Edge told her she could actually believe. Yes, the alchemist had been reliable in her service, but he was clearly describing a sworn enemy. It seemed unlikely that anyone could actually be that bad. “Why haven’t we kicked them out?”

Something large landed on the cloud behind them. “You think we haven’t tried, Lady Evening Star?”

Hayden nearly fell into the hole right then she moved so fast, making quite an unladylike squeaking sound as she did so. But it was only Lodestone, who had apparently picked another way to fly back.

“I-I don’t mean to question your skills, Captain. Or the valor of the army. Only the wisdom of not putting those to use.” She turned on the cloud, moisture squishing beneath her hooves as she did so.

Lodestone’s face had gone cold, though she couldn’t know if it had been from what she said or what he had seen. “There are too many of them,” he said. “And Equestria has never been committed to actually following them north. It would take a dozen regiments to drive them out, and we don’t even have half that defending the border.”

“What did you see, sir? Is Icefalls under attack?”

Lodestone nodded slowly. “There’s only one ship—raiding party, by the look of it. They won’t stay long enough for Icefalls to really mobilize—they’re already retreating.”

Hayden rose to her hooves again, flexing her wings. “Then let’s get down there and stop them! We’re not gonna let those bastards get away! What message do you think that’s gonna send to the rest of them?”

Lodestone rested a hoof on her shoulder, but there was nothing affectionate about the gesture. It was forceful enough that she sunk a little way into the cloud, enough that it hurt her shoulder. “Absolutely not, Lady Star. Princess Luna’s instructions about your care were absolute. I wouldn’t have dreamed of bringing you if I suspected the Stonebeak clan would be so bold. We will not take any action that subjects you to personal danger.”

At least he didn’t try to order her. But Hayden didn’t resist, just glared back at him, and nodded with the angriest, sourest expression she could. “Fine.”

Only then did he remove his hoof from her shoulder. “When they’re gone, we can fly down to the city and see what we need to do. Edge, take what provisions you can and prepare to fly back. First thing I’m going to do is ask if we need to send for the Defiance Battalion. If that’s the order, you’re flying back at all speed to order their approach. I’ll send hired messengers as well, but I trust my own stallions better.”

“Aye, sir.” He saluted, never actually making eye-contact with the captain. He’d been that way the whole trip—Edge wasn’t an officer, and didn’t feel comfortable in their company. Least of all the one in charge of all of Defiance. “I’ll be prepared.”

“Good lad.” Lodestone turned away from him, back towards Evening star. “Raids like this are common, but not so far south. Fort Polestar is further north, they should’ve headed off an attack like this. They had five thousand soldiers—there can’t be five hundred griffins down there.”

“Maybe they got around somehow,” Hayden suggested. “You said something about a ship, right? Maybe they found another waterway you didn’t know about.”

“An airship,” Lodestone corrected. “It’s possible. Griffios don’t have any magic on their own, so I don’t know how they’d get around the tracking spells. But I suppose it’s possible. There are unicorns in charge of that kind of thing, I’m sure they know.”

They waited in uneasy silence for at least an hour, until the sound of the drums changed abruptly to a different beat, and started drifting further and further away. Lodestone made them wait until the sound had completely gone before finally gesturing over the edge of the cloud with one of his forehooves. “Alright, let’s fly as quickly as we can. Lady Evening Star, I hope you’ll forgive me, but your questions probably won’t be the first concern. It may be days before General Autumn has the chance to discuss the field-promotion with you.”

She shrugged her wings. “That’s secondary. If the north is really being invaded, Luna probably wouldn’t want me up here to begin with. So I wouldn’t get to stay.”

“There’s no way it’s an invasion,” Honed Edge said, as they finally took off. “They would’ve sent a whole armada if that was the case, not one ship!”

For a good few seconds, Hayden couldn’t see anything at all beyond the clouds, until she broke through the other side to the gray world of perpetual overcast. That was when she got her first good look at Icefalls.

It was at the base of a mountain, instead of near the peak. A huge waterfall framed the city in the distance, frozen solid in mid-flow. The city itself looked smaller than Harmony, though it was hard to tell for sure since so much of Harmony had been hidden in the trees. It had high walls, which Harmony lacked, and the buildings inside were all packed much more closely together. The world around it was all windswept wasteland, and Hayden found herself wondering what any of the ponies who lived inside ate.

It was also on fire. Guardhouses along the walls were still burning, and smoke rose from smoldering buildings further in the city. Guards ran and flew about, tiny specks against the afternoon gray. No one in the city seemed to notice or care as they approached, two armored ponies and one just wearing a winter coat.

Edge broke out of formation as they passed over the lower city, but Lodestone gestured for Hayden to continue, up the sloping streets towards the fort at the top of the hill. There were guards on every wall of the fort, armored and stern, though they seemed a small complement for such a large stone fortress.

A flag bearing a crescent moon flew from that fortress, along with many of the towers. Not all of them, though—apparently someone had gone about tearing them down.

They flew straight for one of the tallest towers, one Lodestone seemed to recognize. He slowed well in advance, far enough that Hayden could see what he was doing and imitate him before she crashed into the building like an idiot.

They touched down on a balcony of white stone, and she only slid a little before correcting herself, grinning proudly as she did so. Lodestone didn’t notice—he was already striding quickly towards the single guard protecting the balcony. “Where is General Autumn?” he asked, his voice absolutely confident. A tone that expected obedience.

The guard looked down, staring at his hooves. “She’s, uh… in the great hall. But—”

“That will do.” Lodestone strode past him into the building, waiting just long enough for Hayden to keep up with him.

They found General Autumn in the great hall, alright. She was still in her armor, resting in a plain wooden coffin. There was blood on some of her uniform, and obvious damage to her armor. As they hurried down the stairs, Hayden heard what was unmistakably the prayer for a fallen warrior, sung by a young male unicorn in a dark robe. The room was filled with ponies—many wearing armor, but many without. Some wore rich-looking clothing, and gold jewelry on their bodies. Even their mourning seemed genuine.

Then Hayden noticed the other thing—which seemed even more impossible than everything else she’d seen that day.

Nearly half the ponies crowded into the great hall were bats. It took her several moments of silent searching to even find feathery wings belonging to anyone but her companion. The noble family with their jewels all had them, along with many of the guards.

Lodestone noticed it too. He glanced back at her, eyes wide with surprise. But he didn’t actually get a chance to say anything, because at that moment the prayer was finished and everypony in the room looked up. They were standing right on the stairs, where everypony would be able to see them.

“Captain Lodestone!” said the oldest-looking of the royal ponies, a stallion with a mane going gray at the edges. “Our messenger arrived sooner than I would’ve thought possible. Fortuitous that you would have made it so soon.” He strode forward, through the crowd of ponies still lowered in mourning. “I think General Autumn would’ve wanted you here.”

“Of course.” Lodestone looked on the edge of asking about the obvious, but he restrained himself. He joined the procession with many other ponies as they carried the coffin out into the courtyard, where a makeshift pyre of wood was already waiting.

Evening Star remained quiet at the back of the procession, feeling awkward to be there but knowing it would be worse to leave. Nobody seemed to mind seeing her there, and her wings attracted no special attention at all. Not one pony saw them and seemed surprised.

Hayden found herself searching the crowd for Nightbreeze, knowing that Luna would’ve made sure her position here was important. Important enough that she would be in the castle, for sure. Assuming she wasn’t hurt in the attack. But if Nightbreeze was anywhere in the staff, she couldn’t find her by looking at the backs of ponies here. Searching for the only other set of bat wings obviously wouldn’t work when it seemed like every set of wings was bat wings.

The wood took surprisingly quickly to the flames, despite the chill air. Soon enough the bonfire was consuming the pony within—a general Hayden had never even met. Apparently she had been in charge of all the ponies of the north. Who did that leave to take her place?

Chapter 17: Icefalls by Night

A few minutes later, and Hayden had followed Lodestone back inside, accompanied only by the guards and a handful of other ponies. None of the guards asked for her identification.

“And what of Polestar, Lord Snow Storm?” Captain Lodestone asked, as soon as they were safe within the castle walls. Most of the servants and staff didn’t follow them to the upstairs sitting room near where they had first entered. But Hayden followed, and Lodestone glared at any guard who dared approach her. “Why didn’t they stop this?”

“Captain…” The stallion slumped into his chair, expression heavy. This was a man who had been having conversations like this too often. “Polestar was destroyed. I don’t know what happened to the garrison there, either carried away captive, or… or worse.” He shuddered. “The entire northern garrison is in shambles. Equestria itself is in danger, and Harmony will do nothing! General Autumn was already drafting a letter to you—I’m sure it’s waiting in her study even now. We must consider whether we will abandon Icefalls to the enemy and flee south, or…” He shook his head. “I can’t even imagine what else we might do. If Equestria will not send more troops, then we can’t defend here for much longer. The Armada will destroy us. But if we do flee, it seems our own kind are as much a threat to us as the enemy outside the walls. Truly there is nowhere for us to go.”

Lodestone took the seat across from him, nodding back towards Hayden. “Before we go further—this is Lady Evening Star. Princess Luna herself sent her to improve… well, it doesn’t really matter. The point is, she is—”

Snow Storm rose immediately from his seat, bowing to Hayden as though a princess were standing behind her. “Forgive me, Lady Evening Star! I had no idea the princess cared so deeply for her city that she would’ve sent you. I would’ve made sure you received more honor at the ceremony had I known.”

Lodestone watched with an expression of increasing confusion. “What are you… talking about? Lady Evening Star is a member of the princess’s house, but that doesn’t mean you should—”

“Of course, you wouldn’t know.” Snow Storm waved a dismissive wing at Lodestone. “Much has happened since your last visit. The city would not have survived this long were it not for Luna’s care. Without the Gift she sent us, we probably would’ve been overwhelmed by the Stonebeaks weeks ago.”

Hayden had returned the lord’s bow, not knowing what else to do. But now she couldn’t find the focus to do even that. “When you say Luna’s ‘gift’…” She extended one of her wings. “You mean this?”

Snow Storm nodded eagerly, returning to his seat. “Of course, of course! Luna’s own steward brought it back, a magic chosen for these desperate times. The princess was truly watching over us, conscious of our needs even if she didn’t answer our prayers in the way we thought.”

“Nightbreeze,” Hayden said. “That was the steward, wasn’t it? Where is she?”

“In the Lunar Temple, of course,” Snow Storm said. “Our soldiers fight better with the magic—almost all of them have chosen to receive it.”

“I do not…” Lodestone spoke slowly. As though being careful not to offend. “I do not understand what you’re discussing, but it will not change this decision. The princess has given me instructions to look after the well-being of her family. I must borrow a carriage, and the ponies to drive it. She will be returned to Harmony with all haste.”

“If that is General Lodestone’s wish,” Snow Storm said, sounding doubtful. “But I question the safety of any bat sent to Equestria.” He lowered his voice, as though afraid of how Lodestone might react. “One of my messengers returned beaten, and he said the garrison had done it. The other didn’t return at all. Apparently Equestria is reacting badly to Luna’s new magic.”

Is that what the assassination attempt was about? Hayden reached out to Luna’s emotions as she had done before, and again she was staggered. She inhaled sharply, breathing rapidly, and trying to banish the terrible despair. It came from Luna, but it found easy root in her. I caused this. I’m the reason Nightbreeze became a bat. Whatever she did after, I caused it.

What have I done?

Snow Storm and Lodestone didn’t seem to be paying attention to her.

“This ‘gift’ is spreading beyond Icefalls, then?”

Snow Storm nodded. “All the way to Harmony, or so I hear. It’s hard to ignore the advantages. Even in places without such cold and darkness as Icefalls, ponies can find a use for these powers. Not all revere the sun equally.”

It had been barely three months since her night with Nightbreeze. More importantly, she hadn’t heard anything about the magic spreading before she left for Defiance, just over a month ago. It can’t have spread that far in so little time!

“What advantages?” Lodestone raised an eyebrow. “I do not doubt the princess would give us every advantage against the coming storm. Perhaps this magic is her answer.”

“Well…” Snow Storm looked uneasy, glancing sidelong at Hayden. “It would be better if the priestess herself would explain it, in the temple. My understanding is not as good as hers, and I wouldn’t want to misrepresent this new magic to the general of all Equestria’s northern forces.” He bowed slightly to Hayden, though this time he remained sitting. “I will of course have rooms prepared for the visiting emissary of our princess’s house. Though after today, I fear my city may not remain safe long. We may soon be forced to risk the tolerance of our kin in the south. Whatever they do to us, it can’t be as bad as what the Stonebeaks have planned.”

“I think I need to talk to this priestess immediately. Nightbreeze, you said?” Lodestone rose to his hooves. “If you would be so good, Lord Storm, instruct your servants to gather whoever remains of General Autumn’s command. We will meet at sunrise in her office. You will be invited to attend as well, of course.”

Snow Storm nodded, but didn’t rise as they did. “Of course, General Lodestone. You remember the temple?”

“I do.” He turned, waiting by the door for Hayden to follow. Together they hurried from the room, back down the stairs through the empty castle.

“I was not aware you had unique powers,” he muttered as they walked, just quietly enough for her to hear. They passed through the castle courtyard into the streets of Icefalls. Even though it was not fully dark yet, the city seemed eerily deserted. They caught occasional glimpses of ponies peeking out from inside battered houses, but otherwise the only ponies they saw were soldiers, cleaning the rubble out of the streets or patrolling. “You have been so forthright with me during your visit, Lady Star. Did Luna give you instructions that her new magic was not to be shared with my stallions?”

“Not explicitly,” Hayden squeaked, avoiding his eyes. He walked very quickly, and she had to concentrate on her steps to avoid falling behind. “But I wasn’t aware I had any advantages. I only knew that I don’t have weather magic—I can walk on clouds, but that’s it. I can’t… do what your pegasus ponies do to regulate the climate around Defiance.”

“No weather magic,” he repeated, obviously distraught. “A high price to pay for… what, exactly?”

She shook her head, lowering her voice. As nice as it was that ponies seemed to be looking more suspiciously at the pegasus than herself, she didn’t like the idea of how many might be listening. “Lodestone, Luna didn’t create this magic to be shared. It was a single spell meant for a single purpose. Whatever else has happened… she didn’t plan on this. When I left, this”—she held out a wing—“having anything to do with her was a secret. Only Celestia knew. Apparently the whole country knows now…”

And so far as Hayden knew, there were three ponies in all the world besides herself that could’ve shared that information. Luna, who obviously wouldn’t have. Star Swirl, who had never displayed any inclination except to absolute secrecy—and Nightbreeze, who was now a “priestess” in some weird temple giving out Luna’s “gifts” to any pegasus who would take them.

“I appreciate that you followed Luna’s commands,” Lodestone said. “But I hope you won’t take offence if I don’t share this strange magic with my troops. Even if it seems to be the fashion here… it also seems permanent. And not just the soldiers taking it, either.”

Hayden shook her head. “I came to make the lives of your soldiers better, Captain. Err—General. Honestly, I’ve had a hard-enough time being a bat, I don’t know that I would want others to experience the same difficulties I have. Apparently they already are.”

“I don’t like any of this,” Lodestone muttered, his voice low. “Assassination attempts, raids deep into our territory, and now new magic is making a new tribe? This feels like somepony is giving me half the pieces to a puzzle without suggesting how they’re meant to fit together.” He looked up as they approached the doors. There were a pair of guards outside—both bats. Inside, they could hear many voices. Ponies had apparently packed in close inside. “You are one of those pieces as well, Lady Evening Star. Perhaps you will be kind enough to explain how you fit in by the end.”

“I was very close with Nightbreeze,” she whispered back. Better he learns that now than be surprised as soon as they came through the doors. “She will certainly recognize me. I never imagined she would be able to spread the magic, but if she can… she probably got it from me.”

Lodestone’s eyes widened, but he didn’t get the chance to ask what she meant. Hayden probably shouldn’t be telling him all of this, even if she had come to trust him absolutely over the last month. Lodestone was a soldier who cared about his men, understood their needs, and would’ve given his own life in their defense if he thought it would make a difference. He was exactly like the officers Hayden herself had respected, when she had worn a uniform.

They passed the guards without a word, who both stood to attention at the sight of Lodestone and held the door open for them. They both stared at his wings, but apparently weren’t surprised enough to speak.

The temple was a dark, round building, with a massive glass ceiling looking up at the sky. Everything inside it appeared devoted to astronomy in one way or another—there were maps of the stars on the walls, and incredibly detailed lunar calendar notations. Some of the windows above were stained, depicting comets or stars or other heavenly bodies, while the largest central dome was clear. Given the height of the temple compared to many of Icefalls’s other buildings, it would probably permit a quiet contemplation of the sky with minimal interference—it would’ve tonight if it wasn’t for all the smoke.

The temple ahead of them was packed with pews, and those pews were full of pony bodies. They smelled of desperation and bad bathing habits. Outside, most of the ponies with wings were bats. In the temple, there were only a handful of non-bats in all the space, and all of them lacked wings.

The room didn’t have a raised platform at the front, as many human religious buildings did. Instead it was round, with stadium-style seating that made sure everyone would be able to see the lowest point, where Nightbreeze stood.

Not just her. Hayden could recognize her even in the black robes, but there were two others. There was also a sword—not so much sitting on the stage as hovering above its plinth in a curtain of starlight, at the very center of the temple. Hayden could feel the magic radiating from that blade, calling to her. Demanding it be wielded. It was almost like words. There is much suffering here. Together we will take away their pain.

Hayden tore her eyes away from the beautiful weapon—though how the whole room could be looking at her and not the sword, she didn’t know. “Please, continue,” Nightbreeze said, turning away from her companions and up the ramp towards Hayden. “Continue the service,” she said again, a little louder. “I will speak to our visitors.”

Despite her instruction, there was complete silence in the room as she made her way up the ramp. Every hoofstep echoed through the vaulted ceiling, and Hayden could practically hear the ponies’ heartbeats. Nightbreeze stopped just a few steps away, barely seeming to even notice Lodestone there. “Hello, Evening Star,” she said.

“H-hey.”

Chapter 18: New Terms

They left the temple, or at least that part of it, descending a set of stairs near the back to a basement level. The rooms were all decorated in a similar style, with lunar and night-based tapestries and mosaics wherever there was room. This seemed to be the quarters for the priests, judging by the modest bedrooms they passed, along with a cooking and bathing area, all clean but looking lived-in.

“Of all the ponies I thought might visit…” Nightbreeze said. “I never imagined she would send you. Guess you must’ve really impressed her to get the princess to trust you again.”

Hayden winced a little—she could feel the tension between them, of a different flavor than the last time. It was meeting an old friend with which you’d had a falling out, without ever having the time to make up again. “You’d know about all that if you read my letters,” Hayden said.

Nightbreeze cleared her throat, ignoring the remark completely and looking up at Lodestone. “Your uniform is…” She didn’t have to squint, though there was only a tiny candle to light the room. “Ah, yes. You’re General Autumn’s replacement, then? Or just Evening Star’s foalsitter?”

“The first,” Lodestone said, apparently without thinking. “Lady Evening Star accompanied me here to receive her commission. Given all that’s happened…” He looked down, though it seemed he wouldn’t stay quiet any longer. “I was told you could explain the exact nature of this transformation. I already asked Lady Star, but she insists she doesn’t know any of the magic involved. Snow Storm told me you were the pony to ask.”

“Yes, I suppose he would.” She didn’t actually look back to face him, instead pacing around the edge of the room and lighting the feeble candles one at a time. It was a library, as it turned out, albeit a modest one. But considering the cost of books, the ponies probably saw it as a fortune of knowledge. “Luna’s gift, as he puts it. A delightful euphemism.” Only when a dozen candles lit the room all around the perimeter did she return and sit down on her haunches before them. “Evening Star named us Thestrals—so far that’s the name that stuck. If you’re talking about our magic, well… it’s not like pegasus ponies. That’s a lot to give up.”

“I know,” he said. “He told us that much. Just not what you received in return. It must be quite the gift, if so many were clamoring for it.”

“Oh, yes. Quite the gift,” she repeated, her tone dripping with sarcasm. “It does have some advantages—our night vision is perfect, as you will know if you’ve spent any time with Evening Star. Our hearing is better than yours as well—so good that we can use sound to figure out what a place looks like even in total darkness. Did you figure out how to do that yet, Star?”

“No,” she answered, before Lodestone could get indignant about the lack of a title again. “There hasn’t really been time.”

“I’m sure there wasn’t.” She looked back to the captain. “What she hasn’t discovered yet—I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised, considering where she’s from—are the other aspects. We’re very good at moving around in the dark—stealth. It seems magic, though maybe it’s just a skill. Our unicorns haven’t figured out the difference. A few have figured out how to do some stranger things.” She glanced back at Hayden. “You know Princess Luna has dominion over dreams, right?”

She didn’t actually wait for a response. “Well, we apparently have a… physical version of that. She can change dreams--make ponies afraid, or settle them down. We can do that while we’re awake. Make them afraid, or angry, or…” she trailed off, looking sidelong at Hayden. The implication was obvious. “Nopony really knows yet what the limits of these powers are. Can a pony get good enough at hiding that their powers work in daylight? Could you make a whole crowd feel a certain emotion, instead of just an individual?”

“That sounds… interesting, I suppose,” Lodestone said. “Almost half unicorn, half pegasus. But I don’t see why so many soldiers would be accepting this gift. Weather magic can be a weapon—is stealth really so much of an advantage that it’s worth giving it up to be a little better?”

“I don’t know that many of them have a choice,” Nightbreeze said, with a tone that suggested she didn’t believe Lodestone could possibly be so ignorant. “They do what their commanders tell them. And there is a persistent belief that bats are better at fighting than other ponies. More able to… more able to kill. I don’t know if it’s a rumor or if it’s true, but their captains believe it. Now that we’ve fought off one attack with mostly bat soldiers, I’m sure the rumor will only get stronger. Anypony who can who hasn’t already changed probably will soon.”

“I don’t…” Hayden didn’t exactly feel welcome down here, but she couldn’t stay quiet anymore. “There’s no way all these ponies could be changing so fast if the only way is…” She couldn’t even bring herself to say it. “What happened to you? How can there be so many?”

Nightbreeze laughed bitterly. “If that were the only way, then I wouldn’t be down in this temple and Equestria wouldn’t hate us. Snow Storm’s unicorns discovered a way to share the magic. So long as you have one bat, it’s really easy to do. And there are other ways, more… intimate ways.” She glanced briefly up at Hayden again, though her eyes didn’t linger this time. “I’m not a unicorn and neither are you, so I can’t give you more than that. Just… being very close friends with a bat, if you’re a pegasus… that seems to be enough. Whether those relationships are physical or otherwise.” She shrugged. “Now, was there anything else. Snow Storm will hear if I don’t direct the ceremony with enough conviction. I should return to the bats.”

“That is… sufficient.” Lodestone turned back for the stairs. “Thank you for being frank with us, Nightbreeze.”

“Somepony has to.” She gestured with a wing, and a brief chill passed around the room, putting out all the candles in a flash. Hayden could still see well enough thanks to the light trickling down the stairs. She could see Lodestone tense. “What will you decide, new general in the north? Will you force your ponies to change?”

“No.” No hesitation. “I can see the advantage of having a few of you in my army. Scouts in particular seem like they would benefit from your skills—but the advantage of any pony army is its diversity. Bringing all the tribes together is what makes us strong against our enemies. We can bring many skills to use in battle, instead of just a few.”

Nightbreeze made an indistinct sound—not quite a sigh of exasperation—before hurrying past them up the stairs.

Hayden moved beside Lodestone. “I can see the way out,” she whispered quietly. “Follow me.” And he did, back out the doors of the temple and onto the streets of Icefalls. She didn’t even look back at the sword on their way out, or at least not more than once.

It was full dark by then, every seat in the temple packed. Only now did it look like the city was really waking up. Ponies had started organizing into crews, joining the soldiers as they hauled rubble out of the streets. Shops looked like they had just started opening their doors—she could see children running through the wreckage, hear the shouts of their parents behind. Many were bats, but not all.

“The more I learn, the less I know,” Lodestone muttered, just loud enough for her to hear. “All this would be difficult enough to understand if we weren’t apparently being probed for invasion. All this, at the same time…” He shook his head, then started back towards the castle. “I’m afraid it doesn’t appear as though I will be leaving Icefalls anytime soon, Lady Evening Star. And if this really is an invasion…”

“I understand,” she interrupted. “You need to ask Luna what to do with me. She might want me back in Harmony if there’s danger up here. My experiments were meant for peace, and she told you to protect me.”

“Indeed,” he said, apparently relieved that she had spoken. That way, he didn’t have to. “You will remain at the castle just as Snow Storm suggested. I’m sure you will be well cared-for in your time here. Were it not for the invasion, I would think Icefalls a perfect home for you. Not a place I expect you will deal with much disrespect.”

“I expect not,” she said, wistful. “But that doesn’t help me if the Stonebeaks really do come back. Or more importantly, it doesn’t help all these ponies. Who have… apparently decided they want to be creatures of the night. It’s kinda metal—this city looks like it could be an album cover.”

“Huh?” Lodestone stopped walking, glancing back at her with genuine confusion on his face. “What are you talking about? Is there something I missed during—”

“No,” Hayden sighed. “Just something from my home. I shouldn’t have said anything.” They walked in silence for most of the way back to the castle. “What was that sword, Lodestone? The one in the temple?”

“Achelois.” He spoke very quietly, almost reverently. “It’s a magical sword left over from the draconic invasion—Luna received it as a gift from a dying god, the stories say. Apparently it can cut through anything evil, no matter how strong, but can’t hurt anything good. I don’t… really know how true any of that is, but it is a magic sword, and nopony but Luna can use it, so… I’m guessing nopony was able to figure out how to make more.”

If Nightbreeze were here—the old one, not the one that hated Hayden—she might’ve said something about the voice she had heard, whenever she looked at the weapon. But Lodestone already had enough to think about, and this wasn’t really his area. “That’s too bad. A whole army with swords that can cut anything evil but not hurt our own men would be wonderful.”

“Yeah.” He chuckled. “It would be great. I don’t suppose you know how to enchant magical weapons along with making ponies not get sick.”

“Obviously I do,” she answered, before she could stop herself. “Well, not that kind of magic. The kind of magic the Stonebeaks were using to cause all this.” She gestured with her wing down at the city, with its many smoldering fires. “I know how to do that. And… many more.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “Lodestone, I know how to make weapons so terrible that they would make the most bloodthirsty pony hate war.”

Lodestone didn’t look away. There were many ponies moving around them, flowing in and out of the castle. They parted around the two of them, apparently not paying attention to their conversation. “Could they fight off an invasion?” Lodestone asked. “If a hundred ships attacked Icefalls…”

“Yes,” she whispered back. “But not if you wait that long. If the enemy arrives at the gates, it’s too late. You know that better than most ponies, I’m sure. New weapons need to be made somewhere—ponies need to be taught how to use them—you need new tactics to take advantage of the new abilities you’ve given your men—but yes. If Equestria fought with the weapons my home possessed, then no enemy could threaten it. It wouldn’t matter if they sent a hundred ships or a thousand.”

Lodestone straightened. “I will send word to the princess of our predicament. I’m sure she will be sensitive to our needs, and will give me instructions for your care. It might be that the first legion is already marshaling to shore up our defenses, and to reclaim whatever territory we’ve lost. But that concern is mine to carry. I will send the soldier you chose… Corporal Honed Edge, I believe. Since I do not yet require the soldiers of Defiance to join us here, he will be your bodyguard for the duration. Do not argue.”

For that was what she’d been about to do, her mouth already open for it. Hayden shut her mouth again, glaring, but she didn’t argue.

“We will speak again tomorrow,” he said. “A message cannot possibly return from Equestria proper in that much time. Assuming we can find a way to get a message to Harmony, I would expect three days before we receive a response, at the earliest.”

The quarters they had waiting for her were much nicer than anything she’d ever had in Defiance, though nowhere near as nice as Luna’s own personal guest-quarters. The space was fantastic, an entire study already filled with the various things its previous owners had cared about—books, and old musical instruments, and a whole shelf containing rolls of old maps behind glass.

Hayden didn’t unpack exactly—she might be returning to Harmony tomorrow morning for all she knew. But she did take out her gun, along with the mechanism the craftsponies of Defiance had helped her make for it. A thin cloth sleeve went onto a forehoof, holding the handgun so that it would aim down the length of her leg. The trigger had been modified so she could fire by pressing down on a nearby lever. To get a steady shot would require her to brace her leg on something.

She had exactly thirteen bullets left—she was down two shooting at nothing when Luna had first kidnapped her, and another one when she had tested the mechanism. Only eight of those bullets were with her right now—the others were all back in Defiance with the rest of her belongings. I won’t be holding off an invasion with a 9mm.

Honed Edge arrived at about that time, opening the doors, and making his way into the attached servant’s room. The room didn’t have nearly as much space for him as it did for her—it was barely larger than a closet. “What a wild place,” he called, about as formal with his introduction as usual. Honed Edge didn’t see her as an officer, as indeed she wasn’t. The parts of pony society he came from were evidently too “common” to fear the indirect damage displeasing a noble lady might do to his life or his family. Either that, or Edge didn’t care.

It was one of the reasons she had liked him so much—Edge was the first pony she had hired for the lab who would call her out on a bad idea, instead of just smiling and nodding but then giving her bad results when her ideas fell flat.

“Yeah,” she agreed, walking right up to the doorway. She had removed her winter clothes, was completely naked now—but the time for being embarrassed about that was over. Ponies almost never reacted to that, and apparently Edge was no exception. “Can’t say it was what I was expecting. I knew Icefalls was Luna’s city, but…”

“You’re not thrilled?” Edge had dropped his saddlebags, but made no effort to remove his armor or the weapon sheathed there. Given he had been assigned to protect her, Hayden gave it even odds he tried to sleep wearing it. Some ponies could do that, but not many. It didn’t look like a pleasant experience either way. “A whole nest full of bats. I guess there must be enough places like this where you’re from that seeing one in Equestria isn’t that interesting. Unless…” He grinned at her. “Unless you’re from some secret refuge in the jungle or something, last of your kind. Then maybe it’s back to being excited to seeing more bats out in the world.”

Hayden could still feel Luna’s despair. It was there on the edge of her perception, the kind of feelings that would swallow the soul of a weaker pony. I should be back there with her.

But just as she thought that, another voice spoke in her mind, just as insistent. What if she blames you for this? What if seeing you only makes it worse? There were no easy answers here, except one. Star Swirl really should have sent her back to Earth all those months ago. Then Equestria wouldn’t be changing.

“I only knew about two of me in the whole world,” she eventually answered. She wouldn’t be giving out more details to Edge—just as he wasn’t terribly afraid of offending her, he also wasn’t someone she would rely on to remain quiet with her secrets. He kept their work secret in the lab, but only because he wanted ponies not to see what they’d done until it was finished, and he could soak up the praise of his fellow soldiers. “I didn’t expect there to be more bats here. Certainly not a whole city’s worth.”

“That’s what you’re worried about?” Edge sounded amused. “Equestria just lost one of its best generals. Polestar might’ve been destroyed, Icefalls could be attacked tomorrow. This could be the beginning of a full-scale invasion the likes of which hasn’t been seen since our great-grandparents. You think the number of bats is the important thing?”

It seems to be for everypony else. But she didn’t say that out loud. “I’m glad I brought you, Corporal. I don’t know what I’d do without your perspective.” She turned, making her way back towards the bedroom. She didn’t really feel like sleeping yet, but she probably should. There was much to do while she was in Icefalls, and she wouldn’t want to waste any of that time exhausted.

“I’m glad you brought me too,” Edge called after her. “I’m sick of moldy bread. This castle stuff is much better.”

Chapter 19: General in the North

The door banged open, hard enough that Hayden was surprised it didn’t shatter into splinters. A single unicorn stood in the opening, with a cloud of servants running after him. There was no suggestion of how such an old unicorn could’ve beaten so many young ponies to her bedroom. Some ways behind him, she thought she could make out Snow Storm in the distance, struggling to keep up.

Honed Edge snapped alert as he entered, weapon already drawn. He didn’t seem to recognize the unicorn—though the royal seal on his robe was unmistakable.

“Out,” the old unicorn said, gesturing to the door. He didn’t wait for obedience, just pointed with his horn. Edge levitated right out the door, dropped unceremoniously to the floor, and it slammed shut behind him.

Hayden rose from her desk, reaching up subconsciously to brush her mane out of her face with one hoof. She lowered her head in a slight bow. “Star Swirl. A pleasure to see you again.”

“It would be more of a pleasure if I wasn’t seeing your ghost all across Equestria.” He marched across the room towards her like an executioner, though he held no weapons. The satchel slung across his shoulder opened on its own, and he removed a pair of scrolls from within. Both had a wax seal, though the icons were different.

“You think I wanted this?” She glanced out the window, at the city full of bats. “I wasn’t even here until yesterday. You know the timeline for that doesn’t make sense.”

“The truth rarely matters, Hayden. What matters is what ponies think is the truth. Princess Celestia holds your existence responsible for the chaos in Equestria, and she is ultimately correct. The result is all that matters.”

“For what it’s worth, I think Lord Storm is your pony,” she said. “His unicorns were the ones who devised the spell. He’s the one who pressured the city guard to take the spell, and changed the city’s schedule so that things were only open at night. I don’t know his motives, but…”

“His motives are irrelevant,” Star Swirl said. “He will be swept up in what’s coming as much as anypony else. I doubt any will survive long enough for specific punishments.” He broke the seal on one of the two scrolls, which Hayden managed to get a glimpse at for a few seconds before he opened it. It was Luna’s seal. “The princess has ordered me to send you home immediately. She blames herself for all that has happened. She does not wish you to endure what is to come. And I agree, much as I think it would be better if you did stay. But your death would inflict only greater harm on the princess.”

“That other scroll,” Hayden said, finding it was harder and harder to care about Star Swirl’s anger the more he went on. “That’s the one with Celestia’s orders, isn’t it? Does Luna’s only talk about me?”

“Only you. The princess has barely left her tower in a month, Hayden. You wouldn’t either if you heard what the nobility is saying. A plot to undermine Equestria—a ploy for power, to overthrow her sister.”

Star Swirl removed something else from his bag—chalk. Several different sticks, each worn to a different level. He started drawing on the floor with all of them at once, each stick levitating as though it had an invisible artist drawing with it. The runes Star Swirl drew were some of the most elegant and complex Hayden had ever seen—certainly more than the few times she’d seen unicorn spells in camp. Star Swirl seemed as practiced at magic as the Alicorns themselves, if not moreso.

“What will Celestia do?” she asked, considering whether she should try to snatch the scroll out of the air and read it for herself. She didn’t though, just got out of Star Swirl’s way and let him draw all over the floor. It didn’t seem like he would take very long to finish whatever he was creating there. “You think it might kill ponies?”

To her surprise, the scroll sped towards her, so quickly it nearly hit her in the face. She dodged, then caught it with a wing as it kept going. She opened it on the bed, unrolling the royal decree.

Celestia’s hoofwriting was neat and elegant, written on fancy paper with gold leaf hammered into the pages. There were runes set into the gold, though she didn’t know what they meant. The magical language of the unicorns was not something Hayden had made a priority.

It began with fluffy nonsense about the protection of Equestria’s ideals and the importance of cooperation in a difficult time. Hayden skimmed over that without really reading, barely noticing what she was seeing. Then she got to the meat.

“To aid in Equestria’s defense, the majority of its armed forces along the northern border will be immediately recalled and placed under the command of Lord Diamond Glow. Anypony who is unchanged by the new magic spreading across Equestria is welcome to join with the military as they make their way for Whinnypeg. A complete evacuation of the northern territories will not be possible.

“To assure that the ponies of the north have the best chance of mounting a successful defense, Lady Evening Star of Luna’s own household is to be appointed general in the north. May her defense of all those who have been changed by this unknown magic—or who choose to remain there—reflect on the role of this new tribe of Thestrals in tomorrow’s Equestria.”

It went on, naming specific ponies Celestia was appointing to higher positions in the newly formed defense army, which would be withdrawing immediately. Naturally, Lodestone was named among the first of those ponies, along with most of the officers of Defiance.

The letter ended with a note that those who had chosen to change should retain their positions where they were currently assigned, and that the defense army was to ensure that none changed by magic could enter Equestria proper “so as to protect the ponies who live there until the nature of the magical danger they pose is assessed.”

“I require one of your personal effects,” Star Swirl interrupted. “To connect the spell with your home. You will be escaping the effects of this choice—either back to Luna’s soul, or to whatever strange realm you come from. It is a flight you don’t deserve.”

“And don’t want.” Hayden wanted to tear the scroll in half, but she resisted the urge, holding it up with one hoof. “You know what she wrote here, Star Swirl? What that bitch is ordering?” She didn’t wait for a response. “There are fifty thousand ponies in Icefalls! She’s not evacuating any of them? And what, she’s willing to sacrifice a fourth of the army? All those ponies left behind to die?”

“Not the army.” Star Swirl’s expression had changed. Despite the harshness of her language, he actually looked a little less upset. “Celestia’s spies determined that number would account for all the bats. Now that I’ve seen the city I see that is an overestimation—there will be other ponies left behind as well across the other tribes. What is it to you? I’ve already said, Princess Luna rose from her fugue long enough to instruct me I spare you from it. You won’t have to see the consequences of your actions. I will inform Celestia that the spell creating you was destroyed before I arrived. Tragic timing—but she’ll trust me. Some other pony will have to watch this city burn.”

“No,” Hayden said again. She turned back towards the diagram—which he had apparently completed while she was reading. Damn, you’re fast. Hayden smeared one of the lines with one of her hooves—the chalk rubbed out easily, without any other consequences. No flashes of fire or roars of magic. Only a slight tick on Star Swirl’s face suggesting his annoyance.

“Star Swirl, somepony has to do something about this!” She walked over the diagram, destroying it as she went, over to the open balcony. In the day she’d been here, the fires had all been put out. A few ponies worked to repair the damage out there, but not many. It appeared most were still asleep, until night came.

“These people didn’t do a damn thing wrong, except live in the wrong town. I haven’t worked out the details yet, but it seems like Snow Storm saw an opportunity to advance his house and used the military to help him do it. Whatever the reason, it’s not their fault! It’s not Nightbreeze’s fault, and it isn’t even mine. Do you know what the Stonebeaks do to their prisoners?”

Star Swirl brought his hoof down on the stone bricks of the floor. Despite his apparent age, the gesture had enough force to smash the stone with a terrible crack, sending a roar through the small room that silenced Hayden completely. “Do not speak to me that way, creation of mana and stardust. I have seen more of misery than your feeble comprehension can possibly fathom. I saw the broken world that rose in Carcosa’s fall, watched ponies starve by their thousands. I remember the terrible touch of the Outsider’s chaos on our new kingdom. I remember the screams of those he tortured. Do not lecture me.”

Hayden cowered away from him, resisting the urge to shield her face from his with a wing. It was a narrow thing—she could barely manage not to turn and flee right there. There was something in the air—like lightning with nowhere to strike. A terrible energy, centered around this pony. It was like what she’d felt around Celestia, only more focused, somehow. It was less an entire volcano and more a single plasma-cutter pointed at her head.

“I apologize,” she said, and hoped she sounded like she meant it. “I mean only that sending me back isn’t the best option here. Luna wants to give me mercy or something, she feels like this is her fault—who cares? I don’t need mercy, they do,” she flicked her tail towards the open window. “Sending me back doesn’t do them any favors.”

Star Swirl frowned at her, glancing between her and the open window. “I don’t know what you’re suggesting, Hayden. It could be that you haven’t understood what you read—possible, given the way Celestia writes. But there is no relief for anypony in Icefalls who remains here. The bats you’ve inadvertently created will be abandoned here. I have… circumvented the princess somewhat to ensure that supplies will continue to arrive before the end. But not starving will not be enough—even if the Stonebeaks had no intention of invading before, when they see three stallions in four fleeing for the south, they will take that as a sign of weakness. One does not show one’s back to a predator. They will descend in their hordes on the city and do what the Stonebeaks have always done.”

He glared down at the diagram, and one of the sticks of chalk still following him through the air snapped as though it had been held in someone’s fingers. “Celestia will have her unity restored, cut back to the race her kin created in the dawn days.”

“I have only been up here for a month—it could be the fight is as hopeless as you suggest. But it also could be that it isn’t.” She took a deep breath—this was probably much too daring. Star Swirl had come up here determined to blame her for everything. Maybe he was right to do that. But then again… “I assume you’ve already done everything you could to convince the princess to change her mind. That Luna has tried…” She trailed off. “Why is Celestia commanding the army, anyway? I thought that was Luna’s job.”

“Princess Luna has not ordained to fulfill any duty beyond raising the moon in the last month,” Star Swirl said. “She retreats deeper and deeper into herself—I’m amazed you’re able to function so well, given your connection to her. Regardless, without Luna to command them, and with a potential invasion at the gate, somepony had to do something. That pony was Celestia. She has always been better at making the terrible choices. Equestria might not have lasted this long otherwise.

“And it isn’t just her. The entire court is terrified, enraged, demanding action. Some suggest worse things for your new cousins than anything the Stonebeak Clan has in mind. It is astounding how so small a change can make one completely unworthy of compassion.”

Hayden cleared her throat. “I would return to Harmony myself to persuade Luna to come out of hiding, but… I suspect that would be a bad idea.”

“Impossible now,” Star Swirl agreed, levitating Celestia’s letter again. “If we aren’t claiming you had gone from the world before I arrived, then to come back would be to defy Celestia’s orders. You would be arrested the instant you arrived, and you don’t want to know what punishment Harmony’s nobility have in store for you.”

“No.” Hayden shivered once at the thought, though she didn’t let herself dwell on it. “The real question is—how much worse could things be if I am killed during all this? How permanent will the harm to Princess Luna be? Worse than what has already happened?”

“No.” Star Swirl shook his head. “If you die, then Luna will lose the traits you represent. Her loneliness, whatever she thinks ponies fear about her. As well as whatever gains she has made thanks to your development.”

“I refuse to live the rest of my life knowing my presence here brought death to so many.” She turned away from the window, smearing the ground with her hoof again. Star Swirl’s spell was damaged beyond recognition at this point—if he wanted to cast it, he would be basically starting from nothing. “How long do you think I would have until the griffons attack? A year?”

“If they see our troops withdraw from the border in the numbers Celestia demands? No. Winter is coming, and winter in the land of the fallen empire is terrible and cold. The birds lack any way to control the weather, or temper the wrath of the season. When spring comes, they will need time to gather their army—to obtain supplies, to assemble themselves into one body. I expect their siege would come in the middle of spring, or the beginning of summer if the cold was particularly harsh. The ponies of the north have six months.”

It could be even worse. I tried to only introduce good things, and my presence still caused terrible suffering. Potentially the death of thousands. If she was to have any hope of saving these ponies, she would have to move well beyond the simple technologies that could only make the world better. She would have to revolutionize parts of pony society that were probably better off primitive.

Except that they’re being attacked by terrible enemies. They’ve been invaded before, and they might be again. Their own princesses are abandoning them.

“I don’t know if I have a chance, Star Swirl—but I know there isn’t anypony else who could do it. You said so yourself—an attack is practically inevitable once Celestia pulls most of the army away. Is there any general in Equestria who could win that war with conventional tactics?”

She didn’t have to wait for an answer—she could see it on Star Swirl’s face. “I can’t go back to my safe job and my stupid pointless life knowing saving me cost them the only chance they have.” She stood a little straighter, meeting the court unicorn’s eyes. “Follow Celestia’s orders. I’ll keep the ponies of the north safe or die trying.”

Star Swirl blinked, watching her with interest. He seemed to be searching for something, though as he stared Hayden only felt increasingly uncomfortable. “I… I thought you were her for a moment, Hayden. That is exactly what Luna would’ve said. But you don’t have her power.”

“No, I don’t. Though… it would be pretty great if we can find a way to keep Luna informed about how we’re doing… if we can snap her out of whatever depression she’s in before spring and she just marches the army right back… then we won’t have to put my ideas to the test.”

“No, we won’t,” Star Swirl agreed. “We’ll just be dealing with a civil war, that will be much better. But… not a present concern.” He strode forward, and there was a puff of chalk as he walked over the diagram, erasing it from the floor. “Are you certain of this, Hayden? I do not believe you will have another chance to return to your world until after this campaign is over. And if it should turn against you…”

Hayden could still see out the open balcony, hear the voices of the ponies of Icefalls. No idea yet that their princess had abandoned them. “Positive,” she said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t try, Star Swirl. And maybe I can’t, maybe I won’t end up making a damn bit of difference. But maybe I will. It’s not like the ponies of Icefalls will be worse off with my help.”

“That remains to be seen.” Starswirl tossed the scroll with Luna’s seal into the open fireplace, and took the other in his magic. “Come on then, Lady Evening Star. It is time to inform the city lord what his gamble has cost him.”

Chapter 20: Bats to You

The next few hours were a blur to Hayden. A blur of panicked nobles, of shouting voices and rushing guards. Though the meeting that followed between them and the city lord was private, somehow the news seemed to be spreading through Icefalls. There was already a mob of terrified citizens at the fortress gate by the time the meeting had been dismissed.

Hayden now wore a loose military jacket that had belonged to the last general in the north. A tailor would make her a proper uniform, but for now it would have to do as the symbol of her authority.

She walked with Star Swirl down an empty hall, steps quiet and solemn. No one spoke—Hayden wondered if the unicorn was also straining his ears, trying to hear Snow Storm’s reassurances for the people of the city. He had sounded calm enough in the meeting, but Hayden knew better. There was no mistaking his constantly darting eyes, and his repeated insistence that Celestia’s mind would change. If only they waited a little longer. She would have the army returned before spring thaw.

“Your decision is only noble if you succeed,” Star Swirl said, as though their earlier private conversation had not been interrupted. They made their way to a balcony, overlooking the city. There was already a line of carriages and ponies making its way south through the city. How many would they lose?

“You already admitted these ponies had no conventional hope, wizard. Will they be any more dead if I fail?”

“No,” he admitted, though his voice was tense. “Before I return to Harmony, I need to take down your message of acceptance to Celestia. It’s customary for new generals to address the court—yours will have to be read in absentia.” He levitated a quill and a scroll into the air beside him. Where he had gotten them, she couldn’t see. He didn’t look to be carrying anything besides his oversized hat with its dangling bells.

“What do ponies usually say in these?” she asked. “And how long are they?”

“Just a few lines, usually,” Star Swirl said. “Generally, they express their love for Equestria, their determination to serve… that kind of thing.”

“Alright,” she cleared her throat. “Princess Celestia, and ponies of the court. I wish that those who listen might reconsider their attentions for the north. If Princess Celestia wishes for me to defend the north, then I will succeed. I worry that the court does not understand what kind of world it asks me to create. I am afraid that nopony will be pleased to live there.”

Star Swirl stopped, looking her over for a long time. “Are you certain you aren’t Luna in disguise?”

No, honestly. Any minute now these ponies are going to figure out I don’t have a clue what I’m doing. She only shook her head. “I wonder if you could send that message with one of the ponies flying south instead of delivering it yourself.”

Star Swirl shook his head. “My orders from Princess Celestia were to return to Canterlot once I was done in Icefalls.”

“Well… I don’t know what you see, Star Swirl, but you don’t look done to me.” She gestured out at the city, over the balcony. “I haven’t studied much high strategy, but I know our odds get much better with the most skilled unicorn in the world helping us.”

Star Swirl opened his mouth to argue, but this time she didn’t let him. Hayden advanced, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Forget what Celestia wants. A ruler who’s willing to throw away lives like this has lost her moral authority.”

“Don’t judge her so harshly,” Star Swirl whispered back. Yet he wasn’t looking into her eyes, only staring at her wings. “Celestia survived an Outsider’s reign. Magic like yours could be the beginning of some new Outsider’s reign. The sacrifice of every life in the north is nothing to the blood lost when she was young.”

Hayden had nothing to say to that. She couldn’t really imagine anything worse than leaving her own people to be slaughtered and enslaved, but this world was beyond her understanding in many ways. There were ancient secrets, there was real magic, and strange creatures she had no names for.

Instead, she said, “Maybe. But that isn’t what this is. I am not a demon, and neither are the ponies who decided to make fools of themselves and copy my wings. Half this city converted, and look at it. Aside from being ransacked, it looks just like anywhere else in Equestria. If there was some secret evil, surely being somewhere it was completely in control would’ve made it manifest by now.”

Star Swirl looked her over. He was silent for a long time, leaving them with the distant voice of a nervous Snow Storm explaining how safe the city would be in her hooves and how it was by no means an abandonment by the crown. That he expected reinforcements by spring, and that life would continue as normal. From the sound of it, the crowd didn’t believe him.

“I think she’s wrong about you,” Star Swirl eventually said. “One can judge the quality of a tree from the fruit that falls from its branches. I have heard of the fruit you grew in Defiance. An end to its persistent epidemic, and to soldiers starving. I will stay.”

Hayden heard hoofsteps approaching from behind them, but she didn’t look around just yet. She couldn’t help but smile, extending a hoof to him. “Welcome aboard.”

He stared down at it, unmoving. “I am not committing to stay forever. Only until you have presented your plan. When I hear how you intend to save the north from enslavement. You claim to bring the wisdom of another world? Let’s see it.”

She lowered her leg. “The first thing I have to do is—” but she didn’t get to say anything, because at that moment another voice spoke from behind them. The pony who had followed them here.

It was Lodestone. “Lady Even—I mean, General Evening Star. I wonder if you might have a moment.”

“Wanted to say goodbye before you set off for Canterlot?” Hayden said, turning around. “I—” She stopped, frozen by what she saw.

It had been less than twenty minutes since their meeting. In that time, Captain Lodestone had been transformed. His fur was a few shades darker, his eyes slitted, and his wings no longer had a single feather.

“My God…” Hayden squeaked. “Y-you…” she stammered, approaching him. “Captain, what were you thinking?”

Star Swirl was the one who spoke, however. “He was thinking the same thing as you, Evening Star. Celestia’s letter ordered him to the south, but it also ordered that any pony who had been touched by your magic needed to stay.”

Lodestone nodded. He kept his voice low. “Under the circumstances, there wasn’t much of a wait at the temple. Well… there was quite a crowd, but mostly it was ponies wanting to be changed the other way. But I don’t think that’s possible.”

“Why?” Hayden asked, still breathless. “You didn’t have to stay, Lodestone. Don’t you have family in the south?” Almost all the high officers had been born into their ranks—the children of important nobles in the mainland.

He shrugged. “They will have to make due. When I took this armor, I swore I would do anything to protect Equestria.” He pointed off the balcony with one of his new bat wings. “That is Equestria too, Evening Star. I intend to protect it.” A slight smile cracked through the imposing visage. “Besides, I… I’ve served around you long enough to know that you aren’t a general.”

He didn’t give her a chance to object. “I don’t mean to insult you, it’s just… you don’t have the skills for that. You’re a builder, a planner. But leading ponies into battle? You’d be helpless. You need an officer beneath you who can overcome those weaknesses. A pony to do the leading for you while you use that ancient wisdom of yours to give us a miracle. I’m… guessing you have a miracle planned, right?”

“Yes,” she said. “I plan to give Icefalls a miracle. Still a little hazy on the steps between here and there.” But she couldn’t hold still, not for another moment. She rushed forward, embracing the stallion. It was probably improper, but she didn’t really care just now. If the princess was going to do improper things like leave a city to die, then why should she be any better?

Lodestone stiffened as she hugged him, as though she were something delicate that had landed on his shoulder. But he didn’t pull away.

Even so, she kept it chaste—this wasn’t the time to indulge her crush. “Thanks for staying, Lodestone.” She broke away from him, brushing out her mane. “You’re right, you’re exactly the sort of pony I need.” She turned to Star Swirl. “Princess Luna can teleport. I’m guessing you can too, right?”

He nodded, raising an eyebrow. “I taught her myself.”

“And you wanted to see my plan.” She turned slightly, so she was looking at both of them. “Bring Lodestone back to Defiance, and retrieve the contents of my workshop. No… not just that. Bring me my engineers. All of my engineers. Give the order to evacuate, then return to me here.”

“If we evacuate Defiance…” Lodestone said. Not with a tone of disobedience, more of someone who was pointing something out that she might not have realized. “It will open at least one route through to Equestria itself.”

Hayden shrugged her wings. “Princess Celestia is taking most of the army from us. That’s her problem now, not ours. Ours is the ponies of the north. Make sure they bring all the supplies they can. I don’t know how long the city will last without provisions.”

“I have taken steps to ensure that the flow of provisions does not stop,” Star Swirl reminded. “I found a supplier outside the court—many of those ponies think it is kinder to let you all starve. But I don’t think many of them know what it is like to be hungry.”

“Who?” Lodestone asked, surprised. “It’s not Trottingham, is it? They were supposed to be sending three times as much as they were. They always agreed to anything we asked for, but never—”

“No.” Star Swirl shook his head. “Avalon. The only creature I know of outside the reach of politics. Old age has made him… strange, but he was still willing to give humanitarian aid. I don’t know that it will be anywhere near the demands of the city once the refugees from Equestria proper begin to flow north, however.” He looked up, meeting Hayden’s eyes. “If I were you, I would account for at least four times the city’s current population in whatever you’re planning. Not to mention all the little villages spread out across the north. There were always twice as many living distributed as there were in Icefalls proper.”

“I will be expected to protect them as well?”

He nodded.

Hayden wanted to scream. But she didn’t—not with a pair of powerful ponies watching her. I have no idea what I’m doing. I’m going to get everyone killed. They’ll be enslaved and eaten and it’s all my fault. She could still remember the terrified faces she had seen throughout the city—its women and children. All those lives would be depending on her. And many more refugees from the south.

“Well, you have my orders. I will… draw up a plan in the meantime. It should be ready to present to the two of you and Lord Storm by the time you return with my engineers. Be as quick as you can.”

“We can do quick.” They both vanished in a crack of light and sound.

Hayden walked through the empty space where they had stood, down the stairs. She couldn’t hear Lord Storm anymore—his speech was over, and the mob was gone. Evidently he was at least a competent civilian ruler. So I won’t have to do all the city’s jobs at once. It was a good thing she could delegate, otherwise all these ponies would’ve been doomed.

Hayden walked into the old general’s office—only two doors down from the armory, with a pair of guards outside. They saluted as she passed, then shut the door behind her. The room was much larger than her own bedroom, and better furnished. Even so, Hayden couldn’t help but feel like it was a prison. She walked up to the center of the room, inspecting the map table. It was fine work—intricately carved wood depicting Icefalls and all the towns and forts for many miles.

And I have to save them all. Without soldiers, without supplies, without hope.

There had to be a way. Hayden pulled over a padded stool, sitting down in front of the table. What we really need is Princess Luna. This is the kind of thing she could do. Maybe the spell that connected them would be enough to draw her here to help.

If we survive this, Celestia… I’m coming for you next.

Chapter 21: Transfer of Power

Hayden had no idea what she was doing. In some ways, that had been true since she arrived in Equestria, and had realized she wasn’t even welcome there. But compared to her preparations for dealing with nobility, or convincing the ponies of Defiance to help her, the size of the difficulties arrayed against her seemed insurmountable.

She was not a great general, as Lodestone had already pointed out. She was the sort of leader who managed coordination in the background, not who could lead the charge at the enemy. Yet for every book she’d ever read, every wargame she played, Hayden couldn’t imagine what change she could possibly make with only six months that would save the city from the Stonebeaks.

But there was nothing for it, no option but to try and think of something, anything she could change. She hadn’t brought much with her from Defiance, and it might be some time before her possessions arrived. She didn’t actually know how long that might take.

But she had her eBook reader—it was light enough that it hadn’t taken up too much room in the saddlebags, and could go a long time between charges. Without any other ideas, Hayden read. She read Dune, and Ender’s Game. She skimmed the history of Rome, and encyclopedia entries for great generals. Everything she could think of that might have even a slight relevance to Icefalls’s precarious situation. She even read a little Game of Thrones, for all she wished someone could’ve just poisoned Celestia. Everything would be so much simpler if Luna was in charge instead.

The doors at the far end of the room opened with a bang, then they closed again. Hayden leapt to her hooves, expecting Star Swirl returned already. Expecting to have to pull a successful defense right out of her ass.

But it was Honed Edge, looking a tad bored as he sauntered in, gazing at the various artifacts on display on the edges of the room. They were ancient, but that didn’t mean they could hold Hayden’s attention. Old weapons would not save them. “Well look at you, moving up in the world. Never thought that stopping ponies from drinking their own piss could lift someone so high.” There was a barbed edge to his voice, though apparently not directed at her. Edge understood.

“I thought the army was supposed to be on its way by noon.” He hadn’t been transformed, as Lodestone had been. So he didn’t have that excuse. “Celestia’s orders…”

“Buck Celestia,” Edge said, striding right past her and inspecting the table. “Luna is our princess, not her. Celestia’s the one who never paid us on time. Who couldn’t even keep enough food in the granary in winter. If she expects us to march to her drum, well…” He laughed. “I don’t think she’ll be receiving the numbers or the quality that she expects.”

Hayden felt her heart leap in her chest, to the first surge of hope. “Ponies aren’t leaving?”

“Well…” He stopped in front of the map, trailing off. “Plenty of civvies are leaving. The ones who thought Snow Storm’s whole bat fetish was weird and never wanted to be part of it. And most of the ponies with officer’s knots on their uniforms. Don’t know what the ponies serving in the other forts will do. But no… Princess Celestia isn’t gonna get half of what she thinks she will.”

“I don’t suppose she could send the army to bring back ‘deserters’ like you.”

Honed Edge actually laughed. “Even stuffy officers have their limits, Lady— I mean, ‘General.’ Demanding we come back is one thing—I think there’s a coward in everypony who would rather run from a fight, particularly if it doesn’t look like you’re going to win. But fighting your brothers and sisters, the ones you know were braver than you? The ones you know deep in your soul are doing the right thing?” He laughed again. “We’d see Discord himself loosed on the land and the sun and moon together in the sky before that happened.”

“I guess that’s something,” Hayden muttered, lowering one wing to the map. She quietly pushed back half the blocks she had taken away towards the city. Still nowhere near enough, at least if what she had been reading was true.

Edge watched her intently, as though trying to guess what she was thinking. “You’re… really planning on defending the city?”

“What did you think I was up to in here?”

He shrugged, a smile returning to his face. “What a mare does on her own is her own…” he straightened, clearing his throat. “Sorry, General. It’s going to be difficult to get used to that rank of yours.”

She shrugged him off. “I’m serious. Did you think I had another plan?”

“Well, yeah.” He lowered his voice, glancing once towards the door. “Wait until they finish the retreat, then gather up as many soldiers as you can and advance into Equestria. Find some empty territory and set up there. Celestia won’t be able to order the army to attack us. Unless she comes herself, she won’t be able to do a damn thing.”

“What if she does?”

“Well…” He shook his head. “You don’t hear about her fighting much; those stories are all about her sister. But she must be powerful. She moves the sun, and that used to take a whole mess of the best unicorns all working together. Probably she could get you.”

“More importantly…” Hayden slumped back onto her stool. “That only kicks the problem down the road. The Stonebeaks will be able to take all this territory without resistance, to entrench themselves in our forts. They’ll be invading Equestria a few years down the line. Those ponies aren’t to blame for Celestia abandoning us. I won’t condemn them to die either.”

“Well then.” Honed Edge pulled over another stool, sitting down across from her. “That takes us right back to the fundamentals, doesn’t it? Or… I guess you never learned the fundamentals. You’re an engineer, not a soldier.”

She wasn’t an engineer either, but it was what she had told her team to call her. Even if some of them were already growing to be better at it than she was. It was only greater knowledge and experience that meant her decisions were right. There was still a great deal of human history to draw from.

“What fundamentals does Equestria’s military theory teach?” she asked, not looking up from the model of Icefalls. Whoever had made it had paid great care to every little detail—there were even bits of smoke rising from the chimneys of some of the buildings.

“In a defensive war, four. The army that triumphs is better trained, better supplied, better fortified, and better armed. Right now, none of those look good. Stonebeaks are the fiercest warriors in the world, except maybe dragons. So they’re better trained. For supplies, we’ll be lucky if we don’t starve this winter, but so will they. They were never very good farmers. You’ve seen the state of Icefalls’s fortifications… and armed, well. Call that one a wash too. We have much better steel, but they’ve probably looted enough that they’re just bringing our own weapons and armor against us.”

“I see.” Hayden rose, walking over to the large desk, and pulling out a fresh sheet of paper. She then took one of her own ballpoint pens from a pocket and divided the paper in quarters, labeling each one. “If we can gain a decisive victory in every category, then we’ll win. Even against superior numbers.”

“Yeah,” Edge called to her. “Good luck with that.”

It wasn’t much—but at least dividing the problem into manageable pieces gave her something she could think about. Hayden now knew the resources she had, and she knew the terms of the engagement. All she had to do was find a way to use those resources differently.

A few hours later, and the door banged open again. A pair of panicked guards stood in the doorway, looking out of breath. “General!”

Hayden rose from the desk—she’d covered several scrolls with writing now, along with some preliminary sketches. She set down her pen. “Yes?”

“It’s Lord Storm!” One of them shouted. “Sir. He, uh…”

“He’s ran,” said the guard beside him. “The whole royal family. And, uh…” They turned away. “I think you should see this.”

What they wanted her to see turned out to be the city’s treasury. Hayden had seen the door on two occasions, sturdy iron with at least three guards outside it at any time. She’d never seen it opened.

Somehow, she doubted the shelves were supposed to be so empty. There were coins scattered on the ground, works of art broken. It looked as if thieves had been here.

“Let me guess.” Hayden walked back out, past the open door. The key was still in the lock. “It was Snow Storm. He walked right in and ordered you to load up a cart or something for him.”

The guard, a portly-looking stallion with sweat dripping down his face, nodded hastily. “Please General, he said it was for the defense! He was hiring mercenaries…”

Hayden shoved past him. “Lock the door and give me the key,” she said, barely restraining her anger.

By then, half the castle servants had gathered around the armory door. Hayden picked the one who was dressed the fanciest, a unicorn who looked so sharp Hayden might cut herself. “You were Snow Storm’s steward?”

She nodded primly, but didn’t say anything.

“Snow Storm’s family is gone. They’ve taken the city’s wealth and won’t be coming back. Who’s next in line of succession?”

“I don’t think it would be proper to discuss that now,” she said, not even meeting Hayden’s eyes anymore. “If the master said he was going to hire mercenaries, then that is what he has gone to do. It is our duty to wait on his return.” She turned away, raising her voice. “We must all return to our duties.”

Hayden cleared her throat loudly, gesturing to one of the guards. “Bar the doors.”

The guards rushed to obey. They were outnumbered by castle servants three to one in this narrow corridor—but they were also wearing real arms and armor from the battle less than a week ago, not dull spears and ceremonial gold. “You will answer my question, steward. Who is next in line of succession and is he still in the city?”

“You have no right to keep me here!” the pony shouted, shoving her way through the servants towards the guards at the door. “I do not answer to you!”

Hayden sighed, turning to the overweight guard who was at that moment offering Hayden the key to the treasury. Hayden tucked it away into a pocket, then pointed. “Soldier, if that pony doesn’t answer my question in the next five seconds, lock her in irons and march her to the stockade.”

The little ocean of other servants parted around Hayden as she stormed up to the unicorn, who met her glare for glare. “I’m waiting, steward. Five… four… three…”

“Nightbreeze.” The unicorn spat at her hooves. “His second cousin. Most of the family is already gone from the city for winter. Is that what you wanted?”

“Yes.” Hayden stuck out her hoof. “Now I want your keys. My guards will take you to retrieve your property and out of my fort.” She leaned in close, glowering at the unicorn. “You knew Snow Storm was planning this. Please give me an excuse to lock you up.”

“She’s not even one of you!” the steward shouted into the cold hallway. “She got that stupid coat this morning! You’re really going to listen to her over me, Tuft?” She was apparently speaking to the guard beside her. “It’s her we should be locking up!”

None of the soldiers moved, not even a twitch.

“These are the ponies who chose to stay and defend their homes, steward,” Hayden said, no longer even trying to keep the anger from it. “They stayed to fight for their loved ones while their city lord looted the city and ran for his life.” She shoved out her hoof again. “Your services will no longer be required, steward. Give me your keys.”

The unicorn complied, slamming them down into Hayden’s hoof so hard it hurt. But she ignored the pain, tucking them away in a pocket as though she had felt nothing. “Now… Tuft, was it? Let her get her things and get her out of my fort.”

She selected another guard at random. “Bring Nightbreeze here from the temple, as quick as you can.” She returned the guard’s salute, then turned away. She could still hear the unicorn muttering obscenities as Tuft led her away. “The rest of you are not prisoners here. Nightbreeze is going to need your help to keep this castle running… this city running, really. Which one of you is going to be her steward?”

“Me.” A younger unicorn stallion stepped forward, one with a similar gray coat and silvery mane to the unicorn who had just stalked off. “My grandmother’s the worst nag you ever met, but she taught me how to run a castle.” There were lower murmurs of agreement from the servants, though they did seem to be separating themselves into two groups. The larger group gathered by the door where the old steward had left, while the smaller one circled around the stallion.

“Anyone who wishes to leave is free to leave,” she said to the larger group. “You may gather your things and leave the fort. But understand that if you do, I will not take you back.” She nodded to the guards blocking the door. “Let them go.”

And many of them did. The hallway started to clear. “What is your name?” Hayden asked the stallion.

“Synthesis,” he answered, standing up straight in front of her. Proud, like his grandmother, but without the sneer or the contempt.

“Very well, Synthesis.” She removed the keys the grandmother had just given her, so dense around their iron ring that they were difficult to lift with a hoof without fingers. “Here, these are yours. Your first instructions are to take inventory of the fort, and to prepare for the arrival of Icefalls’s new city lord.”

Chapter 22: Organized Chaos

There was silence in the war-room as Hayden finally finished presenting her plan. The space was no longer mostly vacant, but packed with ponies—many were soldiers, those of the highest ranks who had decided to stay. But plenty more were just prominent citizens of Icefalls.

Including its new city-lord. They didn’t have fancy robes for Nightbreeze, didn’t even have a crown for her yet. She sat on the raised chair at the center of the room looking like somepony who had just been struck in the face with something heavy. She hadn’t seemed like she was hearing much of anything. Rather, she looked as though she expected to be woken from a bad dream at any moment.

Star Swirl was the first brave enough to speak. “I can’t help but notice a chasm in your plan.” He gestured at the forth of the signs she’d made. “These new weapons you speak of sound like the perfect tools. I will assume you are correct regarding their design and function—I believe you have failed to consider how we could possibly make enough of them to have an impact with such little time.”

He rose from his chair, crossing the room to where she stood. Hayden could’ve shut him down, or told him to go back. But of course, she didn’t. He had noticed the one thing she hadn’t figured out yet, and now so would everypony else here.

“It says here you want to make a factory in Icefalls. I do not believe there is enough labor in all the city to make that possible. Your designs are the stuff of skilled craftsponies, who slave away for many days to make a single precision piece. Crossbows would be simpler, but as all assembled here know, we no longer have the gold to buy them. You cannot possibly expect the citizens here to have the time to build new fortifications, to open up new mines, to grow new crops, and to establish entirely new ways of making things in just six months. This is the undertaking of decades.”

There was a murmur of agreement from the crowd. Even Lodestone looked convinced—even her engineers, who had worked with her for the last month. If they could see what she’d done and still thought it couldn’t be done, then they were probably right.

“What about the cannons? Do those seem impossible too?”

Star Swirl shook his head. “Well, no. You seem to know what you’re about in casting metal, and those are really just hollow vessels of iron or steel. Much easier to repeat than that.” He pointed at her handgun where it still rested on the table in front of them. She had already wasted a precious bullet demonstrating its effectiveness for them all. Five left.

“So we don’t have the rifles. The rest of it is still intact. Being able to bring down their airships will have to be enough.”

“With respect…” Lodestone didn’t rise from his seat. “I don’t believe it will be, General. Griffons can fly, and every one of them who comes here will be ready to fight. The ballistas and catapults aboard their ships are not nearly as dangerous as the birds that will come streaming from them once we fall them. And without new weapons to arm this new army you are proposing…” He shook his head. “It seems every one of these four points is connected to the others. Our new army must be armed with new weapons. They must be defended behind new fortifications, and fed with new farming techniques. If one element fails, the entire construction collapses.”

More murmurs of agreement. Hayden’s ears flattened to her head, but she didn’t let herself get discouraged. “Well… alright then. You’re all smart ponies. This is your country, your city. You tell me how we’ll make enough guns.”

Silence. She searched every face in turn, searching for any sign that they were holding things back from her. She found nothing. Eventually she turned to the only unknown left in the room—Star Swirl. “Could your magic create them for us? Maybe I could build a single model, and you could duplicate it.”

He laughed, voice bitter. “I could make a few copies of something with the right spell, perhaps. Not fifty thousand. And no, don’t ask me to train the unicorns of the city. Most have already gone, and those that remain are largely below that caliber. Only the most gifted are capable of such advanced sorcery. Even they require years of training.”

She frowned. “What about… Avalon, you said? The one who will be sending us food. Could they make guns for us? Or will they not be willing without gold to bribe them?”

There was another murmur from the audience.

Star Swirl took a little longer to respond this time. “I am… uncertain of what Avalon can do, anymore. He seems to have come to the end of his inventing, and now devotes himself to digging deeper and deeper. Diamond dogs do not live long compared to ponies—I suspect the advancing years have driven him mad.”

But you didn’t say no, Hayden thought. Instead she said, “We cannot allow this one weakness to discourage us from beginning our preparations. If we wait out the winter for Princess Celestia to change her mind, we will find ourselves eaten and enslaved come spring.” She straightened again, making herself as big as she could. “You each have your assignments. I know I ask a high price of all of you. I know we have little gold to pay for your effort right now.

“But that doesn’t matter. Come next year, we won’t just survive this storm, we will thrive. Equestria will envy the wealth and power of Icefalls. We will be a beacon in the north, we’ll take back all that the Stonebeaks stole from us. And we’ll do it together.”

Ponies rose, taking their parts of her plan with them. Her engineers would become supervisors and intermediaries, watching every aspect and reporting to her any problem. Aside from them, everypony would be on their own.

The room emptied over the next hour. Many had questions for her, and she did her best to speak with each one. But as Star Swirl had pointed out, there were none really capable of making the weapons to arm their soldiers. There was no gold to buy them from other cities. They would be fighting with sticks and clubs if something didn’t change.

Star Swirl was one of those who lingered. Which was good, because Hayden had something important to ask. “I wonder about the range of your transport abilities,” she said. “I would like to speak to Avalon myself, in a few days. Once my ponies have finished making our prototype. Icefalls will be able to feed itself before too long—but we can’t arm ourselves.”

Star Swirl frowned. “It is unwise to make Avalon the fulcrum of your plan. Obtaining even a moment of his time to discuss the fate of Icefalls was… difficult. I do not imagine he will respond more favorably to you.”

“Maybe not,” she sighed, lowering her voice. “But right now he’s my only lead. It’s either him, or we start mass producing spears. That I know we can do… one of my books has detailed instructions for how it might be done with cooking pots. But firearms… they will give us a decisive advantage. I don’t just want to win this war—I want to win all of them. Once we’ve broken the Stonebeaks’ fleet to pieces, we’ll take back the north. We’ll leave Luna with the richest domain in Equestria to rule instead of the poorest.”

“A noble dream,” Star Swirl said. “But still just a dream, until you can manifest it. I will remain… a little longer. Giving my help as you have requested, until winter comes at least. At that point… we’ll see.” He left.

That meant there was only one pony still in the room with her. Nightbreeze had barely seemed to see her during the entire meeting until then. Yet now she rose from her chair, one that looked quite a bit too large for her. “I can’t believe you’re actually doing this,” she said, glancing up at the changes to the model she had made, the intricate notes on each of her signs. “A few months ago and the most you could think to plan was how to get water to move when you turned a valve. But now…” She gestured with a bat wing. “You made it sound almost possible.”

“It is,” Hayden said ruefully. “Almost possible. It’s putting together a machine out of gears I’ve never tested. Each of them has to fit together within six months, or else everypony will die. Because Luna made the mistake of summoning me.”

There was a brief silence. “Not just that mistake,” Nightbreeze said, though there was a little less bitterness in her tone than there had been in the temple a few nights ago. “Lord Snow Storm is the reason there was more than one bat. He’s the reason Equestria is tearing itself apart over a forth tribe. And Star Swirl is the reason the princess could summon you…” She trailed off. “There’s plenty of guilt to go around. Celestia could send the army in a moment, or Luna could arise tomorrow to challenge her sister’s authority.”

“I don’t think she will,” Hayden said quietly. “I can feel her despair. Whenever I close my eyes, I can almost see her there in the blackness. Sometimes I dream her nightmares.” She straightened, clearing her throat. “Well, Nightbreeze. I’m sorry the city you’re taking over is flat broke and about to be enslaved, but… if anyone could pull them out of it, it’s you.”

The other bat laughed bitterly. “I’m just glad to be out of the temple. Those stupid made-up rituals to a religion that doesn’t exist. Even looking at Icefalls’s accounting isn’t more horrifying than that.”

There was another awkward silence. Without a word, Nightbreeze turned and left, though at least she didn’t slam the door shut behind her this time.

Maybe that’s an improvement? Maybe by the end of this, we can be friends again. Even if the pain they had shared meant they would never be lovers again, a friendship would be something.

It took just over a week to complete the first prototype pony rifle, and that was with just over a dozen craftsponies working nearly full time. Whatever magic the bats had given up, they were apparently good with their hooves. Honed Edge’s assessment of the numbers they would keep was accurate. Hayden didn’t lose a single pony from her engineering team, despite the ordered retreat to Harmony.

After a quick test, Hayden packed up a few of her human possessions along with the new prototype for her trip to see Avalon. Star Swirl had not been resting or merely observing during that week, but giving his assistance to projects all over the city. A brief enchantment of his could often do the work of many unicorns. And more importantly, he’s a good man. He kept saying that he would probably be leaving in a few days. Yet instead of leaving, he had set up his own workshop in the basement of the fort and started recruiting his own apprentices from among the city’s unicorns. We’re not that different, old man. You just belong here, and I don’t.

It was from the new workshop that they departed, wheeling the wooden case behind her that was the prototype pony rifle. Aside from her engineers, none had seen its test, though she suspected many in the castle had heard the report of its one and only live-fire.

Star Swirl’s new workshop was a little like the one he had left behind in Canterlot—bare stone walls, little furniture, and a growing number of magical designs written with a grease-pencil. After only a week, this one had some important differences—there was a classroom set up on one side, and a number of young unicorns studying there. Star Swirl had apparently recruited Snow Storm’s former court wizard, Infinite Series, who led the lecture.

From the look of the students, Hayden doubted most of them would’ve had a shot at instruction like this in the lives they had come from. They were all young, most looked starved to one degree or another, and a few of them were dirty. With only limited exception, ponies of rank who were not bats had fled the city. They had only the dregs. We’ll make diamonds out of all of them, Celestia.

Star Swirl looked down at the box, his eyes skeptical. “If you’ve scrounged up gold for him, don’t bother. Avalon has no interest in bits. You will have to win him on the merits of our cause, or not at all.”

“Shouldn’t be that hard,” Hayden responded. She was naked aside from her saddlebags and the case—much like Defiance, Icefalls was kept far warmer than the world around it. Plenty warm enough for a mature pegasus, or apparently a mature bat as well. “You already convinced him once, to send supplies. Assuming he hasn’t changed his mind…”

“He won’t,” the unicorn said. “The first shipment wasn’t scheduled until first snowfall. That’s still weeks away.”

“Well then.” Hayden grinned. “Let’s see if we can convince him to make something else. I’ve been hearing about how skilled this inventor was since I got to Equestria… it’s about time I see if he lives up to the rumors.”

Star Swirl nodded, stepping close to her. “I warn you, Hayden—Avalon is not like the other ponies you have met. He is a strange creature even among his kind, and all diamond dogs are strange. Do not react badly to his appearance, or our case is doomed. No matter how freakish he appears to you, you must treat him as though you do not notice. Do not ask him to repeat himself, or to explain the strange servants who do his bidding. He reacts badly to all of these.”

“A-alright.” Hayden shivered once, remembering all the times ponies had compared her to Avalon. He can’t be that bad. “I’m ready.”

They vanished.

Chapter 23: Avalon

Hayden swayed a little after the teleport, struggling not to fall over. She felt little chunks of ice flake off away from her face, and her breath still clouded the air in front of her for a few seconds. “Damn,” she whispered, shaking her head. “That was awful.”

Star Swirl looked far more intact than she did, standing on the edge of a bluff. The air around them had transformed—no longer trying to rip the heat from her chest, but instead pressing down on them, heavy with moisture. The smells and sounds had changed too—she could hear exotic birds calling in regular rhythm, and the rich perfumes of tropical flowers. “If you think that was difficult, cross the continent with Celestia sometime.”

Hayden cleared away the ice from around her eyes, looking out over the bluff. Her heart practically stopped in her chest as she saw what was happening below.

It was as though Star Swirl had taken her back to Earth. Someone had clear-cut the jungle foliage, with rows and rows of stumps. Not burned, as poor farmers might’ve done to clear more ranchland in the third world. This was systemic, clearing space for the gigantic pit mine that was below them.

This was like nothing she had seen in Equestria, not when talking to the army engineers, or even the civilian miners in Icefalls. This was industrial mining, cutting an inverted pyramid into the planet to extract the mineral wealth it contained. It looked like it went down at least a mile.

And the crew working it—Star Swirl hadn’t been lying when he said they were strange. A pony would think they were strange. To Hayden, though… they were robots. Obviously taller than ponies, even at a distance. They came in different forms. Some had wheels, others had tank-like treads. Most of them had unmistakable plastic bodies. Some material a thousand years more advanced than anything ponies had the ability to manufacture.

“I warned you,” Star Swirl said into her ear, sounding smug. “I once thought Avalon might make a great addition to Equestria’s Pillars. But the more I have seen of him, the more I realize his kind of invention isn’t one we want to encourage. I would not want to see this come to the rest of Equestria. Better to keep it here, contained.

“Where is he?” Hayden spread her wings. “I assume he doesn’t live in this mine.”

“He will find us,” Star Swirl said, walking right to the edge of the ridge and waving down with one leg. At once, one of the drones with tank-like treads started rumbling up the mine towards them, ignoring the tiered levels and cutting a straight line. “Before we speak with him, we will need to address one of his servants. The gatekeepers may not even permit us further.”

“They will.” Hayden spoke without doubt now, staring at the drone as it got closer. It wasn’t unlike something she’d seen demonstrated at a tech show only a few months before arriving in Equestria. A distant prototype of something that might one day be used to build Musk’s dreamed Martian colony. It had no torso really, no head. But it did have two “arms” at about the human level, and a single screen where a head might be. All the hardware was located around the treads.

It rolled up over the ridge, stopping in front of them. Hayden could even recognize the familiar logo printed into the body. It was holding something made of plastic in both of its hands, something that looked a great deal like a gun. “Avalon landfall is restricted to primitive native species,” came the voice from speakers near the base. “I must ask you to depart at this time.” Its accent was thick, and Hayden found herself having to struggle to understand it. The software was obviously not made for the Equestrian language.

“We require an audience with Avalon,” Star Swirl said, turning respectfully towards it as though it were a person. “I am not a pony who will waste his time. He knows me.”

Pause. “Contingency is in place for your visit NATIVE_PRIMITIVE_ELDERLY_MALE_UNICORN_WHITE. Avalon regrets being unable to complete the agreement he made with you. Please do not return to AVALON again.” The robot turned to go, leaving Star Swirl stunned.

“Wait!” Hayden commanded, in English. “I don’t belong to primitive native species. Your commands don’t apply to me.”

It stopped, turning to face her again. The camera where its head would’ve been scanned up and down her body. She spread her wings a little, trying to accentuate the defense as much as she could.

“What are you saying to it?” Star Swirl whispered. “What language is that?”

“Your species is not registered,” the drone said, driving right up to her. “Please explain.” It was no longer using Poneish, but English. It sounded quite fluent, even though it had been ages since Hayden had heard it spoken. If it wasn’t for the music she had brought, she might’ve forgot how to make herself use this language completely.

“I am a traveler from Earth,” she said as clearly as she could. “I am human. My name is Hayden Powell.”

The drone froze in place, no longer moving at all. Star Swirl walked slowly around it, then back to her. “Strange incantation you cast. I’ve never seen them do this.”

“I never thought I’d see one of these in person,” Hayden answered him. “They were supposed to build space colonies. Why is there a human space colony in Equestria?”

“I have absolutely no idea what you’re talking about,” Star Swirl said. “Avalon is a diamond dog. His creations are… wonderous, yes. But they don’t need to be explained with supernatural cause. They’re merely good craftsmanship.”

The screen in front of them flashed, filling with what Hayden could tell at once was a video feed. She could see a dark room, and a furred figure hunched over something. It turned to face her, and her chest immediately went cold.

Hayden had never seen a diamond dog before. Still, she doubted they very much looked so convincingly like a human wearing a fursuit. The only difference was the eyes, which lacked any plastic or inserts, but were awkwardly missing, an opening through to his actual face beneath, and pale wrinkled skin. “You.” The voice was English, though as badly accented in its way as the robots spoke in Poneish. “You who claim to be human!” The drone came to life at once, whirring towards her, gesticulating wildly with the rifle it carried. “You do not look human to me!”

Star Swirl retreated a step. His horn started to glow. “You’ve angered him, I can tell. I will get us out before he—”

“No!” Hayden turned her head, hissing sidelong at the unicorn. “Not yet!” She looked back at the camera. “You do not look like a dog,” Hayden said back, in much better English than the speaker had used. “You are wearing a mask. I am too, mine is just better than yours.” Hayden reached into her saddlebags with her mouth. She lifted her wallet from where it was tucked away and opened it towards the camera.

The figure slumped forward onto a chair, looking away from the camera on his end. He reached up with one hand, pulling at something behind his head. The gray fabric of his “head” came right off onto the workbench.

Beside her, Star Swirl’s horn stopped glowing, and he stared on in shock. “Stars and stones. He’s taken off his face!”

Yet when Avalon turned back to the camera, there were no exposed muscles, not the terrible horror she might’ve expected if his face had been removed. She was considering the eyes of an old man. The skin was pale, as though he had never seen the sun. Wrinkles bagged up around his brow, and on his hands. Tears streamed down his face. “After all this time… all these years. I thought I was the last.” The drone lowered its weapon. “I am sending a car.”

Their ride arrived only minutes later—dropping right out of the sky with a roar that Star Swirl warned her to expect but still shook her to her chest. Dirt and debris scattered all around them as the craft settled down.

It was like a helicopter, if a helicopter had forgotten its blades and decided to come in to work anyway. Glass windows polarized, and a dozen different logos were printed on the side. The largest were the block letters spelling “AVALON LUNAR COLONY”. Well, at least I don’t have to wonder where they came from. With one minor detail—there hadn’t been Lunar colonies in the world Hayden left behind. There hadn’t even been a manned mission there since Apollo.

The doors opened, but no one got out. The drone spoke from behind them, live camera feed gone. “Proceed inside,” it said, pointing with the gun. “Avalon is waiting.”

“Seems like everything here is named Avalon,” Hayden said, as they hurried down the ramp into the craft. It was air-conditioned inside, and obviously not built to pony size. The ceiling felt like it was way too high, and the seats had straight backs that made sitting difficult. There was no pilot, no controls either. Only a pleasant voice, speaking in English and suggesting for them to be seated.

“Why do you say that?” Star Swirl asked. “Only the inventor.”

“You didn’t read… right. You can’t read this.” She pointed to the safety labels printed on the ceiling above their seats. The ground began to shake, and they lifted into the air. It was smooth, like the quadcopter drones popular in the world Hayden left behind.

“You can read the inventor’s code? And speak his secret language too…”

“No.” Hayden rolled her eyes. “The inventor is human, Star Swirl. He’s from my world. I can speak his language because it’s my language.” She stopped short of pointing out the more uncomfortable bit—that she didn’t recognize most of the technology. The brands were the same, though. The company logos were recognizable, if slightly changed.

Star Swirl looked like he might protest, but then he pointed at the far end of the craft, where a large display was currently filled with text. “What does that say?”

“Please remain seated while airbus is in motion,” Hayden read, without skipping a beat. “Time to destination, eight minutes. No delays or turbulence expected.”

“Well.” Star Swirl nodded. “I see only one flaw with this interpretation. Avalon was raised by ponies. I met his parents, I know the whole story of his discovery, his weaning in the village of Cahuayo. He built all we see before us.”

Hayden shook her head. “You can’t just build OLED screens and… whatever kind of airplane this is. It doesn’t matter how smart someone is.” She raised a hoof preemptively. “No, you don’t understand. I know how this stuff works. It requires a huge infrastructure. Billions of humans, all working together. No one could do it alone.” She lowered her voice to a frustrated mutter. “I should know. I’ve been trying to do it alone for months now. And it hasn’t been enough.” Not that it was her fault. Hayden had accomplished tons in her month out in the field! If it hadn’t been for the invasion, if it hadn’t been for stupid ponies spreading her curse, or for Celestia trying to leave them to the griffons…

They were already starting to go down again, apparently at the other end of the parabolic arc. It was amazing just how smooth the flight had been. Hayden had barely even realized they were moving part of the time.

“You claim as much, yet the facts do not stand with you. Avalon is a native to Equestria. There are the testimonies of a whole village to say as much.”

He could barely speak English, Hayden found herself thinking. His English had been thick, but his Poneish had not. “Maybe he found something then,” Hayden said. “A ruin, perhaps.” She sat back against the seat as they rumbled down through the jungle. “Oh god, I hope this isn’t planet of the apes. If this is the future and all my friends are dead, I’m gonna scream.”

“I have no idea what you are speaking of. Avalon’s true face did not seem very much like an ape. More like an aging vulture.”

Hayden groaned. A few seconds later, the ground thumped beneath them, and they stopped moving. The side door opened and the ramp descended again. “Please exit to your right. Thank you for riding.”

Hayden climbed out of the strange aircraft and into an active hanger. There were half a dozen airships parked here, none of them familiar. Some vaguely resembled the most modern stealth-fighters she’d seen pictures of the air force testing, though more were stranger still. None looked like the magical ‘airships’ that ponies used, which were really just sailing ships with magic to lift them. These craft were aerodynamic, with obvious openings.

Then she saw him, standing at the bottom of the ramp. He looked much as he had on the screen, an old man weighed down by many years. His face was covered with wrinkles, his shoulders slumped with the burdens he had carried. There was a haunted look in his eyes, but as he saw her, it seemed to lift. The clouds parted, and he smiled. “You are the visitor,” he said, resting his weight on the metal walking stick in front of him. “From home.”

She stopped in front of him, ignoring Star Swirl’s stares. It was obvious he had never seen a human figure before—but Hayden didn’t stare. “Yes,” she said, extending a hoof towards him. He towered over her—she felt like a child in his presence. “My name is Hayden. Hayden Powell.”

“Avalon,” he responded, taking the offered hoof. “Please, Hayden, you must help me save Equestria—we don’t have much time.” Just like that he turned, making his way to a distant doorway with surprising spring in his step.

“Time for what?” she called after him, hurrying to match his pace. She had to trot to do it, despite his age. Avalon’s longer legs were clearly to his advantage.

“I wasn’t aware you were interested in Equestria’s problems anymore, old friend,” Star Swirl muttered, falling into step behind them.

“The princess forbad me to interfere,” Avalon said, his voice rueful. “I couldn’t tell you without her eventually learning about it. But now you’re here… and the hour is late anyway. If I know about this, I’m sure your princess does as well.”

Singular, Hayden noted, though she didn’t say anything. Even you don’t consider Luna a part of the government?

They passed through a set of automatic doors, which looked like the kind of sturdy steel that could’ve stopped bullets. They parted in front of them, opening into a brightly lit hallway. It looked like something Hayden might’ve imagined finding in a NASA base somewhere, with conduits running along the wall and lots of little markings and panels.

“I will do what I can,” Hayden said. “But I’m already trying to save Equestria from one threat, that’s why I’m here. I can’t fight more than one at once.”

Avalon stopped, turning around and looking at her again. He seemed to see her for the first time then, eyes lingering on her wings, her eyes, her ears. “I don’t mean you personally, Hayden. The ones who sent you, though… surely the UEF can send experts. Not the Tower… this problem is too rooted in biology. I have not lived long enough, have not had the resources to teach myself what I would need.”

Hayden didn’t know what he meant, and just now she didn’t care. She had Avalon’s attention. “I don’t know what that is, Avalon. I suspect… based on what I’ve seen here, I wonder if you and this equipment might be from…” It sounded so stupid when she thought it, but how else could she explain all the autonomous vehicles, and the crazy way they looked? “My future. I will give you any help I can, but I’m not a biologist either. I’m here because Celestia has abandoned the north to invasion. She is frightened of the new magic spreading through Equestria, and I think she wants the Stonebeaks to wipe us out. I need your help to prevent genocide.”

Avalon remained silent for a long time. He looked into her eyes, staring intensely. She didn’t look away. “I think… I think there are more urgent details than discovering your origin. Can’t help me… no time.” He turned down the hall, striding a few more steps until they were in front of another set of automatic doors. They slid open, revealing a massive workshop filled with advanced equipment. “We may be able to help each other, Hayden. Let us find out.”

Chapter 24: Midnight Hunger

Hayden followed the ancient human into his workshop, her mind buzzing with questions. She wanted to know how he had come to Equestria—more importantly, how he had been able to bring all this. The machinery she saw all around her bore the same look as that outside, more like the interior of a starship than a bunker. There were airlocks at regular junctions, and emergency respirators in marked cases along the walls.

The workshop itself was massive, stretching away from them. Only the area nearest where they had entered seemed used, all sorts of unidentifiable equipment surrounding something like an aquarium tank. Hayden could feel the energy in the air around it, not unlike a pegasus’s weather magic. A low electrical hum filled the room, and occasionally energy arced from one coil of wire to another.

There was something in the tank, watching them. Hayden couldn’t see inside it—the glass was polarized, reflective. But she could feel it.

Star Swirl stopped at the top of the stairs, gasping. His horn immediately began to glow, his eyes narrowing as he saw the shape there. “Avalon! Get down!”

Avalon stopped, turning. Instead of obeying, he stepped between Star Swirl and the tank, raising the hand with the walking stick. “Stop!” At his command, half a dozen robots emerged from the space all around them. Some of them carried rifles in their mechanical arms. All of them pointed at Star Swirl. “You will not come into my lab and destroy my work.”

Star Swirl’s face seemed to tighten, but his horn stopped glowing. “Avalon,” he said, stepping past one of the robots. Apparently unconcerned with the weapon it was carrying. “You do not understand what you have captured here. We must destroy it!”

“I know exactly what I have captured here.” He smacked his walking stick against one of the desks, and the robots retreated a few steps, letting them through. “You would not share Equestrian knowledge, but I don’t need it. My kind knew them too.”

“What’s going on?” Hayden asked, following Star Swirl, but staying away from him. She didn’t want to be standing next to him if he did something stupid. These robots looked like they knew how to aim. “You said you wanted to save Equestria, Avalon. Is this connected somehow?”

“It is an Unmade,” Star Swirl whispered, his voice low as he reached the bottom of the steps. “They are… demons. Beings never meant to inhabit physical space—abominations that twist the sanity of ponies and corrupt anything they touch.”

“This one is weak,” Avalon said. “But you may be interested in where I found it, Star Swirl.” He pointed his cane at Hayden. At once, every robot in the room focused on her. Two shoved in from behind, pressing rifles into her back.

“Do not move,” they said, with simple synthesized voices. “Or we will fire.”

Hayden froze completely, as though a dangerous animal had landed on her.

“It was in a bat… like you, Hayden.” He reached behind him, pressing a bright orange button on the glowing control console. The glass container abruptly went transparent.

Hayden felt her whole body shudder involuntarily as she saw what was inside. A creature that seemed to be made from thick tar, its substance bubbling and oozing as it thrashed against the glass. Every time it did, the coils around the perimeter would flash, and it would be drawn back into the center.

She saw it look at her—dark red pits that glowed faintly with light that was somehow darker than the liquid flesh all around it.

A mouth formed, dark black teeth appearing within. “Mother,” it said, facing her. It stopped struggling.

Hayden looked away, and nearly vomited. Only fear of the weapons pressed into her back stopped her.

To her shock, neither of the other two ponies reacted to what it had said. She blinked, shook her head… and the face she had seen in the darkness was gone.

They were still speaking.

“A class nine aberration,” Avalon was saying. “My species evidently knew these creatures well. They can be… contained. But destroying them is pointless. You only release it to return again. At least if it is trapped here, we know it can do no more harm.”

Star Swirl nodded uneasily. “And Hayden?”

“I have brought three ponies like her to my laboratory. All three were… infected. What you see in that containment cell is what I extracted from them.”

Star Swirl’s eyes widened. “Celestia was right? But why… why couldn’t I sense it? There are spells for detecting this, Avalon! Hayden was not touched by the Outside. At least… not more than her travel from within a soul might imply…” He trailed off, suddenly retreating from her, horn glowing. “It is… it is possible I missed the obvious signs. There was fraying of her pattern I thought was natural to her creation. It is possible that concealed something… that Princess Celestia was right.”

“I don’t understand!” Hayden felt the tears streaming down her face, but she did her best to keep her voice calm, to stop from breaking down. “I’m like you! I’m not… whatever that is.” She nodded towards the tank.

“We’ll… see,” Avalon said. “Maybe you are. Or maybe you’re some stronger abomination the void puked out to deceive me. You knew I had discovered your plot, and now here you are, determined to stop me before I send all your monsters locked away.”

But that wasn’t why she was here! Hayden closed her eyes, trying desperately to think of anything that might suggest what Avalon was saying. She couldn’t find any of it. She had come to beg for help against the griffons. To beg for weapons. She had the design and the prototype in her saddlebags right now.

“I’m not here for that,” she said, opening her eyes again. “I need help making weapons to stop innocent ponies from being enslaved. You know me, Star Swirl! You’ve seen what I’ve done!”

The unicorn’s horn still glowed. “I think I do,” he said. “But if Avalon has some… machine… that might find what I missed, you can’t object to him using it, can you?”

“Fine,” she sighed. “Just… could you take the prototype from my saddlebags here and hold onto it? I don’t want it to be damaged.”

Star Swirl levitated them off her back easily, undoing the straps and stepping away.

“We’ll see if you are what you claim to be,” Avalon said, fixing her with a furious glare. “From the world of my fathers, I was so eager to believe you… but we’ll soon see.”

The robots led her to a glass outline on the far side of the room, with an entrance like an airlock. A massive crystal spire rose in the center of the container. Hayden couldn’t help see the whole thing as a giant centrifuge.

The door hissed, and one of the robots gestured forward with its rifle. “Enter the machine. You will not be permanently harmed.”

Hayden stepped inside, her wings twitching uneasily on her back. She could no longer hear voices from outside, though she could see that Avalon and Star Swirl were speaking to one another. The old man stood at a console, his hands resting on the controls.

His voice echoed suddenly from a hidden speaker above her. “If you are what you claim to be, then this will not harm you,” he said. “If you are infected like the others, then… this will hurt, but you’ll live. If you tried to deceive me… then get used to looking at the inside of containment cells. You’ll be in this one for eternity.”

The coils wrapping around the room began to glow, energy arcing between them. Somehow, there was magic coming from them, enough to penetrate her whole body. In a way, this seemed like those images she’d seen of incredibly powerful magnets used to levitate frogs using the water in their bodies.

It’s okay, he just said it won’t do anything. There won’t be any pain.

Something reached into her chest and ripped out her heart. She felt a few seconds of agony, her throat tearing as she screamed. Then she collapsed, legs twitching beneath her.

Hayden stood surrounded by gloom in a vast round space. She turned, looking for the edges of the glass containment cell—looking for anything familiar. She could find nothing, except for a crystal pillar as big as a skyscraper, projecting the only light into her world.

She felt wrong, her body stretched and distorted. She was standing on two hooves, not four. She looked down, and was horrified by what she saw. Like someone had taken her old human body, and put it into a blender with the pony body she had always known in Equestria.

She had a roughly humanoid outline, but fur covering her whole body, with stumpy hooves instead of legs. Her face felt wrong, like there was a muzzle there, and she could feel breasts against her chest her human form had never had.

She had two shadows, and neither one pointed the right way. One seemed to angle towards the tower, looking much like her. Like her if she had no wings, straight legs, and her old shape. A tall, confident human. The second shadow looked like a pony, almost. It was taller, stretched a little like an alicorn, with faint glowing spots where its eyes would’ve been.

“The rotting one imagines it can keep us here,” the pony shape said, seeming to rise up to stand beside her, though it was still a shadow. “It will fail. I have grown strong, Hayden. I will give that strength to you now. We will kill it and take the power of this place for ourselves.”

Hayden retreated a step, but of course she had no idea how to control this body, and she fell backward. Her tail fell through the air behind her, and she winced as she came down.

“I don’t want to kill anyone,” she pleaded.

The bat-shaped figure seemed to grow. “You can lie to others, Hayden, but do not lie to me. I have shared your soul with you—I know what you have done. I know the lives you have taken.”

“Only to protect,” Hayden argued, scrambling onto her hooves. She swayed, glancing down at the other shadow for support. But there was nothing there—no glowing eyes, no voice. Only herself. Her old self, straight backed and defiant even when she fell. “Avalon only wants to keep Equestria safe. He has never hurt me.”

“He murdered our children,” said the voice. “He told you, didn’t you listen? He put them in this machine, and murdered them. He trapped their souls inside a cell, where he intends to keep them trapped for all time. Does that sound like a good man to you?” The shadow seemed to tower over her, leaning close. Its voice demanded her attention. “You can feel my hunger, Hayden. I know you do. Listen to the voice of the eclipse. We can both benefit. You owe nothing to this world—it stole your life, stole your future, your body, your confidence, your sex… what did you get in return?”

Hayden considered that for several long moments. What had she received in exchange for her time in Equestria? One failed relationship—which had died through no fault of her own, though the pain was still hers. The pain of having to watch a planet constantly suffering.

She had seen the state of the ponies in Defiance. She saw what Celestia planned on doing to the bats. Who else do they have?

“No,” she said, retreating a few steps towards the crystal monolith. “Not today, not ever. I don’t have to owe Equestria anything.”

The shadow grew longer, blackening the world all around her. It had called itself an eclipse, and now she saw the darkness. Only a faint glow remained behind her, fog twisted and writhed, thickening into something like tar. Tentacles reached for her, barbed with spines.

“There is another reason to serve with me, Hayden. The void is cold, its mystery is endless. If I take you there, you will never know an end to your agony.”

A massive maw opened in front of her, barbed with dozens of teeth dripping with black venom. It lunged for her like a snake.

Hayden screamed, extending her hands before her. There was a flash of brilliant light, brighter than the crystal, brighter than a baseball stadium’s spotlights from feet away.

The snake lunged for her, down upon a sword she hadn’t been carrying before.She recognized the blade, thin and sweeping, far longer than the weapons ponies wore. It was like something a human duelist might’ve carried, and it was the perfect size for her.

Haden bore down against the enemy, holding the sword before her like she intended to part the tide. Somehow, she did.

The serpent smashed down, yet somehow its wicked fangs couldn’t reach her. A body melted into slime, pooling around her, boiling away to smoke.

She heard the voice in her head, the same one she thought she’d heard when she stood in Luna’s temple. It sounded like a satisfied sigh, someone settling down after a hard day of work for some well-deserved relaxation. “She suffers no more,” said the voice, pleased. “We must find more pain to end.”

Hayden felt another moment of pain, short and sharp. She heard something clatter to the ground beside her, something made of a strange silvery metal. It angled blade-down, and slipped through the metal floor like it was cardboard instead of iron.

She could see her muzzle in front of her face again. She twitched, rose, and found she was back on four hooves. The strange echo of her human form was gone, save for one thing. Her shadow was still wrong, bending towards the crystal. Was she imagining things, or did it look pleased?

“Hayden!” The containment doors started to open, but they took a long time. Star Swirl appeared in front of her with a flash, not quite so bright as the one that brought the sword. “Ancient stars above… I’ve never seen anything like that.”

Hayden struggled into a proper standing position. Her eyes were having difficulty focusing, but she turned towards the lump she took for Avalon. “Told… you… so…” She dropped, unconscious.

Chapter 25: Deliverables

Hayden wasn’t sure how much time had passed by the time she finally woke. Hours? Days?

She wasn’t in the workshop, but somewhere else. It looked like a warehouse, its plain white walls rising high above her. She could hear the whir of wheeled robots as they moved around, each one an odd pillar of stacked crates. She’d seen pictures of this kind of thing in Amazon fulfillment centers. Some of the drones even looked similar.

Familiar, yet more somehow. The future really did seem like the most plausible origin for Avalon and his technology, though she would’ve been as willing to believe that before as accepting the existence of a world of magic horses. Under the circumstances, her horizons had expanded.

“You wake.” Avalon, his strange accent unmistakable. Human lips just weren’t quite right for speaking Equestrian language.

Someone set a piece of dark metal and plastic on the ground in front of her. It was a holster with a belt, made to be worked by a pony. She recognized the hilt of the sword poking out from inside, held rigidly straight by straps. Guess it would cut through the holster otherwise.

The old man pulled over a stool, sitting down across from her.

She had been resting on a thick pile of blankets and cushions. Now she looked up, blinking bleary eyes. At least it didn’t hurt anymore.

“I have never seen a pony survive with as much infection as you had. It astounds me there was anything else within—that your essence could have survived so long. Ponies do not endure the corruption well. Most are fragile—your minds easily broken.”

Hayden opened her mouth to argue with that assertion—she’d seen plenty of evidence of ponies’ resolve in the face of evil in her last few days. Sure, there had been ponies who broke. Lord Storm had given in to base instincts, perhaps that was all his involvement had ever been. But there were so many others. She could practically see the faces of the soldiers in her mind. Thousands who had refused to obey Celestia’s order to retreat.

“I am not a pony,” she said again, more forcefully than before. “I have the body of one, but that’s only thanks to Princess Luna.” She looked around, trying to sit up. Her legs were still a little sore—it was a struggle to get into a sitting position at first.

“I guess I can’t deny your story now.” Avalon set a few objects on the ground in front of her. Her wallet and phone, beside the sword. Taken from her saddlebags, no doubt.

You were supposed to watch those, Star Swirl! But she didn’t see the old wizard around anywhere. There was no point expressing her frustration with the invasion of her privacy right now.

“Some part of you really was what you said it was.”

He nudged the edge of the sword with his walking stick. “Doesn’t explain that, though. The perfect weapon for an aberration like the one that you were stuck with. Star Swirl tells me there is a teleportation charm worked into the handle, that Luna can call upon it in a moment of need. But you aren’t her.”

“I’ve been doing her job,” Hayden muttered, before she could stop herself. Far bolder than she’d been with anypony else, even Honed Edge. She typically kept her frustration with the lunar princess in her throat.

“It almost looked like you were an Alicorn,” Avalon said. “Some of the details were wrong, perhaps, but… almost. You aren’t anymore, though. I don’t know how you could raise the moon like that.”

“I don’t,” Hayden admitted. “But I’ve been defending Equestria.” At those words, all the rest of her memories came rushing back. The urgency of the invasion, the desperate need of her troops. Icefalls had already begun implementing her plans—but there was one thing they couldn’t do. “If Princess Luna had been standing up for herself, resisting Celestia’s will, we wouldn’t be in this position.”

Hayden wasn’t sure where she found the strength, but she found it. She rose into a standing position, at about Avalon’s eye-level. “I came to request your help making weapons to arm my soldiers. A griffon slaver clan intends to invade the north, and Celestia refuses to give us the troops to defend ourselves. But with new weapons, I could create my own troops.”

Avalon reached down, picking up the wallet from the ground. He flipped it open, eyeing the picture on Hayden’s driver’s license. “Was this what generals looked like back on Earth?”

Hayden winced. That old face looked so strange to her now—stranger than Avalon, even. It was the face she’d seen in the mirror her whole life, yet now it felt like it belonged to a stranger. “I was an architect. Before that, I was a laborer… and before that, I was a soldier. I was never a general… never even an officer. Equestria has generals and officers, but with the soldiers they have, they can’t win. Icefalls and all the land in the north will fall and a hundred thousand will be enslaved. I subjected myself to your tests, now you will help me.”

Avalon looked away, tossing the wallet back onto the ground at Hayden’s hooves. “Are you sure you aren’t her? Princess Luna… it would be alarming to hear you had been infested by some unmade monster, but now you aren’t. Your magic must be enough to hold the north.”

“I am connected to her,” Hayden admitted. “She summoned me for… well, it’s not important, I don’t think it worked. But I don’t have her power. Even if I did, it wouldn’t be enough. An Alicorn can’t hold a city on her own. She can win every battle, and it won’t be enough. What is she going to do, kill every soldier herself? Terrorize their villages, sabotage their supply-lines? No. I would love to have Luna’s help, but even if we had it, I would still need you.”

“Come with me.” Avalon turned away from her, marching down the warehouse shelves. As he stepped near them, every drone that was moving stopped in place. A low siren went off, flashing red through the room. There was a faint warning voice in a strange English accent, repeating that people should not enter the warehouse for any reason.

“I can do less for you than you would like, Hayden of Earth. You want the weapons for an army—I don’t have them. You want me to manufacture them? My resources are invested elsewhere. I’m afraid there is little I can do.”

Hayden’s heart sank. After all this—after having her insides ripped out, after leaving Icefalls behind during this critical time, traveling to the other end of the world… could she still fail? Was there any justice in Equestria?

Hayden passed her possessions, without trying to pick them up. She even left the sword, though she could hear it whispering to her. That man is suffering, can’t you feel it? We should take away his pain.

I think I know why Luna doesn’t carry you all the time, Hayden thought back. But if the sword could hear her, it made no reply.

“There must be something,” Hayden begged. “You had half a hundred robots outside. What are they doing?”

“Helping me find a cure,” Avalon said, voice solemn. He didn’t turn around as they walked, didn’t even look at her. “Hayden, every bat is infected with an Outsider. Those symptoms will worsen. If we do nothing, then in time there will be four bats in all Equestria who survive.” He stopped, resting for a moment on his walking stick, glancing back at her.

“The others will not simply die, Hayden. They will become monsters—ask Star Swirl, he will tell you. With so many within its borders, Equestria may be doomed. For all her heartlessness, Princess Celestia’s way may be the only one. Unless someone can find a treatment. Someone like me. I have diverted all of Avalon’s resources to finding the solution—every gram of ore, every fabricator, every spare processor cycle. As terrible as your war is, I cannot spare even one to help you.”

“You would let us die? The entire northern province enslaved, eaten?”

Avalon glowered at her. His age barely seemed a factor anymore—there was anger behind those eyes to rival anything she’d ever seen from Celestia. “Would you rather an exchange, Hayden? You find a cure for the infection, while I fight your petty war? Slavery and death are terrible things, but aberrations are worse. Records from Earth indicate these beings would see the entire planet destroyed—all life expunged, or warped to their will. You encountered one more recently than I. You barely survived it. Griffons are terrible masters, but at least they are alive. At least they can be beaten, overcome. We must all fight on the battlefields where we are qualified.”

“So that’s it.” Hayden stomped one hoof, glaring down at nothing. But try as she might, she couldn’t come up with a counter-argument. Avalon actually had a point. “Icefalls and everypony in it will die so that Equestria might not.”

“I hope not,” Avalon said. “But no, I cannot solve your problem for you. I cannot arm every pony soldier in the north with advanced weapons and build ships for you. When this aberration is defeated, I would happily assist… but by then, it may be too late.” He started walking again, a little faster than before. Impressive someone so old could move so quickly. “I have a little to offer you, though. Come with me, and I will show you.”

They left the warehouse floor, and into a small hallway. “What happened to Star Swirl?” she asked as they walked, searching the area around them. “Maybe he would agree with me.”

“He is in the workshop,” Avalon replied. “Studying the captured aberrations. Equestria does not have a way to contain the demons for long—it’s not an opportunity he has had before. He thinks he might be able to learn something.”

Hayden flexed one of her wings. The more awake she got, the less sore everything felt. “That… thing… wasn’t what made me a bat. I’m still like this.”

“Yes,” Avalon said, voice low. “It was the same for the other three. None were… as severely affected as you, but all remained changed when they had been treated. I suspect the mutations are permanent.”

They reached another hanger. As they stepped through the doorway, Hayden found herself staring up in wonder at the massive shape waiting there. It looked a little like a zeppelin, except that it had a rigid shell of polished metal, no gasbag, and no gondola either.

She couldn’t see any obvious means of propulsion on the strange craft—though she could only see it vaguely from the ground. The room was so dark that she could have easily missed much happening below the surface.

She could barely read the markings on the side. Well, the design, anyway. Like a towering skyscraper, rendered in plain black ink alongside the word “Transport Carrier Excellus.”

“You aren’t the first one to want to help ponies, Hayden. There have been other wars, long ago. This craft arrived here with Avalon… the colony. Which I suppose you don’t know about, if you really are from my past.” As they approached, the side of the ship opened, and a massive ramp extended, leading all the way up into a brightly lit interior.

“If this is… old…. Why hasn’t this ship broken down?”

“I guess you hadn’t invented hyperstable alloys yet,” Avalon said. “We can’t make them here, either. I could not build another ship like this if I wanted to. The industry that created this vessel requires an entire planet working in concert. For better or worse, Equestria is a simpler place.”

They began climbing the ramp. There were no barriers to prevent them from falling off.

“So this is a warship,” Hayden volunteered, though her voice wasn’t very helpful. “So well armed that it will be able to win the war on its own.”

Avalon laughed. “If that were true, then I wouldn’t have told you I couldn’t help. No, so far as I can tell, this airship lacks armaments of any kind. But it can fly higher than ponies can breathe, and it would take a dragon to bring it down. So it may have its uses in war, unarmed or not.”

It took thirty seconds to make it up the ramp. Hayden might’ve been afraid from the height, except that she knew she could fly if she stumbled. She was unbound, her wings free to catch her if she fell.

She didn’t.

They stepped inside, and the feeling of being inside a spaceship got much more intense. She saw airlocks along the walkway at regular intervals, and much bare metal. It didn’t look quite like any substance she’d seen before—it was dull like unpolished steel, but too dark. This was no material she’d been trained to use.

They passed through an obvious control room, with chairs clearly built for humans and many control panels at human eye-level. Then down a hallway, to the first of many doors. “Secure Storage 1.”

“It wasn’t easy getting in here.” Avalon sounded a little proud as he tapped his cane against the door. It made a polite beeping sound, then whooshed up into the ceiling. “I don’t know why none of them were around. The Steel Tower were supposedly immortal.”

They stepped into a more secure version of the warehouse they’d been in minutes before. Plain metal shelves rose to fifty feet all around her, the ceiling roughly curved. The top of the airship? Tracks along the shelves would allow a little robotic claw to zip around and remove any of the given containers. Almost the entire room was empty, though.

There were exactly three crates left on an upper shelf, as though they’d been forgotten. All of them looked dented and scuffed, well worn by whatever strange use they’d been put through.

“Not… much left, is there?”

Avalon ignored her. He stepped up to one of the consoles and tapped his cane to it again, then pressed a few buttons at random. He didn’t seem like he particularly understood what he was doing, but the screen flashed green and the little robot moved. It zipped to the far end of the room, then made its way back carrying a hard-plastic case about four feet by two.

It deposited the crate on the ground in front of them. Avalon gestured. “Go on. Look.”

She made her way over, walking past him and up to the edge of the plastic box. It had spring-loaded plastic clips—simple for someone to do with hands, but a struggle for her hooves. She grunted and whined, but eventually the clips obeyed her. They popped open, and there was a slight hiss of compressed gas from inside. Hayden pushed the case open with a hoof.

There were ten rifles inside, attached to harnesses very similar to the one she’d sketched. Instead of using primitive materials, these made use of basic servos and a dark resin. Actually everything looked like some kind of polymer, though it didn’t look like it had gone brittle or yellowed with age.

This is what my rifles would’ve looked like if I had a CAD team and twenty years of prototyping. She pulled one out of the foam, and she could already see some obvious improvements. A thin shell of material separated the gun from the user’s head, one that would probably catch light, sound, and gunpowder. Though the idea of rifles mounted to shoulders was always going to be a deafening proposition in that regard.

Hayden pulled one of the harnesses from the foam with her teeth, almost reverent as she lifted it out. There was a single bundle of wire connecting the harness, with something like a sight that looked poised to fold out. The only thing she couldn’t see…

“Where do I load it? I don’t see any place to attach a magazine.”

“You don’t.” Avalon seemed pleased by her attitude, though there was a level of wariness buried a little deeper. “Most of the machines on this airship use nuclear batteries. They aren’t installed, since they decay over time whether they are active or not. But it only takes a few minutes to produce a fresh batch of cells. Human technology is like that—universally modular, interchangeable.”

“I wish I had lived during that day,” Hayden muttered. “Things sure weren’t like that when I was alive. We didn’t use nuclear batteries either. Except on… space probes and stuff.”

She spent a few seconds trying to imagine how such a battery might work without being thermoelectric—which surely wouldn’t have been enough energy to fire a weapon like this. But she couldn’t think of how it would work, not with science as she understood it.

Again Hayden found herself wondering exactly how far into the future Avalon had come from. But then, so long as this all worked, it wouldn’t matter.

“I would love to offer you more to protect Equestria,” Avalon said. “Celestia’s solution to the Outsiders appears to involve allowing griffons to eat the infected. If you can prevent that, perhaps I can use the time to discover a solution that can be scaled.

“I can’t exactly bring every bat in Equestria to my lab, and the energy requirements to extract and store that much…” He trailed off. “Well, I don’t expect your help with that. This particular aberration seems to have an enormously long incubation period. Even you, the mostly severely infected I’ve seen… you still had the strength to survive once the tumor was removed. Not only that, but… you used Luna’s sword. If that did not destroy you, then I think I can trust you with this.”

He glanced towards the door. “These are not cannons, unfortunately, meant to unerringly strike down the griffins in their airships. But I can give you these fifty rifles, and whatever batteries are left. I can give you this single airship. Will you take them?”

“It is less than I hoped for,” Hayden said, replacing the rifle in the padded foam and closing the lid. “I wonder, though… if there might be something else you can offer.” Hayden found herself smiling, though she knew she shouldn’t be.

This was very near to a defeat for her cause—Avalon wouldn’t provide weapons. He wouldn’t even be giving them food. But some reckless, desperate part of her kept clinging to hope.

“I already told you,” Avalon said, a little annoyance in his tone. “I need almost everything I have. My fabricators are working full time building my new facility, and what computers I still have can barely handle the load. I can’t make anything for you.”

“I was just thinking…” Hayden muttered. “You had these things stockpiled. I wonder if maybe you might have some other things piled up somewhere, things you don’t really need. Maybe you could share some of them with us.”

“Such as?”

“Do you have any gold?”

Chapter 26: Landing

The strange transport ship might’ve looked like a zeppelin, but it didn’t move like one. Hayden stood on the bridge, watching clouds whip past the window beyond with such speed that they blurred away to nothing. However these clouds might feel under her hooves, they did no better against their ship than Earth clouds.

“You didn’t think I could do it,” Hayden said, glancing over her shoulder at Star Swirl.

The pony sat at a little table against one wall that didn’t have any controls for him to accidentally bump. A copy of Avalon’s notes on the thing it had captured were open in front of him. “In many ways, we failed. We have not secured a factory to produce the rifles for thousands. Our troops will not have the decisive advantage you hoped for,” Star Swirl said. “Even so, I feel the need to remind myself that you are Luna’s daemon. When motivated by the desire to protect, she was… as decisive as you.” His eyes lingered on the sword, resting in its sheath on Hayden’s belt.

“She still is,” Hayden said, trying to sound confident.

Star Swirl raised an eyebrow. “Is that really what you feel from her now?”

Hayden closed her eyes. These days, she had tried to contact Luna as rarely as she could—the princess’s feelings were often far too intense for her to handle for more than a few seconds. Pulling out of reach was how she preserved her sanity.

Hayden’s eyes widened as she felt it—instead of the distant emotions, she felt suddenly like someone had joined them in the room. A ghostly figure of the princess, sensed beside them even though there was no one there.

Not just feelings anymore—Hayden could catch a few stray thoughts. They’re doomed… my fault… Celestia is right to want to rule Equestria on her own…

They’re not doomed! I’m going to save them! She wanted to scream, but if Luna could hear her thoughts in return, she didn’t react. Hayden opened her eyes.

She could hear its voice, like a person speaking on the other end of a large room.

The weight of that was only just sinking in. Every single bat he brought is infected. Hayden hadn’t felt any different—she hadn’t believed that her own mind and soul might be compromised.

She could still see that monstrous shape when she closed her eyes. She could imagine it, the moment before she swung Achelois and killed it. Assuming it even could be killed.

Every one of them.

Hayden gasped, jerking forward a few steps and shaking her head. “Th-that… never felt like that before,” she croaked, looking down towards where she had felt Luna standing. Her shadow.

Of course, there was no one there.

“What?” Star Swirl looked up at her with genuine interest, this time. “I’m surprised feelings as intense as hers haven’t worn you down before now.”

“Not that,” Hayden said. “They’re so much more intense than before. Earlier, I was feeling her through a wall, and now she’s right here.”

Star Swirl rose to his hooves, walking slowly to her. “We’re on an uncertain trail, Hayden. Goetica has never used a being with a spirit of their own before. All previous assumptions are based on a flawed premise. But who can say how this process will function for one like you?”

He stopped a foot away from her, horn glowing for a second. “You’re diverged so far from her current state of mind. One thing does seem certain, however—you cannot exist in this state indefinitely. Eventually, Luna’s grief will crush you, or…”

“Or I will help her out of it,” Hayden finished for him. “That’s what is going to happen. I know why she’s upset, but… I can’t let it get to me the way it gets to her. I might… I might’ve done what she did if I was locked away in a tower, far away from everything. But I have to live with the consequences. I have to watch. I wish we could bring her out here to see it too.”

Star Swirl returned to his notes—at least until they arrived in Icefalls.

An airship large enough to shade a significant part of the city was hardly something that would be common in a town that didn’t even have a dock.

Hayden crept up to the front windows with growing apprehension—given the trend in recent events, she was half expecting to see a city under siege, or else already burned to ashes. Fortunately, there was no war fleet hovering around the city. Only a flock of extremely nervous guards, hovering low to the city. She touched the glass near them, and the whole area zoomed in.

Just over two dozen of them, wearing their armor and holding weapons. They looked fearful, but most of the city seemed to be continuing as normal. They wouldn’t expect an invasion fleet to come from the south.

“You think you can bring us down outside the city?” she asked, looking back towards Star Swirl. “They aren’t expecting us. I don’t want anyone getting so close that they get hurt.

The unicorn sat up abruptly, a sheet of paper sticking to the side of his face. “What?” He yawned, cleared his throat, then stood. “Sorry about that. I was… distracted.”

“Yeah.” She looked away, giving him a few moments to compose himself without having her staring at him. Star Swirl might be a brilliant spellcaster, but in some ways his age seemed to bear him down. “I was just asking if you could bring the airship down in front of the city. You were listening while Avalon told us how to pilot this thing, right?”

He nodded, and this time it seemed like he had actually heard her. “Yes, well. Why do you ask?”

“I’m going to fly down and meet those soldiers. I don’t want the city thinking they’re already being invaded, months before the Stonebeaks get here.”

“Oh.” He nodded. “Yes, I can direct the airship there.” He nodded towards the door. “You should go before the city gets even more afraid than they already are. You will probably want a few carts to unload this ship. And an escort for the, uh… precious cargo. We won’t want a repeat of Lord Storm.”

We’re not going to have food from Avalon, I have to remember that.

Hayden galloped down to the end of the ship. There weren’t easy balconies as were standard practice on pony airships—the only way out was the loading ramp in back.

Hayden had left all her gear behind aboard the ship, except the necklace. The little RFID tag giving her root access to everything on the airship looked like a simple metal necklace, one made from brass but with a gold patina. Hopefully it looked cheap enough that it wouldn’t be worth trying to steal.

The massive loading bay could easily have fit several tanks arranged in a line, though there were none inside. I wonder if this airship was ever full.

“Open the loading door,” she said, holding her neck close to a control panel.

“I do as you command, honored knight,” a voice responded, and the metal ramp descended. Air began to rush around her, though they had slowed dramatically. She could still feel its fury outside, threatening to rip her away if she wasn’t careful. She would have to be prepared.

Hayden galloped off as quickly as she could, wings flapping as she ran. She didn’t need the time to build up anymore, but it still felt like more speed would help in this situation. There were systems producing thrust down here, and she wanted to get as far away from them as possible when she jumped.

Hayden took to the air, and was blasted with an enormously warm wave that sent her tumbling away for several seconds. She let the wind take her away from the airship, before spreading her wings and letting them slow her like a parachute. She knew what she was doing, though she couldn’t pinpoint the moment she had learned any of it. Hayden had long since learned to passively master Luna’s knowledge—so long as she didn’t try to micromanage how she did anything, her body knew what to do.

As she approached, the soldier ponies seemed to stiffen, organizing into squad groups in the air around her. Plenty of these ponies recognized her—and she them. Honed Edge was there, leading one of the squads, though she didn’t know the officer commanding these by name.

Not that she didn’t expect them to recognize her. She was commander in the north, after all. Either they would be looking to her with hope, or resentment.

“Hello!” she shouted, stopping to hover about a dozen feet away. “Soldiers of Icefalls—I have returned.”

“With that?” Honed Edge wasn’t the most senior officer here, but he was one of the few that didn’t seem to be staring. “I’ve never seen anything like it, Ma’am. Did you help the poor thing pull a thorn out of its wing, then it followed you home?”

Avalon was the one who did that to me, she thought, though she didn’t say. The infection—the Outsiders, whatever they were, were not going to be made public knowledge. She had no intention of creating a panic, or giving the Equestrians more reason to hate them.

“Sort of. It’s our weapons shipment. Turns out Avalon had things ready for us before we even got there.” Hayden eyed the officer with the highest rank visible on his uniform. “First Lieutenant…”

“Forethought,” the pegasus said. “Ma’am.”

“Forethought…” She pointed towards the airship. “That ship is going to land in front of the city. I need you to mobilize every able body in every Icefalls barracks to get her unloaded as quickly as possible. I need scouts in the air, the route protected, every quartermaster notified… everything. You can do that for me, can’t you?”

“Aye, ma’am!” He saluted with a foreleg. “I can.” He turned away and started shouting orders.

Hayden followed the guards back to the ground, which was packed with ponies even though it was afternoon and most were asleep at this hour.

It was a good thing the Excellus could largely drive itself, since none of them (including Avalon) actually knew how to steer it. Some relief it would be to bring a measly shipment of arms and use them to squash the city’s buildings.

Hayden landed out in front of the city before the ship did. Thankfully it didn’t need a mooring in the same way pony airships did—there were no lift crystals inside, and its frame was rigid, resistant to being blown about by winds. The gates opened before her, and Icefalls soldiers began making their way out in ordered columns. She recognized Lodestone out in front, looking a little bleary-eyed for the hour. Hayden walked up to meet him at about the time the airship was extending legs to support itself on the road, its ramp descending down to ground level behind her.

“You caused quite the panic,” Lodestone said, though he didn’t sound upset. Only impressed. “What vessel is that? I’ve never seen anything like it. The lift-crystal to keep it airborne must be bigger than a barn.”

It didn’t have one, of course. But she didn’t say that. “Avalon agrees our cause is just. He is going to be directly intervening on our behalf.”

“Sweet Celestia,” Lodestone swore, eyes widening as he looked up at the airship. “He sent us that?”

“It is not a warship,” Hayden said. “Not yet. But I think we may be able to make some alterations. If we make cannons for the wall, why not put them on an airship?”

Lodestone took a few cautious steps towards her, glancing up the ramp. “You could fit an awful lot of armor and weapons into a ship that size.”

“You could,” Hayden said. “But most of what’s in there is going to the vault, not the armory. As a matter of fact, you might as well send it all there. Four carts worth should be enough.”

Lodestone saluted, then turned around. “Labor teams, form a line!”

It was time to save a city.

Chapter 27: Gold

Hayden stood on a mountain of torn paper. The torn wreckage of dead plans was broken at her hooves like the soldiers of the invading army. They had so little time. Three months until the soonest the enemy could arrive, with twice that as the most optimistic estimate.

She had solved so much. Outside, Icefalls was changing. She wasn’t alone—she had most of the soldiers of Defiance, many of which were already trained in her strange methods. The city already had a sewer—in a few weeks, its frozen fields would be growing crops. Its mines sung with the sound of pony pickaxes, and soon forges would rise over the city.

In the absence of the Stonebeaks, it would be a glorious new future for Icefalls—an industrial powerhouse to dwarf anything in the empire below. But with so little time… how could they possibly defend it?

Basic training is ten weeks. I have more than that with my recruits. Surprisingly little of that time was devoted to the use of weapons. Of course, they couldn’t put off that time forever. American soldiers would have been taught every aspect of care for their expected service weapon. Her growing troops needed to know how to fight together, how to follow orders. They could be the bravest ponies in the world, but if they had sticks and rusty pitchforks, they would all die. Not to mention every single bat has a little demon inside them. She couldn’t let herself get distracted with things she couldn’t control. Avalon would have to solve that one, or else Equestria was doomed.

The door opened, and Hayden looked up. There were few ponies who would dare to interrupt the general of all the north while she was working.

There was one, though. Nightbreeze wore an ill-fitting noble’s dress, pale blue and glittering with glass imitation gemstones.

“What’s this mess?” she asked, bending down to scoop up the nearest sheet. “You know paper is expensive, right?”

She spread the sheet out on Hayden’s desk, frowning at it. “What is this?”

“Simpler rifle,” Hayden muttered. “Trying to get it down to a single cast-forging. But no matter what I do, there’s always too many parts. Avalon was supposed to be making all this for us, and… he can’t.”

Nightbreeze looked between the ruined sketch and Hayden for a long time. Hayden wasn’t sure what she was looking for. “You really do care about them. About… ponies. All those hours wasted making pipes back in Harmony, remember? I thought you were the strangest, wildest noble I’d ever had the displeasure of caring for.”

She set the sheet down, gazing into Hayden’s eyes. “Then, after you cursed me… and convinced Luna to send me away… I thought you were the worst pony in all Equestria. Selfish, blind, stupid… it didn’t matter who you hurt as long as you got what you wanted.”

Hayden couldn’t meet her eyes anymore. “You still think all that?”

“No.” Nightbreeze set a hoof gently on hers, pushing her to put down the quill. “I wish Princess Luna was as brave as you are. Equestria would be safe right now. There would be no poor, no enemies trying to invade us… nothing.”

Hayden rose to her hooves, pulling away. “I wish. Nightbreeze, it’s not enough. I couldn’t get Avalon to help us. We have eight thousand soldiers with their old Equestrian army weapons and armor. How many recruits?”

“Just… over ten thousand,” Nightbreeze said. “And a third of those are mares. Still not sure what you wanted with them. We don’t need three thousand scouts and messengers.”

“Ten thousand. Even if we armed them all, we would be outnumbered. And we won’t arm them. At this rate, they’ll be fighting with spears.”

“That isn’t what you told us before.” Nightbreeze stared around at all her designs, plucking one off the wall. “These cannons. We can shoot their airships down before they’re close enough to bomb the city.”

“We will,” Hayden agreed. “Gunpowder and cannons… we’ll do that. We’ll drop them out of the air. But we’re fighting an army of birds. They’ll come for us, with claws and armor and all the swords they stole. What do we do then?”

“You’re asking me?” Nightbreeze turned away from her. “What happened to that big scary general? What was it you said to Celestia? Threatening her in front of the court… can’t you be that pony? Think of the worst weapon you can, it’s still not worse than what the Stonebeaks want to do. They eat ponies. They keep slaves. We must win. We both know Celestia won’t change her mind.”

The most terrible weapon she could. Nuclear—impossible. Might as well teach them how to build space shuttles while she was at it. After that?

Hayden walked away, not even hearing Nightbreeze anymore. She lifted her Kindle off the shelf, opening it up and scrolling through her books with stylus in her mouth. Until she found what she was looking for. The Illustrated History of the Weapons of World War One.

Hayden skimmed past the parts of the book that had interested her most before—early tanks, U-boats, those parts she had enjoyed reading about back when she’d been enlisted and vaguely interested in military history.

Tanks? Impossibly complex. Artillery? She was already making canons, and they would have next to no ground targets. She lingered a little on the Vickers gun. Still too complex. Not enough time to come up with something simpler.

She stopped when she got to the section about poison gas, though she didn’t stay there long. Getting chlorine gas would be something she could do, even with her basic knowledge of chemistry. Enough sea water, a little electricity, the right catalyst… but no good.

Their enemy would be fighting them in their own territory. Even the worst gasses she didn’t have the chemistry to make required soldiers to be trapped with them—every enemy soldier had built in tools to disperse them, not to mention a coat of feathers to keep the poison from contacting skin.

The Germans made 88 tons of chlorine, their enemy were all trapped in trenches, and they only managed to kill a thousand people.

Hayden sighed, shutting off the Kindle. An army of many times that size would not be deployed to Icefalls all at once, even if they somehow had a way of protecting the residents of the city and all their soldiers.

She’d already played with crazier ideas. Floating nets, mines hidden in clouds—both seemed interesting as tricks for her toolbelt. Neither seemed like they would win her a war.

“I just don’t think there’s a way to cheat this,” she finally said. “Lodestone told me I would need a hundred thousand ponies to stop the Stonebeaks when their fleet arrives. We’ll probably kill a lot when we bring down the airships, so… call it half that many. We have less than half of the ponies we need, most of them are new, and as of right now they’re going into battle naked.”

“Don’t tell them during your next recruitment speech,” Nightbreeze said, eyes scanning her sketches and drawings again. Looking for something she had missed, maybe? “What did you manage to bring back from Avalon, anyway? Most everypony saw your caravan headed into the vault and didn’t ask questions. Yet. Were those shiny boxes all empty?”

“No,” Hayden muttered, not even looking back at her. “They’re mostly just full of gold.”

“Don’t lie to me, Hayden. That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

Hayden turned sharply on her hooves, making for the door. “Come on then. See for yourself.”

They made their way to the treasury, and Hayden unlocked the door. She was the only pony with a key anymore. The new steward seemed loyal and eager to prove he was better than his family, but he was also a potential danger. Besides, there wasn’t much left of the city’s original wealth.

There were also two of Hayden’s new elites stationed here—soldiers being trained to human methods, selected from the best pony troops, with access to their very limited supply of firearms. Only one of the guards in four would wear a rifle—they were too valuable to risk having too many out at once. Not to mention the energy cells were impossible to replace once depleted.

They would all be trained on the weapons, even if she could never hope to arm them all that way. But if we last long enough for Avalon to solve our Outsider problem, then I can. We’ll need them if Celestia decides to attack us next.

“Just the two of you, ma’am?”

Hayden nodded, and pushed the door open. “See we aren’t disturbed.”

She took one of the torches off the wall by its holder and tossed it onto the stone floor near one of the plastic crates.

There were a dozen of them—three held weapons. The other nine… she spent a few seconds struggling with the plastic locking mechanism, before the lid sprung off and open. Revealing the interior.

Gold commodity bricks, stacked up in neat rows. Each of these bars were small, ready to be melted in one of Avalon’s advanced fabricators and make computer parts. Each tiny bar weighed one kilogram, though there was plenty of foam in the case as well. Otherwise, it might weigh so much nopony could lift it.

“Two point seven tons in all,” Hayden said. “Two thousand, four hundred and fifty little bars like that.”

Nightbreeze stumbled past her, mouth opening and closing but no words coming out. She lifted one of the bars to her mouth, imprinting the edge slightly with one of her pointed bat teeth. She squeaked in shock at the taste. “I-it is…” She dropped it onto the ground, then glared up at Hayden.

“This has been sitting here for three days now, and you spent all that time confused about whether we would be able to find weapons? With this much, you could… you could buy every mercenary in Equestria! You might even be able to pay off the birds!”

Hayden laughed bitterly at that last. “Yeah, sure. Because once they had the gold they’d honor their promise for sure.”

Nightbreeze didn’t laugh—she met Hayden’s eyes with deadpan seriousness. “Griffons are serious about their word. They’d never break it, if they gave it to us.”

“Then they’d never give it,” Hayden said. “I already spent weeks going over this with Lodestone, and he knows how they think. They want to move into Equestria too badly. They hate the cold. They were waiting for their friend Sombra to lead them, but now he’s dead, the Empire’s gone, so…”

“Why not mercenaries, then? They’d come with their own weapons. They’d already be trained, we could use all our ponies for other things.”

She shook her head. “My world tried that a few times… I don’t like it. Even if it works, maybe tomorrow Celestia comes around and offers them a better deal. Or the Stonebeaks do… not a chance I’m putting Icefalls in their hands.”

“Hands being…”

Hayden turned away from her, ignoring the question completely. “What if we wanted to hire an army of… workers. Do you think crafts-ponies would take our gold?”

“Why?”

“Well… they’re harder to train than infantry. Star Swirl is incredibly fast, and he said there were unicorns who do nothing but make things all the time. But that kind of skill takes a lifetime of practice. If Avalon won’t be our assembly line, we might need to make our own.”

“I could…” Nightbreeze hesitated. “I still have contacts in Equestria proper. If you give me a few days, I could inquire. Bring in a few.”

“Not a few,” Hayden corrected. “Bring in all of them. Anyone who works in metal, wood, or alchemy. Get the best prices you can, but… get them. Tell them we’ll have work for years. Offer them twice their regular wage, and work for any apprentices or assistants they keep as well.”

Nightbreeze glanced past her to the crates of gold, picking up the single brick and settling it into a pocket of her dress. “I suppose we have the gold to pay. I assume you’ll want this to be in the name of the Equestrian Army?”

“No,” Hayden corrected. “Princess Luna’s name. You probably know her signature, right? Forge it.”

Nightbreeze opened her mouth to protest, then shut it again. “I… that’s a lot to ask. But if Princess Luna were here… I wouldn’t have to risk it. It’s her fault we’re in this position, isn’t it?”

Hayden shrugged. “It’s many ponies’ faults. I think if we manage to protect Icefalls, she won’t even notice what you did, or care. And if she does… we can tell her I did it. It’s my fault, not yours.”

“I’ll get as many as I can,” Nightbreeze said. “Though I think we might want to consider buying some things. Armor, for instance. We can’t make everything here, even if your method is faster. There are many good armorers in Equestria.”

“Fine.” Hayden turned to leave. She reached into a pocket and tossed the key to the treasury at Nightbreeze’s hooves. “You know how to manage bits better than I do. Just make sure the money lasts until spring. After that, buck it.”

Hayden hurried past the guards, speeding into a gallop. Pony craftsmen would not be skilled enough to make cartridge firearms for her soldiers, but they wouldn’t have to in order to give them a strategic advantage.

Where did I leave those Arquebus designs?

Chapter 28: Midwinter

“There’s probably somewhere more important for you to be,” Honed Edge said behind her, a little reproving. “Big important generals should be doing big important things.”

Hayden wore a stiff uniform coat against the chill, which always seemed to find a way to leak into Icefalls these days. Their weather team just didn’t have enough pegasi to keep the farms and the city warm, and so they focused on the farms. “And what should I be doing, Edge?”

The carriage rolled swiftly out of the city, its ponies trotting along as fast as was safe.

He hesitated for a long moment, seeming to struggle to answer.

“Sometimes the most important thing for me to do is to be the one to welcome a new group of refugees,” Hayden said, not waiting for him to finish. “We don’t know how hard it was for them to find their way here. We don’t know what they endured.”

They did know what many of the other northern ponies had faced reaching Icefalls. Villages burned, retreats harried by enemy griffons. Many of their friends and family captured and enslaved.

The north was on fire, and they just didn’t have the soldiers to protect it. Celestia had left her twenty thousand men to do the work of a million.

The carriage stopped rolling. Hayden knew they would have reached the quarantine on the outside of the city—where they always left new batches of refugees to make sure that they wouldn’t be introducing terrible disease into Icefalls. Disease she had no way of treating.

“If you say so, General.” Edge saluted her with one hoof. “But don’t let them weigh you down. The weight of all the people you couldn’t help.” His voice was low, respectful. Edge no longer joked with her the way he used to. “This city hasn’t starved because of you.”

Hayden pushed the door open, then stepped out of the cart into the sun. She waited a few seconds for the transition lenses in her glasses to change, then made her way up to the refugee building, nodding to the pair of stallions who had brought her here as she passed.

The building was new, built hastily according to some of the human construction patterns Hayden had taught them. A simple wooden-frame building, built just warm enough to keep off the cold.

It wasn’t made to be defensible, and indeed would not be housing anyone once the enemy arrived, even though it was on the Equestrian side of the city. That made sense, given the mountains on the northern side—nothing could be built on that side, no matter how determined the engineer.

Hayden could smell the ponies inside before she saw them—unwashed bodies and untreated wounds. She passed a pair of guards, which both saluted. “Prepare to move,” she said. “I’ll be taking this group to the city in the next few minutes.”

She stepped inside.

Through the empty lobby—where ponies would often be to take records of newcomers as they arrived, marking down their skills and experience for use in the war effort. There were no new ponies to check in today, though, so no one behind any of the desks.

Past them was a large common room, breaking into military-style bunks and living areas for five hundred. It looked mostly empty today, though. Smaller and smaller groups are making it in from the north.

A pair of guards waited by the doorway, dressed in her newly-designed uniforms. Plain dark fabric, with a single crescent moon as its only insignia. Avalon had made these—while the fabric was scratchy against fur, it was also incredibly warm.

More importantly, Celestia’s mark was nowhere to be seen. Only Hayden’s mark on one shoulder, and Luna’s on the other. This army knew who it fought for.

“Soldier,” she said. “Final report. Any sign of disease from these ponies?”

“No, ma’am. None of the symptoms you told us to ask for, anyway. Many smaller injuries. I think a mare here has a sick foal—some kind of breathing malady. But nothing you described.”

“Good enough. Gather them together—they’ll be joining us in Icefalls today.”

The soldier saluted, and Hayden stepped back to wait. Edge approached behind her a moment later, wearing not just the new uniform, but one of the new weapons as well. Honed Edge knew how to use it, too.

As she watched, refugees gathered before her—families, mostly, with parents carrying bundles of possessions, or sometimes letting children ride on their backs. Hayden watched, and wondered how she had ever thought ponies looked like animals.

In the end they clogged the entryway, maybe fifty in all. Word had spread they were going into the city.

All eyes eventually settled on her. Hayden couldn’t help being the tallest pony in the room—though not by much. It came from being part of an Alicorn. At least I’m not that too. As nice as the magic would be.

“Ponies of the north,” she said, her voice loud enough to be heard over their muttering. “My name is Evening Star—I am sorry for the suffering you have endured coming here. I am sorry for those you lost. I am glad you made it here.”

“You,” said a stallion near the front of the crowd. Old enough that he had a white beard, though pony age was impossible to narrow down precisely. “You’re in charge of the princess’s armies, aren’t you?” He didn’t wait for a response. “Why didn’t you use those armies to protect us?”

Because you already ignored my evacuation order, she thought, but didn’t say out loud. Because the clan is trying to stretch our resources thin and kill our soldiers in pointless skirmishes where we don’t have advantage.

Instead of saying any of that, Hayden stepped slightly to one side, gesturing out the open door to the refugee center at the city. “You can’t see it from here, pony, but Princess Celestia has taken most of the army away. I have ten thousand guards-ponies… that’s it. We are training more, but my recruits aren’t ready to fight yet. Those ponies will have to be ready to protect you here, in Icefalls.”

She didn’t give him another chance to argue, stepping closer and raising her voice a little. “Life here will not be easy, ponies. Everypony in Icefalls works hard. There is an invasion coming, one we plan on breaking here. If you come under our protection, you will be expected to contribute. If you wanted somewhere to hide without responsibilities, then I suggest continuing on for Equestria. You won’t find that place here.”

Of course, Hayden knew perfectly well these ponies had already made that decision. They had their reasons for staying away from Equestria proper.

There were no bats among the refugees—completely typical of these groups. Only Equestria’s large population centers had their own arms of the Midnight Cult. Though she knew from experience that plenty of the pegasi who stayed in Icefalls would join it eventually—either out of social pressure, or genuine interest.

“Take us in, then,” said the same stallion as before. “We’re ready to work. Unless you plan on forcing us into your army. To put us first in your battle lines to die.”

Yes, these ponies had their reasons for hating Equestria. Ancient reasons.

“No.” She turned away anyway, towards the open doorway. “City Lord Nightbreeze has voluntarily relinquished the ancient privilege of impressment. You will not be forced to take up arms, if you don’t wish to.” She started walking, briskly enough that the crowd had to hurry to keep up. “You may volunteer, but I have no use for conscripts. Growing food, mining ore, building fortifications? Sure. But not fighting.”

She could hear the mutters all the way to their first stop. In fairness, the trip wasn’t very far. The Equestrian side of Icefalls had expanded dramatically in the last month or so. Even as ice and snow moved in around them, blanketing everything, the tireless labor of their pegasus ponies kept one little pocket of spring around the city.

Earth ponies swarmed over the land, tending to the crops as diligently as anywhere. There were probably more bodies to acre than in other farms—but with human techniques and fertilizer involved, they were expecting the largest yields in Equestrian history too.

And they will have to be, or my city will starve. Hayden stopped in front of one of the new fields—a flat area of ice and blasted snow, that a team of laborers was clearing with plows and magic even now.

“Many of you will work one of these,” Hayden said, turning to face the crowd again. “I know you come from farming backgrounds, so we won’t waste your experience.”

Nopony pointed out that it was the wrong season, or that it was too cold to grow anything. Given the thickness of their coats and robes and the panting she heard from the ponies, it was clear they could feel the effects of their weather magic.

“Why?” Somepony asked from the crowd. “Spring isn’t far away. Why aren’t you letting the ground rest like everypony else does. You’re going to make the land infertile if you work it this hard.”

A myth, one that had persisted in Hayden’s world as well. She wasn’t about to waste time by explaining it now. “We have new magic that counteracts those effects,” she said. “We have a great deal of new magic in Icefalls. You’ll love indoor plumbing.”

Of course, none of them knew what that was, and this group seemed too shy to ask. They kept walking. Past acres more of farmland carefully tended, and orchards that had sprung up far quicker than any tree should be able, they reached the outer fortifications. They were being built on all sides of the city, even the one facing Equestria.

I wouldn’t be surprised if we have to deal with another invasion once we finish with the griffons. Evening Star’s army would be ready for that too, when the time came.

Past the fortifications and their empty cannon embankments was the practice ground for her new army. Hayden had never been an officer, and had never been responsible for creating soldiers from raw recruits. She did have a collection of old US army field manuals among her reference books on her Kindle. That was the doctrine that had led to the construction of this practice ground, and her whole army as well.

They passed trenches for crawling, firing ranges where soldiers shot clay pigeons dropped from above like attacking griffons, and classrooms where her soldiers learned. It was daytime right now, so the practice fields were mostly empty. A few squads were out and practicing, or running early drills before their workday started properly with the rising of the moon.

“There are mares out there,” said a voice from her group of refugees, as they passed the firing range.

You noticed that, but not the firearms they’re wearing? Hayden smiled slightly, searching out the refugee whose voice she had heard. A confident-looking unicorn, one she took to be an older teenager by her too-long legs and slim build.

“There are,” Hayden agreed. “We don’t restrict female recruits to officers here. I need everypony willing to hold weapons. If that means any of you, you will have a chance to enlist when we arrive. We only have a few months before spring—but I can still use you. Watch carefully as they drop those clay disks…”

She paused, and the crowd fell silent as the operator fired several into the air. They flew, and exploded as they approached her soldiers. All but one hit their target.

“This army uses weapons you have not seen before. There are the little ones those trainees are wearing, and much larger ones meant to take down airships. If you join my army, it will be to work weapons like that, not as fodder to attract bow fire or break a griffon charge.”

They finally reached the gates. Still the old wooden gates—there was no sense making them much stronger when the enemy could all fly. The city wall was much taller and thicker than it had been before, though that was largely just to make it wide enough to install the cannons.

The eyes of many soldiers watched from the wall, all wearing the new uniforms and Avalon’s donated weapons.

There was another booth here, and a dozen clerks and other such ponies. Ready to assign these refugees new quarters out of those parts of the city its previous citizens had vacated. It was fortunate for Icefalls so few of its richest ponies had elected to stay. One mansion could house many of these desperate folk, when partitioned in the right way.

Hayden stepped back, watching with no small satisfaction as a number of the refugees lined up to volunteer for the guard.

“You think it will be enough?” Honed Edge asked, as the city’s clerks took over. They went to work separating the refugees by their families and leading them out into the sleeping city.

“It must be,” Hayden said, gritting her teeth. “But we’ll see for sure tomorrow.”

They passed the temple of Midnight, and Hayden could hear the distant whisper of the sword from inside. There is much pain in this city. Come, we will take it away.

She didn’t open the door. She’d returned the sword for good reason.

“Those birds won’t see us coming,” Edge said, grinning at her. At a twitch of his head the sight unfolded in front of one eye, and the rifle started moving. Not pointing at anything in particular. “I feel a little bad for them, to be honest. Crossbows, against us? Polestar will be ours before morning.”

“We don’t need the base,” Hayden admitted, as they walked back towards the palace. Most shops were closed, though she caught a few recent refugees wandering around, looking bewildered at the quiet marketplace. “But my elites need field training. No better way to boost morale than a jailbreak.”

Edge shrugged. “If you say so, ma’am. That’s why Celestia pays you the big bits.”

Hayden couldn’t help her laughter. “Celestia, pay me? What world do you think we’re living in?”

Not yours for much longer, Princess. Not once Equestria sees what we can do.

Chapter 29: Polestar

Hayden stared down at Fort Polestar from the bridge of her army’s only airship, frowning slightly to herself at the distinct lack of battle damage. The Sirius had once been Lord Snow Storm’s pleasure yacht, before they got their hooves on it. Needless to say, the ship had changed a little in the last few months.

Her eyes narrowed as she looked down, searching for what should have been obvious signs of battle. Burned buildings, chunks of the wall torn away, something.

But she couldn’t see anything like that. This fort was the largest north of Defiance, it had a complement of just under five thousand ponies, and it had gone silent without a word. What terrible disaster had happened here to make thousands of ponies vanish?

“I don’t like this,” said Skylark, her hoof-picked captain. The pony was one of the oldest in the guard, one of those who had been most vocal with their refusal to obey Celestia’s order to move south. He was a unicorn, though ponies who couldn’t fly on airship crews were quite common.

“Where’s the damage?” Hayden muttered. “Shouldn’t there have been a huge battle here?”

“Violence rarely breaks a fortification like this,” Skylark said, pacing slowly along the edge of the lower deck, towards the stairs. They passed two large cannons—the ship had six in all, though it could’ve easily carried twice that. It was more about the speed they were manufacturing them, and less about what could be carried at any one time. “The Stonebreaks are a mobile enemy. It would be easier to avoid the fortress and be vigilant against its raids than try to take it.”

“You think the soldiers could’ve gone somewhere, maybe?” Hayden kept her voice down—she was conscious of the eyes of the other elites she had brought watching them. The Sirius could hold fifty soldiers, and she had brought about that number.

“No,” Skylark replied. “If they had, somepony would’ve flown far enough to deliver a message. We didn’t hear anything. Either the whole fortress deserted, or…”

Hayden might’ve said how likely she thought that was, though in some ways Icefalls had done the same thing. Not that Celestia knew it. “You think it’s possible they could have gone to the enemy?”

Skylark shrugged one shoulder. “There are fires burning in the fortress. Look at the smoke. Somepony is living down there. We can hope that something went wrong and they couldn’t send a messenger for some reason, but… I’m not sure about sending you down there, General.”

Hayden glanced briefly back at Sirius’s new canons. “Is there anywhere a large force could be hiding?” She pointed over the edge with one wing. “I thought that was the point of building out here in the first place. There’s no shelter from the snow and the cold except for the fort for a dozen miles in any direction.”

“Nowhere for a large force to be hiding except the fort itself, General,” Skylark said. “It can house four times its complement. It wasn’t built to keep off barbarians—there was a time when Equestria had real enemies.”

“I’m glad we don’t,” Hayden muttered. “The Stonebeaks are evil enough.”

Captain Skylark shrugged. “I can take us down if you want, General. But remember—ponies and birds can both fly faster than sails. Once we drop down there, we’ll be vulnerable. You will be vulnerable.”

“I understand.” Hayden took a step back. “Get the drop team mobilized.”

It only took them a few minutes. Some shouting through the ship, hooves pounding, and there were two lines of ten ponies assembled before her. Most were bats, though there were some pegasi sprinkled in.

They all wore the new armor—the same blade-resistant fabric as the uniforms, with polymer plates over the chest and matching helmets. It was lighter than steel, though far stronger. Despite its age, the only weapons that could crack the armor were weapons Hayden had provided.

Not that it would do these ponies any good if the griffons attacked them somewhere else. Too bad there was only enough of this for fifty men.

“Drop team is assembled, ma’am!” Skylark shouted, saluting. As he did, twenty ponies imitated his gesture.

These were her elites—the most experienced, ruthless soldiers they could find. Every one of them had seen combat against the Stonebeaks. Every one of them had killed.

“Ponies of Icefalls,” she said, spinning around on her hooves to face them. “Three thousand of our brothers and sisters were living here. We would like them safely returned—but if they have been killed or captured, that is information we need too. Do not hold yourselves responsible for what you find down there.

“Get down to Polestar, determine what happened, and do not subject yourselves to unnecessary risk. The instant it looks like you might be in danger, or you learn what we need to know, get back here. If our brothers and sisters are down there captive, don’t try to rescue them. You will have all our help to do that when you get back here.”

They met her commands with salutes, then vanished over the side of Sirius’s railing.

It wasn’t like the airship Avalon had given them. There was no wake to worry about, no air intake to get caught in. Pony airships worked on simpler principles.

Hayden watched the ponies vanish into the dark, wishing she could go with them. But Skylark was right, obviously. It was dangerous enough for her to be here at all. Icefalls had not yet reached the point where it could continue her plan without her.

There was a little she needed to be doing while the mission below went on. Hayden made her way down the length of the ship, past the four cannon crews. Humans could do their jobs with as few as three men, not counting the soldiers protecting them. Her crews had nine ponies—four to operate the gun, one to direct it, and three soldiers to protect it. Granted, her crews on the Sirius didn’t have their own soldiers.

“Something wrong, General?” asked Skylark from behind her. He’d done a pretty good job sneaking up on her—an obvious sign she was too on edge to be doing this.

Hayden’s ears moved, searching out any sound beyond the wind in the sails. Her breath puffed out in front of her. “I’m… not sure. Ready all guns, Captain.”

“With what, ma’am?”

“Scattershot.”

He saluted, then surged past her. He blew on the whistle around his neck, blowing a few quick signals. All four of the crews rushed up from below-decks, already dressed and armed with swords and other pony weapons. They took their positions as though they’d been drilling this for years and not a month.

Hayden felt a little better as she watched them rush through the ritual—cleaning each gun, moistening it, loading the charge, preparing the fuse, packing in the payload… watching ponies moving was better than just sitting there doing nothing while the drop crew investigated Polestar.

Hayden’s books suggested a human crew could fire cannons like these every ninety seconds.

Something thumped onto the deck behind Hayden. She spun around, whole body tensing for a fight. A sailor’s body, blood spreading from his throat onto the deck. One of her scouts.

Something large landed atop his body a second later, sharpened claw digging into the dead flesh. Shouts rang up from all around her, as ponies readied weapons. They all seemed to fade into the background as Hayden saw her first griffon.

It was massive—larger even than her biggest stallion. Maybe even taller than Celestia. The bird wore armored barding across much of its body, leather scale-male with glittering bronze plates inside. His beak looked sharp enough to tear out eyes, his claws dripped with blood. So far as she could tell, it carried no other weapons.

“We take Equestria’s advance position in the north, and you are all they send? Pathetic.”

“General!” came Skylark’s shout from behind her. Ponies surrounded them, though none got within several paces. These weren’t new recruits, to be frightened away by death. They only looked hardened at the body of the sailor, eager. Weapons were drawn, rifles aimed. They were also disciplined enough that they didn’t attack.

Hayden raised a hoof in a simple gesture—a command to hold. “If anything else moves in the sky, shoot it,” Hayden ordered. Her own rifle followed her eyes, which were fixed on the griffon. If it charged, she would finally try Avalon’s fancy technology against something that wasn’t wood or straw.

“We are taking your ship,” said the griffon, its voice deep and strange. Outside the normal vocal range for most ponies, and thickly accented language. “You will surrender and join our slaves, or you will die.”

Hayden could hear something from below. Shouting struggle, wings in the air. The strange accelerator rifles of the Steel Tower made little noise, but she could hear grunts of pain. They didn’t sound like ponies.

“Captain, flare,” Hayden ordered, turning back to the bird with contempt on her face. “Interesting suggestion. What have you done with the ponies of Polestar?”

The griffon laughed, baring a stained beak in her direction. “Same thing we do with you, strange pony. Some eat, some work, some… other things. Most do them all before the end.” He raised his voice. “If any of you wish to live, you will obey! This strange ship will be ours, but at least some of you will survive the winter. That is better than what will happen if you resist.”

There was activity over the edge of the ship. Shouting, at first. “They’re coming! Griffons! From the fort!” She recognized the voice from the drop team. A few seconds later, they came clambering over the edge. Harried, a few of them wounded—but she counted all dozen of them. They’d escaped, somehow.

“Captain, full retreat!” Hayden ordered. “Cannons, prepare to fire! Staggered by crew, on captain’s whistle!”

Her elites didn’t hesitate—they scrambled to their positions. Ponies dropped sail, crews waited poised with cannons ready to fire. Soldiers rushed around the deck, preparing to fend off boarders.

“You’ve chosen to die, then!” The griffon hopped off the corpse, advancing on Hayden. “I will enjoy starting with you.”

“Sorry, no time.” Hayden twitched her head slightly, firing two shots in quick succession. He wore no helmet, so there was nothing to stop the accelerator rounds. The griffon dropped limply to the ground, trailing blood from a few small openings in his head. He didn’t even twitch.

Hayden turned away in time to see the cloud of birds rising from Polestar below. It was hard to judge at a glance just how many they were. Stonebeaks did not fly with squads, or formations, or any conventional strategy other than attacking at the same time and with terrible barbarity. It was likely that the one she had just killed was some kind of leader, though she wouldn’t have the time to search his body and find out.

“Down angle six degrees!” she heard one of the gun-commanders on the starboard side call, even as the Sirius began to turn. Baring two of its four guns directly into the densest clouds of birds. Skylark whistled once, then again.

Enormous explosions shook the ship, and plumes of smoke rose from both guns. Hayden was caught completely unprepared for the awful volume of the cannons, even though she had been there for their design and testing. They set her ears to ringing, and for a few seconds, her senses were overwhelmed. Her vision came back first, and she could see bits of the advancing birds dropping in meaty chunks onto the lower ranks. The gun-crews were wearing ear protection, and they’d been drilled for this. They went back through the ritual, each pony in their place as they worked.

The advancing cloud of birds began to slow. Hayden could practically make out their horrified faces—these might be hardened barbarians, but they had never seen gunpowder before.

“Fire the other two!” Hayden shouted, not sure if her voice would even carry over all the noise. “Now!”

The port guns were both pointing at nothing—but the captain obeyed anyway. A few more whistles, and this time Hayden flattened her ears, raising a hoof in the way to try and cover the sound. It helped, though maybe that was just her preparation. Two more earth-shattering booms shook the world… and on the hill below, snow began to rumble. The avalanche began small but quickly grew large enough to rip down trees. Snow blasted down the slope towards Polestar, the awful volume dislodging even more snow from other peaks. Most of it went nowhere useful, except into making a terrible noise. It sounded a little like the earth itself was ripping open.

Hayden watched as the distant fortress was buried, and the cloud of birds following them stopped.

They didn’t follow—not as they got their guns loaded again, not as the Sirius reached its cruising speed through the clouds.

Hayden relaxed, glancing back at the body of the dead griffon. She’d almost forgotten it was there. “Somepony shove this garbage overboard.”

Chapter 30: Inspection

“She’s been waiting in there for an hour,” Honed Edge whispered, peeking into the open doorway again. Evening Star followed his eyes, taking in the scene as quickly as she could. A representative from the Crown, come all the way from Harmony to inspect Hayden and her work in protecting Equestria.

They hadn’t received any letters from the capital—or from anywhere else, for that matter. Aside from the messengers they sent (instructed to lie about their origin), they had been completely isolated from southern Equestria for two months now.

The pony within was almost as tall as Hayden herself, a dark pegasus with bright blue eyes and obvious annoyance in her posture. She didn’t want to be kept waiting. She wore ordinary travel clothes, though they looked fine and individually styled in a way ordinary ponies couldn’t afford. So either she was sent from the capital, or she was rich enough to pretend like she was.

“Has she done anything?”

“Aside from wait for you, no ma’am.” Honed Edge didn’t wear armor or weapons—he was too valuable as an engineer to waste as a soldier when there was so little of the latter actually fighting yet. The fact he had been involved at all suggested serious confusion in the ranks. Icefalls army had been completely reorganized, the city watch dissolved into it, and any trace of the old Equestrian command structure erased. Apparently nopony knew what to do when something from the old world tried to dig its way back into their lives.

Hayden paused, straightening her uniform. The fabric concealed the same armored cloth that had come from Avalon’s gifts. Paltry though their numbers were, the armor was light enough to wear almost all the time with little extra discomfort. There were a few sets so large that they didn’t properly fit anypony else, so Hayden would not be putting somepony else on the field at risk by wearing this one.

She kept her voice at a whisper. “Have a carriage prepared and alert the wall guard we’ll be making a visit to the first tower. We’ll be doing a single cannon demonstration for her.”

“Is that a good idea? Do we want Celestia to know we have those?”

She shrugged. “I’m sure she knows already. We haven’t been doing anything to keep pony spies out of the city. Might as well try to look as scary as possible with what we let get out.”

Hayden shoved the door open suddenly, striding as confidently as she could into the castle sitting room. Nightbreeze immediately rose to her hooves as she entered. This time, her dress was well tailored and the gems dusting it were real sapphires, not glass.

“General,” she said, rising to meet her with a polite touch of the wings. Hayden had yet to enjoy anything more intimate with her, even though their friendship seemed to be mending. Certainly she wouldn’t try it in front of a diplomat. “I hope we didn’t pull you from any more important duties. I was just enjoying a conversation with Miss East Wind. She came all the way from Harmony.”

“Really?” Hayden asked, though she wasn’t sure how convincing she would sound. She made her way to the diplomat, raising a hoof in greeting. To her credit, the stranger didn’t react to her with the same confusion or disdain many had for bats—but she had just been sitting in a room with Nightbreeze for a few hours.

“You,” the pony said, rising to face her. There was terrible intensity in those eyes, even if they only lingered on her for a few seconds. What is happening in Harmony to make someone like this? “You’re the pony who thinks she can feed a city with half a silo of moldy grain.”

“Well, East Wind, you can see for yourself. My methods may be unconventional, but that was the only choice left to me. Princess Celestia didn’t give the northern army to an experienced general and ask her to work within their abilities—she gave a few soldiers to an engineer and asked me to give her a miracle. You can see the results yourself.”

The pony huffed, striding elegantly over to the open window and looking out on the city.

Icefalls was not the same little town it had been a few months ago. They were still in the shadow of the mountain, but the city outside was different. Most dramatic were the smokestacks—a pair, made of the same ash-stained brick. A number of ugly, rectangular buildings had joined the otherwise charming medieval architecture, where Hayden’s crafts-ponies worked. The wall was also visible from here, with its cannon fortifications growing more secure with every passing day.

“I intend to see it all,” the pony said, turning sharply back around to face her. “Princesses help you if I don’t like what I see.”

They haven’t yet, Hayden thought, but she didn’t say that. “I’m sure you will, so much as you can understand it,” Hayden said instead. “Our methods are different than you may be used to. But the results speak for themselves. While you’re looking out that window, look for ponies. Tell me if any of them look hungry to you. Recall the last time Princess Celestia allowed supplies to be sent here was before she even called me to this post. That’s the first miracle right there.”

“Indeed,” the pony said, staring out the window a few more seconds. “We will have to see if that miracle can stand up to scrutiny or not.”

What exactly was this pony threatening? What authority did Celestia purport to have? She had already tried to take away as many soldiers as she could—ordering again would do no good. There were no supply caravans she could threaten to stop. Would she threaten to send the army, and force a confrontation between the military and the Crown? Lodestone doesn’t think they’ll do it. But the longer I can keep up the illusion of doing Equestria’s will, the longer we can act in good standing when we’re making trade contracts with the south and hiring more workers.

There was only one downside to that—if they won, Hayden’s flaunting of her commission from the princess would not have made it seem like Celestia betrayed the north and left them to die—it would look like she had made a brilliant strategic maneuver, and seen the talents of some lowly engineer at the bottom of the command structure.

Except to those who had actually been there, of course. They would still remember the terror of watching the army retreat, seeing their friends and neighbors join the caravan south and know that no help was coming. The north remembers.

There was no sense telling her guest any of that. She would show the pony the best of what the ponies of Icefalls had done, and be damned what she thought when it was over.

East Wind didn’t want to go straight to the city wall, as Evening Star had expected. Instead, their carriage and its escort of soldiers went straight out the front of the city, down the ramp towards the active farms. Earth ponies stopped and stared as they passed through the potato field, digging up one of the raw tubers and inspecting it.

Hayden had not been disappointed by the combination of chemical fertilizer and earth pony magic. It wasn’t exactly a bounty to feed a nation, but their farms had kept the city from starving. Once spring came, they wouldn’t be limited by the farmland their small number of pegasus ponies could keep warm. Maybe the wealth would come then.

“I never learned the details of farming,” East Wind said, as the climbed back into the carriage. “I only knew that there were reasons we did not grow out of seasons. The winter rested the soil, to stop crop yields from going down. This all-year cultivation of yours is doomed to failure.”

Hayden whispered through the window on the front of the carriage to take them to the wall, before settling back in her seat. “A myth, East Wind. The gradual depletion of soil comes from…” She hesitated. Her reading had summarized much of this, and she knew it much better than she had when she arrived in Equestria. But how much would a royal diplomat understand? “The depletion of chemicals in the soil. There are… there is a magical and mechanical process to put them back.”

Actually it was entirely chemical. It was one of the reasons Icefalls mined limestone. Even so, her use of the word ‘magic’ seemed to satisfy the pony. “The city lord already showed me your harvest records. Unless those were fictional, I suppose it would make no sense to argue. So much, with so few workers…”

“The way we plan on doing everything, East Wind. The crown has given us few ponies to work with. Icefalls requires most of them for its mines and factories. We need them to build new fortifications, to fire bricks. Look out your window as we ride. See how many ponies you see sitting around doing nothing.”

“Surely, there are plenty.” She drew back the curtains anyway. “So many city-dwellers know nothing useful to you. Their landed husbands bring in bits from tribute. They didn’t come here to work, but to live in whatever pathetic luxury the north can give them.”

Hayden grinned—though she was a little surprised the stranger had mentioned the petty nobility, and not the poor. In reality, she had put them both to work. “We find work for them as well. Particularly those who have become thestrals, like myself… they understand there is nowhere else for them to fly. If Icefalls is lost, they will suffer the same fate as the poor. So they work.”

The carriage came to a stop at one of the many stairwells leading onto the wall. Much of it had already been here, as Icefalls was a fortress town. But not all.

The wall was well manned as they approached—not the handful of ponies who watched it to give the appearance of a little security theater, as there had been when Hayden arrived in Icefalls. Instead, she rotated as many of her soldiers through it as she could—it was a place to give them experience in realistic conditions. She had selected the first of many stations for their visit, the one they manned the best.

“There can’t be much up there to see,” East Wind said, her voice just slightly annoyed as they stepped out of the carriage. “I’d rather see where they cast the spell for your fields.”

“Another time, perhaps,” Hayden said, not sounding the least bit apologetic. But she had no intention on sharing the actual methods she had learned with Equestria. “I think this will be our last stop.”

There were several guards already waiting to receive them. They wore the same equestrian armor, but it had been polished, all the gold leaf buffed out until only silvery metal was left behind. The cloth had been dyed a deep purple, and there were no sun patches anywhere. Otherwise, they looked more or less the same.

Except for their weapons. A dozen ponies waited in front of the stairs, protecting a barricade as though an attack might come at any moment. They stood with weapons resting in front of them—mostly wood, but with a wide metal barrel and a simple firing mechanism. Rope fuse instead of a trigger, all polished and in good order. They carried bayonets as well, though none were fixed presently. Every stallion and mare among them also wore polished silvery helmets on their heads, as shiny as the metal on their buttons or their weapons. Though in actuality, only every other pony had an arquebus. Only the unicorns had their own.

“This is… peculiar, General Evening Star. Most peculiar.” She followed Hayden out of the carriage, up to the line of ponies. “Those aren’t spears… and I see no shields, either. What have you done?”

“Reorganized, East Wind. Entirely reorganized.” Hayden strode past her, to the sergeant standing at the front of the formation. These were not raw recruits, as were mixed in with every other group on the wall. This station was special, as evidenced by the occasional black uniform among the purple, and the strange shoulder-mounted weapons. “Sergeant.”

“Ma’am!” He stiffened, saluting with a forehoof. Not the pony way—but something approximating a US military salute. Well, them and many other nations.

“Identify your ponies here, Sergeant.”

“219th squad, Aquarius Platoon, 2nd Company Equestrian Heavy Riflemen, ma’am!” He fumbled a little over riflemen—the word didn’t do well when ponies tried to say it. But he tried anyway.

“What is it they’re carrying? They don’t look very useful against griffons.”

Hayden didn’t answer. “I think it would be better to show you the larger ones, East Wind. Sergeant, if you would escort us to your cannon. My guest would like a demonstration. I think you’ll understand all of this better once you’ve seen it, East Wind.”

They climbed to the top of the wall. They’d barely made it into the booth when the war drums started sounding.

Chapter 31: Probe

Hayden was in a daze. She listened to the drums—that beat meant a sighting from two stations down along the wall. That particular beat signaled at least one airship. She could tell no more from merely listening.

“Sargent, get East Wind back to the keep!” she ordered, turning to take off. She didn’t even wait for a response from the pony, just beat her wings and leapt off the side of the wall. She caught herself in a smooth parabola that took her up above the edge, where she could get a good look past the city. This was too early—it was all too early. There was still nothing but white in the mountains out there, except for the occasional canopy of a tree.

Had Lodestone been wrong? Her entire gamble had been based on his estimates—if his guess had been off by so much, then they were doomed. Very few of her recruits would be ready—not to mention there just wasn’t that much powder for the cannons.

But as she looked up, she didn’t see a sky darkened with airships—she saw three. Three rough looking ships, a little like Viking longships. They had rigid, square sails, and weren’t flying in a straight line. Maybe they didn’t know how to tack?

All three ships looked to be bristling with enemy troops. She could see them packed in tight on the deck, feathers all jammed up close together. The only free space on the deck appeared to be near the sides, where large barrels waited. They would be filled with oil and lit just before birds shoved them over. Some of their ships supposedly had catapults, though none of these did.

There was a procedure for this, all the same. Hayden hadn’t organized much on that level—she had just told Lodestone what to do, and trusted him to get it done. Guess it’s better to see the men tested before we have real action. See if all that practicing with ranges and tables makes a differences.

Hayden resisted the temptation to fly straight for the wall station that had first set up the alarm, even as every other part of the wall that could see the enemy added their beat as well. They would continue it, until the command tower sent out its instructions. Hayden was most of the way to the tower when she heard the answering calls—several sharp blasts on the horn.

They meant the order to hold ground—and instruction for the crews to begin sighting targets. Time to see how good my trigonometry really was. Fortunately for Hayden (and Icefalls) her own memory wasn’t the only tool that had made those tables. A handful of Star Swirl’s new unicorns had been capable of helping, along with the wizard himself. And there had been a fair bit of trial and error.

Hayden landed on the balcony of the tower, and was immediately greeted with half a dozen soldiers in black uniforms. Her elites—none of them fired on her, thankfully. Somepony shouted, and the hatch opened from below. Hayden leapt down to join Lodestone and several other high officers, surrounding the old general’s map of the city. Heavily modified with all their changes, along with troop positions and showing much of the area all around the city.

“Signal to the crews to use full powder charge and ball. Wait for a thousand yards—at this speed, we’ll only get two shots from each gun.” They weren’t done making cannons yet—only a third of the emplacements would have them.

“Don’t fire if they’re over the city,” Hayden said, her voice carrying over the murmur of activity in the command post. “If we don’t bring them down before, wait until they’ve passed overhead to fire again. If one of those ships lands on the city from above, it will bring down buildings.”

“Those ships are lighter than they look,” Lodestone said, saluting her as she entered. Once he did, the rest of the room imitated the gesture, as though waiting for his permission. “Cedar, not hardwood like ours. They don’t know crystal magic, so they just make their ships as light as possible.”

As much as Hayden had told East Wind she had reorganized the army, she had done very little to the actual command structure. It was clear to her who these ponies still followed. She nodded. “Still, best have our cannons on the south keep facing away from the city. Don’t bring down the enemy army on our heads.”

Even though the glass, Hayden felt her whole body shake as the first cannon fired. It would not be a total shock to the ponies below—they had done many test firings now, hopefully letting them accustom themselves to what that would mean. A sign Icefalls was being protected, not that it was in danger.

A few seconds later, another cannon fired, then another. Hayden made her way to the window, squeezing in beside several of her elites, getting the best view she could. The griffon ships kept coming, speeding up now, faster and faster.

Then the first cannonball hit. The first of the three ships exploded into a fireball of boiling oil, a huge chunk of the deck ripped right out from under it. Bodies and cargo tumbled, with many streaks of flame as they went down. Of course, plenty more did not go down, and dodged out from the ship as it ripped itself in two pieces, both flaming as they fell.

Ponies around her swore under their breath, staring and pointing at the ship as it burned. One of the enemy vessels would not be returning, though it looked like some number of the soldiers aboard were flying for the wall.

Another of the ships shook as something struck the mast, then it tumbled free, tearing the sails on its way down and breaking a huge gash into the deck. Yet there was no explosion here, no ship torn in half. The airship slowed in the air, and began to list slightly to one side. The other airship continued undamaged, bearing down on the city.

Hayden began counting in her head. Though her cannon crews were aiming to fire every ninety seconds, most of them couldn’t beat two minutes yet. Most of them weren’t soldiers—they were craftsponies, inhabitants of Icefalls or round about who had done a skilled trade she didn’t need but wanted to serve in the army anyway. Those who knew how to fight were too valuable to have aiming and reloading a gun.

“Celestia’s beard!” Lodestone swore. “I was hoping we would have brought down all three of them. Our crews… they missed. I see only two hits in five.”

“That’s… better than I would have expected,” Hayden said. “As long as all five get another shot before those two ships arrive, they should be commended. Look how effective they were. You didn’t mention Stonebeaks didn’t use hardwood… I might have suggested lighter guns.” Lighter guns meant smaller crews, and their powder would go further. But it was too late now.

“Not all of them,” Lodestone said, darkly. “They steal our ships, sometimes. Polestar had three warships twice that size. I wonder who these birds are… testing our defenses? It might have been better not to use the cannons.”

Lodestone had wanted a different plan if they attacked early. He’d wanted to let them come, ravage the city a bit, then fight them off with conventional methods. Even if it cost morale, it would have preserved ignorance. Now the enemy would know.

“No,” Hayden said, her voice very low. “Because I didn’t tell you the second half of that plan.” She raised her voice a little, turning her head to the captain of the elites. He was a bat—like most of the flying ones, with orange along the edges of his wings and bright orange eyes to match. “Captain Slipstream, mobilize the company for sweep and burn. No prisoners.”

The other captains and officers stared as Slipstream saluted, and vanished up the hatch without a word. A few seconds later, every elite on the roof took off.

Yes, Hayden had left the command structure intact. But she’d picked out some of the best for herself. Many of those ponies were heroes now, from the escape from Polestar. And all of them had killed.

“That isn’t wise,” Lodestone said, once Slipstream was gone. He hadn’t questioned her orders while she was giving them, at least. “Stonebeak ships typically carry two hundred and fifty when they go on assault—many of those birds will be too poor to be on crews of their own, so they’ll be packed in for the assault, hoping to earn a place. They’ll have relatives we can trade them to.”

Hayden stiffened. She could feel many eyes on her. None of her own elites were still here—if it came to any sort of conflict, she would be completely surrounded.

But of course, it wouldn’t. Evening Star jerked a little as the cannons fired again. She didn’t count how many this time, they went off in such quick succession. The ship already listing took the worst of it, exploding as the first had done—though most of the birds had already jumped. Its cracked hull went plummeting down to the valley floor. The last ship kept coming, though, past every volley, over the walls. And behind it, two disordered waves of birds.

“The griffons respect strength,” Hayden said. “For many years, you have fought them well. But you spoke to them as ponies communicate—you offered peace, trade, exchange of prisoners. I’m going to speak to them in a different language. I think they will understand it better. I will give them the language of warlords. I don’t expect we’ll actually find them all. Some bird out there has probably already flown home, or will soon. He’ll tell terrified stories of how we blasted their ships out of the sky with magic from afar. Maybe he saw his burning comrades tumble to their deaths. I want him to tell them that, and for the Stonebeaks to wait for the ships to return, proving that bird a coward.

“But they’ll wait, and they’ll wait, and nopony will come. Then they’ll send a scout. Somepony we don’t notice. They’ll fly to that mountain there, and that’s where they’ll find the bodies of their dead, and a sea of crows covering them in black wings.”

Silence continued in the command center, even as the first cracks of arquebuses broke the city air. They were pitiful compared to the 24-pound long guns, though still loud enough to reverberate over the whole city. They weren’t made to fire accurately, not really. Instead, they sprayed birdshot into the air above a fortified pony line, into the griffons attacking from above.

Hayden watched Lodestone’s expression.

It seemed like emotions were battling in him—horror was one, though there was something else too. Resolve. She could see something moving behind those eyes, something the color of a bat’s wings. He nodded, squaring his jaw. “If your elites need help, I have airborne archers. Their bows might not be equal to what Avalon gave you for your elites, but…”

The whole room relaxed—ponies returned to their posts, ponies went back to huddling over the walls, watching the flags that passed signals between wall towers. Hayden longed to join them out there—but she resisted the urge.

Then she heard the rumble. The third airship was right above the city now, and it was dropping barrels from the deck. In a densely-packed city like Icefalls, most landed on structures. Ice-covered roofs were poor fuel for the flames, but most buildings were wood. God, if they hit the munitions plant… Hayden had put it in one of her few stone buildings, anticipating this kind of attack. But would that be enough?

She could hear shouts joining the irregular crack of rifle fire. The griffons hadn’t targeted the streets of the city, as Lodestone had predicted. They were focusing on the walls, and the strange weapons that had brought their ships down. Hayden hoped the crews and their training were enough.

Then she saw the figure—a single pony, cutting through the air above the city. She tensed, shivering all over as she saw who it was. East Wind, traveling cloak rippling behind her as she shot up towards the third airship like a comet.

“Oh God…” Hayden winced, staring with morbid fascination out the window. “Lodestone, get somepony in the air NOW! Our diplomat from Harmony is…” She trailed off, and she wasn’t the only one to be watching helplessly now.

Griffons from the third ship had leapt into the air to engage her. Most were armored, though they fought with no specific weapons at all, just their claws and beaks. They were birds of prey—adapted for this very sort of combat.

Hayden looked away, unable to force herself to watch. She could hear her soldiers dying on the wall, but this was different. This pony’s death was her fault. What had East Wind been thinking?”

“Stars above, it’s her,” Lodestone muttered, awed.

Hayden looked up, and found she didn’t need to wonder what he meant. East Wind was gone—Princess Luna was in her place. What had happened to the griffons who attacked her, Hayden couldn’t tell. Maybe they were the charred corpses raining down on Icefalls from above?

“Not… my… city!” The roar came so loudly that Hayden felt it in her core. Dust dislodged from some of the windows, and several of the little models went tumbling off the table.

The third airship vanished in a blast of burning blue light, bright enough that it illuminated all of Icefalls brighter than the sun. When it passed, and the glowing after-images faded from Hayden’s eyes, there was nothing left to rain down on Icefalls but ash.

“Belay that order,” Hayden said, seeming to come to herself long before anypony else in the room. Half of them were bowing at the window.

“Get crews into the city to put out the fires, Lodestone,” Hayden said, her voice startling them. “Let’s make sure our princess’s city doesn’t burn down.”

Chapter 32: Luna's City

Hayden met the princess on the castle ramparts. Princess Luna did not attempt to return to her disguise—considering the display she had just put on for every citizen in Icefalls, there probably wasn’t much of a point. She had acquired her sword, Achelois, probably through the same means Hayden had the last time she used it. I wonder what would happen if I was carrying it when she tried to summon it.

Hayden landed behind her, the only pony who had dared approach her up here. There were a few guards on the keep, but none had closed within a hundred meters. They all kept standing at their posts, staring off into the void as though there might be a griffon attack at any moment. At last they weren’t cowering and bowing.

“Princess,” Hayden said, approaching her as respectfully as she could. “I thought you were… I guess we all did.”

“Thought I had lost my mind?” Princess Luna asked, not looking back. She didn’t sound shell-shocked—not overwhelmed by the killing she had done, as more inexperienced soldiers might be. No doubt she had killed more than Hayden could ever dream of.

“Well, uh…” she trailed off. “Maybe a little.” She didn’t dare say more. It was true she’d thought Luna had gone into depression, or else been locked up by her sister. Either way, the consequences were the same. Until now, there had been no hope of rescue.

Luna chuckled. Hayden could hear the bitterness on the wind. “I suppose I gave you no reason to suspect otherwise. Not to you, or anypony else. It would have been so good just to let go… forget the pain, forget how little the ponies of Equestria care about my work. Forget what might happen to the bats.” She turned, but there was no anger on her face. “I might have, if I didn’t have your dreams tormenting me. Hope is a curse, Hayden from Earth. You have cursed me.”

Hayden didn’t know how to answer that. Far below, she could see the cleanup crews working. The fires hadn’t spread, though a few structures had been destroyed. A few families would have lost everything in those flames and would have to be moved somewhere else. At last count, there had been fifty casualties—most only minor injuries. One of her elites had been killed, some devastating head injury taken in close physical combat. But considering what they were up against, fifty injured or killed is pretty good for them. Shows how much work we have to do.

“It might be a curse, Princess,” Hayden eventually said, “but the alternative is worse. Either we hope we can change things, or we’re crushed by the weight of an indifferent universe that doesn’t care what we do and doesn’t care what it destroys. I couldn’t just accept the consequences of my presence here in Equestria—even if it wasn’t my fault. I couldn’t go home knowing what ponies here would pay.”

“Well…” Luna gestured over the castle walls with one wing. “Icefalls is still here. You survived most of the winter, and you survived a single probe. Can you survive an invasion?”

Evening Star straightened to military crispness. “I think you’ll be surprised what this army can do once it’s been trained and equipped, Princess. But I think our odds get better if we have you here. What you did to that airship… we aren’t building anything nearly that good.”

Princess Luna turned away again. “That is not a feat I can often repeat, Hayden. Even if I had the power, such terrible destruction has consequences on the material world. Unraveling the thread of the tapestry in such a manner can do… well, look at the Crystal Empire. You can’t, because they fell through the tear they made. If they are very lucky, we will see them again. But what pony can say?” She spun sharply, advancing suddenly on Hayden.

“There is one thing I didn’t learn from your tour, Hayden. At every juncture, I see the evidence that you defied the will of my sister. So much the better, or Icefalls would already be starving. She seems willing to barter the lives of everypony in the north, along with the territory we do not need, for the safety of the rest of our ponies. She never anticipated success. What will you do if you win?”

“What will she do?” Hayden asked, without flinching. “I think I know what she’s afraid of now. Outsiders… she thinks that bats are infected.” Hayden lowered her voice to a whisper. “She’s right.”

“What?” Princess Luna reacted with shock, recoiling from her. “Even you? The originator of the race… surely you wouldn’t accept her propaganda.”

“I don’t think it reached up here,” Hayden said flatly. “But I didn’t learn from her. I went to Avalon for help, Princess.” She nodded towards the gun on her shoulder. “I wanted him to make these for all the ponies of Icefalls. With an army like that, I might’ve marched on the griffons… but he couldn’t. Because he’s too busy trying to find a cure for what he found. He’s been bringing in thestral ponies, and every single one of them carries an outsider. He was able to remove them all without hurting the ponies, apparently, but the transformation is still permanent. I know, because he put me through it. I… was infected too.”

Luna turned slightly away, muttering something to herself. Hayden couldn’t catch most of the words, though she could hear the intention obvious enough. Luna was wondering if she had made the right choice in coming up here. She seemed to be considering whether to allow her sister’s plan to go through after all. Maybe even to stop Hayden and force Icefalls to be destroyed.

“He cured us,” Hayden said, interrupting her. “He thinks he can figure something out for the race as a whole. We just need to give him time. Nopony cares about the night more than bats do, Luna. They don’t know they’re infected… it’s not like they’re some insidious army trying to undermine Equestria. They’re just ponies who are looking to you for help.”

“To you,” Luna said. “Not me. Equestria barely even knows my name anymore.”

Hayden removed her jacket, turning it slightly to the side so the princess would see the patches. With Luna’s cutie mark, not Celestia’s. “Anywhere my army goes… anywhere we protect. Ponies will know who kept them safe. When another winter comes, and Icefalls is still here, ponies will know you are the reason why. It would be better if we had you with us. You’d… probably be better at all this commanding stuff than I am. Honestly, I’d be helpless without Lodestone. He was wasted commanding one base.”

Luna’s expression was a mask. For a few minutes, they stood together in silence, watching the city come alive with nightfall. Icefalls was thoroughly a nocturnal city now, lit with the steady glow of crystal and the orange flicker of oil.

“I do not know why so many ponies have decided to… change. The number is much less than half of all pegasus ponies, yet there are still so many. I see their nightmares every moment, Hayden. Equestria’s cities banishing them, their friends disowning them. It would not seem so likely, except for my sister’s work. I suppose I have less reason to resent her now, if she is right about the danger you present.”

“Avalon cured me,” Hayden said. “And a few others. I was hoping he would have time to treat my officers, but… he’s so busy with the machine he’s working on, he doesn’t have a spare moment. Point is, he’ll figure it out. We just have to keep going from here, knowing that it will get solved. We can’t fix everything, so we focus on what we can fix.”

Princess Luna straightened, flexing each of her wings in turn. “I am the ruler of Icefalls. The north is my territory. I won’t let it fall to the griffons… not if I can still fight. There are others to deal with the Outsiders, yes?”

“Yeah,” Hayden agreed, beaming. “Somepony else can worry about that.”

“And somepony will have to go and retrieve the refugees from the south. They wander from city to city, helpless and starving. Those who have not made it here are in terrible shape. Will you care for those I bring?”

“Yes,” Hayden promised, without pausing to think. “We are prepared to take refugees. Our industry can easily accept new workers, and the hospital system I’m working on can care for those who have been hurt in their flight.”

“Good.” Princess Luna took to the air. “You gave me good reason to doubt you, Hayden. Now I am seeing there were more reasons not to.” There was a crack, a flash of light, and Princess Luna’s glowing form vanished from the air in front of her.

A few seconds later, Nightbreeze emerged from the keep below her. She sat down beside Hayden on the edge of the ramparts. “I can’t believe you did it,” she eventually said. “All that spin you’ve been whispering to ponies about Luna’s trust and the secret mission from the crown, and… you get her to come out of hiding. Did you know it was her?”

Hayden shook her head. “She felt… familiar. I am her familiar.” She waited a few seconds, but Nightbreeze didn’t laugh. So she went on, looking away awkwardly. “We could have taken that last airship without her. But… I think this was better for the men. Now word will spread about how the princess showed up during the scariest part of our battle to protect the city. Ponies will think the princess is coming to save them, so they’ll fight harder.”

“Is she?”

“I… think so,” Hayden said. “She went to bring in refugees from the south. Ponies who didn’t know about us or couldn’t make it. Might be a lot more bats in the next few weeks.”

“Just in time for us to get attacked,” Nightbreeze said, voice dripping with sarcasm. “I hope we win this, General. You’ve made bold promises to the ponies of Equestria. First to me, then to that fort of yours, now here. Sooner or later, you’ll have to deliver.”

She left, slipping back into the fort. Hayden sat in the chill and watched the stars for a few minutes, until it got too cold. There was no wisdom for her up there—she would have to bring that.

Over the next few weeks, Icefalls would become as prepared as it was going to get. She would not learn if her little fiction with the birds had come true, but they had brought all the bodies to a nearby mountain peak, where they would hopefully remain unburied by snow. Hayden’s soldiers kept training, her factories kept building, and winter never came for the farms.

Of course, not everything worked perfectly. Upending the social order and expecting almost everypony to work as much as they could wasn’t something Hayden thought they could sustain. But she didn’t really need ponies to keep it going.

A few more proposals for scouting missions crossed her desk, but Lodestone shot them all down, and she agreed. They needed airships if they were going to venture into griffon territory, and they had only the one suited to that purpose. The Excellus would work best for Icefalls if it did remain a surprise—the last ace she could pull from her sleeve if the battle went badly.

It still waited, hidden in a secret hanger in the mountain that was really just a thin ice shell poured by pegasi to cover it, ready to be shattered by the engines if it needed to be used.

But if that happens, I’ll already be dead. Who knows what that will do to Equestria. Meeting a human hadn’t exactly done good things for Hayden’s ideas of her own reality. On the one hand, Avalon was certainly human, and certainly real. But on the other, his world was far in the future of her own.

Hayden would not even have lived to see the founding of the Avalon colony, whatever that was. So how could she know if any of what Avalon said was true? Her own artifacts from home were only so much of an anchor, when everything about them was wrong.

She wasn’t a biped, wasn’t an architect, wasn’t even male anymore. All those months ago, Hayden had been convinced the world of Earth she remembered was real. But now… maybe Earth existed, but was she really from it? Could all of her artifacts have come from Avalon’s world, and she be no more real than Luna’s soul?

Star Swirl didn’t return to Harmony, but he wasn’t very helpful about such questions. “If I send you back, you can find out,” was all he said.

Hayden didn’t dwell on her worries about herself. There was a city to keep running, troops to train, a mythology to build. When the griffons finally arrived, they would find Icefalls as prepared as they could hope to make it.

That would have to be enough.

Chapter 33: Officer of the Watch

Hayden realized the north was changing the moment she saw weather-ponies lounging around the square by noon, instead of their distant specks in a desperate battle against the clouds. Layers of ice sloughed off rooftops, and the streets began to clear. A day or two later, the great waterfall after which the city was named began to roar with life, creating a background hum that never quite went away.

Most important of all, though, was that the city was still there. Icefalls had not devoured itself with hunger, even though the caravans of supplies stopped coming from the south. There hadn’t been riots, its fortifications hadn’t been burned down. Even as more and more refugees arrived from the south as well as the north, bringing with them mostly one kind of magic, the city’s infrastructure held. Hayden would never know for sure whether it had been the innovations she had brought, or the cooperative spirit of Equestria’s ponies that had made it possible. Every day was a new reminder that they had nowhere else to flee—either they would triumph on the day the griffons attacked, or they would all be enslaved.

Hayden’s farmers planted new crops, spreading far and wide around the city. She had to encourage them to ignore the persistent voices that no one would survive to bring in the harvest. “We don’t have to make it through one battle. We have to keep going when that battle ends. Eventually, we’ll retake all the northern lands.” And maybe after that they would turn south. It was impossible to predict how things might go.

Her first scouts reported signs of enemy movement about two weeks into spring, when most of the snow had melted and everything was turning green. From a few captured birds, they learned the news nopony wanted to hear: the call to assemble had come. Every griffon was gathering. They planned to strike in just a few weeks, once they had gathered into one body. The Great Fleet would sail against Equestria in all its glory, either to triumph or be destroyed.

Hayden feared that this news might crush Icefalls’s morale, but she shouldn’t have worried. After their last defense, most citizens seemed content to keep working. Some of her soldiers even sounded eager for the attack to come, and a chance to use the weapons that only a few of their fellows had actually fired on their enemies.

Hayden spent many hours in hushed planning meetings with Lodestone and the other generals. It was a good thing they had learned so well, and become so strategically minded, because she didn’t have the right kind of mindset for it. Hayden had taught them everything she could about the capacities of their new weapons. She had made sure that they had all fired the arquebus, and been on cannon crews for a day. Hopefully it would be enough.

Hayden and her united army of all who had remained in the north could not possibly hope to defend the vast swathes of land left abandoned. Instead, Hayden had the fastest batponies and pegasi alike as scouts as far as she possibly could, watching from ancient guard posts but never investing enough resources to be easy to find.

So, the city watched and waited as word of the great war-camp reached them, with a rumored thousand ships. Eventually Hayden started losing touch with scouts and called back the rest. They could do nothing but wait.

They kept waiting. An entire month went by, and still there was no sign of the enemy. Hayden’s forces made good use of the extra time, building ever-firmer fortifications and better-training their freshest recruits. Another week went by, and Hayden’s bravest scouts returned with news. The enemy had never come for icefalls. They had passed between them and Defiance completely unopposed and were now occupying Vanhoover.

The next day, a small detachment of Equestrian Army MPs arrived by air, flying in such an angry rush that they were nearly mistaken for enemy combatants and shot down.

Hayden learned about them rather unexpectedly, when the little delegation battered its way into the great hall past every guard and soldier she had. It was evening, but in Icefalls that now meant breakfast. She wasn’t alone at the table but chatting in hushed voices with Lodestone and Nightbreeze.

“You,” barked a fierce, grizzled-looking pegasus. “You are the one commissioned to protect Equestria’s northern border. Evening Star, yes?”

This room didn’t have ordinary soldiers standing watch, but a pair of her elites. Both watched darkly from one wall, eyeing the still-armed MPs with wariness. Hayden could see both bats tracking these newcomers with the weapons on their shoulders, so subtly that nopony who had never seen these weapons before would notice.

“I am General Evening Star,” she said, not rising from where she sat. She carefully put down her fork, which she’d been manipulating rather deftly with one wing. Over a year in Equestria had taught her many small lessons. “Who are you?”

But she already recognized the uniforms, even if she didn’t know their names. Military Police always wore polished gold armor instead of something more practical. Not real gold, but a thin layer of bronze plated with the stuff. It shone quite impressively, though she doubted it could stand up to many serious blows. The cuirass underneath was made of polished gold links as well, not even tough enough to stop an arrow.

The one who had spoken had officers’ knots, the other saddlebags. There was nothing in them but restraints—hobbles for hooves, magic rings, wing bindings. How far had they flown with only those for supplies?

“That is none of your concern anymore,” said the officer—a bright gold stallion whose features seemed vaguely familiar to her. She had heard a voice like this before. “But so your second here knows, I am Lord Diamond Glow, head of the division of military inquiry. You have been tried in absentia, and found guilty for the crime of treason by negligence. You are hereby stripped of rank and ordered to report with us to Seaddle for execution.” He pointed one wing forward at her. “Arrest this pony.”

Diamond Glow… was this Golden Glow’s father? He was right… this stallion really is an asshole.

His companions strode forward with the swagger of stallions who were often obeyed. The rest of the room had fallen deadly silent—here two elites watched from the doorway without a word. Nightbreeze continued sipping at her soup, though her slitted eyes didn’t look away from her. She was pleading, desperate. Her eyes begged Hayden to know what to do.

Only Lodestone dared to speak. “Treason?” He rose from his seat, knocking over the train of boiled grain. Even now that he was the de facto leader of all the war in the north, he still ate like one of his men. The same way Hayden had done for a few nights, Lodestone did every night. “You can’t try a high officer for a capital crime—only her direct superior has that authority! You boot-lickers can’t try officers at all—put that bucking harness away.” He stepped away from the table just one step—far enough that his sword now hung free in its scabbard.

The MPs did stop, though not until they had glanced back at Officer Glow for clarification. His eyes hardened. “Her direct superior was part of that trial, whoever you are. Sergeant…”

As if you can’t see those knots, asshole. “General Lodestone,” Hayden corrected, loudly. “And I doubt it. I am high marshal—there is only one pony who can sit in judgement of me.”

“And she was there,” Glow exclaimed, exasperated. “Princess Celestia has found you guilty of every pony slain in Vanhoover. No less than two thousand separate counts—you were given a commission to protect Equestria’s northern border, and you did not even attempt to fulfill it. Don’t think we didn’t have informants watching you, General. Celestia’s eyes see as far as the sun itself. We know you knew the Stonebeaks were not coming for Icefalls. You didn’t send a single soldier to stop them. Constables, arrest her! If anypony tries to stop you, put them in irons as well.”

They strode forward again, removing a bulky wooden and strap contraption—meant for her wings, no doubt—and holding it up.

Hayden rose, her eyes narrowed to slits as she glowered at them. “Officer of the watch—you will defend this hall.”

There was a subtle clicking sound from the ponies behind her—and Sideswipe nodded his head once. “Aye, ma’am.”

The guards stopped. Hayden was honestly a little surprised—she hadn’t expected stories of her firearms to have traveled so far as Equestria proper. They shouldn’t have had as much of a fear of firearms. Yet both of them turned to stare at Diamond Glow.

“This pony is no longer in command,” Glow said, his voice dangerous. “You are no longer permitted to obey her. Obstructing her arrest is tantamount to allowing a murderer escape justice. You will be complicit in her crimes.”

Both bats looked utterly unmoved. Nightbreeze alone seemed to cower at his words—none of the others reacted.

Lodestone shook his head. “You’ve got a strange idea of justice, Officer Glow.”

“Apparently Celestia has forgotten my commission. Apparently she forgot that she withdrew nearly the whole army from Icefalls and left us to die. Apparently she forgot that my commission was to protect the north.”

Steel rang in the great hall as Diamond Glow drew his sword with one wing—impressive control, even more than Hayden could’ve done. But then, he had a lifetime to practice. “I will not suffer you to impugn her name! Princess Celestia is the ruler of all Equestria! Keep her name off your tongue, creature, or I will cut it off before we hang you.”

“How did you arrive in my city, Officer Glow?” Hayden could almost feel her mane lifting. A faint wind seemed to blow up from around her, though she couldn’t see where it was coming from, and her hooves never moved.

“Lord Diamond Glow,” he spat. “Chariot, obviously. If you think you will distract me, you waste your time. We will have justice for those who are dead because of you. Then we will take command of your army, and march them down to do their damn duty.”

She turned to Cloud Climber, the other elite. “Run to the stables, Cloud. Have a squadron take Officer Glow’s chariot to the forges. Make sure they burn all of it.”

Cloud didn’t question her orders—didn’t point out they were making their odds worse. Giving up their numerical advantage, without even asking him to raise an alarm. He merely saluted, and took off out a nearby window.

“I know the hangman,” Glow whispered. “Friend of mine. I’ll make sure he doesn’t use a long enough rope. You might hang for hours.”

“I doubt it.” Hayden rose to her hooves. As she did so, the movement of her passing put out the candles on the great table. She was cast in gloom, yet her side of the table didn’t get as dark as she would’ve expected. “We in the north do not accept the usurper’s authority over the army, Diamond Glow. Princess Luna is my superior, and nopony else. You will find the soldiers of Icefalls think very poorly of the princess who left us all to die. Who sent no food, no reinforcements, only threats of disgrace to all those who would not obey her evil orders. My soldiers did not abandon their duty the last time, what makes you think they would listen now?”

Her words had the desired effect. Glow might be an asshole, but he was at least true to his promises—he did attack her then, transferring his sword to his mouth and charging at her with a muffled cry of rage. His officers dropped their restraints and charged as well.

Lodestone drew his sword, much faster and more skillfully than Glow ever had.

But he didn’t get to swing it.

There were a few harsh cracks in the hall—loud enough that they echoed, but not as loud as the terrible guns outside. Three ponies dropped to the ground, none closer than five meters to where Hayden stood.

Sideswipe looked only satisfied as he saluted her, darkness behind his eyes. “Shot them, ma’am. Three assassins attacking a superior officer.”

Nightbreeze stumbled back away from the bloodstained table in abject horror, staring between Hayden and Sideswipe, then back again. “Th-that was… that was Lord… Lord…”

“That was an assassin,” Hayden said, shivering as she looked down at the corpse’s dead eyes. But the mysterious wind was gone from the hall, and proper gloom set in around them. “Three of them.” She turned back to Nightbreeze, eyes hardening. “I want you to spread a message around Icefalls—assassins posing as members of the division of military inquiry used their disguises to enter my hall, then drew their weapons and tried to kill me.”

“They weren’t… imposters,” Lodestone said, reaching down and removing the medallion from around the dead Lord’s neck. This one was made of gold, emblazoned with Celestia’s cutie mark.

“They must’ve been,” Hayden said, her eyes darkening. “Because if they hadn’t been, they would’ve known that only Princess Luna has the authority to pronounce charges.” She faced Nightbreeze again. “Make sure that part is there. They spread the obvious lie that Princess Celestia has usurped the power of her royal sister. Make it very clear that the watch is being instructed to kill any more obvious imposters who attempt to enter Icefalls without the seal of Princess Luna, War Marshal of Equestria.”

She took a step closer to Nightbreeze, around the back of the table. The thestral withdrew from her, eyes widening fearfully. But Hayden didn’t relent.

“You heard him,” she whispered, voice low and dangerous. “There are informants in the city. Make sure they hear it. Make sure everypony in all of Icefalls knows it.” She snapped back around, movements military precise as she looked at Lodestone. “That order isn’t fictional, General. See that every watchman knows. From this moment on, only soldiers bearing Luna’s seal will be allowed to enter the city.”

She stomped off past the dead, lowering her voice. “I need to have a conversation with Star Swirl. Somepony take these assassins to the morgue.”

Chapter 34: Move, Countermove

Students scattered from around the empty classroom, leaving the artifacts of their new day of study littering the ground like leaves. Star Swirl hadn’t had to tell any of them to flee, but Hayden could see the emotion on his face. His horn glowed faintly for a few seconds, as though examining several different spells before ultimately rejecting them all.

“That’s it, then,” he finally said, the chalk that had been levitating beside him snapping into little pieces and raining down like powder. “Princess Celestia’s actions are telling. They frame the conflict—but they do not help us resolve it.”

“Frame it?” Hayden made no claim to the kind of discipline this master-sorcerer could muster. She felt like she might break something at any second. What she really wanted to do was summon Achelois and destroy some evil for a few hours. But thanks to Sideswipe's rifle, there was no evil left. “Princess Celestia ordered me executed. How the fuck can she expect me to defend all of Equestria? There would be less than a thousand members of the guard still here if they’d actually followed their orders.”

Star Swirl stormed past her in a rush of fur and magical glow, to the polished center of the room where he did all his spells. Hayden was unsurprised to see him grab more chalk along the way, along with one of the students’ cases of spellcasting materials, apparently at random. “It reveals more than she wishes, I suspect. The princess failed to summon you—this will undermine her trust with the other high officers. Her fear of you was so great that she suffered that loss rather than permit you to defend yourself.”

He stopped, levitating over one of the brushes, and started sweeping away at the floor. He cleared a wide patch and began to draw, exactly as he had done when he first arrived. Only this time he didn’t keep looking at her—whatever this spell was, she wasn’t connected to it. Unfortunately, Hayden couldn’t tell what any of the sweeping lines and elegant runes actually meant.

“She’s the princess,” Hayden said, shrugging one shoulder. “If she really wanted me dead, she has the power. I’ve seen Luna fight, and her older sister must be even more powerful.”

“No.” Star Swirl didn’t look away from his work. “A monarch undermines her own authority when she is forced to act herself. Coming here in a flaming chariot and using her magic to capture you might frighten the ponies in the gutter, but those who are a true danger to her will see it as an opportunity. A leader who has to execute her own dissidents shows she doesn’t have either the loyalty or the strength of organization to police. Princess Celestia will avoid raising her own sword against you unless you leave her no choice.”

Hayden’s ears flattened, and she looked away. “I, uh… didn’t tell you how it ended.”

“You sent them away, obviously.” Star Swirl kept working. There were already hundreds of lines, every one of them perfect. He had an eraser, but never used it. “In shame. Burned their chariot.”

“Lord Glow tried to kill me,” she said. “My marshal acted so fast… I’ve never seen a sword cut through a neck like that.”

Star Swirl dropped the chalk, spoiling the line he was working on. His whole body tensed. “A pony under your command killed Lord Glow.” It wasn’t a question. He straightened, no longer seeming to care about what he was drawing. “You are an ignorant stranger who pretends to understand her world. You can’t even imagine what he’s done.”

“I didn’t just let it happen!” Hayden protested, stomping one hoof and glaring down at the wizard. “I’m controlling the narrative! It was a failed assassination attempt! We’re going to—”

Star Swirl cut her off. “Hayden. House Glow is the most powerful in all Equestria. Its holdings are the largest. In levy, its armies dwarf all others. By treasury, it is richer than the crown.”

The rest of Hayden’s objection died in her throat. Star Swirl took a step away from her. Again his horn started glowing, flashing through several more spells he left uncast. “Princess Celestia is Equestria’s protector. In practice, that means she protects the interests of its noble houses, who protect the ponies who live in their land. House Glow won’t care what you say the circumstances are, and they won’t believe any number of witnesses. They’ll demand the protection promised to them by peerage.” Star Swirl shivered. “Stars above, it’s happening again. This is our punishment for reaching beyond the boundaries of our world. All Equestria is doomed.”

“No,” Hayden barked. “Shut up for a second. I don’t care how pissy these nobles get—Equestria is being invaded. They know by now our army isn’t going to be leaving Icefalls. That means they’re going to have to fight it off themselves.” Or they’ll fail. A few years from now, we can make our way south as Equestria’s liberators.

But no matter how much she hated Celestia, Hayden didn’t wish that on the ponies of the south. She had seen the works of the Stonebeaks firsthand. There were those in the army who wanted to see the south suffer for the way it had ill-used them. After all the years of empty granaries and thin coats. Hayden was not one of them.

“She will,” Star Swirl said. “Princess Celestia will not exercise the same restraint against the enemies of Equestria she would when dealing with interference from within. And she did withdraw the majority of the army. When the Stonebeaks flee…”

They’ll flee here, Hayden realized, before he’d even finished speaking. She knew it then as surely as she’d ever known anything. “We’re the only city further north. And they’ll realize Equestria’s army won’t stop them—they already abandoned us once.”

Star Swirl shrugged, finally erasing the smudge in the middle of his spellwork and going back to drawing. He had to be nearly finished now, at least judging from just how much space he had taken. “If that’s true, it does us few favors. We may stand a better chance against a reduced force of Stonebeaks than we would against their grand fleet. But even if we win… there will be another army when we’re done. The beginning of a civil war.”

Hayden could almost see it then—thousands of gold banners arriving outside a city with depleted supplies and broken fortifications, demanding its surrender. Perhaps Celestia would even exterminate the bats herself. That seemed a step too far for the princess, but Hayden couldn’t be sure.

“God,” Hayden whispered. “He really did try to kill me, Star Swirl. Doesn’t that help?”

He shook his head. “Princess Celestia didn’t have the right to try you—for the same reason, you didn’t have the right to kill him. It’s essentially the same thing, except that you’re still alive and he isn’t. As you are his superior, you will be held responsible as well. You will certainly be executed.

Hayden hardly even heard him. It was as though he were talking about someone else. But what happens to princess Luna if I die?

“Keeping Icefalls safe is what matters right now,” she said, as confidently as she could. “Maybe when that happens I’ll… go on the run, or something. But we have to survive first. Unless you think the Equestrian army is going to decimate the Stonebeaks so badly that they aren’t willing to have another fight, and they avoid us on their way back north.”

“There is no chance of that,” Star Swirl said. “Even if Princess Celestia personally incinerates most of the fleet with the sun itself, that wouldn’t happen. The Stonebeaks are creatures of pride. They might flee from one battle to another they think they can win, but… they won’t just give up. All their leaders would be killed if that happened. Each individual clan would destroy itself. But they may not come to us. Equestria has many cities. It’s possible we will wait for them for years and never see a bird. They may carve out some other part of the nation.”

He set down the chalk in front of him, opening the pack of ingredients and distributing a few throughout the diagram. There was incense to be burned, a spool of wire, a few others. Hayden didn’t really know the significance of any of them. “Regardless, I will be leaving now.” He set the case down, meeting her eyes again. She could practically smell his regret.

“You don’t have to go anywhere,” she said, though she could already tell he’d made up his mind. There would be no other like him in Icefalls. More importantly, it would mean they would have no magical defense if Celestia brought supernatural weapons against them. But I knew he was never going to fight her from the first.

“I do,” he said, though not with any spite. “Equestria is in danger. You should know… I do not blame you. A pony reaps what she sows, and no amount of magic can fool the land into thinking there were seeds that were never buried. Princess Celestia must have known this was a possibility. If she was not prepared for the invasion that would follow the fall of Icefalls, that is not your responsibility. Perhaps if Princess Luna had confronted her more directly and retaken control of the army… but at this point, I am not even certain Celestia was wrong.”

He touched his horn gently to the edge of the diagram, and the whole thing lit up brilliantly blue. The sugar cubes in their little pile dissolved, the wire began to uncoil—each of his ingredients moved in their way. “I will not share anything I have seen with Princess Celestia, when we meet. I will not raise my horn against you or this city. But I will probably not be able to persuade her to stay her sword. She is correct about the dangers your new race poses. You fought them yourself, you must know.”

“I do,” Hayden said, her voice low. “Maybe you could send messages back to us. Warn us if she’s coming. Make sure we’re prepared.”

The space in the center of the diagram rippled and shifted. Darkness poured in, and then a crack in the air. Through the sliver of broken air, Hayden could make out a city under orange lights. Ponies running, panicked and desperate. None of them even noticed the spell. “I will try,” Star Swirl said, after a long time. “You have done much to convince me of your value, Hayden. You have renewed my faith in my methods. Goetica’s power remains as real as ever. Do not forget what you represent to Princess Luna. If Celestia kills you…” He trailed off, stepping through the portal. There was a harsh crack, an implosion of air, and the remaining ingredients went bouncing and flying away. There was nothing left behind but a few stray lines.

Hayden walked slowly from the empty hall. She passed a few worried students outside, who chatted nervously with each other about how much more work Star Swirl would give them to make up for an hour of missed instruction. “He’s gone,” Hayden said, once they were all watching her. “Take the rest of the day off. The court wizard will take over this class starting tomorrow… for those she can still instruct.” It was likely that some of these students were beyond anything a court wizard could teach them. It was a shame—many of these frightened faces had been some of the lowest unicorns in Icefalls. She had only poor and broken ponies for recruits—and these had excelled.

“Thank you all for your hard work,” Hayden said, before she finally turned away. “Your help will be needed very soon to defend the city.” She left them in the hallway then, before they could ask more questions.

Hayden wasn’t sure she could’ve answered them even if she wanted to.

The Stonebeaks had given them more time to prepare, but at such a price. Some part of Hayden wished they had just attacked Icefalls. If they had rebuffed the assault, they never would’ve had to fear a second invasion. Now, even if they won, there might be more invaders.

And it’s my fault. That look Sideswipe's eyes at the end—she’d never seen bloodlust like that in Equestria, not even on the griffons who had tried to kill her. The source was obvious.

I hope to God you can find us our cure, Avalon.

Chapter 35: Departure Protocol

“This is a bad idea,” Nightbreeze spoke from behind her, her voice distant and annoyed. “I guess we’ve had lots of bad ideas lately.”

Hayden did her best to ignore the bat, focusing all her attention on what she was watching below. Hovering like this took a little more concentration than simple flying, which meant riding the balance between deciding what to do and relying on her instincts. Well, relying on Luna’s instincts, since Hayden didn’t know the first thing about this.

The world below them was cast in blue, though it was far more visible than it would’ve been a few weeks ago. But now that winter was over, even the Icefalls flowed with water again. It took a little magic to keep the roof frozen over them.

“It might be,” Hayden eventually answered, drooping in the air a little as she spoke. “But it’s necessary. It helps make the case for the rest of Equestria. Even if the nobles want to kill us, stories like this will keep the common ponies from agreeing.”

“That won’t happen if the nobility levies their land,” Nightbreeze muttered. “If a pony army attacks…” she shook her head. “Ponies fighting ponies… what sense does that make? The whole world is going insane.”

Hayden winced, even if that was where Nightbreeze stopped. “It’s alright. You can blame me for it. You wouldn’t be the only one.”

But Nightbreeze didn’t blame her. Or say anything else, for that matter. “You’ve been making good choices so far,” Nightbreeze muttered. “That thing with the assassins… I wish I could be a breezie in the leaves during that meeting. I hope whoever was scribing it took some good notes of everypony’s faces.”

Far below them, the last of the cannons was being rolled into place. Their strongest earth ponies dragged them up the loading ramp and onto the Excellus. Everything else was already aboard. Three hundred soldiers, including every one of her elites. A third of the canon crews, and more powder than they really had to spare.

“That seamstress is going to be ready in time to launch, right?”

Nightbreeze rolled her eyes. “I don’t see why that would matter to you, Evening Star. We’re going into occupied territory—we might even have to fight our own kind. Do we really want a flag proclaiming where we’re from?”

“Yes,” Hayden said, not even thinking. “I may not know war the way Lodestone does, but I know some things. War is really about psychology. It’s about breaking our enemy’s desire to fight, not killing all their soldiers. We’ve already done some great things—we destroyed Polestar with an avalanche… mostly accidentally, but they won’t know that. We stopped their first attack so completely that none of their ships even returned.” As she spoke, it got a little easier to hold herself in the air, suspended above the Excellus. “When Stonebeaks talk about Icefalls, I want them to do it in terrified whispers. If they have to come against us, I want them to be fighting to be last in the battle line. When they hear our cannons, I want them to shit themselves.”

Nightbreeze shoved her hard with one hoof. “That is not proper talk for a lady, Evening Star. Nor is it proper talk for a general. Even if I appreciate the point you’re making…” She turned away again, lowering her voice back to what it was. “I’m still unhappy about this. You worked so hard to make Icefalls defensible, and now you’re taking so much of that away. Those crews are some of our best, most experienced… and your Blackwings—”

The nickname everypony had given to the elites. She had tried to just call them ‘special operations,’ but the ponies hadn’t liked that name. So Blackwings would be their name.

“We’ll come back,” she said, for perhaps the hundredth time. “The griffons don’t have anything that can bring down the Excellus, I told you that already. And if they try to board, we have the elites to shove them off again. We fought huge numbers at Polestar, we can do it again. I expect we’ll mostly be harassing while they fight the bulk of the pony army.”

Which they would have to make very sure not to hit accidentally, or else their mission of support might destroy all the bridges they wanted to preemptively rebuild.

They landed near the loading ramp, though far enough away from the line of waiting ponies pushing supplies that they wouldn’t get in the way. A few looked respectfully in her direction, shuffling about as though they didn’t know what to do. She just smiled, hopefully encouragement enough that they didn’t have to salute.

“Forgive me if I don’t trust your predictions, Evening Star,” Nightbreeze whispered. So quiet that Hayden might not have heard her, if it wasn’t for her sensitive ears. “Remember when you seduced me? This feels like that.”

Hayden couldn’t just embrace her—a city lord and a general might not be far apart in station, but that was less dignity than either office deserved. And besides, she hadn’t dared try to return to that relationship. Hayden feared that bridge might be burned for good.

“I’ll be back,” she said again. “Princess Luna should be back soon too. There can’t be very many bats left to save. You probably don’t need any of the canons with her to fight for us. She can take the sword back, even if I have it.” Hayden wasn’t wearing Achelois, though by now she didn’t need to. If she needed the sword, it would find its way there. Poor temple ponies probably had a little heart attack each time they came in and found it missing.

Then again, powerful magic swords meant to end all suffering were not exactly the safest things to steal.

“They’re not that powerful,” Nightbreeze said, her voice even lower. Hayden had to strain her ears to make out her words now. “Raising the sun and moon… it isn’t as hard as ponies think it is. Princess Luna… told me about it once. There’s a… an existing magical infrastructure in place. All the power they use is just enough to… trigger it each time. They can’t just burn whole armies away. Otherwise, nopony would’ve invaded Equestria in the first place.”

“I figured it had to be something,” Hayden said, though she didn’t feel any less ignorant about the way Luna and Celestia managed their respective responsibilities. Nor did it really matter. Hayden was not an Alicorn—no matter how badly this went, she wasn’t going to be raising the moon. Princess Luna had kept fulfilling that role even while locked tightly away in her tower. “But I saw what she did to that one ship. Power like that on the enemy’s side has got to be bad for morale too. Just as bad as having cannons blast your ships apart.”

“If you’d had enough time to complete your instruction, you’d know about these things.” Nightbreeze stopped whispering, and she went back to glaring good-naturedly. “It’s a good thing we have Lodestone.” Though as she said it, her voice trailed into doubt. General Lodestone would be staying back to protect the city. His military training would not be necessary when Hayden had only one unit to command.

“It’s a good thing we have Avalon,” Hayden responded. “I’m sure he’ll have the cure ready for us soon. We have an awful lot of bats waiting for it up here.”

Nightbreeze shivered. “I wish Star Swirl had been willing to take ponies to that ‘lab’ for us. It would’ve been nice to get… whatever that thing is… out. I can sometimes hear it. When Glow was here… like an itch. Lodestone wasn’t the only one who wanted to kill him.”

“Oh, that’s normal.” Hayden didn’t even bother trying to keep her voice down. “He was an asshole. That’s just instinct. Everybody gets it.”

Nightbreeze didn’t laugh. “I’ll make sure the team is ready outside. You think you’ll be launching at midnight?”

“As scheduled,” Hayden said. “Make sure they don’t cover it over until we get back. We’ll still need the Excellus if the defense of Icefalls is… unsuccessful.”

“We’ll have the dock ready for you,” Nightbreeze promised, before taking off. She shot back up to where they’d been hovering, then through the opening in the ice above. Hayden watched her go, trying and failing not to notice just how good she looked when she moved. Acquiring all kinds of expensive clothes certainly didn’t make that easy for her.

Only when Nightbreeze was gone did she finally make her way up the ramp—past the sleepy-looking ponies as they filled it with supplies. So many empty rooms, all of which had been converted either to storage or bunkrooms. She’d never intended it to hold soldiers—but the supplies she had packed away for other purposes could just as easily keep the Excellus fed while they pitched in repelling an invasion.

Captain Skylark was already waiting on the bridge, along with half a dozen other sailors who looked completely baffled by everything they saw. The Excellus wasn’t the sort of vessel that took a large crew. Really, she didn’t need any of them here. “Officer on the bridge!” called Sideswipe of the elites, who happened to be standing watch. She kept at least one of them in every critical section of the ship, which obviously meant this one.

Everypony rose, saluting, and she returned the gesture as crisply as she could. There was no reason for anypony not to be proud of a mission like this. “I’m sorry we couldn’t do this at a more reasonable hour,” Hayden muttered, once the pleasantries were out of the way. “But we’ll be launching at midnight. That means we need to get a few of you competent enough to drive this thing in case something happens to me.”

“To you?” Captain Skylark repeated, disbelief in his voice. “That doesn’t seem likely, General. I remember the last time you went muzzle to beak with a griffon.”

She shrugged off the compliment. Skylark was one of her favorites—though it wasn’t just for his competence, either with his magic or as a commander. He also wasn’t a bat, which made him one of the few besides herself who wasn’t infected. Infected with a disease we know nothing about that might have unknown side effects at any moment. I wonder if it had anything to do with Lodestone killing Glow.

“We only have a few hours, but I think you all can learn quickly. Captain Skylark, you’re my second in command on this mission. I want you to come to the front of the line. The holocontrols are over here, if you just…”

It took almost until launch time. The Excellus had a simulation mode, the same one that Avalon had used to teach her. These were not true windows, but screens that could be projected to show anything she wanted. Fake images of the outside were just as possible as real ones, albeit without the movement of the ship to make the whole thing feel genuine.

When they were finally done, Hayden sent one last scout out through the opening to give the go-ahead to the crew of weatherponies outside. Pegasi were never happy about doing their magic in the dark, but at least it was a big target.

The massive roof of ice above them shattered into thousands of little pieces, all at once. Had there still been anyone below, they probably would’ve been crushed. As it was, Hayden and her bridge-crew watched the chunks crash down around them. Hayden waited for the flash that signified the weather team was out of the way, then took the ship up in a dramatic rush.

Her hoof moved slowly through the control field, piloting the Excellus carefully around the edges of the natural drydock. Even through the ship’s armored body, she could make out the sound of ponies cheering from below. Icefalls knew where they were going—after the success of their last flight, the city probably felt invincible.

Hayden gave them a show, flying low and slow over the city. “I need a heading!” she called back to her bridge-crew, who were armed with Equestrian maps and compass.

“220 degrees, southwest to Seaddle!” called Skylark, another moment later. He was the only one of the bridge crew who wasn’t awed by the sight of the city blasting by in the windows. And they were still headed up—above where pegasus ponies could fly, or airships. Above where there was any danger of being intercepted. So high that only the pressurized hull would keep them breathing.

“Next stop, Seaddle,” Hayden muttered. “Let’s see how the princess convinces Equestria we’re traitors after this.”

Chapter 36: Reinforcements

They had been underway for nearly an hour before Hayden heard something she hadn’t before—a voice from the ship, speaking in clinical English. “We are receiving an incoming message from the HMS Neptune.”

Guards and ponies all over immediately stopped what they were doing, staring off in all directions for the speaker. Except Skylark, who looked to Hayden instead.

“What’s that? Is that… bad?”

“No.” Hayden reached out, pressing the “message accept” icon that had just lit up.

She was somewhat unsurprised to see the interior of a similar-looking bridge, with a single occupant inside. Avalon had put his absurd mask and robe back on, making him look like either a comically bad fursuiter or a creature so rotten its face was coming off at the seams. Judging by the frightened reactions from her crew, Hayden guessed they mostly interpreted the latter.

“I have been waiting for a chance to speak with you,” said Avalon, leaning heavily on his walking stick. Yet there was a purpose to the way he stood that hadn’t been there last time she’d seen him. He wanted to be helping. His eyes wandered between the different members of her crew. “Where is… Star Swirl?”

“Elsewhere,” Hayden answered, switching to English. Hopefully Avalon in all his genius would understand what that meant—she didn’t want gossip of whatever he had to tell her spreading around the ship on the eve of their first real combat. “You could’ve contacted us sooner if you had something important to say.”

Avalon only shook his head. “There was no time to make the trip myself, and no resources to send a messenger. But that is irrelevant. I wanted Star Swirl to know my progress. Perhaps you could pass the message to him?”

“Yes,” Hayden said, without thinking. She didn’t know exactly how she would manage that, but… that was a problem for another time. “I care about the cure even more than he does. They’re my bats. It’s just academic for him.”

Avalon ignored her protests, responding with a bare flick of his walking stick. “I wished to inform him because he might have insight. You are not qualified to provide any help I need, Hayden. Much as your other skills might be valued to Icefalls. But… this information does concern you.”

He gestured behind him at the control room. “My scaled method of extraction has hit a roadblock. I have been searching for a way to contain the aberrations once extracted. But nothing I can build is sufficient. I discovered… there may be equipment already in place in the original Avalon colony. I’m traveling there now—I’ve been meaning to see my ancestral home for years now, anyway. If I waited much longer, this old body might not be strong enough to survive the trip.”

“Your… ancestral home,” Hayden repeated. “Is where, exactly?”

“The moon. Avalon was a research colony, long ago. Well… Equestria’s past. Your future. I do not know how the two interconnect. I will send another message to the Excellus as soon as I know if the equipment there can still be used. If not…” He shook his head. “I don’t have a hope of building it from scratch.”

“I don’t understand why we can’t just rip the demons out and leave it at that,” Hayden said, annoyed. She was conscious of the eyes of her crew on her—she tried not to see what they were thinking. Whether curious about what she was saying or upset at being forced to watch so much of a conversation they couldn’t understand. “I killed one of them with that sword. Presumably that means the other ones could be killed too.”

“Banished,” corrected Avalon. “They could be banished, yes. Though the effort involved would be tremendous and the likelihood of collateral damage very high. But very few in Equestria are mentally or physically equipped to perform that task. Star Swirl estimated there must be nearly forty thousand of you by now, perhaps more. Assuming each one of them contains a sliver of void-corruption that grows at the same rate…” He shook his head darkly. “I do not know if even the Avalon facilities will be enough to contain it all. But I will know in two days. Expect a message from me in that much time.”

“Can you leave a recording if nopony’s hear to pick up? We’re going into battle right now. It’s possible we won’t have the time for conversation.”

Avalon shrugged. “Perhaps. I’ve never had the need to learn the full function of these machines. I will experiment and see.” He leaned forward, then touched something near the camera. His image vanished from in front of them.

“What was that about?” Skylark asked, the only one brave enough to dare. “That old Diamond Dog… Avalon, right?”

“It was,” she agreed, facing him. “He is searching for a magical solution to a problem facing Icefalls. He was updating me on his progress.”

“In a language nopony has ever spoken to me before,” Skylark said. “You sounded more fluent than he was.”

“I am.” She turned away from him without explanation, banishing the communication log and returning to the radar projections. They were using the long-range sensors to locate the attacking fleet. Probably would have been an impossible task, except for the incredible scale of the assault. There really were hundreds of ships, not to mention the defenders on the Equestrian side. Seaddle would be well and properly under siege by the time they arrived.

“Just over an hour at this speed,” Skylark said, checking their position against his maps again. “We have that long to revise the plan, if you think we might need to.”

“No.” Hayden walked away from the controls, over to where Skylark and the other command officers were gathered. There was a projection table back here, though they’d covered its entire surface with scrolls of paper. They had a map of Seaddle there, along with a few little shapes in different colors.

“There are no fortifications around Seaddle, and we don’t know how many of the guard will be there.”

“Lots of them, right?” Hayden suggested. “After Vanhoover, they must’ve known where the Stonebeaks would attack next. They’ll want to work their way south to Harmony, then…” Then kill all the royalty and all their heirs, to make sure Equestria was subjugated forever. As much as Hayden wouldn’t have minded being rid of Celestia, she wasn’t willing to go that far.

“We’re guessing most of the fleet will be there,” suggested Light Heart, Skylark’s second in command. “We didn’t see much wreckage when we were passing over Vanhoover. Hopefully that means most of the fleet is still flying. Not as big as theirs, but our ships are better. They have better lift-crystals, better sails.”

“But they have to defend stationary targets, and griffons don’t. That’s why we’re here.” The Stonebeaks had siege weapons on many of their ships, at least if the evidence of their previous attack was anything to go on. Icefalls’s single airship would have to survive attacks from ballistics, and pots of oil, and maybe angry birds attacking it from the outside.

We should be fine. The Excellus has some pretty thick armor. And it did. But if it took any damage, they’d be basically helpless to fix it. She couldn’t even take them to Avalon, now that he would be on the moon.

In another life, Hayden might’ve had the time to be jealous of him. Not just human while here—that was nice. But a chance to visit the moon? Being an astronaut was the secret dream of who knew how many millions of children, including Hayden herself. Maybe if we live through this nightmare, he’ll let me borrow his rocket.

Of course, they had to live through it first.

“I’m going to inspect the cannons,” Hayden muttered, turning to go. “Captain Skylark, take the helm. Raise me if we see any sign of the enemy, or ten minutes before we arrive.”

“Aye, ma’am!” He saluted, and Hayden made her way out.

The Excellus had not been made to carry weapons. If it had been, she had no doubt its designers would’ve given it plenty of interior mounts and exterior access-points. Maybe she could’ve set up one of her canon crews in one of those, firing out through the opening on her order. That option wasn’t open to them.

Instead she made her way into one of the cargo areas. She passed a soldier standing guard by the airlock, who saluted without a word. Her elites had become quieter lately as they headed into battle—solemn. Maybe they expected some of them wouldn’t return.

The interior of the cargo-area had been mostly gutted. All the shelves except the ones against the back of the chamber had been removed, along with the robot that would’ve been used to move cargo around. Instead, there were four long-guns, each one secured with elastic, separated far enough that their crews could work without interfering with each other. Currently, they were aiming a wall, though the seals visible there suggested it might be something else.

As it turned out, one of the cargo-bays on each side of the Excellus had loading doors. Doors they could open in flight, if they wanted to. The Excellus could probably have carried at least twenty guns down its length, but unfortunately only the front ones could be opened. Presumably the others would’ve been loaded using those few, or through the ramp in back.

They might be an hour away from combat, but the crew was already here, already prepared. One of the large, insulated crates of powder was open, with the paper-wrapped charges within reach. Several different types of rounds rested in the rack, ready for the crews to grab. Each of the crews had a unicorn now, necessary for loading the ammunition Star Swirl had designed. Only a unicorn could handle the fragile rounds without their spells coming undone and destroying the ship. Even Excellus would probably not survive an accident like that.

Hayden called inspection, then watched as the crew went through a mock firing as quickly as they could. Ninety-three seconds for the fastest crew aboard. They were about as good as ponies had any hope of being.

“Remember,” she told them when they were done, though of course she had already gone through this list of preparations many times before. “Two of you must never fire at the same time. I don’t know how much the Excellus can take.” She stepped in front of one of the few unicorns on the crew, pointing at the crates of powder with a wing. “If you see even a hint of a spark, you throw those overboard like your lives depend on it. It’s better to go back after making a fool of ourselves and wasting powder than it is to die and never return to Icefalls. Your lives are worth more to me than these guns. You can cut them loose if you need to, and make sure you call to me if you’re under attack.”

She walked past, so she was in front of the next crew. “The airlock doors seal automatically once those doors open. It takes a full minute to cycle, and you’ll be trapped in here with whatever got in before it shuts. The Blackwings will keep you safe, and they’ll make the call if it gets too dangerous.” She didn’t know all of them by name, but she recognized the bat on duty here. “Comet Storm, isn’t it? I remember your good work during the siege.”

He saluted, puffing his chest out a little. “Aye, Ma’am. That was me.”

“You’ll keep these ponies safe?”

“Aye, ma’am. We’ll keep these guns firing as long as we can.”

“You have my full faith, all of you. Equestria may’ve forgotten us, but we’re going to show its ponies that we haven’t forgotten them.”

“I don’t care,” Comet Storm answered, voice dark. “I just want to get them back for Polestar. Bleed ‘em like they bled us.”

She repeated the procedure on the starboard side, making a point of naming as many of the soldiers as she could. She could sense their fear, but there wasn’t as much as there had been during the siege. Her ponies expected victory.

Now I just have to give it to them.

“General, to the bridge!” called an urgent shout from Skylark, his voice coming over the ship’s coms. It was easy to radio individual rooms as well, but she hadn’t gotten around to teaching that yet. “We can see the city! Sweet Celestia, there are so many ships…”

Chapter 37: Siege and Spellfire

For the months leading up to the first battle in Icefalls, Hayden had imagined what it might be like on the day the Grand Fleet arrived at her gates. Somewhere subconsciously she had been imagining her own experience in war—a few dozen insurgents at a time, never clearly seen. They would man some defenses, hide behind some sandbags and occasionally return mortar fire.

This wasn’t Icefalls, but even so it wasn’t anything close to what she had pictured. Glancing at long-distance radar images could not have prepared her. Even the worst conjuring of her imagination produced ranks of soldiers marching in time, or riding in APCs while jets occasionally streaked overhead and tanks blasted at one another.

Seaddle didn’t have a moat of soldiers around it in two dimensions—it had been submerged in three. In a single moment, Hayden realized the critical flaw in her strategy. Not just in this battle, but Icefalls as well.

Birds surrounded the city so thick in places that she couldn’t see the buildings. Not that they were very large—there were no skyscrapers in Seaddle, not even any walls. It was a slaughter of the very worst and most unprepared kind. God, we need a new plan. What the hell did I think I was going to accomplish building walls? I could’ve made more cannons, or maybe flamethrowers, or…

Hayden stared through the window-like viewfinders at the front of the Excellus, watching the boiling sea of adversaries. Occasionally she could make out a few golden fish passing through them—pony ships, with glittering golden armor. Even without using the ship’s optics to zoom in, she imagined she could see them devoured by the cloud of enemy combatants.

They really did bring a fleet of ten-thousand ships.

Silence had settled onto the bridge—it wasn’t just her who stared. Most of the ponies weren’t looking out at the screens, though. Even her captain was watching her, with something between fear and desperation. “We need orders,” said Skylark. “Are we going into that?”

“Equestria is doomed,” muttered a lieutenant from gunner relay control. “It’s like the Dragon Invasion. It’s worse… at least dragons don’t build ships. At least they don’t carry away slaves…”

“Skylark, red alert. Spellfire shells on the port, nets the starboard from all guns. Prepare to bring us to starboard on my order.” Unlike an actual ship, or even a true zeppelin, they could change direction in maybe twenty seconds. Faster than they could reload.

Though she had spoken calmly, her captain shouted, far more loudly than normal. Ponies rushed to obey, whispering into the radio about wind speed and distance and picking targets. There were obvious targets on the very outskirts of the battle—massive hulks that didn’t look so much like ships as huge buildings that had been ripped out of the ground and learned to fly. They didn’t have sails at all, but instead trailed long cords down the air below them. As though whenever they needed to go anywhere the birds hitched a thousand slaves out and started whipping.

They probably do, she realized. They don’t just eat them. It doesn’t matter how brutal they are, that’s such a waste. Ponies can raise cows and pigs, and eat the same food they give to their livestock. It’s probably better for the griffons to just make them work.

So she thought, but she didn’t intend to find out. They wouldn’t be capturing anyone today.

“You should know,” Skylark said, as they slowed to a stop behind the battlefield. They had been noticed by a few scouts, though at this distance they looked more like angry horseflies than fierce birds of prey. They weren’t overly large compared to the size of the other ships in this battle. Maybe the griffons thought they could be safely ignored. “You should know that those boats carry their land-troops. When the fleet moves, it stays in the air until the enemy’s fleet is destroyed or captured. Once their ships have retreated, they land their army and take anything on the ground. Those boats probably have a thousand soldiers each. Mostly wood, looks like. Confined space.”

Hayden read the implication in his expression. He was asking whether she could morally accept the consequences of burning the griffon ground troops alive. Judging by his eyes, he didn’t expect a positive reply—not from a pony.

Hayden nodded. “I understand.” She raised her voice a little. “Port guns, make those big ships your targets. There are… ten, it looks like? Not for much longer.”

Skylark saluted. “Aye, ma’am.”

Hayden lifted one hoof to the window, which became a control interface as she got closer. The hoof itself couldn’t use any of it, but the fleshy bit between each side could. It was awkward to manipulate, but she was patient. Ahead of them, the grand fleet devoured Seaddle like a ravenous animal, ignoring the Excellus as a lion might ignore a single jackal, watching it devour its kill.

Hayden found what she was looking for—the switch that would allow her to use the exterior speakers instead of the internal ones, and she turned the volume all the way up. She wasn’t sure if any of the attackers would even hear what she was saying—but it didn’t matter necessarily anyway. It wasn’t about communicating, it was about intimidation.

“All cannons ready to fire on your order, general!” called the cannon relay officer, looking up from his own little radio.

She raised a hoof as a sign to stop, then turned the screen of her kindle on. She stepped to one side by the microphone, and leaned against it. Her voice seemed to shake the world as she read, not distorting and blowing out as she might’ve expected of Earth speakers turned up all the way. She hoped it didn’t hurt her own cannon-crews too much to hear. They had hearing protection, so they ought to be alright.

“This far you have come to torment, but no further. He also will drink the wine of God’s wrath, poured full strength into the cup of his anger, and he will be tormented with fire and sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and in the presence of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment goes up forever and ever, and they have no rest, day or night.”

“Stonebeaks—the day of murder is over—now I bring the day of wrath.”

She switched off the microphone, tossing the kindle back in her empty satchel. Then she turned, nodding to the cannon officer. “Port cannons, fire.”

Snow Feather echoed her command in a shout. For a second that stretched into eternity, Hayden felt stillness descend upon the airship. The engine had settled into a quiet hum, barely working to keep them in position. The battle for Seaddle was so far away that it didn’t penetrate the Excellus’s hull. After the deafening roar she had just produced, it made no sound.

Then the cannons fired. All four, with the practiced five seconds between each one. The engines came to life, correcting for the sudden drift and trying to return them to their previous position.

Outside the Excellus, she could see the meteors falling through the air. Four streams of bright purple cut through the sky, bright enough to be seen even in sunlight.

Then they connected, and it seemed the flames had gone out. The eerie stillness returned, broken only by Snow Feather’s voice. “Port crews request munitions for next volley, general.”

They had no more Spellfire rounds for the port guns. “Concussive shells,” she said into the silence, not even looking away from the battle. She was beginning to see something on some of the ships, thin wisps of smoke rising from distant decks.

They weren’t the only ones who had fallen still, either. The birds—which had been swooping in on golden airships like animals—were all now frozen in place. It was like the snow in a badly compressed video, resolving once the video paused to give a clear picture.

The entire battlefield was frozen now, watching.

“What did you make for us, Star Swirl?” Skylark muttered, obviously not expecting an answer. “Will it be as terrible as you promised?”

Hayden knew the answer a second later.

Fire emerged from the decks on one of the ships. Hayden touched the screen in that location, zooming them in so they could see up close. The Excellus had excellent cameras, but this was no mercy.

Purple flames were roaring out of every window, getting brighter and brighter and turning the whole thing chalky and gray. A few seconds later creatures emerged from within, their wings aflame with the same purple that was consuming the ship. The zoom on the Excellus’s cameras was so good Hayden imagined she could even see their terror.

The little burning streaks didn’t last long before they went out—but she saw one of them make it to the next carrier in line. Purple flame lept immediately from the immolating body to the deck, tearing it open and descending into the airship like a fox set loose in a house of particularly indolent hens.

“Celestia forgive us,” someone muttered—one of Skylark’s other officers, the only one who wasn’t a bat. She oversaw… supply, Hayden thought. She didn’t remember her name.

The mare dropped to the ground, covering her eyes with one hoof and shaking visibly.

The first of the airships began to fall. It seemed to be turning to ash as it did, leaving a trail of gray fragments.

“Two hits, five targets destroyed,” Reported a pony from behind her, not using the viewfinder in the front but one of the rear projection screens. “Looks like…” He coughed. “Lost with all aboard, Ma’am. No one is escaping those ships.”

“Port cannons ready,” reported Snow Feather, his voice not sounding as affected by the destruction as the others aboard the bridge with them. “New targets sighted.”

“Fire,” Hayden said. “Ready with the rest of the concussive rounds after that. I want all ten carriers destroyed.”

When they had first moved, the Golden Armada had been still, like a resting beast. Now it moved, without any of the grace and coordination she’d seen as it devoured pony ships. Even zooming back out, she could make out very little in the way of orderly patterns. There was a trend, though—towards them. Like a swarm of bees, many of the little specks were now heading back.

Another roar, and the ship listed once again. No streaks of purple, but the impacts were much more dramatic this time. Apparently those carriers were more delicate than they looked, because one of them came roaring apart in two pieces. A few shots were misses—not surprising at this range, without machine guidance.

It seemed as though a dark cloud had turned its attention on them. It wasn’t a single animal anymore, but a flock so dense that it shadowed the land as it flew. There was no coordination, no strategy, just numbers. Birds all focused on the Excellus.

As they moved, she could make out the Equestrian fleet a little more clearly, and the haggard air force pulling back to what ships survived. They were not pursuing the attackers, or attacking the ships Stonebeaks left floating above their own city. At least, most of them weren’t. Where the hell is Celestia? Shouldn’t she be out there?

“I don’t think our nets will stop that many,” Skylark said. “I don’t think this strange armor will be enough either.”

Against numbers like that, the griffons could weigh them down, or get sucked into air intakes, or any other number of ways of stopping them. Fortunately, they weren’t limited to organic flight speeds.

“Come about, starboard guns ready. Skylark, take us up. I want to stay ahead of that mob… but let’s start slow. Maybe if the Stonebeaks think they have a chance of catching us, they’ll keep following for longer. Give Seaddle a little more time.”

“Not easy,” he said, but didn’t argue. “Helm, thirty degrees west, ahead standard. Prepare for flanking speed on my mark. Port guns, stow and prepare to be boarded!”

Griffons might not be as fast as the Excellus, but they were fast.Faster than Hayden expected anything alive to be, coming from a world where birds seemed small and she never saw them flying up close. But here… that cloud was growing wider by the second, and getting close enough for her to easily distinguish individuals. It spread out as it neared, rather than concentrating on them. Like the birds inside were trying to guarantee they couldn’t escape.

“Starboard guns, fire!”

Chapter 38: Parlay

Hayden felt the faint thumps against the hull as a few griffons managed to latch themselves on, and had to resist the urge to rush back and try to fight off boarders. She doubted even the most determined Stonebeaks would manage to get into the hull anywhere but the parts of it they’d damaged, particularly since the cargo areas had already been structural weaknesses. They couldn’t just seal off the airlocks and hope for the best, not when all their powder and munitions were stored inside. If some clever bird found a way to make sparks in the powder magazine, that would be it for the Excellus.

But Hayden didn’t go back to join the fight. I was never meant to be an officer. I’m not sure I can handle this. But maybe if none of the ponies under her saw her confusion, they would think she had a plan and be inspired to competence themselves. It was worth the attempt, anyway.

“Helm, go to emergency speed,” Skylark ordered, his voice a sudden, commanding bark. “Make for the city. Forty-five degrees up angle.”

“Forty-five degrees…” Hayden muttered to herself, turning back to the map table. What was Skylark doing? Even if she didn’t understand it, she found herself grateful she’d brought an actual airship captain to do most of this, instead of trying to do the job herself. This was an established doctrine of war here in Equestria, not some novelty a stranger could puzzle out in a day.

There were more thumps as more birds landed—or smacked into the armor, more often than not. They weren’t fleeing the birds, they were headed straight for them.

“Starboard guns report boarders! They can’t get the doors closed!” shouted Snow Feather, looking up from his radio.

“Bring the reserve from port,” Hayden answered without thinking. “If they’re closed, the enemy will probably focus on the weakness they found. Let’s make sure they can’t use it.”

She could hear the sound of shouting from down the hall, very dim against the roaring air and the engines. Hayden made her way to the front, choosing one of the side sections of the window and cycling through cameras until she found one pointed at the starboard loading bay. There were frequent flashes from inside, as rushing waves of birds went tumbling back out into the void. She hadn’t figured out yet how to switch this view to interior cameras, but she didn’t see any pony corpses flung out along with the birds.

That’s right Blackwings. Keep it up.

“The bay still isn’t closing!” Hayden called, unable to keep the nervousness from her voice. “Why isn’t the door closing?”

“There are… some red lights here, general,” said another officer from behind her. The one operating the internal systems, including the doors. “Says there’s a… I can’t read this. But it’s bright red, maybe you should look.”

“If the Equestrian fleet doesn’t cover our approach, we’ll have to head back to Icefalls,” Skylark said. “Those birds are angry after what we just did. A very serious defeat… seven carriers destroyed. They cannot be replaced. We have destroyed the wealth of a city today, even if most of the soldiers escaped…” He trailed off then, the implication obvious. But we probably killed most of the soldiers too.

Hayden glided over to the other side of the room, inspecting the screen that her officer couldn’t read. “Critical mechanical failure—cargo doors obstructed. Please remove the obstruction before closing.”

They were going so fast now that any birds who got in their way were dents in the armor and then red smears—but some were clearly still hanging on. Hayden marveled at their strength, watching the group as they battled near the open cargo doorway. The Excellus shuddered suddenly, and a grinding sound shook the whole thing. A few moments later, one of the cannons came tumbling out into the void—more than a ton of steel that took many of the birds with it as it went. The ship rocked, briefly rising as the weight was removed, but soon enough it had already started to correct.

The rest of the birds finally let go, vanishing into the blue, and the door closed. Hayden could see enormous damage near the edge, and wasn’t surprised to hear Snow Feather’s voice calling again a moment later. “Airlock won’t open! The crew is trapped!”

“The doors are damaged—airlock is broken. We’re low enough it should open for them if we stop.”

“I’m getting more warnings,” said the officer who had been working the doors. “Something orange here. I don’t know what it means, but it’s getting brighter.”

Hayden hurried back over, eyes widening as she skimmed it. It was a “drive heat” warning. She translated it for the captain. “Excellus is exceeding safety tolerances. Reduce speed or damage will occur.”

“Back to cruising speed,” Skylark said, without hesitation. “The rest of the flock is getting out of our way. Let’s just see if they follow.”

They weren’t, as it turned out. Hayden switched the cameras around to the back, so she could see the flock of birds regrouping. They were pulling back from the city, with birds returning to their ships. A large group had gathered near the ground as well, surrounding the broken wreckage of the carriers they had shot down without burning.

“Equestrian fleet signals we’re okay to approach,” said the communications officer—who had been doing nothing but watching the windows until that point. He had only one thing to control, a large signal light on the outside. Hayden could see the flashing signals, but not understand the code.

“Acknowledge. Ask for dock space. We need to do some repairs.” And by we I mean I, if we’re bloody lucky. The Excellus was more advanced than anything Hayden had ever known. It was entirely possible that repairs of any kind would be beyond them. Not even Avalon seemed to completely understand the technology, which he had inherited more than anything.

They left the Grand Fleet behind, losing speed as they approached the haggard Equestrian fleet. Many of the ships here were a similar size to theirs, impressive hulks with primitive sails and many, many ponies aboard. Some of them had metal armor on the outside of their hulls, though many didn’t. Maybe this airship thing isn’t as old as I thought it was. They didn’t look like purpose-built craft—they looked like ships that could be plopped back into the ocean and sail away without trouble.

Through the screens outside, Hayden could see the relieved faces of pony soldiers, which watched the glittering Excellus with appreciation and awe. “Captain Skylark,” Hayden said. Her voice was clear now, and loud enough that everyone on the bridge would hear. They were meant to. “When we dock, inform the stallions they are under strict orders to permit no one aboard except Princess Luna, their commanding officer. We are Luna’s flagship, the Excellus, and we will take no inspection and no soldiers.

Skylark nodded, though his expression became grim. “Princess Celestia might be down there. Maybe not on the dock, but…I’m sure she has conflicting orders. There might be ponies waiting for us to land so they can arrest us.”

“If Celestia arrives…” Hayden shrugged one shoulder. “We can’t fight the tide. But we can fight servants. Tell any who try to board that the princesses should resolve conflicting orders, and that ours are to resist all boarding with lethal force. We request supplies and a planning officer with which to conference. We wish to assist in the defense of Seaddle, but we are not joining the fleet or submitting to their authority. We will not be requisitioned or impounded.”

“They’ll want your writ of authority,” Skylark said, without malice. “Proving an order like that.”

Hayden shrugged. “Point them towards the carriers we shot down. That’s our writ.”

As they descended towards the city, a dozen pegasi in golden armor began surrounding the ship. Hayden couldn’t imagine what they must be thinking, or what they planned on doing with their lances if the Excellus decided to resist. This was not the sort of friendly escort that might be granted to an allied ship prepared to dock. It was, rather, one given to an enemy landing in parlay.

She got a good look at the docks a moment later—the tallest buildings in the city, made from a single crystal spire with thin struts spreading from it at the top. It looked centuries ahead of any other structure in the city. Even the little huts and supply warehouses attached to it seemed like primitive tumors grafted onto the work of a greater civilization.

“Captain, who built these docks?” Hayden asked, sitting down on her haunches near the screen to wait as they were brought in for a landing.

“Crystal Empire,” Skylark answered, once he’d finished giving his last wave of instructions to the helmsman. “Same ponies who invented the lift crystals. Word is they kept the airships to themselves for… nopony even knows how long. But the north was cold even for them, and it’s easier to grow down here. They needed a way to trade with the rest of Equestria. Seaddle was their port. That’s probably why the Stonebeaks wanted it—it’s the largest strategic target in northern Equestria. It’s one of a few places we can grow new lift-crystals. That’s why they haven’t bombed the city. They don’t know where our spellworks is. If they knew, they’d be burning the rest before we even got here.”

“Where… where are they? This… Crystal Empire. I’ve been hearing about them for a year now. But everyone seems convinced that they’re gone. What could happen to someone that much more advanced?”

Skylark remained silent, contemplative. The Excellus banked up against the wooden walls of the dock, then fell still. Not completely silent though, since unlike the Equestrian ships the engines had to work to keep them airborne.

“Airlocks are open!” called the officer from behind her. “It worked!”

“We might not be able to open starboard guns again while we’re moving,” Hayden muttered. “But I’ll see what I can do. Get Honed Edge down there and tell him to bring the tools.”

Skylark finally looked up. “I don’t know if I’m the pony to tell, General. I was never much for history. I can tell you about the battles, though. One of their own… one of their greatest magical inventors… well, he went bad. He went too far into magic we weren’t meant to have, lost his mind. Sombra. He’s the reason we don’t do much with crystal magic anymore. Aside from… all the crystal ponies being gone. The war happened a long time before I was born. It’s the reason the Stonebeaks have so much. Sombra used them, and they used Equestria turning against itself. Structures like this are all that’s left of the Crystal Empire now. Its ponies were wiped out—enslaved by Sombra, or vanished when he destroyed their castle.”

He sighed. “If you’re looking for a miraculous way to end the war, General, you wouldn’t be the first. But I’m afraid you’ll be as doomed as the others who tried. Their great magic is gone, their armies have been broken in pieces. We’re alone.”

Hayden wasn’t sure why she was asking. Probably something to do with inherited memories. She couldn’t shake the feeling that there was more to this story—but it might be that Skylark didn’t know. He claimed not to, and she had no reason not to trust him. “I… I understand.” She rose, pressing a hoof to the general transmission button again. “Ponies of the Excellus—you have done tremendous service today. I wish I had the time to give you the rest you deserve. But Seaddle is under siege. Nopony will be going ashore. Rest, but stay prepared to return to duty stations at any moment. We do not know when the Stonebeaks will attack.”

Or, more realistically, when our own side will attack. But she didn’t say that. They had enough enemies without Hayden creating more. “I’ll be with the starboard guns,” she said, turning to leave. “Call me as soon as we get that officer, or the Equestrians get violent. You have leave to resist them with any necessary force, and to cast off immediately, if that happens.”

She left. Hopefully she would have the time to fix the cargo doors before it came time for violence.

Chapter 39: Celestial

There had been casualties, it turned out. Without enough of the sword-proof armor to go around, her cannon crews wore only what most of Hayden’s soldiers wore: cloth uniforms. They had spent their resources on better weapons, not anything else. It was the best they could do.

Three of her ponies had been killed—though one of those was assumed, as a heroic earth pony named Bronze Bell had severed the cables holding in one of the guns, using it to dislodge the remaining griffons and save the rest of his crew. Unfortunately his leg had been tangled with one of the ropes, and he’d been yanked down with it. At least he had died well. There was blood on the floor when Hayden arrived, and the signs of battle everywhere. Maybe half a dozen of the crew had taken small wounds, but should be fighting fit by the time they took off again.

Little injuries did not make a pony less able to work cannons.

Honed Edge was already there, with Hayden’s heavy tool bag slung across his back. “What are we doing?” he asked, wandering through the empty room to stand in the gap left by the missing gun. “If you’re expecting us to make a replacement gun…”

“No.” Hayden pointed at where the door closed. The gasket had been torn, and the metal outside bent. It was just a few inches, but still impressive that any number of griffons could manage it using just their talons. “The airlock into the Excellus won’t open without a seal. We have to make that close again.”

“Hmmmm.” Honed Edge moved to the front of the cargo area, sticking his hoof near the floor where it settled. The hole was just about big enough for his hoof to pass through it. “We’ll have to open this to work on it. Good thing we’re facing away from the dock. Wouldn’t want ponies to get too good a look at this, eh?”

Hayden shrugged. “Plenty of them can fly anyway.” She pointed at the opening. “I figure we might be able to strip some of that flexible stuff from one of the interior airlocks. The ones on the converted crew cabins. Just… try not to use more than one door, if you can.”

“No promises.” Honed Edge removed a hammer from the bag, tossing the rest aside. Unlike the dexterity tools, this one had a strap to hold it onto a hoof, since force was required to use it effectively. “Don’t open the door yet, I’ll go out there and get this back into place as much as possible first. Then we’ll know how much of this stuff we need.” He prodded at the gasket with one hoof. “Celestia only knows what this even is. Stronger than leather, flexible like rope, and it holds air like glass.”

“Rubber,” Hayden answered. “Or… well, something like rubber. The kind we made would never have survived this long. It decays over time, and this stuff looks intact despite…” She didn’t actually know. “Well, a long time. Equestria could make the regular kind, though. Just not in time for it to be useful for us. Just salvage one of the other doors and try not to use more than you need.”

“You got it.” He saluted, vanishing down the hall.

Hayden occupied herself visiting the wounded next, waiting to get her message. She was not kept waiting long.

“She’s here, she’s here!” called a panicked officer’s voice over the radio. There was only one person “she” could possibly be referring to. The one person who Hayden’s guards could not possibly have kept back. There was none of the joy and relief that would’ve come from Luna… which meant this was the other.

Hayden nodded a quick farewell to the injured pony she was speaking with, darting to one of the computer panels on the wall. She selected the intercom system, then pressed hard. “Let her aboard with her guards, nopony else. Take her to the bridge.” There was no sense trying to keep Princess Celestia from the most vital systems. Princess Celestia was said to be more powerful than her sister. Her sister that Hayden had seen destroy an armored airship this size in a single spell.

Dammit, what the hell are you doing here? How’d you get here so fast? Celestia was the one variable she knew she couldn’t account for, the one she had hoped they wouldn’t have to deal with. She couldn’t be resisted martially, only through other means.

Hayden hurried up the hall, conscious all the time that Celestia was probably not far away. They were using the ramp on the rear of the ship for loading, which meant that the princess would be coming up from behind. Hayden reached the mostly-empty bridge. Empty except for a few officers huddled around the maps and the sonic rangefinder, along with communications. Hayden pointed to all of them except the one watching the cameras. “Get out. Princess Celestia is coming. Make sure the crew is ready to leave the second this meeting is over.”

She couldn’t be sure if it would even be possible to flee. Couldn’t know what Celestia planned to do to her. Maybe the princess would act like Diamond Glow, and just try to kill her. It wouldn’t be the first time she’d been the target of Celestia’s wrath.

Evening Star took several deep breaths. She settled in the captain’s chair, forcing herself to stare out the windows. Far away, she could see the Stonebeak army regrouping. They had pulled out of range of the city, but did not look like they were going to make a retreat. More like they were reconsidering their strategy, and maybe burying their dead.

The door behind her slid open with its characteristic hiss. “Princess Celestia,” announced Skylark from behind her.

Hayden rose, not because she thought this princess deserved her respect, but because she knew it was expected. She turned, lowered herself into a bow that was barely respectful enough to pass muster. Not half as deep as she would’ve given Luna.

Princess Celestia hardly seemed to notice the gesture. There were no guards with her—only the princess herself. She wore golden armor, a little like what Evening Star had seen from the military police. Like the police, if that same basic design had been taken to an armorer, along with hundreds of pounds of real gold. It was so heavy-looking that Hayden marveled she could even move. Yet the princess showed no strain at all as she made her way in, not even a slight slouch in her posture.

She looked to the officer Hayden had left in the room with her, gesturing out the door with a tiny nod. Unlike when Diamond Glow had tried ordering Hayden’s men, this pony rose and saluted stiffly, then hurried to obey without even glancing back at his general. They might resent Celestia for what she’d done to them, but that wasn’t the same as actively disobeying her. It was impossible to stand in a room with her and not feel her power.

Celestia stood still until the door automatically closed. As soon as it did, Hayden straightened from her bow, not waiting to be invited. She could not disrespect the princess in public, that would demand a punishment. But in private…

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” Princess Celestia said, completely unprompted. She strode through the pristine bridge, inspecting the various consoles and stations without invitation or permission.

“I know it didn’t look good for Seaddle. I destroyed the army that was about to ravage the city.”

Celestia acted like she hadn’t even heard her. “You should know…” She stopped, a few feet away. “It would have been better if you had returned with Star Swirl. Your captivity would have prevented all this. It would’ve been better if you were destroyed on your first day.”

Hayden shrugged one shoulder. “It would be better if the one ruling Equestria weren’t so willing to chop its limbs off and feed them to the wolves. Where I come from, we don’t act that way. We remove leaders who can’t protect people. Trading lives for safety is an unacceptable price.”

Princess Celestia actually laughed. “Your hypocrisy would be more amusing if I knew it weren’t costing Equestria so dearly.” She looked away, making her way forward and staring out at the screen. At the Stonebeak fleet, marshaling in the air far away. “You do the same thing every day. Every general must trade the lives of her soldiers in exchange for peace. Every soldier who enlists is making that same sacrifice. They realize that there is something more significant than themselves, and they are willing to die for it. The sacrifices I ask of Equestrians are no different. The difference is between us.”

The room got warmer, and the overhead lights seemed suddenly pale by comparison. “I know the danger we face is far greater than that.” She gestured with a wing out at the projection, dismissively. “The Stonebeaks are the cockroaches eating the scraps of a better age. Without crystal magic, their lands are inhospitable. Every year more of that magic fails, and more of them die. It was only a matter of time. The real enemy threatening Equestria is existential. When it rises, it will not enslave, it will devour. It will tear apart meaning, it will consume the soul. I have seen it. Carcosa’s fall shook the planet from its orbit. It destroyed the very foundations upon which our world spins.

“But Equestria has no army like that. Hunger and griffon aren’t such bad ways to go. At least the death of the north would’ve been quick. But now… now when they die they’ll do so knowing they’re damning their friends as they do. You can’t even imagine it. You may even be fighting for it. No agent has been as successful as you.”

Hayden tried to take all that in as best she could. Some of it made sense, anyway. Some of it she had suspected. “I know what you think. You think bats are an… infection. An incursion of Outsiders. You’re right.”

Celestia already had her mouth open to argue—she stopped, staring. Confusion, surprise. “So you admit it then. You intend to destroy Equestria, then tear creation apart.”

“No!” Hayden didn’t laugh, though she felt like she should have. “I was able to find the infection. Well… not me. An inventor named Avalon. He’s the one who gave us this ship. Your sister and I are working with him to try and cure it.” She raised a hoof. “If you’re about to tell us we can’t, you’re wrong. We already have. I had it worse than any other bat, and we removed it.”

“You can’t remove something from itself,” Celestia argued, her horn glowing faintly white. “You are nothing but an agent of the Outside. You used its tactics, its guile, to survive the Stonebeaks and hunger long enough to bring them down on us instead. And once we’re weakened, you will destroy us.”

Hayden growled in frustration. This was a complete waste of her time. Princess Celestia sounded like she had made up her mind weeks ago. Convincing her was impossible, probably.

So she reached, commanding by will what she had only ever done through instinct before. Hayden summoned Achelois, and held it before her in an invisible grip. Not actually aimed at the princess, but close enough that Celestia would see what it was. “If I was, could I hold this?”

Princess Celestia’s horn stopped glowing. Her mane stopped billowing, and her eyes widened. “No. You could not. How… how have you done this?”

“You’ll have to ask Avalon,” Hayden said, sheathing the sword. She ignored its whispers—it kept telling her about just how much Celestia was suffering. She couldn’t end that pain today. “He’s working on a way to do it for everyone. Some kind of… machine. I don’t know the specifics. Despite what that buffoon you sent said about us, we really don’t want Equestria to fall. Lots of ponies in Icefalls have friends and family here. We came to help. I like to think our actions so far speak for themselves. If we were monsters, would we have destroyed half their army for you?”

She gestured around her with both wings. “We’re just one ship, but we want to help. We represent the goodwill of Icefalls. We’re willing to fight for Equestria.”

Princess Celestia remained silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, it was with obvious reluctance, as though she didn’t even believe what she was saying. “We are having a strategic meeting in… less than an hour, now. My sister said she would attend. She has not yet arrived, but I trust she will. You should… perhaps… do so as well.”

Chapter 40: Stratagem

Hayden felt the eyes on her at every moment. She moved through the dark space with Achelois strapped across her back and two of the Blackwings flanking her. She wore her own armored uniform as well, though without the rifle. It wasn’t proper for a general commanding an army to also wield common weapons as though she were nothing more than one of the enlisted troops.

This was far from the elegant, courtly dance she had expected. The commanding officers here were all haggard and desperate. She expected to see fear from them, maybe anger. Maybe they’d start shouting accusations at her about how she’d betrayed the realm and she deserved nothing but death for it.

She got nothing like that. One look was all she needed to see that Princess Celestia hadn’t gutted the command structure and replaced it with sycophants. Maybe the military police fawned over her, but not these. These ponies watched Hayden with awe. She realized what it was as she made her way to her seat at the table—beside the raised blue throne. They’re looking at me the way they see Luna.

The princess herself arrived before her older sister, wearing nothing at all and looking haggard from hard travel. So worn and dirty, she seemed almost smaller than Hayden in her dark armor, though she made a show of bowing and saluting to her more crisply than she ever had for Celestia. As she rose, the entire conference room did as well.

Hayden could practically taste their loyalty for her, their eagerness to serve. You’re the one they trust, Luna. Maybe it’s time to stop letting your sister do this. You’re obviously better at it.

Of course she couldn’t say that. Couldn’t say very much at all, not when it would all be overheard, and probably analyzed too. She waited for Luna to sit before she did as well.

“Your efforts are going well?” Hayden asked, voice low, though it would still be heard.

“Nearly complete,” Luna answered. “There aren’t more to find, I don’t think. I will return with you when we’re done here. The city will need me.”

Hayden nodded. “I know ponies will be happy to have you back.”

Hayden smiled as she noticed the general on her other side—the only face in the room she recognized apart from Luna. It was Sunspot, the supply officer she’d met in Harmony over a year ago and made promises to. The one who had put Hayden in Defiance in the first place.

“That was impressive work,” she whispered, once Hayden and Luna had fallen silent. “What kind of magic was that? I’ve never seen a carrier brought down from over a mile away before. Some kind of… new trebuchet?”

“Sort of,” Hayden answered. “They’re called cannons. Mine have a range of about two and a half miles. The most successful rounds were Spellfire—I don’t know if you could see how well they worked from back here.”

“Yeah.” Her voice grew distant, pained. “We saw.”

The room moved again as Celestia entered, still wearing her armor and escorted by a half dozen golden guards. Princess Luna hadn’t even brought one.

“Our options have changed,” Princess Celestia said, as soon as introductions had been taken care of. “I recently returned from the Excellus—its abilities are more impressive than its size suggests. More importantly, I believe we have an opportunity. My sister’s city of Icefalls has become a force to be reckoned with—that is why the Stonebeaks avoided it. They knew they couldn’t stand against its armies. I believe there is a way we could use both armies together. The Stonebeaks are a powerful enemy, but we are powerful too.”

“I am… hesitant to do anything that would put the north in danger,” Princess Luna said. “But the rest of Equestria obviously needs the help. What were you thinking?”

Celestia unrolled a large map onto the empty table before them. “The Grand Fleet is demoralized. They expected an easy victory today, and instead they lost more soldiers than the rest of the war combined. They’re also angry—they failed to bring down the ship that killed so many of them. I believe we can use both of these facts—we can bait them.” She gestured down at the map, making a straight line connecting Seaddle and Icefalls. “The Excellus is fast, and I spoke with its captain. I believe it could keep ahead of the Grand Fleet all the way back to its port of call. The Stonebeaks follow, and the Equestrian navy remains perhaps a day’s travel behind them. Just far enough that their scouts won’t see us.”

She moved a few blocks on the map. “The Excellus returns to Icefalls, with the navy just behind them. We then crush the Grand Fleet between our ships and Icefalls’s fortifications. I know they must be formidable, or else the Stonebeaks would not have avoided them even though it put a substantial force behind them. With armies on both sides, they will surely surrender.”

Hayden saw Luna begin to smile. She had been convinced—and many of the generals looked relieved as well. “I like it,” Sunspot said. “A way to go on the offensive. Not to fight on their terms anymore, or only defending the weakest targets.”

I don’t, Hayden thought. We’ve been abandoned before. I wasn’t sure we were going to survive an invasion before I saw the fleet for myself. She tried to communicate all that to Luna in a glance, though she doubted much would be making it through. Hopefully her discomfort was clear at least.

“General Evening Star, what do you think?” Princess Luna asked. It was more a political question than one of real curiosity, though. She could see it in the princess’s expression. “Can the Excellus keep ahead of the fleet? Can Icefalls hold against an army being crushed from the other side?”

“Yes,” she answered, her voice nervous. “I’m sure we could survive a day. Perhaps longer. But alone, I don’t know. My generals and I hadn’t seen the fleet, and we didn’t think it was going to be this big. Against so many ships, I don’t think Icefalls has enough. We have almost none of our own ships. Once we lose our cannons, that would be it. You can’t fortify against an airborne enemy, and we don’t have shipyards.”

“That won’t be necessary,” said Celestia, speaking over her. “Because we’ll be on the other side. The Equestrian fleet can repair a little, then follow. We wouldn’t be able to stop the Stonebeaks alone, but together… together I think we can. If your city has more weapons like those on the Excellus. I’m sure it must, that would be a good reason for the griffons to avoid it.”

“What happens if they keep avoiding it?” asked another general, one Hayden didn’t recognize. “They still hold Vanhoover. Maybe they realize where the Excellus is going, and they decide they’ll take their revenge out on the civilians there instead. Or maybe they just turn around and head for us. Cities aren’t large. It wouldn’t take them much to go another way.”

“I… I think they’ll know where the Excellus is going after only an hour of travel, maybe less,” Celestia answered. “But I think they’ll keep going anyway. They don’t want revenge against one ship, they want to prevent themselves being flanked again. Once they hold that city, they know there’s no danger of an attack from the north on any of their conquered cities. And maybe they’ll think that Icefalls has more ships like the one that caused them so much trouble. They’ll want to burn its shipyards down before it can make more. They won’t know it doesn’t have any, not after today.”

If they go another way it’s no problem for the ponies I was sent to protect. We can regroup and try something else. The only thing to be afraid of was what would happen if Celestia was right. If they were attacked, Hayden thought they would do alright with a fleet as large as Equestria’s helping them. If not, though…

“You heard her,” Princess Luna said, perking up again. “Icefalls is strong enough, and we have the aid of the fleet from the south. I will go back with the general to Icefalls and rally the defense. Once the Grand Fleet is broken, we can join our forces and retake Vanhoover.”

General agreement moved through the military ponies. Hayden felt sicker by the second, trying to come up with a way to tell Princess Luna what she was thinking without so publicly questioning Princess Celestia. But she couldn’t think of anything, and so she said nothing. Not until they were on their way out along the upper docks.

Hayden had told the Blackwings to walk beside the princess instead of herself—a subtle sign to all who might be watching of who they were actually meant to serve. Hayden spoke in a quiet rush as they made their way back to the Excellus. It was early evening now, the moon only just beginning to rise, and the dock was lit with rows of uneven torches.

The griffons would not attack at night—not with their night vision as bad as it apparently was. For the same reason, they would be waiting until the early morning to leave, to make sure as much of the griffon fleet saw them as possible. They had to play on anger for the plan to work, or else the birds might do the sensible thing and just send a few ships after them.

“This is bad,” Hayden whispered as they walked. “Princess, I know you want to work with your sister… but this is really bad.”

“If you didn’t think Icefalls was up to the task, you wouldn’t have said it was with such confidence.” Luna didn’t even look back at her as she walked. As though she was afraid of whatever Hayden would say if she really looked at her. “You said we can do our part. The Excellus is a mighty vessel, built by the precursors. We will not be caught. Your defenses around Icefalls are strong. I’ve seen them hold before.”

“Yeah, against three ships.” Hayden stopped her with a wing, eyes wide and pleading. “Princess, think for a second about what your sister did. She was going to use the griffons to wipe out all the bats. Now all of us are in one place, and she wants to lead the griffons right at us. Don’t tell me that doesn’t scare you.”

Luna finally stopped. There was no one around them—only her guards, and the watch on station outside the Excellus. Her own soldiers, since she’d refused to allow any of the Equestrians to guard them even though that was the usual protocol. Celestia hadn’t tried to intervene in this—or anything else, for that matter. “If my sister wanted to destroy Icefalls, why not start with you? You came voluntarily into the center of her army. She could’ve had you arrested right here. The trial is already over. Yet not one pony in that meeting even mentioned it. If she intended betrayal, why wait? She could’ve sent her own ponies to drive the Excellus, done this whole thing without us.”

“I… I don’t know,” Hayden admitted, avoiding her eyes. “Your sister is a lot better at this than I am. I don’t understand the rules yet. It looked like she was going to when we met earlier today.” She sighed. “Just… it’s too easy for her. If the birds attack us, all she really has to do is slow the ships down. It even looks better for her. She didn’t abandon the north; her fleet just couldn’t get there in time. A terrible tragedy to be a forgotten footnote in some history book.”

Luna shook her head. “It won’t happen, Hayden. My sister wouldn’t lie to me like that.” She said it with absolute confidence, the confidence of a younger sibling who trusted her older sister implicitly. “She gave me her word. It’s good enough for me, that will have to be enough for you.”

Hayden stiffened, saluting. “Yes, Princess. As you say.” But her heart wasn’t in it, and they both knew. It didn’t matter. Hayden would do as she was told. She couldn’t prance around for months proclaiming she was doing the will of Luna and then ignore the real thing when she was standing in front of her.

Besides, Princess Luna knew her sister much better than Hayden could. She knew Equestria, she knew what its armies were willing to do. If she said her sister’s word was good on this, she had to be right.

Evening Star certainly hoped so. Her city and the lives of everyone who lived there were depending on it.

Chapter 41: Impact Purity

It didn’t take them long to see that their plan was working: they were being followed. Princess Luna took command, leaving Hayden little to do. Mostly she lingered on the bridge to operate the ship’s systems, which Luna understood but didn’t know how to control. Hayden occupied herself at one of the consoles, watching the Grand Fleet follow them through the rear cams.

“I don’t understand how they can be so stupid,” she confided to Luna, after six hours had gone by. Traveling so slowly, it would take them an entire day to reach Icefalls. So there was plenty of opportunity to find a chance to speak. “Don’t they want Seaddle? They were on their way to winning it—are the birds really so proud that they have to risk everything because we blew up their ships?”

They’d gone into the tiny office off the bridge for this conversation—a room probably designed for just such an occasion. There was nopony around to overhear, if Hayden grew particularly bold. Even so, she wasn’t quite bold enough to say what she was really thinking. Your sister promised them she wouldn’t interfere. They can have Icefalls if they can take it. Of course, her paranoia had no basis in reality, not yet. If it ever did, she would already be dead.

“It’s a sensible tactical move,” Princess Luna argued. “I know you’re new to this, Hayden, so let me explain. They already firmly hold Vanhoover. If they took Icefalls as well, that would effectively sever northern Equestria and the last of the old Crystal territories. I believe they are looking for just such a victory—they can claim to their inferiors that this was all they wanted, several thousand square miles more land. They have done this several times now, stealing bits and pieces of our territory—knowing we will never effectively retaliate. Never attempt to retake what belongs to us. If they continue this way indefinitely, they will eventually own all of Equestria.”

Hayden frowned out the window. Or… probably a screen. They were well into the interior of the Excellus, so there probably couldn’t be a true window here. But it was pointed off ahead of them, so she could see only icy wilderness in that direction. “Maybe. I know you understand this better than I do, Princess. I just…” Her ears went flat. “Your sister has an angle in this, somehow. I don’t know what. But she’s determined to destroy us.”

“Destroy the bats,” Luna corrected. Her voice went suddenly terse. “About which, you informed me, she was correct. You really do represent an existential threat to Equestria.”

It was Hayden’s time to grow tense. If Princess Luna was going to betray them, Hayden was doomed. This was the one agent she couldn’t possibly defeat. But I won’t just roll over. I’ll make her kill me if it comes to that. I won’t let her use me to betray Icefalls. “Are you not supporting our cure anymore?”

Luna seemed to sense what she was feeling. Obviously. You can sense her emotions too, stupid. Hayden had never learned just how closely those feelings could be traded—she had spent most of her time as Luna’s daemon trying very hard not to feel her emotions. Maybe Luna could see the intensity of her anger, or the growing sense of betrayal. “If I thought that my sister was right to kill all the bats in Equestria, why would I have spent the last few months gathering them all? I could’ve killed them instead.”

The words were blunt, yet Hayden could see a harsh truth buried underneath. Princess Luna could have gone along with her sister. The two Alicorns fighting together against Icefalls would certainly be more than her defenses could stop. She had seen what Luna’s magic could do. Celestia too, for that matter. If she attacks us, we’re all doomed. “Maybe…” she argued anyway, stubborn. “Maybe you want the griffons to do it, like she does. Maybe you don’t want the blood.”

“I don’t want any blood.” Princess Luna flashed across the room, vanishing from behind the desk and appearing inches from Hayden’s face. “I will die for Icefalls, Hayden. You cannot imagine the responsibility I feel towards the ponies I have been given to protect. It might be a lesser burden than the one my sister carries, but that does not make it less important. I would fight to the death for Icefalls. If the bats are mine… then I would fight for them too. I would wield Achelois against my own sister if it came to that.”

Hayden wilted. She could feel the terrible power of an Alicorn radiating all around her, yet Luna didn’t intimidate her the same way Celestia did. Being afraid of her would be like being afraid of a gun in her own hands. Even so, she was silenced by Princess Luna’s words.

“You haven’t lied about your determination, you haven’t lied about your courage. But even given all that, I don’t think you ever understood where those feelings came from. Whose determination to preserve my kingdom did you think you were feeling? Unless you claim your strange species is made entirely of beings who would gladly commit their souls to oblivion for any cause. These ponies were mine before they were yours. They were strangers to you. If your memories are true, they aren’t even the same species.”

Hayden was still for a long moment, hearing only the slight groan of the engines under her hooves. Engines built by humans, far in her own future. Humans who were all dead, who had made weapons for some family of ancient ponies. Presumably they had all died fighting for them, save one. “Yes, Princess,” she said. “I do come from a race like that. My kind have committed themselves to die by the millions. Not just for their families… but for strangers. For people they never even met, who spoke a language they didn’t know and believed in different gods. Not all of us… but enough.” Enough to fill both sides of any war. Enough to be manipulated into dying for monstrous causes too.

“I stayed, Princess. Star Swirl wanted to follow your orders and send me home, but I stayed. Stayed even when I thought it meant certain death. Maybe the ponies of Icefalls were strangers to me once, but I know them now. I will die for them.” Her expression hardened. “I will kill for them. I already have.” Even your sister, if that’s what it takes.

To her surprise, the princess wilted instead of arguing with her. She looked down, then away. “Forgive me,” she eventually said. “It’s easy to remember Star Swirl’s earlier explanation of you… and forget everything that happened since. Forget your bloodline.”

“I thought…” Hayden knew she was on thin ice now. She spoke more respectfully. “I thought Star Swirl said I was something you conjured from your memory.”

“You still might be,” Luna muttered, though her voice was more amused than confrontational now. “There was… a man. Long ago. Longer than the memory of anypony now living. I thought maybe I had drawn you out of memories of him. I think that if Leo were still alive, he would act a lot like you. Fearless, uncompromising… and suspicious.” She laughed, her voice small now. “You know, it was Celestia that had to persuade me to spare his life at the beginning. I was convinced he was a spy sent to destroy us. But he proved himself in the end. He said he would… and he was right.”

Hayden’s mouth hung open. She had suspected some of this, known that Luna had some connection to this strange facet of her past (future?) species’ actions. Yet she hadn’t imagined she would ever extract the truth from her.

She didn’t get to ask for further explanation, though. The screen next to Hayden’s own head lit up. “Incoming private message,” the text said. “Captain’s eyes only.”

She was the one who held all the automated permissions, even if Princess Luna was now the commander. She pointed. “Princess, we… there’s something here. A call. May I answer it?”

Luna’s eyes widened, though she seemed more relieved than anything to have a change of topic. “Who could it be? The precursors are all ashes.”

“Probably the one I told you about, Avalon,” Hayden said. That hadn’t been permission, exactly. But close enough. She tapped the display with her hoof.

Her suspicions about the window were confirmed as it was transformed into an image of somewhere far away. Avalon appeared there, wearing something silvery and looked exhausted. “Hayden,” he said, before his eyes wandered behind her and his voice melted into something tremulous and feeble. “O-oh. P-Princess Luna… You’re…”

“I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced,” Luna said, settling into a more comfortable sitting position. She briefly wiped at her eyes… were those tears? But Hayden didn’t get a clear look. By the time Luna looked up again, she was the picture of princessly confidence. “Hayden here has told me of you… Avalon, is that right?”

A considerable improvement over the mare Hayden had met on her first day in Equestria.

He bowed—at least as much as his old bones seemed able to support. “That’s correct, Princess. I’ve been searching for… perhaps she told you that too.”

Luna nodded. “Yes. Forgive me, but there is little time for friendly conversation now. A fleet of nearly a thousand ships is following us back to Icefalls. I presume you are calling about your progress.” Not at one moment did any of this conversation seem new to the princess. There was none of the fear and confusion she’d seen from her own soldiers. But Luna didn’t have experience with Avalon the way Star Swirl did, right? How did she know about any of this?

But Hayden could worry about that later too, just like she could ask about whoever “Leo” was. If they survived the Stonebeaks, she would have all the time for questions she liked.

“O-of course.” Avalon seemed to be looking at Hayden again. Maybe he preferred to talk to someone who wasn’t as intimidating as an Alicorn. “It’s good news. The mechanism here is fully operational. More powerful than I could’ve anticipated. There’s a kind of energy stored here… antimatter. An entire tank, barely used. We should be able to contain as much as we like for…” He shrugged. “I don’t know. A thousand years? Plenty of time to devise a more permanent solution.”

“Contain… the Outsiders?” Luna guessed. “Not destroy them?”

“No,” Hayden answered before Avalon could, mostly because of network delay. By the time he was opening his mouth to reply Hayden had already started. “If we kill the demon it will just find another way in. If we contain it somewhere, eventually we could trap all of its power. Stop it from infecting anyone else.”

Avalon nodded his agreement. “This containment vessel was built like a weapon. It can target… anywhere on the planet’s surface we desire. All we need do is deploy local emitters around the area, and we could extract the Outsider, draw it here.”

That was the best news Hayden had heard in months. It was better than Celestia not trying to arrest them, better than her promises of working together to stop the Stonebeaks.

There was a way to cure her ponies—all of them at once. Princess Luna had already said the bats were all in Icefalls, or on their way.

“Could we use it on a whole city at once?” Luna asked, voice rising in her excitement. “Say, a city as large as Icefalls?”

“I… believe so,” Avalon said. “I am returning to Equestria with every emitter I could find. The material they use… is impossible to reproduce. But that shouldn’t be a problem if we’re careful. I will land directly in Icefalls. If all goes well, we will purge Equestria of this intruder within the week.”

We arrive in Icefalls tomorrow. That meant they still had to survive for two days, if her ponies wanted to live long enough to enjoy their freedom.

“This is good news,” Luna exclaimed. “We look forward to meeting you in person. And awarding you as many medals for protecting Equestria as we can find.” She looked away, trailing off. “The instant we arrive, I will send the swiftest possible message to my sister. This news will surely be as interesting to her as it is to us!”

“Yes, well…” Avalon looked away. “I must prepare for launch. See you in three.” The call ended.

Chapter 42: Homecoming

As soon as Icefalls was in sight, they abandoned all pretense of letting the griffon scouts keep pace with them, accelerating as fast as the engines could go without overheating. Hayden watched the city approach below them, with its high walls and cannon emplacements exactly as she left them.

There was no need to signal to the city below—there was only one Excellus, and no way the enemy could operate it without Hayden. Even so, she could see an escort of wary pegasi following them through the city, all the way up to the secret dock concealed in the ice.

“Is this really your only airship?” Luna asked, as they moved vertically down into the opening. A regular pilot probably couldn’t have done anything like that, not without scraping sections of the ship off, or collapsing the ice meant to hide them. But the Excellus had its own guidance system, and didn’t need their specific intervention to get inside.

“It is,” Hayden answered. “And I don’t intend to use it for combat. We have… a limited number of cannons, based on what we could build in time. But we’ve got plenty of powder and way more ponies trained to use them than we could fit aboard. I planned on distributing our guns back to the walls.”

There was a heavy thump as they finally settled into the dock—simple wood, barely strong enough to hold the ship. But at least the engines wouldn’t have to stay running for it to park here. “Then what will you do with this vessel?”

Hayden looked around—she could feel the eyes of the crew suddenly on her. But this information wasn’t for them. “Come with me, and I’ll show you.”

There was very little time for this. The Grand Fleet’s scouts would probably reach the city in two hours. The rest of the fleet couldn’t be more than another hour behind them. The birds could attack by nightfall. Though they probably won’t. Griffons don’t like the dark any more than ponies do.

Hayden gave the order for the cannons to be unloaded, thanked her crew again for their service, then hurried off the ship with the princess.

There were dozens of ponies waiting there, including the new city lord. Even Nightbreeze seemed to go stiff when Princess Luna stepped down the ramp behind Hayden. Lodestone had come, along with the captain of her Blackwings, Slipstream. They all started to stomp their hooves, a cheer rising through the secret hangar so loud that the ice began to shake.

Hayden had to call a stop to it, before chunks of their concealing shield started raining down on their heads.

Joy and relief radiated from the faces of all these ponies. Perhaps vindication as well—Evening Star had promised to go out and assist Equestria. She hadn’t promised she would return with the pony everyone here wanted most.

It was as though Hayden had suddenly stepped out of focus. She lingered behind the princess, but the only questions she had to answer now came from Luna. All her plans, all her preparation—it was all gone now, evaporated into the breeze.

Almost. Slipstream seemed almost entirely unmoved by Luna’s arrival. He stepped into line beside her, keeping pace with her as she walked behind Luna. “What are your orders, Evening Star? Were you followed?”

“By the entire fleet,” she whispered, keeping her voice low. “Don’t reveal that to the city yet, I can’t go over Luna’s head. But alert the army. Rouse every reserve and have them man their posts. The attack will come from the south.”

“The south,” Slipstream repeated. “And it’s just the griffons we’re fighting?”

The undertone was obvious to her. “So far as I know, Equestria will not be fighting for the enemy.”

“Oh good.” He saluted, hoof to his chest. “It will be done, General.”

She returned the salute, covertly. “Have your reserve ready to prepare my evacuation candidates. I want them moved here as soon as Luna makes the announcement.”

Slipstream vanished into the crowd like he’d never even been there.

Princess Luna seemed to forget all about the tour Hayden had promised to give her, or the explanation for what the Excellus would be used for. She didn’t follow Luna’s emotions closely, but she could feel the princess preening in all the attention. She’d never had this kind of respect from her own ponies before, not even from the members of her own household. But Hayden had demanded that respect. Now the princess inherited it, as naturally as stepping into an old pair of shoes.

At least she seemed to know some of what she was doing. She didn’t sit on the news of their impending attack, but ordered an immediate assembly at the castle gates. Everypony in Icefalls who wasn’t serving a military duty came at once, to hear her speak.

“Do you plan on replacing my strategies to defend the city?” Hayden asked in a whisper, as they made their way up the castle stairs to the upper balcony. She could already hear the sound of an eager crowd outside, as they whispered back and forth to each other about what Princess Luna might have come to say. The princess had somehow found the time to don an old uniform coat that had been stored away somewhere in the castle, and retaken Achelois for herself.

That was one mercy. At least Hayden didn’t have to listen to its whispers anymore.

“No,” Princess Luna said. “Not initially, anyway. I’ll command from the tower with your generals. I may make small adjustments, but nothing serious. The fact that Icefalls still stands proves you have at least some gift for command.”

“Most of that stuff was Lodestone’s idea,” Hayden whispered. It felt wrong to take credit for that. “But I trust him, and the other generals too. They’ve fought Stonebeaks before.”

They walked through the empty bedroom, trailed by Nightbreeze and several other functionaries. But Lodestone and the other generals were gone now, vanished to the wall. They had preparations to make.

“Wait here,” Princess Luna advised, stepping out onto the balcony and leaving the group behind in the bedroom. There were thunderous cheers. Hayden hardly listened to the words, aside from waiting to hear anything that might be a call for her to step out.

“I can’t believe it,” Nightbreeze muttered. “As hard as Princess Celestia worked to get us wiped out, and now she’s sending the fleet to fight for us? I guess family still counts for something.”

Hayden kept her voice very low, barely a whisper. She spoke so quietly that only Nightbreeze’s sensitive bat ears would be enough for her to hear over the sound of Luna’s magically-enhanced voice from outside. “I think she’s lying. I think Luna doesn’t want to believe her sister would do that to her. I think her love is blinding her.”

Nightbreeze met her eyes. She nodded slowly, obvious pain reflected there. “That sounds… like it could be true.” She lowered her voice too, matching Hayden’s whisper. “What do we do? The fleet is already coming.”

“Same thing we would’ve done otherwise,” Hayden said. “We survive. We destroy the Grand Fleet. Maybe we have to fight ponies after that. I’m not sure how well that will go for either side. But there is some good news: Avalon has a cure for us. He’ll be here in two more days. Maybe once we can prove to Celestia that bats aren’t a danger to Equestria anymore, she’ll finally let us live.”

“Your general, Savior of the North, Evening Star!”

Hayden stepped through the curtain, leaving Nightbreeze behind. There were more cheers, and plenty of hoof stomping.

When it finally died down, Luna continued. “Evening Star is going to tell you all what happened in Seaddle, and what is about to happen to Icefalls. I expect everypony in the sound of my voice to continue to obey her instructions as though they were my own.”

Making me the bad guy, even though you’re taking the city back. But she couldn’t resent the princess, not really. At least not for this. She could see the entire courtyard was full of ponies, ponies that swept down the hill. These people should be getting into the shelters. They should be gathering supplies. She would have to be quick.

“We managed to destroy almost all of the Fleet’s carriers,” she said. “Their ground-troops have been decimated. Your hard work over these last few months saved the ponies of Seaddle. They all owe you a great debt.” More cheering, more stomping hooves. It had been a long time since any mention of Equestria proper got a positive response from these ponies. “We have begun a plan to destroy the Stonebeaks for good.” More cheering, rising up in a great wave across the city. For the second time today, she could almost feel the huge frozen waterfall above the city creaking under the force. But it quickly died when she went on.

“For that plan to succeed, we are about to be attacked. The Grand Fleet is behind us, its birds fresh from a defeat. Everypony in my reserve should report to their duty stations at once. Everypony else, grab no more than you can carry and retreat to the caverns. It will be exactly like the drills—you will not be permitted more than your saddlebags worth of possessions. Don’t worry about food, or anything like that—it’s all down there. When the attack begins, the entrance will be sealed to protect all inside from the invading army.”

She wanted to blame Celestia, wanted to warn the ponies of Icefalls about what might really happen. But there could be spies in her ranks. If the Stonebeaks got wind of what they were planning before the Equestrians arrived, they might abandon the plan completely and just retreat to Vanhoover. They couldn’t waste this chance.

A low, frightened murmur now echoed from all sides. Hayden could see the transformation in those faces, from pride and relief, to growing fear.

“We are the ponies of the north!” Princess Luna went on, her voice booming off the ice from far away. “We have ice in our veins, and still our blood runs hot. We have fought off terrible things before, and triumphed. Today will be no different! I believe in all of you, ponies of Icefalls! Equestria is depending on us. Fight well today, and together we’ll send these invaders to Tartarus!”

There was applause, but mostly from the soldiers waiting on the periphery of the crowd. The ordinary ponies were now too frightened to be moved by a speech.

A shout that came seconds later nearly roused the crowd to panic. “There’s a ship coming!” An instant later she heard the drums—a quick, subtle beat meant to signal that a single ship had been sighted. It wasn’t meant to be frightening to the ponies of the city, though the ponies assembled here did not seem to be taking it well.

Princess Luna gestured with her horn, and the air in front of them shimmered. An image of the distant vessel appeared before them, enlarged as though by a powerful scope.

It was a griffon ship alright, a sloop of modest size, carrying birds in golden armor with bones worked in as decoration. Pony bones.

But it had only one flag waving from its mast, a bright white diamond. Even Hayden recognized it, though she’d had only a cursory introduction to naval signals. “They want to talk,” Luna muttered. Then she straightened again. “Everypony in the sound of my voice! Obey Evening Star’s command! Return to your homes, gather what you need, and go where she told you. You have plenty of time—this vessel comes to negotiate.”

That was enough of a signal for the guards on the lower level, who immediately rushed to disperse the ponies there. Hayden didn’t listen to their voices—she trusted them to deal with the crowd without anypony getting trampled. Her citizens hadn’t panicked at the first sign of trouble.

We’ve survived one attack, we can survive this.

Luna was still shouting, to one of the other generals. “Have our highest tower raise a white flag, and send an expedition of winged ponies to the field with a pavilion. We will meet them there.” She finally lowered her voice, looking back at Hayden. “I’ve never seen the Stonebeaks try to negotiate before, not ever. Maybe… maybe they’re going to surrender.”

Hayden sighed. “I… certainly hope so, Princess.”

Chapter 43: Negotiation

Hayden watched the Stonebeaks come. It was just one ship, as they had thought—but as they assembled before the city, an increasing number of vague outlines appeared there. They weren’t getting close to menace the city this time. Apparently there had been enough survivors of that first attack to guess what might happen to them if they got close enough for the canons.

A shame. They might’ve been able to score several kills before the Stonebeaks got coordinated enough to attack. There would be no way to hit them at such a range. No doubt they would stay far away until the battle began.

The embassy ship moved slow enough that Hayden’s troops were able to deploy a pavilion on the undamaged road leading into the city. There were crops growing out here, crops Hayden somehow knew would never grow long enough to be harvested. “Even if we win, this battle will be terrible.” How many lives had she taken already? How many was she willing to take?

She knew the answer to that last question. Evening Star would protect Icefalls no matter what enemies stood against it. She would tear down the sun if that was what it took.

There weren’t many of them out here. Hayden, and Luna, and four of the Blackwings with their armor and rifles. It was the first time Luna had noticed them. “These soldiers… their unit is unknown to me. And their equipment. Who are you, soldier?”

He straightened. “I’m Sideswipe, Princess. Sargent Sideswipe of the Blackwings.”

“They’re special forces,” Hayden supplied, before Luna could inquire further and make the soldier uncomfortable. “Trained using human techniques. They fight hopeless odds and bring victory every time.”

“Oh.” Princess Luna seemed to look him over for a moment longer, then she shrugged. “You accomplished so much up here in so short a time. If only there hadn’t been a war… I can only imagine what might’ve been achieved.”

“When the war is over, we can still achieve it,” Hayden said. “Everything I’ve done to fight—these were the things I never wanted to bring to Equestria. You saw my first invention—it wasn’t a weapon. It was something I want everypony in Equestria to have one day.”

There was no more time for banter. The Stonebeak ship tossed a massive hunk of metal overboard, which landed with a crash in the field of wheat. It dug up a row, spraying dirt the whole way, before the ship high above had come to a stop. Then someone tossed a rope ladder over the edge. Three birds lifted off the deck, their wings almost transparent as the sun caught them. They circled once around the ladder and the pony struggling to use it without falling, before descending to the base and waiting.

“Who is that?” Hayden squinted at the figure. It was a female earth pony, with splotchy fur and a heavy collar around her neck. It was a small miracle that she could climb down a rope ladder without falling to her death.

“Translator,” Luna spat. “They have griffons who know our language. But they’re mocking us. They want to show off the fact they’ve enslaved ponies. Anger makes a pony stupid. If we’re stupid enough to violate a flag of truce, attacking the city seems justified.” She looked up, addressing the soldiers. “Unless they attack us, do not retaliate to anything they do. Don’t raise your weapons except in self-defense.”

Hayden nodded as subtly as she could behind the princess, in case any of them might be having doubts about obeying her. They didn’t seem terribly concerned about the ordinary chain of command.

“I’m glad you’re here,” Hayden muttered. “Someone with the authority to make decisions. Will they keep their word?”

“Yes.” Princess Luna didn’t even hesitate. “Griffons always keep their word. Personal honor is critically important to their social structure, since it allows relationships in their society to exist. So long as we’re careful with the wording of any agreements we make, it’s safe.”

“Good.” Hayden took a step back, behind the princess. The pavilion over their heads was big enough for twenty ponies to stand inside comfortably, with a large white flag hanging overhead. They stood almost in the middle of the pavilion, with the other half empty and waiting to receive their guests.

“Just try and stall with me,” Luna whispered, very quietly. “If we can get them to come back for negotiations tomorrow, that should probably give the Equestrian army enough time to get here. Less time we have to fight them alone, the better.”

A few moments later, and the griffon delegation strode in.

Hayden could smell the stink of them before she saw them—they stunk like vultures, and it was no mystery why. Some of the bones wedged into their armor looked sickeningly fresh.

The tallest and largest, the one leading the other birds, was a male taller than Princess Luna. A full pony skull was mounted to his helmet, bleached white by time but still frighteningly real.

She could see her guards tense—though they remained where they were. All four of them watched the griffons, rifles slowly turning to track them as they entered. It would be trivial to kill these birds, as they had killed so many ponies.

For their part, the birds carried only primitive weapons. Crossbows, swords, and a gigantic trident in the claws of the lead bird. Nothing else, though. They filed in, dragging the earth pony along by a chain. The lead bird spoke in a low, gravelly voice. Hayden found she could understand him, even though she had never heard the language before.

“Sister of the sun is here to die with her city. It is good to see the face of a pony who is not afraid of suffering.” He laughed, and the other birds laughed with him—Hayden couldn’t see what was funny about it.

A second later and the tiny earth pony muttered an approximate translation, never looking up into Luna’s eyes. She looked like she’d been beaten many times, parts of her fur no longer growing back.

This is why we have to fight, Hayden thought. I hope we can free you. But even if they couldn’t, they could prevent these griffons from taking any more land. Prevent them from locking any more ponies in chains.

“Your confidence is unearned,” Princess Luna said, her tone as icy as the moon ever had been. “Considering what my flagship did to your fleet. How long do you think it would have taken us to go through the rest of your ships? An hour?” She glanced to the side, feigning curiosity as she met Hayden’s eyes. “Evening Star. How long?”

Is this really how diplomacy with griffons works? “Not long,” was all she said, voice low. She didn’t look away from the griffons as she said it. Even though she knew it wasn’t true. Of course it isn’t how diplomacy with griffons works. Luna already told me they haven’t done this before. Maybe she should try to reign the princess in. Her confidence in Hayden’s abilities was either bluffing, or outright misinformed.

The pony muttered in the griffon language—another imprecise translation. The bird holding her collar yanked on it slightly, and suddenly none of the griffons were smiling. All of them glared at Luna, sharp beaks glittering. One of the birds in back—the only female—looked for a second like she might spring forward and attack Luna right here. Hayden wished very much that she would. The Blackwings probably did too.

“Your information is out of date,” said the bird in the helmet. “My name is General Graeham. I am nephew to the Khan, ruler of all creation. You do not know what you will be fighting here.”

“If you came to threaten us, you’re wasting your time,” Luna said, her voice scornful. “I have seen into the gnawing abyss, Graeham. I have heard the terrible mysteries of the Unmade. I have flown in unhallowed skies. There is nothing aboard your stolen ships that can frighten us.” She gestured behind her with a wing, to Hayden again. “We have a new High Marshal of War in the north. Perhaps you’ve heard of her. Tell them what you told me about your kind, Evening Star.”

Princess, I really hope you know what you’re doing. There could be no arguing with her now, though. She couldn’t present even an appearance that they might not be operating in total unity.

“I have come from another universe,” Hayden said, without emotion. “I come from a land where our wars consume millions of lives. My kind wield weapons that could destroy all life upon our planet if we wished it.” She met their eyes, unblinking. “When I came to Icefalls, the ponies here were as weak as those you fought in Vanhoover, or anywhere else.”

Now she could feel it. The seed of Luna’s anger. It came from the sight of this enslaved pony, and it burned so hot she couldn’t help but feel it too. “If you come against Icefalls, I won’t just destroy your army. I will slaughter your soldiers like animals. When I’m finished, I will go north and reclaim what was stolen from us. I will burn every city and plough salt into the earth, so nothing will ever grow there again. Corpses will pile so high that ponies will name it Desolation evermore.”

She could see the eyes of the birds move from Luna to her. She felt their barely-contained anger in the way they shifted on their claws, breathing hard. It was like watching a bull trapped inside its pen, ready to break out and crush everything that got in its way. But they didn’t, at least not yet.

“I’ve been sent to accept your surrender,” said Graeham, his voice tense. He didn’t seem to think they could understand him, because every line or two he would stop and wait for the translator. “We know what you think is going to happen. You think the Solar Fleet is coming to fight beside you. Our spies see differently. Celestia will never come. She will leave you to die. We will not be frightened away from this place with words alone. We know the truth. We know there is only one ship in your city. We know your weaknesses.

“But If you open your gates and allow the fleet in, then Khan will offer you the guarantee that not one pony will die. You will take your place in servitude, yes. But it will go far better for you than if you fight.”

Princess Luna seemed stunned by this threat. Hayden far less so. We don’t know he’s telling the truth. There’s no reason to take his word for it. It’s what he’d want to say regardless of the truth. But there was no way to explain game theory to the princess just now. “I don’t understand how you could claim to keep that promise,” Hayden said. “Griffons eat ponies. You can’t promise that none of our citizens would die.”

Graeham laughed again. Apparently her question revealed something, though she couldn’t guess what it was.

“You believe everything you hear,” Graeham finally said, his tone amused. “Those are stories from ancient days. Before King Sombra, before King Grover. Before we discovered cows. Why would we still eat ponies in an age when we have something better. Cows weigh as much as four of you, they don’t rebel, they don’t complain when you feed them only grass. They don’t try to escape. The only ponies eaten today are in ritual.” His beak split in a sneer. “It is the ritual of a conquered enemy. The ritual waiting for you if you do not surrender.”

Princess Luna finally seemed to recover. Maybe she’d figured out what Hayden had been thinking. Or maybe she was just in denial. “You are a liar,” she said, voice as flat as Hayden’s. Hayden could see from the bird’s reaction that Luna had been right about the importance these birds put on personal honor. “If you really know our plans, you should flee while you have the chance. Flee into your wastelands before more of you die. You will not set hoof inside our gates.”

“We will see,” Graeham muttered, turning sharply away. “You do not know where to find a liar, princess. But you will know her soon enough.” Their delegation turned back towards the ship, and left the ponies behind.

Chapter 44: Open War

“It’s not true,” Princess Luna declared, for perhaps the hundredth time in five minutes. It was just the three of them in the Icefalls planning room, her and Hayden and Nightbreeze. Well, them and the guards waiting by the door.

The charts were still here, the model updated to reflect recent changes. Only the secret drydock for the Excellus was missing. “They’re trying to trick us into letting them into the city before Celestia arrives. They want to fight us from behind our own fortifications.”

Nightbreeze stood some distance away from the princess, as though she were afraid that a stray comment from her might get her blasted with magic. She kept glancing meaningfully at Hayden, as though she expected her to say something.

But what the hell was Hayden supposed to say? She had already warned Luna about this possibility back in Seaddle. “Princess,” Hayden finally said. Maybe she could dare a reply. “Whether or not the Stonebeaks were lying, I don’t think it changes what we do now. We’ve got ourselves here. One way or another we have to get ourselves out.”

“I don’t understand.” Luna stopped, ears flattening. “Shouldn’t you be telling me how right you were? Gloating about how obvious this was, and how foolish I was for…” She whimpered, turning away. “For trusting my sister.”

“No,” Hayden went on. “Because they might be lying. You’re right about that. They… I think they guessed what we were planning, or maybe they have a spy. Either way, they chose to attack anyway. That means they think they can take the city before the fleet gets here, right? Maybe they expect us to surrender—maybe they’ll flee back to Vanhoover now that they know we aren’t going to give up. Maybe they’ll be gone by morning.”

Nightbreeze stepped up beside her. “Or maybe they’ll throw everything they can at the city, and try to take us over before the fleet gets here. Then they can turn around and face the Solar Fleet from behind our fortifications, same as us letting them in.”

Luna seemed to relax. “Yes, of course. That makes sense. We can’t let their lies distract us.”

But she did seem bothered by news about her sister. Some part of her believes that Celestia could betray us. She’s not stupid.

“We haven’t told the troops,” Hayden said. “We won’t let their lies hurt morale.” This room had no windows, no balcony for her to look out from. But at last report, the enemy was assembling some distance away—keeping far out of range. They had hugely overestimated Icefalls’s abilities. So much the better. That would mean time getting to speed. “We don’t really have much of a choice now. We fight as though no help is coming, and we win. I… already planned on it. Icefalls will endure.”

“Of course you did.” Princess Luna looked down, staring at her hooves. “Sometimes I wonder if I might’ve concentrated all my courage into you, Hayden. If my memories of life before I summoned you were more confident. Maybe I should return you to your realm when this war is over.”

Nightbreeze spoke before Hayden could, her voice suddenly frightened. “Princess, no! I mean… you aren’t misremembering anything. Hayden’s creation didn’t change your personality. You’re the same pony I’ve always served. And I think Equestria can ill afford to lose her, even if we survive.”

Luna stomped one hoof in frustration, but she didn’t argue. “It was… it was worth hoping. But this entire disaster began with my desire for a simple cure to a difficult problem. If I’d never resorted to this magic—there would have been no bats, no perception of weakness, no invasion from the Stonebeaks.”

Hayden shrugged. Months ago, she would’ve said in a heartbeat that she wished none of this had happened. But now? She’d made friends here in Equestria. She’d had so much taken from her… but she wouldn’t want to take it away.

I still want to go home, one day. When Luna’s secure in her position and Equestria is safe. Then I can go back to Earth. I can be myself again. Mostly it was the latter that bothered her. She probably didn’t have much to go back to other than her proper body and proper sex. If she could have those in Equestria, she might never leave.

I’m an idiot. I might not survive to see sunrise, and I’m thinking about years from now when I get to go home. Fucking stupid.

“I have already attempted to send a message to my sister,” Luna said, her voice more timid than it had been during the entire conversation so far. “It was… not received. I can’t ask her about the griffons’ plan. I can’t tell her that the bats of Icefalls will soon be cured of their corruption. I will keep trying, however. Perhaps… perhaps she will hear me in time.” She looked back up, to Hayden. “What are the chances of Icefalls surviving this siege?”

Hayden glanced briefly at the guards standing at the door. These weren’t her Blackwings, and couldn’t be trusted not to repeat what they heard. She moved closer to the princess, speaking in a whisper. “Depends for how long. After seeing the size of that fleet… I’ve got some idea.”

“Well?”

“I was hoping the Grand Fleet’s 1000 ships was an exaggeration. We were… expecting a hundred. Maybe we could’ve survived more. But that?” She stared down at the dark part of the map that was only a solid rectangle of wood. They hadn’t bothered trying to represent every enemy ship. “We will die here.”

Luna winced. “R-really? I thought… you told my sister—”

“That we could survive for a few days,” Hayden interrupted. “We can do that. But if Equestria doesn’t come, that won’t be enough. We don’t have enough cannonballs to take down their fleet. We don’t have any more of the magical rounds that Star Swirl made.” Hayden slumped sideways, resting briefly against Nightbreeze.

Hayden winced, realizing too late she had just acted the way her old self did, months and months ago, back when this pony had been Luna’s humble steward and nothing more.

She expected a shout, or at least an extremely polite bit of maneuvering so the bat could escape. But Nightbreeze did neither.

“If we had a year, we could’ve been prepared. If we had a decade, I could deliver on my promise to retake the north. But we didn’t have that. I don’t think we will.”

Princess Luna turned back towards the many clipboards and plans, studying them with a critical eye. “We don’t need cannonballs for some of this. I like what you did with the… bunkers, you call them? I have never seen weather magic used in this way. It might destroy their fleet all on its own. We might not need Equestria’s help.”

Hayden followed her eyes to the last board. It was marked “FINAL CONTINGENCIES.” It also didn’t mention the true final contingency, the one she still hadn’t explained to the princess. And wouldn’t, unless Luna asked. “It is possible,” Hayden muttered. “But it would require the Grand Fleet to be over our heads. And when it was over, there might not be an Icefalls left standing.”

“Still, you have my approval, so long as the day of Equestria’s scheduled arrival has come and gone. We won’t destroy ourselves before that. My sister probably expects to receive it back into Equestria, not the pile of rubble where it used to be.”

Hayden nodded her agreement. Though were it not for the ponies who lived here, she probably would’ve damaged the city on purpose if that was what it took to annoy Celestia.

There was the sound of running hooves in the distance, and a few seconds later the door banged open. It was a messenger, a filly so young she wasn’t old enough for her cutie mark yet. But Hayden had taken every volunteer she could use. “S-Stonebeaks! They’ve… they’re advancing! They aren’t waiting for morning!”

Princess Luna’s expression grew grave. “Thank you, child. Return to your duty station.” She looked up, meeting Hayden’s eyes again. “We will command from the Tower, yes?”

Hayden nodded. “The birds are doing us a favor by attacking now.” She reached up for a second, resting a hoof gently beside one of her slitted eyes. “Icefalls has treated night as day for months. I guess their spies didn’t tell them that.”

Luna smiled, though there was something sad in her expression too. “I would’ve liked to see a city like that before it was invaded. Perhaps the ponies here would’ve appreciated all the hard work I put into the sky.” Her horn began to glow. Hayden had no way of sensing what it was for, though she could guess it was a teleport. Princess Luna could move them about the city without effort, after all.

“You know where to go,” Hayden muttered, glancing back at Nightbreeze. “Stay alive.”

“I’m not going to hide in a whole while this city fights,” Nightbreeze whispered, stopping only a few inches from Hayden. “You put me here. You don’t get to brush me aside now.” Then something happened Hayden hadn’t expected. Nightbreeze kissed her.

It didn’t last long, or go nearly as deep as their brief trist had been.

Luna cleared her throat. “Hayden. Are you too distracted to fight?”

“No.” She broke apart.

They vanished in a flash of magic.

The Tower appeared around her, far more gracefully than when Star Swirl did it. There was no cold on her skin, no ripping at her lungs. Despite its name, the Tower wasn’t much taller than the other buildings around it, lest it stand out as an obvious target. It had no huge windows to make it seem like it contained something worth stealing, but thin slits that might’ve been used for firing arrows. Except that they were filled with glass instead.

Similar boards were arranged around the outside of the room, with the same flowchart that was represented in the general’s office. Except that here the shapes contained writing in English. Hayden could use it to remind herself of what they planned, but if this tower was lost the enemy would not learn their plans. None of her aids could read it either, but she didn’t need them to. Every pony here knew their place.

Out of the shelter of the castle, Hayden could feel the beating of war-drums from over half the city. She couldn’t count specifically—their beats all blurred together. Maybe every southern cannon emplacement.

The room contained only a handful of tiny candles for light, along with the windows. This was the plan for night—it meant they would be able to see the war clearly, and not lose their night vision to flames. Hayden could see that the few non-bats she had up here were struggling. Nothing for it. A good half her army were bats now, through sheer force of demographics. There were whole units made of bats who carried no lights at all, with uniforms of black cloth instead of light blue.

But they weren’t here.

“They’re coming from all sides,” Lodestone said, as though Hayden needed him to explain it. “Looks like… the whole fleet is moving at once.”

“Spread a little thin, aren’t they?” somepony asked from behind her.

“They would be,” Lodestone responded. “Except they know we don’t have a fleet. They know we can’t do much to harry them.”

“Advancing together!” called somepony else. “Range marker for three miles!”

“Signal concussive to all guns!” Hayden snapped, mostly by rote. She’d prepared for this moment. “Hold until they come into range. We won’t waste powder.”

One of her bats rushed up to the roof to relay her signal—at night, that would come from a flashing light, instead of a flag.

Princess Luna sat down in the back of the room, her back to the diagram. “Watch for a section of the defenses that are faltering,” she commanded. “I will fly out to reinforce it.”

“Yes, Princess.” Lodestone said, even faster than Hayden could respond.

As he did, Hayden leaned back, nodding slightly to Slipstream by the wall. Her commander would understand her instruction without words. If Luna went out, he was to make sure she came back alive. He returned the nod, then looked away. The princess didn’t seem to notice.

THUM THUM! The beats of Icefalls’s war drums shook the Tower, seemed to shake the whole mountain. Two beats, meant two miles distance. Meant that the enemy fleet had finally come into range.

Hayden could see them through every tiny window. The griffons had done them all the favor of lighting enormous fires on many of their ships. There was an ocean of soldiers flying alongside, all carrying torches. Her bat eyes could make them out easily, even in the far distance.

The nightmare she had prepared for was finally here.

“Signal fire to all guns,” Hayden said. “Time to keep a promise.”

Chapter 45: Salvo

Icefalls cannon crews were prepared for this moment. In a way, they couldn’t have hoped for a better opportunity. The Grand Fleet’s attempt to use their sight against them would certainly work in Icefalls’s favor.

Hayden saw the first explosions before she heard them. A brief flash of light, and a roar as closed containers of oil were ignited by their concussive shells. Weapons meant to ignite her city and burn its residents in their homes would now do the same to the ones who had planned on using them.

They don’t even have trebuchets. They bomb by tossing them over the side while they fly overhead. That means they’re all on the deck.

Hayden squinted through the window, wishing she still had access to the Excellus’s cameras. She could almost make out the massive containers of oil tumbling over the edge of some of the ships—some hit, others struck by the shockwave of their neighbors. At least one unlucky vessel happened to be flying below another, and the deck burst into flames.

Ponies all around her cheered as the victims of the first volley tumbled from the sky. But for all that some of the ships had caught fire, the rest of the fleet kept coming.

So much for the griffons being too intimidated by our devastating first attack to continue advancing.

She couldn’t help but feel a little respect for the mad birds—facing weapons most of them would’ve never seen before, that were exploding their own ships before their eyes, shaking the world with sound—yet still they came.

The second volley went off a moment later, with even more devastating results. The enemy was now within their ideal range, such that almost every shot would be a hit. The city had 39 cannons in all after losing the one over Seaddle. If each one fired unerringly, and destroyed their targets with each shot, that would still be not even ten percent of the enemy fleet destroyed.

And they aren’t all doing that. It looked like half the first volley missed. Still, there was more cheering in the Tower. Even Princess Luna joined in from behind her. “Truly, if Equestria had known weapons such as these, we would never have lost a war!”

Hayden turned to face her, voice low. “This is the only war Equestria will ever have a strategic advantage like this, Princess. Even if we destroy this enemy completely, the spies of all your other enemies will have learned the secret of gunpowder and cannons before the next one. The only way to keep your advantage is to keep advancing, keep spending more on your weapons. My kind almost destroyed themselves by following that path to the end.”

That sobered her. Princess Luna’s excitement faded. “Perhaps… we should do the reverse, then. When this is over… destroy all record of it. Burn the forges, shatter the mortar of the alchemist and turn it into bricks.”

“Perhaps,” Hayden answered. “I was… already anticipating spies, though I thought your sister would send them. There are exactly five ponies in my ranks who could make black powder through every step of the process.” And every single one of them is a Blackwing. “If you could secure their silence, you might be able to prevent the knowledge from escaping…

“But even that probably won’t be enough. Black powder isn’t hard to make. Once you know it’s possible, it doesn’t take too much effort to unravel the secret.” Or so it had been for humans. Maybe they could hope that the races of Equestria just wouldn’t be as good at reverse-engineering.

There was another volley. The enemy was much closer now. They might get one more shot before they passed over the city, if they were lucky.

Hayden watched closely. None of these ships were armored, not like the Equestrian vessels. But then, they didn’t have siege engines like Equestrians did. Maybe there was nothing to armor their ships against. Or maybe they just lacked the skill to make so much metal up in the frozen waste.

While the lead ships had kept a steady pace, Hayden could see a larger group in back, slowing down and losing altitude by the moment. Angling down towards the towers.

Bombers and troop carriers. The bombers are soaking up cannon fire while the rear ships move in to attack.

“Signal to ignore the bombers!” Hayden screamed, her voice suddenly urgent. “Aim for the ships in back!”

The signal-pony spared her a single, desperate glance. That wasn’t exactly a simple message she was asking to send.

“They’re going to burn Icefalls to the ground!” Lodestone shouted, though he didn’t try to stop the signaler. “Most of those have oil, Marshal! If enough of them fly overhead…”

Most of the city was made of wood, and they didn’t exactly have a fire service. Weatherponies were usually used to extinguish large fires like that. But if she sent her weatherponies out now, they would be slaughtered. And wouldn’t be available for when she really needed them.

“It’s a good thing we evacuated everypony,” Hayden said. “They’ll be safe in the mines.”

Princess Luna rose to her hooves again. Her eyes moved very rapidly as she gazed out the opening, darting from one attacking ship to the next in quick succession. “Hayden, do you know what you’re doing? Icefalls is… an ancient and proud city. Are you prepared to let it burn? All you have built here, the triumph of your survival through winter…”

“My triumph is that these ponies are still alive,” Hayden said. “I don’t care if every factory and farm I designed is ashes so long as the people survive.” She didn’t remark on the use of her real name, though she could see from the confusion of some of her generals that they’d noticed. “The ships in back are bringing soldiers. They’re going to attack my cannons. Every pony in my army who isn’t on reserve is already assigned to one of those forty cannon emplacements, or defending the castle. But I don’t think we’ll have enough. Even with their carriers destroyed.”

Princess Luna nodded solemnly. Her horn flashed, and Achelois appeared hovering in the air beside her. “Then I will thin the bombers. Make sure your cannons fire true.” She vanished.

Another second later and they fired their last volley before the enemy arrived. “Keep those guns firing as long as possible,” Hayden ordered, striding forward towards the front of the room.

With Princess Luna gone, it felt like the weight of command was again firmly on her shoulders. It seemed as though many of her generals were more comfortable with the princess gone. All the bats, for sure. Even Lodestone looked like he was going to be sick. It’s weird they’re all that frightened of her.

But she was the ruler of Equestria’s military, ostensibly. And they were fighting for the very survival of Icefalls. It was natural to be anxious about that.

“Keep focusing on the landing ships,” Hayden continued. “Keep the northern cannons pointed over the city, don’t worry about the bombers. We shouldn’t be shooting at them with Princess Luna up there, anyway.”

The night princess had terrible power—probably far beyond any of her cannons. But it wouldn’t be good to put that power to the test with an oil explosion.

The next volley came a moment later, sparse and ragged compared to all those that had come before. Not even half the guns had managed to get off their last volley before the landers closed in.

The “under attack” beat sounded from a dozen different places at once. Hayden could see the technique—ships were slowing down over the cannons, or else coasting right up to the wall to throw down ramps. But most of the attackers came from the air, buzzing out of their ships like flies from a rotting carcass.

“I need a messenger to the northern cannons!” Hayden shouted, voice suddenly tense. “Make sure they don’t fire on any of the ships hovering above our wall!”

“They already know that!” It wasn’t Lodestone, but the general representing the wall-guard. Primary Hues. “That was in the handbook Honed Edge gave me to instruct them.”

Several ponies burst down the ladder at once. There were ten up there in all, each one assigned to a different light. Not only that, but they’d be watching for signals from four cannons each. It was about as dense as she’d managed to pack them in before messages got garbled beyond recognition.

“Heavy casualties at Blue-3!”

“Red-1 reports their tower has been breached!”

“Green-4 says griffons are ignoring them and flying into the city!”

Hayden couldn’t respond to all of that at once… but she didn’t have to. She only nodded to her generals, and at once the different tasks were delegated. Mostly through Lodestone, who had fought the Stonebeaks before, defending Defiance from smaller incursions many times.

This was no longer her war to micromanage. The unique tactics for artillery would matter far less once the enemy’s ground-troops had engaged them. Now we see just how much of an advantage an arquebus really gives.

Not one of her Blackwings were out there guarding the towers. All those that weren’t guarding the castle were held in reserve, keeping their unit undamaged for when some critical moment came.

I hope you weren’t lying to us, Celestia. Icefalls is going to need you.

Hayden had little to add to the commands flying through the room. Her ears rang from the shouts, and the drums, and the now-irregular blasts of cannons.

But she’d forgotten about the bombers. The first distant explosion far away reminded her pretty well, and many of her generals too.

The first blast had landed somewhere in the Glacier quarter, the slums where some of her most disadvantaged ponies had lived. Hopefully there was nopony down there now, because the ramshackle affair of scrap wood and stone went up like cloth soaked in gasoline.

Dozens more casks rained down over the city. Most of them landed with a dramatic explosion on a street or a stone roof, doing very little in the way of harm. But for three that landed uselessly, another one hit something dry enough to burn.

Hayden could almost feel Princess Luna’s presence far above the city, intensely focused and burning with magic. There was surprisingly little anger in the emotions the Alicorn felt. Only a distant sadness, a pity for the lives she was taking. Princess Luna did not enjoy what she was doing.

Hayden was no longer squinting at different boat-shaped toys floating in the distance. She could see them clearly now—see the massive bomber floating over the market as a single red line appeared across the deck. Wood creaked and roared in protest, before one half went careering down onto the city. The other shot up, spinning faster and faster and flinging birds and barrels alike from its deck.

The battle for Icefalls had well and truly begun.

Hayden did her best to follow it all, but the truth was that she hadn’t been trained for high-level tactics like this and didn’t have the mind for it. There was a reason she’d chosen all these generals to do most of this—they could handle thinking about so many lives at once. They could keep track of the ever-changing state of the city, mark the fires on the map, which cannons were still firing and which were under attack.

But just because she had a staff of ponies who knew what they were doing didn’t mean Icefalls had much of a chance.

There really were something like a thousand ships attacking them. The enemy might be half-blind in the dark, but there were still enough of them to block out the moon when they flew together.

For every ship they’d destroyed, there were dozens of others.

Do they fight like a human army? Do griffons keep going until they suffer too many losses, then break? Or will they fight like animals, and keep killing until they die?

Ponies were definitely the former. Icefalls would surrender long before it suffered critical losses.

But we’re fighting for a better purpose. Our wives, our children, our lives. They only want to enslave us.

“Equestria will come,” Hayden muttered, repeating what Luna had said so many times. “We just have to hold on two more dawns.” They could do that.

It was that or die.

Chapter 46: New Moon

Morning dawned in flames.

Hayden could see them from her tower—a dozen little fires, slowly spreading across Icefalls from every direction. She’d made many changes to the way the city was built—they wouldn’t burn down in a day, even without the fire-crews to put out the flames. But most pony structures were wood. It was only a matter of time before the entire city was ash.

Hayden watched from behind her generals—listening as casualty reports continued to pour in. They estimated at least a hundred enemy ships had been destroyed so far. But the guns they still had were running low on powder, or ammunition. Several crews had been wiped out by the enemy.

She always knew when that happened because of the explosion. Her elites would not permit the guns to fall into enemy hands, and potentially be turned against the city. When they were about to fall, somepony within would ignite the powder magazine, and the tower would disintegrate in a spectacular fireball. There were eight such craters surrounding her city now.

The light of dawn was stained a deep red with smoke, a smoke that brought with it the acrid smell of burning flesh. One of the simplest boards in front of her displayed an updating estimate of effective troops and casualties—just over ten percent of her troops had been moved to “casualties.”

But even so, it was morning now, and the city was still in pony control. Hayden scanned the horizon with a quick glance from slitted eyes, and found that there wasn’t a single enemy ship within range of Icefalls’s cannons. Only shattered ruins on the fields surrounding the city. There were so many corpses out there that she almost couldn’t see the ground. This city really is going to smell like death, even if we win.

“I’m going to try and get some rest,” Hayden announced. “I expect most of you should as well. Presumably they will be preparing their next attack. Get those damn fires out and wake me if anything changes.”

She got her salutes, and she vanished down the stairs. Past ranks and ranks of her elites, locking eyes with bats with stern faces and black armor. They straightened as she approached, saluting. “I need somewhere to sleep,” she said. “Find me a bunk, and make sure the city doesn’t burn down while I’m out.”

A few hours later, Hayden woke to the shouts of Sideswipe from outside the door, rousing her from her stupor. From the fog of exhaustion lingering on her mind, she could tell that she hadn’t had anything close to eight hours. “The princess appears to be in danger,” Sideswipe said, his voice nervous and shifting from the other side of the door.

Hayden was already pulling on the armor as quickly as she could. “She’s still out there? Doing what? The griffons pulled back, didn’t they?”

“I don’t know,” Sideswipe said, right as Hayden burst through the door. “But she’s alone and surrounded by enemy troops. General Lodestone deployed some troops to reach her, but they haven’t been able to cut through.”

“Is the unit mobilized?”

He smiled. “Aye, Ma’am. Or they should be by the time we reach the roof. We don’t actually need you to go, High Marshal. Just your orders to deploy.”

“Maybe so,” she agreed, turning to hurry towards the stairs. There were no balconies here, no windows wide enough to fly out and take an aerial shortcut. This tower was meant to be a fortress.

There was only a single high-ranking pony on duty in the command center, supervising the mop-up teams and shuffling supplies around. He looked like he might be on the verge of a heart-attack when Hayden entered, though his expression changed swiftly to relief. “You heard,” he said, sighing. “I’m not sure what to do, Marshal. If we pull ponies from the wall...”

“Don’t pull anypony yet,” she said. “Where is she?”

He pointed out the window, towards a group of figures she could barely make out on the far side of town. It looked like a large crowd, maybe two hundred griffons, all heavily armed. How did we not stop them already? More importantly, what were they trying to do while their fleet kept far away? Worry about that later. Princess first.

“Princess Luna can teleport across the continent if she wants,” Hayden muttered. “If she was overwhelmed, why wouldn’t she just return to the Tower?”

The officer wasn’t one Hayden recognized—probably someone’s second in command, or maybe an assistant. He only looked confused. “I don’t know, Marshal. Should I wake the others?”

Hayden shook her head. “If I don’t return in twenty minutes, yes. Otherwise, let them rest until signs the griffons might be advancing again. I’ll need them at their best.”

“If you don’t return?”

But Hayden was already vanishing up the steps, past the metal grates and slabs of stone to where her troops had assembled.

Forty ponies did not seem that impressive compared to the incredible numbers massed outside. And it wasn’t—they weren’t wrapped in invulnerable powered-armor, or wielding magical cannons that could shoot ships from the sky. But they stood in perfect order, forty bats separated into squads without even a hint of intimidation visible behind their helmets as they watched the Grand Fleet in the distance.

Sideswipe fell into line behind her, betraying a sense of eagerness in his steps. This was the moment these ponies had been waiting for. They hadn’t had a chance to really fight since the first probes against their city. “Luna’s there,” Hayden said, lowering her own helmet securely into place. “Whatever those birds are here to do, it’s cancelled. We will not be leaving survivors. Are we clear?”

“Yes, sir!” shouted her troops, lacking anything like the doubt she’d heard from Captain Skylark.

“First priority, cut through to the princess, make sure she’s okay. Then sweep and clear. Don’t take chances to save ammo—I don’t want to hear one of you bastards got yourselves dead because you didn’t shoot enough.”

More shouts, and a few subdued laughs. Then Hayden gestured, and they surged up into the air in a wave of armored bodies and rifles.

They flew in tight formation, eight squads acting as a single unit. But they were ready to explode at a second’s command, each following their own orders. Hayden and Sideswipe slipped into the ranks as ordinary soldiers, indistinguishable from the others. What Hayden’s elites lacked in the technology to coordinate, they made up for in organization.

Soon enough she could see what had happened—the griffons wore the metal armor of their heavies, their largest and most experienced soldiers. Not the disorderly bands of semi-independent barbarians that represented the typical griffon soldier. So no warm-up round for the elites. Here goes nothing.

The birds seemed desperate to get into a building—a sturdy stone structure by the look of it. A bank. Charred griffon bodies were outside, and an occasional flash of magic blasted out the open door. Is she fighting inside there?

How long could the princess keep doing that? This is exactly why we don’t have heroic leaders out there fighting the whole war on their own. What would happen if she got herself killed?

Then another thought. What are you doing, stupid?

“Two and three, I want you to start strafing. Drop any who take the bait and return to command. Four and five, you’re with me and one. Sideswipe, you take six through eight and flank. Make sure none of these birds escape.”

They swept in for a dive. Hayden could hear her squad leaders giving instructions. She tuned it all out, focusing on her own five ponies. These were the same ones who’d spent more time with her than any others—her bodyguards. The bravest and most experienced of all the Blackwings.

“Strafe straight down the middle,” Hayden instructed. “Give it fifty feet until we’re close to the door. Don’t get in the doorway, let me do that. Princess Luna won’t hurt me by accident. But I don’t think your armor will do anything to stop her magic from killing you.”

Hayden tucked her legs as close as she could, taking aim at her designated targets. The enemy griffons had seen them, and a few were already taking to the air to try and stop them.

Sideswipe and his three squads cut them down in the first pass. Their stolen metal helmets did nothing to protect them from the weapons her Blackwings carried. Hayden didn’t see how accurate her soldiers were being—that didn’t matter. Her way was clear, and she opened fire on the birds near the entrance.

The rifle mechanism tracked her eyes almost perfectly. Look at a head, twitch her leg just right, and a glowing hole appeared in a metal helmet. She could see only a faint flash from along the edge of the weapon—there was no deafening explosion of gunpowder as her own arquebus’s made. None of her Blackwings had gone deaf.

The griffons retreated from their approach, but their movements were scattered. A few joined together, lifting up sturdy shields of metal and wood. They wouldn’t have even stopped the primitive arquebuses.

“Princess, are you in there!” Hayden called, skidding to a stop just outside the door. “It’s me! We’re here to get you out!”

“What are you doing here?” the princess asked from inside, sounding on the edge of exhaustion.

“I’m coming in, don’t blast me!” She raised one hoof into the air, signaling to Sideswipe to cover the door as she slipped inside. “Nopony comes in,” Hayden said to the rest of her squad, before darting into the bank.

The bodies of ponies and griffons both were scattered about, though far more of the latter. The bank had clearly been ransacked, with deep gouges dug into the walls of the safe door. But it wasn’t open. Princess Luna had ignored the safe completely, and had several ragged-looking scrolls spread on a table near the back. Crossbow bolts stuck into the stone and wood all around her, and blood was soaked into her uniform. But for all that she didn’t actually look injured, only tired.

“Have you come to gloat?” the princess asked, her voice sounding so empty that Hayden wanted to stick her head in a swamp.

Instead of doing something stupid, she stopped beside the table. “Princess, whatever this is should wait until you’re safe in the command tower. The city isn’t secure.”

Princess Luna looked like she might blast Hayden with magic after all. “I found a few officers,” she said. “Aboard some of the ships I destroyed.” She pointed down at the scrolls. “Interesting orders.”

Hayden glanced down at the scrolls briefly, and found they weren’t written in any language she’d seen before. Yet she could understand it, as easily as she made sense of whatever the ponies spoke. She followed one of Luna’s hooves to a few dense scrawls of uneven script.

“Expect light resistance from the northern territories, the Marshal there has recalled all troops to Icefalls. Tribute includes Seaddle, its shipyards, and all territories north from Vanhoover to Trottingham.”

“Tribute,” Hayden repeated, the word dribbling out like a curse. “Somepony is selling Equestria?”

Luna nodded, pointing to another scroll. Much smaller, though the writing was Equestrian this time, and the text was orderly.

“Saboteurs are in place. Expect two full days of fleet delay. Take Icefalls before then and I will ensure the fleet is forced to retreat instead of assaulting the city.”

“Well, that’s…” She could still hear shouting from outside. There were an awful lot of birds out there. They couldn’t just hide in this bank while Blackwings died.

Hayden looked around, selecting a satchel of crossbow bolts from a fallen griffon and settling it onto the table. She dumped the bolts out, and shoved the scrolls in, slinging them over one shoulder. The princess didn’t argue. Hayden had seen this expression before. This was the face of the pony who’d hidden in her tower for months while the world rotted around her.

I can’t let you become that mare again, Luna. We need you too badly.

“Look, Princess. I know how awful that feels. And maybe it is awful. Maybe Equestria’s army is half rotten and we’ll need to scrap the whole fucking thing. But we won’t get the chance if we’re dead. Icefalls didn’t do any of this, and Icefalls deserves to have its princess alive.”

Chapter 47: One Last Night

Hayden stepped outside into a ruin of the griffon military unit. Corpses were spread around them in two rings—the first, facing inward, with weapons all nearby. The second facing away, without their weapons.

The Blackwings killed the ones attacking, then they killed the ones running away.

Princess Luna stopped beside her, staring at the dead. Then she looked to the side, where the Blackwings had gathered. Not all of them stood in ranks—there were still scouts watching the city, and a few remained in the air to make sure they weren’t ambushed.

Sideswipe stepped up to Hayden, saluting her before the princess. “Three more rifles are non-responsive, ma’am.”

“Casualties?”

“Two injuries, both from crossbow bolts that made it through gaps in the armor. Neither seriously.”

“Good work.” Hayden turned to the princess. “Do you know what these birds were doing here in Icefalls? Before they tried to target you?”

The princess was still looking at the dead. But for all she stared, she lacked any of the disturbed panic that birds like Skylark had shown around Hayden. She was callous to the corpses.

“Yes,” she said. “They were trying to discover where we’re keeping our civilians.” She walked over to one, turning the bird over with a hoof and drawing his bloody knife. She cut away the satchel the griffon was carrying, lifting it up towards Hayden. She winced at the smell—one she’d known from a lifetime of city pools and water parks.

“They were… going to hold them for ransom? Hostages to make us surrender?”

“I don’t think so.” The princess dropped the corpse and its cargo with contempt. “The Grand Fleet has enough mouths to feed. They only want strong slaves—our stallions and brave mares of the city watch. But slaughtering our population would destroy our will to fight more effectively than any siege could do in months.”

Hayden shuddered. For a few moments she warred with the same despair that had overcome the princess. The pressing weight of inevitability on them. There were traitors in the Equestrian army, and that might keep the fleet from arriving in time. Now they had an enemy determined to bypass their defenses and just kill the people she was trying to protect.

Hayden thought back to her final plan. Her weatherponies waiting in reserve, saving their strength for one last, desperate act. The defense that would surely level the city if she used it.

Not yet. We need to last until Avalon gets here. Just one more night.

“I don’t think they’ll be able to get in. Our citizens are safe where they are.” At least until the air runs out.

Luna was wise enough not to ask where those citizens actually were. “Your soldiers are this effective?”

“These are,” Hayden said, loudly enough that all the Blackwings would hear her. “The best and bravest of Icefalls. We have less equipment than we have ponies to use it, though.” She advanced, lowering her voice to a whisper as she held up the satchel. “We need your help to survive this siege a little longer, Princess. Avalon will be here tomorrow—we can finally fix my mistake, get rid of every parasite living in these bats. You can’t give up now, when we’re so close to winning this.”

Luna walked past her, over to where Sideswipe stood at the head of one formation. He had the good sense to salute her this time. Luna returned the gesture haltingly—it wasn’t the typical pony way of doing things.

“Your name?” she asked.

“Second Lieutenant Sideswipe.”

“Would you die for Icefalls, Sideswipe?”

“Without hesitation,” he answered. “We all would. Right, ponies?”

If Hayden wasn’t watching, she might’ve thought the resulting shout came from a thousand ponies, and not just a few dozen. “YES, SIR!”

Princess Luna faced her again. “Then I will as well. Wherever these ponies get their courage, I’d like to borrow some.” She took to the air, horn faintly glowing. “I am going to prepare a spell. I believe I can buy us one more night.” She vanished in a flash of light, leaving Hayden alone with her troops.

“Don’t worry about the dead,” Hayden said, taking off. “I’ll send a cleanup crew. Back to the fortress, fast as you can!”

Sideswipe took up her order, and soon they were on their way.

Hayden tried, unsuccessfully, to sleep until night came. The new bunk her soldiers found for her was comfortable enough, but not so much that she could ignore the danger her ponies were in. Icefalls might be invaded at any moment. If the griffons were waiting to hear back from their infiltrators, they would eventually discover their failure and resume the attack.

One thing Hayden didn’t do was show her satchel of damning evidence to any of the ponies in her administration. They didn’t need proof of how much they were loathed by their fellows, not now.

Instead, she locked the satchel tight, and entrusted one of the Blackwings to deliver it to the secret hangar, where it could accompany Nightbreeze out of Icefalls.

Then darkness came, and the war-drums started beating again.

Hayden rushed to the roof, ready to watch the death of all she had built for one more night. Only her city would have far less to defend itself with this time. Avalon might return with his cure but find no one was alive to treat.

“I think that’s the princess up there!” called Lodestone, pointing out the window with one hoof. Hayden followed his eyes, and sure enough there she was. A speck of power, glowing in the darkness. Then came the explosion. Illumination flowed out from around her, like the light of a thousand harvest moons hammered until they were solid. They curved up and around the city, spreading until they met the city walls. The stars and black of the sky vanished behind them all, so bright to Hayden’s bat eyes that the city seemed almost in daylight.

Something touched down on the roof above them. A few moments later the security doors opened, and Luna staggered in. She looked like a sponge wrung dry, and her horn sparked every few moments. But the shield above the city remained. “That will last until sunrise,” she promised. “Until Avalon arrives.”

“Why didn’t we do that sooner, Princess?” Lodestone asked, just barely on the edge of disrespect. “A hundred ponies died last night.”

The princess glanced once at Hayden. But she didn’t actually ask to be saved. “Because I will not be able to repeat that,” she said. “And it has done nothing to weaken the enemy. When morning comes, so will they, filled with rage and not disadvantaged by the dark.”

“Oh,” said somepony else.

“Of course, Princess. Forgive me.” Lodestone lowered his head to her. Then he turned to Hayden. “What happens tomorrow?”

“We get Avalon,” she said. “He brings… a powerful magic. Probably not enough to win this war, but hopefully enough to help.”

Outside, the first of the griffon ships had reached the barrier. A few tried to keep going right through it, and smashed up against it. It sounded like they’d struck a gigantic rock crystal, reverberating through the city with the force. Most of the others slowed to a stop outside it. Hayden couldn’t see through the shield very clearly, except that the birds looked to be leaving their ships, and some had started hammering at the barrier. More looked to be landing on it, maybe just to strain it with their weight.

But it didn’t bow, didn’t distort even when whole ships smashed into it and were crushed to kindling by their own inertia. That really will last until sunrise, won’t it?

“We’re going to take the princess at her word,” Hayden announced. “No time to repair the guns we lost… but we can reposition what we have. I want a reduced watch on the city, facing inward. Blackwings and I took care of one team, but there could be others.” She lowered her voice to a growl. “They’re trying to find our citizens. Let’s make sure they don’t succeed. Princess, do you need anything? That spell looks… hard.”

She nodded, swaying on her hooves. “Somewhere to lie down. And I will be nearly helpless when it finally falls. I shall take until tomorrow night to recover. I must be protected until then.”

Hayden considered that a moment. “Slipstream, get a Blackwing team to get the princess into a shelter. Make sure nopony recognizes her.”

To her surprise, the princess didn’t argue. She only nodded, and slumped into a sitting position against the wall. She didn’t look like she would be flying, wherever they went.

They used their night well. While the army outside battered futilely against the barrier, Icefalls repaired as much as they could. They moved around a few of the remaining guns, repositioning them so the city would be more evenly defended. Hayden’s generals had already done their best to transfer soldiers around, but now they had plenty of time, taking ponies from units that had suffered the most and shuffling them into the reserve, while ponies who had sat around defending the undiscovered shelters were moved out to the wall.

“I want our remaining Spellfire rounds all loaded and ready to go the instant the barrier falls,” Hayden ordered. “Those ships outside—they’re as close as we’re ever going to get. Hopefully close enough that some of the flames will leap from ship to ship. Every crew is permitted to fire with no regard for powder. I don’t know that we’ll get another chance after tomorrow. Just save enough to destroy the gun.”

Hayden found herself on the roof of the command tower as the final hours of the night waned away. Her work crews withdrew back to their shelters, ponies rushed out of the barracks and back towards the wall. And birds kept battering at the barrier.

“Do you think we have a chance, High Marshal?”

She didn’t turn around, didn’t look away from the wall. “Using my title, Edge? You’re that worried?”

He settled in beside her, shifting uncomfortably in his gold armor. “I wouldn’t be if they’d given us a decade. We could’ve built our own fleet in that much time. Their Grand Fleet would be firewood.”

She nodded. “They didn’t give us a decade. But even if the Stonebeaks hadn’t come, Equestria would have. At least we aren’t shooting at ponies out there.”

“Not yet,” he said. “I’m not sure we won’t be in a few more weeks. I’ve flown Seaddle to Icefalls on my own wings. They could be here twice over. They’re not. Not even a messenger.”

“Maybe the messengers couldn’t make it through the Stonebeaks’ blockade,” Hayden suggested. But it sounded hollow even to her.

“Maybe,” Honed Edge replied. “And if you believe that, then you probably think Celestia took the whole army away from us by accident, too. That she just forgot to send supply shipments.”

There were cracks forming on the barrier over their heads. Hayden could see them lancing across the sky, starting from the places that these birds had been focused on. It sounded like a massive sheet of ice was breaking open. It’s time for more blood.

“We have to survive,” Hayden said, turning back towards the stairs. “Princess Luna is positive her sister is coming. She was so sure that Celestia wouldn’t leave her to die. We just have to hope she’s right.”

“Nothing but praise for the moon,” Edge said. “But I don’t think she can see her sister clearly. Might be she’s an immortal… but I know what it’s like to be the younger brother. It’s natural to think the ones you love can’t do anything wrong. That they always know better. Even when all the evidence says otherwise.”

There was a sudden roar from above them. Something shot across the sky, something that was brilliant orange and left a trail all the way down. She could see the birds scattering from around it as it came down, trailing a line of billowing white smoke.

The barrier exploded. Huge chunks of light began to tumble down from where it had cracked, dissolving to wisps of fog on their way down. Thank God for that. But Luna would’ve known if she was about to crush the whole city with magic.

Right outside, so close they were practically in spitting distance from her cannons, were some of the greatest ships of the Stonebeak fleet, hiding behind the protection of a shield that was no longer there.

Icefall’s guns had just received their signal. The morning erupted with the roar of a dozen cannons.

Chapter 48: Arrival Equation

The destruction of Luna’s shield spell did no damage to the city.

But now there were hundreds of ships, so close that even Hayden’s worst cannon crews couldn’t have missed them if they tried. Hayden watched as almost every shot scored a kill, watched as ship after ship tumbled to the ground outside the city. But some kept moving, crashing down onto the walls or tearing up houses right on the edge.

Hayden winced with each crash, praying that none of her own men were down there to be crushed under the weight. But if there were, there was nothing she could do now. They would be casualties like any others.

But even more interesting to her was the streak of fire coming straight down from upper atmosphere. She had no radio, or else she might be hearing Avalon’s voice as he landed the incredible craft.

Hayden’s eyes widened in horror as she saw the vessel’s trajectory. It was straightening into a vertical position, landing legs extending like something SpaceX might’ve made a century after she left. It was aiming to touch down in open farmland on the north side of the city.

They weren’t being attacked on that side. For the same reason, Hayden had recalled most of the cannons from there, keeping only a few to make it seem that those towers had guns if anyone tried to flank.

Flames blasted out from inside the craft, scorching crops to dust and charring whole fields black. The roar was audible even over the cannons, though at least it wasn’t as loud as the launches she remembered from her own youth. Back then, anyone this close could’ve been killed by the sound. Whatever engines that rocket used hadn’t killed Hayden, or any of her soldiers.

Avalon can see the war, right? He wouldn’t just walk right out and get himself killed. The rocket was smaller than the Excellus, and it didn’t seem to be armored in any way, but it was still a sealed rocket. Even if the griffons are stupid enough to try and get inside…

A few of them were that stupid, apparently. Several ships were angling upward and back towards the rear of Icefalls and Avalon’s rocket.

And Hayden had no ships of her own, except for the one she had packed with refugees and supplies in case the worst befell Icefalls.

There would be no removing them now, no arming them. That meant they had only one choice. “Get me every winged pony in the reserve,” Hayden ordered. “And you, Slipstream. All the Blackwings as well. We’re going there.”

The room was chaos. Though the initial volley had inflicted terrible losses, on the whole it had still deprived Icefalls of their chief advantage: range. Once the enemy’s ships were over the city, their guns were much more reluctant to fire. They had been stationary at the moment the spell failed, but also very close. The city would soon have ground troops swarming all over it.

“Are you sure about that?” Lodestone asked, panicked. “Those are the fastest ponies in the reserve. Whatever that thing is, can’t it wait?”

Hayden considered that, squinting out at the rocket. Smoke rose from most of its skin, thick white plumes of it from the rear of the rocket. It stood almost as tall as the command tower, though it was otherwise quite thin and aerodynamic. She’d seen plenty of larger rockets launched in her lifetime. That’s just more evidence of how advanced they are. That thing made it to the damn moon and Avalon still managed to land it on my lawn.

She might’ve been awed by the achievement if Icefalls wasn’t burning all around her.

“Not the reserve then.” She turned to Slipstream again. “Only my Blackwings. We’re going to go out there and bring Avalon back.”

To her surprise, it was Slipstream who shook his head. “Respectfully ma’am, no.” He stepped up beside her, lowering his voice. “That’s outside the city, and the enemy knows who you are. If they see you the whole army might redeploy just for a chance of killing you. Once they do that, they’ll realize we only have three guns on that side.” Even as he said it, one of those three guns fired, blasting one of the little sloops out of the sky.

Most of the birds inside tumbled to the ground, but a few managed to recover, zipping out of the wreckage to land on the deck of one of the others before the ruin smashed to earth.

“They can already see that thing is important,” Hayden observed, but without much passion. She could see the sense here, and was rapidly losing the desire to argue. Going with the Blackwings in the city when they weren’t being attacked was one thing. But out there now?

“They don’t know what it is,” Slipstream said. “Not yet, anyway. Hopefully that’s enough time for us to get your… Avalon… out of there?”

She nodded, gesturing surrender with one wing. “If you’re sure, Slipstream. The odds are worse out there. They’re in the air, in their territory. There’s more of them. You’re going to lose more stallions.”

He shrugged. “I already told the princess we were willing.”

So it was that Hayden had to watch her ponies go out and risk their lives. They wouldn’t even be able to beat the griffons to Avalon’s rocket—their guns didn’t fire at the enemy once they abandoned their ships. They could only pray that the griffons didn’t realize it was because they didn’t have enough powder back there to risk it.

“It’s infuriating, isn’t it?” asked a voice from behind her. Familiar, but not the one she was expecting. Not the princess come up from wherever she’d been resting. But another pony, one she’d thought was tucked safely away.

She spun around, and almost screamed right there. But that would’ve been exactly the sort of display that lost her respect with these ponies. She could only nod, watching as the griffons split their formation, half flying out to meet the Blackwings while the others continued on towards the rocket.

“It sure is.” She hesitated a moment, then glared sidelong at Nightbreeze. “What the hell are you doing out of your shelter?”

She advanced, sliding in right beside Hayden. Closer than she’d felt the other pony in a long time. Closer than she’d thought she would ever feel her again. “Went out when the princess went in,” she whispered back. “Thanks to you this is my city. You think the guard are going to tell me no?”

“No, but I would,” Hayden whispered back, retreating towards the back of the room. So many raised voices—shouts of new information as the enemy pressed closer. Troops landing in the city. Walls under siege. Even with their superior weapons, they were so badly outnumbered. If the city was still standing by nightfall, it would be a near thing. “I wanted you to survive this, Nightbreeze. Even if I didn’t.”

Nightbreeze shoved her, so she stumbled backward from the windows. For better or worse, there was nothing Hayden could really do about the Blackwings’ mission now. And if anything happened anywhere in the city that needed her attention, a watching pony would call for her, let her know. “Too bad,” she said. “I’m not going to hide while ponies die for me. I’m more useful out here.”

Hayden’s eyebrows went up. “You’re not a general, Nightbreeze. You don’t even know how to hold a sword. What happens if this tower gets attacked?” So far the griffons had dropped a few burning barrels on them, mostly while attacking the keep. They hadn’t done much to the armored stone and reinforced glass.

Nightbreeze frowned, scanning the room for a few moments. Then she pointed off to the side, where several lower officers muttered in hushed voices over various pads and scrolls. The requisition officers, getting supplies and support ponies where they were needed. “Your chief supply officer, Unified Standard. She looks like she’s about to cry. I bet you twenty bits that I can work out whatever’s troubling her. And if she’s happy, that means your troops have what they need.”

Hayden winced, then nodded. “Fine.”

She knew she’d lost before Nightbreeze even started talking. She only half-listened—something about a water shortage on the southeast wall, where one of the exploding towers had damaged the fancy new plumbing.

While Nightbreeze talked, Hayden watched as the Blackwings cut straight through the griffon formation, and continued on towards the rocket. They looked like they’d lost a few members from the outsides this time, though.

Then they reached the rocket. Hayden saw a few flashes, and shapes emerging from the previously smooth skin. Round shapes, like blisters forming out the exterior of the rocket. Blisters that started shooting.

The weapons obviously weren’t meant for shooting airborne troops. Each shot rumbled in the air, and turned the birds it hit into a fine red mist. There weren’t holes in their armor—there wasn’t any armor left.

Those aren’t weapons. That’s the anti-collision system. Please be smart, Blackwings.

They were. They hesitated as the weapons worked, letting the flock of birds scatter from around the ship. Only a few remained—banging at seemingly random points on its skin. Only those who stayed right up against the rocket were immune to the anti-collision system.

What we could’ve done with a few of those on our wall, Hayden thought, even as the guns stopped firing. They’d killed more griffons in a few seconds than the Blackwings had during their entire defense of the bank.

“See?” Nightbreeze spoke from behind her, and Hayden could tell from the smugness how well her friend had done. “Unified Standard is good, but she didn’t even think to use one of the fire brigades to bring water to your beleaguered unit. They’re already on their way.”

Hayden lowered her head, whispering into her ear. “I’ve ruined your life enough times, Nightbreeze. I don’t want you to die here with me.”

The bat’s eyes widened just a little. “Is that really what you think is going to happen here? You think we’re all dead?” The question was too loud. All the little conversations fell silent. All the generals moving troops and resources around. Only a few distant rumbles from cannons were enough to break the silence.

All these ponies had heard her, and now they were all watching Hayden. She had to answer.

But she wasn’t going to lie. “I think there will be more deaths before we win this war,” Hayden said. She wasn’t trying to whisper anymore. “I’m prepared to die for Icefalls. Every pony here might have to. The ones they’re commanding are dying for us right now. Our friends, our brothers, our sons. This tower will certainly be a target the instant they realize where the orders are coming from. Will you die with us if that happens?”

Nightbreeze didn’t get a chance to answer. “High Marshal, your unit is slowing down. Whatever they’re carrying, they aren’t going to make it. That destroyer is going to cut them to pieces!”

Hayden darted to the window, staring at what Lodestone had just indicated. A gigantic griffon ship had just emerged from the back of Mount Saros, and was angling down to assault the Blackwings from above. There looked to be fewer of them now, and several of those who remained were harnessed to a chariot. With a nervous-looking creature in billowing robes riding inside it.

Not only that, but several more looked to be carrying something. Bundles of supplies—probably the raw materials for Avalon’s cure.

And that warship was going to kill them all.

Damnit, turn around. Go back to the rocket. Hide inside that armored skin.

They didn’t. The warship got closer.

“Speaking of dying,” Hayden said, and in a brilliant flash Achelois was in the air beside her. She had seen the princess sheer entire ships in half. “Keep my city intact while I’m gone.” She took to the air, flying towards the armored trapdoor before anypony here could try and stop her.

Chapter 49: Ritual

Hayden had once struggled to fly. When she was new to Equestria and still adjusting to the body Luna had imagined for her, she had tripped on her own hooves and tumbled from the air if she thought too much about her flight.

Princess Luna did not have any of those weaknesses. The princess had the magic of all the tribes, and more experience than ponies got in their long lifetimes.

Hayden borrowed all of that experience now, tearing through the air so fast it seemed like the world around her was stretched and slowed down. The princess of the moon had destroyed ships larger than the one baring down on her unit without apparent effort. But how could Hayden do the same? She could reach out, and take Luna’s magical knowledge for herself with relative ease.

But once she did… then what? She didn’t have a horn, and there was no way to borrow that. Only Achelois itself seemed to act like she had a horn.

She flew so quickly that a crack of air rumbled over her city. So quickly that she had to spread her wings and soar in a wide arc down on the deck of the Stonebeak destroyer.

It was perhaps a hundred feet long, with dozens of birds gathered on the deck. They wore their makeshift armor and carried typical griffon weapons—mostly blades and cudgels, though there were a few stolen pony crossbows in there as well.

She smacked onto the deck before the birds aboard had taken off to attack the Blackwings.

Now they turned, all the birds like a single organism, staring at her in disbelief.

A towering, hulking griffon was the first to speak, his body so bulky that it looked like he might be able to crush stone between his talons. “What is… you are her, aren’t you? Pony… inventor. First bat.”

“First bat,” Hayden repeated, drawing Achelois high over her head. She imagined a pair of arms there, and the sword obeyed as though her vision were the truth.

Yes, said the sword into her mind. It knew what was coming. There is so much pain here for us to end.

“Turn your ship around,” she ordered, letting the glowing sword catch the sun. Or rather, holding it where it should have. Achelois seemed to rest in perpetual shadow, though, and even held right out in front of her it didn’t glow in sunlight. “I will not allow you to attack those ponies.”

The huge bird laughed from behind several ranks of other griffons. “Maybe you are strong, strange new pony. Maybe you are braver than some. Maybe a better fighter. But you cannot fight all of us.”

Laughter spread through the crowd, and weapons were raised all around the circle. Hayden ignored their certainty, and smacked her helmet’s visor down with one hoof. “Let’s find out.”

Princess Luna knew more about combat than anypony else alive. She had been leading Equestria’s armies for centuries—in wars that made this Stonebeak invasion look like a schoolyard tussle.

The air moved behind her—a bird charging with an axe. Hayden waited until the last possible instant, then twisted her whole body into the movement. She swung up with her sword, then dropped into a roll that took her into the ranks of the enemy when the first barrage of crossbow bolts rained down.

The sword sighed contently in her mind as the first corpse dropped to the ground, cut into two pieces. It was soon joined by others—hit by bird arrows. First the bows. Her armor wasn’t impervious. A hit from too close, or in the wrong place might end this brave stand before it began.

But I don’t have to fight them all, only draw their attention. And Lodestone had been right about how much the birds hated her. Not one she could see had flown off to fight the Blackwings. Her elites were flying slowly under their heavy burden, but they were getting away.

I just have to stay alive for one more minute. I can do that.

We can, Achelois whispered again. We can do so much in that long. These creatures cause suffering wherever they go. We can end it.

Hayden went about ending suffering.

Practically every stroke was a kill. There were no swings that didn’t parry straight through an enemy weapon, or through armor that might as well be made of plastic.

Princess Luna knew how to fight more than one enemy—she knew how to fight when constantly surrounded. How to frighten and intimidate the crowd, baiting individuals and targeting those who looked like they might be raising an organized resistance. She kept close to their reach, staying inside the easy swing of their cudgels but backing away again when they tried to use claws.

The sun itself seemed to darken aboard the deck of that destroyer, and dark clouds billowed around Hayden’s hooves.

That wasn’t to say she fought perfectly. Her armor caught a few blows she hadn’t expected, mostly from claws or beaks before she could get close enough to swing the sword. A crossbow bolt shot straight through it and into one of her hind legs, biting right into the muscle there. It felt almost like a bullet.

Hayden kept fighting. Through the blood, through the death, through the fear. She kept fighting until she felt like she could barely concentrate enough to swing the sword.

“Luna,” the birds whispered, backing away from her at last. Many of them actually took flight, abandoning the deck of the destroyer filled with the dead and dying.

“She was the Alicorn all along,” said other voices, pointing.

The officers were all dead at her hooves, along with most of the birds with the initiative to attack her directly. Those who remained were the cowards, or at least the cautious. Hayden hadn’t left a functional crossbow among them. A bird tossed a dagger at her, and she batted it out of the air with her sword without even thinking.

Princess Luna could’ve stood against far mightier monsters than these and not taken a blow. But Hayden’s connection was imperfect, and the knowledge wasn’t really hers. I’m losing blood. I need to get out of here.

“I choose to let you live, today,” Hayden said, lifting into the air on drooping wings. “Turn this ship around. Return to your fleet and bury your dead.”

She didn’t glance over her shoulder to see if they were actually obeying her, but pretended as though she didn’t doubt it. She soared away, listening to see if any of the birds followed her. They weren’t.

She sheathed Achelois on her back, and felt the relief sweep through her as the terrible weapon left her alone. Its hunger to soothe suffering seemed to be sated for the moment.

Hayden felt the warm blood seeping out from her wound, and she felt the muscle tear a little more every time she moved her leg too quickly.

The Blackwings were most of the way to the keep—they’d been smart enough not to fly straight for the tower. Hayden slowed a little in the air, both to rest her tired muscles and to take in what had happened while she fought.

The city was on fire again. Another few towers had collapsed on the wall, no doubt destroyed by ignited powder. Griffons and ponies surged through the air, with ponies retreating from increasingly numerous waves of the enemy. It looked like the southern tip of the wall was completely overwhelmed. The marshaled ranks of reserve units were nowhere to be seen—which meant they were all already deployed.

I can’t fight the whole war myself. I need a surgeon. Hayden couldn’t fly in a blur anymore, so she didn’t beat the Blackwings to the keep. By the time she landed, the last ranks were making their way inside, surrounded by the watching eyes of the keep’s full complement. Nearly a thousand ponies were back here, and from the look of their armor they’d seen action today.

A few of them stared at her in shock as she came down behind the Blackwings. She ignored their confusion, raising a hoof to silence all questions. “Get me a doctor,” she said, twisting to reveal her injured flank. Now that the adrenaline of battle had faded, she could feel the injury throbbing, sending little pulses of pain into her leg with every heartbeat.

Could’ve been worse. That could have been my eye.

As soon as they were inside, ponies rushed behind her to push the massive stone doors closed. They passed under a raised metal grate, then into the lowest floor of the keep.

This was already a triage center. The stench of blood and antiseptic was strong, and the moans of the dying were almost as loud. Several of her Blackwings limped off to find a doctor—Hayden delayed. Obviously she hadn’t struck an artery or she would’ve bled to death already. She could wait a little while longer.

She didn’t walk to the chariot, not when it hurt so badly—she flew instead, settling onto three of her four legs beside the robed figure. “Avalon. You made it.”

Hayden’s own arrival had attracted as much surprise. Blackwings pointed and whispered. Slipstream was beside her in seconds, eyes narrowing as he looked her over. Armor battered, flank seeping blood. “I thought you weren’t going to accompany us, sir,” he whispered.

“Didn’t plan on it,” she agreed. “You saw the destroyer, didn’t you? Their troops didn’t stop because they forgot about you.”

She didn’t dignify his objections with more of a response, instead forcing her way past him beside Avalon.

Avalon removed the robe from his head, revealing the comical headpiece of fake fur underneath. He was wearing furred gloves too—and there was a fake tail emerging from the bottom of the cloak.

Do ponies honestly fall for this? It really did look worse than most fursuits.

“Hayden,” Avalon said. As he continued, it was in heavily accented English. “Your team could not have arrived at a better time. The Argante was not built to repel boarders.”

She nodded, and used the pony language when she replied. “They’re the best warriors I have. The best in all of Equestria.”

Even if the bats were too beleaguered to cheer, she could feel them preening in response. Though there were also too few. She would get a casualty report when this was over—and once she’d gotten treatment for herself.

It wasn’t going to be good, though. A glance suggested at least ten bats who ought to be here weren’t.

“Best I’ve ever seen,” Avalon said. “But we’re distracted. My equipment is here—I’ve brought machines. We will need to deploy them in order to enact your cure. Princess Luna told me that nearly every bat in Equestria is here, is that still true?”

Hayden nodded. Slipstream emerged from the crowd not far away, trailed by two ponies. She recognized one of them as Turmeric, the castle doctor and probably the one in charge of this triage center. Of course Slipstream would’ve brought the best doctor in the place.

“My wound isn’t life-threatening,” Hayden said, retreating a step from the doctor. “I’ll be fine. It’s just pain.”

“You won’t,” Turmeric snapped. “Stonebeak arrows are serrated. Every time you move you’re working it in deeper. Eventually you’re going to cut something that shouldn’t be cut and bleed out on my floor. Lift yourself up onto this cot and don’t move that leg.”

He levitated a surgeon’s blade in the air, waving it threateningly towards her. “Object and I’ll have you restrained. Don’t think I won’t.”

“Very well, doctor.” Hayden lifted into the air to obey, settling down on the cot and holding her leg as still as she could. “Avalon, the princess is drained from her night shielding the city.” Hayden turned to Slipstream, who looked bloodied but entirely intact. “Slipstream, take Avalon and his gear up to the tower. See that he’s given somewhere safe, and bring Lady Nightbreeze to him. If she asks, you can tell her I’m fine. But her orders are to assist Avalon in deploying his magic. She’ll know what that is. And she’ll know it’s our highest priority.”

Slipstream saluted, then turned to Avalon. “Come with me, dog. Are you strong enough to climb stairs?”

They retreated from the hall, followed by several more intact Blackwings carrying wrapped bundles of gear. Only when they were gone did Hayden finally collapse.

Chapter 50: One Last Stand

Hayden woke to the sound of war. Cannons rumbled, ponies shouted and galloped through the halls.

My city still stands.

She rose from the cot, glancing over her shoulder. There were stitches in her leg, flesh ragged but clean. No infection yet.

Hayden could see one of the doctors rushing over to her. Probably to demand that she go back to bed. Hayden ignored the shouts, and vanished past the guards. Her legs didn’t give out beneath her, and that would have to be enough. Icefalls depends on me.

She stepped over thick bundles of wire on her way up to the command tower, which other ponies moving through the halls were avoiding. Hayden could feel the energy radiating from within them, and found herself reminded of her brief time in a centrifuge. Not a single bat is going near them.

“Stars above, you’re here.” Lodestone was resting outside the control room, staring in at the door as though he were afraid it might attack him. “I think the city lord has lost her bucking mind.”

Hayden raised an eyebrow. “Nightbreeze? Why?”

Lodestone gestured down at the ground with one of his batlike wings. A dozen bundles of cable passed through that door, so thick that it couldn’t properly close anymore. “If she thinks we’re going to fight the Stonebeaks by cursing ourselves, she’s wrong. Salting our own fields won’t work.”

“Huh?” Hayden watched him carefully, particularly at the dark spots swirling in his eyes. Were those fangs more pronounced than they had been the day before? “Is that what you think we’re doing, general?”

He nodded. “I can’t think of any other reason for this insanity. She’s convinced the princess—she withdrew our forces from the walls, our cannons, all the reserve. Everything we have is tied up in protecting these six… things.” He waved a wing through the air. “It’s insane, Evening Star. And I’m not exaggerating. The city lord has lost her mind. Thrashing around, screaming. It’s that damn equipment. You have to convince the princess to let us do our job. There won’t be a city here tomorrow if we don’t.”

“I’ll talk to her,” she said, choosing each word carefully. “Do what you can, general. I’ll need you to make a strategic retreat successful.”

He saluted. “Aye, ma’am.” Did the darkness behind those eyes realize what she was doing? She watched him for a few more seconds, but no.

We’re running out of time.

Hayden hurried past the door. Whatever the strange energy was doing to her bats, it caused her no real pain. Only a mild feeling of distant static, and she was through the door.

There was only one bat inside—and she had hooves bound up like a cowboy might do to an animal that had seriously disobeyed.

Except that animal was Nightbreeze, gagged and flopping and struggling.

The room stared in at her, and a few of the unicorn soldiers stiffened a little, but Hayden only raised a hoof. “It’s okay. I’m clean.”

She paused, taking in the equipment in a single sweeping glance. A rack of mobile servers had been set up on a spare table, and a generator hummed quietly against a wall. At least Avalon had thought to run the damn thing next to an open window.

The princess looked to have recovered in the time since Hayden had seen her last. But then the light outside was stretching to twilight. I’ve been out that long?

The princess beamed at her. “Evening Star, I’m glad you’re here. There is much we have to do, but… our scouts have amazing news.”

“The Stonebeaks are surrendering,” Hayden supplied, her voice not even a little serious. “They see our superior will to fight and they’re going to give our territory back.”

Princess Luna chuckled quietly. “The Solar Fleet is almost here,” she said. As she said it, Hayden felt as though all the pain of all her wounds was washed away. She’d never seen a smile so wide on a pony face before. My sister told me the truth.

I’m glad to be wrong.

“Yes, yes.” Avalon waved a dismissive hand through the air. His costume did not look less silly after a nap. “But I don’t know if you’ve seen any bats lately, Hayden.” Nightbreeze had been tied down against a structural pillar, so she couldn’t move far. She wouldn’t be able to hurt herself that way, at least. “Princess, if you could.”

Luna nodded, and the gag vanished from around her mouth. Immediately Nightbreeze started screaming, her voice shrill and gurgling. “The lie of stars and order crumbles into endless night! The day of her coronation arrives, true queen of light and darkness! mglw'nafh fhthagn-ngah cf'ayak 'vulgtmm vugtlag'n“

Luna silenced her with the gag, though it looked like she was still trying to yell. Each little twitch hurt Hayden more.

“What happened to her?”

“She isn’t the only one,” Avalon said. “Adverse reactions to the presence of… danger… are quite common among the infected I have treated. Even you reacted, Hayden, when the corruption in you was much weaker than this. And what’s worse, there appears to be herd communication of a sort at work in these individuals. Some of those guarding my equipment have reported attacks from ponies. Always bats. We have bound the most serious cases. Many were members of your staff I’m afraid.” He looked down at Nightbreeze, without any of the emotion or respect that Luna had shown.

“It doesn’t matter.” Luna straightened, expression resolved. “We’re moments from activating it, anyway. The Stonebeaks are only harrying now, they haven’t pressed a serious attack for almost an hour. And if they attack with darkness, then I’ll be at full strength. We can hold a little longer.”

Can we? So few of her generals were still here. She only had their aids, frightened looking ponies who didn’t seem to know one end of Icefalls from the other.

“I don’t know how long the process will take,” Avalon said. “But I hoped to have you here for it. We’ve deployed the machinery now.” He gestured out at the model, and Hayden could see there were now six new items on the map. Fortified positions on the second fallback line of the city. The outer walls were all marked as “lost,” with several craters from detonated powder magazines.

These new six positions were holding back the assault from within the walls, and each of them had equipment. They were just represented as blocks here, so Hayden couldn’t see what they were. “So really quick. Before you switch this on, what happens?”

Avalon stopped in front of the computer, one of his “paws” half-removed. He seemed to realize what he was doing from the strange looks of the ponies around him, because he slid it back on before he said anything. “I’ve never tried anything like it before. The lunar facility is ready and waiting to receive us. Atop this building is a transmission antenna—through methods beyond your understanding, we will send anything we gather here to containment there. Expect something similar to what you experienced, perhaps a little worse. It… might kill a few. I can’t be certain.”

Hayden’s eyes lingered on Nightbreeze. But the bat’s eyes were wide, filled with a hatred that was nothing like the pony Hayden had known. Something foreign and unwelcome had settled there. “That means… our troops will be out of commission,” she said. “We have lots of bats, maybe half our ponies. Every Blackwing.

“I have already reassigned them. What fighting ponies we have that aren’t bats are assigned to protecting these points. The bats are now in reserve, guarding this tower, or other minor targets.” Luna said it off-hand, but Hayden could already feel the relief washing over her.

“It’s just us in here, War Marshal,” said Honed Edge from behind her, shifting uneasily in the advanced armor. He might be one of a handful of non-bats who even knew how to use it. She’d thought he was one of them from the wall, though obviously he couldn’t be.

Of course she would know how to deal with this. She’s been fighting wars a lot longer than I have.

“Then do it,” Hayden said. “We won’t get another chance like this.”

“It will be a painful process to repair my city,” Princess Luna muttered. “I can’t wait to get started. But no half measures this time. Icefalls will be even grander than Harmony.”

Avalon stopped in front of his portable keyboard. He’d apparently given up on keeping his hands concealed. He settled the fake paws onto the low table beside him, then went to work with his thin, pale digits. Keys clicked for a few seconds.

Hayden heard it first—the screams. She spun around, staring out into the hallway at where Lodestone had been standing. He had fallen over now, and he screamed as though he was being assaulted with an invisible knife.

He wasn’t the only one, either. Screams went up from all around the city, so loud Hayden could hear them over the occasional blast of cannon fire, or the rumble of strategic drums. Nopony in the room with her went down, and Hayden herself felt nothing. But Luna’s face twitched briefly, as though she were fighting down a cough.

Whatever it was, she must’ve succeeded, because she was the first to one of the tiny windows. “Outside, look! There’s something out there!”

There were five somethings, actually. Beams of light arched up from around the city, curving up and up until they met the roof of the tower itself. Each one burned a little to look at, a white that overpowered the purple of twilight and made reality itself seem pale. A cage rose up around what was left of Icefalls, trapping darkness within its bars.

“I hope they don’t—” Honed Edge began, at about the same moment the yelling stopped. Nightbreeze stopped struggling too. Hayden let herself hope for a single moment that the process was that easy, and her whole species had been cured at last.

But the cage was still there, and she could see that Lodestone was only just breathing. They’re unconscious. That’s probably more merciful than the pain they were feeling.

Hayden had gone through that, during her time in the centrifuge. It made sense these other bats would too. What happens if some of them give in to their feelings? They don’t have magic swords to kill demons.

“Is it done?” Luna asked, spinning back to look at Avalon. “The magic continues.”

“The magic has barely begun,” Avalon answered, his fingers flying across the keys so fast they were almost a blur. Hayden didn’t envy him, hunched as he was in a room that made him look like a giant. Sturdy bastard for someone his age. “It appears the process will require longer than my last scaled test.”

Hayden looked away as he said this, avoiding his eyes. But he didn’t elaborate. The fewer ponies know about this, the better. Even the princess. There would be no stopping her if she wanted to know. And if she did, then Hayden’s work was truly doomed.

“Two hours, perhaps slightly less. Don’t worry, I brought plenty of fuel. If you only knew what I was using to make this possible.”

Hayden resisted the desire to speculate. “Well, that’s it then. We just… wait for a few hours. Hopefully Equestria gets here by then. Maybe the fleet will go the other way…”

“Princess!” The trapdoor banged open, the pony sounding desperate. “The Stonebeaks are moving again! I think they must’ve seen… whatever that was. They didn’t like it.”

“Alright.” Princess Luna didn’t sound worried. She made her way over to the table, gesturing for the scout to join her. “Point to the parts of the fleet that are advancing. We can rearrange our—”

The scout pegasus cleared her throat, shuffling a little on her hooves. “Excuse me, Princess. I should’ve said that better. The Stonebeaks are advancing on Icefalls. All of them.”

Chapter 51: Payment Due

Hayden could feel her world crumbling around her. Victory had been almost inside their grasp, and now she could feel it slipping away.

“Can we stop the ritual?” she asked, painfully conscious of the war drums echoing from all sides now. Even from the north, though she couldn’t be sure how the griffons might’ve got themselves around that far. “I’d like to get my bats on their hooves again. We can’t have most of our soldiers unconscious.”

Avalon shook his head, not even looking up from his screens. “Not possible, Hayden. The one time I removed someone before they had been fully purified… the consequences were disastrous. The infection had been drawn out from their soul into their tissues… the patient did not survive.” From the look on his face, Hayden imagined something truly terrible as he said it. Then she imagined every bat in her city dying horrifically, except for a few.

“Then we have to go out,” Honed Edge said, his voice somewhat timid to be making suggestions around the princess. “We don’t have a choice. We have to keep fighting until this is finished.”

“Could we use another shield?” Hayden asked, probably the only pony in the room brave enough to question the princess now that Nightbreeze was unconscious. “We wouldn’t need a whole night this time, Princess.”

Luna shook her head, pointing at the lines of light out the window. “One of those goes straight up into the sky. To where the Outsiders will be imprisoned. If I cannot seal the area, a shield will not remain stable. So it would require all of my power, without protecting us for more than a few seconds. A terrible waste.”

“I have another idea,” Hayden said. “There’s our final contingency. The weather team. I’ve been holding them in reserve this whole time because of what might happen to the city. But it looks like the city’s lost anyway.”

“Yes,” Luna snapped. “Do it. And those of us with the ability to fight will go out and help protect these six points.”

“Edge,” Hayden said, voice squeaking briefly in her emotion. “Get to the weather factory, and help keep those ponies safe while they make it happen. Memorize this map—made sure they avoid these six spots. The rest of the city…” She shrugged her shoulders. The message was clear enough.

“But I—” He stopped, whatever his objection might’ve been strangled. He straightened again, then saluted. “Aye, ma’am. It was a pleasure… Princess.” He galloped out the door before she could see his face.

The war drums outside were beating louder. In the gloom of twilight, Hayden could see the ships getting closer now. Cannonfire brought down a few of the lead ships, as it always did. But there were so many, and plenty of these were little more than floating hulks. It looked like the griffons had learned to keep their least valuable targets in front, shielding the rear lines from their barrage.

That wouldn’t have worked with computer-guided weapons, but since Hayden’s ponies had to do the calculations themselves using tables…

“Now, there are six points we must defend,” Luna went on, her voice speeding up. “Each has a fighting strength of fifty ponies and twenty-five reserves. Given the numbers outside…” She shook her head. “Well, these two are the worst defended.” She pointed at their own tower, then out at the city. “We have no cannons, even if we are at the exact center of the ritual. But if the Stonebeaks hadn’t realized before where the orders were coming from, they will now. But this position here… this is sandbags and rubble on the street. All these others had existing fortifications to use.”

Princess Luna lifted her sword from its sheath, and held it out in the air for Hayden. “You must wield Achelois and defend this tower. I will use my magic and protect that position.” She looked around the room. “If any other ponies of fighting strength are discovered, or the bats recover themselves, send them out to reinforce all the other positions first.”

She raised her voice. “I can hear the war-songs of the Solar fleet. We will still be here when they arrive.”

And so that was where they went. Hayden had just enough time to return to her torn-up armor and reload her rifle before the Stonebeak ships reached the outer line. They passed straight through Avalon’s cage of light, as unaffected by it as the other ponies had been. Too bad. That would’ve been a convenient way to end this whole thing.

Hayden stood atop the tower, surrounded by some of the youngest recruits to her army she’d seen in active duty. Terrified faces stared out from behind too-big helmets as more experienced soldiers fought for their lives just a little further out.

“Equestria is coming for us, right?” asked a voice from behind her. She didn’t turn to look, but wasn’t that surprised to hear it was a mare. Plenty of them had joined near the end, but hadn’t completely finished their training. From the look of the soldiers up here, plenty of that training had been rushed.

In the center of the tower, Avalon had erected something like a massive satellite dish, worked of dark metal and surrounded by thick bundles of wire. Energy arced between them occasionally, then back up to the shaft of light that soared up into the sky. The ponies kept well away from the cables, walking over them only with the aid of wooden bridges. No one had told Hayden what would happen if she touched them, and none of them needed to.

“Equestria is coming,” Hayden said, spinning around to look at the young unicorn. The pony had her own arquebus resting over her shoulder—now that most of her army had been crippled, there were plenty of weapons to go around. “They’re close. We only have to hold out a little longer, and our families will be safe.”

The young soldiers flocked closer to her like moths in the dark might cluster to a flame. They didn’t really bother taking cover behind the battlements, even as the enemy ships drew closer.

Hayden couldn’t have that. She wasn’t just here to keep this part of the ritual going, or even to protect the ponies in the tower. She had to keep her soldiers alive too. “I don’t know how many unicorns we have,” she said. “Let me hear a count, we’ll go around starting from me.” There were eleven, as it happened. Unicorns must’ve been spread pretty thin, since their magic let them fire a weapon without the help of another soldier.

“Well, you eleven. Hand off your rifles to the reserve for this first attack. I count… three ships headed towards us. That big one in front, that’s a bomber. They’re going to drop barrels of boiling oil on us. Let’s rearrange… I want you ponies spread out…” They did, and she split their attention so that they could be focusing on individual sections of the room at a time. “Now, get ready to push it away. Not up, that would be too hard. Just push sideways on any barrel falling towards your half, so it doesn’t hit the floor we’re standing on. If they burn us all to death, this won’t be a very long fight.”

The steady beat of friendly war-drums became a distant, unsteady cadence. The ponies who would’ve been keeping them steady were fighting now. Most of the cannons had stopped firing too, or at least weren’t shooting regularly. The enemy was upon them. Hayden heard many shots from many rifles, the flashes of magic, but she forced herself to tune all of that out. She couldn’t defend the other six points, she could only protect the one.

And so they fought. The griffons held back on sending soldiers during their initial attack, preferring to land them on the ground outside the keep and assault the fortifications that way while the towers were bombed from the sky.

But the keep was solid stone, and not very flammable. Hayden’s soldiers were, but her unicorns didn’t make a single fatal mistake. A few times barrels struck the edge of the parapets, leaving patches of flaming pitch that made some part of the tower inaccessible, but not even one of her ponies had been burned by them.

Eventually it was too dark, and the griffons gave up on that. Then they came in earnest.

Hayden fired every shot in her advanced rifle, until the plastic case had started to glow and distort with the heat of it. When she had killed dozens of them that way, she was forced to resort to the sword.

She kept her own ponies in a circle, always firing outward so they wouldn’t shoot each other by mistake. While less experienced ponies protected the lines from the side, she covered the air.

Hayden had seen historical accounts of battles like this before. She found herself thinking back to the ancient colonial conflicts, when a small number of British regulars and South Africans had held off thousands of Zulu warriors. But for that fight, none of the British troops had been able to fly with a magic sword.

They fought for hours. There was some respite—unlike the other points, they could get fresh supplies from the keep, which had enough powder to survive a siege, as well as send their wounded below instead of leaving them on the killing field.

There were so many corpses that Hayden had to order them pushed over the parapets, and pour sand onto the stone to keep them from losing their footing in the blood.

She was only distantly conscious of the raging storm that swept across the Stonebeak fleet, her so-called final contingency. Only once was there enough of a break in the fighting for her to try and get a good look at it.

By the time the last of the ships had given up, Hayden’s troops had dwindled to less than half of what they’d been before. Most were only injured, but plenty more had been killed, and lay respectfully covered by one side instead of shoved into the night.

Hayden finally dared to let herself look up and survey the city.

At first, she couldn’t even see the Grand Fleet. In the far distance the storm still raged across the city, carrying the still-burning wreckage of ships and buildings. The fleet was back there somewhere, matched against a fleet of white and gold ships with sun banners.

The Equestrian fleet no longer looked outnumbered, either. But still the griffons fought. Hayden looked closer to home.

The light was still there, though something had changed about it. There was something in the air above the city now, something so large and dark that it nearly took up the entire sky. A part of her wondered if it was the real reason that the griffons had fled, and not their last-resort storm.

It looked a little like a bat pony, if a bat pony had wings a mile wide and a body like a deep blue starfield swirling with purple nebulae and eyes like black holes. Its size made its movements look like they were in slow-motion, battering up against the cage as it closed in around it.

Then she saw something else. The part of the diagram behind the tower still had two griffon ships hovering above. And it looked like they had taken most of the ground too.

Oh god.

Hayden rose up into the air, lifting Achelois as she did so. “Azure, you’re in charge!” she said. “Looks like we’re done here. Just stay alive!”

And she flew, into a dive that brought her in as narrow as she possibly could. But Hayden wasn’t flying fast anymore, and she didn’t have much strength left. She’d given just about everything she had defending Icefalls. There was so little left.

She landed beside Princess Luna. The princess had several griffon swords and bludgeons in the air beside her, though she held them with a droop. There wasn’t a single pony alive on the ground around them, at least not any that weren’t running away into the city in terror.

Birds were pounding at the equipment with their clubs. The little metal box already had half a dozen holes from crossbows, though it didn’t seem to mind those. How much more can it take?

They didn’t say a word, fighting their way through at least a dozen of the enemy. Hayden fought with everything she had, yet she felt like a child compared to the one beside her. Luna’s tools were primitive and broken but she could still use them to catch crossbow bolts and bludgeon enemies coming at her from behind.

Then a bird thought to tear the cables. Hayden heard them come undone with a terrible crack of lightning, and one of the six little beams of light went out.

Slowly, at least from Hayden’s point of view, the Outsider noticed. It spread its wings wide, and tore through the opening in the broken spell.

Chapter 52: The Moon Decides

The world dissolved around her. Hayden felt the ground lifting up and away from her hooves. The ponies all around her dissolved into the nothing, and all the world was unmade. The great keep of Icefalls cracked and came up into the air in tiny pieces, followed by little chunks of stone that were the buildings. What her terrible storm hadn’t destroyed to keep the griffons at bay for a few minutes more, now crumbled away

It’s just a dream, it’s just a dream, it’s just a dream.

Then she saw something stable. Princess Luna appeared beside her, neither standing nor floating. There was no ground anymore, no planet, nothing but an endless void.

“Is this the end of the world?” Hayden asked. Her voice stretched and fractured near the end, splitting in two. There was her own sound, the one she was used to. Then there was a lower, more masculine voice. The person she’d been before. There was no sun here, but even so she could see her shadow splitting in two. No. I’ve seen this before.

“Not yet.” Princess Luna pointed past her, up into the air with one hoof. Hayden followed her leg, and saw that what she’d thought was a sky was the massive, spectral pony. It seemed to be getting smaller now, but not weaker. It was compacting itself, the darkness spiraling deeper and deeper into oblivion. It reminded her a little of Luna’s mane, except the place this creature led to wasn’t one Hayden wanted to see.

Hayden reacted on instinct, the same way she had the last time. She brought Achelois into her hands. Hands… she was standing on two legs. She’d been in this strange amalgamated body before, only this time she was even more pony. Her feet ended in stumps, she wasn’t taller than Luna, and her fingers felt stiff. Her wings and tail were still there, and she was naked. She couldn’t tell whether she was male or female, and didn’t really want to look.

“I think your sword can kill it,” Hayden said, holding it out to the princess. “Last time, when I was… I called the sword to me, and used it to kill the demon. I bet you could do it even easier.”

“Okay.” Luna shivered, taking the sword in her magic. Despite Hayden’s strange body, she found the princess looked even less confident. The demonic figure was approaching pony size now, its darkness so compact that it almost seemed solid. Except that instead of one shadow, it had thousands, each one of them a vague pony outline that bent a different way. Every one of them looked to be in agony.

Then it spoke. Its voice was so much larger than the one Hayden had heard from inside her own soul. “Equestria has been waiting for me. I have arrived at last.”

“You are not welcome here.” Princess Luna strode forward towards the monster, and with her will a full suit of armor appeared around her. It looked strange, a silvery metal that reminded Hayden a little of the sword. Whatever that is, I want it.

Then she had it, a paper-thin silver chain with light plates over her most vulnerable parts. And it came with clothes, which didn’t go unwanted. Can I just… She conjured herself her own sword, shaped exactly like Achelois. But she felt none of the heft in her hand when she moved it, none of the same weight. She heard no whispers in her mind promising to end suffering. It’s just a prop. It’s pretend.

Her hands still felt better gripped around it. She only hoped she could swing as well with them. Unicorn fighting styles had quick movements that never would’ve worked if the sword was in an arm.

“Equus has rejected what you offer,” Luna said, a little more confidently. “Return to the abyss that birthed you. We have no argument with you.”

The pony stalked around them, perhaps ten feet tall. It spread its batlike wings, bore its dark fangs, and Hayden saw only oblivion in its eyes. “That is not true, Princess. You may lie to those you call friends. You may lie to your family, and your teachers, and your servants. But you cannot lie to me. I’m the one you called here. It was your voice that brought me to Equestria. It was in your image that I was created.”

“No.” Luna wilted, the sword sinking a little in her magical grip. She backed away from the creature, glancing about her like a cornered animal. “You’re lying. That’s not true. I didn’t want you!”

“Why would I lie to you?” the voice asked. “The truth is so much more powerful. You didn’t think your subjects loved you. You didn’t think your sister cared. You wanted someone who could change you, isn’t that true?”

“And I got Hayden!” Luna practically shouted. “She was the one I called, not you!”

“You did,” Hayden said, resting her empty hand on Luna’s shoulder. She was just barely tall enough to reach. “I’m the one she was looking for. I’m the one who came for her. Not a monster like you.”

“A monster like her,” argued the voice, as neutral as it had been before. “You know the truth, Princess. You know that the ritual Star Swirl gave you was the second one you used to call for help. We both know where your daemon got my touch. From you.”

Princess Luna practically melted. The sword sunk in her magical grip, its blade falling so low it would’ve scraped against the ground if there was any.

“You’re lying! Princess, she’s lying! It’s obvious what she’s doing to you, stop listening! We can kill her, together!”

The pony stopped, feet away from Hayden. Its body looked even more disturbing close up, a roiling sea of molten tar. “You cannot kill what never lived, human. Sleep is only permitted to the spirit, and I am far more than that. I am an eternal truth, an endless star. I am the order to the chaos of organic life. I am the darkness between the stars, I am the gradient beyond which no energy can be exchanged. Others like me may lie, but I do not. I only speak the truths you do not want to hear.”

The creature leaned closer to her, lowering her voice to a whisper. “Hayden never lived. He was only a dream—a dream Luna conjured from her soul in the memory of a great man. A better man than you could ever hope to be, because he existed and you never did.”

Hayden flinched, her hands digging tighter into the sword. She didn’t move, didn’t look away from the monster. Tried not to think about its words.

“How easily did you adapt to life here, Evening Star? How quickly did you forget you had ever been male? Princess Luna doesn’t know how a male would really feel, so it was only the discomfort she gave you. How quickly did you learn to walk, to fly? How easily did you share her abilities? And yet you still clung to the artifacts she conjured, as though those proved you were real. She made a body for you, so why not objects from the world of man?”

The demon laughed again, surrounding them. The glow had paled to a distant flicker, and there was none of it left for them. “A real human would have won this war. Real humans don’t give up. They don’t permit failures. Real humans kill with impunity and destroy all that they touch. The order it took ten thousand years to bring to Equestria will come to their world in a decade. But you will not ever see it, because you never have.”

Liar. It’s all lies. I know I’m real, I’ve always been real. Hayden thought back, but digging so far into her memories was hard. His family had been dead before he got here, only child of two parents who had passed away while he was still in high school. She’d worked as a contractor, served in the military, gone to school. She’d become an architect, found herself a place in a good firm… her memories were there. However faded, however hard to reach after her time in Equestria. Some things had remained.

“You can’t lie to me,” she said, more confidently than Luna had. “You can’t lie to us. Princess, use the sword! Kill it, and we can save Icefalls… or the ponies, anyway. We’ll save them!”

Princess Luna’s expression had gone dark. Her coat looked like it had lost most of the color, and her mane had faded to simple blue. She was muttering something to herself, but Hayden couldn’t hear it. Achelois looked like it was rusting along its surface, a thin spiderweb of red that spread gradually from that central point.

“Celestia came back for us!”

That did it. Princess Luna blinked, opened her eyes, and lifted the sword back into the air. The layer of rust crumbled away to ash, and the sword looked brighter than ever.

The demon-pony attacked. Its body didn’t remain together, but exploded into a thousand dark tendrils. Princess Luna lowered her horn and light shone from all around them.

The figure vanished in a flash, shot out into the dark sky around a ruined Icefalls.

Princess Luna dropped to one knee, staring up after it. Her horn smoked, and Achelois glowed faintly blue in her magic.

“That’s it?”

“No.” Luna extended one wing, touching Hayden briefly on the shoulder. “It’s so powerful, Hayden. I can feel it… I can feel it clawing into my mind. And if it doesn’t… if we win, all we do is set it loose on Equestria.”

“And we kill it in Equestria!” Hayden could see the darkness growing above them. A moon of blackness appeared in the featureless sky, sinking rapidly towards them. The scale seemed to defy her understanding, impossible to take in with just her eyes. “Celestia will be there, I’ll be there! Avalon, everypony else. We’ll win!”

“Not like this we won’t.” Princess Luna lowered her voice to a whisper. “But I think I know how you could.”

Hayden shook her head, feeling tears streaming away from her eyes. No, not now. Not after everything. We’re so close.

It seemed like the princess could hear her thoughts. “She could never give up an Alicorn. I’m what she really wants, a host. Outsiders… they want one thing more than all others—stability. Nothing’s more secure than an Alicorn. If I accept her… then she’ll be in one place. You can kill me, trap me, whatever it takes.”

Hayden raised her sword again. “No! Fight with me, Luna! There are some things you just can’t do! It doesn’t matter the cost, we can’t let her win!”

Luna pushed the sword away, pulling Hayden into a hug with her wing. She squeezed her against her fur, just once. “You showed me a better way, Hayden. If it wasn’t for you… I think she might’ve had me. I would really be the monster she wants. Thank you.”

“No!” Hayden screamed louder, shoving the princess away with both hands. Her sword was gone, her armor was gone, and yet she didn’t care. “Luna, don’t! We’ll find another way! Celestia, Star Swirl… somepony will know what to do! Or… at least let me do it! I’m the one who doesn’t matter. You’re the one who belongs here.”

The princess only shook her head, taking off into the air. “Your power wouldn’t tempt her. You’re a spell, a traveler without her own connection to this world. But I’m not.”

Princess Luna rose into the air, turning to a blur as she accelerated towards the dark creature. “I accept your offer, Outsider! Give me the power to take what I deserve!” She didn’t sound like she meant it. But the demon didn’t seem to care. It swelled all around her like the tide, and all of Hayden's world was consumed.

Princess Luna was swallowed in its power.

Chapter 53: Within Reach

It was just a dream, it was just a dream…

Hayden found herself returning to consciousness in the burned-out wreckage of a fortification, surrounded by the dead. There were hundreds of them—ponies, birds, a few other creatures. All dead around the place where she and Luna had fought for their lives.

She was herself again, no longer some strange hybrid of pony and human. The sky was still dark, though there was something missing. The cage of light, the creature it had contained, both were gone.

There was another figure here, fighting off griffons with Achelois beside her. She could see Luna’s sparkling mane, flecked with bits of red as Luna cut her way through dozens of the enemy. The same griffon force that they had barely survived before she now turned into bits of meat in a few quick seconds.

“Princess? Are you alright? I dreamed…”

Luna turned around, and Hayden gasped. Luna’s coat was darkening by the second, even as she seemed to be getting taller. Her horn got longer and sharper, her eyes pale slits that trailed glowing smoke.

It wasn’t a dream.

“We will now come into the power we deserve, my familiar. For thousands of years my sister has permitted our enemies to live—you see the consequence of this all around you.” She strode through the broken wreckage, over the bodies of the dead, and there was no pain on her face, only anger.

“You’re going to… wipe out the Stonebeaks?” Hayden looked up, but she couldn’t see the battle in the distance. This fortification had been near ground level, so whatever the fleets were doing was blocked by Icefalls’s wrecked buildings.

And wrecked they were. Hayden had been so occupied with simple survival that she hadn’t seen the damage of her contingency until now. But now it was clear—anything that wasn’t built of stone had been swept away by the storm, with great sections of stone walls caved in and roofs collapsed. At least the fires had been put out.

Even so, Icefalls was destroyed. Between the fleet and their own defense, there was nothing left.

Except the people. The citizens are still alive in the shelters. Stone and gold don’t matter.

“The griffons, yes. I will start with them. Then will come our true enemies. The dragons with their endless threats, the yaks with their blustering, the hippogriffs who refused to submit to our rule… my sister has permitted chaos for too long.”

There was nothing of Luna’s purple left. Her coat was black now, and even her cutie mark seemed to shine the wrong way. Where before Hayden had felt almost equal to the princess, Luna towered over her. “But those threats will come second, familiar. The outsiders have never posed as much danger to Equestria as its own failures. We would not be here, surrounded by these dead, were it not for the traitors in our own ranks. Were it not for my sister’s pettiness. The ponies of Equestria were so afraid of night that they hunted and feared those who even resembled it. We will end this as well, together.”

“We…” Hayden gulped. She could feel the darkness around the princess now. It wasn’t just her looks. But seeing her was like looking back into her nightmares. The creature was still there, buried deep in Luna’s soul. And there’s no way to get it out. “We lost almost everything, Princess. My army was incapacitated, most of my fortifications were destroyed.” She gestured around them at the ruined bodies. “So many who loved you are dead, Luna. The two of us can’t fight the whole world.”

“No,” the princess agreed. “And not Luna, anymore. That name reflects my weakness back at me. The ponies of Equestria will call me by something stronger. The weak and the traitors will soon have nightmares of my moon—perhaps that is what they’ll call me. Before I purge them, anyway. But… you are correct. We cannot fight this war on our own, and it would be wrong for these ponies who gave their lives for my kingdom to go unrewarded.”

Her horn started to glow, a sickly green that made Hayden’s stomach turn in knots. She didn’t know much about Equestrian magic—Star Swirl hadn’t taught her. But she didn’t need lessons to know that she was seeing something wrong.

Then the corpses started to stand back up. It didn’t matter what condition the soldiers were in. Guts hanging out, missing limbs, craters instead of faces. They got up, green light burning behind their eyes. It wasn’t even just the ponies—the bodies of dead birds rose up with just as much furor, and each lifted whatever weapon was nearest. Arquebuses, crossbows, swords, whatever they could reach.

“N-no,” Hayden squeaked. She could see the strange light wasn’t localized to just around her. Green shone out from all over the city, lighting up the distant streets. From the wrecked walls, crashed airships, it was all lighting up. “You can’t, Luna. This is… it’s wrong. We don’t have to fight this way.”

“Not Luna.” The pony ground her teeth together. “It would be wrong of us to do nothing, familiar. It would be wrong for us to accept the world as it is, and not to use the power given to us to bring order.”

The dead ambled forward, limping and hopping and sometimes flying their way over to the courtyard.

And they weren’t the only ones. It wasn’t just the dead who had heard the nightmare princess’s call, but bats as well. Soldiers from the ruined city flew and marched, darkness swirling about their coats like lesser versions of the creature before her.

That’s way less than there should be. Well over half Icefalls’s population had been bats, yet there looked to be about a thousand of them. Not all of them had weapons, either. Hayden had distributed those to her soldiers who could still fight.

“Only one thing remains.” The princess turned on her, looming taller and taller as she approached. “You will fight beside me, won’t you Hayden? You’ve suffered more injustice at the hooves of the weak and corrupt of Equestria. You deserve as much revenge as I do.”

Until then, Luna hadn’t really used the connection between them. But now she felt it, like she was holding a tether that led down into a swirling vortex. Something larger and mightier than her was trying to destroy her.

There was power on the other side of that connection. “You can be a proper Alicorn,” whispered the voice. “You can have the power to put the world right. You can bring justice to all those who wronged you.”

Hayden retreated from that voice, ignoring the sweet promises it made. She shook her head. “N-no. I can’t. I never wanted revenge. I just wanted to keep Icefalls alive.”

Rot surrounded her, ponies dripping their vital fluids. Ponies of honor, who had fought for her and were desecrated as their reward.

“Stop!” she shouted, straightening. “Princess, no! All of this is wrong. I don’t know how much of you is still in there, but this isn’t what you really wanted. It’s a… demon. You have to fight it!”

Not just one. There were so many corpses, and so many other things. She recognized many of the armored bats as her own Blackwings, loyalty apparently broken at last. Slipstream stood at attention with his troops before the princess.

Not-Luna lifted Achelois a little higher in her magic, glowering at Hayden. “That’s it, then. After all I’ve done for you, after a year of fighting against Equestria… you betray me now?”

Hayden shook her head. “I know what you’re thinking of, Luna. I won’t do it, and neither would you if you were still yourself.”

“Then I have no more use for you.” She lifted the sword over her head, holding it high in her magic. Though there was something… not quite right about the way it looked. What was Hayden seeing? “All those who will not recognize the true regent of all Equestria will be destroyed. Nopony is exempt from order.”

Hayden stood a little straighter. She didn’t fight—she knew she didn’t have a prayer against the thing that Luna had become. She spread her wings, meeting her eyes. “I’m sorry I failed you, Princess. I hope one day there’s someone stronger than me.”

Not-Luna screamed in frustration, bringing Achelois down straight for Hayden’s neck. Then her magic fizzled out. The sword pivoted in the air, but it didn’t fall. It came to rest inches beside Hayden. The voice of Achelois returned to her mind. I will not serve the voice of corruption. After all these years, she was consumed as so many others before her. We will take away her pain.

The princess screamed in agony, smoke rising from her horn as she backed away, eyes wide. “Traitor! You can’t even die with respect!” She took off, and at once all those who had assembled that still had working wings leapt into the air to join her. “The rest of you, destroy her! I no longer desire a daemon or a familiar.”

A cloud of dark ponies rose up from the city, growing thicker and thicker as bats from all over Icefalls joined it.

Then a griffon without its beak surged at Hayden with rotting claws.

She didn’t think—Achelois moved, and she cut through the creature’s rotting head. Green lights went out from behind its eyes.

All over the ruins, not-Luna’s army began to growl. There were thousands of them—mostly brutalized griffons, but plenty of dead unicorns and earth ponies from Hayden’s own army.

In your hands I will give them peace, said the sword into her mind, as Hayden fought her way through the horde. Achelois did not merely slice through undead flesh, it seared it. Hayden knew nothing about what she was doing, yet she got the sense that no other weapon would serve her so well.

Hayden didn’t want to keep fighting, not after coming so close to victory and seeing all her hopes crushed before her eyes. But she couldn’t stop. Achelois wanted her to fly into the night and attack the nightmare creature. But she couldn’t do that. She couldn’t kill Luna any more than she could stab herself in the chest. Assuming she had wanted to.

She did this for us. She had a plan. Hayden wondered if her plan had included the terrible damage Luna might do to the world before someone finally ended the threat she had brought. How many ponies would die to these creatures?

We can’t stop fighting. Look at the way they suffer. See the agony in their eyes to be used this way. You must succeed where your predecessor failed. You must take away their pain.

She tried. The undead were not alert fighters, nor did they seem terribly motivated to kill her. Even the griffons, which lashed out and squawked in unintelligible gurgles, did nothing remotely tactical in the way they attacked. It didn’t help that the only griffons were the ones too damaged to fly.

Eventually, Hayden could fight no more. She collapsed in the ruined field, surrounded by the charred bodies of newly-dead zombies. All that had come before her had been returned to the grave. Not-Luna was gone into the night—Hayden’s city had been mostly reduced to rubble, the Stonebeak fleet was nowhere in sight. It had all come undone around her.

What more could I have done? I tried so hard.

Hayden gripped the sword close to her, hoping its strange steel would give her comfort. But she could feel none. Only hear Nightbreeze’s voice in the wind of memory.

You can’t save them all.

And she hadn’t. She’d barely saved any of them.

Sun broke over the horizon, over a scene of bloody red clouds. Hayden looked up, and found herself smiling for the first time. The icy shell over the mountain’s secret dock was shattered, and the space inside was empty. The Excellus was gone.

And there were still all the civilians in the converted mine bunker. Maybe I didn’t fail them all.

She saw something else silhouetted against the early morning sky. Not the dark princess and her own suborned bat pony army, but a single golden ship flying a bright sun banner. Flying straight for her.

Chapter 54: Accord

Hayden was still there when the golden airship stopped in the air above her. She hadn’t moved from her place since then, filled as she was with pain and exhausted from the siege that had almost saved Icefalls. So many ponies she had failed. So much death that was her fault.

Maybe I should’ve gone with Princess Luna. At least then I wouldn’t be suffering like this. Hayden tried reaching out for the creature every few minutes, hoping that maybe she could persuade Luna to change her mind. Maybe she would join the right side if only given a compelling reason.

But the one time she really tried, reaching across space to see what the princess was feeling, she was almost overwhelmed by it. The ground seemed to turn to lava, burning her alive, charring her bones to ash, and blowing her away in the wind. She returned to her body gasping for air.

Somepony was descending from above her now, drifting slowly down from the deck of the golden airship. A white pony in golden armor, with her horn glowing with the light of morning sun.

She touched down on a pile of rubble across the way from Hayden, the ground shifting on her hooves as she did so. The light of morning sun seemed to stretch behind her, becoming so bright that Hayden couldn’t focus her eyes on it.

She didn’t have the energy to rise from her place anymore, either physically or emotionally. Hayden had given everything in the service of Equestria, done everything she could to help her bats, but it hadn’t been enough. The city had… well, she couldn’t be sure. But the demonic firestorm had left only rubble surrounding her now. “You,” Princess Celestia said, her voice cold. She didn’t even lift her visor, just stalked towards her over the wreckage. “I imagined a creature like you would have known the danger of remaining behind. Did you really think you had the power to convince ponies you were anything but an Outsider after what we just saw? The taint of necromancy on this city is so strong I don’t think anything will grow here again. I can already feel the chill wind of decay sweeping in.”

Hayden struggled to her hooves. Her legs shook with the effort, but she managed it anyway. Stood alert facing the one who would have to deal with her mistake. You should’ve killed me when I got here. Then none of this would’ve happened. “You should know what happened, C-Celestia. To your sister. Before you…” She swallowed. The rest went unsaid.

Celestia stopped in place, listening attentively. “When I saw she had rejoined the war, I dared to hope that I had been wrong about you all this time. I dreamed that what my sister truly lacked was purpose, and you had given it to her. But that isn’t true, is it?”

“It was,” Hayden said, and she didn’t avoid the Princess’s eyes. It wasn’t like she couldn’t sense the terrible power that lived there—couldn’t sense the rage of an oncoming storm, pausing only for an instant before it swept Hayden into the abyss. “Your sister didn’t succumb to the temptations of the Outsiders. We… failed to defend the city while we performed the purification ritual. The Grand Fleet attacked.” She stiffened, glancing over Celestia’s shoulders. “That reminds me, Princess. They’re probably coming back. This respite won’t last long; you have to—”

“They aren’t going anywhere ever again,” Princess Celestia said. “That storm destroyed every ship that didn’t flee. We took care of the rest. I don’t know what we will do with the survivors… but that difficulty isn’t for you. Finish your story, but don’t think I will believe it.”

Hayden nodded quietly. She no longer cared much what happened to her. Maybe now she could finally understand what the moon princess had suffered for Hayden’s time in Equestria. “Avalon’s ritual ended before we finished getting the demons out of my people. It all came together and… attacked your sister. She took it all, so it would all be trapped in one place. In her. Wants you to…” She swallowed, looking down. “You know.”

Celestia’s eyes hardened from within her helmet. “That’s it then. The familiar has turned against her master. You know this feeble lie will only get you killed as well, yes? You cannot exist without her, regardless of what world you think you came from.”

Hayden nodded. “I’m only telling you what she wanted you to know. She hoped that you would be able to… well, I won’t instruct you.” She looked down, lowering her head before the princess. “When you kill me, please don’t forget about the ponies of Icefalls. If any of them survived the necromancy, they’ll be hiding in the old mine. There’s an entrance in the lunar monastery, in the well. Please don’t leave my people down there to starve.”

Princess Celestia’s horn flashed, and a sword appeared beside her. It had a blade like a long tongue of white fire, stretching to blue along its edges. “You almost convinced me, Evening Star. All these months a thorn in my side, making it impossible to protect Equestria. You think you did those ponies a service by keeping them safe all this time, but you’re wrong. My sister—” The sword faltered in the air, drooping a few inches towards Hayden’s neck. “Whatever she’s become—is a far greater danger than anything the Stonebeaks could’ve been. They were only ever foals scratching against the door.

“But you opened all the windows, threw open the door, and let the storm come inside. Creation itself trembles at the presence of an Outsider. All the power I have may not be enough to bring her in. The Elements of Harmony, those few I can use without her…” Her voice cracked, and she raised the sword high over her head. “But they won’t be enough. This is no punishment for you, it is a mercy. You won’t have to live in the Equestria you destroyed. But since we both know you’re really just another of the unmade, I expect we’ll speak again soon.”

There was a part of Hayden that only wanted to lower her head again, let Princess Celestia do as she felt. Yes, her death would cause Princess Luna pain. Maybe the moon princess would be weak enough to be destroyed by whatever the Elements were. But she didn’t remain silent, even if some selfish part of her wanted to. People needed her.

“If my tower still stands… look for the diamond dog called Avalon. We were preparing a plan to contain the corruption. We were so close… maybe some part of that plan could save your sister’s life too. Trap her, instead of killing her.”

Celestia stopped the sword mid-swing. Her mane blazed out behind her, and the ground all around them started to scorch. Nearby scraps of cloth and paper burst into flames, and a fallen pony body started sizzling. But for some reason the terrible heat didn’t char Hayden the way it looked like it should. Even if she could still feel the incredible energy, and it made her shudder. “The act is over, demon! I know what you are! You destroyed the lives of so many—you don’t need to pretend anymore! You may’ve just set into motion the end of our world at last. Carcosa wasn’t the end after all, was it? Why won’t you gloat? Why won’t you take credit? You’ve bested all of us! You out-maneuvered me! All this death—I know it’s what you wanted. An Outsider who was willing to build, if only to have a taller castle to destroy.”

Hayden didn’t wilt at the onslaught. She didn’t look away, didn’t cower. She was too weak for that. And anyway, the flames weren’t burning her. Her armor, was another matter—bits of the thin metal plates had started glowing bright red. They probably should be burning her too. But Hayden just shook her head. “I would’ve taken the burden instead of her if I could have, Celestia. But Luna said… said I wasn’t stable enough. Said the Outsider wanted something to make it more real, and that I wasn’t real enough. I’m not an Outsider. I wanted to save Icefalls. I hope you’ll at least save the ones you can. The bats too, if there are any left. I don’t know how many followed Luna.”

Celestia’s reply was a scream of rage, so furious that it sounded far more like an angry animal than Hayden had ever heard in Equestria. She dropped her own sword, which puffed out in a flash of flames, picking up Achelois off the ground between them where it had fallen. “Don’t think I didn’t notice you weren’t touching this, demon. I don’t know how you fooled this sword before… maybe my sister had been corrupted even back then, and she was there, commanding it to spare you. It always liked her best of the two of us. But it won’t spare you now.”

She swung, and this time Hayden didn’t move. The sword caught her in the neck, on the flat instead of the blade. It stung, and Hayden winced. The sword was in contact with her body only for a few moments, long enough for her to feel its confusion. Why is the fire trying to burn stones that contain it?

Because they deserve it.

That is the wrong kind of pain. The sword did not elaborate. Celestia screamed again, swinging twice more. But the sword moved each time, refusing to cut her. “She’s not innocent!” Celestia yelled, this time directly down at the sword. “Feel her! She’s one of them! An Outsider!” She pressed the sword up against Hayden’s neck, forcing her to freeze in place. Only, it didn’t cut. The edge felt as blunt against her skin as a length of rebar.

She could hear it again. The pain you feel is terrible. But it isn’t hers to pay for. Your sister has become corrupt—my new master refused her. Look around you. See how many of the dead she returned to slumber. If she was as strong as you, she would have given peace to them all. Sadly, the bat is only human.

Celestia froze, glaring down at the sword a moment more. Hayden feared she might attack it, maybe try to shatter the disobedient weapon for the suffering it had caused her. Then she dropped it, slumping down onto her haunches. There was silence then, except for the wind blowing through the ruins of Icefalls.

“You mentioned the Elements of Harmony,” Hayden said, lifting the sword in her magic and cleaning the dust from it using the edge of her armor. “Could they contain an Outsider? Whatever they are. The name is familiar, but… I didn’t pay as much attention when your sister tried to teach me about unicorn things.”

Celestia didn’t answer for several seconds. “I do not know. They have already protected Equus from terrible things—prevented the damage done to it long ago from making the planet uninhabitable. They contained Discord. But it doesn’t matter even if they could. My sister and I used the Elements together. I don’t think… I don’t think Luna would use them against herself.”

“What about me? I’m her daemon, her familiar. I could use her sword even before it chose me as its master.” Hayden sheathed Achelois on her side, and the weight there no longer felt uncomfortable. “I might not know her like you do… she isn’t my sister. But I know she wouldn’t want to rampage over Equestria, killing the ponies she loves. Or… I honestly don’t know. But after the demon took her, I think… I think she’s going to try to take over. That’s what she said. She wanted me to fight beside her.”

Hayden rested one hoof on the hilt. “I don’t have to be from your world to understand I don’t want anything to do with the Outsiders.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “And if it means anything—Luna refused the demon too. It didn’t tempt her, it didn’t corrupt her… she only did this for us.”

Celestia gestured around them with a wing. “Icefalls is destroyed, War Marshal. There is no chance of rebuilding it now. The necromancy my sister used here will sicken even the strongest ponies in time. We will have to… evacuate the survivors, along with chasing her.”

I hope you made it, Nightbreeze. And so many others. “There are capable ponies in the tower, if it still stands. You could…” God I can’t believe I’m doing this. Celestia and I are on the same side. Against Luna. “We should tell them what to do. Tell them that you won’t attack if they take the survivors south. Because…” She was feeling braver now, more confident. Hayden had faced death and emerged on the other side. “Because that’s my price. For helping you—their lives. If you won’t promise me that, then you can confront Luna alone.”

Celestia extended a hoof. “If Equus survives, we have a bargain.”

Chapter 55: Survivors

As it turned out, the keep had survived. Whole sections of its eastern walls had caved in and the glass windows had been reduced to splinters, but other than that the building was intact, with Hayden’s own soldiers waiting outside. They stared out on the desolation of Icefalls with bleak, empty eyes. Demographics had shifted too—there wasn’t a single bat here.

I shouldn’t have tried to keep you, Nightbreeze, Hayden thought to herself as she strode out of the ruins. Instead of saluting her, one of the guards fell onto the ground at her hooves, weeping. “High Marshal… the city… we failed. The garrison has fallen. The city is lost.”

Hayden reached him. She picked up the spear where it had fallen, shoved it back towards the unicorn’s grip. “I know, soldier. We’re going home.”

“Where?” he asked, his voice even more hopeless than it had been moments earlier. “We’re bucked. The north is a wasteland, Equestria would hang us all…”

“Not anymore.” Princess Celestia stood beside her then, along with a half-dozen of the Solar Guard. The airship didn’t hover the keep, however, but remained firmly parked in the air above the lunar temple. Even as they spoke, the Solar Guard would be breaking their way into the shelter, trying to help the civilians inside out of the mine and up onto the surface. “You have made Equestria proud. Now your war is over.” She raised her voice a little, so that all the guards around them could hear. Plenty of nearby ponies just dropped into a bow at her presence, visibly shaking.

“Let it be known, ponies of Icefalls. You have triumphed over the Stonebeaks—their tribe is broken. You will not be left up here to starve when next winter comes. Gather your families, gather enough supplies for a long march. Tomorrow morning you will leave this place. Equestria will receive you.”

She turned to Hayden. “Let us see what has become of your command structure. We will delegate.”

The inside of the keep wasn’t in much better shape than the city all around it. Dozens of the dead had been piled in respectful rows in the courtyard, waiting for the time when they could be buried.

It seemed as though an enemy had breached every hall, every room. Hayden found a soldier—a young, female pegasus, probably one of her messengers. “Please, soldier. What happened last night? After the ritual failed…”

The pony took a long time to answer. She looked between the two of them, seemed to start and stop a bow several times. “They all left,” she said, voice hoarse. “The bats, High Marshal. They all… when we tried to stop them, they fought. Honed Edge eventually ordered everyone to get out of their way. They flew away—not just the soldiers, but everypony else too. Scholars, doctors, messengers… all gone.”

Hayden nodded. “It wasn’t their fault. The ritual to purify them was incomplete.” And all the ones I used it on are gone. Princess Celestia apparently hadn’t noticed the massive chasm in the ice above them, or if she had she didn’t care. Hayden was in no hurry to tell her.

As it turned out, the one holding things together in the command tower wasn’t even a soldier. It was Synthesis, grandson of the original Icefalls steward. Granted, he hadn’t done much. Just sent search parties out into the ruins looking for survivors, and dig a grave for the dead. But something approximating a chain of command was still here.

Ponies fell silent as the two of them entered the tower, mostly fear on pony faces as they saw Celestia. But Hayden’s presence with her stopped them from doing anything stupid.

“What happened to Avalon?” Hayden asked, almost tripping over a length of scorched cable on the floor. From the look of things, all of Avalon’s machines down here had melted into slag when the ritual failed. They hadn’t been cleaned up yet.

“He said he was… flying south to protect his home,” Synthesis said, never looking up at Celestia. “He left something for you. I didn’t know what to do with it, but he said you would.”

Hayden extended a hoof, and Synthesis settled a little tablet computer down from a shelf.

Princess Celestia eyed it, and the machines all around, with obvious skepticism. When she spoke, it was in a hushed voice that only Hayden could hear. “The Sleeping Masters. You have their machines.”

“That’s the sixth or seventh name for them I’ve heard. We’re humans.” Though she no longer believed that remark quite so much as her memory suggested. A real human would have won this war. Real humans don’t give up. They don’t permit failures. Real humans kill with impunity and destroy all that they touch.

“No,” Celestia said, though she didn’t sound argumentative. “Humans are their predecessors. Humans are like ponies, except that they build more than we do.”

She knows about them too. This whole time. Maybe my memories of humanity really are false. If we’ve been in contact with an alien world this whole time and I never knew about it, I just must be remembering things that aren’t true.

The screen of the little tablet flashed once. “Message waiting.” There was a button to begin playback. Hayden settled it down onto the table in front of them, and pressed play. Maybe she should’ve waited to let the ragged survivors get out and run off to start gathering their families, but she was too curious.

Avalon’s figure appeared on the screen, fully costumed again. He looked just as pained as Hayden felt. “We have failed, my friend. I watched Princess Luna take the corruption into herself. The containment procedure we attempted here will not work on an Alicorn—she is solid and material, and so we can’t just send her to Avalon station.”

His image was replaced with images of the moon, taken from low orbit. Hayden could see the massive pillars rising from the lunar surface, and bundles of wire thicker than a whale stretching from one to another. Occasionally there was a little arc of energy between them—this was the containment cell they had wanted for the forces Hayden had tried to extract.

“I will send Star Swirl all the information on the void syphon I have been using to purify the individuals you sent to me. I am certain he will be able to design a magical equivalent with available Equestrian components. But that will not matter if you cannot contain the princess.

“Find Celestia—she may know a way. She survived worse Outsiders than this. If you can’t do that… we need to bring Luna to Avalon containment. If we fail, all life on this planet will be corrupted and consumed.” He leaned close to the camera, his voice low. “She is already flying south. I believe her army is targeting the agricultural centers of the empire. I will not allow her to kill those precious to me. Die well, friend.”

The screen went dark, “message end” flashing rhythmically across its surface.

Celestia held out a wing. “May I see the device?”

Hayden nodded, and Celestia levitated it up into the air in front of her. The princess knew exactly what she was doing, opening up hardware-level menus Hayden hadn’t seen before. Images flashed briefly over its surface, along with dense English writing and plenty of numbers. She can read it.

Princess Luna hadn’t known about humanity, not like this. She’d met someone. But Celestia…

Hayden turned away, walking over to Synthesis. “Gather the survivors from the shelter,” she commanded. “Along with as much food as they can carry. Whatever soldiers remain will protect them on the journey south.”

Synthesis nodded. He lowered his voice to a whisper. “Everypony wants to know what will happen to the bats. Most of Icefalls was bats, War Marshal. Will we get them back?”

“I don’t know,” Hayden answered honestly. “I hope so. Right now they are… they’re being controlled, by powers outside of their reach. Princess Celestia and I are going to try and stop them.”

“You don’t have to protect us from the truth,” Synthesis replied, his voice distant and sad. “Everypony heard. We know who did it. We know why Princess Luna is gone.” His eyes narrowed, staring at her. “What I don’t understand is why you didn’t go like them. Why didn’t you fly away with her army? Why aren’t you covered in dark magic?”

“Not for lack of trying on Luna’s part,” Hayden replied, trying to force a smile. But she couldn’t, it all hurt too much. “Will you carry out my orders, Synthesis? Or do I need to replace you?”

“I’ll obey. You’re asking for what everypony wants, anyway. Surrounded by the rubble of our city, betrayed by our princess, attacked by our friends… we just want to go home.”

“Evening Star,” Celestia called, gesturing for her. Hayden obeyed, listening as Synthesis began passing her orders to her remaining soldiers. Honed Edge appeared to represent the military now, and he met her eyes with as much pain as Hayden felt. He didn’t speak, and she didn’t call to him.

Celestia had opened a map on the tablet, which Hayden recognized from the pattern to be the same lunar facility. Only much more detailed, with its many systems visible. The tunnels went at least ten kilometers down into the lunar soil, with lots of little dots of activity rolling around inside. “Your Sleeping Masters built that?”

“No,” Celestia answered, voice distant. “The Builders did. Watching us, all this time.” She tapped the large crater at the center of the facility. “Avalon was correct. If we can get my sister here, it should be able to contain her until the antimatter reserve has been drained.”

“Until the…” Hayden swayed on her hooves. “You have… you have…”

“No, and neither did the ones who built this place. Whatever method their civilization used to produce it is not present in Equestria. Once gone, containment will fail and Lu—and the thing that took over my sister will be released. But it will give me time. Time to prepare a way to… to help her.”

“What are we waiting for, then? I’ve got a friend with a rocket. All we have to do is hitch a ride, right? After… catching her, I mean.”

“Not quite.” Celestia rested one hoof on her shoulder. “Even if you aren’t an Outsider, Evening Star, you are still my sister’s familiar, her daemon. I do not know what will happen to you once the seal is in place. It might destroy you.”

Hayden shrugged. “The life I left behind has already ended. My world has forgotten me by now… if it ever knew me in the first place. Besides, you can’t use the Elements of Harmony without me. If it’s my life or the life of everyone in Equestria, I don’t really need help solving that math problem. I already asked the lives of so many of my men. I will join them.”

For the first time, Celestia no longer watched her with suspicion. A tear trailed down her face, and she cleared her throat. “Apologies. I haven’t forgotten what you are. You’re her. Her reflection. You’re just higher fidelity than I imagined.” She held up the tablet. “I hope you don’t mind if I hold onto this for the time being. I will need to make preparations if we want this plan to work, and the technical details seem to be beyond you.”

“They are,” Hayden said. “I’ll catch up with you in a moment. I’d like to have a few words with one of my generals before we depart.”

She left Celestia behind, finding where Honed Edge stood over the model of the city. Its many buildings and walls were all wrong now—reflections of history instead of the ruins outside.

“We were so close,” he said, when Hayden had stopped beside him. “I can’t believe you made a convert of me too. I believed you could do it.”

“We were close,” Hayden said. “But Icefalls is just a city, it’s just walls. If the ponies get to walk away, that’s more hope than they had.”

Honed Edge remained silent for a long time. Then he reached out, flicking over one of the cannon models. “Why was it you sent civilians on your secret trips south instead of your generals? Why not Lodestone? Why not Nightbreeze, even? The city lord attacked us on her way out… but you are sane. When none of our soldiers were.”

“You won’t like the answer.”

Honed Edge snapped one hoof down, snapping the model tower in half. “I think we’re past that point, War Marshal. Why?”

“Because their corruption had become too severe. The bats who volunteered at an age as advanced as theirs… did not return. Avalon and I hoped that the ritual used to purify everypony at once would be gentler.”

“Oh, it was gentle,” Honed Edge repeated, bitter. “Gentle enough that it didn’t do bucking shit. They’re all slaves to a monster. She’s going to throw their lives away fighting for… fighting against Equestria.”

Hayden shook her head. “No. We’re going to stop her.” She leaned in close, whispering into his ear. “Protect the survivors, Honed Edge. Get them home. That’s my final command.”

Chapter 56: Castle of Harmony

The nightmare that had been Princess Luna cut a devastating path across Equestria, cutting scalpel-precise through the most important lines of trade. Her army had no airships, but they didn’t need them. Half of them weren’t even alive.

Hayden was no longer leading the military opposition, so she had little to do with the conflict as it happened. Princess Celestia might’ve decided not to kill her after all for practical reasons, but that didn’t mean she trusted Hayden. Mostly she spent her time in an expensive room of Celestia’s flagship, waiting for her time to come and trying to overhear as much as she could about the war.

But Celestia wasn’t cooperative with sharing information either. “You’re still connected to her, Evening Star. Even if you can’t directly access her feelings, you don’t know that she can’t make the same connections to you. We cannot allow you to inadvertently reveal our strategies.”

“But I already know the most important part!” Hayden had argued. “I know we’re going to use the Elements of Harmony to stop her, then we’re going to lock her on the moon until you can cure her. I’m not sure what’s worse for her to know.”

Celestia was not persuaded. “I’m sorry, Evening Star. If there was more time, perhaps I could allow you to do to my army what you did to Icefalls. As it is, your advanced weapons are slaughtering my ponies. I think you’ve done quite enough.”

I wouldn’t have had to make anything if you had protected your nation properly, Hayden thought, but she hadn’t argued. She knew her relationship with Celestia was precarious, and she wasn’t going to risk it even if the sun princess made an obviously wrong choice. There was enough blood on Hayden’s own hooves that she didn’t need to get them any worse.

Eventually though, the waiting was over. Whatever had happened to the army, to Star Swirl, to Avalon, Hayden wasn’t told. But they arrived at Harmony, and she was finally led out of the airship.

The city looked like it had been devastated. Whole sections of tree-buildings lay in smoldering ruins, though it was only the wealthy quarter surrounding the castle. She isn’t attacking at random. I wonder…

Princess Celestia wasn’t there, just nameless officers in gold armor. But Hayden could feel an idea forming, and she was going to run with it. “Princess Luna… she attacked Cloudsdale, New Pegasopolis, and Stratusburg, didn’t she?”

One of the guards looked stoic, but she could tell from the shocked expression on the other one’s face that she’d guessed at least partially right. He wasn’t very good at keeping secrets, apparently. “How’d you know?” he asked, before his companion could smack him with the flat of one armored hoof.

“Because those were the places that killed bats. And the nobles here, they wanted us dead more than anypony. Princess Luna isn’t killing for no reason, she’s taking revenge.”

“Revenge is killing for no reason,” the senior officer muttered, before pointing inside the ruined castle gates. “Come with us, Lady Evening Star. Princess Celestia is waiting for you in the throne room.”

Hayden followed, taking in the devastation of Luna’s attack. There were so many dead—but not groups of random civilians outside of the biggest, fanciest mansions. And the castle itself looked like it had barely survived a serious fire. The roof hadn’t made it unscathed, and now had charred gaps in a few places, with tiles occasionally plummeting down.

Inside, the soldiers walked through a largely wrecked building, though some of the ancient banners and most resilient bits of art were still standing. Hayden could feel the fury and confusion of the guards as they led her through—the Castle of the Two Sisters was apparently not expected to fall. So much for their predictions.

“Time conquers all,” Hayden muttered to herself as she walked. Apparently in English, because the guards only watched her with confusion.

There were plenty of soldiers rushing around the ruin, not just the ones who had brought her. She could hear a few of them as they exchanged reports, shouting back and forth about survivors. Well, more about the lack thereof. But the throne room was empty. Its beautiful stained-glass windows had mostly been shattered, though one or two of the plain ones were intact. Hayden could see a single white figure at the far end, her pale feathers untouched by the ash and the charcoal.

“We are not to follow you,” said the older of her guards. “Go on. The princess is waiting for you.”

Hayden did. She didn’t hurry, walking slow enough that she could hear the echo of each hoofstep off the stone. But it wasn’t as though the castle was going to complain.

Princess Celestia was facing away from her at the far end, looking down at the two thrones. Well, one now. The taller of the two had been broken into tiny pieces, bits of gold and gemstone scattering the floor like trash. Luna’s throne was completely untouched, however, along with any of the carvings or windows that had her on it. There weren’t very many compared to the damaged property—it wasn’t hard to guess which of the kingdom’s rulers the ponies preferred.

“It shouldn’t surprise me that the demon my sister has become still thinks like her,” Celestia said, when Hayden had stopped. “And perhaps that should have alerted me to your true nature as well. Outsiders cannot build, they cannot invent. They only take what is already existent and twist it, corrupt it.” She reached forward, prodding the edge of her own throne with one hoof. “If it wasn’t for you, my sister might’ve gone down this road naturally. Or maybe you only sped her progress. I suppose we’ll never know. “

“We’ll never know,” Hayden agreed. “It also never matters. Historians can debate the cause. We still need to resolve the effect.”

Celestia glanced back at her, choking off a laugh. “Historians will not write of this—or at least, not much. I won’t leave my sister a rebellion when she comes back.” She lowered her voice to a whisper. “If we succeed here, Evening Star, I will ensure my sister is not blamed for this. It may take time… generations, in fact. But I will not see her self-sacrifice remembered as rebellion. She deserves better.”

Hayden wasn’t sure what to think about that. She certainly didn’t think that trying to erase history was a good idea, but this also wasn’t her world. And not seeing Luna punished for actions she had taken to save Equestria seemed just. “Not that I’ll be around, but… if I was, I wouldn’t try to stop you. Luna didn’t rebel. Not that you didn’t give us every reason to try.”

Celestia’s eyes narrowed, but she said nothing to that. “Princess Luna realizes why I am here. She knows our best chance of stopping her are the Elements. As soon as my army stopped here, she will react.”

“I don’t understand,” Hayden said, speaking slowly. “If she knew the Elements of Harmony were the biggest threat to her, and she already attacked this place, why not take them while she was here? Why not… throw them off a bridge? Or break them into little pieces?”

Princess Celestia nodded towards the sheath on Hayden’s back. During all her time as a captive in the airship, Hayden hadn’t been asked to give up her armor or her weapons, or prevented from wearing them as she went about the ship. She probably could’ve left without any of the ponies aboard stopping her. Except that if she did, Equestria might be doomed. “That is a powerful sword, one of the most ancient in all Equestria. Why did she let you keep it?” Celestia didn’t wait for an answer. “Because it destroys corruption. The Elements are like that, but far more potent. If she sent any of her servants too near to gather them in her place, their minds would be free or they would die from the exposure. Luna herself would not be destroyed, but the longer she remained near them, the weaker she would become. Perhaps, in time, they would kill her. I don’t know.”

Celestia looked meaningfully at Hayden. “Last chance to admit what you are and flee, Evening Star. You are not an Alicorn, however much you might be connected to them. If the Outside rules you, the Elements will send you back to your master.”

Hayden shook her head. “I told you the truth, Celestia. If Achelois wasn’t enough, using the Elements should be. Are they here in the throne room?”

“No.” Princess Celestia reached behind Luna’s throne with one hoof. There was the sound of something mechanical moving around a moment, then something clicked and a patch of wall began to retract. A path opened up beyond, lit with even magical light. It stretched away into the castle, looking so long that it probably left the castle grounds. “My sister will be on her way already. She was far south, attacking a detachment of light airships I sent to harass her troops. But those ponies will not last, certainly they won’t win against her undead. We must use their sacrifice well.”

Even now you’re sending ponies to die, Hayden thought, and she almost spoke up about it. Is that any different than what I asked my soldiers to do? She tried to come up with something, anything that set her apart. She didn’t send her troops on suicide missions, for one. Though the last stand during the ritual had ended up that way, that hadn’t been the intent. Was it Hayden’s fault things had gone so badly?

She hurried to keep up with Celestia, following her into the passage. The exit shut closed behind them, removing most of the light. But she could hear something from up ahead, something almost like music. “You must know a little about the Elements of Harmony before we use them, Evening Star. Even with this knowledge, it still might not be enough. My sister’s magic amplified by the unnatural strength of the void might overwhelm us. We may die.”

“I might’ve died when you abandoned the north,” Hayden snapped back. “You tried to let the Stonebeaks eat us, I would’ve died then. Decided not to. I don’t think I plan on dying today either.”

Celestia’s mane flared briefly orange—anger, Hayden thought. But it was hard to know anything for certain with such ancient creatures. Being with her lacked any of the confidence she felt around Luna. This creature could kill her, and Hayden wouldn’t be able to do anything to stop her.

Instead of reprimand her, Celestia returned to her topic. “The Elements of Harmony are part of the object that regulates the physical laws of Equus. They link the laws of the universe with the traits that make for a successful society. They tie the ponies of Equestria together. To access their full strength, we would need six individuals, with traits tied to those of each Element. Sadly, this is impossible, so we will make do with what we have.”

“And the traits are…”

“Strength, Bravery, Healing, Beauty, Hope, and Sorcery.”

“Right.”

“We must act together,” Celestia continued. “And you must use my sister’s sympathetic connection to me, or they won’t work. Strangers cannot use them; they must manifest the traits towards each other. You and I are not friends, and I doubt we ever will be. But Luna used to be. It is also possible her connection to you will make the attack more effective. Familiars rarely betray their masters, but when they do the attacks often ignore their natural protection. This may work to our advantage.”

“Great,” Hayden repeated. “So we grab this gun thing, wait for Luna to show up, then blast her. Is that it?”

“Well… not quite,” Princess Celestia said. “I will need to configure them. The last time we used them to change an attacker to stone, and that won’t be enough. I have the lunar coordinates from Avalon. I can’t begin to configure the attack until after she arrives. So we’ll have to survive until then.”

Hayden shuddered. “That sounds… bad.”

“Mostly for me. I expect Luna will ignore you if you don’t make yourself into a threat. Even corrupted, she will see you as a part of herself. Destroying you would still cause her harm.”

They finally reached a door, carved with a stylized tree that seemed to be made of crystal. Celestia rested one hoof on the ancient door, then pushed it open. “We will have only one attempt. Equus has no others capable of opposing her. We must not fail.”

Chapter 57: Nightmare at Last

Outside the castle, Hayden could hear the sound of war. The steady crack of her own arquebus weapons, answered by volleys of crossbow bolts. Tonight’s rain was not of water, but of blood.

But those soldiers weren’t meant to keep princess Luna from entering the castle, not really. At the first sign of serious resistance, the fleet was to retreat to the outpost of Canterlot, leaving Celestia and Hayden behind surrounded by the enemy.

Princess Celestia sat by one of the windows near the thrones, watching the battle from below.

“How can you do that?” Hayden asked, probably a little too boldly. “Watch your ponies die, not do anything about it…”

Celestia turned. Despite her apparent confidence, her voice was pained. “Because I trust them, Evening Star. Because I know they will obey my commands, and that in doing so they’re creating the best chance for their families to survive. Were your soldiers not willing to die for a cause like that?”

“They were,” Hayden eventually said. “I understand why we can’t help them. I just… I was never good at leaving them.”

“That is why my sister led the military, and I did not. I was willing to trust the generals I had trained to do their job. But my sister… she always said our own power ought to be used in Equestria’s defense. That we could prevent much suffering and save many lives if we did.”

“Sounds like she was right.”

Celestia shrugged. “You think you’re human, don’t you? I do not know your history, but I can make an educated guess. When serious conflict came to your nation, did some higher power put themselves into combat to protect you from the consequences of war? Or did fighting one battle inspire you to change the terms of the next one?” She nodded down at Hayden’s armor.

“No nation of pacifists creates armor like that. Or like the weapons that are at this moment slaughtering ponies of Equestria. My sister is right, and by fighting she did prevent the loss of many lives. And maybe as a result the ponies of Equestria judged that war wasn’t something to fear. The nobility of Harmony—may they run forever with the great herd—scoffed at the danger of the Stonebeaks. They knew that their Alicorns would keep them safe. Maybe if they didn’t, they would’ve taken their defense more seriously.”

So you’re saying you were right to do nothing, and Luna was wrong to help people. Hayden had a hard time accepting that, but she didn’t argue the point. Just now, she needed more unity with Celestia, not less.

“Once she has been trapped, how will you cure her?” Hayden eventually asked. But the sound of violence outside was dying down. There were only a few cracks of firearms, and by the look of it the fleet was retreating. The time is almost here, then.

“I do not know,” Celestia said. “Star Swirl may have something in mind. Perhaps there is something like the method you used to treat your own infection, only at a much greater scale. Or… perhaps I’ll need to find new bearers for the Elements. I have plenty of time. A little psychohistorical engineering could be used to ensure they are available when they’re needed.” She shook her head. “You likely won’t have to worry about it, Evening Star. When my sister is trapped… I do not believe you will survive. You are not enough of your own pony, and her power will not be able to sustain you.”

Hayden shrugged. “It’s a good day to die.”

Far away in the castle grounds, the massive front doors banged. They hadn’t been repaired, just a new length of wood set in place to bar them, and Hayden could hear them coming loose in their mountings. Hayden checked to make sure all her preparations were ready—yes, Achelois was where she left it, ready to be drawn. Her last few artifacts from Earth were all concealed on her possession as well. Whether or not they were real—whether or not Hayden had ever been human or not, as the void had tried to imply she wasn’t—she felt like she was. When they buried her, she would have enough for future archeologists to know what she had been.

“I promise you this, Evening Star. Whatever my historians write of you, I will not permit them to say you were a coward.”

The doors banged again, and this time were accompanied with the tear of stone. The throne room did not have a view to the grand entrance, but she could still hear the echo of sound quite clearly.

“I do not believe she will bring her soldiers,” Celestia said. “She knows they won’t serve her here; they would only be destroyed by the proximity of the Elements. But if she doesn’t care about their lives, you may need to kill some of your old friends.”

“More blood for my hands. They should’ve been clean.” But Avalon had only the one void syphon, and she had only so many ponies who had been infected recently enough to be purified without killing them. Few soldiers had been on that list.

“Sister, the time has come!” boomed a voice. Not quite Luna’s voice, anymore. “The night arrives that has no end.” From the other end of the castle, lights started to go out. Torches that the army had brought were now extinguished, and clouds of thick darkness rolled towards them along the floor. Further parts of the throne room were already obscured—but they did not approach Celestia, or the throne.

“My sister didn’t want that,” Celestia said. “Princess Luna understood the effect of our orbit on climate. She knew that altering it in that way would bring a swift death. Baking one half, while the other half was frozen, and incredible storms tore buildings from their foundations in the liminal zone.”

Oh, right, their religion. But why are they debating it in front of me? Hayden hadn’t ever confronted Luna about the whole “raising the sun and moon” thing. It hadn’t come up often. And when it did, she hadn’t ever felt a single drop of deception from the moon princess. She really believed it, just like her subjects. I guess the demon that she’s become still believes it too.

Something was taking shape in the darkness. A dark figure silhouetted against the blackness. The one the ponies of Equestria had taken to calling “Nightmare Moon” was taller than Hayden by some margin now, taller than Celestia even. Her presence in the room alone made it hard to think.

To her surprise, Nightmare Moon didn’t try to argue with Celestia. She emerged from the shadows, darkness still concealing her hooves. Luna’s original shape was barely visible under all that darkness. It was hard for Hayden to tell if there was even skin under there, or if her dark coat swirled into the emptiness of the void.

“And you,” Nightmare Moon said. “Hayden—you stand beside the one who betrayed you. You should be fighting with me against the solar tyrant. She’s the only reason we’re in this position, you understand that, don’t you? She abandoned those parts of Equestria that weren’t pure enough for her. She wasn’t even brave enough to wield the knife herself—she let the hoof of our enemies wield it. If she had gotten her way, you and everypony you love would be dead in Icefalls.”

“I know,” Hayden said. “I hate her for what she did, Luna. If this was my world, I’d want to see her tried as a war criminal. But it isn’t—and now you’re the one attacking innocent people, not her.”

“That isn’t my name!” the dark Alicorn bellowed, and the glass still left in the windows shook in their frames. Hayden retreated a step, focusing briefly on the sword. Would she need it yet? Maybe not. I shouldn’t need it at all.

But if Hayden had relied on what ought to be done, she wouldn’t have done anything. Celestia shouldn’t have abandoned the north. Shouldn’t have treated her sister so badly that she sought the help of demons and daemons for help. But here they were.

“I’m not attacking any innocents, Hayden. You know better than most. You saw what they did to your kind. Your children, in a way. All of them come from you, don’t they Hayden? Your relationship with Nightbreeze is at the heart of all of this. In a way, I’m a better mother than you are.” She gestured a wing towards the window. “Don’t worry, they still want you back. They’ll still forgive you. When I’m done with my sister, you will see reason. You’ll see.”

“The daemon isn’t part of this, Luna. This is between us.” Celestia’s horn glowed, and a little of the smoke drifting towards them melted away in its light. “But I don’t think we need to fight, sister. I think you know how much damage you’re causing to Equestria. How many lives you’re taking. I think you want to stop. So I give you this one offer. Surrender—free the slaves you have trapped in your army. My sorcerer is already working on—”

“I’M NOT LUNA!” Nightmare Moon bellowed. “All this time you’ve spent turning the ponies of Equestria against me, sister, and you couldn’t even be bothered to learn my name! I shouldn’t be surprised—you took everything else I loved away from me. You didn’t trust me with the army, you left my pitiful domain to be pillaged by the Stonebeaks. You’re a tyrant, Celestia. I will not negotiate with you.” Her horn began to glow, the same blue as the strange moon outside.

Celestia rose to meet her, and the shockwave that came next sent Hayden flying. At least she had the good sense to cover her head, and to avoid bits of falling stone as the weakened roof caved in around them.

The Alicorns rose into the air above her, and Luna’s distant army moved out of the way. They could do nothing here against a power like this, no more than Hayden could. She watched powers that could liquefy mountains and freeze lakes clash in the air above them. If any ponies were left alive in Harmony, they wouldn’t be after tonight. The terrible clash ripped new canyons in the ground, and strange clouds began to rise up from the forest.

Luna was fighting to kill, and so she could focus all her energy, all her strength on the battle. But Celestia had another task. Luna hadn’t noticed the gemstones of the elements tucked under Celestia’s armor. Three, to be precise.

Hayden could feel the other three under her own armor, and their connection to Celestia. She could sense Celestia’s agony at what she was having to do to her sister. Some part of her wanted to lose.

If it wasn’t for what Nightmare Moon might do to Equestria, maybe she would’ve given up. Taken her death as the punishment her actions deserved.

As it was, Celestia was losing. Nightmare Moon fought her back at every turn, and it was all she could do to keep fighting. Hayden thought about flying out to help her more than once—but when the weapons of choice were blasts of plasma wider than the castle and each strike left a crater in the ground, she didn’t think even Achelois would make much of a difference.

Then Celestia crashed back into the throne room. Stone splintered all around her, and she nearly broke through into the floor below. Blood dribbled from her nose, and her limbs were cut in a dozen places. How are you still alive?

Hayden rushed to her side, lowering a hoof to help her out. “Are you…”

“Almost,” Celestia croaked. “A minute more. P-please.”

Nightmare Moon touched down on the ground behind them. For all Celestia had been beaten, the queen of the night seemed almost unhurt. Her mane was a bit dimmer than it had been, the glow from her eyes more subdued. But that was it. “I’m glad you’re here, Hayden. The time of our ascendancy has arrived. Equestria has always had two rulers. I will be glad to have you at my side.”

She glanced briefly at Hayden’s sword, then drew her own. Its blade was like her coat, darkness that went all the way down into the abyss.

It didn’t seem to have an edge—no matter how far Hayden looked, there was always a little more. So she looked away. But she didn’t move from beside Celestia.

“I know you won’t side with her,” Nightmare Moon continued. “I know you have always struggled with difficult decisions. You can’t easily command your troops to go to battle, you can’t take the lives of those who have wronged you. That’s why Equestria has always had two rulers. One is firm, the other is compassionate. There will be a place for you here.”

She lifted the sword, advancing on Celestia. The white Alicorn couldn’t even muster the magic to stay standing, not without Hayden’s help. Her limbs shook, and she didn’t look up at her sister. She seemed to be muttering quietly to herself.

“I’m… I’m sorry,” Celestia said, her voice barely loud enough for them to hear over the rain and crumbling castle around them. “For the way I treated you. If I could go back, do it all again… I would be a better sister.”

“But you can’t,” Nightmare Moon said, her voice almost a laugh. “This is always the way it happens. The evil see in their last moments what could have made them just. But you chose wrong, sister. And now the payment is due. Say hello to our parents for me.”

She swung, so swift her sword seemed to wound the sky as it cut. But Hayden was just as fast—exactly as fast, to be precise. Achelois caught the terrible blade with a sound like two mountains colliding, showering them with sparks that floated like little stars.

Nightmare Moon retreated as though Hayden had just attacked her, eyes wide. “Hayden!” She was shouting now. “Hayden, be wise. I am offering you a place in my new world. I’m offering you everything we deserved, everything she denied us. You are sacrificing yourself to defend the one pony in the world who deserves it the least.”

“No,” Hayden squeaked, meeting her eyes. Celestia wasn’t the only one crying anymore. “It’s not for her.”

Nightmare Moon roared, and suddenly the sword was coming at her again. Not even trying to strike Celestia this time. The blade was almost invisible against the darkness, and Hayden had less than a second to anticipate each strike.

But Hayden didn’t have to rely on the training the Guard had given her. Hayden had all of Luna’s practice with the sword in there, somewhere. She let her instinct guide her, parrying on the left, stopping a low sweep, retreating out of range of a high-armed strike. She dodged a bit of rubble Nightmare Moon ripped out of the ground, keeping close to Celestia all the while.

“You’re my familiar!” Nightmare Moon raged. “You only exist to serve me! If you cannot obey my commands, then I’ll send you back where I took you from!”

Hayden felt something wrap around her neck. She shuddered, and the sword clattered through the stone floor, where it sunk right down to the hilt. Hayden dropped to the ground at Luna’s hooves.

The world looked suddenly washed out, and she could feel something tugging at her from behind. A door had been opened, and it wanted her back.

“No,” Princess Celestia said. “I’m sorry.” Light exploded from beside her, returning color to the world and breath to Hayden’s lungs.

She could feel the Elements, tight against her skin in her armor. Hayden had no connection to Celestia of her own—she had been betrayed by this pony, treated with nothing but contempt. But they had Luna in common. They both wanted Equestria to survive. They both hated what Luna had become, wanted to free her from its control.

That was enough.

Nightmare Moon struck out with her sword again, but in vain. This time she couldn’t even swing it—light had surrounded her. She no longer looked so very large and terrible. All the shadows of her being seemed small.

The air around them roared, and suddenly the moon was very close. Its pale surface filled the sky before Hayden, and she realized she was floating. On a surface of pale rock and craters, light bloomed from a square of towers that lit up like stars.

I’ll be back, Hayden heard, or thought she heard. Order will be established in Equestria. There will be justice. You won’t deny me a second time.

I know.

Everything went dark.

Author's Note

Holy crap I can't believe we're almost to the end. There's one more chapter left, then this story will have reached its conclusion. Over a year later, and... we actually made it. But I'll say more about that next week.

Epilogue: Excellus

Hayden wasn’t in a castle anymore.

She started to panic, worrying that she’d somehow wandered off, maybe been dragged of by some Celestia loyalist. She’d been living only at her hospitality for at least a week now, and there were probably plenty of her staff that would’ve jumped at the opportunity to make her vanish into a cell.

But this didn’t feel like a cell. She was in bed, surrounded by stars.

I’ve been here before. This is Princess Luna’s tower.

She sat up at once, memory flooding back to her. She’d sided with Celestia against Luna. The guilt from that wound was still raw, even if Princess Luna had forced her hoof. She’d become a monster—but not because she gave in to the demon’s temptations.

As she looked around herself, Hayden could see that things weren’t quite as she remembered. One of the windows was shattered, and many of the possessions had been looted. Lots of the objects worked of gold or gemstone were missing, along with some of the more precious pieces of art. I wonder if they did this when Luna moved up north, or more recently than that.

It was dark outside, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t see. There was plenty of moonlight streaming in through the windows, and Hayden had no trouble focusing.

“I wondered if you would wake up,” said a familiar voice in the dark. “Most of the others… they thought you were dead for sure. That’s what Celestia thought. That you’d gone to sleep, and wouldn’t wake up until her sister returned. That she would seduce you with lies in your dreams, and it would be better if you never opened your eyes.”

Hayden tried to find her—but there were a few new holes in the ceiling and the echo made it hard to know where she was. Not beside the bed, not lurking in the bathroom… there! A figure near the observatory window. She was sitting on a padded bench beside some books, and Hayden had mistaken her for part of the scenery. Not anymore, though.

Hayden didn’t get out of bed, not yet. Her limbs felt strange—weaker, certainly. If she’d been unconscious for weeks, that might explain a little of that. She glanced briefly down at herself, but nothing had changed. She wasn’t human again; she didn’t have normal pegasus wings. She had the same body she remembered. “I thought I wouldn’t wake up either,” she croaked, and found her voice still felt sore. Like she hadn’t used it in some time. “Princess Luna’s sealed away… how do I still exist?”

Hayden looked down again, searching for any sign that she didn’t exist. Maybe she’d become transparent like Marty McFly, maybe she’d stop feeling so good and turn into an ashy breeze. But all she noticed was a familiar sheath at her side, resting beside the bed like an observant watchdog.

“Achelois?” She drew the blade, lifting it in magic she didn’t have. The sword didn’t care about such insignificant details, though. “I thought for sure Celestia would’ve taken this back.”

I do not obey her commands, said the sword. Much suffering remains on this world. I could not allow you to leave your work undone.

Hayden stiffened, staring at the blade. She knew so little of this weapon, beyond what it had done and who had wielded it. Could it be the reason she was still alive? It certainly wouldn’t be the first legendary item to grant unusual life to its wielder.

“She tried,” Nightbreeze said, rising from the bench and stepping out into the moonlight. “But it kept coming back to you. I think she gave up after a while.”

Hayden nodded. “That’s what it…” She trailed off. Nightbreeze looked the worse for wear. She was leaner now, somehow more lined and weary. There was a weight to her eyes that hadn’t been there the last time they met. “When we banished Princess Luna. You… you aren’t possessed anymore?”

“So they tell me.” Nightbreeze shifted uneasily on her hooves, as though she didn’t entirely believe it. “Avalon’s gone, but Star Swirl checked the survivors. We’re not going to start rotting again.”

Hayden finally rose. As she had expected, her limbs didn’t seem to want to obey. She almost fell onto her face out of bed, and once she was standing she still teetered on her hooves. “How many?”

“A few thousand,” Nightbreeze said, her voice cracking once with pain. “Th-there were… a lot of casualties invading Equestria. I can’t remember any of it, thank the stars. But judging by how much Equestria hates us now, it must’ve been bloody.”

“Where are they?”

Nightbreeze gestured over her shoulder with a wing. “The one place nopony thinks to come. Nightmare Moon’s necromancy ended here, when she was banished, and the taint got into the forest pretty bad. Harmony is gone—history’s erasing it. And what’s left of Nightmare Moon’s army… of your army… we’re here. We don’t have anywhere else to go.”

Hayden couldn’t hold herself back any longer. She crossed the room in a few more stumbling hoofsteps, embracing Nightbreeze without any regard for propriety or their tense relationship while she was city lord. The other bat returned the gesture with just as little reservation. It was good to have someone to hold again.

Hayden cried until she was out of tears, cried until she didn’t know how she was still breathing. And she wasn’t the only one—they both had ponies they had lost. So many friends in Icefalls, and most of the names Hayden asked about would not have another chance.

“I don’t know what to do,” Nightbreeze finally said, when they were out of tears. “There’s food in the storeroom, but not enough for us to live here forever. These ponies aren’t welcome anywhere else. Most cities… I hear they’re even worse than before. Stringing up bats just for what we are… and Princess Celestia punishing the ones who do it. It doesn’t stop them. We’re monsters to them now. After what Luna did, after what she made us do… maybe they’re right.”

“No.” Hayden covered her with a wing. “You’re not responsible, none of you are. I know how it looked, but… Princess Luna was saving Equestria. She put all that evil magic in one place, so we could lock it away. She’s probably the reason you’re alive now, when everypony else who only got half-treated ended up dying.”

Nightbreeze laughed bitterly. “Doesn’t do us much good now, does it? Being right isn’t enough of a mercy to make up for being dead. It’s hopeless. And don’t try and tell me you’re going to rebuild Harmony, put our city here. Even if the necromancy didn’t ruin the ground for hundreds of years, there are pony settlements nearby. If Canterlot found out, they’d… send an army, probably. It’s only a matter of time before they do that anyway. Too many army ponies know about us.”

“The civilian survivors from Icefalls… the bats from the shelter. Are they here too?”

Nightbreeze shook her head. “There are no civilian bats, Hayden. They were with us the whole time. They got out… killing plenty of innocent ponies along the way, I’m sure. The bunker was built to keep ponies out, not keep them in. If any of them are still alive, they’re here.”

“Good. I guess that means we… have an easier job.” Hayden rose to her hooves again, stretching her wings one at a time. “It won’t be easy. We might get attacked along the way. If Celestia finds out I woke up, she might want me back. Maybe she’ll want to make me stand trial now that I don’t have an army in the way.”

“Doubt it.” Nightbreeze followed her, curiosity replacing her depression. “The nobility that wanted you gone are mostly dead themselves. A few officers left in the military, but that’s it. And you did help stop Nightmare Moon. At least… that’s what they tell us. Nopony around here was awake when it happened.”

“I did,” Hayden said. “But not stop her. Just… buy us some time. She’ll be back.” She made her way through Luna’s old bedroom. She was happy to see that her old possessions were still here—a little solar pad, her Kindle, and the gun. Nothing else had made it down this far. Probably the rest was ash in Icefalls, along with so much else.

“You have another plan? You can’t… not after all we’ve been through. There’s no way out.”

“There’s one.” Hayden stopped, and forced herself to smile. “Get everypony together. I’ll address the survivors. After that, we’ll have a long flight ahead of us. Probably… have to fly by night, hide in caves during the day. If ponies are really hunting us… let’s just make sure they don’t find us.”

“Fly to… where?”

“Excellus,” Hayden answered.

And they did.

Far to the south of the Equestrian border, but not so far south that the jungles turned into barren wasteland, there was a place high in the mountains, with a commanding view of the countryside for a hundred miles. It wasn’t all that far away from the city that had been Avalon’s home, except that it had been destroyed during Luna’s rampage. And it was so mountainous that no pony settlers had tried to live there.

But Hayden had seen it on her maps. And she had put the Excellus to good use, transporting civilians to be purified and then back to Icefalls, kept in ignorance about their destination or their purpose. But she had left plenty of instructions, and ample supplies.

By the time Evening Star and her survivors reached the Excellus’s destination, they found a tiny village rising from the peaks. There was much sorrow for those who hadn’t made it, and much joy for the ponies who had. Though she had resisted at first, there was no convincing the population that anypony else would make for a better first mayor than she would.

The new village of Excellus would have some serious restrictions—above all, the population of Equestria couldn’t know about them, not for generations. Celestia’s control on a broken and ravaged Equestria was tenuous now, with a capital in ruins and pockets of Stonebeak resistance in the north. She might not be able to stop an army of revenge if one were to rise.

They were almost starting from scratch. There were no buildings for them to sleep in, just a single airship that was nearly out of fuel and not big enough for more than a hundred even if they used the cargo bays. There were a few skilled ponies, but their equipment was all left behind in civilization. They had a lot of bootstrapping to do.

But there were some advantages too—having a population entirely of one race meant that they could build vertically, for instance, and that being active mostly at night wouldn’t exclude large numbers of their friends from interacting with them. The mountainous valley of their home was far higher than earth ponies or unicorns would probably explore, at least not without airships. Not only that, but the fruit trees were abundant and the climate was more or less invariant.

They made do. And with a few years and a little determination, they prospered.

Hayden wasn’t the mayor anymore the night that Princess Celestia arrived. She had held the position for many years now—but she didn’t want to end up like the princesses, trapped in the throne until they died. Besides, Excellus had become sophisticated enough to be comfortable with the idea of electing their own ruler.

Naturally, they voted for her mate.

But that meant that Hayden had some time to relax—on those nights when she had no classes to teach and no ponies to train, she found herself one of the remotest trails around Excellus where she could walk in solitude. Well, except for the light of the moon.

And the streetlights around the trail. They were electrical, though only a faint glow. Far better suited for bat pony eyes and their powerful vision, not bright enough for ponies of other tribes to use for much. The path itself was only gravel, but it was kept free of debris and poisonous plants, so it made for a relaxing walk in the humid air. Hayden munched a fresh mango as she walked, enjoying the splash of juice against her tongue.

She almost smacked into Princess Celestia.

Well, maybe not exactly. She was sitting in a clearing just off the trail, looking up at the light of the full moon. It wasn’t her imagination—there was a faint shape visible against the craters, if one looked long enough. The rage of Nightmare Moon, cast in magic and technology. If she had a telescope, Hayden could probably have watched the arcing of the energy between its four towers.

I knew she would find us eventually. Hayden thought about going back for Mayor Nightbreeze—but ultimately decided against it. If Celestia had wanted to appear before the whole town, she could’ve done so in city hall. She had meant to be discrete. Hayden would respect that, until she figured out whether Celestia was their enemy or not.

“It took you long enough,” Princess Celestia said. “You must actually be enjoying the scenery.”

“I do,” she answered honestly. “And the heat. After all that time in the north, if I never see snow again it will be too soon.” Hayden sat down behind her, though she was watching the Alicorn, not the sky.

“Did you really think you could hide from me?”

“No. I thought we could hide from Equestria, though. How are we doing on that?”

Celestia turned, though her expression was unreadable to Hayden. “What do you plan for this place, Evening Star? Should I be worried about you? Should the ponies of Equestria fear another invasion?”

“No. And to be honest with you, Princess, I think most of these ponies still think of themselves as part of Equestria. They weren’t bats for all that long, when you think about it. Lots of them regret it. They’d go home, if you would let them. I think most of them would let you change them back, too.”

Princess Celestia sighed. “Were magic that easy. I could change every one of your citizens for an afternoon. But the body reasserts itself, and the power required to change them all… well, now that I have the sun and the moon to bear, it would take me centuries of time to change each one. I think you’ll outbreed me.”

Hayden couldn’t help herself. She laughed. “Y-yeah, I think we will. It’s… all bats so far. Don’t know if we’ll see other kinds or what. I know that blood from all the tribes can last a long time, recessive and that. But I think maybe transformed bats might be pureblood. Nothing but bat in all of Excellus.”

“You could stop them,” Princess Celestia offered. “That would be a peaceful way to put an end to this. No need for their children to be hated in Equestria.”

Hayden felt herself tense. Despite her best efforts, she probably raised her voice a little. “I don’t… I don’t think so, Celestia. It’s not the bats who need to change, it’s the ponies who hate us. I’m content with what I am. In time, all of us will be. And if you want to wipe us out, we’ll fight.”

“No.” Celestia raised a wing. “It was just a thought, I apologize. You’re clearly determined to survive.” She gestured over her shoulder, towards Excellus. “A very human trait, I suppose. They say your kind can live through anything, and here we are. You brought them through the end of the world.”

She leaned in close to Hayden, and her expression hardened. “Don’t think this is the end, Hayden. You’re still here. I hope you understand what that means.” She didn’t wait for confirmation, but pointed up at the sky. “I was wrong about what the spell would do. You’re still connected to Luna’s magic. Still her familiar. You may be here when it’s time to set her free.”

“I…” Hayden hesitated. “I look forward to that, Princess. I’d like to see her again.”

Author's Note

Holy crap that's actually it--the end of Evening Star Also Rises.

A huge thanks to all of you who made it this far, and particularly to Aurora Gleam for sponsoring this story on my Patreon. Other than the basic concept, I had basically all the freedom in the world to write this one. Given I've written about this universe before, and I'm writing in it now, I wouldn't be surprised if we see a few of these characters again. But we'll see down the road.

Thanks to Two Bit and Sparktail for their editing through the process, too. Their help was invaluable. Getting here was not easy, but it was tremendously rewarding.

Prologue: Goetia

Princess Luna approached the door to Star Swirl's lab like a nervous filly who had just gotten herself into trouble. On paper, there was no reason for her to be afraid—this castle "belonged" to Celestia and herself, in a country they ruled. Everypony within who was not one of their servants was at least one of their subjects, Star Swirl included.

But while everypony in the Castle of the Two Sisters knew Celestia by name, sight and cutie mark, some significant majority of their subjects didn't even realize there really was a second princess. That apparently included some of the Solar Guard set outside Star Swirl's door, who squinted at her as though they didn't recognize her cutie mark and were debating whether to send her away.

They didn't try it at least, and Luna knocked several times on the old wood with the front of one hoof, in a special coded pattern that would disable the protection spells meant to allow the grizzled old unicorn to work in peace. Another second later, the door swung open and Luna slipped quickly inside.

There were no windows in Star Swirl's lab, and so the space was kept in perpetual gloom. The roof was vaulted to a height of nearly thirty feet, as high as the most luxurious chambers in the castle. The only light came as an even bath from the four crystals mounted to each structural support pillar, bathing the interior with blue-white light as soft and shadowy as moonlight.

Luna quite liked it in here. The cool of deep earth was nice too, along with the smells of water and wet stone. More things for ponies not to appreciate.

"I hear you over there, Princess!" Star Swirl's voice came echoing through the wide space. "I'm in the back."

Luna walked. There had been a time, decades ago now, when this lab was a hotbed of activity. Unicorns from all over the nascent nation of Equestria visited on a regular basis, taking the spells Star Swirl invented (or just as often, recovered) and spreading them far and wide. There had been lab equipment running all the time back then, beakers frothing, strange contraptions spinning, but all those were quiet now. Dark cloth had been draped over all of them, leaving the room filled with misshapen lumps, silent monuments to the past.

There were many dusty bookshelves, holding the tomes of common spells and charms Star Swirl was most known for. And just like me, nopony notices his important work. In a century, more ponies will know his name for beard grooming than for crop rotation. How is that fair?

There was no answer as Luna hurried to the back of the lab. There the ceilings rose to nearly fifty feet, and the junction of two walls were covered with enormous blackboards, towering over her head. Every surface was covered with intricate spell-diagrams, so complex that she doubted even her older sister would be able to make much sense of them. Illustrations and keys were written in the margins, explanations that Luna could barely even read, much less interpret.

In the very center of this space was Star Swirl, surrounded by more desks, papers and drafting tools than most ponies would ever see. The pony himself looked as he always did—as he always had, really. From her earliest days, Luna remembered this pony as an old, wrinkly stallion, with a gray coat and white mane. Despite being surrounded by work, Star Swirl never let his appearance get completely out of hand. He always smelled clean, his mane was always brushed, and his lab was always tidy.

"Dear Princess," he said, looking up from the thick pad of papers in front of him. He set down the compass and charcoal he'd been using, letting the magic fade from his horn. "It's always a delight to see you... but isn't it a little early for you? Shouldn't you be asleep?"

Luna waved one hoof dismissively, stalking up to the table. "I had an official visit in the Solar Court after my evening's duties," she said. "You'd never guess how it went."

"Oh, I think I have some guess." He smiled sadly. "The ponies you work so hard to serve didn't know who you were or what you were doing there."

Luna stomped one hoof on the stone floor. "I'd like to see the court manage the moon for one night! But..." She swallowed and took a deep breath. It was hard to look into those knowing eyes. Star Swirl didn't have to speak to teach—his silence and meaningful looks whenever a bad argument was made in his presence were often enough. Luna preempted him this time. "I know what you'll say. It's not their fault they don't understand what they can't see. We knew this would happen when we unified—we're separating ponies from the ones who make their lives safe. They're going to start taking those things for granted."

"Indeed," Star Swirl said. "There are ponies like your sister, or my apprentice. Ponies who flourish in the spotlight. Who enjoy parties, and court, and bureaucracy. The world will give them credit for every accomplishment, especially the accomplishments they never had. There are also ponies like us—who work hard doing what's right because it's right, regardless of who knows we did it."

Luna ground her teeth together, searching for a response. While she thought, she stared down at Star Swirl's work, trying to make sense of what he had on the page in front of him. It didn't matter that she had more magic in one hoof than in his whole body—this pony understood magic. He understood magic the way Luna understood the night. "But can't I be both? Like Celestia... she does her duty and ponies love her for it. Don't you have some spell tucked away down here?"

He frowned a little. "A spell to force ponies to admire you?"

"No!" She rolled her eyes. "I don't mean dark magic! You know me better than that. I don't want to change anypony else..." She looked down, away from him, feeling her mane deflate a little. "The only pony who needs to change is me."

Star Swirl didn't answer for several long moments. Luna could practically hear him thinking. Eventually he cleared his throat, straightening a little. "I am... There is a possibility there might be a spell to help you. A possibility. We aren't talking guarantees when we deal with magic this theoretical, Princess. What I've managed to reconstruct about this spell suggests it could be helpful to you, or it might've been used for something completely different."

Given her mood, Luna probably wouldn't have minded if he said she had to sacrifice a goat to power the spell. She looked up, beaming at him. "Really? There's a way? Please, Star Swirl... I must know!"

Star Swirl sighed deeply, then nodded. "Well... you know how difficult it is to change the minds of others. Your dream magic might very well be the most efficient method of doing so known to Equestria. But dreams have limited utility to change more sweeping aspects of a pony's mind. Mind magic can rewrite the memories of others, but a pony using it on themselves is likely to do very serious damage without affecting the changes they truly desire. Consider this the... direct method. As you know, minds are complex things. A change we think will have one impact might instead impose another, one we could not anticipate. But there is another way, one more... harmonious with the natural function of the mind."

He stepped away from his research, walking past Luna back into the rest of his lab. Not towards the door, though. "My research has led me to a conclusion that may be of relevance to you, if you decide to pursue it. Consider the soul of a pony... not as an object within them, but a place. An entire realm unto itself, from which every aspect of that pony descends."

Luna couldn't stay quiet any longer. "Star Swirl, is... is that true?"

He shrugged. "I am reasonably certain the conception has useful utility, yes. True may be a strong word. It is close enough to true that it might well exist within the same universe as the truth. Is that close enough?"

She had no answer, as she never did. Merely being an Alicorn was not in itself enough to grant her understanding of magical concepts like the ones he examined daily. Clover could understand them. So could Celestia, if he took a long time reviewing things and went especially slow. Luna didn't stand much of a chance.

Star Swirl was a better pony than the ones she had left behind in the court. He didn't rub in what she didn't know, didn't even mention it. It never came up that she had wanted to be an apprentice of his, many years ago. She hadn't measured up. "Anyway... if a pony wanted to change herself, she might make use of the same magic we use for teleportation and worldgating to extract an aspect from the Oneiros—the realm of the soul. I expect the realm would consist of places, people and things just like our reality does, each one acting to form the symbols that encompass a pony's life. More importantly, removing the aspect from within your Oneiros would allow you to confront it on conscious terms. Either to slay it entirely, or—much more desirably—to change it."

Luna had to take a minute to consider everything he'd said. "So... you have a spell that would let me remove something from my own... soul. I could take whatever it was that makes ponies fear me. I could take my inability to interact with them on a reasonable basis. My inability to understand their humor. Then... what, exactly?"

Star Swirl shrugged. They'd crossed the lab by then, into the cleared workspace on the far side of the room. The whole area was a recessed sphere about sixty feet across, the rock smooth obsidian instead of the granite bedrock that made the floor. Protection spells were set into the edge of the slightly recessed disk, protecting the rest of the lab from experimental spells. "Nopony has done anything like this, Princess. I know that anything removed would be essentially unreal—only an aspect of yourself. Also, the magic would by its very nature put parts of yourself at risk. Destroying the aspects you removed would destroy them completely from within as well. Your personality might be altered forever, or certain memories or talents erased completely from existence."

He stopped in the very center of the spelling circle, removing a large box of chalk from where it rested on the ground there. Within were a dozen different colors, and several lifted into the air in his magic. He began to draw on the ground, concentrating on several different lines at once, and not one out of place.

"That sounds... bad."

"You could say so," Star Swirl said. "It seems an extreme end to go for a pony who is simply unsatisfied with the way ponies treat her. Wanting to improve yourself is noble... but most ponies don't use magic to do that."

"Would it be faster with magic?" Luna asked, standing just outside the circle of Star Swirl's drawings. "Most ponies I know who have attempted to change important parts about themselves spend many years and fail. I don't know if I can go through years of this, Star Swirl. If I must look out at all those smug faces one more time... a whole court full of nobles who have sat beside me at galas for years and don't even know my name... I don't know what I'll do. Probably something I'll regret."

The unicorn had not slowed in his work, though he looked up to listen. "I had a feeling your mind was made up. But before you cast—and it must be you, even if I may prepare—there are other warnings as well. Dangers that you must clearly know and accept before we may begin."

Luna nodded, waving a hoof dismissively. "Whatever they are, I accept them."

He ignored her. "The spell I am preparing is essentially scrying and teleportation rolled into a conjuring spell. As with any teleportation, it relies on the sympathetic connection a caster maintains with their destination. Picture it unclearly, and you might instead end up summoning... anything."

They shared a shiver right then, both remembering the same event. Equestria had almost not survived it.

"So to stop that from happening..."

"You have to know the destination," Star Swirl said. "In this case... you're looking inward. So how well do you know yourself, Princess?" He set down the chalk then. The entire floor was covered with interlocking diagrams, thousands of characters scrawled in Star Swirl's perfect script. She could just as easily have been staring down at a fine art exhibit. There were two large sections, which even Luna could recognize. One was meant for the caster to stand in, containing and channeling their magic. The other was meant to contain whatever they were summoning, a prison of lines that would keep most demons from escaping into the physical world long enough to be banished again. So long as nothing broke the lines.

"Well enough," Luna said, glaring down at the floor. She would show her sister—she would show everypony. "Show me what to do."

Star Swirl did. It took several hours of instruction, so that it was probably well past noon in the world above before she was finally casting the spell. Even without the exhaustion, it was Luna's weakest time. She probably should've waited until the moon was full again to cast a spell like this, when the essence of Equestria would be serving her instead of resisting her. She didn't wait—if the spell was modest enough for an ordinary pony to cast, then a weakened Alicorn would do fine.

"I can see it," she eventually said, resting on the ground in the center of thousands of glowing runes. Star Swirl stood just outside the circle, close enough for her to hear easily, watching her intently as he had been for the length of the entire spell. Luna couldn't see him anymore, just like she couldn't see the lab, or anything else for that matter.

"There are... trees. Tall evergreens, covering a rocky mountain less steep than those in Equestria. Wait, there's a river down there too... time is moving quickly, the water swims so fast. Oh, now it's frozen! Snow covers everything, and... yes, it's melted again, without ponies to end the season." It felt very much like peering into the dreams of a sleeping pony. She was seeing into a world not her own, a world that was nevertheless a true place, with its own rules that must be obeyed.

Star Swirl's voice came to her as though very distantly, echoing and stretched. "Focus on your sense of time, Luna! All worlds move at their own pace, even the worlds within. You must slow your vision until you can see the lives of whatever beings dwell within."

She could still feel the obsidian under her hooves, still feel the occasional breeze passing through the lab. But her vision and much of her hearing had been completely subsumed by the magic. "What then?" Luna asked, as she began to focus. It took concentration, a rare and precious resource for her while she was already so overwhelmed by the spellcasting. But she could do it. The next winter came and went before the whole world lurched. Suddenly there were birds in the air, familiar species like eagles and falcons and smaller songbirds that she knew from Equestria. Larger animals moved below, such as the bear fishing for salmon in the river with its mouth outstretched to catch them as they swam.

"What am I looking for?" she asked, straining to take it all in. She didn't have a body in this place, and seemed to move with just a thought. "It worked... I can see animals now."

"You aren't looking for an animal," came Star Swirl's reply. "But I don't know what you'll find. Parts of you ought to be intelligent—as intelligent as ponies. It might be a pony you find, or it might be something completely different. The soul isn't really a place. You're interpreting something in terms it never really existed. How your imagination chooses to do so is as impossible to predict as a pony's dreams."

Luna kept searching. She soared over mountains, over rivers and valleys and plains. The world of her thoughts was appropriately vast, an untapped, untamed wild like Equestria had been before ponies arrived. Eventually her vision filled with something else—a city. Its streets were made of even sheets of identical black rock, more perfect than the finest earth-pony flagstones. Its buildings would've towered over the Castle of the Two Sisters and some mountains as well. And its people... nothing like ponies.

They were tall, towering by pony standards, with bare skin, no fur, and a great deal of clothing. "Star Swirl..." she whispered, pausing in her incorporeal flight. "I think I... I think I found it." There were so many beings here! More than there had been ponies in all the pioneers who came to Equestria. How could one pony, even an Alicorn, have so many aspects? "There are too many! How do I find the one I'm looking for?"

The answer came in the same stretched, distorted voice as Star Swirl sounded during the spell. Only this time, there were so many sounds around her that she almost couldn't hear. These beings had vehicles faster and louder than any cart, vehicles that zoomed along their perfect roads flashing and belching fumes. Even so, she could still make out his words. "Search for one who embodies the aspects you wish to change about yourself. It doesn't matter what it looks like—extracting it from within your Oneiros will shape it into something even ordinary ponies can comprehend."

She knew better than to argue with him, or to point out just how difficult that search might be in a world with so many beings. Star Swirl did not exaggerate, ever. When he gave an instruction, it meant that was the only way to proceed. So Luna searched. She could not see into the minds of these beings, if indeed they had minds. She could only listen to them, as they spoke and shouted and whispered and fought in languages with far less music than ponies. She saw no magic in the way they lived their lives, and there was no way for her to bring any of her own magic into the search when it took everything she had just to keep the doorway open.

Eventually she found what she was looking for. While most of the strange beings seemed to be grouping up in the way ponies did, impressing each other and forming intricate social bonds, one of them kept going off on its own. It had one of the metal carts, and over and over in the blur of time she watched it zoom off into the wilderness around the city, to walk alone through the forests. It never went to the same places twice, never seemed to be going anywhere. I know that feeling, Luna thought. It's trying to get away. It wants to be alone. It can't stand the pressure of so many bodies around it. It needs somewhere to think. These beings didn't have wings, they couldn't fly off into the night to seek solitude in the stars. Where else could they go but out into nature?

"So you said... if I kill something in here, it will change me forever, right? What if I were to destroy this creature right here?"

"Be careful!" Star Swirl's voice came back in a sharp, urgent bark. "You can't fill in a hole by blasting it with more magic, you'll only dig it deeper!" A brief pause. "Even if you have located a part of yourself you would wish to erase completely, it would be better to bring it here first. Don’t jump into actions with permanent consequences."

Luna focused, slowing her perception of time as slow as the being was experiencing it. It was hard to judge anything coherent about any of these creatures, with as dissimilar as they looked. No cutie marks, none of the signifying sexual identifiers she was used to, and only a little fur on the top of this one's head. It carried a huge pack of gear, with tents and other travel essentials, moving along a steep rocky trail with an end that was still miles away. "Alright, I can see the one I want. What now?"

To her surprise, the creature stopped walking. It looked up and around, removing a strange object from its ears and inspecting it.

"It must be isolated," Star Swirl said. "The consequences of summoning more than one into the same body could be... very serious. There aren't any other beings that might be accidentally caught in the effects of your summoning spell, right?"

The creature resumed walking. It wasn't rushing, which would have been difficult anyway considering how many supplies it was carrying. "No others. It is alone."

"I hear you!" the creature shouted, looking around itself, searching. "Whoever's hiding at least have the balls to look me in the eye!"

She winced. "Star Swirl, I think it can hear me!"

"Yeah 'it' can!" it said, growing angrier. It removed something small and metallic from its belt, holding it up menacingly and rapidly pointing it around the woods. "I'm armed! Whoever you are... get the hell away!"

Star Swirl's voice came in at about the same time, though thankfully nothing he said was lost in the rush. "Focus as closely as you can on the target! The spell just rips a chunk of the world to bring with you, so you want that chunk to be as small as possible! Narrow as closely as you can, then terminate the spell. The rest is just a matter of remaining conscious long enough to cast.

She obeyed, flying closer to the alien being. She could practically smell its sweat this close, see its wide-eyed terror as it pointed the lump of metal at nothing. What was it, some kind of magical weapon? Luna supposed it didn't matter. This wasn't a person, no matter how real this world seemed. She was looking within her own mind. Even killing it would be no more of a crime than the bleeding process doctors used to balance the humors and treat an overabundance of blood.

"Don't worry," she said. "I'm not going to hurt you."

"Yeah? Yeah, yeah?!" The creature said some other things, words she took for swearing and insults but which made no sense to her. "How about you show your face then? I don't know what kind of black hat shit this is... NSA or FBI or whoever you are... but I ain’t done nothing wrong. You don't have anything on me!"

Hopefully it was normal for her not to have any idea what this creature was talking about. "I'm about as close as I can get, Star Swirl. You sure it's that easy? Just... end the spell? Haven't you consistently advised against that course in the past?"

"Do it," said Star Swirl and the creature at the same time. Unfortunately, their words diverged from that point, and whatever Star Swirl had been attempting to communicate was swallowed in the creature's furious shouts. "You think just because I don't have some fancy corporate lawyers you can roll all over—"

The alien gasped, words choked off as the spell abruptly ended. Luna felt the jolt along with a jarring deceleration, as though she'd just woken from a dream of falling an enormous distance. She opened her eyes with a gasp, right about the time as the air in front of her exploded.

The open circle in the spell filled in the blink of an eye—with dirt, rocks, even an entire towering pine. She'd ripped a huge chunk out of the trail, big enough that it overflowed the lines, sweeping her and Star Swirl and everything up in a terrible wave. The castle itself shook, rumbling with the force of the earthquake sounding in the deep.

Luna might've been crushed by the force, if something hadn't grabbed onto her with its magic. She opened her eyes and found she'd been teleported inside a protective shield. Star Swirl clenched his teeth together, horn blazing as he held them in place against the tide. When it stopped, there was another flash, and they were standing on the surface of the trail, surrounded by rubble from the world Luna had seen. The lab had been positively decimated—machinery crushed, shelves toppled, whole pillars swept away.

The wizened old unicorn laughed. "P-Princess... I believe we may have to review our terms. This is hardly what I'd call 'focused'."

There was distant shouting from far away. Ponies running, scrambling down towards the lab. The guards outside hadn't opened the door yet, but it was probably only a matter of time now. "Y-yeah..." She chuckled, though she was still shaken from the spell. "I guess... I might've gotten a bit distracted at the end."

Star Swirl shrugged, nudging her affectionately. "No matter, Princess. The world you visited was not a true one... this matter is the creation of your imagination. Your spell was meant to embody a single intelligent creature. As to the rest of this, well. Just as the stuff of dream fades..." He held out one hoof, indicating the trees, rocks, bushes. He waited. Nothing happened. "so too... will..." He put his hoof down, paling. "this."

It didn't.

From not far away, Luna heard a voice, utterly unlike the one she'd been listening to scream at her in the world within. It had the same musical quality she was used to from ponies, and was much higher. Closer to her own than to Star Swirl's. "Shit."

Author's Note

A note on story language:

Anyone who watches the show probably remembers the way Princess Luna (and presumably everypony from the era she came from) communicated, using a pseudo-Victorian speech pattern. I've decided that writing an entire story with that language would be positively awful, both to compose and to read, and I've used contemporary language throughout.

Like any story taking place anywhere but the English-speaking world, I consider this a "translation." Hopefully this won't be a deal-breaker for too many people.

Chapter 9: Opening Move

Hayden could not have easily described what about this pony made him so attractive. A month ago, she might’ve been so disgusted she rejected the feelings outright, or worse, made it clear just how she felt right in front of him. Lord Golden Glow was taller than she was, more muscular as well. He wore a tailed suit like the other stallions, only he didn’t seem like he cared about how he looked.

Instead of fluffy and loose like most of the other suits (including the one his butler was wearing), his was tight, trimmed with gold. Pony ages were still difficult for Hayden, but he looked about her own age. Smelled it, too. He was a unicorn, but that didn’t seem very unusual here. Most of the nobility were apparently unicorns, just like most of the military were pegasi. There’s got to be a historical reason for that. I’ll have to keep an eye out for it.

The butler had said something, but she hadn’t heard it. He repeated himself. “Lord Golden Glow,” he said again, gesturing for her to do something. Is he actually expecting me to bow?

Nightbreeze had been quite clear about that—she was part of the princess’s house. That meant she could not bow to anyone else, or create the impression that the princesses were submitting to them through some indirect way. So she ignored the butler, and only nodded politely. “Pleasure,” she said. “And I’m sorry I could not accept your invitation to dance.”

For a long moment, the stallion only stared back at her, as dumbfounded as she had been. “Lady Evening Star,” he eventually said, his voice not half as pompous as his butler. “Please, join me.” At his gesture, one of the chairs pulled itself out for her. He slid most of the plates out of the way, each one with only a few bites. So much food going to waste.

She moved forward carefully, setting herself down on the cushion as delicately as she could. She now had her back to the balcony (and the princesses), and was looking directly at him. Golden Glow did not levitate the food over for her, instead waiting for several servants to rush in and do that. Hayden remained still, keeping her wings folded to her side. She could’ve reached several of those plates herself—but she didn’t protest.

“I’ll admit, I was as surprised as anyone else to hear the Night Princess had admitted somepony to her house, after all these years.” He glanced once down at the dessert plates in front of him, and seemed to look through them more than at them. “You must be quite the mare to change her mind after all these centuries.”

Centuries? Hayden fought back her surprise to hear a pony in the real world repeat what so many of the books suggested. Yeah, and Kim Jung Un can golf 18 hole-in-ones, too. But she couldn’t say anything like that, not about her own princess. So instead she said, “I suppose I am. If you wanted to ask why, I’m afraid I’ll have to disappoint you. Princess Luna is as reticent with me as she is with everypony else.”

He chuckled. “Forgive my boldness, Lady Evening Star, but I can see what the Night Princess can see in you. I heard the same rumors out of the palace as everypony else… but I didn’t dare believe them.”

“Some of them are true,” she said, opening her wings so they would catch the light, going slightly transparent as they did so. “Except for the ones about my eating someone. I haven’t eaten anyone since I got to Equestria, and I’m not happy about it.”

The butler gasped, his eye widening with visible shock. But Lord Glow didn’t—he laughed, so loudly that ponies at the nearby tables all turned to stare.

He ignored them. “Don’t be cruel, Lady Star. Merriweather almost died of shock.”

She shrugged. “He clearly doesn’t approve of me. But neither do most of the other ponies in this room.”

“That makes two of us,” Glow said. Yet he didn’t seem to be looking at her as he said it, but past her to the princesses on their thrones. “If you’ll forgive my boldness, what are you wearing? That glass over your eyes… I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything quite like it.”

“Oh.” She blinked, blushing a little. “Glasses. They use lenses to bend incoming light and correct for…” She trailed off, realizing that none of what she was saying was translating very well. “They help me see. Ever since I was a child, I had poor vision. They make it so I can see like anypony else.”

He took another moment staring at them, before he shrugged. “Well, I warn you. Everypony’s disapproval won’t stop them from using you. Maybe for the moment ponies only point and stare. Soon enough they’ll remember their greed, and wonder about the others you represent. An unknown tribe, lost to time—new lands, new resources. They put on a good show of wealth for each other the same way a griffon will hide his limp from a dragon.”

She raised her eyebrows. “But House Glow is different? You’ll protect the naive newcomer from getting eaten alive?”

He laughed again, though a little less sincerely. “My father would say yes. Not me. House Glow might be more secure than they are, but we don’t ignore opportunity. My father…”

Merriweather cleared his throat loudly, approaching from one side. “Master Golden. I believe you had another engagement on the balcony. Lady Moonstone.”

He rolled his eyes. “Thank you for the reminder, Merriweather. I will conclude this conversation first. You may go.”

He huffed, then turned and stormed off.

“In the interest of honesty, you should know something,” Hayden began. She didn’t know if this was a good idea—really shouldn’t have been speaking with this pony in the first place. But it was too late to back down now. “All those other ponies are wasting their time. If they’re hoping to take advantage of some new tribe of ponies, with new lands to take. That isn’t why I’m here.”

“Oh?”

She nodded. “Those lands and ponies don’t exist. I’m the only pony like me on this whole planet.”

His eyes widened. Lord Glow opened his mouth, but it took him several long moments to say anything. “Then why?”

She shrugged. “There are things more valuable than land and servants. The things I know could change your whole world.”

If he’d been flustered before, at least Golden Glow had recovered quickly, his grin returning. “I see. It isn’t surprising Princess Luna would want a pony like you. Only that you would tell me so plainly.”

She blinked, then her ears flattened. “I… I don’t think it’s what you think. I’m not smart enough for that.” She looked up from the table, at the ancient room filled with servants. “I’m an inventor.”

“Like Star Swirl, or like Avalon?” He hesitated. “Wait, don’t tell me. It’s like Avalon, isn’t it? You’ve got a costume just like he does. Only yours is… physical. I had heard you were tearing out walls in Luna’s tower. She must be building something interesting up there.”

Hayden opened her mouth to explain exactly what she’d been building up there. Then she shut it again. This wasn’t how you were supposed to play the game. I’m not very good at this. “Yeah,” she said instead. “She was impressed with my work. I’m sure the castle blacksmith is sick of hearing from me.”

Glow laughed again, then rose. “I’m afraid Merriweather was right about my engagements. I am frightened to speculate on what my father would do if he heard I had been truant. But I enjoyed our talk.”

She rose as well, a little less gracefully. Neither of them had touched their food. “Likewise.”

“I have no doubt I will see you again, Lady Evening Star.” He stepped closer to her, around the table. “Be mindful of these waters—you’re surrounded by sharks.”

“I thought we agreed you were going to interact with Equestria’s ponies as little as possible.” Luna said, fuming as she paced back and forth in Hayden’s dark room. None of the torches were lit, but Hayden hardly noticed. A little moonlight coming in through the window was more than enough for her to see even without them. She didn’t usually light candles unless Nightbreeze or somepony else was visiting.

“That was the plan,” she admitted. “But things didn’t go that way.”

“No, they didn’t.” Luna stopped a foot away from her, mane whipping about in a ghostly breeze as she glared. Hayden wasn’t afraid—she was never afraid of Luna. How could she be? “Hayden, you were only there to be seen! Now everypony is talking—you weren’t ready! If they realize you’re a fraud…”

“I tried to get back to the table,” she said, honestly. “But it didn’t work out. They all wanted to talk to me, Luna. Don’t you know what that means?” She didn’t wait for an answer. “The only reason anypony cares about me is because of you. I may not understand what’s going on, but I know that. Lots of them had contracts they wanted to make with you, or the military. Sounded like they were pretty desperate.”

Luna balked, all her anger melting away in the face of embarrassment, and she looked away. “I’ll admit, I… haven’t been attending to that aspect of my duties as I should. I have… missed a few engagements. Left contracts unsigned.”

“Yeah.” Hayden sat down on her haunches. It was quite late, well past midnight. The later it got, the drunker the ponies at the party became. Hayden had always found an excuse not to drink, or to sip delicately at what she was served. “I get that. That’s why you brought me here. Fine, whatever.” She looked away, unsure if she was being too bold.

She might be a captive in this universe, brought against her will, but Princess Luna was still a princess. In theory, she was half the ruler of a whole country. One that could survive invasion and other great distress, and still come out intact. “All I’m saying is, maybe you’re stuck in a rut. Waiting to be ‘ready’ for everything. Wanting to know all the information perfectly, to have a plan for every aspect of what you’re doing. Talking to people in the real world isn’t like that, it almost never is. So I was trying something different.”

Luna winced, and Hayden did too, wondering if she was about to be blasted with another wave of terrible magic.

It never came. “There is… some merit to that,” Luna eventually admitted. “I brought you when every mundane method ended in failure. None of my advisors could help me. I’ve heard advice like yours before, but never… never acted on it. Not successfully, anyway.” She dropped to her haunches, looking at the floor. “Every time I try something like that, somepony makes me look the fool. I’m afraid to leave my throne. Celestia remains with me out of solidarity, not because she wouldn’t rather be with her subjects. Schmoozing.”

“I think you’re missing the most important part of tonight.” Hayden walked past her, over to the now-finished bathroom. She turned on the sink, waited a minute for the cool water to run out of the system and down the drain, then stuck her face into the flow. She washed away all the powders and cosmetics they had applied atop her coat, held her head in the warm water until it ran clear, then switched it off and wiped her face on a towel.

“I’m not surprised,” Luna said, groaning. “How have I failed this time?”

Hayden ignored her tone. “Your sister thought making it so I couldn’t hide would make it impossible to bring me to court. But her subjects didn’t run away screaming, like she thought. They stared, sure… but I forced them to see I was just like them. I made a list of contacts—lunch and dinner appointments with some of the ponies here in Harmony.”

“They’ll use you,” Luna said glumly. Even so, Hayden could see she was smiling. The thought of besting her sister had struck a chord. “They took advantage of me, and I refused to speak with them. Now they want to do the same through my proxy.”

“Your proxy isn’t going to take their shit,” Hayden said, struggling in vain to undo the strap holding the dress to her neck. “Princess, are you done yelling at me? Can I get Nightbreeze back in here to help me get this off?” Hayden doubted very much even real Equestrian ladies could get out of clothes like this without either magic or good help.

Princess Luna rose, then nodded. “We will see what our spies say of you by morning,” she eventually said. “My sister will not have been sitting idle. It is possible her manipulation will win over our work.”

“Possible,” Hayden admitted. “But I don’t think so. She doesn’t really want to sabotage you, right? It’s just… she has a different idea about how to protect people. She’s trying to look out for them. Not make them think things that aren’t true!”

Luna laughed bitterly. “And you think you’re going to do better than I did with her nobility?” She left without another word.