The year is 7 of Lunar Reign.
Crystal Empire, 12:00 am.
It was a pretty long trip but overall it was worth it. Based on the Spike's recommendation Dragon Lord Ember wished to visit Crystal Empire. So far she could see why, there was crystal everywhere, delicious crunchy looking crystal. Ember licked her lips. Even the ponies are made of crystal. She thought she started to feel euphoria.
"Hello, you must be Ember," Princess Cadence greeted Ember.
"Oh, um hello," said Ember. "You must be Princess Cadence. I have to say Princess Twilight said quite a lot of, should I say, colorful words about you."
"Well, she was a bit unhappy about my marriage to her brother."
"So it's a family affair then? "
"Yeah, you could say that. Should we move on then."
"Sure, sounds good."
"I understand that Spike recommended to visit us?" asked Princess Cadence.
They just passed a crystal statue of Spike. "Remember Me!" Green flames burst from the eyes. "Remember Me!" Green flames burst again. "Remember Me!" And again.
"Yep, that's correct! You see recently I visited Spike in a Ponyvile, and well, there is also Steve."
"Steve?"
"Yeah Steve, you know Thorax."
"Oh him, he, he,"Princess Cadence laughed nervously. "So anyway I had to leave for a few minutes, please feel free to stay here if you like."
"Okay bye," Princess Cadence left. A minute passed then another. Ember looked around and she noticed crystal walls. "I didn't realize the dinner was already served." Well, she was a little hungry. "I guess I could take a bite," She then took a bite from the wall, and then another. "This is so delicious." She paused for a second and then started to eat on the wall. "I think I could get used to it."
She continued to eating and eating until the whole wall was eating. "This is so delicious, that maybe?" Her hungry eyes took a look at the second wall "Oh what's the heck?" she took a bite from it "mm, that's good stuff."
"Dragon Lord Ember? I thought I should let you know.." Prince Shining Armor came into the room. "Guh! What the hay are you doing?" He shouted in shock.
"Eating, you know, you ponies know how to treat your guests.
"We do?"
"Yeah the chef here is amazing," Ember declared happily. "Would you be so kind and send him my regards."
....
"Prince Shining Armor are you alright? Prince Shining Armor?" Ember tried to call him, she vaguely remembered the same exact expression on a Princess Twilight face.
"Must be a family thing," she muttered."Oh well, I tried. I guess I should just try to look for Princess Cadence." She said, and then left the room.
Prince Shining Armor was just standing there, his gaze was long and hard.
After a few minutes, crystal guard came in "Your Highness?" he started saying.
"Pills!!!" Prince Shining Armor wheezed out.
Knowing perfectly well what Prince Shining Armor wanted he then took a small bottle of pills from the pocket of his armor and took a few pills to assist the Prince. "Crystal Heart" was the heart medicine that was quite popular in Crystal Empire. Recently due to all the stress with the young princess, His Highness really need it, and now this whatever it was.
Prince Shining Armor breathed long deep breaths. "I am... I will be alright. I..." He breathed again "I just need some time to collect myself. Thank you very much, you don't know how much I appreciate it right now."
"We are happy to serve your highness. We, your people, really need you and your dear wife right now."
"Thank you! " Prince Shining Armor sighed. "Can I ask you something?"
"Of course, your highness, anything."
"How do you," Prince Shining Armor winced. "How do you got used to all of this?"
"Most of this is just training, your highness, some of it just from life experience. We, most of us are from before. We still remember how King Sombra used to be."
"How he used to be?"
"Yes in a way he was a lot like you are right now. Young, brave, it a bit hard to believe but he was kind. You know it was kind of strange in a way."
"Strange how?"
"You see when the Princess Twilight Sparkle first came here, you remember right? She was a protege of High Princess Celestia."
Shining Armor nodded, he was feeling a lot better now.
"With her, there were a group of seven mares with the dragon Spike. Some of us were confused because we thought that Lady Dash of Loyalty looked very similar to us. We thought that she looked so very much like the Lady Dash of the Northern Lights. High Commander of an elite squadron of Space Marines called Shadowbolts, and a Captain of the vessel Crusader's Furry."
"Lady of the Northern Lights?
"I can show you if you'd like?" asked the guard, Shining Armor nodded.
"She was a very good friend of our previous King," they passed corridor after the corridor. Then they stopped in the room. There it was, a painting of three ponies.
Right in the center, there was a pegasus pony in the military uniform, she was smiling. Her wings were resting on the shoulders of the two unicorns. One was in dark red cloak, dark gray mane, regal posture and a strong confident look. The second one was a unicorn in the blue cloak, pointy wizard hat, and the goatee beard.
Something happened that Shining Armor didn't expect. Mare in the picture made an eye contact with him and then quickly dashed towards King Sombra and kissed him on the lips, King Sombra tried to protest but give up and kissed her back.
Wizard just snickered a little, then sighed.
"I didn't know we had magically animated paintings?" Prince Shining Armor was genuinely surprised.
"This room reopened just recently, and we are thinking to leave it for tourism."
Later that evening.
"How was your day dear," asked Cadence.
.
"It was been quite interesting," replied Shining Armor and he kissed Cadence.
"Just interesting?"
."Yeah, it was." they both lay on the bed in their bedroom. Princess Cadence went to sleep almost instantly, but Shining Armor stayed awake, he sighted. Why do you hate me so much, my dear sister?
Author's Note
Just wanted to post a small teaser trailer of the next story saga. It does involve the wedding, and Twilight Sparkle really hated that one.
The idea of Spike statue doing Remember Me from Futurama belongs to wonderful creators of Antology6.
Thank you, everyone, for reading this chapter.
Friendship Castle, Ponyville.
Next Day 11:39 pm
"Is everything alright? " asked Starlight Glimmer.
"I am fine, don't worry about it," replied Twilight Sparkle, in her hooves was the letter, on her face was a bit maniacal smile.
"Listen, if this is the other day when Ember visited Ponyville?" Starlight started saying.
"I've told you it's fine," Twilight flinched.
"But, you almost did suffer a heart attack! Why didn't I notice it? I've should have seen it, and yet."
"Please, Twilight don't be mad, please, I am sorry." tears started to fall from Starlight's face.
"I am not mad!" Twilight screamed "I am not angry at you. Please, don't cry," she sighed. "Do you have any idea what does it cost to restore crystal structures to its proper state?"
Starlight Glimmer didn't know. Twilight threw the very old book on the table. "This is a book on dark magic Starlight." On the book, there had been written in High Gothic Chapter of the Blood Moon.
Starlight Glimmer swallowed "What? But this is highly illegal! Where did you?"
"I am glad you asked?" grinned Twilight. "You see, I did found this book in Rainbow's cloud house, I asked her what that was? She told me she found that book off-world. That's all and nothing else. When I asked her can I have the book? At which she outright refused me. She said the book is too dangerous, and she would rather destroy it if she could."
"For many weeks I constantly begged her to give it to me. One day she said: Screw it if you want it this much you can have it."
Starlight Glimmer was extremely terrified right now, why did Rainbow Dash have this book? What does she mean she found it off the world? Why did she give the book to Twilight?
This is nothing like her obsession with the equality, this is much worse. And Twilight Sparkle needs help, Twilight Sparkle was sick.
"Come on, take the book."
"What?"
"I know you want to. Take the Tirek damned book."
"No! No! I don't want too." Starlight was so scared now that she accidentally winked out from the castle.
Princess Twilight Sparkle was just sitting on the chair. She started to laugh.
Ponyville Street, 8:01 pm.
Starlight Glimmer needed answers, she needed to find Rainbow Dash.
...
"Hey, anyone home? I know you are in here open up." Starlight Glimmer was in front of the Rainbow Dash house
"What do you want? It's the middle of the night." Scootaloo answered the door.
Starlight Glimmer looked around, "Scootaloo you live here?"
"Well yeah, I do now. So what do you want?"
"I need to see Rainbow Dash, please. I want to talk to her."
"Yeah okay. Rainbow gets your butt down here, Starlight is here."
Starlight Glimmer waited, she spends exactly five minutes waiting.
"So," Rainbow Dash started "what do you want, Glimmer?"
Starlight Glimmer there the book to the floor. "This! Explain this!" Starlight Glimmer blinked "How did I?"
Rainbow Dash smiled she picked up the book and then called Scootaloo over. "Hide this upstairs." Scootaloo nodded and vanished from the thin air.
"Surprising isn't it?" she asked addressing Starlight "I assume you want to know why would I give this book to Twilight?" Starlight nodded, Rainbow Dash sighed, and then continued. "It talked to me. Said so many wonderful speeches about glory, blah, and some other stuff. Honestly, I do find this kind of thing creepy. So I got sick of it pretty quickly."Rainbow Dash went into the next room."This book always gets what it wants. For example, right now it hijacked your subconscious mind, so then you would deliver it back to me. Do you understand?"
"Starlight Glimmer nodded "How could you? Twilight, she is not herself. She is sick, "She swallowed "She needs our help."
Rainbow put a hoof to her mouth.
"In time we will, right now it's not the time."
"She said you found this book off-world, what does it mean."
"It means what she said, off-world, on another planet entirely."
"What? On another planet, I, I don't understand."
"Of course you wouldn't."
"Why are you telling me all of this?"
"You brought the book back to me, for which I am grateful. Believe me, this book already done a lot of damage."
"You said, you... You said we are going to help Twilight. How?"
"Grab my hoof, Glimmer." Rainbow simply said, so Starlight did. Next moment they both vanished from the cloud house. "Welcome, Starlight, welcome to the Moon."
Starlight Glimmer blinked, she didn't expect this. Both of them were inside a metal like structure, there was a wall made from transparent crystal. Behind it, there were Equuis Moon. She then turned back to Rainbow Dash.
"I waited for this moment for many, many years and now this is all mine. For 1000 years I waited, I and the Princess have spent here all of those years together. One day Princess Luna just transferred all the rights for it to me. She said she doesn't want it anymore."
This, all of this is starting to be too much for Starlight Glimmer, have Rainbow Dash lost her mind too? "I.. I am" she began but couldn't say anything
"Oh of course! Let's continue this tomorrow, shall we? Oh and don't worry Twilight Sparkle wouldn't do anything to you or to anypony else.."
Starlight nodded, she blinked and found herself on the streets of Ponyville. For the first time in her life, she didn't want to go back to Friendship Castle, nopony would blame her. Remembering Rainbow's words she took a deep breath and opened the door, she quickly went to her room and went to sleep. On the next morning she woke up "What a strange dream there was Twilight, and the strange book, and then Rainbow Dash took me to the moon."
She said thinking, how weird does that sound in her head, it must have been a dream.
"It wasn't a dream, you are part of the crew now. Here, catch." Starlight caught something metallic. She looked, there in her hooves there were small silver wings. On the wings, there had been engraved "Crusader's Furry."
Starlight Glimmer looked around the room, it would seem that Scootaloo vanished again, Starlight went back to the bed.
Author's Note
Well that's that, for now.
Thank you everyone for reading this chapter.
