The Reliquary of the Heroes
Luna opened her eyes and looked around. Her vision darkened with each heartbeat. Her eyes watered. The air smelled... different. Danker. Low sun streamed in the windows, nearly blinding.
She forced her eyes to focus, and the first thing she saw was a rainbow-maned pegasus...
...wearing the Element of Loyalty.
A white shape loomed over her, and then knelt down. "It has been a thousand years since I have seen you like this," said the shape. "Time to put our differences behind us. We were meant to rule together, little sister."
Luna looked up. Her vision cleared and she recognized Celestia.
The others in the stone chamber exclaimed something. Luna's blood pounded behind her eardrums, she couldn't understand the words. Her guts cramped, her balance lurched, and she fought the urge to vomit.
Only a few moments ago, in the throne room, Celestia had been yelling at her to lower the moon, Luna felt darkness swirling, what happened oh gods what did she do the beast was taking her taking her mind and her body what horror had befallen...
"Will you accept my friendship?" said Celestia.
There was more noise from the other ponies, but Luna ignored it. She felt a void open up, blacker than the dark side of the moon, and readied to strike. So close, the spell would have killed even Celestia.
She aimed, prepared to light her horn, and...
And...
She bit her tongue and tasted blood. Her heart slowed. Her rage died.
Luna lurched to her hooves and leaned into Celestia. "I'm so sorry! I missed you so much, big sister!"
"I've missed you, too."
They left the castle ruins and the forest, and reached a town. The six Bearers went separate ways to prepare the party.
Luna lifted her wings to let her sweat dry in the breeze. Royal Guards provided a ring of privacy around the two princesses, standing in the center of the town square.
Luna blinked in the sunlight and cocked her head. "Sister.... this town was not here yesterday."
"It was."
"Sister, I am missing an important detail of some variety. The beast... she took my mind... and then my consciousness submerged, like falling into the ocean, tied to a boulder. What happened that I do not remember?"
"The elements banished Nightmare Moon."
Luna felt her knees weaken and she flopped down on the dirt of town square. "That was my name?"
"She... you... were banished for one thousand years. One thousand years to the day, as near as I can judge."
Celestia kept talking. Luna's vision went dark, tunneling down to pinpricks as she stared at the clock on the town hall's spire. The second hand ticked, ticked, ticked.
One thousand years!
Luna heard only rushing blood, Celestia's words gibberish.
"Sister!" Luna interrupted.
"Yes?"
Ponies stared at Luna. Foals covered their ears. A glass window in the nearest shop crazed.
"Sister," Luna whispered. "What happened to my daughters?"
"Luna," Celestia said, "we must stage-manage your return to society perfectly. For one thousand years, you have been the bogymare parents scare their foals with. Pretend to enjoy this party, and tonight, in my private chambers, I will tell you everything you wish to know. I will answer any question, no matter how.... For now, you will play the role of 'happy princess.' Understood?"
"Are my daughters dead?"
"My sister... you know I will never lie to you. So before you ask me questions, think: 'do I really want the answers?'"
"Are my daughters dead? My husband?"
"Yes, for almost one thousand years."
"I... but... but... but not ten hours ago... I ate breakfast with them."
"Dissolve the Lunar Battalion," Celestia ordered, pointing a hoof at some of the papers. "Spread the troopers across the rest of the guard. Give the officers honorable discharges. ...and then keep an eye on them."
The Chancellor nodded, and scratched a note with a quill held in his flight feathers.
Celestia sat in her office, huddled with her Chancellor, with her Prime Minister, and with the palace majordomo. Papers shuffled. Celestia would be years coping professionally with the loss of Luna.
And centuries coping with it emotionally.
She closed her eyes and took a few deep breaths. Had it really only been a few hours ago? Was her sister really gone?
The door slammed open, and four guards stormed in, surrounding a young unicorn mare in the gold uniform tunic of an officer-cadet.
Dark blue-purple, with a white mane and tail, her cutie mark was a shield in front of a stone castle curtain-wall.
The cadet was the tallest unicorn in Equestria.
...even taller than her mother. Celestia felt a catch in her breath.
The young mare snapped to attention and glared at Celestia. Her left ear spasmed. The four guards stood close to her, nostrils flared, eyes narrowed.
The unicorn cadet wore a scabbard across her withers, and the guards kept glancing at the sword's hilt.
Celestia stood up and bowed. "Princess Tranquility."
"Your highness," Tranquility said, failing to return the bow, "take my sword and take my head and be done with it. Quickly, before my courage is depleted."
Tranquility levitated her scabbard free and slid it across the desk, scattering the papers of state.
"You're no criminal," Celestia said.
The young princess threw herself flat to the marble floor and arched her back to expose her neck. "Aunt, I shall not resist, but be quick and show me the mercy you did not show my mother. Kill me before my sense of honor fades and I follow my dam into ignominy and treason."
Celestia looked at the others in the room. A tremble ran down her leg, and her wings twitched, still sore from the battle. For a split second, she saw the infant she had once rocked, and not the teenager in front of her.
"Should we go, your highness?" asked the Prime Minister.
"No," said Celestia. "Stand witness to this moment. Stand witness in the stead of all of the Crown's subjects."
Tranquility sobbed once, shaking, but didn't move. Her neck awaited the blow, muscles tense.
Celestia levitated up the scabbarded sword. "Have you committed treason, niece?"
"My honor is tainted. I will not live in dishonor."
"Do you intend to commit treason?"
"My blood is putrid with mother's treason."
"In your seventeen years of life, have you even once seen the Crown punish a foal for the sins of the parent?"
"Kill me before I lose my nerve, aunt."
"Answer my question! Even once, has the Crown revenged itself on the foals of the criminal?"
Tranquility shook harder. "No, your highness."
"Arise and stand at ease, beloved niece."
Tranquility stood, her knees quivering, her breathing fast.
Celestia looked at her niece, and her eyes stung. She swallowed twice before she could speak. "Do you acknowledge your mother committed the highest of treasons?"
"Aunt, the blood in my veins is attainted. Spill it all, on this marble before these witnesses, before it corrupts my honor. I am the spawn of treason. I am a weed in the garden of state. Uproot me and burn me."
"Where is your sister?" Celestia asked. "Do you wish me to kill her, too?"
Tranquility's dark face paled. "No! She bawled herself to sleep, and her nanny put her to bed."
"Her blood is your own," Celestia said. "By your logic, Equinox must die, too."
"My sister is but six, aunt. She is innocent."
"You are innocent of any crime of your mother's."
"Aunt... I am dishonored. Look at the guards." Tranquility gestured to the four troopers surrounding her. "See the hatred in their eyes. I shall be suspect for every day of my life."
"You have committed no crime, Princess Tranquility," Celestia said.
Tranquility's aura ripped the diamond insignia of a first-year cadet off the collar of her uniform, and threw it on the floor. She stomped on it, her hoof grinding it against the marble.
"How can I serve? How can I expect troopers to follow my orders when they will all suspect me of a ruse or stratagem to betray the realm and revenge myself upon you?"
Celestia allowed herself a smile. "Plan you such machinations?"
"No! But look at my cutie mark! Shield and wall. I was born to be a Princess of the Sword, but how shall I serve when nopony will trust me to command?"
"What makes you think nopony will trust you? What makes you think no trooper will follow you into battle?"
Tranquility's voice cracked. "Because I am the eldest and beloved daughter of the greatest traitor in history."
Celestia dropped the scabbard back to the table, and walked to her niece, and nuzzled her.
Tranquility gasped, and hugged Celestia around her barrel. Her body shook, and Celestia hugged her back, squeezing her hard.
"I will not lie to you. You will face unique challenges," Celestia said. "You will need to work twice as hard to prove yourself half as loyal. But I shall need you, alive and obedient. My son is but an infant, and your sister a foal. You are now the second-eldest of the Royal Family."
"By the heavens..." Tranquility said, "I'm first in line now! Aunt, you must kill me where I stand. If something should happen to you, the suspicions against me will tear the realm apart."
Celestia bit her lip. "A complication, indeed. I proclaim my son Crown Prince, Princess Tranquility second in line, and Princess Equinox third. Is your objection slaked?"
"Kill me, aunt, or I will do it myself!"
"We forbid it," Celestia intoned in the Royal Canterlot Voice. "The Crown commands you: you shall not kill yourself. We shall not kill you." Her voice returned to normal. "I love you. I have lost my sister, I cannot lose you, too. How would we explain suicide to your little sister? So soon after she lost her mother?"
Tranquility finally broke, tears streaming, body spasming as she sobbed. "Aunt... auntie Tia... what will I do?"
Celestia hugged the young mare, pulled her close. "You will be my beloved niece. You will be a Princess of the Blood. You will serve as an officer of the Guard. You will help me raise your sister. You will be like my daughter."
Tranquility buried her face into Celestia's withers. Despite her uniform, her regal bearing, her towering size... Tranquility was still a foal, only on the cusp of marehood. Only her royal blood had opened the doors of the Academy to one her age.
Tranquility bawled. She pounded her hooves against Celestia's ribs. Celestia felt the wetness of Tranquility's tears soaking her withers.
Celestia looked at the guards, the majordomo, the chancellor, and the Prime Minister. She nodded slightly.
After some time, as Tranquility's sobs slowed, Celestia took a step back, pulled herself to her towering height, and looked down on her niece.
"Prince-consort Astur took to his hooves," Celestia said. "I doubt we shall see him again. I name you your sister's legal guardian."
Tranquility sniffed. "Father never was worth much. Mother erred in loving him."
"I know you well, Tranquility. You have a deep sense of honor, and a reverence for the symbols of your profession." Celestia gestured to the uniform Tranquility wore.
Her niece sniffed, wiped snot onto her uniform sleeve, and nodded up at her aunt.
Celestia levitated a dagger from one of the guard's belts.
"In front of me, yourself, and these witnesses, swear a blood oath of fealty to the Crown and the Realm. I will trust you, of all ponies, to keep such an oath."
The younger princess nodded, and levitated the dagger up, and—whack-whack—cut off the top three-quarters of each of her own ears.
She slammed the dagger point-first into the polished wood of Celestia's desk, and let the severed ears fall to the white marble of the floor.
Blood streamed down the sides of her head, into her eyes, staining her gold uniform around its collar, and dripped to the floor.
She snapped to attention, grimacing against the pain, but silent and still.
Celestia stared into the foal's eyes for several seconds, then nodded.
Tranquility genuflected, chest flat into the growing pool of her own blood. "To last last drop of blood in my body, to the last beat of my heart, to the last breath of my lungs, I swear to serve the Crown and the Realm, if you will but accept my fealty."
Celestia leaned down and nuzzled her niece, smearing blood across her own white cheeks.
"Arise, beloved and trusted vassal. Beloved and trusted niece. Beloved and trusted daughter."
Tranquility stood, blood still flowing freely, and stared into Celestia's eyes. "My only wish for my life is to die in your service, my liege."
"Get to the healers before you bleed to death. Dying here will not serve the realm. I would have accepted one drop of blood from a pricked foreleg, you impulsive ninny! You have maimed yourself."
"I will remember my oath every time I look in a mirror."
"You will explain to your sister that I do not expect the same blood oath from her."
"Yes, my liege."
"I forsee dark days ahead of us, Tranquility. You shall have many opportunities to die in my service."
The young princess frowned, then nodded her head. "Good."
Celestia trailed off, and took a sip of water, her throat thick from remembered tears a thousand years old. "Her urge to suicide passed, and she returned to the Academy the next day, her ears bandaged. I made sure her instructors watched her closely for signs of danger to herself... or to others."
"Please..." Luna said. "Please, tell me Tranquility did not fall into ruin as well..."
They sat on overstuffed chairs in Celestia's chambers, near the fireplace. It blazed and crackled, but a shimmering spell kept the heat out of the already-warm room.
Celestia moved to Luna's chair, and sat down next to her, flank-to-flank, and wrapped a wing over her. Luna leaned in to her sister, savoring the warmth, for Luna was shivering, suddenly.
"Luna... your daughters are both dead. They did not ascend, and remained unicorns, mortal. Their bones are hundreds of years dust."
"What happened to Tranquility?" Luna asked. "Was she a traitor like me, or a servant of the realm?"
Celestia said, "Her crypt is in the Canterlot sculpture gardens. Her likeness was the first sculpture. We do not honor traitors so. Only heroes."
"Take me."
Celestia unwrapped her wing from Luna's back, stood, and took a step toward the door.
"We... I cannot wait, sister, for the walk. Help me teleport."
Celestia placed a hoof on Luna's withers, and—
SNAP!
—they were under the moon and stars, among the stone likenesses of legends and myths. Luna swooned, still recovering from her magical ordeal that morning. She shook her head and regained her balance.
Both alicorns lit their horns, illuminating the darkness.
Celestia waved a hoof. "This is the oldest, and most hallowed, section of the Gardens: the Reliquary of the Heroes. Both of your daughters, and dozens of your descendants, repose here."
"Descendants....?"
Luna looked around, and saw an obsidian plinth, polished into a black mirror, supporting two marble sculptures. The first statue was a tall unicorn, standing, head raised and glaring down an aristocratic muzzle. The face and body were criss-crossed with scars, the ears cropped.
The second statue was the same unicorn, fallen on her back, legs splayed, one foreleg bent impossibly, shattered bone sticking through the skin, ribs cleaved open across her flank, one eye glazed in agony, the other eye a ruined mess. Even in the monochromatic grayish-white marble, the wounds and flowing blood were obvious.
The excruciation of the scene polluted the very air, the artist's brilliance still evident hundreds of years later.
Luna sucked in breath. "My foal... my baby... what happened after I abandoned you?"
In carved six-inch letters, the plinth proclaimed:
HERE RESTS
HER INDOMITABLE HIGHNESS
PRINCESS TRANQUILITY OF THE SWORD
FIRST HERO OF EQUESTRIA
SHE HELD THE BRIDGE
9th month, 12th day, 97th year
Luna sat, raised her head to the sky, and keened. Lighting crashed and thunder rumbled.
Dizziness swirled around her and, for a moment, Nightmare Moon tickled at the base of her spine, scrabbling for re-admittance.
"The date..." Luna gasped. "The date of her death... my daughter died at twenty-one!"
"Yes," Celestia said. "She had so much to prove. To herself, to others. She ended one hundred and nine lives in battle. The Guard's yearly trophy to the best swordspony is still named for her. Tranquility sought death, at every opportunity, to prove her loyalty to herself, and to everypony else. Eventually, she succeeded."
"How—why—what happened?"
"The greatest epic of Middle Ponish poetry is entitled, 'Tranquility at the Bridge.' It is the first lay of the Lays of Ancient Pone. It is taught in schools to this day. Lord Macintosh Hills' masterpiece."
"Sister," Luna said. "What happened to my daughters?"
"They died, Luna. They died in blazing glory, as heroes of Equestria."
"Equinox died in battle, too? To me... to me... in my yesterday, she was a filly who could not sleep... unless... unless I gave her precisely nine kisses goodnight. And... and... you tell me she died on the point of a sword?"
Celestia shook her head. "Tranquility was a hero of the sword, Equinox died fighting plague. Equinox was the greatest healer of her generation. Her glory shines no less brightly because she, too, laid down her life to save others."
Luna collapsed to the grass and curled around on herself, her hornlight dying, the dew wetting her coat. "Tell me the stories. I must know!"
Celestia lit her horn brighter, and shifted her head to change the angle of the light.
Luna saw fine writing on the obsidian plinth, a poem of seventy stanzas.
"An epic... my daughter's epitaph is an epic poem, taught to schoolfoals... sister, my heart tears in two. Nopony writes an epic about an easy or painless death."
"I held her, at her end, cast a spell to take her pain onto myself, and whispered my love into her ears as she faded. The second statue is, I am sorry to say, accurate. The sculptor wanted to portray me cradling her, but I forbade it. My... my coat was stained red for weeks. Tranquility's death was terrible, but she spilled her lifeblood to save Equestria. You raised the greatest hero of her century."
Luna clenched her eyes.
Celestia said, "Let me read you the middle stanzas. Every schoolfoal in Equestria memorizes this excerpt in the fifth grade." She stepped closer to the engraved stone and brightened her horn. She read:
"But Celestia's brow was sad,
And Celestia's speech was low,
And darkly looked she at the wall,
And darkly at the foe;
'Their van will be upon us
Before the bridge goes down;
And if they once may win the bridge,
What hope to save the town?'
"Then out spake brave Tranquility,
The Captain of the gate:
'To every mare born to this realm
Death cometh soon or late.
And how can mare die better
Than facing fearful odds
For the ashes of her sires,
And the temples of her gods,
"'And for the tender mother
Who dandled her to rest,
And for the daughter who nurses
Grandfoal at her breast,
And for the holy maidens
Who feed the eternal flame,—
To save them from false Sextus
That wrought the deed of shame?
"'Haul down the bridge, my Aunt,
With all the speed ye may;
I, with two more to help me,
Will hold the foe in play.
In yon strait path a thousand
May well be stopped by three.
Who of our land will with me stand,
And keep the bridge with me?'
"Then out spake Spurious Larhorsius;
A pegasus proud was he:
'Lo, I will hark to thy right Mark,
And keep the bridge with thee.'
And out spake strong Hereford;
Of earth-pony blood was she:
'I will abide on thy left side,
And keep the bridge with thee.'
"'Tranquility,' quoth Celestia,
'As thou sayest, so let it be.'
And straight against that great array
Galloped the dauntless Three.
For Ponies in their quarrel
Spared neither land nor gold,
Nor son nor wife, nor limb nor life,
In the brave days of old.”
"Is... is that true?" Luna said.
"Dark Clouds was there, commanding the engineering detachment. I raised him first Baron Macintosh Hills that very evening, for supreme valor. He penned Tranquility's epic while recovering from his wounds. Macintosh Hills recounts the events accurately, but takes liberties with dialogue for the sake of rhyme."
Luna looked up at her.
Celestia's voice weakened. Her tears glistened in the hornlight. "I... I created seventeen noble houses on that blood-soaked field. So much valor, so much sacrifice... so much death."
"Sister.... Celestia... please hold your horn steady that I may read of my daughter's death. If thou interrupt me... I cannot vouch for my actions."
Author's Note
The poem, needless to say, is Horatius, from (link)The Lays of Ancient Rome.
(I note that it's in the public domain, not copyrighted.)
Tranquility at the Bridge
Red against the midnight sky, Celestia's realm burned. Towers of black smoke rose from every outlying village and town, blocking the stars and dimming the moon. Celestia stood on the highest scaffold, hidden within the half-built spires of Canterlot.
By torchlight, refugees trudged away from the fighting, up the roadway that lead into the new capital: elderly dragged on travois, pregnant mares waddling as best they could. Orphans sobbed.
Celestia's tail swished as she beheld the ruination of all her dreams.
"My son? My niece?" she asked.
"Hidden in the catacombs, with their nannies and praetorians," said Duke Cloudsdale.
A pegasus refugee screamed as she birthed on the back of a wheeled cart.
"Did you pass my final order?" Celestia asked.
Cloudsdale nodded. "The crown prince and the princess are... are..."
"Are?"
"Are not to be taken alive."
"Correct."
Mares and stallions were pulled from the crowd, given a helmet and spear, and sent to muster with the forming militia companies. Celestia closed her eyes and imagined the slaughter those untrained irregulars would soon endure.
"My husband?" asked Celestia.
In the distance, beyond the miles-long string of refugees, spells glittered in the dark as the Guard died to hold back the Maretruscan army, making time for the civilians.
"We believe his battalion destroyed, highness. He.... always fought in the front line."
Celestia sniffled, and wiped tears from her eyes. "Captain Tranquility?"
"Princess Cropped Ears is at her post," replied Colonel Bronze Spear. "Today may be the day she gets her wish."
She looked upward, wondering if the unfinished spires would ever be completed, or if they would burn and fall before the next sundown.
Celestia whickered, then asked, "The latest tidings?"
"Messengers fly from east and north. Horsena routed our battalions, but our troops reform south, in the Everfree. They plan a flanking attack this afternoon. Reports of rape and torture abound. Crops are burned. This winter will be hungry."
"We will endure, together."
"The army has not wrapped itself in glory today," said the colonel.
"I was wrong to discharge the officers of the Lunar Battalion," Celestia said. "They wished only to serve. The traitors have manipulated good stallions and mares to their cause."
Cloudsdale spat on the scaffold's planking. "Accursed Nightmare Moon!"
"Our enemies use her as a symbol. She holds no other power."
Refugees streamed across the bridge, filling Canterlot.
Celestia sniffed the rank breeze. Waste already overwhelmed the sewers. If the siege lasted long, disease would ravage her little ponies.
One more sign of her failure.
"I'll procrastinate no more," she said, and cast a spell. A thunderous crack rang across the valley, knocking scree loose from the cliffs. A translucent-yellow dome shimmered over the city, reflecting the light of ten thousand torches.
The refugees stumbled and looked up and around, and saw the dome ended about six feet above the deck of the bridge.
"Our pegasi will be unable to fight," said Cloudsdale.
"Our pegasi will fight on their hooves," said Celestia, "and we will not worry about their pegasi landing amongst the refugees. Nor will their archers bother us."
"You will be unable to fight."
"If their pegasi deliver firebombs into our civilians, our lines will crack, and the battle is lost. I fight by holding my spell."
By noon, fighting echoed up the mountain passes and switchbacks, close on the hooves of the refugee column.
From the city wall, Celestia watched an entire battalion of her guard die to slow the Maretruscan advance. As the last refugees neared the bridge, the enemy's van broke the final line of defenders downvalley.
"And lo," she said, grinding her teeth, "passes the dream of a nation where ponies live in Harmony."
A messenger flew up the mountain and landed just in front of Celestia's shield dome. She trotted across the bridge and genuflected before the wall.
"Highness!"
"You're bleeding," Celestia said. "Arise. Give me your tidings, then to the healers with you."
The messenger stood up, then looked at herself. Blood stained her right wing, and ran from under her tail, dripping down the insides of her thighs. She shook her head then looked at Celestia. "Highness, Baron Peganiculum is dead, and his battalion destroyed. None survived but I. The road is clear to the enemy."
"Thank you. To the healers."
"I prefer to join the line, if somepony can spare a weapon."
"To the healers."
"Peganiculum is burned! My husband and foals are dead in the ashes! I prefer to kill than to live. Please, somepony give me a weapon."
Celestia dipped her head. "As you wish. To the muster with you."
The messenger bowed and flapped away, trailing blood.
"If we can hold," Cloudsdale whispered, "there is hope. Our distant legions sortie to the capitol. Our broken battalions reform and rally."
Celestia flapped down to the guardhouse at the end of the bridge. Cloudsdale followed on elderly wings, and her other officers took the stairs.
The river surged beneath them, yellow with the mud of autumn rains. The bridge loomed over the chasm, a work of enchanted stone and timber, intended to last ten thousand years, and immune to spell or magical weapon.
Cloudsdale lifted a spyglass with his wingtips, and looked down the valley. Celestia simply squinted.
"A pall of red dust," said Cloudsdale, "and I hear their tramp and trumpets."
"Twelve banners," Celestia said. "I see the rapist Sextus's banner, as well as prince-consort Astur's. My brother-in-law has found a place where his talents are valued."
Cloudsdale stomped.
The last few refugees, an elderly unicorn mare with four grand- or great-grandfoals who matched her coloring, crossed the bridge into the city. The mare's walking stick sounded against the bridge's deck. There was no sign of the foals' parents.
After two deep breaths, Celestia called, "Lieutenant Dark Cloud."
The young pegasus flapped to her and bowed, wings flared. "Liege."
"The bridge must go down, forthwith."
He stood to his full height, and looked at the bridge. The sapper rubbed his heavy beard. A sledgehammer hung low across his withers. "It may take an hour or more. Spells will not avail us; it shall be crowbars and axes and sweat."
"We have not an hour," Celestia said.
She looked from the bridge to the city's inadequate walls. "Their van will be upon us before the bridge goes down; and if once they once may win the bridge, what hope to save the town?"
Princess Tranquility teleported in, landing before Celestia, levitating off her helmet to tuck under her foreleg. The scarred stumps of her ears flicked, and her light chainmail clinked.
"To every mare born to this realm, death cometh soon or late. And how can mare die better, than facing fearful odds, for the ashes of her sires, and the temples of her gods? And for the tender mother, who dandled her to rest, and for the daughter who nurses grandfoal at her breast? And for the holy maidens, who feed the eternal flame, to save them from false Sextus, that wrought the deed of shame?
"Haul down the bridge, my Aunt, with all the speed ye may; I, with two more to help me, will hold the foe in play. In yon strait path a thousand may well be stopped by three."
Tranquility turned to the ranks of armored troopers standing nearby, and levitated her helmet up, waving it like a standard. "Who of our land will with me stand, and keep the bridge with me?"
A small pegasus of the Canterlot militia stepped forward, seafoam green. Spurious Larhorsius, his cutie mark showed a winged sun half-hidden by clouds. He shook his head under his helmet, and the leading edges of his wings glinted where sunlight struck their blades. "Lo, I will hark to thy right Mark, and keep the bridge with thee."
An off-white earth pony, Hereford, a praetorian of Celestia's personal guard, as tall as Tranquility but twice her weight, stepped forward. Plate armor as thick as Celestia's forelegs covered her. "I will abide on thy left side, and keep the bridge with thee."
Tranquility looked at her aunt.
"Tranquility," said Celestia, "As thou sayest, so let it be."
Luna stopped reading, and looked up at her sister. "You say these words are true? All true?"
"Aye, Luna. Every word. Some details didn't make the poem, however, because Dark Cloud either wasn't privy, or could not find a rhyme."
"Tell me."
"Tranquility levitated her helmet back on. She looked at me, and I saw tears in her eyes. She said, 'Aunt?' I looked at her, and fought my own tears. Tranquility said, 'Thank you for trusting me, Auntie Tia.'"
Luna clenched her eyes, and wheezed through a clamped jaw. "What did thou reply?"
"I told her, 'I trust nopony more. Fight hard. Die well. I love you.' ...To tell her 'good luck' or 'be safe' would have been insulting."
Luna turned back to the poem and read, And straight against that great array, galloped the dauntless Three.
Celestia watched her niece and the two troopers. They waited at the far head of the bridge, tightening their armor and harnesses, shaking their heads to seat their helmets.
Tranquility levitated up sword and shield, spinning the sword in figure-eights.
Spurious danced from side to side and flicked his bladed wings.
Hereford stood, glacier-like as only an earth pony can, the bone-crushing knobs on her foreleg armor glinting in the noonday sun.
Horn glowing with the shield spell, Celestia could not levitate anything. She took an axe into her teeth and landed the first blow against the wooden trestle of the bridge.
And nobles mixed with peasants, soldiers mixed with shopkeepers and farmers. Everpony that could wield a hatchet, axe, or crow swarmed the bridge. Unicorns and earth ponies smote upon the planks above, and pegasi loosened the props below.
The din crescendoed, as the hundreds attacked the bridge, struggling to break its enchantments and throw it down.
The Maretruscan army paraded up the path, rank behind rank, their gold armor a rippling field of grain kissed by the sun. Four hundred trumpets sounded, the peals echoing off the cliffs. Their phalanxes advanced with banners spread, rolling toward the dauntless Three.
Suprious's hopping and flicking calmed, and Tranquility steadied her sword and shield. Hereford tapped the deck of the bridge with one forehoof, tail flicking.
The bridge trembled with the fall of axe and hatchet, and groaned as crowbars attacked its joints. Pegasi voices and flapping wings sounded below the bridge.
From the Maretruscan vanguard, laughter rose. Had they not destroyed battalions and legions of Celestia's Guard already, now to be challenged by three?
Three of their own champions, nobles proud, galloped ahead of the van and closed on the head of the bridge, to win the narrow way.
Darting low and fast, Spurious Larhorsius struck across with his right wing, blades slicing his foe's forelegs off, then reversed and struck underneath a swinging sword, left uppercut opening throat and jugular. Larhorsius butted with his head, and threw the Maretruscan noble into the rushing waters below.
Hereford rode out her opponent's blow, her armor barely dented, and she uppercut with her foreleg, smashing his chin upward, flat against the roof of his helmet. The body flipped over backwards and bled into the dust.
Tranquility, with a parry of her shield and one fiery thrust, drove her swordpoint deep into the noble's eye, and stained his jeweled and gilded armor with brains and blood.
At the sight of three of their best-born dead, the invaders shouted curses and struck their shields, trumpets blaring.
Larhorsius flared his wings. The blood dripped off. Hereford stood still and quiet, foreleg caked in gore. Tranquility wiped the blood off her blade, onto her victim's cheek.
Across the bridge, Celestia paused, head ringing from swinging the axe with her teeth. Her niece stood, anchoring the line of three defenders, standing over the body of a Maretruscan.
Three more of the enemy broke ranks and ran forward, to slake their thirst for glory and fame by breaking Canterlot's final line.
Herford smote down a unicorn, Larhorsius sliced open the chest of an earth pony, and Tranquility severed the right wing and split the spine of a pegasus.
As the severed wing twitched in the bloody dust, Tranquility raised her sword and screamed, "Lie there, fell marauder!"
Celestia returned to her task, and swung her axe against the trestle, again and again.
Now, no sound of laughter was heard among the foes. Their clamor rose, wrathful and angry. The marching phalaxes halted six spear-lengths from the Three. Celestia's dome shimmered above, frustrating teleporter, archer, and pegasus.
And, staring at the piled corpses and spilled blood, nopony sallied forth to win the narrow way.
A single trumpet sounded, and the ranks divided. Two colts marched forth, carrying upright a banner of a black crescent moon on a silver field. Behind them strode the great Lord Astur, a unicorn stallion almost as large as Hereford, coat mustard-yellow, mane and tail indigo, cutie mark hidden under bronze armor.
A tremendous shield hung across his withers, and two fillies hauled a cart bearing his sword, which burned with black flame, a sword none but a sorcerer of his power and malice could wield.
He smiled at the Three, and eyed his own flinching ranks. His lips twisted and ears flicked at the sight of the cowards in his own array.
His voice echoed off the cliffs and scree, "The sun-goddess's foals stand pathetically at bay, but will ye dare to follow, when Astur clears the way?"
Astur levitated up broadsword and stepped past his ensign-bearers.
"Beloved daughter," he said, "you have grown! Shall you come to your father's side, or shall you die in the service of the monster who banished your mother? After we sack the castle and take the Elements, we will bring your mother back. Bring her back tonight. Shall you greet her in honor, or shall she lament your disloyalty over your trampled corpse?"
The white tail and cropped ears fell. Tranquility slouched a few inches, head drooping. Her sword and shield wavered.
Watching Tranquility, Celestia's stomach burned with an urge to spew.
"Come to me, my child," Astur beckoned.
Tranquility straightened, and her sword twirled once, slashing the air. "I name you traitor, not father, who whispered disloyalty into mother's ears. I hold this bridge: come take it."
The great stallion surged forward and black spell-light trailed his sword.
He swung down, a smiting blow at Tranquility's head.
Tranquility turned the blow and her shield shattered, staggering her.
The flat of the massive sword struck her left foreleg. Spell-light flashed, rendering the bright noontime into darkest midnight for a moment. Blood flew. A crack echoed against the cliffs. Bloody white bone tore through Tranquility's skin.
Shouts and trumpets rang from the Maretruscan line; Celestia screamed, and dropped her axe.
Astur's sword cleaved into the deck of the bridge, stone smoking where it stuck.
Captain Tranquility staggered into Hereford, screaming in agony.
Astur strained to pull his sword free and finish his daughter.
Still leaning against Hereford, Tranquility slammed her sword into his muzzle, teeth flew, and her sword tip punched a hoof's-breadth out the back of his helmet.
The Great Lord of Lune fell at the head of the bridge. His blood stained his daughter's hooves, and mixed on the ground with her own blood.
His sword collapsed into dust.
Luna lowered herself to lay flat on the damp grass, and covered her eyes with her hooves. "My daughter killed my husband. My daughter slew her father."
"War is harsh, sister, and he was no longer your husband by that point, but a vassal of wickedness and an apostle of disharmony."
"His words and physicality seduced me. I knew he was worthless, but for a diarch to admit error, and divorce....? I was too proud. And he did sire incomparable foals. I was... I hoped for a third foal, I hoped for a son, when instead I fell into ruin and banishment."
"Did he really whisper treason into your ear? For one thousand years, I've wondered."
"No... no, my sins were my own." Luna uncovered her eyes and sat up. "I shall continue to read."
Celestia sat down next to her sister, and wrapped a wing around her.
Shattered left foreleg tucked high, blood flowing freely, Tranquility stomped on Astur's dead throat with her right forehoof, and wrenched her bloody sword free from his face.
She held it aloft, and blood dripped onto her mane and ears. "And see!" she cried. "See the welcome, fair guests, that awaits you here! What peer or noble scion comes next, to taste Celestian cheer?"
At the end of the bridge, Celestia tossed her head and sobbed a single deep breath, and then took up her axe again, and rejoined the frantic demolition.
The Maretruscan ranks murmured with fear, shame, and dread.
Stallions and mares of prowess and noble house were all gathered in the vanguard. But all of the enemy's noblest stared at the corpses littering the path to the Three.
"Cowards!" shouted Larhorsius. "You thought you cornered a rabbit, but find your head in the den of a mother ursa. Come taste the bear's reception!"
None galloped forward to lead a fresh attack. Those in the back cried Forward! Those in the front cried Back!
The phalaxes became jumbled together, and the trumpet peals faded away.
The only sound was that of axe and crow on wood and stone, as Celestia and the rest hauled the bridge down.
One pegasus, then, broke from the ranks. His coat charcoal grey, his armor blued steel, and blades glinted on his wings and forelegs.
"Lord Sextus!" jeered Hereford. "Welcome, honored guest! Welcome back to your home! Come back to our justice, fugitive, if thou wish more virgins to molest!"
Three times Sextus looked at the city; and three times he looked at the piled dead. Three times he flared his wings in fury; and three times he skittered back in dread.
Tranquility brandished her ruptured foreleg. "Come, foul rapist, a mare is in distress. Come take her, if thou dare."
Sextus's gray face paled, and he scowled at the narrow way, where the bravest of the glittering host lay.
Beneath the bridge, Dark Clouds and the pegasi wrenched pier from bracing, and above, Celestia and the unicorns and earth ponies plied with axe and lever.
The bridge tilted, tottering, above the raging current.
Celestia dropped her axe. "Come back, Tranquility!"
"Back Larhorsius, back Hereford!" shouted Cloudsdale. "Back, before the ruin falls!"
Hereford scooped up the crippled Tranquility onto her back and bounded, from tottering timber to falling stone, and crossed the bridge to the Canterlot side. Spurious Larhorsius flicked blood off his wings and ran across the gap, wings spread for balance, Celestia's dome-spell too low to the bridge deck to allow flight.
Hereford gently lowered Tranquility to the paving stones of the bridge approach.
Two healers ran to Tranquility, whose shattered foreleg hemorrhaged.
Before the healers could reach her, Tranquility looked over her shoulder and saw Sextus standing at the head of the stricken bridge. He flared his wings in challenge.
Pegasi engineers swarmed out from below and bridge and back to the Canterlot side, as the first timbers and stones cascaded away.
Sextus and Tranquility looked into each other's eyes.
Tranquility teleported and swung her sword as she landed.
Luna turned, and buried her face under Celestia's wing. Celestia nuzzled her sister, cheek against ears as Luna sobbed.
"My daughter died alone," Luna whispered. "My daughter died alone."
"She did not," Celestia replied. "Read on."
Celestia gasped. Larhorsius and Hereford turned to cross again, to rejoin Tranquility.
The bridge fell.
Sextus parried Tranquility's blow with his wing-blade, then struck across Tranquility's flank, opening her light chainmail and her ribs.
Tranquility staggered back, gasping, and dropped to her knees.
Sextus loomed over Tranquility, "Yield! Yield to our grace, and swear fealty to the new Crown."
Tranquility's sword slashed, rang against his wing blade, against his armor, and then drove beneath his left wing.
Sextus coughed blood, and collapsed across Tranquility, crushing the weakened unicorn into the bloody dirt with her victims.
The ruins of the bridge struck the river, and yellow water splashed as high as the battlements.
Maretruscans gasped, and their banners swayed. Soldiers in the phalanxes murmurred and elbowed each other.
Tranquility stood, shrugging off Sextus's corpse, and then collapsed onto her ruined leg. Her scream echoed across both armies.
Celestia looked at Duke Clousdale. "Their morale collapses like the bridge. What news of our civilians?"
"Almost all are in the catacombs," he replied.
"We will sortie," Celestia said. "Ready your pegasi, and I will telep--"
Tranquility shouted, voice amplified by magic.
"Ponies!" Tranquility yelled, trying to stagger to her hooves, but then collapsing to her face. She lifted herself half-up with her good foreleg. "Ponies! See what you've done! Pony slays pony, and for what?"
She stood up for a moment, and then fell once more. Her horn glowed, spluttering, as she held to spell amplifying her voice, and her words echoed off the cliffs.
"Horsena uses my mother as a symbol! My mother was wrong, and fell into ruin! I am Princess of the Blood, I proclaim parole and pardon to anypony who turns their weapons to Celestia's service--"
A spell hit her in the head, rupturing her left eye in a spray of blood, and knocking Tranquility down for the last time.
Celestia cut her spell, and the magical dome collapsed.
The sound, like shattering window panes, rolled across the city and off the cliffs for ten or twenty heartbeats.
To Celestia's host, it was a rallying cry.
To Horsena's, it was the sound of doom.
And with a teleport, Celestia brought her unicorns and earth ponies across the river and against the wavering vanguard of the enemy. Cloudsdale's pegasi surged upward, and delivered firebombs and bottled spells into the enemy's rearguard.
Tall stood Celestia, and her spells lashed the enemy. Her battalions charged, more with enthusiasm then skill, but the Maretruscan lines waved, bent, broke.
A single unicorn's horn, devoid of the rest of its skull, landed at her hooves.
Celestia blinked at it, for a moment.
She threw another spell, and saw a platoon of the enemy burn to ash.
Baroness Baltimare approached Celestia, threw down her sword and helmet, and prostrated herself.
"I repent my treason, Highness. Princess Tranquility offered pardon... the Nightmare is passed. Accept my sword, and forty of my vassals."
Celestia glared at Baltimare. "Arise. Go prove your loyalty."
Baltimare stood, waved her sword to her company, and took off toward the fighting at a gallop.
Celestia prepared another spell... but the lines were too intermixed. She could not bring doom down on the enemy without striking her own ponies.
She trotted to Tranquility, and knelt down next to her niece.
Blood poured from the young mare's foreleg, eye, and flank. Breath sucked through the chest wound as she panted, and she stank of foul urine. Her body trembled in agony.
Celestia's horn glowed, and the aura enveloped Tranquility.
Celestia gagged as the pain left her niece and came onto herself. She felt her foreleg twist and break, felt jagged bone slice skin and muscles, even as her eyes saw the appendage was undamaged. Celestia's flank burned with an agony beyond anything she had felt even during Discord's reign, her left eye went blind, and blood she was not shedding wet her cheek.
Tranquility's remaining eye opened, and her breathing calmed. "Aunt....?"
Celestia shook her head, trying to think through the pain. "Tranquility. I'm here."
"I tried.... I tried..."
"You succeeded. Listen. The enemy is in rout."
"My lung is opened," Tranquility said. "I'm dying."
Celestia kissed her forehead. "Yes."
The monarch nuzzled her niece, cheek to cheek. Like on the day Tranquility had sworn her blood-oath, Celestia's cheeks were red with blood.
"I--have I been good? I've tried every day, to repay, to be mother's penance."
"You've repaid her debt ten-thousand-fold."
Tranquility closed her eye, and her head slumped back against Celestia's chest. Celestia looked down, and saw her own entire torso was red with Tranquility's lifeblood.
"Your mother will return," Celestia said into Tranquility's ears, "return in glory, and not in infamy. Your heroism today will be still be sung of, and I will make sure she knows."
"Thank you," Tranquility said. "I love you."
"I love you," Celestia whispered, into the cropped ears.
"Do not let my sister follow my path, Aunt Tia."
And Celestia felt the pain--the destroyed foreleg, the opened lung, the ruptured eye--fade away as Equestria's first hero passed from life to legend.
Luna was beyond screams or banshee-howls; she simply buried her face into Celestia's neck and sobbed. Distantly, thunder rumbled. The moon moved far across the night sky before Luna could speak again.
"Was... was her sacrifice in vain?"
Celestia shook her head. "No. She made all the difference. The time she bought us allowed us to hide our civilians underground. Her example made those ponies of the enemy's horde who were still capable of thought question their loyalties. We were able to sortie just enough of our own troops, and turn just enough of Horsena's, to make the difference. It was the closest-run thing I've seen in my long, long life. Four thousand two-hundred nineteen commoners, ninety-three nobles, eleven Peers, and one royal died, just on our side. Tranquility made all the difference."
Luna sat up, and wiped her nose on her foreleg, then blew snot into her feathers. She looked at her wing and said, "I have been one thousand years without a bath. I suppose a little more filth matters not. What happened? How did the battle progress?"
"It was the bloodiest day in Equestria's history. Even our wars with the griffons were fought with quarter, with mercy, with mutual respect for healers and the wounded. That day... was not. Six noble houses were wiped out, and I created seventeen new. There were many heroes, many who sacrificed, but none with your daughter's tenacity."
Celestia gently laid Tranquility's head down. Celestia's head, ribs, and leg tingled with the aftereffects of the spell, with the echoes of her foster-daughter's murder.
She stood and flared her wings, feeling blood drip off her coat. She bent at the knees to take the the air--
--and Duke Cloudsdale's corpse splatted to the ground next to Celestia, smoking from a spell-strike driven straight through his armor.
A filly, perhaps five or seven years younger than Tranquility, landed next to his body. Oversized armor flopped against her flanks and wings, and her helmet fell off, revealing a blond mane tied in a foalish bow.
"Granpa!" shouted the filly, hugging the bloody corpse, smearing his blood across her cheeks and chin.
"Duke Cloudsdale is dead, Cold Front," Celestia said. "And your father died yesterday."
Cold Front looked up at Celestia, and her jaw dropped open. Bright green eyes in an ivory face widened, and filled with tears. She mouthed words, but only a faint gasp could be heard.
The teenager genuflected and flared her wings.
"I am your vassal," she croaked, her voice tiny. "Accept my service."
"Arise, Duchess Cloudsdale," Celestia said, and pointed a hoof. "The fighting is that way."
Celestia leaped into the air, and Duchess Cloudsdale flapped against ill-fitting armor to stay at her side.
"And that foal was dead fifteen minutes later," Celestia said. "She was fourteen. She carried a magic charge into an earthwork, knowing the blast would kill her along with the foes. Yet more blood on my hooves. I awaken in the night, two or three times a moon, smelling the stench of a millenium of blood. Cold Front's infant brother inherited the Cloudsdale title and was a thoroughly mediocre noble for his long life."
Luna's tears had stopped, but her body still shook. "It is my fault.... sister, they used me as a symbol to rally forces to their banner. My daughter died to prove she was better than her blood."
"You've paid for any crimes you committed," Celestia said. "Nopony in history has suffered a thousand-year sentence. And your daughters--the foals you raised, for your husband took no hoof in that--they repaid Equestria back manyfold."
"That foal!" Luna shouted. "Duchess Cloudsdale? That foal with a bow in her hair... you say she carried a satchel spell into a bunker? It is my fault!"
"Horsena would have launched his insurrection, sooner or later. Nightmare Moon was a symbol, but there were other symbols I know he contemplated before the Nightmare came. Ultimately, you were irrelevant."
Luna sniffled, then sat up.
"Let me read to you how it ends, Luna," said Celestia. Celestia's voice sang the words, quietly into the stillness of the Sculpture Gardens, under Tranquility's proud images.
"Her statues stand in Canterlot
Plain for all of us to see;
Tranquility in her harness,
A pony, brave and free:
And underneath is written,
In letters black and cold,
How valiantly she kept the bridge
In the brave days of old.
"And still her name sounds stirring
To ponies, bright or black or roan,
As the trumpet-blast that cries to them
To charge the traitor's home;
And parents still pray to Sun
For foals with hearts as bold
As she who kept the bridge so well
In the brave days of old.
"And in the nights of winter,
When the cold north winds blow,
And the long howling of the wolves
Is heard amidst the snow;
When round the lonely cottage
Roars loud the tempest's din,
And the good logs of Everfree
Roar louder yet within;
"When the oldest cask is opened,
And the largest lamp is lit;
When the chestnuts glow in the embers,
And the feast turns on the spit;
When young and old in circles
Around the firebrands close sit;
When the foals are weaving baskets,
And the teens are shaping bows;
"When the soldier mends her armor,
And trims her helmet's plume;
When the weaver's shuttle merrily
Goes flashing through the loom;
With weeping and with laughter
Still is the story told,
How well Tranquility kept the bridge
In the brave days of old."
Author's Note
As noted before, the inspiration and the poem are both The Lays of Ancient Rome.
Comments are always welcome!
1
After Luna cried herself to sleep in front of Tranquility's tomb, Celestia teleported her back into the Palace, and put her to bed.
Celestia stood on her balcony as she lowered the Sun that evening. Luna's hoofsteps approached behind her.
Celestia asked, "Can you raise the moon, Luna?"
"I am weakened, but I shall attempt." Luna flapped into a hover, but only a minute or two behind schedule, the moon popped over the eastern horizon.
"Good work!"
"I wish to return to the Reliquary of the Heroes, Tia."
"That's not wise. I do not wish to overwhelm you, so soon after–"
Luna teleported out.
Celestia smiled. Her sister's magic was returning rapidly. She teleported, following.
Thunder rumbled nearby. Many ordinary Canterlot ponies abandoned their evening strolls and galloped for the Sculpture Gardens' exit. Picnic blankets and baskets laid on the grass.
Celestia trotted past an open bottle of champagne and an engagement ring abandoned on one blanket. She would ask a Guard to look after that, later. She would also send a nice apology present to the eventual wedding....
Luna stood in front of another statue, this one carved from black marble. The unicorn was smaller than Tranquility, but still taller than average, and very slim. Instead of the haughty glare-down-the-muzzle of Tranquility, this unicorn smiled.
"She looks as I imagined," Luna said. "Did her colors change as she grew?"
"Medium-blue coat, unchanged. Her socks and blaze grew sharper as a teen, turning purest white. The colts! She spent much effort keeping them at hooves' length. They lost their minds at the sight of her. Her mane was the same color as yours, but had hints of gray when she passed."
Luna's horn brightened. "The artist carved crows-feet around her eyes. She... she did not die young?"
"She died three days before she would have become a grandmother," Celestia said. "She reached middle age."
"How many foals did she have?"
"You had three grandfillies–a unicorn, a pegasus, and an earth pony. Nopony knows quite how that happened: your son-in-law was a unicorn. He lived to old age, so your grandfoals were not orphans. You had fifteen great-grandfoals, and fifty great-great-grandfoals. I lost count after that."
Luna wiped a feather across her nose, and sniffled. Waving a foreleg at the statues, she asked, "How many of mine are interred in this hallowed place, honored for their... their suffering?"
"Heroism ran in their blood," Celestia said. "And much shed blood it cost them. We shall discuss that later."
Luna winced, her wings flexing.
The plinth under Equinox's likeness was the same polished black obsidian as Tranquility's. "Are my daughter's bones here?"
"No. The victims of the plague were burned, and the ashes committed to the sea. A plinth stands in Vanhoover, as well, memorial to all who died. An identical statue tops it."
Luna bowed her head, and tears dripped down her muzzle to the grass.
Celestia read the inscription out loud:
"HERE WE REMEMBER
HER MERCIFUL HIGHNESS
PRINCESS EQUINOX
PROFESSOR OF MEDICINE
SHE BROKE THE PLAGUE
1st month, 29th day, 138th year"
"There is no epic poem," Luna noted.
"Books have been written. I can give them to you."
"Not tonight. Can you tell me the story?"
Celestia nodded. "I was there."
Luna looked expectantly at her sister. "Tell me. Tell me every word, and leave out not a single detail, no matter how painful."
A distinctive knock sounded on Professor Equinox's door. She looked up from her desk, ran a hoof through her mane, and shouted, "Come in, Aunt Tia."
The door opened, and Princess Celestia entered, followed by two praetorians, and then the Minister of Health, a tan earth pony mare.
Equinox stood, and dipped her head. "Aunt Tia. Minister Strong Medicine. Aunt Tia, please sit."
"We won't be that long," Celestia replied.
The minister bowed deeply. "Princess Equinox."
"Ahem," Equinox said. She levitated a labcoat off of a hook on her wall, and donned it.
"Apologies, Professor Equinox. The initial reports out of Vanhoover were incorrect."
Equinox's mouth parched, and she looked from her aunt to the minister and back. Her ears flattened, and she tried to perk them back up, without any success. "What's the latest report?"
"I sent my son," Celestia said, "because he can make the teleport in one jump." Celestia flicked her ears. "Your cousin carried back a note from Assistant Minister Field Surgery, and it was... bad."
Minister Strong Medicine nodded. "'Bad' is one way to phrase it, highness. Vanhoover is reaching a panic. The disease is burning through the slums, and no section of the town is without cases."
Equinox snorted, "So, the decent ponies start getting sick, and the ministry takes notice?"
Strong Medicine's face turned splotchy red. "You know it's not like–"
Celestia's horn discharged, and both Equinox and Strong Medicine turned their heads away from the light and covered their ears.
"Children," Celestia said, "We've no time. My niece, I'm sorry your stint with the ministry ended so poorly, but I call on you to serve. I beg you to serve. Equestria needs you."
Equinox's stomach churned, and the coffee she'd drunk earlier that day burned in the back of her throat, trying to come back up.
"Of course I'll serve, if you call on me. But I will not serve under her."
Celestia glared. "Equinox, you'll accomplish nothing without working through the Ministry. Through their infrastructure, their field teams, their... security."
She cocked her head, and frowned at her aunt. "Why do you say that?"
"Because," Strong Medicine explained, "the locals are so terrified of the plague, they've started lynching outside medical teams. Rumors claim the plague was brought in from Canterlot. Unicorns, especially, are in danger."
Celestia asked, "Are you still willing to go?"
"On the contrary–now that you've said that, I have to go. Count me in."
Vanhoover sat on hundreds of closely spaced islands in a marshy river delta, surrounded by bayous and swamps.
It had always suffered more disease than any other town in Equestria.
Equinox smashed a mosquito with her tail.
A hasty fortification blocked the causeway bridge, and memories came of her sister and another bridge forty years in the past. Her magic pulled at her collar, her breathing difficult for some reason. Stupid tight collars.
"You're treating the Vanhoovers like invaders," Equinox snarled.
"They're being treated as well as possible," Celestia replied, and pointed a hoof at the tents behind the wooden stockades, and the pegasi guards patrolling the sky perimeter.
The brick chimney of a crematorium spewed vile smoke, and Equinox blinked ashes from her eyes.
Equinox cast a prophylactic spell over herself, and a soft lime-green shimmer surrounded her. "First. Where's the hospice tent?"
A few nurses and orderlies in heavy healer's masks and leather suits staffed the tent, but no doctors. These plague-stricken ponies were beyond care as their bodies melted and blood and ichor seeped from eyes, ears, mouths, noses, and genitals.
Celestia walked among them, her jaw tight, wearing only her usual regalia. Equinox shimmered with her protective spell, silent tears dripping down her blaze and off her muzzle. Minister Strong Medicine wore a hearler's mask and leather suit.
Equinox leaned in close to a lavender pegasus filly, probably preschool- or kindergarten-aged. Her feathers were crusted with her own blood, and she stank with unwiped excrement. Her bloody eyes stared blindly at the ceiling, and she whimpered softly in the back of her throat.
Professor Equinox grabbed a towel and basin of warm water, wiped the filly's face clean of blood, and then wiped the caked diarrhea from her thighs and dock. Her feathers were glued to the bed sheets with blood, so Equinox didn't even try to clean them. No reason to hurt her. "Sweetheart, can you hear me?"
"Mommy?"
Equinox looked at the nearest nurse and raised an eyebrow. The nurse shook her head, and pointed at the crematorium.
"Yes, sweetheart, mommy's here."
"Thirsty."
She levitated a cup to the filly's mouth, and tilted it to give her a few drops.
"Thanks...." she swallowed, working her jaw. Some blood seeped from cracked lips. "Mommy, how much longer? It hurts."
Equinox closed her eyes, and saw her own daughter, also a pegasus. Remembered when Posey had suffered feather flu at this age, and nearly died.
Nearly died, but eventually healed, grew up, thrived, and was now married and massively pregnant, due any minute.
This filly had five hours left, at most.
Blinking, eyes burning, Equinox wiped the filly's face with a fresh towel. "Try to sleep, sweetheart. It won't be long."
Equinox left the tent at a trot, and released her shield spell as soon as she was clear.
Celestia stood next to her, and wrapped a wing over Equinox. Several minutes later, Minister Strong Medicine joined them, shed of the leather suit and healer's mask and smelling of soap and mixed disinfecting herbs. The afterglow of a potion radiated from her. Few unicorns could have sensed that magical echo, but Equinox was not an ordinary unicorn.
"Her magic was so strong?" interrupted Luna.
"Unmatched in history," Celestia said. "Common tricks, like teleportation, she never bothered to master–but her mark ran so deep. She could diagnose a disease by a single glance, and a single sniff of a new herb would tell her what ailments it could cure, magical or mundane. Her magic was unlike any other. It was deep in her blood."
Luna bit her lip, looked at the ground, and nodded.
Assistant Health Minister Field Surgery flapped over.
"That tent is sweltering," Equinox snarled. "You're baking the patients to death."
Field Surgery flicked his wings angrily. "We're expending our unicorns' magic on the ponies who might survive."
Equinox stomped, and flipped her tail. "I will go down in history as the hardest-hearted pony who ever lived. I curse the day I coined the word 'triage.'"
"It's letting us save those who can be saved," said Minister Strong Medicine. "We're saving almost forty percent."
"Arrange for me to go into the city," Equinox said. "I need to find the source of this contagion. We can brew a potion of immunity from that."
Celestia clenched her eyes shut, her ears flattening to her head.
"Impossible," said Strong Medicine. "The town is on the verge of anarchy. A strange pony—especially a unicorn—is likely to get hurt. If you walk around under your protection spell, nopony will trust you. That's magic beyond belief. It marks you as... as..."
"As?" Equinox snapped.
"Marks you as the progeny of an alicorn. You sneeze more magic than ten ordinary unicorns could draw upon in desperate need. Most of the unicorns have fled Vanhoover, or swing from its lampposts."
"I'll wear a tall hood, and not use my spell."
"No!" Strong Medicine shook her head. "We need you here, trying to find a treatment. Some herb, some incantation, some fermented squeezing of freshwater crustaceans, something. Your skills are the greatest in Equestria."
"Pffft. You are a better potion brewer than I. Any doctor can desperately try different drugs on dying patients. We need something more than that.... Goodness, I wish Meadowbrook was still here.... No, we need to find something from which we can brew an elixir of immunity, and give it to the population. Once enough of the herd is treated and immune, the disease will burn itself out."
Assistant Minister Field Surgery whickered. "No. It's far too dang–"
"You take after your sister," Celestia whispered. "I promised her, as she died, as she bled out onto my coat, that I would not allow you follow in her hoofsteps."
Equinox nodded. "I fear that, this time, it must be so, aunt. My bloodline owes much penance, and this is a burden that I, and no other of all Equestria's millions, can lift. It is in my blood."
Luna keened, softly and high-pitched. Celestia nuzzled her, cheek to cheek.
"You are one of the most valuable pieces on my chessboard," Celestia told Equinox. "I would not sacrifice you lightly.... and I love you. You are like a daughter to me."
The Minister and Assistant Minister backed up a few hoofsteps, and looked at each other, eyes widening. This was a discussion internal to the Royal Family, not a debate of Government policy.
"What is the population of Vanhoover?" Equinox asked. "How many will die when the plague escapes the river delta, into Equestria proper?"
"Your teleportation is too imprecise."
"True. I've not spent enough time practicing. I require line-of-sight."
Celestia nodded, staring at the high sun. "Wait until dark, and we'll provide you a blacked-out pegasus chariot."
2
Equinox craned her neck to look over the edge of the chariot. The wind stung her eyes, but she squinted down at the dark countryside. "Circle once or twice more!" she shouted at the two pegasi Guards. "Let the moon get a little higher. I can't see anything."
She huddled down, out of the wind. The humidity on the river delta made the daytime heat unbearable, but at altitude and with a sharp wind off the Western Ocean, the chill bit.
After thirty minutes, she craned her neck again. The moon glinted off the lazy streams of the delta that enveloped and penetrated the city. Bridges–thousands of bridges–crisscrossed the water, and the narrow buildings of both the slums and the nice sections of town stood black against the silver water.
"There's a greenway," Equinox shouted. "West side. Can you set down there?"
"No ma'am!" replied the commanding pegasus. Her assistant shook his head. "Too many tree branches overhanging. I don't see any open space to put down. We'll head back to camp and drop you back off."
"Hover over the water, and I'll swim in."
"You're loaded too heavy to swim, Princess. We're returning to camp."
"What?!? No! I'm not going back. I need to get into town before sunrise."
"Our orders are to put you down safe, on dry land, or not at all, Princess."
Equinox levitated her saddle bags over her hips, cinched the strap, released her safety harness, and stepped off the chariot.
Luna smiled. She actually smiled.
Celestia asked, "May I ask what makes you so happy?"
Luna nodded. "I once caught Equinox jumping over a railing in the Grand Hall, three stories up. She was perhaps... four? Maybe five, and just coming into her magic. I got my levitation around her before she could smite herself against the marble, and brought her to me. She... she kicked me in the shin and proclaimed she would have caught herself just fine! I levitated her up by the tail and paddled her hiney with my scabbard, and she didn't attempt such a stunt again......."
Luna's face twisted into a snarl. "...at least, not before I abandoned her, anyway..."
Celestia wiped a tear from her own eyes. "I'm surprised she pursued medicine, instead of joining a circus. She was a daredevil."
She slung a wing over her little sister, hugged her tightly, and continued the tale.
The two pegasi bleated in horrror as their princess—their Royal charge—plummeted down, down, down, toward the darkness and the hard buildings and soppy ground of Vanhoover, plummeting several thousand feet to a sure death for any unicorn stupid enough to leap from such a height, this was suicide, how would they convince Celestia, bucking Celestia, that the princess had jumped and–
Lime-green spell light flared as her levitation grabbed around her body, her fall slowed, and a silvery column of water rose high in the moonlight as she splashed down.
The two pegasi flapped forward, looking down toward the surely-dead princess.
Far below, hornlight blinked three times, paused, three times, paused, three times: the prearranged signal for safe.
Equinox paddled to shore, her heavy saddlebags tipping her rump down and forequarters up. Muddy water stung her eyes, and she blinked constantly.
Her hooves touched bottom, and she dragged herself onto muddy ground matted with beach grass. "Stupid," she said to herself. "Stupid, stupid...." and flopped down to pant for a minute. "Stupid princess..."
Sitting up, she levitated off her cloak and used a simple spell to dry it, but it remained caked with mud.
She then took her items, one by one, from her saddlebags, drying and checking them. Nothing was damaged, nothing was opened.
The stench of rotten food, open-air cesspools, and crushing poverty surrounded her. Mosquitos landed on her nose, and she swatted one with her left forehoof.
Looking at the tiny smear it left behind, she wondered, How is this disease spread....?
Snoring wafted from open windows in the shanties, along with a foal's sobbing from a third or fourth floor.
She looked at the moon, and allowed a moment of melancholy.
About an hour until midnight, maybe eight hours until dawn.
She donned her now-filthy cloak, pulled her hood over her horn, slung her saddlebags, and trotted into the poorly lit slums of Vanhoover.
3
"Princess!" hissed the pegasus as he landed, about ten minutes later. "What's wrong with you?!?"
Equinox raised a hoof to her lips. "Ssshhh! What are you doing here?"
"After you jumped, we dumped the chariot in the river. The Sergeant went back to report in to Her Highness, and sent me to pick you up and carry you back to base."
Equinox's horn sparked. "If you try, I'll teleport you to Baltimare."
"You can't teleport," he said, "or you wouldn't have needed the chariot."
She blinked at him. "Okay, fine. Toss your armor in the river. Do you know what you look like?"
He glanced down at his blackened armor. "What?"
"A Royal Guard. You can help me."
He started shaking. "What? Stay here–with the plague?"
"I'm not going anywhere," Equinox said. "You can help me, or you can go back to camp and report that I refused to go with you. You can't make me go back." Her horn sparked again underneath her tall hood. "If it would help sell your story to your colonel, I could singe off half your coat and feathers."
He swallowed several times, and Equinox looked at him. Slowly, he nodded. "I don't want ponies to say I ran scared. Can I hide my armor? They'll garnish my pay if I lose it."
"I'll pay your fine from my Royal Allowance. Besides, neither of us are likely to live long enough for that to matter."
"Is... is this a suicide mission, Princess?"
"Probably. Very probably. Not certainly. Do you want to go back to camp?"
"No, Princess." His tail flicked, and he pawed at the mud with a forehoof, then snapped to attention. "My life or death is at your command, Princess."
"If you call me 'Princess' again, you'll get us both killed."
He started pulling off the armor, untying the straps with his teeth. "What should I call you?"
Equinox cocked her head. "How old are you?"
"Twenty-two, Prin.... twenty-two."
"Call me 'mom.' Your dad, my husband, was a pegasus, and he died last week from the plague. What's your name?"
"Flight Feather. We don't look very much alike. That's a hard story to sell."
"That's not a Vanhoover name. You're River Feather, got it? I'll call you 'Feather.'"
The last of his armor dropped to the muddy road. "Yes... mom."
"Your dead dad was named River Follower." Equinox levitated up the armor and dropped it off the nearest bridge. It splashed, and Feather whimpered.
"Ma'am... eh, mom? You're a unicorn."
"Yes. But I'm hoping the hood and my size will let me pass for an earth pony, at least casually."
"Mom... Vanhoover doesn't have inter-tribe marriage. It's against their law."
".......Really? Well, we weren't married, then. You never knew your dad, and I'm a slut. That should be an easy enough story to keep straight, Feather, honey. Follow me and be quiet."
She hurried from shadow to shadow, and they sprinted across the many bridges that spanned the slow-flowing fingers of the delta, and wished for a dark new moon.
Every hundred steps or so, she stopped, raised her head to the sky, and sniffed deeply.
"Ma'am... mom... what are you doing?"
"Sniffing."
"For what?"
Equinox looked past him, and shuffled her hooves. "I'm.... I... it's hard to describe."
"This is a princess thing, isn't it?" he whispered.
She nodded. "I'm less than an alicorn.... but I'm more than a unicorn. I... I don't know how to describe it... did you see my cutie mark?"
"Bandage and potion bottle?"
"Yes.... I can... well, not smell... but somehow, disease... I can find it. I use my nose, but it's not smell like you smell a hot meal, out of the oven." She flicked her ears and tail. "My magic is thick. A sense for disease, it's deep in my blood. The only pony who understood was my sister, but she... died."
Feather's ears went flat. "That day is a whole lesson in boot camp."
"I miss her...." The breeze shifted and Equinox squeaked. "Got it!" She trotted off, to the south, deeper into the city.
Following her, Feather looked at his hooves. "There are paving stones. This is the nicer part of town."
"If the plague is coming from the expensive districts, it would explain the... social stress."
Two stallions strode across their path and lowered makeshift spears.
"No entry," said the larger one, an earth pony.
The smaller, a pegasus, flicked his tail. Equinox stared at him. He was a teenager, still school-aged. Too young for this.
"I'm a doctor," Equinox said.
"There are no doctors left," said the earth pony.
"There's one."
"Liar. Who's your friend?"
"My son."
The pegasus teenager tilted his head. His voice shook as he spoke. "No way. Your coat colors are too different."
"I am a doctor."
The earth pony banged the butt of his spear on the cobblestones. "Be gone! Go."
"Wait," said the pegasus teenager. "My sister is coming down with it. Are you really...?"
Equinox nodded. "When did her symptoms start?"
"This afternoon," said the teenager.
"It's that early? I can save her. Take me to her."
"No!" snarled the earth pony, lowering his spear. "Nopony cross–"
Flight Feather leaped and landed on the spear, breaking its shaft, and kicked the earth pony under the chin. He flew backwards and landed, unconscious, jaw broken, legs twitching.
"Feather!" gasped Equinox.
"I am sworn to defend you... mom."
The teenage pegasus's eyes boggled as he stared at his crumpled companion. His wings flared in instinctive challenge.
Feather turned on him and crouched low, into a fighting stance, his Guard's muscles knotted and tense, and the teenager collapsed down to his rump, dropped his wings and spear, and raised his forehooves in surrender.
Equinox threw back her hood, revealing her long horn and aristocrat's face. In the heaviest Canterlot Nobility accent she could affect, she said, "Take Us to thine sister."
The teen nodded, swallowed, and trotted into the night.
Solidly upper-middle-class, the rowhouse wasn't a mansion, but it wasn't a tenement, either. Fine tapestries hung on the walls, and the floors in the public corridors and stairwells were dirt free and freshly varnished.
They quietly trotted to the fifth floor and the teen–his name was Bayou Flier–knocked a hoof onto a door.
"Mother?" he said. "Are you there?"
"Shhhhh!" came a hiss through the door.
Bayou reached his right wing and opened the door. "Mother?" he whispered.
A dark-brown pegasus sat next to a bed, and a tiny filly–maybe a first or second grader–thrashed on top of the covers, sweating and whimpering.
Blood caked the filly's face, and the stench of feces filled the tiny room. Equinox cast her shield spell over herself.
The older pegasus mare looked at Equinox, and then snarled at her son. "Who are these ponies? Why aren't you at your duty?"
Bayou pointed at Equinox. "She's a doctor, mother. She can help Sea Breeze."
The mare glared at her son.
The filly coughed.
The mare nodded, and stepped back from the bed.
"Feather?" said Equinox. "Stay in the hallway."
"But Prin–"
"Ahem!"
"No, mom. I will stand here."
Bayou and his mother looked at each other, eyes widening.
Equinox kneeled down and began levitating items out of her bags. She found an ivory sphere, a clear quartz crystal, and a platinum planchet. She placed the ivory on the filly's lower belly, the quartz on her throat, and the platinum halfway between, on her heart.
She sniffed deeply as she worked. Whatever the princess's sixth sense was–she didn't know, and Celestia simply hmmmmmmed when she tried to discuss it–the sense burned with a fire in the back of her mind. This filly was sick, sick, sick, and would break into the bloody, contagious, wet phase of the disease within hours.
It was in her blood.
The filly's lungs already rattled with phlegm at every exhalation. The other ponies couldn't hear that noise... but Equinox wasn't other ponies, now was she? Her marks burned on her flanks as her magic rose, Mercy preparing to do battle with Death.
Equinox spread her hooves wide and drew on the magic that swirled around her. Her ears and tail drooped, and her lime-green aura filled the room. Bayou and his mother turned their heads, and covered their eyes with wings. Feather squinted his eyes and stood ready.
The quartz, platinum, and ivory glowed as the spell enveloped the filly.
Something underneath the waking world, currents of the primordial chaos, battered at Equinox like a sailor on deck in a gale, but she bit her tongue and spread her hooves, grinding her metal shoes into the carpeting, and leaned forward. The universe itself fought against her, the plague deep into the filly's blood and innards, forces beyond vision fighting Equinox for the foal's life, shadows from beyond the veil had their hooks into the child's liver and spleen, already turning them from life-giving organs into puddles of new virus, ready to sally forth and take more ponies, death from death, life interrupted before it had begun, and Equinox bit down, drew her own blood from her tongue, tasted her own magic, drew into the reserves that ran so deep in her blood, in her marrow, the reserves of determination that had allowed her mother and aunt to face down Discord, the persistence that allowed her sister to face down an entire army while she bled out from a shattered leg, Equinox screamed against the void I am Princess of the Blood and you will bend to my will! and then–
–her talismans, the ivory, the quartz, and the platinum, flashed to ash, the spell light died, and the filly sat up in bed with a shout.
"Mother! Mother, what–?"
Equinox collapsed to the floor, flopped onto her left flank, and passed out.
4
Equinox nursed a mug of warm beer at the family's kitchen table. "Burn the bedsheets," she said, "and the mattress. Don't even touch them–I will levitate them out, for you. Give her a bath, with boiled water and soap." She pointed her horn at the beer. "Try to drink beer instead of water.... I am suspicious of the wells."
"We can't give foals beer!" shouted Mrs. Flier.
"You can, and you will. I'm a doctor, and I prescribe it. If you must drink water, boil it."
Bayou cocked his head. "You talk funny. And he nearly called you 'Princess.' And while you cast your spell... you mumbled..."
Equinox raised an eyebrow and sipped her beer.
"You mumbled, 'I am Princess of the Blood.' There's only one your age, who's also the only princess who's also a professor of medicine..." He stood, bowed his head, and flared his wings. "Princess Equinox."
"You," Equinox grumped, "are irritatingly smart."
Mrs. Flier–holding the weak Sea Breeze asleep in her lap–stared at Equinox. "What's a Canterlot princess doing here?"
She drained her beer mug, and placed it back on the table. "I intend to break the plague."
"But–how?"
Equinox pointed her horn at the sleeping filly. "First, I need to talk to her."
Sea Breeze was six years old and held no comprehension of how close to death she had come. All she understood was that her father had died the week before, but she didn't seem to fully comprehend what that meant.
She flapped her wings. "Why won't daddy come home? He promised to finish readin' me that book. I miss him."
Bayou and Mrs. Flier looked into each other's eyes.
Equinox closed her eyes and breathed deeply. "You probably got sick two days ago. Do you remember what you did?"
"School's closed," Sea Breeze declared, "because of the sickies. I wanted to go swimming in the river, but mommy said I couldn't." She huffed with her tiny wings.
"So, sweetheart," Equinox asked, "what did you do?"
"It was so hot, we didn't do nothin'. My friends and I sat around the Square."
Equinox looked up at the filly's mother.
"The neighborhood square," said Mrs. Flier.
"Are her friends sick?" asked Equinox.
Bayou nodded. "Yes. My friend Pecan Orchard, his little brother broke with it yesterday. Can you save him....?"
Equinox nodded. "No. My magic's blown out for another few hours, until after I rest. That took a lot of magic, I don't think you understand... and it's too late for him, already, if he broke yesterday. This accursed plague moves fast. Another hour and I couldn't have saved her."
The brother's and mother's faces paled. The filly just sighed.
"Tell me about this neighborhood square," commanded Equinox.
"It's a block in size," Bayou said. "Paved with stones. Some gardens, fresh veggies and herbs. The foals play hopscotch, we play hoofball."
Dizziness hit Equinox, like a buck to the face, and she leaned her elbows on the table and cradled her head on her forehooves. Already knowing the answer, she asked, "What do the little ones do when it gets too hot?"
"Why, the little ones splash around in the fountain," Bayou said. "It's too hot in the summer to do anything else."
"They splash each other in the face?"
"Well, yeah!" Sea Breeze shouthed. "Duh, Princess."
Equinox stood, and pointed a hoof at Feather. "Let's go. Bayou, lead us there."
Feather shook his head. "Highness, it's nearly sunrise, and you said yourself, you need to rest. We can go after dark, tonight."
Bayou nodded his head. "Ma'am... this plague is magic, not mundane. Everypony knows that. There aren't any unicorns left, ponies got... crazy. And it's getting worse. You don't want to be seen. You can't be seen."
Equinox looked out the window. "We have thirty minutes before dawn. Let's go, fast. How many dozens or hundreds will be infected if I sleep away this day? I value my life, but it is not so valuable as that."
She flipped her hood up, over her horn, and strode to the door.
Bayou led the way, down the stairs, out the back, and through dark alleyways. It took fifteen minutes, and the sun was nearing the horizon, the city now gloomy instead of dark.
He held up a wing, stopping Equinox and Feather in the shadows of an alley. "Here. The square."
Equinox said, "I don't want you to suffer for helping us. Can you get back to your post? Your companion won't wake up anytime soon."
"Yes... but what do I say?" He started shaking. "I've been off guard for hours."
Feather lifted his forehoof and punched the teenager in the eye, the iron shoe cracking cheekbones and sinuses with a loud crunch. Bayou went down, gasping and cursing, holding his face with both forehooves and both wings.
"You were unconscious, too," Feather said, "and just woke up. Fly low, through the alleys, back to your post before your relief arrives. Then play possum."
Bayou stood, shakily. "Thanks... for saving my sister." He took to his wings. A small pool of blood glistened in the dawn light where he had dropped.
"I hope you didn't blind him," Equinox snapped. "That hit was right on his eye."
"I hope I did," Feather replied. "If they think he worked with you, mom, they'll lynch him on the lamppost between yours and mine. A blinded eye makes a better cover story."
The princess flicked her ears, then trotted across the square.
Two unicorns, their corpses bloated and blackened from the heat, swung from lampposts on the far side of the square.
Sea Breeze hadn't mentioned the corpses.
So... the foals were so inured to the violence that they could play underneath bodies and find it unremarkable.
Damn this plague!
Equinox kept her head low to disguise the bulge of her horn.
A few steps short of the fountain, Equinox stopped. Feather kept trotting, and she grabbed his tail in her teeth and pulled him back.
"No! Can't you smell it?"
"Smell what, uh, mom? All I smell are those two corpses."
"It's far beyond stench. It's so thick... it's like walking though honey. It's like fighting chest-deep snow without snowshoes. It's... it permates me, it's in my mind and my horn and my belly and in my blood and... and... and it's here. The plague is in the water. The wells. They've been boiling the water to drink, but it's bathing and washing and playing with raw water that's killing them."
Feather nodded. "Can I carry you back to base camp, now? Celestia needs to know."
"I'm bigger than you."
"I can carry you two miles. You're tall, but you're scrawny. Ma'am."
"Hmmm.... Let me work, then I'll take that under advisement."
Her spine itched. She looked left and right, all around the square. There were no other ponies out and about, but she could feel eyes in the dark windows watching her...
...or was that her imagination?
The fountain stood about two feet high and fifteen feet around, made from red bricks and gray mortar, and a hoof pump at the edge allowed the fountain to be refilled.
The princess and guard stood ten feet short of the fountain. The... not stench, but some other sense, that sixth sense of hers... it assaulted her, pounded her, pushed her back. Every step dragging, slowly, slowly, her iron shoes scratching against the paving stones, she trudged closer. Her tail drooped and her head bowed. Sweat broke out across her skin and soaked her cloak, nearing a froth.
Her horn hurt, actually hurt, like somepony had taken sandpaper to it. This was no ordinary plague, but something magical and foul. Some residue of Discord, perhaps, or simply a magical anomaly. The death magic surrounded her. She suspected many of the Vanhoover unicorns had lost their minds to the swirling foulness, but had lacked the magical refinement to understand what was driving them mad. No wonder the entire unicorn tribe had suffered.
Standing less than two feet from the fountain, she used her hooves–instead of her magic–to dig into her saddlebags, and extracted an empty potion flask.
"Feather?"
"Yes, eh, mom?"
"Can you feel them watching us?"
"Yes."
"I need to use my horn."
"You'll get us both killed," Feather stated.
"That's fine, if we can get this flask to Minster Strong Medicine. As much as I loathe her as a bureaucrat, she once was Equestria's master apothecary."
"No Guard considers the death of a Princess 'fine.' I must object."
"Have you a sword, or an axe?"
"I have a knife under my belt."
Equinox nodded. "Fine. Instead of my levitation, I'll scoop water out with my left hoof, then put the flask in my saddle bag. Then, use your knife to cut off my left leg at the fetlock, cut through the knee joint, before the contagion can get up my leg into my body. I can clamp the artery with my levitation so I don't bleed out immediately."
"What???"
"It's how not to use magic."
"No, I refuse."
Equinox looked at him, frowning, and chewed her lower lip. "Can you outfly these pegasi?"
"Not while I carry you."
"What if you just carry the flask?"
"I'm not leaving you."
"You will," Equinox said, "if I issue you a Royal Command."
"Her Highness Celestia ordered me to keep you safe. Your command cannot supersede hers."
Equinox set the flask on the ground, next to the wall of the fountain, and dumped out her saddlebags. Flasks, magical talismans, notebooks, quills, a sealed inkpot, and medical instruments sat in a pile. She hoofed a few of the talismans into her pockets, leaving the rest heaped upon the paving stones.
She placed the empty saddlebags onto Feather and cinched them tight with her teeth.
"We're wasting time, Feather. We're wasting the last of the night, arguing. I'm getting us this sample. You will carry it back to Celestia and the Minister, and I will make my own way back."
"Princess! I cannot–"
She tossed back her cowl and lit her horn. Water spiraled up from the fountain and into the flask, filling it, and then she levitated a stopper into it with a plunk. Another flash of magic and the flask glowed green. "There–unbreakable. Only Celestia can open that spell."
With her hooves, she dropped the flask into the saddlebag on Feather's left hip.
"Now what?" he snapped.
"Now? We run."
Shouting echoed from the tall houses around the square.
"Daredevil," Luna said, with a sad nod.
"She was as brave as Tranquility," Celestia replied, "in her own way. She also very much had a surgeon's mindset: attack the problem right away, with the sharpest scalpel at hoof. To sit and contemplate was to lose the patient, in her mind."
They galloped for the edge of the square, and then into the alleyways, and crossed a rickety bridge over a thin stream. Once deep in the shadows, about a mile from the square, Equinox slowed to a lope, gasping.
"You're not even winded," she said.
"Royal Guard, ma'am. A one mile gallop is barely a warmup."
She stopped, and place a forehoof against a stitch in her flank. "I need... I need to exercise more, but it's so hard to find time... I'll be a grandmother any day now, how can I help watch an infant if I haven't any stamina?"
"Pegasus foal?"
"My daughter is a pegasus, but her husband is an earth pony, and my husband and I are unicorns, and my mother an alicorn, so.... no telling."
"Pegasus foals are... exhausting." His eyes glazed with memories. "My son is three months. This is my first deployment since his birth. My wife... I hope she's doing well."
Equinox nodded, and continued at a slow walk.
Noise sounded behind them, crowds and commotion.
"They're hunting us," Feather said. He looked up. "It's full daylight, now. I dare not fly you out."
"We'll try to cross the boundary into another neighborhood, and hope that breaks their pursuit."
"Then what?"
"I'll go to ground, try to hide through the day, and make my way back to camp tonight."
"I will not leave you."
"You will," commanded Equinox. "You'll fly for the causeway. The guards will recognize you, and you can give the flask to my aunt."
"I will not abandon you."
"I think you are deaf."
"I will die before I abandon a scion of the Royal Line."
Equinox gritted her teeth. "I am not a princess right now–I am a Professor of Medicine, and that is what Equestria needs. Royals are a tenth-bit a dozen."
"The dishonor–"
From the shadows came a harsh whisper: "Princess!"
Equinox and Feather spun to look. Feather crouched into a fighting stance, and Equinox lit her horn. The lime-green light flooded the alley.
Bayou dropped to his belly and covered his face with his forelegs and wings. "No no no no NO! It's me!"
Unicorn light died, and the guard relaxed his stance.
The colt staggered to his hooves. His left eye was blackened and bloody, but he bleared through the swelling. "I–thank you. Thank you. You saved my sister, and me."
"Why aren't you at your post, soldier?" snarled Feather.
"The relief shift told me to go home. As soon as I was out of sight, I looked for you two. What will you do?"
"Feather was about to fly the specimen back to the camp," Equinox said.
"Was not."
Equinox raised her nose into the air and closed her eyes as she sniffed, head cocked.
Eyes still closed, she lit her horn, and a pile of trash began to disassemble itself, fifty feet down the alleyway.
A decayed body–it appeared to have been an adult earth pony, but who could tell, anymore?–was revealed as the trash moved away.
"Look at that!" Equinox ordered. "Look! The organs melt, the eyeballs bleed, the skin sloughs off the vulva. The testicles turn black and inflate. The bowels run with blood and tissue. And every drop of the ichor can kill a dozen more ponies. Eventually, the bones liquify inside the body. Look at that! Every minute we wait, is another chance for that to escape into Equestria."
Bayou vomited onto his own hooves. Feather swallowed several times and turned pale.
"Feather," Equinox said, placing a hoof on his withers, "your loyalty is honorable. But think more deeply. Why do Guards swear fealty to the Crown and the Realm? Why isn't your oath to the Royal family, instead?"
"Because... because... we're guards."
"No. The Crown rests on my aunt's head, because she is powerful and wise–but where is her loyalty? What does Celestia value? What would she trade her life for?"
He stood, biting his lip, thinking.
"The Crown, and the Royal House: our loyalty is to the ponies of our realm. Think about that, Feather. Think of my sister–you said her last stand was a lesson? If Royal blood was more valuable than that of ordinary ponies', would my sister have stood at the head of that bridge, or instead would she have cowered in the tunnels with the foals and the elderly?"
Slowly, Feather's head shook.
"Royal blood is but a coin–a valuable coin, yes, but a coin to be spent on behalf of the ponies of this land. If this plague escapes the quarantine, it will burn through Equestria. The Griffons or Dragons or Minotaurs or Hippogriffs, or all of them together, will see opportunity. What do you think will happen after three-quarters of the population melts into ichorous puddles?"
"But... princess..."
"Go to my aunt, Flight Feather. In your saddlebag is the key to the plague. I will go to ground, and make my way back to the camp tonight. But if I die because you are not here to protect me–that is a price I accept. My Royal blood does not outweigh all the lives that can be saved. My blood is meant to serve Equestria; Equestria does not serve me!"
"Princess–will you really hide out the daylight? Will you really sneak back tonight? I've only known you for a few hours, but your reputation... I've visited your sister's grave. I think you'll try to find a hospital, and work until your eyeballs begin to bleed and your bowels begin to run."
Equinox smiled. "You are damnably smart, too. That's exactly my plan."
"I can't leave you, knowing you intend to lay down your life." Feather closed his eyes, stomped, flattened his ears. He knew she was correct, how could a guard leave his princess behind?
"I'll raise a magical ruckus, and that will be your opportunity to fly without interference."
He sook his head, no, no, no, no.
"Feather–ask yourself this. Ask yourself, 'Is my loyalty to this flesh and blood standing in front of me, or is my loyalty to what she stands for? The millions of other ponies across Equestria?' Think of your wife and foal. I am willing to die here, so that they may live there."
Slowly, Flight Feather nodded. "Celestia will have my wings clipped if anything happens to you. I will carry the flask to the Princess and the Minister, but then I'll return for you."
"But you have a son!" Equinox replied. "An infant you hardly know."
"Nopony will tell him his father lived a coward. Let them say his father died a Guard. My entire generation names themselves accursed that we were not at the Bridge with Tranquility, to be one of the Three. We hold our honor cheap when any veteran who was there speaks. To die at the side of Tranquility's sister? That is a legacy my wife and my son can be proud of."
"And," Celestia said, "Flight Feather carried the flask to me. Equinox threw fireworks from her horn, which attracted the pegasi of my Guard and the Vanhoover militias."
"The flask–was it sufficient?"
Celestia nodded. "It took many days, but yes, we brewed a potion of immunity. Hundreds more died, but the Guard all took the vaccine, and then carried it into Vanhoover, and spread it across Western Equestria. Over the next five months, the plague burned out. Eight thousand more died, but the plague ended."
"What of Flight Feather?"
"I interrogated him. I didn't even need a truth spell!" Celestia giggled. "He was terrified beyond the capacity of his brain to hold. He also had an excellent memory, and a scribe took down his story. I reread it every few decades, when I miss Equinox..."
Luna leaned into Celestia, cuddled up in a way they had not since their foalhood.
They sat in silence for perhaps a half-hour.
"You know what I am about to ask," Luna said.
Celestia hugged her sister tighter, until the smaller alicorn pressed into her own ribs. "Can you stand the end of the story?"
Thunder rumbled distantly. "I must know."
"True to his word," Celestia continued, "Flight Feather returned to the city. It was dusk when he took to his wings. Being the middle of summer, days were long, so many hours had passed since..."
5
Feather flew over the city, about a thousand feet up. Unencumbered by armor or saddlebags, conditioned by Guard training, no Vanhoover civilian could catch him. The few that attempted simply allowed him to go, once he crossed from their neighborhoods.
A flash of lime-green light to the southwest caught his attention. He tucked wings, banked, dove, landed hard.
The building–brick, like the rest of Vanhoover–appeared to be a school. Nopony stood guard outside, but he feared an ambush just inside the doors.
He jumped, tucked, rolled, covered his eyes and clenched his ears, the glass of a window shattered–
–and he hit on all fours, ready to fight, landing inside a large open room.
"Sssshhhhh!" hissed an earth pony in a healer's mask.
Feather gagged deep in his throat and his guts clenched, almost liquifying, at the stench.
Perhaps two or three dozen cots filled the room, lit by skylights and magical flames in sconces.
Patients in various stages of the disease lay on the cots. Blood, feces, vomit, and sweat soured the thick air. The room had been the school's cafeteria, perhaps.
Feather's eyes poured tears.
Equinox trotted to him, wearing white lab coat, but with no mask.
"Did you get the flask to Aunt Celestia?" she whispered.
"Yes, ma'am. I did."
"Did she think it would be enough?"
"Perhaps. They're already drilling a new well into the same aquifer, and Minister Strong Medicine suspects they can get as much of the contaminated water as they need from it."
Equinox nodded. "Excellent."
"I will carry you back to the camp," he said, and reached out a hoof.
She skittered backward, three steps, and her magic lashed out, pushing him away. "No!" Equinox stomped. "No, no, no. First, there are sick patients here, and I am sworn to the Healer's Oath. I will not leave them."
"I am authorized by Celestia Herself to hit you over the horn and carry you unconscious. Or to summon a squad, if necessary."
Equinox sighed, and looked at her hooves, tail thrashing. "No. You can't."
His flicked his wings nervously, and then pulled himself up to his full height. He was large for a pegasus, but Equinox was the tallest unicorn he had ever met, and he looked up at her eyes. "I have never fought an alicorn's daughter before, but I will fulfill my orders unless you render me unconscious."
The Princess of the Blood looked at the loyal guard, stared into his eyes, and began to cry. "You can't. I got vomited on about two hours ago. It got into my eyes, nose, mouth. I'm dead. I. Am. Dead. There is no hope. I'll stay here and work until I collapse. Then.... well," she waved a hoof at the other caretakers circulating around the cots, "they know who I am. What I am. They promised to write a note about where my body ends up, in case Aunt Tia wants to... to build a plinth, or something....."
Equinox hung her head, and tears dripped to the floor, rolling down her white blaze and off her nose.
"I'll never see my grandfoal, but this is the price I choose to pay. It's in my blood."
Feather took a step toward her, hoof reaching up, and her magic pushed him back again. "I'm already potentially infectious. Don't come near me. Go. Carry a message to my daughters and husband, that I love them. Return to Aunt Tia, and tell her I shall make my last stand here, treating my patients. It is not the Bridge and the Maretruscan Horde.... but it is my last stand. I follow in sister's hoofsteps, after all. Tell her... I'm sorry."
Feather shook his head. "No. I can change bedsheets and give patients water. I will stay here until I, too, fall. You are my Princess, and I will not leave your side. I will hark to thy right mark."
Equinox nodded. "You've learned from history, I see. The back room has extra masks and leather suits. Get dressed, then report to the head nurse."
6
Luna burrowed deeper into Celestia's flank. "How... how... Equinox's shield spell? Her prophylaxis against contagion?"
Celestia dipped her head, and kissed Luna between the eyes. She tasted the wet salt of her sister's tears. "She blew out her magic, curing another filly who was in the early stages of the disease. Equinox was smart, Luna. There is no possibility she did not know exactly what she was doing, and the danger she risked. The filly was a dead-ringer for your unicorn grandfilly Cerulean Star, Equinox's youngest, an adolescent at the time of these events. The sick filly was already an orphan, her family dead of disease or violence. Equinox knowingly traded her life for this foal."
Luna's body spasmed with quiet sobs, and Celestia's own eyes grew wet. "Equinox stayed on her hooves five more days. Nopony else lasted so long between infection and collapse. Her endurance, her determination, is a legend. Tranquility's legacy resonates down the Guard's traditions to today, and in the same way, the Ministry of Health's highest medal for valor–which is only awarded posthumously–still bears Equinox's name and image. Two thousand healers died in the Vanhoover plague, and by commemorating Equinox, we commemorate all their sacrifices."
Luna raised her head to the moon and howled.
"An identical statue stands in Vanhoover," Celestia whispered, pointing to Equinox's likeness. "Every summer, the population holds a festival, and remembers her. They name Equinox the patroness of their city, and Flight Feather as the city father."
"He became Baron Vanhoover?"
"The previous Baron Vanhoover, and all his issue, swung from lamp posts outside City Hall. I knew that with... proper husbandry... the story of the lone Guard to brave the plague could be turned into a legend. Feather's home village was not twenty miles upriver, so he spoke with the correct accent to be accepted by the populace. The forty-third Baroness Vanhoover, Feather's descendant, our vassal, recently named her first foal 'Equinox.' An awkward name for a pegasus, but an honored one in Vanhoover."
"Baron Vanhoover? Flight Feather? After he refused to leave Equinox's side?"
Celestia rubbed her nose. "He got infected, spent sixty days in bed, and recovered. The young and strong sometimes survived. He wore the scars for the rest of his life, and eventually carried Equinox's last message to her husband and foals."
"Tia...." Luna gasped, "Tia... what of Equinox's foals? And their foals? And their foals?"
Luna staggered to her hooves, and waved a wing to encompass the Reliquary of the Heroes. "How many are buried here, in sepulchers of glory and pain? I asked that question already; you said we would discuss it later. Tell me now."
"Of those first few generations? Of your two foals, three grandfoals, fifteen great-grandfoals, and fifty great-great-grandfoals? Forty-three are remembered in this garden. Which is to say, half."
Luna dipped her head and moaned low in her throat, her wings flapping.
"Many were warriors," Celestia explained, "but also healers, scientists, explorers, and every other sort of hero that words can describe."
Celestia walked a few steps to the left, and pointed at a plinth that bore a marble statue of a tall pegasus mare wearing a life vest and helmet. "For instance, your eldest great-grandfilly, Gale Glider, born three days after Equinox's death, founded the Equestrian Coast Guard."
Celestia bowed her head in reverence. "Gale Glider died saving a colt from a shipwreck. Her body was lost in the maelstrom, but we raised this memorial here." Celestia raised her head and stood silently for a few moments, staring at the long-dead hero. "The colt she rescued created the spell, still used to this day, that cures gangrene in a wounded limb. Over the last nine hundred years, I imagine one million or more amputations have been avoided, thanks to your descendant's sacrifice."
Luna lay down and closed her eyes. "Had I known the price to be paid, I would never have accepted the elevation to royalty."
"Gale Glider's last words remain the Coast Guard's sacred oath for nine hundred and more years now: 'We have to go out. We don't have to come back.' You raised two incomparable foals, Luna, and your lessons rang across entire generations. Your legacy is not Nightmare Moon, your true legacy is this long line of heroes."
"I should have run from the coronation. My legacy is a garden of bones and marble. Tragedy is in my blood, and these fine ponies suffered for it."
"Somepony needed to serve, Luna, lest Equestria fall into chaos even without Discord. Service is in our blood, and you know it."
"What of Corona? My nephew? Your son? He was but an infant when I......"
Celestia gasped once, and looked away. "He died in battle, commanding the kidnapping of the infant Crown Prince of Griffonstone, whom we then held ransom. The ransom we demanded was an end to the war, a peace treaty, and repatriation of prisoners. Our relationship with the Griffons has had its ups and downs, but they have honored their treaty, and war has never again resumed. My son died on a foreign field, far from home... but he bought a millennium of peace with his blood." Celestia gestured to another obsidian plinth and marble statue, fifty yards away. "I visit his bones at the first snow of every year."
"Did you bear more foals?" whispered Luna.
"Five more," Celestia said. "My last, I named her Silent Night, for her coat was darkest black, passed seven centuries ago. After watching the cancer take two years to devour her from the inside out... I have used precautions against pregnancy ever since. To be unaging, but bear mortal children, to love mortal spouses, is the greatest curse you and I carry. It is the cruelest affliction in the universe."
Luna nuzzled Celestia, cheek-to-cheek, for several seconds, and this time, Celestia's tears wet Luna's coat.
"What of our line, sister?" Luna asked. "How many descendants have we?"
"Follow," Celestia ordered, and took to her wings.
Luna frowned, then flapped after her sister. As they gained altitude, frigid wind bit into her coat and feathers, and froze the tears that still wet her muzzle.
They landed on the very peak of Mount Canterlot, and stood next to each other for several minutes, breath fogging.
As they stared at the distant horizon, their lungs strained against the thin air. Towns and cities sparkled across the landscape. Cloudsdale and minor pegasus cities shined at altitude.
"Behold," Celestia said, and waved a hoof to all of Equestria. "Your children, and mine. After three or four dozen generations, I suspect every last pony has at least one drop of our blood. That is why I serve Equestria, no matter the cost to myself."
Luna nodded her head. "Sister–I allowed the Nightmare to take me. I abandoned my daughters to their fates of pain and legend. I will not abandon their offspring. Sister, I understand now. I understand why you showed me my daughters' plinths. I have returned, I will never allow the Nightmare to retake me, and I will stand at your side for eternity, to protect these ponies, and honor those who have fallen. It is... in my blood."
"I love you. I missed you. Welcome back."
The two alicorns stood in silence on the mountaintop for the rest of the night, watching over their children.
Author's Note
I recognize the tone and themes of Chapter 3 are different from Chapters 1-2, but I hope you still enjoyed.
Comments and constructive criticism are always welcome!
