The Name of Our Mistakes

Chapters

1. Regret
2. Passion
3. Night-Time
5. Betrayal
6. Innocence
7. Flowers
8. Beauty
9. Honour
10. Accusation/Judgement
11. Mother/Father
12. Hair/Skin
14. Apathy
15. Envy
16. Weakness
17. Lies
18. Memory
19. Cold
21. Illusion
22. Solitude
23. Resemblance
24. Suicide
25. Pity
26. Teacher
27. Lust
28. Fire
29. Blood
30. Goodbye
Prologue: Bloodlust
4. Jewel
13. Fate
20. Fear
Epilogue: Redemption

1. Regret

1. Regret

He sank into the spreading shadows with a curse on his lips. Even as his hooves dissolved into smoke, he still could not quite believe that he had been defeated. And by two so much weaker than him! These ponies were newly made rulers of their land. They had only been in power a few decades. He had spent a lifetime raising himself from lowly unicorn to emperor. How could they defeat him?

“Celestia,” said the smaller one. “This is too cruel.”

“I did not choose this for him, Luna. He made the choices that led him to this moment.”

“But can we not use the Elements again and finish him quicker? Could we not turn him to stone, as with Discord?”

“The Elements choose each punishment to reflect the crimes it is to punish. Discord was a creature of energy and life, therefore tedium in stone is the worst price for him to pay. This is a reflection of Sombra’s crimes also.”

“I … shall not … die …” he promised as his jaw melted and dripped off. “I … refuse …”

“Thou art not permitted the choice, monster,” the taller pony said imperiously. She was huge, white and beautiful. He hated everything about her. “Thy defeat hath already taken too long. Would that we had come here sooner, perhaps we could have saved thy ponies. Thou hast enslaved a nation, banished its citizenry to oblivion to keep them from their freedom and defied thy treaty with Equestria, brazenly devoting thyself to dark magic on our very borders. There is to be no mercy for thee this day, Sombra.”

He tried to speak through his liquefying face. The words were mangled. Though she had spoken so certainly of punishing him, the white pony turned her face away. She wasn’t even going to watch!

Hatred flared inside him like black flames. He was not merely dying. He was ceasing to exist.

Celestia. That was what the smaller one had called her. Celestia, who had come here with her sister to pass judgement on him. Celestia, who had given the order for them to use their strange magical weapons against him. Celestia, who had the audacity to judge him by her morals on his soil, in his empire, and declare what punishment she thought he should receive!

At least, that was what shethought. He had other plans. He had worked too hard and too long to give it all up now. He had sold his soul to the darkness. That level of sacrifice would not be got rid of so easily.

“I will … endure …” he managed to say. “Thou shalt not … be rid of my darkness … Celestia!”

He roused his body into one last desperate charge. The smaller pony whipped her head up.

“Celestia, look out!”

No! He had struck the wrong one! Yet there was nothing he could do as his consciousness drifted away. He had to anchor himself or it would be too late. This one would have to do.

“Get it off! Get it off!”

Though she and the taller one blasted him away with their combined power, enough of him clung and stuck to the smaller sister for his will to sink in and enact its final revenge. He probed and searched until he found the bright, shining core within the pony’s heart. Then he wrapped himself around it.

Take my darkness, little princess, he thought spitefully. Perhaps this is a better punishment after all. Let us see if thy sister withholds her mercy when it is family for whom it is needed …

2. Passion

2. Passion

“Luna?” Celestia waited at the door to be allowed entrance. When, after five minutes, she was still waiting, she knocked and called again. “Luna, art thou within?”

She could hear movement, yet still Luna did not answer. Growing worried and irksome, Celestia knocked a third time. She would not have tolerated such rudeness from a lesser noble, but Luna was a princess. Moreover, she was Celestia’s sister and there was much to be said for the forgiving power of a family bond.

And then there was also her health. Of late, Luna had been suffering from such a potent illness that Celestia had marveled at how quickly a robust mare could become the thin facsimile that stared at her through hollow eyes each evening. They had both thought that becoming alicorns would, along with longevity, bestow upon them the gift of immortality. Celestia had never questioned this until now.

“Luna!” she called insistently. “Art thou within? Speak plain or I shall be forced to knock down this door.”

The movements stilled. A few seconds later the door finally opened, though only a crack. Luna stared through it with one baleful eye. Celestia was a little shocked at the size and colour of the ring around it. Luna looked like she had not slept a wink all day.

“Yes?” she asked icily.

Celestia shook off her discomfiture. “Evening draws on, dear sister. Soon it shall be time for moon’s rise, yet thou art still abed.”

Luna blinked at her. It took several seconds. “I understand,” she said eventually. “I shall stir myself. My thanks … dear sister.”

“Luna!” Celestia placed one golden shoe in the door’s path, halting its progress as it tried to shut. “I confess, I do worry at thy well-being. Thou art out of sorts. Perchance some rest would do thee –” She faltered at the flash of white fur behind Luna. A stallion guard – Luna’s own bodyguard, no less – crept through the curtains around her bed and reached for his armour. “-good,” Celestia finished.

Luna’s visible eye flicked from side to side, as if she sensed the guard coming into view behind her. “I do not need rest, sister. I yet possess the energy required for my duties.” She narrowed her gaze at Celestia, almost accusatory.

“And more besides,” Celestia murmured. “Luna, it is not befitting for a princess of the realm to take her own guards to her bed.”

“My private matters remain my own business, sister,” Luna snapped. She opened the door a fraction, kicked Celestia’s hoof away and slammed the heavy wood shut.

Celestia backed away, shocked and perturbed by Luna’s conduct and manner. She had never spoken to Celestia that way before. Neither had she ever bedded any stallion, so far as Celestia was aware. Though she knew Luna to be an attractive mare, in the prime of her youth, she yet held to the notion of her sister as a foal who needed protection. In battle against that tyrant, Sombra, Celestia had taken the lead. In ruling their fledgling nation of Equestria, Celestia made the rules and consulted Luna as she saw fit. She was older and had things had always been thus, long before they received the mantle of royalty.

Luna was growing up. Moreover, she was growing up as a princess. The stresses and strains placed upon her were not the same as they had once been, and though Celestia still sought to protect her from the world, it seemed Luna truly was no longer a filly peering from behind her sister’s tail.

Celestia could not show her consternation while her own guards looked on, so she returned to her chambers and sat out on the balcony, breathing a small sigh of relief when the moon began to lift into the sky.

3. Night-Time

3. Night-Time

Celestia hated administration but understood that it was part of being a proficient ruler. Monarchs who allowed all decisions to be made by somepony else were weak and feeble, usually out of touch with their subjects and risking inadvertent tyranny through their own laziness. So much could be done in a ruler’s name without them being aware of it, and who suffered in those instances? The populace. She had sworn that would never be the case in Equestria. This country was to be a paradise and would not fall into the same traps as the Crystal Empire.

She was still hounded by guilt over the Empire. They could have been great allies. Instead, they were her biggest regret. Luna had said she wanted to investigate stories of what was happening there several months before Celestia finally agreed to go. She hadn’t wanted to leave Equestria; worried that without the steadying influences of its princesses it would fall to wrack and ruin. What if they were to be killed in battle? Equestria was too new, too defenseless to be left alone while they went to risk their lives dealing with another nation’s problems.

The doors to her study clanked open. She really should talk to somepony about oiling those hinges. Metallic hoofsteps told her exactly who had come to see her.

“Good morrow, dear sister.”

“Yes. Good morrow,” said Luna. “Sister, I do bring to thee a request.”

Celestia looked up. “Oh?” From whom? There were plenty of the nobility too cowardly to ask her for things themselves. It was possibly they thought the younger of the two princesses would make a good messenger on their behalf.

“I wish to extend the night.”

Celestia blinked, unsure whether she had heard correctly. “Thy request is … peculiar, dear sister. Pray tell wherefore this request doth originate?”

“Neither the where nor the wherefore matter,” Luna replied. She blinked rapidly, her eyelids appearing parched and wrinkled. She looked a great deal older than when Celestia had last seen her, though that was only a few hours prior. This sickness had taken violent hold and was no apparently affecting Luna’s mind, too. “What say thee to my request?”

“What should I say but nay?” Celestia rose from her table and trotted to her sister’s side. “Luna, thou art unwell. Thy judgement be much clouded if thou thinkest such a supplication wouldst meet with ought else.”

Luna backed away, hissing. Celestia halted abruptly. She had never heard Luna made such a noise before. It was almost feline.

“And thy judgement is much impaired by thy self-regard,” Luna replied. “Ponies slumber through my night and forego its beauty. Their dreams are all of daylight and the glory of sunbeams. Fairness dictates that this be rectified, if we are truly equals in our ruling of this land.” She narrowed her eyes at Celestia. “Or be that another untruth?”

“Dear sister, I know not what thou sayeth,” Celestia protested. Did Luna truly think she had placed herself above her in their diarchy? They were equal in all things.

“Your tongue speaketh of equality but their hoof rules alone. What scrolls are these that I have not seen?” She gestured at the paperwork on Celestia’s table.

“Mere triflings – farmer disputes and suchlike,” Celestia started to respond.

Luna brought both forehooves down on the stone floor in a bone-jarring stamp. “Mere triflings by thy estimation! Not mine! I was not even allowed to judge whether I would wage my interest in their outcome. How canst thou speak of us ruling as equals when thy thoughts turn not to me over even such a small thing? Ponies do not bring their ‘disputes and suchlike’ to my Moon Court. They reserve them for thy attention at the Sun Court and lay them before thee for thy judgement. How, then, am I ever to look upon and comprehend the manoeuvrings and intricacies of ruling Equestria when Equestria chooseth thee and thou dost permit it? Wherefore didst thou not call me to see these documents? Wherefore didst thou think to look upon and solve them alone when the moon is high and I am awake?”

Celestia bowed her head – something she would have done for no other pony. “My apologies, dear sister. I’ll allow that I thought not of thy feelings in this matter, nor in those others thou hast mentioned. I will not affront thee again in this manner.”

Luna nodded imperiously, staring down at her sister with her chin tilted high, like she smelled something bad. “Good. And what of my request?”

“Luna, it would be ruinous for Equestria if we were to give more hours to night. We have made our calculations to best suit the seasons and crops to feed our ponies. The pattern is set. ‘Twould be dire if our personal sensibilities were to affect those who look to us for protection and guidance.”

“They look to thee,” Luna snarled and stalked out, lashing her tail like an angry cat.

Celestia was left stunned behind another slammed door.

5. Betrayal

5. Betrayal

“Highness!”

Celestia startled awake, all but falling out of bed as the double doors to her bedchamber flew open and crashed against the walls. She sat up, pushing waves of tangled pink hair from her face.

“What ails thee, Captain?” she cleared her throat, chasing sleep from her voice so she sounded more authoritative. Even just awakened, a ruler must be respectable or she would garner no respect.

“Highness, it is disastrous!” The captain of the Royal Guard dropped to one knee even as he delivered news that chilled the blood in her veins. “The Elements of Harmony are stolen!”

Celestia leapt from her bed. She considered waiting for her maids to dress her in her golden attire but dismissed the idea. She would have to communicate royalty and authority in her bearing and voice. She could not wait for such an insignificance if what he had sad was true.

She galloped through the castle, heedless of whom she woke with her hoofsteps or the chattering entourage that followed her. She even flew across the Great Hall, clipping the enormous chandelier that had been a gift from the glass-makers of the Unicornia Province. It swung wildly in her wake but she barely noticed. Nothing occupied her thoughts except the Elements of Harmony.

When she reached the chamber she found Luna already there, her own guards searching the chamber. The unicorns bearing the insignia of the Moon Court ignited their horns and peered into every corner, searching for evidence. They had better not be looking for clues as to how the thief gained access to the chamber, Celestia thought. The chamber doors lay in smithereens where they had been caved inwards by some huge force. Luna turned to her and held out a foreleg to stop her approaching them.

“Halt, sister. Look upon the marks herein before laying thy hoof upon them.”

“Marks?”

“Dark magic, sister.” Luna indicated what appeared to be scorched wood and metal that looked as if it had been melted. She pointed at the roof of the corridor outside the chamber, which was stone, just like the rest of the castle. There, too, were huge black marks. It seemed as though a great fire had erupted in the tiny space and then gone out again the moment the doors were removed.

“Fire magic?” Celestia wondered. “But only dragons have such a thing and we are not at war with their kind. What need have they to attack us and steal the Elements of Harmony?”

“Not only dragons may wield dragon magic,” Luna replied grimly. “And who may know the mind of another if they are not present to explain their actions and have us judge them? I have dispatched several of my guards to search the grounds.”

“I will dispatch mine moreover.”

“Do you not trust my stallions, Celestia?”

“In this, dear sister, it is neither trust nor competence I distrust. Many eyes, many wings and many magic horns may made the difference between locating the missing Elements and not.” Celestia turned to her captain. “Ready my armour. I will go with them.”

“It is night, Celestia,” Luna pointed out. “My domain. Thou art weakened when not below thy sun’s rays.”

“This is so,” Celestia agreed. “Yet it must be done. Wilt thou accompany me in’t searching?”

Luna stared at her. Her mane had lost its lustre and no longer billowed like clouds of starshine. Instead, it hung lankly around her face, glimmering only now and then. “I will go,” she said sourly. “Though whether I ‘accompany’ thee is contentious for a princess of equal rank.”

Celestia ignored the jab as she made her way back to her chambers.

6. Innocence

Posy enjoyed working in the castle grounds. As her rump mark indicated, she had an affinity for flowers in particular and enjoyed tending them, though she understood the need for more practical things like carrots, potatoes and cabbages too. She spent her days hoeing, planting and harvesting as the season required. Though tiny, she tried her best with the plough and could usually make a few gouges in the soil before needing to rest. She refused to stop until her assigned patch was done, though it took her much longer than other groundsponies.

She was taking one such break when a shadow fell across her. She looked up, nearly spitting out the mouthful of water she had just taken when she realised who was standing over her.

“P-Princess Luna!”

The princess watched as Posy whirled to bow before her, turning her face to the newly turned earth. It smelled loamy and inviting, though at that moment Posy was more concerned with not looking like a lazybones to one of the rulers of the whole country.

For a long moment Princess Luna simply stared out at the patch of half-ploughed ground. The pony in the next patch had finished nearly half an hour ago and the pony on her other side an hour before that. The sun was not yet sinking in the sky but Posy knew she had maybe an hour’s more sunlight to finish her task.

“This is thy work?” Princess Luna asked abruptly.

“Um, y-yes, Highness.”

“But thou art so scrawny.” She didn’t say it like she was railing against the injustice of it but with mild curiosity. Posy wondered what she was even doing there and how long she had been watching.

“I, um, am stronger than I appear, Highness.”

“Verily, that doth seem to be so. Thou art a mare among stallions yet thy work is equal to theirs.”

Posy blushed. She was one of only three female groundsponies. To be complimented on her work was gratifying enough - but for the compliment to come from a princess! “My thanks, Highness.”

“Thy thanks are not that which I require,” said Princess Luna. “However, thy raised face and name wouldst be agreeable.”

“Oh!” Posy got to her hooves and tried not to stare at the ground out of habit. “Um, P-P-Posy, Highness.”

Princess Luna smiled. It was a sharp smile, with maybe more teeth than necessary. “P-P-Posy? A fitting moniker for one with a rump marked such as thine.”

Posy blushed so much she wondered if her whole body had changed from butter yellow to scarlet. “Thank you, Highness.”

“Wilt thou walk with me, P-P-Posy? I find my mind troubled by the difficulties that have afflicted our nation of late and I wouldst appreciate the company of one such as thee.”

“Um …” Posy panicked. Even as she blurted her next words, she wanted to swallow them back. “But I haven’t finished the ploughing.”

Luna laughed. “I shall speak to thy superior on thy behalf, should he squawk as the crow might over thine unfinished task. I do believe he will agree that my request for thy company doth o’ertake his need of thy skills with a plough. If not …” She shrugged. “A moment or two of the Canterlot Voice doth often convince where reason cannot.”

Posy swallowed. “C-Canterlot, Highness?”

“The place from which my sister and I heralded, long before Equestria was claimed.” Luna smiled another sharp smile. “Come and I shall talk with thee of Canterlot and more, little Posy.”

7. Flowers

Celestia could not believe it. Two weeks had passed and they were no closer to finding the Elements of Harmony. She had been down to the broken chamber more times than she could count, often just standing in the midst of the devastation, hoping to hear their whispering in her mind, but to no avail.

She stood on her balcony, eyes closed, reaching with her magic across the heaven to pull the sun towards the horizon. It had been getting more and more difficult as the days passed and the Elements remained missing – not because her magic was affected, but because she had lost heart. The combined reputations of herself and Luna would be enough to keep their enemies at bay but eventually they would realise that Equestria’s greatest defence was gone. What then? Would King Sanguine of Gryphona order his griffins to once more invade? Would the mysterious white bears of the frozen north try their luck too, now that the Crystal Empire no longer stood in their path? Celestia felt surrounded by enemies and knowing that she no longer had the Elements had stretched her nerves to breaking point. At all times she appeared the figure of greatest authority and confidence to her citizens but Princess Celestia, Sunlight of Equestria and Its Guiding Light was frightened that the magic of two alicorns would not be enough to defend and entire nation, even if Luna had been at full strength.

As if on cue, she heard her sister’s voice. Opening her eyes, Celestia looked down to see Luna walking below with a small yellow earth pony. She recognised the earth pony as one of those from the gardens, though she couldn’t recall her name. Something to do with flowers, wasn’t it? Astonishingly, Luna laughed at something the little yellow mare said, making her blush the same shade of pink as her hair.

Celestia watched as they passed by, talking animatedly. She had not seen Luna look so happy in … actually, she couldn’t remember how long it had been since she had seen Luna smile that way. It gladdened Celestia’s heart, if only a little.

Luna had withdrawn even further from her after the loss of the Elements. Every night, without fail, she would raise the moon, don her armour and fly off with her guards to search anew for the culprit. At first Celestia had done likewise each day, until the minutiae of running a country intruded and she was forced to leave the search to her sister while she dealt with what seemed like endless paperwork and appeals from ponies. For three hours a day she held the Sun Court and listened to their woes, solving those she could, giving advice and referring them to ponies who could help wherever necessary. Apparently Luna’s complaints that ponies did not do the same during the Moon Court had actually been advantageous, since it left her free to continue the search.

As Celestia looked on with the tiniest of smiles, Luna pointed to a clump of what looked like weeds growing between two stones in the castle wall. The little yellow earth pony shook her head and spoke earnestly, waving one hoof for emphasis. Luna nodded like she was paying rapt attention, glanced at the weed and said something else. The little yellow earth pony shook her head again, pulling a face and they moved on, still talking as the sky darkened above them.

8. Beauty

Wind Racer stood tall, though inside he trembled. It was unacceptable for a member of the princess’s personal guard to be so afraid his armour jangled, so he locked his muscles and drew himself up to his full formidable height.

His captain stepped along the row of guards, inspecting their appearance, their stances, staring deep into their eyes in what Wind Racer assumed was meant to intimidate them. It worked, too. Several times stallions flinched away from Captain Diamond’s piercing glower, causing him to snort derisively and move on. Sometimes he made scathing comments, just to see what they would do. Thankfully, nopony buckled to that, at least.

“Thy training hath rendered some modicum of hope for thee,” Captain Diamond said when he had traversed the row four times and Wind Racer’s muscles were protesting very loudly that they didn’t want to be tensed anymore. “We shall see how thy nerve doth fare. Understand that the position of Royal Guard be not one of status alone. Thy will, thy drive, thy purpose and thy life shall evermore be devoted to the princess. Thou art castle guards and in thy standing as such hast thou proven thy worth to even be considered worthy of serving thy princess directly. Though it is not mine honour to choose betwixt thee, I warn thee now that if thou art unwilling to lay down thy lives for the princess, thou art best to depart forthwith, for there shall be no recompense for weak hearts and cowardice after this moment.”

Nearly a minute stretched out following his words. The line of guards, still wearing the combination insignia of the two princesses on their breastplates, shuffled a little but none left. Eventually Captain Diamond snorted and stamped his forehooves on the stone.

“Then ‘tis decided! Stand to attention, stallions! Presenting her Majesty, Princess Luna, Moonlight of Equestria and Its Tempering Light!”

At once, every single one of the shuffling guards became still as a figure walked in. Wind Racer had never seen her up close before, only at a distance, but he would recognise her anywhere. She was smaller than he had expected, and thinner too. Her mane was actual hair, though it flickered like candlelight and smoke when she moved. Her silvery shoes clinked as she walked down the row, peering at the guards with a neutral expression. Unlike Captain Diamond, she didn’t stop or make comments as she passed. Wind Racer shoved aside his muscles’ protests, swelling his chest and arching his neck like he was a thoroughbred instead of a weather pony who had got lucky. His wings struggled to stand on end as Princess Luna went by and he struggled just as valiantly to stop them. He would never live down the embarrassment of that happening in front of the princess. She was beautiful but not even she would forgive something so shameless.

She paused, turning to look at him. He kept his eyes fixed on a point in the middle distance. The princess sniffed the air and tilted her head to one side as if she smelled something she wasn’t quite sure what it was. Sweat trickled down the inside of Wind Racer’s armour but he maintained his position.

“This one,” Princess Luna said, pointing to him.

Captain Diamond nodded. “Private Wind Racer, to me!”

Wind Racer resisted the urge to leap forward, instead marching to stand beside the captain. He couldn’t believe it. He had been chosen – personally selected by the princess herself! He barely noticed as she selected three more stallions and Captain Diamond dismissed the rest. They departed, sagging incrementally that they had not been so blessed.

“Captain, I trust thou art equipped to induct these four?” Princess Luna asked.

Captain Diamond nodded. “By tomorrow’s moonrise shalt they be ready, Majesty.”

“Good.” The princess yawned. “I tire and shall retire to bed. The sun is high and I do not enjoy its sapping effect. Good day to you, Captain.”

Captain Diamond threw a perfect salute, which the four chosen guards copied equally perfectly. They held the pose as the princess left, and held formation as they marched from the room and back to their barracks. Only there did they finally let loose the joyous cries that had been trying to burst out of them since she first looked their way.

9. Honour

Celestia sat across from King Sanguine, though her every hair stood on end at being in his presence. She was flanked on either side by four of her personal guards – two pegasi and two unicorns. Equally, King Sanguine was flanked by four of the most powerful griffins she had ever seen.

He obviously sensed her unease, though she was sure none showed in her face or bearing. She would never get used to how it looked when creatures with beaks smiled. Given that King Sanguine’s head was covered in deep red feathers, the exact colour and shade of freshly spilled blood, it lent his features a somewhat demonic appearance.

“I apologise, Princess, if thou art afeared of my presence,” he drawled.

“Fear is not among the emotions in my breast, good sir,” Celestia replied. Her eyes flicked once to the door. Where was Luna? They were to have greeted the Gryphonan party together.

King Sanguine’s eagle-sharp eyes noted the movement of her eyes and interpreted it correctly. “Pray tell, wherefore hath the beauteous Princess Luna forsaken our company? I was given to understand that I should converse with both sisters at this congress.”

“She shall attend us shortly,” Celestia said, sound more confident than she felt. “She is wont to distraction, as are many young mares.”

“Ah, yes,” King Sanguine nodded. “Mayhap her eye is caught by a well turned claw – or, should I say, hoof.” He laughed uproariously, as though he had just made the best joke in the history of the world. His guards laughed too, though unnervingly they did not blink once and kept their gazes fixed on Celestia throughout.

“Princess Celestia,” King Sanguine said abruptly, snapping from jollity to severity in a heartbeat. “Perhaps the import of this meeting hath not been made clear to thee and thy sister. My subjects art mine concern, as art thine to thee. Life in Gryphona is hard, Princess, and I cannot always halt those who are desperate from invading bordering lands in search of food to give their families.”

Gryphona’s southern border ended at the Mystic Mountains, on the other side of which Equestria’s began. Celestia understood completely what he was saying. If they did not set down some ground rules in this treaty between their nations, he may not declare war, but neither would he stop raiding parties from crossing the mountains and dragging innocent ponies away to be eaten.

“Equestria is not as prosperous as one might assume, good sir,” she replied easily. “My citizens also understand the necessity of feeding their families. I am sure we may come to some agreement that doth suit both our needs with nary a thought to the crossing of borders.”

King Sanguine settled back, resting his beak on his fist. He waved his other claws as if what she had to say was of little interest, though his eyes remained sharp and alert.

Celestia nodded to the ponies waiting in the corner. The pair hurried forward and unrolled a large scroll covered in her own hoofwriting. She had worked long and hard on it, spending her restless nights working out finer details while Luna went out on her endless, fruitless search for the Elements of Harmony. When Celestia had sent word to Gryphona that she wished to meet with King Sanguine about a treaty between their nations, he had agreed so quickly that she began to suspect he had some part in the Elements’ disappearance. Yet she could not broach the subject for fear of offending him and starting a war Equestria could ill afford. Everything seemed stacked in the king’s favour – if a war happened, his griffins were all hardened warriors. Gryphonan society required that all fledglings completed a year of service in the king’s army and many decided to remain there after their conscription was done. There was no farming industry in Gryphona, though they did keep large tracts of land on which they bred animals for food. Their entire culture engendered citizens who not only knew how to fight, hunt and kill, but openly enjoyed it and saw nothing wrong with adding ponies to their list of prey. Equestria’s armies could not compete with that. If Sanguine started a war, he would win it. Maybe Celestia and Luna would defeat him in the end, but they would lose too many ponies for it to be anything other than a defeat. No, the way to proceed was with politics, not warfare.

Yet that, too, seemed designed to favour the king. Both he and Celestia knew of his military might. If he did not like anything she had put into the treaty, he could simply refuse to sign it. When she and Luna had faced him before wearing the Elements of Harmony and beaten back his forces, Celestia had sensed that Sanguine was honourable in his own way, but before she could use that to hold him to his word, she must first trade off with him so that Equestria did not suffer under the weight of peace with the griffins.

King Sanguine looked at the treaty. He had been staring at it for only a few minutes when the door opened and Luna entered, Celestia was at first pleased, then annoyed, then dismayed at her sister’s appearance. Luna looked bedraggled and haggard, her silver shoes streaked with mud and dozens of twigs and leaves in her mane and tail. Though she walked primly to her place, it was also obvious that she was limping.

“Ah,” breathed King Sanguine. “Thou hast finally elected to grace us with thy presences, Princess Luna. We consider ourselves honoured.” The last word was infused with such disdainful malice that Celestia wanted to kick him so hard his beak shattered. Instead, she held still while Luna responded.

“We apologise for our lack of punctuality, good sir. Please be assured that it was not our design to keep thee waiting. Although,” she added, glancing at the scroll, “it would appear that this is not the case.”

“Time waiteth upon no griffin,” Sanguine yawned. “Nor any pony who doth force time to wait for her.”

“Wise words, good sir,” Luna replied, nodding like he had just bestowed the greatest pearl of wisdom imaginable. “I shall take them unto my heart: time doth wait for no pony. A salient lesson indeed.”

King Sanguine tipped his head, as if he wasn’t sure whether she was mocking him. When Luna kept her face neutral he shrugged and went back to reviewing the treaty.

Celestia shot Luna a disapproving look. Luna kept her own gaze averted, watching the king. Celestia wondered what could possibly have made her so late that she didn’t even have time to clean herself up before meeting with the most important dignitary they had ever accommodated. Grimly, she thought that it had better be a very, very good explanation after this was all over.

10. Accusation/Judgement

10. Accusation/Judgement

“I accept not thine explanation!” Celestia thundered.

“I wish not for thine acceptance!” Luna shouted back. “I merely explain myself out of courtesy.”

“Courtesy?” Celestia’s voice climbed to a pitch to shatter glass. “Courtesy! Where was thy courtesy when I did greet the king of all Gryphona unaided! We intended to show him that we stand unified against aggressors, Luna, yet now he considers us divided and weak within ourselves! Thy selfishness may have cost us the treaty!”

“He agreed to it, did he not? His signature adorns your precious parchment!”

“My precious …?” For a moment Celestia was so angry she couldn’t speak. “Luna, I begin to think thy mind has become addled. Not only didst thou set out into the forest for a jaunt on the very day thy presence was explicitly required within the castle walls, but thy scornful remarks and jibes at myself throughout the summit with our greatest enemy suggest thy commitment to Equestria hath become forfeit to thine own selfish whims!”

Luna became very quiet and very, very still. “Forfeit?” she all but spat. “What sayest thou, dear sister? Speak plain or else hold thy tongue withal.”

Celestia blinked, her momentum disrupted. She had expected shouting and had received exactly that the moment the Gryphonan party departed. They had been entrusted to return to their own land without the armed guard that had met them when they first crossed into Equestria. Celestia prayed the act of faith was not misplaced and she would not wake the following day to tales of some rural village that had been emptied by raiders during the night.

“Speak plain!” Luna shrieked. “Dost thou desire me to say I forfeit mine right as ruler? Dost thou desire me to abandon the throne that is mine by right and claim? The throne that I claimed when we descended to this land and made it our protectorate? Abandon it to thee? Dost thou wish to rule alone now that Equestria be established as a viable country, dear sister?”

“I … we … nay!” Celestia stammered. “Thy words be as addled as thy priorities, Luna! Whereupon speaketh I of thy abdication?”

“Thy meaning be clear, Celestia. Thy deportment and now thy words suggest thine own designs upon the two thrones of Equestria – most especially that they become only one beneath thine own rump.”

“Thou speaketh false!” Celestia protested. “I work only for the good of all – including thyself!”

“Thou speaketh false, Celestia!” Luna replied. “Honeyed words do not disguise thy true intent, nor a proud neck thy true thoughts. Well, let it be known, dear sister of mine, that I shall not relinquish my throne! Equestria be as much mine as thine – though many of its ponies think only of thee when they think of crowns and princesses.” She snarled these last words so savagely that Celestia was taken aback.

“I cannot be held accountable for the thoughts of our subjects, Luna.”

“Perhaps not, but thy actions and pretty speeches at thy court do little to engender thoughts of me as much as thee. Dost thou ever mention me when distributing thy sage advice? When solving the small riddles of the small lives of small ponies, dost thou ever think to consult with me, or render them to the Moon Court for guidance instead? I say nay, Celestia. I am far from thy thoughts, just as I now fly far from thee.”

Without bidding goodbye, Luna ran to the window and leapt out. It was a narrow window and it said much for how much weight she had lost that she fitting through it, though a few midnight blue feathers floated to the floor in her wake.

Celestia’s horn ignited with magic and she brought the feathers to her. Closing her eyes, she wondered when her censure of Luna’s dreadful behaviour with King Sanguine had turned into an airing of her own misconduct as princess.

Maybe Luna was right. Maybe she had been taking over proceedings too much. Sadly, she hadn’t even noticed, though Luna apparently had. Were these the things she thought of each night when she set out to look for the Elements of Harmony? Did she nurse her bitterness with every wingbeat and each mile travelled?

“Luna …” she murmured, but only the damaged feathers heard her.

11. Mother/Father

11. Mother/Father

Posy had to hurry to keep up with Luna’s long stride. The moon rode high in the night sky, surrounded by constellations that she used to admire when she was a filly. Huddled in her wagon back then she never could have imagined that someday she would be walking beside the pony who arranged them, much less than the princess would actually seek her out for such a walk.

Luna strode angrily ahead. Though she had said she wanted to talk when she came to the bedchamber Posy shared with two other mares, she had spoken little and seemed more intent on putting as much ground between herself and the castle as possible while on hoof. Several times her wings beat reflexively at whatever she was thinking and Posy assumed she was about to fly off and leave her. She would not have been offended. The nobility had their own rules and royalty another set again. It was not for a commoner like her to understand what it was like to be a ruler, nor the pressures that might cause a princess to demand a night-time walk through the grounds of her own castle.

Suddenly Luna stopped and breathed out a harsh breath. Posy drew beside her but hesitated before she got too close. When she had told her roommates of the stroll she had taken with the princess only a week ago, they had grown wide-eyed and asked whether she had observed the proper rituals for how to act around royalty. Posy had been forced to admit that she had not, and even when she protested that Princess Luna didn’t seem to mind, her roommates had declared her insolent and uncouth and refused to speak to her. As such, she hadn’t bothered to tell them when the princess invited her for a walk in the forest this afternoon, though now she almost wished she had.

“Posy,” said Luna, “I must apologise for my discourtesy.”

“Oh no, Highness, not at all!”

“Verily, I have not treated thee as well as I might have, given the lateness of the hour and thy tiredness after the day’s events.” She swivelled to look at Posy. “Thy leg. Be the injury as bad as I did suspect?”

“Nay, Highness, as I did tell thee when thou didst carry me home, ‘twas but a scratch from the beast.”

Luna snorted. “But a scratch? Posy, ‘twas a manticore did bite thee!”

Posy hung her head as if this had been through some fault of hers, not a chance encounter with the ravenous beast on their outing. She was still amazed that Princess Luna would fight off such a monster to defend her – and not only that, but also carry her back to the castle when she realised that Posy was bleeding.

“I applied a poultice of my mother’s recipe to the wound,” Posy explained, showing the princess her bandaged leg. “The herbs contained within will aid healing and render me fit to work again within seven days – though I wager I will be ready within three.”

“Thy mother,” Princess Luna said pensively. “Be it truth, Posy, that thy mother be a hedgewitch?”

Posy grimaced. She hated the word used by those who didn’t understand what ponies like her mother could do. It was a long held tenet in Equestria that only unicorns could do magic, and since most of them lived in provinces to the south, anypony in the north, west or east of Equestria was considered an oddity. Moreover, earth ponies who could do wonderful things with plants and precious stones that seemed like magic were distrusted and had been given the name ‘hedgewitch’ to mark them out as different. Rumours flew thick and fast about hedgewitches – ponies who travelled in wagons, never putting down roots anyplace. Some said it was because they did mischief wherever they went and moved on before they could be caught and punished. Some said they stopped to steal foals from cribs to teach their hedgewitch ways, or bewitched local stallions to give them foals of their own so they could continue the hedgewitch tradition in a new generation.

Having grown up in a travelling wagon, Posy knew firsthoof that most of all rumours about hedgewitches were nonsense. However, after working in the castle, she also knew that other ponies didn’t like letting go of their prejudices and treated her differently once they learned of her heritage.

Luna saw Posy’s expression change and immediately apologised. “I have offended thee. That was not my intent.”

“N-Nay, Highness!” Posy stuttered. “I was merely … lost in memory for a moment.”

“Ah, yes, memories.” Luna looked up at the stars. “They are apt to tempt us into distraction, are they not? From time to time even I find myself examining the past with a sad eye. Methinks … perhaps my sister and I should not have put ourselves atop Equestria as rulers. Methinks perhaps we should have left this land to govern itself. The three pony races would, in due course, have come to agreements all could abide by, without interference from we two.”

“But Princess,” Posy exclaimed, “thy reign has been prosperous, has it not? Peace stretches across the land, the ponies of Equestria are united more than before thy arrival, and our fields flourish under the care of thy sun and moon.”

“My moon only,” Luna said bitterly. “It is Celestia’s sun that grows the crops and makes ponies dance in delight.”

“But thy moon doth give them slumber and peaceful dreams,” Posy pointed out.

“Dreams of her. Dreams of sunshine and fat living, while my beautiful night doth go unnoticed above their slumbering heads.” Luna dropped her gaze from the sky and Posy was shocked to see tears glistening in her eyes. The idea that a princess could be so sad as to cry seemed wrong, like seeing a tree uprooting itself, or fish throwing themselves into the claws of fishing griffins. It was almost … unnatural.

“Please, Highness … do not cry,” Posy whispered, drawing as close as she dared. “Am I not abroad this night? Thy night appears beauteous to my eyes.” She looked up, picking out the brightest star she could see and focussing on it so she wouldn’t have to look at the weeping princess. “To think that thy magic did place each star … such a thought be too much for a lowly pony such as I to comprehend, yet I may still admire thy work. Methinks King Sanguine hath never done such a thing to the sky above his own lands. I hear tell that night in Gryphona be a starless, empty time, and that the moon thy magicians raise each night be a sickly thing compared with thine.” When Luna did not respond, Posy broke her stare and glanced across, wondering whether she had said something wrong. “Highness?”

“Thy words hath comforted me marvellous much, Posy,” said Princess Luna, her stare unrelenting and a little intimidating. Posy was struck by the same feeling that had come when the princess first came upon her next to her half-ploughed field. “Verily, thy mother did raise a noble foal, whate’er groundless rumours did speak of her skills in that endeavour.”

“My mother was everything to me,” Posy replied softly.

“Was?”

“My presence in the castle was prompted by her death. I had no stomach for travelling without her. What skills I had learned from her proved advantageous to work in the grounds herein, else I might have been turned away. My skills of bed-making, cooking and maid-service are not polished enough for nobility, but I can make things grow and keep plants healthy when they ail.”

“Thy knowledge of herbalism be akin to hers?” Princess Luna asked.

“I know enough,” Posy admitted. “I am no healer born, but I know enough. I know which herbs may hurt and which may heal, and I can distinguish betwixt mushrooms that are good to eat and those that make the world all colour and noise until a stomach brings them up again.”

“Excellent!” the princess declared, startling Posy from her reverie. Memories of her mother carrying an apron full of mushrooms back to their little painted wagon dispersed from her mind like morning mist.

“H-Highness?”

“Didst I not say thou hath comforted me marvellous much?” Luna stepped towards her, smiling that smile with slightly too many teeth. She tipped her head to one side, as if assessing Posy against some unknown criteria. “Wherefore dost thou retreat from me now?”

Posy, realising she had started to back away, froze in place. “M-My apologises, Highness –”

“’Twould please me more for thee to call me Luna. I am done with title such as ‘Highness’ and ‘Majesty’ from thy lips.” Luna crossed the last few steps between them, standing over Posy in a manner than made her tremble without really understanding why. “Thy lips be made for much better things than to call me titles.” With that, Luna pushed her face into Posy’s and claimed her mouth in a bruising kiss.

Posy’s eyes widened but she didn’t pull away. Such an insult was untenable. Yet she was innocent of the ways of kissing and didn’t know how she was supposed to respond. Luna moved her mouth, but she wasn’t sure whether she should do likewise. Should she tilt her head in the opposite direction to the princess’s? She recalled her roommates’ late night conversations about stallions who had caught their eye. They had talked of tongues and moaning to show interest when being kissed. Was there a difference between kissing and merely being kissed? After a few moments the princess pulled away and Posy cursed herself for just standing there like a fool instead of doing something.

“Thy virtue be ascertained,” Luna said huskily. “Thou hath never known the touch of another in this way?”

“N-Never, Highn- uh, Luna.”

The princess nodded in approval that Posy had corrected herself. “Then it shall be my pleasure to teach thee, little Posy.” She stepped forward again, but before initiating another kiss said, “Soften thy mouth and tilt thy head to thy left. Do as I do.”

“Y-Yes, uh, Luna.”

This time the kiss was far nicer. Posy discovered that mimicking the princess’s movements made a strange sensation prickle in her belly, of all places. When Luna finally broke the kiss they were both breathless and Posy’s whole body sang in a way it never had before.

“Good girl,” Luna purred.

12. Hair/Skin

Wind Racer held his spear absolutely perpendicular to his neck. Stationed outside Princess Luna’s bedchamber, he had been at his post for almost three hours and was due to be relieved within the next one. Guarding the princess was less glorious than he had imagined but he gave it all he had regardless. He liked to imagine that if he was not here for these four hours of daylight, some marauding griffin might try to kidnap or slay her in her bed. It was only he and the guard on the left side of the doorway that stood between peace and –

The bedchamber door creaked open. If he had been standing to attention before, now Wind Racer’s entire body zinged with energy that inspired his muscles to tighten almost painfully. He was better at controlling his stupid wings now but he could feel them trying to stand whenever he was close to the princess – such as now.

“Guard,” Princess Luna yawned. “Pray, what be thy name?”

“Uh, Wind Racer, Majesty.”

Luna smiled. His wings trembled. Even rumpled with sleep and so thin her shoulders stood out, she was beautiful. The hair of her mane was disheveled into interesting peaks and troughs, yet even that seemed lovely to him. Evidently his reaction pleased her, because she smiled wider and raised a knowing eyebrow.

“Wind Racer Majesty? A noble name, indeed.”

“Nay, Highness, my name be not … I simply Wind Racer and my companion, Swift Wing.”

The other guard, a dour-faced pegasus with fur the colour of cold ashes, nodded at his name. Luna barely glanced at him.

“Wind Racer, prithee, wouldst thou indulge me with a platter of foodstuffs from the kitchens? I am not normally abroad while the sun rides high, but the day servants will surely know my likes as well as those who serve me at night.”

“Uh …” Wind Racer said uncertainly. He had not expected this. “Captain Diamond instructed us never to leave our posts, Highness.” He swallowed, remembering exactly how the captain had given these instructions. “He was … most insistent upon this issue.”

“And yet I be equally insistent upon it as well,” Princess Luna said easily. “Pray tell, Wind Racer, whose word doth carry more weight – his or mine?”

Wind Racer clicked his hooves together and bowed low. “I shall be as the wind, Highness, and return forthwith bearing thy request.”

“Good.” She nodded approvingly. “Thy answer pleases me. Hurry along now. Let us see whether thy wings be as swift as thy companion’s name implies of his.”

Swift Wing looked a little vexed at his speed being called into question, but could do nothing as Wind Racer took off and Luna withdrew back into her bedchamber. Before the door closed, however, Wind Racer could have sworn he heard a second voice from within. He paused to look over his shoulder but Luna shut the door firmly and he had no option but to carry out her order without knowing the identity of the other pony inside with her.

14. Apathy

Clover wasn’t used to eating in gigantic rooms anymore. Before there was an Equestria, when the land of ponies was just a collection of settlements fending off enemies by themselves and trying to scratch out a living, he had spent his youth accompanying his mentor on spell gathering quests and he had more often dined by campfire light, or cropped grass by the side of whatever dirt path they were walking. When the allure of that life dwindled he had accepted an offer from Princess Platinum to be her royal mage, much to Starswirl’s disapproval.

“Soft living breeds soft mindedness, my student,” he had warned. “Be sure that thy studies do not suffer for thy obedience to the princess’s whims and fancies. I would be much chagrined to find my protégé a mere lapdog whenever I next pass this way.”

Clover had dismissed Starswirl’s warning as nothing more than the grumpy cautions of a pony so old he was too stuck in his ways to see anything but his own way as the right way. Clover had enjoyed eating sumptuous meals in even more sumptuous settings at first, and being at Princess Platinum’s beck and call had seemed a small price to pay for a study to keep his books and regular mealtimes. Yet to his surprise he had not taken to a life of luxury after that initial flush of pleasure. His hooves became itchy, his gaze went to the horizon and his mind wondered what lay beyond it and what there was to learn there. Following the founding of Equestria, he had taken his leave of Platinum and the unicorns who went south with her, instead striking out on his own spell gathering quest, which had left him with an acute appreciation for family kitchens and big meals in small rooms.

Sitting at the dining table in the Great Hall of Castle Everfree made him feel lonely and, though he didn’t like to admit it, vulnerable.

Something was different about Everfree since he had seen it last. There was more tension in the air. He had felt it when he first walked over the drawbridge and it had only intensified when he met with Princess Celestia. She was as beautiful as the day he had first seen her and held herself with the same imposing grace, but her eyes were sadder than he remembered. The loss of the Elements of Harmony had hit her hard and he imagined giving way to so many things on the treaty with Gryphona had not lightened her worries. He recalled Starswirl’s words the day the two alicorns had appeared with their magic jewels and driven back the invading griffins that had threatened to end Equestria before it truly began, and how the founding ponies had agreed to make them rulers and protectors of the country they had created.

“Theirs is not a task for which I would wish,” Starswirl had said. “The weight of a crown be heavier than mere metal. I do wonder whether these two comprehend the true burden of what they do undertake here today.”

Clover wondered too. Yet, to their credit, neither Celestia nor Luna had forsaken their duties, their country or their ponies. Even Princess Platinum only held court four times a week and, though he had grown to like her during his tenure as her mage, Clover didn’t like to think what might have happened had she had a hoof in forming a treaty with someone like King Sanguine.

We might all be on platters or turning on spits in Stalwart right now, he thought.

He had been to the Gryphonan capital in disguise and found the place as grim and uninviting as he had suspected. Stalwart’s year-round snow and ice had made him turn back for Equestria’s warmer climes as fast as his hooves could carry him, without even one bit of griffin magic in his repertoire to show for it.

An earth pony who had tied her mane and tail into braids brought him a thick piece of dark bread. He assumed he was to use this as his trencher – in poorer homes where there was no cutlery ponies typically put food on slabs of bread and ate the bread too afterwards. However, she placed it on a gleaming metal plate and proceeded to bring him several more dishes of food before he stopped her.

“Good mare, I do beseech thee, my stomach may only contain so much food! Prithee, cease thy comings and goings, for I am satisfied with the feast now laid before me.”

The earth pony blinked at him, clutching her serving tray to her chest with one hoof. “If that be thy wish, lord,” she whispered.

“That it be, though I am no lord,” he smiled.

“But … art thou not Clover the Clever, a founding father of Equestria?”

Ah, so that was why she was so nervous around him. Clover nodded, affecting the playful expression he had perfected when dealing with ponies who had only heard his legend and half-believed him a character of myth rather than a pony of flesh and blood like them. “I am he, though still I am no lord. I am as thee, good mare, a pony born and a pony all my life. I seek not to be called ‘lord’, merely ‘Clover’. Wouldst thou give me this wish?”

She nodded like a chicken pecking grain. “I … I will do as thou sayest, um, sir. May I be excused?”

He nodded and sighed as she scuttled away. Well, ‘sir’ was better than ‘lord’, though not by much. He settled down to enjoy his meal, reminding himself of the courtly manners he had learned from Platinum. As he ate, he turned his mind to the conundrum of the Elements of Harmony and began considering and discarded spells to use on the chamber so that he might learn more of their disappearance. He would need to ask Celestia, Luna and the guards who had been there that night, form a comprehensive image in his head of what each had seen, and then use that to guide his magic and see whether all those set to guard the items were entirely truthful. Though he knew Celestia and Luna would both defend their guards’ honour, since they had hoofpicked them and entrusted their own safety to them every day and night, Clover was not above suspecting those same guards of foul play. He had seem much in his travels and knew that even in a country as idyllic as Equestria some ponies’ hearts beat to a darker rhythm. He only hoped he would not discover somepony in King Sanguine’s employ. Such a blow would be agonising for poor Celestia and Luna.

As he munched on a bowl of particularly tender green shoots, the doors to the Great Hall opened. He looked up, expecting Celestia to have finally finished her courtly audiences, but it was Luna who came towards him. He swallowed and quickly rose from his seat, extending a hoof for her to shake. As a founding pony he knew he enjoyed a degree of respect from the princesses not afforded even to the nobility who had chosen to live with them here in Castle Everfree .

Luna looked at his hoof for a moment before shaking it. “Thy presence was much unexpected, Lord Clover.”

Clover rolled his eyes and chuckled. “Prithee, Princess Luna, I care not for the title ‘lord’. I am mere Clover, as I have always been. Upon occasion of pomp and circumstance I may also be Clover the Clever, but I am happier thus.”

She nodded, though her expression didn’t change. He was struck by the differences in her far more than the changes in Celestia. Luna had grown thin, her limbs so spindly he was surprised her muscles were trembling with the effort of keeping her upright. She looked sick, emphasised by the dark circles around her eyes and lank condition of her mane and tail. Hoofmaidens had done their best to give her hair body and shine, but she was not the splendid mare Clover remembered. If Luna now had to take on a platoon of griffins, as she had once done to save Chancellor Puddinghead, he wondered whether she would still be able to do it. Evidently the loss of the Elements of Harmony had affected her even more than her sister. When he met her eyes, however, he didn’t see the same sadness as in Celestia’s. Luna’s stare was blank, not even a hint of emotion anywhere. The back of his neck prickled, though he didn’t show it as she sat beside him and pulled a daffodil off his plate to eat herself.

“I apologise. I was abed when news of thy arrival reached me, else I would have greeted thee sooner. Thy travels have taken thee far and wide?” she asked unemotionally.

“Far enough and wide enough,” Clover replied.

“Beyond Equestria’s borders?”

“Sometimes, though I confess, I do prefer Equestria.”

“Hast thee knowledge of Gryphona, the frozen north and the Dragon Lands?” Luna named their nearest neighbours.

“Some, though the frozen north remains unknown to me. My mentor hath made the journey hence, should thou wish to learn of it.”

“Ah, yes, Starswirl the Bearded,” said Luna with a nod. “I presume thy youth and experiences hath rendered thee his superior in knowledge and learning now.”

Clover choked on his mouthful. When he swallowed it he laughed out loud. “Me, surpass Master Starswirl? Princess Luna, thy jest be amusing in the extreme! My skills be formidable but remain no match for his.”

Luna didn’t laugh with him. Her silence eventually caused his own laughter to evaporate and he fell back to eating in silence. She took a leaf of lettuce from his plate and nibbled it daintily, examining it between bites.

“Princess Luna, knowest thou of my purpose hither?” Clover finally asked. He found it strange that she had not mentioned the Elements of Harmony, since she had to know that was why he was here.

“I knoweth it,” she replied calmly. “Wilt thou desireth my account of the night in question?”

“Uh, indeed.”

“Then I shall give it unto thee. I presume my dear sister’s account wilt also be required?”

“Indeed. Also those of thy guards and hers.”

Luna’s ears flicked back for a moment. “Wherefore?”

Clover blinked at her. Why? “So that I may understand the true nature of what occurred when this heinous act was committed.”

“And thy thought is that my guards have some part in it?” For the first time, actual emotion crept into Luna’s voice, though her eyes remained impassive.

“That was not my allegation, Princess. Neither thy guards nor thy sister’s are suspect in this act. I merely wish to put myself in their place and may do so only with their words in my mind.”

Luna’s ears flicked back again. Even though it was only momentary, it made Clover wonder. She stood and gave him a cursory bow. “I take my leave of thee, Clover the Clever. Thy counsel in this matter shalt be much of value and I thank thee for thy time and interest.”

“The Elements of Harmony art worth both my time and my interest, Princess Luna. Thy well-being also.”

She paused. “My well-being?”

“I am not blind, Princess. Thou art not as I remember thee. The loss of thy Elements hath affected this much and I do promise to restore them to thee so that thy gleam and lustre be also restored.”

She said nothing for several seconds. “Be these changes in me … very obvious?”

“Thou art still beautiful, Princess,” Clover assured her. Princess or commoner, mares still cared about what they looked like, he had found. “But thy thoughts must weigh heavily on thee. Prithee, if thou knowest more than thou hath voiced before, I beseech thee tell me and I shall do all in my power to set them right.” If she was protecting one of her guards for some reason, or knew more than she had told her sister and the worry had done this to her –

“I will set my account in writing for thee,” Luna said sharply. “That thou mayest consult it even when my own presence be not with thee. Good day to thee, Clover the Clever.”

“Good day to thee, Princess Luna,” Clover said, but before he had finished she was already walking away.

15. Envy

15. Envy

Wind Racer marched along the corridor, not bothering to look whether the earth pony behind him was keeping up. The little mare barely came up to his shoulder and took two steps for every one of his, yet he didn’t slow his pace. Only when he reached the servants’ quarters did he stop.

“I thank thee, good sir,” the little mare said in a breathy whisper. “Thy escort was much appreciated.”

“My escort was ordered,” he replied coldly, not looking at her. He had brought her through the most winding passages of the castle, away from prying eyes that might have seen her leaving the princess’s chamber. If anypony had seen one of Princess Luna’s personal guards escorting a common servant through the castle they might have suspected something, but equally finding a groundspony near the royal chambers would have raised questions and enacted punishments for the little mare for being where she should not have been. “Thou art delivered safely to thy room. Now I take my leave of thee.”

The little mare bit her lower lip. “I … I th-thank thee for thy time. G-Good day, sir guard.”

Wind Racer finally looked at her, resisting the urge to curl his lip at her stuttering. Of all the ponies the princess could have taken to her bed, he did not understand why she would choose such a snivelling no-one. The little mare wasn’t ugly, but her yellow coat and pale pink hair gave her a washed out look that he found immensely unappealing. The way she constantly ducked her head and crept along like a dog expecting to be kicked did little to improve his impression of her.

Art thou jealous? whispered his own mind. He pushed the thought away. He was no more worthy of the princess than this mare. He wasn’t sure if anypony would ever be worthy of Luna’s touch.

“Good day,” he replied, turning on his heel and marching away.

He returned to his post without incident. The messenger who had arrived to inform the princess of Clover the Clever’s arrival was long gone, as was Swift Wing. He had escorted Princess Luna to the Great Hall while Wind Racer had been left with escorting her unworthy secret bedmate. Wind Racer resumed his post, guarding the princess’s chamber and its contents, even though he would much rather be guarding the princess herself.

Less than half an hour after his return, he head two sets of hoofsteps coming along the corridor. He straightened as Swift Wing and Princess Luna rounded the corner.

“Ah, Wind Racer,” she smiled. “I trust thy task was completed proficiently?”

“Indeed, Highness.”

“I would expect nothing less of thee.”

Her words made his inside tingle and his neck arch with pride. “I thank thee, Highness.”

She nodded at him, still smiling. As she passed between the two guards into her chamber, her tail flicked sideways and brushed against his flank, causing a shiver to run through Wind Racer that he barely contained. His wings strained to stand straight and it was only through supreme self-control that he kept them folded.

“Good day to thee, Wind Racer. Good day to thee, Swift Wing. I intend to write for a while and then to sleep. I trust that thou shalt render me uninterrupted in these things?”

“Highness!” they responded in unison, clicking their hooves together and saluting.

Luna smiled at them. “Good.”

16. Weakness

16. Weakness

Luna closed the door behind her and immediately sank to the floor. Her muscles felt weak and her whole body hurt down to her bones. She had not rested long enough after her time with Posy and moving around during the day was hard enough already. After a long moment she struggled to her bed, which was still messy and threaded with strands of pink hair. Luna flopped down, trying to stretch away her aches and pains, but all that did was exacerbate them and make her feel even worse.

That blasted Clover the Clever! What was he doing, sticking his nose into things that didn’t concern him? He had given up governing Equestria. He had even recommended to the other founders that Celestia and Luna might make better rulers than them! And yet here he was, getting involved, trying to take over and spoil everything.

She hurt so much. Every night it was a chore to rise, though her power over the moon remained unchanged. In fact, she felt more connected to it than ever, sensing its presence even when it wasn’t in the sky. Her mind sharpened day by day but her body weakened synchronously. It wasn’t fair! She felt uncomfortable in her own skin and sometimes wished she could shuck it like she had seen snakes do. Maybe then she would feel better. Her mane and tail felt heavy and no longer moved like they used to. Her silvery shoes felt so heavy when she walked that she wanted to kick them off and go bare-hoof. Whenever she tried to eat, her stomach rebelled, so she ate little and rarely. She knew she had lost weight but for somepony else to point it out was embarrassing.

Stupid Clover, she thought. Stupid Clover in his stupid threadbare cloak and his stupid muddy hooves. He had his chance to rule and relinquished it. What right hath he to return now?

She closed her eyes, wishing sleep would come. She usually felt better after she had slept. The world seemed clearer and solutions to flaws in her plans became obvious. Misgivings she had held before she slept were swept away on a tide of certainty and she was able to do what needed to be done without worrying whether she was doing the right thing. Of course she was. To think otherwise was absurd.

As she drifted off to sleep, she felt cocooned in a numbing darkness that robbed her of her maladies. Her muscles grew strong, her joints became smooth and painless, her eyelids were no longer heavy and her skull did not pound with a constant headache. Her mane and tail flared around her, studded with stars as they had once been. She revelled in her own beauty, knowing that she was lovelier than ever. The darkness told her so. It stroked her body and her ego, whispering sweet nothings that she would not remember when she woke. In her dreams she flared her wings, larger and more impressive even than Celestia’s, and soared above a land that threw celebrations in her honour and hers alone.

This could all be yours, the darkness whispered. All this and more, should thou be brave enough to take it.

Yes! Luna flew acrobatics she had never been capable of in her life, turning circles around even the most talented pegasi. As they pushed clouds around the sky she whipped them into a tornado, then plucked the unfortunate ponies free and accepted their heartfelt gratitude for saving them. She beat her powerful, gorgeous wings and flew on to the Unicornia Province, where Princess Platinum herself lauded her beauty and organised a parade for her. Luna laughed and preened as ponies throughout Equestria told her how wonderful she was, how they had always preferred her over her sister, how her night was the most wonderful thing they had ever seen and they wished they could see it all the time.

And then, there at the front, was a little yellow earth pony with pink hair. Luna faltered for a moment, memories from the real world filtering through her dream. She remembered taking a trembling hoof in hers, heavy breathing and tiny mewling noises. She remembered looking into that pony’s eyes and being shocked at the expression there.

Could that have been … she started to wonder.

No, interrupted the darkness. Thou art aware of her role. Do not grow attached. Thy bed was just a stage to bring her further under thy power. She is star-struck, nothing more. Thy designs must be fulfilled. Thy night will bring thee far more love than one pony may giveth thee, Queen of All Equestria.

The title echoed through Luna’s mind as the little yellow earth pony was absorbed into the cheering crowd until she couldn’t see her anymore. The ponies stamped their hooves and shouted her name.

“All hail Queen Luna! All hail Queen Luna! All hail the glorious mistress of the night! All hail she who showed us the error of our ways! All hail she who showed us the splendour of her night when we sought to sleep through it like heathens! All hail Queen Luna! All hail Queen Luna.”

My night … she thought, happiness seeping into her. She wasn’t sure whether it was her own or something provided by the darkness, but it was warm and wonderful and she basked in it. I want this. This should be how it is. Yes, I will do what must be done.

As the day went on around her sleeping body, Princess Luna dreamed her dark dreams of queendom.

17. Lies

Clover read through the scrolls he had been given, gathering details and slotting them together in his mind. It seemed that whoever had taken the Elements of Harmony possessed some form of fire spell. That was worrying, since not even he had been able to master dragon magic and that was the only kind that could produce flames out of thin air. There had been no sign the thief had used any kindling, nor was there any flammable potion splashed on the door or corridor, but the scorch marks he had seen when he inspected the chamber were clear. A concussive blast of fire had broken down the door and, presumably, shattered the protective wards placed on it.

Even more than the fire, the breaking of these wards worried him. Celestia and Luna had cast those wards. The idea that there was someone else powerful enough to break a spell cast by two alicorns was terrifying. The only creature Clover could think of was Discord and he was now a stone statue in the gardens of Castle Everfree . Even the master of chaos magic had not been able to stand against the princesses’ combined powers when they possessed the Elements of Harmony.

He came to Princess Luna’s account. Her writing was elegant, if a little wobbly in places. He wondered whether she had written this with magic or by hoof. Either way, to a trained eye such as his the evidence of her growing weakness was clear. He had dined with Celestia after sunset yesterday and she had voiced her own concerns over her sister’s health.

“I believe her search for the Elements hath weakened her even more than the sickness from which she suffers.”

“Sickness?” Clover had asked curiously.

“Ever since we returned from the Crystal Empire, she hath grown frailer and frailer, though our most proficient healers can find no reason for it. I confess,” Celestia had said, voice dropping to a hushed murmur, “I worry that she … that she may not recover. We did think ourselves immortal but the sole way to be disabused of this notion would be for one of us to …” Unable to finish her sentence, she had stared at her plate for a long time until Clover broke protocol and laid his hoof over hers.

“I will find the Elements of Harmony, Princess,” he had promised. “I will return them to Everfree and then I will turn my attention to Princess Luna’s health. Mayhap some magical malady affects her, rather than a medical ailment.”

Celestia had stared at him, as if this had not even occurred to her. “Thinkest thou this may be truth?” Guilt had filled her words as she considered that she might have missed this.

“’Tis a possibility, Princess.”

“Wouldst thou be able to cure her of it?”

“’Tis also a possibility. In any event, I shall try. Wouldst thy mind be eased if I did thus before my efforts to locate the Elements?”

Celestia had bitten her lip and stared out of the window at the low-hanging moon. “I shall discuss it with her first. She grows tired of being poked and prodded by physicians for so many months. I would not force her to do anything she doth not wish to do.”

“Then I shall concentrate on the Elements until her agreement be forthcoming,” Clover had said.

And so here he was, poring over papers in a burned out, empty chamber, wondering whether this time even he might be stumped. The guards who had been on duty that night all told the same story. Nopony was set to watch over the Elements’ chamber because of the wards, so nopony had seen the intruder in the act. Luna’s guards wrote that they had been outside her chambers while she stood on the balcony to raise the moon and set a new constellation in the sky that she had been designing for some time. Celestia’s guards had been outside her chamber as she slept. Neither set of guards had heard any explosion, since the Elements’ chamber was so far away from the royal rooms. It was Luna who had raised the alarm, bursting from her room with the news that she no longer sensed the Elements. It was, she had written, as if her connection with them was suddenly broken or impeded in some way. She had led her guards down to see the wreckage before dispatching a messenger to rouse the captain of Celestia’s personal guards.

Luna’s account also detailed the searches she had conducted outside the castle in the weeks following the theft. Having nothing to go on but her own connection with the Elements, she was reduced to flying or walking around on hoof, hoping she would sense them while Celestia drew up treaties to keep Equestria safe in the meantime. Already, shipments of cloth and precious gems were heading over the border into Gryphona in exchange for their agreement not to start another war. A treaty of appeasement rarely worked but what other choice did they have?

Clover finally tore his eyes from the writing and surveyed the chamber. He had inspected every corner and touched the walls to check for hidden passages, though the castle plans told of none. There were no windows and no other door than the one that had been destroyed. The thief had to have left the same way he or she entered. Clover breathed out a heavy sigh as he came back to the spell he had thought of at the beginning of this undertaking.

“Psychometry,” he murmured to himself. “Yet no psychometrist born am I.”

Psychometry was a difficult field of magic for those not born with natural talent. The ability to ‘read’ a place or object and see its immediate past was rare, though Starswirl the Bearded had spent some years working on an enchantment to allow ordinary spellcasters to mimic the gift. Unfortunately Clover’s problems now were twofold: he had never cast Starswirl’s enchantment and had no guarantee it would work for him; and so much time had passed, with so many ponies coming and going in and out of the Elements’ chamber, he could have to read every layer of happenings before he went back far enough to see that night of the theft. And that was only if he could stand the strain of the magic long enough to go that far back. For the first time, he began to regret offering his services.

“Clover?” Celestia stepped through the doorway behind him. Two white stallions, a unicorn and a pegasus, flanked the door. “Oh, I had thought somepony else might be with thee. I did hear thee speak.”

“To myself only, Princess,” Clover sighed. “This conundrum be a thorny one indeed.”

“Our gratitude that thou attempt it at all,” Celestia replied. “The moon hath waxed and waned several times since the Elements were taken. We should understand greatly if they efforts do not reap the rewards thou doth hope. We are only grateful that wherever they have fled, their thief hath not the wherewithal to use them. Only my sister and I were chosen to wield the Elements of Harmony and so only we two may cast their magic forth. For those who be not chosen, they are but shiny trinkets, nothing more.”

“A relief indeed.” Rather than give him permission to fail with his honour intact, Clover took from her words the extra impetus he needed to succeed. “’Tis too early to consider me failed yet, Princess. I have a spell I shall undertake. However, its complexity vexes even me. I will require certain conditions for its casting.”

“Anything!” Celestia exclaimed. “Simply name they request and it shalt be thine!”

Clover smiled, summoned the ingredients of Starswirl’s enchantment from his encyclopaedic memory, and began to list them off.

18. Memory

“Luna!” Celestia did not bound to her sister’s side – such a thing would be far too unbecoming – but she did trot faster until she reached her. “I bring thee auspicious news, dear sister!”

Luna looked at her sidelong, as if she had not expected such an effervescent greeting. “Thy comportment be almost rash, sister. Dare I say, even foalish? A strange thing indeed for thee. Thou art customarily concerned with appearances and how to maintain them.”

“Pish posh, Luna. Listen well to what I say and heed not my excitement until thou art aware of the cause!” She was fairly dancing with what Clover had told her and related every word to Luna. “What thinkest thou of such a thing?”

“Clover the Clever hath created a means to look back into the past?” Luna gaped.

“Nay, Starswirl the Bearded hath created it. Clover merely seeks to cast it on our behalf. He knoweth not how long it might take, for the hours between that terrible night and now stretch long into days and weeks, yet he hath given his oath to do all he can until the face of the accursed thief be revealed! Thinkest this not a wondrous thing, dear sister?”

It took a moment for Luna to smile. “Indeed, Celestia, ‘tis a wondrous thing indeed. How fortunate we are that Clover the Clever hath blessed us with his presence.”

“Indeed, fortune hath finally smiled upon us!” Celestia beamed. “Think of it, dear sister! Soon the Elements of Harmony may be returned to us!”

“But Celestia, what then of the treaty with Gryphona? Didst thou not construct it chiefly because the Elements were lost and thy worries over our borders were sharpened? Are we then to renege on our side of the agreement? What then for Equestria if its rulers be so changeable?”

Celestia grimaced. She had not even considered the treaty in her delight. “The treaty … ‘tis an issue for consideration at a later time,” she said eventually.

“To break the treaty would be to risk war with Gryphona,” Luna insisted. “Yet to keep it would be to hobble Equestria with King Sanguine’s demands. He takes our textiles to clothes his soldiers, our crops to feed the animals his griffins hunt, our gems to decorate his palace – though I do believe in actuality he trades them with the Dragon Lands behind our backs –”

“I know this, Luna,” Celestia protested. “Canst thou not allow me some small enjoyment before I am to think of such things?”

Luna stared at her, all smiles vanished. “A ruler cannot be permitted such joys while her country balances on a precipice she hath created with her own quill. Thy treaty hath allowed our enemy to grow fat and make allies of dragons, Celestia.”

“And if the Elements of Harmony art returned to us it matters naught!” Celestia disputed, her own happiness dwindling as her voice rose. “For neither griffins, nor dragons, nor great white bears may challenge Equestria if we hold the Elements’ power!”

“Thy sight remains short,” Luna snapped. “We cannot rely upon Clover the Clever’s success, for ‘tis not yet guaranteed. We must make plans, Celestia.”

“Oh? And what proposals hath thee?” Celestia snapped back, not expecting an answer.

“A demonstration of our power,” Luna said almost before she had finished speaking.

“But the Elements –” Celestia began.

“Are not the whole of our power. Celestia, I am the Moon Princess. Thou art the Sun Princess. Not mere titles, but descriptions of what we may do. Sayeth I, we should show King Sanguine and all his allies that to challenge Equestria would be to challenge the sun and moon themselves!”

Celestia was aghast. “Thou doth propose to use the sun and moon as weapons?”

“They remain ours to command even without the Elements, do they not?” Luna demanded.

“To nurture the land only! Not to wield as weapons!”

“The land would indeed be nurtured if we were to keep its enemies at bay.”

“To use them thus would bring disaster!” Celestia gaped, unable to believe Luna was actually suggesting such a course of action. “To remove them from their orbits, to break the pattern of day and night, would … would …” Just the thought of what would happen made her shudder. The entire natural order of Equestria would be devastated. What would be the point of taking such steps to defeat their enemies if in the process they wiped out their own citizens? Celestia shook her head emphatically. “I will hear no more of such nonsense. ‘Tis foolishness, Luna, mere foolishness! I had thought thee more shrewd and mindful of thy duties than that.”

“So because my suggestion doth not meet with thy agreement it is to be discarded out of hoof?” Luna snarled. “A pretty diarchy, this, with one princess set so much higher than t’other.”

“Luna –”

“Begone, Celestia. I am done with thee.” Luna flared her wings as if to fly away, but she had lost even more feathers and could not get herself aloft. Instead, she stamped away like a truculent foal.

Celestia wanted to go after her, to demand that she see sense, but her hooves were frozen in place. Too later, she realised her guards had witnessed the entire exchange. She whirled around to see their faces averted and stoic. They might have been made from white marble for all the emotion they showed. Nonetheless, she dismissed them and retreated to her chambers, telling her hoofmaidens to come back later.

Still in her daywear, she stepped out onto the balcony and stared up at the crescent moon. The sky was cloudy tonight in preparation for a thunderstorm tomorrow. She stared at the moon as if the answers to all her problems lay on its distant surface.

“Oh Luna,” she murmured miserably. “No matter what I do to bring thee closer, thy orbit grows further and further from mine own.” She hung her head and breathed out a sigh that seemed to come from the soles of her hooves. “I did not think I should ever be so near thee, and yet so far away.”

They had always been so close as foals and fillies. It astonished her that things could be so different now. Growing up in Canterlot, a settlement far north of Everfree long before it was even called that, they had enjoyed their simple lives as simple pegasi. Canterlot sat on a wide ledge halfway down a cliff, as the elders who had built it believed there were few predators able to catch defenceless ponies there without being spotted and beaten back, and they were sheltered from the worst of the mountain weather. Commander Hurricane had called them fools for choosing life so close to the ground when they could have gone with her to her new city of Cloudsdale, but the Canterlot pegasi would not be dissuaded.

They had not known about the griffins. Why should they? Griffins lived in Gryphona, not Equestria.

Surrounded by destruction and death, two scared fillies had wormed their way into a crevice in the cliff face behind their house. No adult pony could have fitted, and there they had stayed as griffin raiders laid waste to their home, their family and everything they had even known. When the griffins set light to what remained of the settlement the heat had driven them deeper into the crevice and they had emerged into a set of caves where they cried out their grief and stayed for several weeks, eating lichen and drinking from puddles of condensation.

There had appeared to be no way out of the caves. At first neither filly had wanted to leave. They were convinced the raiders would be waiting for them out there and had almost decided to live out the rest of their lives as cave-dwellers who never saw the sky.

Celestia rarely thought back to those fraught days when it had been just the two of them alone in the dark. Sometimes they would find scraps of light and fly up to them, but inevitably the fissures would be too small even for their small bodies to fit through. Her spirits in particular had grown so low that one day she just lay down and refused to get up again. Luna had brought her whatever food she could find even though she was starving herself and dipped her wings in puddles to drip water into her sister’s mouth, cajoling and pleading with her to keep going. Only Luna’s loyalty and generosity had made her rise and eventually carry on.

Finally, when they were so weak they could barely walk, they found it. In retrospect, maybe it found them. Maybe the buzzing sensation that went through them those last few yards was what stopped them collapsing. Maybe what had compelled them to squeeze into the crevice in the first place was the call of the beautiful gemstones they found embedded in a wall in what felt like the mouth of Tartarus.

The gems had pulsated with a fantastic, inexplicable light. The two fillies had felt instantly comforted and curled up beneath their glow in what they thought would be their final sleep. There they had shared such dreams that every time they had dreamed since it had paled in comparison. They had felt the gemstones speak to them and they had talked back without question, as one does in dreams when logic no longer matters. The gems were old – far older than Equestria, or the founding ponies, or anything else they could name. They were also powerful and would lend their power to those them deemed worthy. They had been watching the two fillies ever since they entered the caves and had witnessed their struggles. They had seen the older filly’s kindness as she carried the younger one, who joked and made her laugh even when things seemed direst. They saw the older filly’s honesty over the fate of their families and how the younger filly refused to desert her when she lost hope.

Laughter, honesty, loyalty, kindness and generosity, the gems had whispered. These bind lost souls closer and breed harmony from chaos. They also permit us to release our own power. There is strength in these five elements, for when they come together they create the spark of another and we are able to free ourselves.

What spark? the two fillies had both asked.

Magic. If thy agreement be not in doubt, say it plain, little ponies, and thou shalt be given the power to save thy nation.

Of course, they had agreed, and when the two fillies had awoken after what seemed like a long, long time, they had found themselves changed. Their bodies were taller, their legs longer, and on each of their foreheads was the horn of a unicorn. They also knew the way out of the caves and took the gemstones with them back into the sunlight. There they discovered that their flanks each bore a strange mark, unlike any that had ever adorned the flanks of ponies before them.

“We were so young,” Celestia whispered to herself on her balcony. “Did we truly understand what we agreed to?” She raised her eyes, silently asking the question that had come to her before, but which she had never had the courage to voice. Did we die in that cave and were reborn as we are now? Be that the reason thou art changed from the pony I knew, Luna, and changing still?

But, as ever, she received no answers.

19. Cold

Luna shivered. She couldn’t help herself. It had started after she left Celestia, when the adrenaline from their argument had leeched from her. She knew she would soon need to lower the moon and put away all the stars but she genuinely wasn’t sure whether she had the energy. She reached out with her magic and caressed her beautiful night sky, feeling it answer and revelling in her connection to each bright flicker. Her night sky loved her, even if her sister didn’t. Her night sky thought she was wonderful and intelligent and pretty, even if Celestia considered her foolish and ugly. Luna had seen the way Celestia looked at her when she spread her wings. Could she help it if her feathers were falling out? Could she help it if her coat was not as well-conditioned as it used to be? Who was Celestia to judge her as ugly? Who was –

“Princess?”

Luna blinked, for a moment not recognising what she was seeing. Her forelegs trembled from the deep cold that seemed to radiate from inside her as she hooked them over the edge of her balcony. “P-P-Posy?”

Down below, Posy flinched. She probably thought Luna was mocking her, the way she had when they had first met. In fact, Luna’s jaw was shaking so much she could barely speak. She was so cold. Even the jolt of pleasure at seeing Posy was not enough to warm her.

“Wherefore a-art thou h-h-here?” she stuttered, not quite using the Canterlot voice that used to carry from peak to peak of the mountains around its namesake.

Posy glanced from side to side nervously. Realising she was scared of being caught where she was not supposed to be, Luna clambered onto the balcony and spread her wings. Too late, she remembered her missing feathers and executed a ragged half-soar, half-plummet to the ground. She landed in an ungainly heap and struggled to right herself as Posy dashed to her side.

“Princess!”

“Hast thou f-f-forgotten what I did t-tell thee?” Luna stood and swayed a little.

Posy flinched again. “My apologies, uh, Luna.”

“Wherefore are th-thou h-here,” Luna asked with supreme self-control.

Posy looked down at the flowers clutched tight in her hoof. She had done them up with a ribbon. “I … I did hope to see thee. I did sneak from my quarters unseen and … and …” She stared openly. “Luna, thou art ill!”

“I … I … am … fine …” A violent tremor went through Luna. She sank to her knees.

“Thou art not!” Posy cried. “Luna, what ails thee?”

“I knoweth not …” To Luna’s dismay and disgust, her voice was fearful. As another tremor wracked her beleaguered body, a whimper worked its way up her throat. She didn’t understand what was happening to her and, as much as she hated to admit it, she was frightened.

And then somepony was embracing her. Posy hugged her tight, and as Luna collapsed on her side, she curled her small body around the larger pony’s as best she could. “A healer,” she whispered. “Thou art in need of a physician –”

“N-Nay!” Luna begged.

She couldn’t let the full extent of her weaknesses be known. Celestia would surely take full control of ruling the country if she could claim her sister was too sick to rule. Luna’s paranoid mind could easily imagine Celestia casting her down from the throne. Those niggling little suspicions that had grown louder and louder in her mind over the past months now shouted at her to not let it happen.

But Celestia would never do such a thing, whispered a tiny part of her mind. She is thy sister and loves thee. She would not betray thee.

But she would! All the signs said so! If Luna wanted evidence she just had to look at the argument they had just had. Celestia wanted to rule alone and would trample Luna’s wishes to get what she wanted.

She wouldn’t!

She would.

Luna shuddered inside and out. “N-N-Nay …”

“But Luna –” Posy begged.

“P-Please … nay …” Luna’s head fell back, resting in the crook of her neck. “The w-warmth of thy b-body sh-shall b-be … s-s-sufficient … m-my P-P-Posy…”

Posy made a noise halfway between a sob and a squeak, curling tighter against her. Luna continued to tremble as the dreadful cold grew and grew inside her. Her legs no longer felt like her own. Her chest ached like she was breathing freezing air. She was surprised clouds of fog didn’t emanate from her nostrils. The world around her grew dark and silent as shadows invaded her vision and she felt her eyes roll up into her head.

Celestia was out to remove her from power –

But Celestia would never hurt thee –

The ponies of Equestria preferred her too –

Not all of them –

They loved the sun more than the moon, the day more than the night –

“Luna … please do not die … oh please … Luna …”

At least one pony loves thee best –

Posy’s pleading was the last thing Luna heard before the darkness took her.

21. Illusion

Posy watched Luna move around the room. She couldn’t believe how quickly she had recovered. She cleared her throat so her voice didn’t crack when she spoke. One of the guards had jabbed her in the throat with his spear butt and it hurt to talk.

“Luna?” she rasped. It still felt so strange to call the princess by her name and not her full title. Posy realised how ridiculous this was – she had lost her virginity to her, was very probably falling in love with her, and still couldn’t call her by her real name? “Luna, art thou … well?”

Luna stopped what she was doing and turned. Her face registered surprise, as if she had forgotten Posy was there. There was something different about her. Luna had never been hugely emotive but now she seemed aloof, as if her mind was occupied with other things far more important than the pony whose embrace she had collapsed into mere minutes ago.

“Posy,” she said coolly. “I had thought thee gone.”

“Nay, Luna. I remain, for I worry after thee. Hast thou forgotten the events of but a moment past?”

“I remember them.” Luna narrowed her eyes as if replayed them in her mind. “I did suffer a fit of malady, but as thou may witness, ‘tis now passed.”

“Hast thou suffered so before?”

“In this way? Nay, though I shall tell thee to worry not over my health. I am as hale and hearty as I need be. Be there some special purpose to thy visit hence this night?”

“I …” Posy dipped her head. “I wished to see you, is all.”

“Thou didst?” Luna said curiously. “And wherefore didst thou wish to see me?”

“I … missed thee. Thou hath not called upon me for several nights. The last I did see of thee, thou dispatched me from thy chambers with thy guard in secret. I … I did think that perhaps …” Posy tussled with herself and she tried to put her thoughts into words. Had she really thought bringing flowers to one of the rulers of all Equestria would win her over? Her mind must have been addled by the feelings she had nursed over the past days and nights.

“Thou didst think I had used thee and no longer wanted thee. Thou didst think that after I had tempted thee to my bed, I had grown tired of thee.” Luna had crossed the room far faster than Posy thought possible and was now standing in front of her, making her jump.

“I – nay! Nay, ‘twas not my thoughts –”

“Protest not, Posy,” said Luna. “I can see why thou may have thought this. I did neglect thee. My mind hath been ablaze with thoughts of Clover the Clever and the Elements of Harmony these past few days. My conduct was unbefitting and do apologise to thee.”

“Nay, thou shouldst not apologise to me. I am a mere commoner –”

“Thou art a mere nothing,” Luna corrected, bending her face low. In one swift motion she kissed Posy, and in that same motion wiped away all the words Posy was trying to say. Her tongue laved the inside of Posy’s mouth, more forceful than last time, leaving her breathless when they finally broke apart. “Thou art mine, Posy. My chosen. My lover. I do beseech thee to never forget that.”

“I … I …” Posy swallowed. “I will not forget again.”

“Good girl.”

Another kiss, harder and more potent. Posy’s knees felt like water and she moaned into Luna’s mouth. Before she knew what was happening she had been backed towards the bed and her hindquarters bumped against it. There Luna broke the kiss again, turned and walked away.

“L-Luna?” Posy said breathlessly.

“’Tis sunrise,” Luna explained. “I must lower the moon.”

“Oh!” Of course, how foolish of her not to realise. This was the princess of the night, after all. The princess of the night!

Luna braced her forehooves on the balcony and raised her head high. Posy watched as her horn glowed a brilliant white and the moon slowly dropped from its position in the sky, the darkness of night giving way to the light of the sun just peeping over the horizon. Somewhere else in the castle, Celestia’s horn was also glowing as she raised the sun. Though she had always preferred daylight, since it allowed her the time to work in the gardens, now Posy found that she must preferred to look at the night sky and see the moon there.

Luna’s magic finally extinguished and she got down from the balcony. For a long time she stared at the sky, her face unreadable. Posy was about to speak when she whirled and all but cantered back into her chamber. Posy found herself surrounded by the same kind of magic she had just seen lower the moon, which tossed her onto the bed. It brushed away a lock of mane that fell across her eyes as Luna stood over her, all but pinning Posy’s tiny body with her hooves.

Luna stared down, her face morphing from neutral concentration into a smile that made Posy shiver in anticipation. “My little Posy,” she murmured, and bent her head.

22. Solitude

Luna stared down at the sleeping mare in her bed. She didn’t understand what had happened to her last night. Strangely, neither did she care. Whenever she tried to think too hard about it, it was as if some wonderful wave of indifference washed over her. For the first time in what felt like a lifetime her mind was entirely clear. All doubt, all qualms, all ridiculous sensitivity was gone; borne away by the dark clarity that had blossomed out of her heart. She could see Celestia’s ultimate goal but also the ways to circumvent it. She remembered why she had asked around and sought out a hedgewitch in the first place, and could now look upon this one as she was always supposed to have looked upon her. Everything was clear to her now. Even the unanticipated meddling of Clover the Clever no longer worried her. All that meant was that the hedgewitch’s role would come sooner than she had originally planned.

Luna’s horn ignited with magic. She closed her eyes and delved into the dreams of the sleeping mare. As she had hoped, Posy was dreaming of her. It made it much easier for her to slip in unnoticed and replace the dream version with her astral self.

The dream was actually quite boring, though she was gladdened to find it set at night. Luna sat on the steps of a painted wooden wagon, a fire crackling in the centre of the clearing in which it was parked. Posy tended a pewter teapot hanging on a complicated trellis above the flames, protecting her hoof with some sort of crocheted sock. She poured the teapot into a wooden mug and brought it over.

“Here, love,” she said tenderly. “Hot sweet tea. The best thing for a night like this.”

“There are other things a night like this is good for!” called a voice from across the clearing.

Another wagon was parked there. In fact, several formed a rough circle around the campfire. On most steps ponies sat in ones and twos, chatting and laughing easily. There was a family atmosphere, though few of the ponies looked anything alike save for one thing: they were all female.

“Ah, stow it, Gingerbread!” one of the single ponies shouted at the mare who had spoken, her bright red mane stark against her white fur. “Leave Posy be. Thou art but jealous.”

“And thou art not, Paradise?” laughed another mare as she climbed the steps to her wagon. She was yellow and looked a lot like Posy, save for her rump mark and the wings on her back. Her mane and tail varied between green and white hair bound into dozens of tiny braids tipped with beads. “Thou doth but wish thou couldst also live one of thy stories and run off with the beautiful princess for a happily ever after.”

“Thou canst also stow it, Masquerade!” the white mare chuckled. “We all wish for a true love. ‘Tis natural we should be envious when one of us finds hers.”

Posy’s cheeks flushed. “Auntie Masquerade and Paradise mean no harm,” she whispered to Luna.

“Auntie?” Luna echoed. No wonder there was a resemblance.

“My mother’s sister,” Posy explained. “Though I have not seen her since I was but a foal. ‘Tis strange to see her now. I had thought her clean on the other side of Equestria, talking to badgers, or bears, or some other creatures.” She smiled. “But ‘tis a good kind of strange. I have missed her. I have missed all of this, though I had not realised how much, and am glad to share it with thee now.”

They watched as a pair of bats flitted above them, catching insects. Posy leaned her head against Luna and sighed happily.

“Thy night is more beautiful than ever,” she murmured.

Gratified, Luna shifted. Dream logic made it easier for her to ask what needed to be asked without Posy growing suspicious. “Posy, art thou familiar with poisons and their natural cures?”

“I know of them.”

“Wouldst thou be able to mix them?”

“My mother did teach me how.”

“Wouldst thou mix them for me?”

Posy’s dream self looked up at Luna, frowning. “Wherefore would I need to do such a thing?”

“In case I am ever poisoned, as you thought I was last night.”

“Last night?” Posy’s dream self frowned deeper. Luna realised this reference to time did not fit the internal logic of the dream world. She cursed the irrationality of dreams that let some things be acceptable and others not. “Uh, last week. Dost thou recall how I was, uh, bitten by a snake and thou didst provide me with the correct antidote?”

“I …” Posy frowned but her expression cleared as the dream filled in the gaps. “Yes, I do indeed recall that. I was mightily afeared that thou wouldst perish. I know not what I wouldst do without thee, my Luna.”

Her Luna? Such impenitence. “Verily, wouldst thou mix a batch?”

“Wherefore wouldst thou require poison? Surely only the antidote –”

Luna sighed harshly. Evidently this was not going to go as smoothly as she had hoped. She would have to resort to a clumsier method. It would be just as effective, if less watertight. Ponies who had been forcibly hypnotised in their dreams to conduct tasks in real life were not as a reliable as those convinced to do it of what they thought was their own free will. Yet Posy’s obvious feelings towards her may cover that eventuality. As planned, her love had made her receptive to Luna accessing her dreams and willing to agree to what Luna asked when her natural sense of right and wrong might otherwise have stopped her from performing the task she had been chosen for. A little dream hypnosis would simply push her over the edge.

Luna gripped the face of Posy’s dream self and turned it towards her. She stared hard into Posy’s large pink eyes, which grew even larger as Luna’s horn glowed and she began the enchantment. The mug tumbled from Posy’s hoof as she fell under Luna’s spell for the second, more literal time, and the dream warped around them like a painting dropped in a puddle.

“What poison in thy repertoire is swift-acting once administered?” Luna demanded.

“Hemlock … Nightshade … snake venom … the toxin of a scorpion’s tail …” Posy listed mindlessly.

“Which of those are undetectable to physician’s tests?”

“Physicians are clever, especially unicorns. They may detect all these and more.”

Luna cursed inwardly. “What poison exists that may evade their most stringent tests?”

“None alone in nature, though there are blends that may evade them.”

“Know thee of these and how to make them?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Canst thou locate the ingredients necessary within the castle walls?”

“Nay. They grow wild and are not easy to find for those unknowing of their effectiveness. These are not secrets a hedgewitch shares beyond her family line. She learns them so she knows how to cure them, but simply knowing how to poison is the quickest way to the gallows. Nopony is apt to question why thou doth possess such knowledge, just worry that thou doth know it.”

“But thou doth know it,” Luna insisted.

“Yes,” Posy said without hesitation. “The plants known as Bridal Tears, Cacophony, Rotten Heliotrope and Devil’s Bell-Drop. Mixed with care, these may do as thy wish, and the juice of a Blinding Nettle doth render them undetectable even after death.”

“Good girl. Here is what thou art to do ...”

When she was finished Luna pulled herself out of the dream. In the real world Posy had nuzzled close and latched onto her foreleg, hugging it close as a foal might a comforting blanket. Luna gazed at what should have been a sweet scene and felt nothing. She was a little surprised at herself. Hadn’t she, too, felt the stirrings of emotion the last time she and Posy met? When she had first taken her to bed and realised the extent of her innocence, had she not begun to have misgivings over what she planned for the little earth pony with love in her eyes?

Apparently not.

Luna extracted her foreleg and settled back on her pillows. She was sharing her bed with a pony who adored her and yet she was completely alone.

23. Resemblance

Onion Flowerpot was not a stallion much given to deep thought. He knew what he liked and he liked what he knew. Since colthood he had known he was destined to work on his family’s farm, growing vegetables that they could either sell at the village market, or give as tithes to the unicorns who raised the sun and moon, or pegasi who controlled the weather. His plans for this samey, quiet life had been thrown off somewhat when the harsh Winter of the Windigos all but destroyed the farm and much of the village died of starvation and frostbite while their leaders were off choosing a new land and naming it.

Life here at Castle Everfree was nearly as good as working the farm. He still ploughed fields in Spring, nurtured the crops in Summer, harvested them in Autumn and stored them away for Winter. The only real difference was in scale and money. He no longer needed to sell anything, since everything grown in the castle grounds went to the castle kitchens and stores. He had once assumed he would marry some nice young mare and they would take over the farm when his parents were no longer able. The nice young mare had never happened, but he took over as Head Groundspony after his father retired and took pride in his work.

He stood at the doorway to the kitchens, leaning on a stick he tried not to use when his subordinates were around. He was a strong, big-chested stallion, even bigger than his father had been, but age caught up with everypony eventually.

He marvelled that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna looked as young as they had since the day they came to Equestria. Whatever troubles were going on, Onion had confidence that the princesses could deal with it. They had defeated Discord, hadn’t they? He had been there when the master of chaos changed what remained of his village into flowers that sang his praises, and then set fire to them all. The princesses had turned the beast to stone and saved as many ponies as they could, bringing them all back to Everfree with them. They had defeated King Sanguine and made it safe for villages to grow into bigger and bigger towns without fear of being targets for griffin raiders. They raised the sun and moon, allowing unicorns to turn their magic to more creative fields that enriched the lives of all Equestria. Onion remembered a time when art or music were greeted with snorts and derision. Now the castle often had evenings of poetry and song and there were plenty of portraits in the halls and sculptures surrounding what remained of Discord in the gardens.

His reverie was interrupted by movement from the corner of his eye. He blinked, squinting a little. He really needed some of those new-fangled spectacles the glassmakers had been developing in Unicornia but he worried his groundsponies would respect him less if they thought him infirm. He saw a blob of yellow and pink moving down the hill and wondered what Posy could be doing abroad at this hour. It was only just sunrise. Onion had woken early because his old bladder couldn’t cope the way it used to and once he was up there was no getting back to sleep for him. He liked watching the sunrise with a cup of nettle tea and often stood in the kitchens before even the scullery maids stirred in their beds.

Posy was a nice young mare, he reflected. She would make some stallion a fine wife someday. If he had been a few decades younger … but no, that was foolish thinking. Some things just weren’t meant to be. Still, for such a small mare she could certainly work. She always acted like she had something to prove to the other groundsponies. Onion couldn’t care less about hedgewitches and superstitions but he recognised how it could affect others’ judgement. That was why he had taken Posy into his team instead of leaving her to be absorbed into the great mass of hoofmaidens, maids and cookery mares. The girl had talent with plants and deserved the chance to show there wasn’t an ounce of malicious witchery in her.

He sipped at his tea and listened to the birds give the dawn chorus. As the last of sunrise’s colours gave way to blue sky the floorboards above him groaned with the weight of ponies waking and dressing for their morning duties.

As he was turning away, he saw the blob of yellow and pink returning. Posy didn’t come in through the kitchens, instead passing of sight through a small door in the castle wall. Onion shrugged, deciding she must have been doing that new ritual he had heard young mares talking about. He couldn’t imagine why washing your face in morning dew would make any kind of difference to your looks, nor how you were supposed to see the image of your true love in a puddle, nor get his initials from the seeds of a pomegranate, nor any of the other innumerable things young mares did these days. It was all a bit beyond him, quite frankly. As long as Posy did her work well, however, he wasn’t going to inform the guards that she had been in the grounds before dawn. It was all the innocent fun of youth, after all.

Onion’s old ears had been too far away to hear the creak of a small gate in the wall around the grounds. He had not seen Posy walk unthinkingly into the forest, seen her strangely blank eyes search out plants and tubers that she dug up using tools rather her mouth or hooves as she usually would. He didn’t see her carrying a basket when he spotted her re-entering the castle, nor would he have recognised half the things she carried in it. A farm pony like Onion Flowerpot had never learned about what grew in a vicious forest like the one around Castle Everfree and certainly did not know what a careful combination of the most innocent looking of things could do.

But Posy did.

24. Suicide

Clover sat in the centre of a circle of different coloured candles, eyes closed as he carefully picked through another layer of past events. Psychometry was even more complicated than he had predicted. It required long hours of careful observation and even more careful elimination. He had found that each layer of past events was not chronologically defined. Stretches of time when nopony had been in the chamber did not register, for which he was grateful. It was only when life and movement entered the place that his spell had something to work with and showed him what had happened.

He went backwards, seeing first the events of today, then yesterday, then the day before, and so on in short bursts of time. Each layer consisted of a few minutes, which he had to observe before discarded them as useless. His suspicions of the guards had not completely abated, so he was forced to watch as ghostly versions of them moved around the representation of the chamber the spell had created in his mind. Either fortunately or unfortunately, the always did what their reports said they had done, nothing more and nothing less. The Royal Guard were apparently a bunch of very truthful, very thorough, very loyal ponies.

At the end of yet another fruitless layer, Clover sighed heavily. Marking his place as one might place a small peddle on the correct line of a scroll to keep it from furling up, he opened his eyes and stretched his back. The four candles still burned around him, though if he didn’t find something soon he was going to have to ask Celestia for replacements. He stood stiffly and snuffed each one out with a dot of telekinesis to preserve their lifespan a little: first the black candle of wax and ash from dragon-fire for sight beyond sight; then the yellow candle of wax and sap for grounding of his spirit while it was separated, even just a small distance, from his body; then the grey candle of wax and pieces of stone from the Elements’ chamber, to link him to the place whose past he wished to see; and finally the red candle, a mixture of wax and his own blood to bind the magic to him and him alone. Starswirl had spent a long time developing this spell. Even though his path had not crossed with his old mentor’s in years, Clover continued to marvel at the level of what Starswirl could do. The world would be a much gloomier place on the day he someday died.

But not for a long while yet, Clover thought.

Unicorns had the longest lifespans of all three pony races. Some posited this was because exposure to magic increased longevity, which would certainly explain why earth ponies tended to be the shortest lived. Clover himself had only a few grey hairs in his mane and his wrinkles were only the laughter lines around his eyes, while earth ponies who had been colts when Equestria was made were now old nags.

As he snuffed the last candle he realised through the green afterimages that a maid had left a tray of food for him at the circle’s edge. He was used to this. His trance while using the spell was so deep he rarely heard anypony enter or leave the chamber in reality and the kitchen staff had all been given strict instructions not to speak to him or break the chalk circle on the floor by stepping over it. Snapping him from his trance that way would not kill him but he would be left with the most appalling headache, lose his place in the layers and have to start all over again. Thus, whenever mealtimes came and went a servant would leave his tray of food at the edge of the circle for him to find when he woke and would return at some later time to retrieve it when he was done.

Clover settled down to eat, still thinking about where he had reached in the layers. He was now at the day immediately after the theft. Surely there couldn’t be many left to go through before he reached his goal. He imagined what Celestia’s face would be like when he brought her the information she so desperately wanted. Not for the first time, he wondered whether some griffin magician had managed to slip in and do the deed and wished he had stayed in stalwart longer to learn more about their magic. Did griffins know how to create fire from thin air like dragons? But if they could, why then was King Sanguine trying to make alliances with the Dragon Lands? Dragons typically disliked anything that wasn’t a dragon and the older and more powerful they got, the more likely they were to incinerate first and ask questions later. Starswirl had once speculated that the only way a dragon would ever agree to help a race not its own was if it was hatched and raised by that race instead of by dragons –

The tartness of the soup momentarily startled Clover out of his musings. He smacked his lips, wondering what flavour it was. It looked like carrot but tasted like lemons. He took another mouthful, rolling it around his tongue. It wasn’t unpleasant but the sharp taste overpowered any other flavour. He took a bite of the dark crusty bread, finding it much more agreeable. In the end he only consumed half the soup and all the bread. He set the tray aside, hoping whoever had made the soup would not be annoyed with him for not finishing it. Then he used his magic to reignite the four candles and settle back to his work.

He was even closer to his goal than he had realised. As he peeled away the layer of happenings where he had left off, he saw ghostly versions of Celestia and Luna in the chamber. Celestia ran from corner to corner, Luna raising her head as if trying frantically to sense a connection that was no longer there. This was the immediate aftermath of the theft. He was close now. He watched as Celestia made her announcement that she was going to go look for the culprit, and that whoever it was couldn’t have gotten far, and then left the chamber with the captain of her guard. Luna remained a while longer, watching as a combination of her own personal guards and her sister’s scoured the place. Then she, too, left and the scene began to fade. Before they could replay themselves, Clover reached out with the spell and took hold of the images as one might the corner of a piece of paper on top of a pile of similar papers. He peeled it off and set it ‘behind’ his consciousness, allowing the events preceding it to come into view.

The door was intact. Finally, he was where he wanted to be. He shifted his consciousness to face the door and waited. Within seconds the edges flared, but not with yellow or orange flames as he had expected. Twists of black flame curled around the edges of the door. He watched in growing consternation as they stretched and whorled, melting the hinges. Then they flared and the doors crumpled inward in a shower of icy blue sparks. Clover watched in mounting horror as a figure stepped into the chamber and went straight to the Elements of Harmony.

Princess Luna?

Her whole body still crackling with blue and black flames, the princess of the night stood before the six bright gemstones set into two tiaras – those on the left shaped like crescent moons, those on the right like a blazing sun. Her horn glowed as she picked up both tiaras and brought them to her.

“First the wards treat me as an enemy and now this? Wherefore art thou silent? Wherefore can I not hear thy whisperings?”

The tiara of moons glimmered and Luna shielded her face from the light, dropping the tiara as if it was suddenly too hot to touch. When the light had faded she looked back, face shifting to an expression of rage Clover had never seen from her before. A moment later he realised why. The tiara she had dropped was gone. All that remained of it were three uncut gems, while the other three retained both their sun-shape and their royal setting.

Clover understood what Luna herself must have in that instant – her connection with the Elements of Harmony had been broken. Somehow she had lost whatever special qualities bonded her with them while Celestia’s connection remained as strong as ever. This obviously angered Luna, judging by the tears streaming down her face.

“Wherefore hast thou forsaken me?” her past self demanded. “Wherefore didst thou seek to bar the door from me? May I not seek thy counsel as my sister doth? I aided her in casting those wards to keep out enemies only! Thou doth allow her entry and listen to her worries, yet bar my way? Wherefore? I am not thy enemy. I am thy chosen! I am thy chosen!”

When the Elements did not immediately heed her and resume their tiara she screamed at them. For a moment her eyes glowed startling turquoise, pupils shrinking to angry slits. Her mane and tail flared in rage, mimicking the stars of the night sky.

“Wherefore dost thou prefer Celestia?” she sobbed.

Still, the Elements of Harmony ignored her. Clover watched as Luna’s mane and tail flickered back to hair and her eyes closed as if in sudden exhaustion. When she opened them again they were her usual shade of blue, though her tears had evaporated in those strange dark flames. Her horn flared and she tucked the three loose gems under one wing, holding them in place, and did the same on her other side with Celestia’s tiara. Then she departed the chamber as the images began to fade.

Clover marked his place and broke from his trace. He couldn’t believe it. Princess Luna was the thief? And the Elements of Harmony had rejected her? For what reason? And why had she taken them away instead of telling Celestia what had happened?

He got to his hooves to snuff out the candles but immediately sank back to his knees. He suddenly couldn’t get his breath. He struggled upright again but his chest felt tight and heavy. He clutched at the front of his tunic as bright spots flared behind his eyes. His heart beat faster, and every beat sent a more powerful jolt of pain around his body. He tried once more to stand but toppled onto his side and lay, kicking uselessly.

Had the psychometry spell caused this? He knew it put a lot of strain on the caster’s body. That was the reason for the blood candle. He could see all four candles still alight, yet still his breaths became shallower and the terrible weight in his chest increased.

He needed to tell Celestia what he had seen. He had to warn her that Luna had betrayed her. Princess Luna could not be trusted if she had lied about such an important thing and kept on lying about it.

The moment the thought entered his head, he realised what was happening. It could not have been more obvious if Luna herself had stood over him and told him. Clover gurgled helplessly, without even the strength to call for help as his heart raced and finally burst in a shower of bright lights and infinite black.

25. Pity

Celestia held herself steady against her own grief. A princess did not cry, even when she was sad. A princess definitely did not break down and bawl like a foal who wanted her mother. A princess had to be strong so that the ponies around her could absorb her strength and be strong too. That was the weight of a crown.

She glanced briefly at Luna beside her. Dark-eyed, wearing a cape to hide missing patches of fur her all but naked wings, Luna still managed to look every inch a princess. Though it was midday and she had been awake all night, she held her head high and didn’t let her sorrow overtake her. It was not usual for the Sun Court and Moon Court to be held together, but Luna made it seem perfectly natural for both thrones to be occupied at the same time. Celestia could do no less and sat straighter, swallowing back her tears.

Clover the Clever was dead.

His heart had failed, the physicians said, a common cause of death in ponies of advancing years. He had mentioned that he had never before cast the spell he had attempted on their behalf, and he hadn’t known whether it would work, nor whether there would be any side-effects. He had brushed off any reservations that it was dangerous when explaining the reasons behind the four candles. Celestia had been so elated that he might find out where the Elements of Harmony had gone, she hadn’t pushed him for details. Now guilt struck her like a hammer on hot metal in the ironmonger’s forge. She was convinced she had sent Clover to his death and would never forgive herself for it.

The rest of Castle Everfree was not so reserved in its mourning. Clover was not only a famous mage, he was one of the founding ponies. His death was unexpected and devastating. Though he held no political power, there was a sense that some of the heart of Equestria had been torn out and everypony felt it. His funeral was to be a massive event, attended by representatives from all three pony races across all the provinces.

The Sun Herald and Moon Herald blew their trumpets on either side of the audience chamber. Both Celestia and Luna looked up to see a startling white unicorn coming towards them, escorted by a tall, blond stallion who supported her as she walked. Her mouth and eyes were bracketed by wrinkles but her beauty was unmistakable. Her mane and tail fell in silvery ringlets that were natural, not the product of age. Upon her head she wore a crown of coloured glass that represented the best craftsponyship of her province.

“Presenting her lesser highness, Princess Platinum of the Unicornia Province!” announced the Sun Herald.

“And her son, his lesser highness, Prince Goldenmane,” announced the Moon Herald.

Celestia stood, waited for Luna to do likewise and descended the royal dais slowly so that they would reach the ground together. “Platinum,” she said, her voice a mixture of warmth and sympathy. “It has been a long time. Wouldst that this meeting could happen under more auspicious circumstances.”

“Indeed, Celestia,” Platinum croaked. She had never had trouble dropping the ‘princess’ and treating both alicorns as if she was their equal. “’Tis a sad day indeed for all Equestria. Clover was a good pony.” She swallowed as if she had a lump in her throat. “And a good friend. Though his travels led him away from Unicornia more often than not, I shall miss him greatly.”

“This is thy son?” Luna asked. “I do recall that when we saw him last he was naught but a runny-nosed colt.”

Celestia was a little shocked at Luna’s phrasing. So were Platinum and Goldenmane, judging by their expressions, but they overcame it admirably. Considering how apt Platinum used to be at reading insults into everything, she had clearly mellowed over the years. Either that or grief had softened her sharp edges.

“The years do pass far too swiftly,” she said. “Though not for thee. Thou art as lovely as when I was but a young mare planting a flag in a snowdrift.” She smiled at Celestia and only wavered a little when giving the same smile to Luna. “Thy rule shall be long and glorious, methinks. Though Equestria hath suffered a great loss in Clover the Clever, I thank the heavens for thy reign.”

“Thy words are most kind,” Celestia replied. “Wilt please thee to be shown thy rooms now? Thou hath travelled far and would surely like to rest.”

“Indeed,” Platinum agreed. “Age hath withered me, if only a little. My beauty fades a smidgen with every passing season and my strength with it, though I would have crawled on my belly to be here now.”

Celestia smiled. No doubt Platinum had travelled to Castle Everfree in a carriage drawn by the strongest, handsomest ponies in her province, and would have screeched at the thought of getting mud on her hooves, much less her belly. Still, it was the thought that counted.

“We do thank thee for thy attendance, Platinum and Goldenmane,” said Celestia.

After an awkward moment, Luna seemed to remember she was supposed to say something too. “Yes. Indeed. We do thank thee.”

As the two unicorns were led out, Celestia took the opportunity to extend one wing and draw Luna close in a hug. Luna seemed surprised as Celestia dipped her head and nuzzled her as she had once done in a cave when they were grieving for their parents and friends.

“Death is a great leveller, dear sister,” Celestia whispered. “It sharpens us to what is of true importance in life. Know that I love thee, Luna.”

“Yes. Indeed,” Luna replied. “I love thee too, Celestia.”

26. Teacher

On the day of Clover’s funeral, Castle Everfree erupted in amazement.

Celestia and Luna led the procession to a portion of the grounds given over to the graves of ponies who had lived and died in the castle. The ponies who followed wept openly. Among them the remaining five founders walked and flew, each wearing a similar expression of loss. They had all liked Clover – even Hurricane, who famously didn’t like anyone. She flew haughtily alongside Pansy, who had risen up the pegasi ranks over the years but still deferred to her old superior when they were together. Platinum walked beside her son, eschewing his support in public, while Puddinghead and Smart Cookie plodded creakily along with earth pony tenacity. The years showed most in them, yet they refused to be carried as they followed their old friend to his final resting place.

Clover had been embalmed for viewing over the past days and would be now given a proper pyre. His remains would then be interred in the very heart of the country he had helped found. Celestia and Luna had commissioned the monument to be built when the castle itself was first raised, thinking that someday the six founding ponies deserved something special to mark where they lay. Neither princess had imagined such a day would come so soon, nor that it would be Clover who fell first.

Smart Cookie had broken down when she lumbered into the viewing room. “’Twas intended for me or mine to die first, old friend,” she had sobbed. “I did expect thy tears at my funeral, not mine at thine.”

Puddinghead had not sobbed, but for perhaps the first time in his life his good humour had deserted him. He had stood beside Smart Cookie and rubbed her crooked back as she cried enough tears for both of them. Now he walked beside her, his expression one of bewilderment that had nothing to do with age.

When Clover’s body was laid on the pyre Celestia and Luna stood to either side of it, presenting themselves to the crowd of ponies. Behind the founders were their various entourages, and behind them all manner of mare, stallion, colt and filly, all of whom had come to Everfree to pay their last respects. Not since the coronations of the two princesses had anyone seen such a huge gathering of ponykind.

Celestia exchanged a glance at Luna and nodded. She had suggested that Luna give the eulogy, thinking that perhaps she did tend to take over on public occasions. Luna opened her mouth to address the multitude, but before she could speak a loud crackle of magic split the air. With an inverse popping sound and a flash of light, a figure appeared between the princesses and the crowd. The long cloak it was wearing flared out as if in a stiff wind as the pony beneath coalesced into grey fur, feathered hooves and an extremely long beard.

Celestia gasped. “Starswirl?”

Nopony had been able to find him to tell him of Clover’s death. It had been assumed that he was out of the country on one of his spell-gathering quests. Evidently that assumption was incorrect.

Starswirl turned, the bells of his hat jingling as he faced the princesses. “Thou hath mastered distance but appear facing the wrong way?” Celestia heard him mutter under his breath. “Could thy magic not at least point thee in the right direction upon re-entry, old fart?” He cleared his throat and spoke louder. “Princess Celestia. Princess Luna. Didst thou truly believe I would fail to appear at my own student’s funeral?”

Celestia recovered first. “Our apologises for such an oversight, Master Starswirl. We are gratified at thy attendance.”

She missed the truculent look Luna shot her before speaking in her place. “Indeed, though thy entrance be rather too dramatic for such a gloomy occasion, perhaps?” she said cuttingly.

“Be a funeral a time of pure gloom or a time to celebrate the life of the soul departed?” Starswirl responded archly, with not even a hint of deference.

Well, far be it for the most powerful unicorn mage who ever lived to be deferential to anypony, Celestia supposed.

Starswirl was unique among ponies – a flesh and blood receptacle for all kinds of magic, including those of other races and varieties most ponies thought of as nothing more than pipedreams. His search for a viable means of time travel was infamous and often used as a turn of phrase when a pony was thought to be doing something pointless and destined for failure. He was also ancient, cranky and never short of something to say. Starswirl was as famous for making enemies as spells, though Celestia had always liked him. He was the only pony other than Luna with whom she had ever discussed the Elements of Harmony, since he was the only pony who ever seemed like he might be able to puzzle out what they really were. Unfortunately he had not been able to shed any light on them, though Celestia had enjoyed their long conversations and finally being able to share stories of Canterlot, her long-dead family and nearly dying in the caves. It was difficult to talk of such things with anypony when maintaining the guise of impenetrable authority a princess should have, but Starswirl had never cared for such things and his mind was as sharp as a thorn bush – his personality just as prickly.

Luna glared at him. Apparently she had forgotten this particular aspect.

“Thou makest a fine point, Starswirl,” Celestia chimed in quickly. “Indeed, though we may grieve, so too should we celebrate the life of Clover the Clever and all his achievements. Prithee, wilt thou grace us with a eulogy?”

If Luna’s glare had been angry before, now it was venomous. Her calm mask had slipped and slipped badly. Celestia averted her eyes, refusing to meet her sister’s gaze. Now was not the time for pettiness and she would not create a scene by telling Luna she was being inappropriate.

Starswirl turned to the way he had been facing when he … Celestia tried to remember the word Clover had used when he described what she presumed this spell to be. Tele-something? Teleportation, that was it. Starswirl had teleported into the ceremony. She wondered how far away he had been. Could he ‘teleport’ himself through walls or only open spaces? Had he been in the crowd or outside the castle grounds? She immediately chastised herself for being so curious of that while the body of one of her oldest friends lay so close.

“Clover the Clever was a precocious student, if a little tiresome and apt to be sensible and practical when a situation called for daring,” Starswirl began, sending murmurs through the crowd. This was not how they had expected the eulogy to start. “He was also gifted, perceptive, faithful and far more genial than I have ever been, or ever will be.” Starswirl paused and then went on in a softer tone, “He was my first and only true student. I have taught many in my long years – some good, some so poor I have torn out my beard with vexation at their idiocy. Only he, of all, could withstand the fickleness of my moods longer than a single waxing and waning of the moon. As a colt, his talent and thirst for learning did impress me such that I invited him to accompany me upon my travails. None since then have shared my hoofsteps as he did. His gift for magic did likewise impress me, as did his compassion and kindliness. Many was the time that he did stop, despite my outcry, to help somepony who needed aid. Many was the time that he did risk my threats to leave him behind because he knew there was a time for the mind and a time for the heart. A lesson, I confess, I struggle with still. Though Clover was my faithful student, I also did learn much from him. Upon my oath, I do wish now that I had told him thus.” Starswirl paused again, as if gathering himself. “Clover the Clever was student, teacher, quester, defender of the weak, founder of Equestria and … my friend. In truth, there shall be no other like him and the world doth suffer greatly for his loss.”

Celestia’s eyes prickled. When Starswirl turned to face her and Luna questioningly, she nodded, giving him permission to light the pyre. Starswirl’s horn glowed as he levitated the torch held by a servant to the kindling below Clover’s body. It lit quickly and the flames climbed high, consuming the swaddled body in a matter of seconds.

“Rest well, Clover, my faithful student,” Starswirl said so quietly that Celestia barely heard him over the roar of flames. “I shall miss thee.”

She tried, but she couldn’t prevent her own tears from falling. She hoped she would never have to go through such a painful experience as saying goodbye to a student this way. It was hard enough saying goodbye to a friend.

The founding ponies at the front of the crowd and the ponies behind them said their final goodbyes and wept. Everypony was so absorbed in his or her own grief, and the sight of the burning pyre, that no-one focussed on Princess Luna and her dry-eyed stare.

27. Lust

Wind Racer wondered whether it was unhealthy to hate so many ponies at once. For the way they were treating Princess Luna, however, he was already nursing a potent loathing of every pony in the Great Hall.

He was on regular duty tonight. All this really meant was that two others of Princess Luna’s personal guards had been chosen to accompany her as she went about the castle and he was supposed to go wherever Captain Diamond told him to go. The captain, however, was distracted dealing with a few guests that had waylaid him. Wind Racer stood ready at the end of a line of stallions in formal dress, each wearing a piece of black cloth around a foreleg to mark them as part of the funeral procession. He had been proud when Princess Luna chose him to march behind her and wore her insignia proudly, as if daring those in the Sun Princess’s half of the procession to challenge him.

Princess Celestia and Princess Luna stood before the assembled ponies. Princess Celestia’s horn glowed a soft gold as she lowered the sun in the sky. As she worked, Princess Luna turned to address the guests.

“I shall now raise the moon and begin the night,” she announced, though her sister had not made a similar announcement before beginning her magic. Princess Celestia had merely excused herself from a small group of ponies and gone to the window.

Wind Racer watched in consternation as some of the gathered ponies turned at Princess Luna’s announcement, but the majority paid her little mind. They were too busy talking with each other, breaking into cliques and chatting about Clover the Clever, the funeral, Starswirl the Bearded’s unexpected appearance, how well Princess Celestia had coped with him, seeing the founding ponies together, wondering which of them would be next to go – everything topical, it seemed, except the magic being enacted before their very eyes. Apparently they were so used to nightfall that not even seeing the pony who made it happen was enough to stir them from their socialising.

Princess Luna scowled and announced again that she was about to begin the night. Wind Racer knew that the passing of day to night was complexly patterned throughout the year, happening at an incrementally different second, minute and eventually hour each time. The princesses had adopted the pattern set by the unicorn mages of old but refined it to such a degree that it boggled the mind how anypony could think in such minuscule detail so far into the future. To delay raising the moon for even a few minutes would wreck the schedule and throw off the pattern. By making Luna wait for them, the ponies in the Great Hall were doing more damage than they realised.

Wind Racer allowed his own features to contort into a scowl as the princess finally gave up and turned to the window. The sky darkened to an elegant dark blue which seemed almost black against the rising moon. In short bursts, like fireworks, stars flared into life. Princess Luna stepped away from the window, panting, and turned – only to find her work still being ignored. One or two ponies stamped their hooves politely but almost immediately went back to their conversations.

Princess Celestia laid a wing over her sister and said something, but Princess Luna pulled away and walked a little distance from her. Princess Celestia watched her go with sad eyes, yawned, and called her bodyguards to her.

“I must now take my leave of thee,” she declared to the assembled ponies. “I bid thee goodnight, one and all.”

“Must thou leave?” asked half a dozen ponies.

“We did hope to speak with thee.”

“Canst thou not stay a little longer?”

Celestia shook her head. She looked tired through her regal bearing. Wind Racer knew that just as Princess Luna weakened in daylight, so too did Princess Celestia when the sun was gone from the sky. “I shall leave thee with my sister, but I must depart.”

Her guards escorted her from the room amidst more pleading for her to stay. Princess Luna watched her go with undisguised bitterness. Her expression and the snappy, barbed way she had talked to them since the funeral, made ponies avoid her now.

Well, all but one. Prince Goldenmane trotted over and tried to engage her in conversation but it was clear the princess was not listening. She gazed around at the assembled ponies, her expression growing darker and darker until it was positively thunderous. Without excusing herself, she abandoned Prince Goldenmane and stalked away down a side corridor, trailing her guards for the night.

“Well, I never!” Wind Racer heard Prince Goldenmane exclaim. “I was always taught that royalty is expected to maintain a certain level of decorum!”

Wind Racer snorted. There was a reason Goldenmane and his mother were called ‘lesser royals’. The founding ponies’ families were all lesser royals if they chose to keep the titles, and their descendants would inherit those titles too, but they would never be true royalty in Wind Racer’s eyes.

He wasn’t sure what caught his attention. Maybe it was the stooped head. Maybe it was the way she snuck in from the staircase to the royal chambers. Maybe he was just keyed to spot her out of suspicion. His eyes found the hedgewitch in the crowd and followed her as she moved through, clearly looking for somepony. She ducked away from a pair of stallion nobles who laughed and shoved their way to the mead table, narrowly avoiding being crushed by a rotund mare in a frock two sizes too small for her. The hedgewitch swivelled her head this way and that but clearly didn’t find who she was looking for. She bit her lip and stood still, but only for a moment. A loud stallion with a laugh like a braying donkey crashed right into her, knocking her against the mead table. The bowl of drink from which ponies were serving themselves sloshed dangerously, dumping some of its contents on her head as she scrambled to her hooves. Ducking under the table and crawling to the end so she wasn’t intercepted again, she ran for the door through which she had just entered.

The royal chambers?

Apprehension wove a net around Wind Racer and pulled tight. Why would she go there unattended? Princess Luna was elsewhere. Why would her lover go to her rooms without her? Did she truly think the princess would be there when the castle was filled with guests and her sister was nowhere to be seen?

Since he was at the end of the row it was easy enough for him to slip off. He used a little-known route – the same, in fact, that he had last used to sneak the hedgewitch back to her own quarters. When he reached Princess Luna’s chamber the door was ajar and he could hear hoofsteps inside. Having memorised the sound of the princess’s silvery shoes, he knew they didn’t belong to her.

He crept to the doorway, peering around it. Bunching his formidable muscles under him, he leapt into the room, wings flared to make himself look as big and intimidating as possible, spear thrust forward in an attacking stance.

“Do not move!”

The hedgewitch squeaked and fell backwards. As she did so, something fell from her hooves. Wind Racer reached out with a leg and, still holding the speak steady on her, dragged it towards him. It was a tiny packet made from parchment. Carefully, clutching it in one hoof and using his wingtip to work open the top. Inside were crushed leaves and other bits of plant. It gave off a lemony smell that wasn’t altogether unpleasant. Nonetheless, Wind Racer’s brows knit together.

“What is this?”

The hedgewitch gulped, round eyes fixed on the spearhead.

“Answer, hedgewitch!” he barked.

Her gaze instantly shifted to his face. “H-How dost thou know of … of …” She swallowed, unable to focus on either him or the spear.

“Of thy hedgewitchery? ‘Twas not a secret – unlike thy presence here tonight. Wherefore art thou within the princess’s chamber uninvited?”

“I … I …”

“Art thou invited? Speak plain and truthful, else it shall go badly for thee.”

“I … was not invited,” she admitted. “Though Luna –”

“Speak not her name so casually, hedgewitch! I trust not thy intentions nor thy deeds. Thou art entirely too familiar with her Highness. Who art thou to so quickly be taken to her bed? Wherefore would she choose thee, of all ponies, for such an honour? Who art thou to mesmerise her eyes until they see no other when thou art known to her for such precious little time? Who art thou, to think thou might even look upon the Moon Princess, much less touch her!?” Though he hadn’t intended it, his voice rose to a shout and several things he had not meant to say spewed forth. “Thou art no-one! A mare of ignoble birth, of no status, of no worth except to pull ploughs and weeds! Yet thou art the princess’s chosen? I say nay. Something in these events – and in thee – doth reek of witchcraft.”

The hedgewitch stared at him, obviously terrified. “Nay! I … I mean nopony any harm, I … only wished to find Princess Luna to speak with her, t-to ask her about … um …” Involuntarily her eyes flicked to the packet in his hoof.

“Thou didst sneak up to her chamber alone, while she doth attend to her guests, thinking to speak with her?” Wind Racer didn’t bother to invest his tone with much conviction. “Thou liest, and not well, hedgewitch.”

“M-My name is not hedgewitch,” she protested.

“I care not for thy name. I care only for the wellbeing and safety of my princess. What do I hold in my hoof? What concoction hast thou brought to my princess’s bedchamber without her knowledge?” His mind worked, coming to what he quickly decided was the only possible conclusion, and his eyes narrowed in disgust. “Be this poison? Seekest thou to poison the Moon Princess?”

“N-No!” she protested extremely unconvincingly.

“’Twould make a pretty piece of sense!” Wind Racer said with growing conviction. “The swiftness of thy courtship, the speed at which thou didst seduce her Highness, the strange illness that did afflict her the last time I discovered thee in her company, her strange illness which no physician knows the cure of – who better to concoct a poison that may elude their tests than a hedgewitch? And who better to administer it to the princess than her lover?”

“No!” the hedgewitch cried. “Thou art wrong! ‘Tis not the case! Thou art wrong!”

“I say nay.” He made to crumple the packet but stopped. It would be needed as evidence. Whatever foul mixture she had made, the physicians would need it to cure Princess Luna of the illness that had robbed her of so much of her beauty. Wind Racer’s heart swelled at the thought that he would be the one to save her. He would be the one pony, out of every pony in Equestria, who had saved Princess Luna’s life twice over! “Hedgewitch, thou art hereby under arrest by the order of the Royal Lunar Guard. Prithee come quietly, else I have to use this spear upon thee.”

She gulped, eyes glassy with unshed tears. “I have done nothing! Not to her, I … I have done nothing.”

“Thy denials do sound feeble. We shall see whether thou hath done aught – this night or any of those that came before during thy wicked seduction.”

“I did not seduce her!”

“She did seduce thee? A commoner up to her fetlocks in muck? A likely tale indeed! Her highness would not ever have crossed thy path had thou not placed thyself in her way.”

“Nay!”

“Deny all thou wish. I am not so easily drawn into thy lies, hedgewitch.”

Voices outside made his ears prick. The hedgewitch heard them too and her expression morphed into one of relief, which angered him all the more. Even now she expected to make the princess do her bidding? Even now, when her plans had been uncovered, she thought she could manipulate poor Princess Luna into doing her bidding? When she had probably just tried to secretly lay some sort of poison for her in her own bedchamber? Enraged at the hedgewitch’s audacity, his whole body seemed to tremble. Afterwards he could not be sure whether his muscles spasmed or whether he deliberately thrust his spear forward a few inches. It was not a fatal wound but entered the hedgewitch’s haunch, lodging in the muscle. She cried out in pain and tried to back away, all but wrenching the spear from his grasp as she stumbled, pulling herself off the point.

“What was that?” asked one of the voices.

“Remain here, Highness. Thy door hangs open and there are noises within.”

Two guards entered the bedchamber. Wind Racer recognised them both. Swift Wing gaped at the sight of him with weapon drawn, while the other stallion frowned in confusion. It was he who spoke first.

“What is the meaning of this, sir?”

“I did catch this pony attempting to poison her Highness,” Wind racer said without preamble.

“This pony?” Swift Wing didn’t sound as though he believed this story.

Wind Racer scowled and held out the packet. “I did take this from her. ‘Tis clearly some hedgewitch concoction she did steal up here to use upon the princess.”

“What are these herbs, mare?” Swift Wing asked.

The hedgewitch, gasping in pain, answered, “I … I know not, good sir. I have no memory of this day save for the past half hour. I did wake outside Princess Celestia’s study bearing these. They do smell of …” She shook her head. “I think I may have been bewitched.”

“A likely story!” Wind Racer thundered. “Do not believe her, Swift Wing. I have told thee before of my suspicions concerning her. This be proof enough of her ill intentions! She doth mean to poison Princess Luna!”

“What?”

As one, everypony looked at the door, where Princess Luna stood in apparent shock. She stared at the scene, taking in Wind Racer, the spear, the hedgewitch and the other two guards. Finally her eyes settled on the little paper packet. She crossed the room and took it from Wind Racer, sniffing its contents.

“Nay, Highness!” Wind Racer protested.

Princess Luna wrinkled her nose. “Bridal Tears?” she sniffed again. “Camphony, also. Rotten Heliotrope … Devil Bell-Drop … Blinding Nettle … be these the crushed plants herein?”

“I do not know!” the hedgewitch panted. “Please, Luna, I am hurt … fetch a physician …”

“These plants are poisons all,” Luna said impassively. “Together an even more potent blend. This, hath thou brought to my chambers?”

“N-Nay – I mean, yes, I did bring those herbs, but I did not know what they were. Luna, I have been bewitched. My mind was not my own. I recall laying with thee and then nothing until now. Clover the Clever hath perished and I did not know until I overheard ponies talk of it, yet he hath been dead days! I do not know why I do not remember, nor what I have done in that time.”

“The words of a liar, Highness,” Wind racer snarled. “She seeks to do thee ill.” He then told her how he thought the hedgewitch was responsible for her longstanding illness. “’Twas not until she came to Everfree that thou didst suffer so. It cannot be coincidence – not so in so many ways.”

“Indeed. Coincidence doth seem unlikely,” she agreed.

The hedgewitch stared at her in disbelief. “L-Luna?”

“I will thank thee to name me properly,” said the princess. She raised her face, staring down at the confused, bleeding mare haughtily. “Hedgewitch.”

Fear dawned in the hedgewitch’s eyes. “Thou canst not believe these untruths! I have never meant thee harm, nor done harm to anypony! I brought thee this packet because I was afeared. I did not know where else to turn. I know not why I have them nor where they came from, but I do know I would never use them to harm thee! I … I love thee, Luna!”

“Quiet!” the stallion whose name Wind Racer could not remember stepped forward menacingly. Clearly he did not believe the hedgewitch’s lies and was just as incensed at her words.

“I do love thee!” the hedgewitch cried. “With all my heart do I love thee! Please, Luna, do not forsake me this way!”

Princess Luna looked at the packet of poison in her hoof. Under her cloak she flexed her useless wings and winced. She seemed to come to a decision. “The penalty for attempted murder of thy sovereign is death. ‘Tis the law, plain and true.”

“Nay!” the hedgewitch screamed. “Luna!”

“Yet I am not completely without mercy. Thou shalt stand trial for thy crimes. Wind Racer, Cirrus, take her to the West Tower and hold her there. She shall remain within until such time as I may attend her case.”

The unnamed guard bowed low. Wind Racer copied the move, keeping his spear trained on the hedgewitch in case she tried to run – not that she would get far with an injured leg. Snivelling, she limped between them as they pressed in on her with their taller, armoured bodies. In formation as they had been trained, each pegasus extended a wing over her with feathers spread, signalling to anypony they met that she was under arrest.

“Luna, please, do not do this.” She tried one more time to appeal to the princess, who turned to watch her leave.

“I did trust thee,” she said softly. “I had faith in thee. Yet thou didst betray that faith and instead bring this upon thyself by coming here this night.”

“I betrayed nothing,” the hedgewitch replied brokenly. “I came here because I trust thee also. I had faith that thou wouldst help me understand what hath happened to me.”

Princess Luna stared at her for a long, tense moment. Then she turned away. “Take her to the West Tower. After this night I shall decide whether she remains of use to my Equestria and thus should retain her life.” After a moment’s pause, however, she added, “Swift Wing, inform Captain Diamond to set guards on her prison and bring chains to bind her. Afterwards all three of thee should return here.”

“Thou art to be left unguarded while we perform these tasks, Highness?” Swift Wing asked. “With an attempt on thy life so recently vanquished?”

“Hmm … mayhap thou art correct. Wind Racer?”

His whole body thrilled to hear her say his name. “Yes, Highness?”

“Remain herein. Swift Wing, take his place and thereupon seek out Captain Diamond. Are all orders clear?”

“As moonlight, Highness.” Swift Wing bowed and switched with Wind Racer. Together they led the hedgewitch away, still snivelling and bleeding from her wound.

“Thy spear remains bloody, Wind Racer,” Princess Luna said mildly once they had passed from sight. “Is’t not customary to clean it once its use is done?”

“My apologies, Highness. Uh …” He cast about. He had never actually used his spear on a living creature before. He hadn’t been born during the worst of the griffin conflicts and while his training as a guard had involved combat drills, more time had been given over to parade formalities and the various ways he was to conduct himself amongst the royalty and lesser nobilities in the castle. This was the first time he had spilled actual blood. It didn’t trouble him as much as he had thought it would. “With what should I clean it?”

“It matters not to me,” Princess Luna said airily. “Use the bed sheets. After this night I shall have little use for them.”

Wind Racer assumed she meant she would want the whole room stripped and refurbished to remove any reminder of the betrayal she had suffered. “I am sorry, Highness.”

“Sorry? Wherefore?”

“Thou didst seem to care much for the hedgewitch.”

She looked at the patch of blood on the floor, face turned away from him. “She had her uses,” she said after a moment. “I did hope to retain her services longer than this. A hedgewitch is a useful mind to keep around, since they do not share their secrets with any but their own kind.”

“Highness?” Wind Racer was confused. Had the princess been using the hedgewitch even as the hedgewitch thought she was using the princess? That hadn’t even occurred to him. Princess Luna was intelligent as well as lovely. His admiration snuffed out any frustration he might have felt that his rescue of her was not, in fact, a rescue at all if she already knew the hedgewitch was not all she seemed. Nor did he think less of her for using the earth pony as a simple bedmate. Kings and queens of ancient times had concubines, didn’t they? He could forgive Princess Luna anything.

She sniffed the air, as she had done at his selection a month earlier, and looked at him. “Thy deeds this night prove thy faithfulness, Wind Racer. Thou didst seek to defend me against any who would do me ill. Thy conduct since thy elevation to the Moon Guard hath been exceptional.”

“I would lay down my life for thee, Highness.”

“Indeed.” She looked at him thoughtfully. “What else wouldst thou lay down for me?”

“Highness?” Damn it, his wings were twitching. Maybe he should have taken Swift Wing’s advice and found some salt peter. What did she mean by that?

“Thy life is mine, Wind Racer?” She took a step towards him. “Thy body also?”

Hope and disbelief tussled inside him. Surely she couldn’t mean … no, it was too unlikely. And yet … she had taken the hedgewitch to her bed. Why not one of her guards? Why not a faithful stallion to wipe away the memory of a traitorous mare? “H-Highness?”

“Dost thou like my night, Wind Racer?”

He swallowed. “I love it, Highness. Each one is beautiful. ‘Tis a shame other ponies do not appreciate it as they should.”

“Thy answer pleases me.” She advanced. “Very much. What would thy devotion look like in the flesh, I wonder?” She stopped in front of him, smiled and asked, “Shall we find out?”

Wind Racer opened his mouth to speak but didn’t get the chance. Princess Luna’s horn glowed, yet not with the bright light he was accustomed to. Dark magical energy swirled around it and around him. He grunted as intense cold radiated outward from the centre of his chest. His limbs became heavy and his wings felt strange.

“Thy loyalty doth encourage me to make thee more fully of my night,” Princess Luna purred. “Lust is such an expedient catalyst. Thou art the first, Wind Racer, but not the last. Thy dark devotion shall spread through thee and thy touch. Thou art my devotee, my weapon and now my champion.”

Her champion? He tried to look at her but all he could see was swirling, sparkling darkness, as if the night sky had swallowed him and was remaking him. His wings ripped and unravelled, feathers and bones dissolving into starshire. He tried to scream but had no breath. New wings speared from the remnants of the old. The world became sharper as his vision changed to better suit the dark. His mane and tail hardened and his fur darkened to steely grey as his heart beat waves of cold through him. In one final burst, the cold swept through his mind, purifying his thoughts and leaving behind only icy certainty.

Obey.

“Wind Racer?” said Princess Luna.

He stood, feeling strong and powerful. He flexed his new leathery wings, swiping experimentally with the barbs at the joints and tips. He bowed lower than he ever had before. “I hear thee and obey, my queen.”

She smiled. It was full of sharp teeth. Her eyes flickered briefly turquoise. “Good boy.”

28. Fire

Smoke wreathed Castle Everfree like fog. Even when it had dissipated, the smell remained. After the crowd had trundled away and scattered back to jobs and guest quarters, it was discovered that Starswirl had once again vanished. Most wondered whether he had ‘teleported’ himself away the same way he had arrived. Of those, almost all agreed that he should have stayed. Regardless of his rudeness in leaving so soon and without warning, all agreed that his eulogy, though not what they had imagined, had been almost perfect. Nopony would ever forget the day they had said their first goodbye to a founding pony, and also seen the fabled Starswirl the Bearded in the flesh.

The five remaining founders gathered in the largest guest chamber as the sun descended in the sky. It was too late to return to their provinces and they had not seen each other for a long time. It one counted only the times they had all been gathered together it was even longer, so they took the opportunity to light a fire in the grate and reminisce about old times.

“’Tis a bad lot when one’s friends die,” Pansy sighed.

“Death should be glorious, preferably in battle defending another!” Hurricane declared, shaking a hoof like she was once again rousing warriors to fight. She sank back in her chair, her old bones creaking nearly as much as the wood. “To die of old age and a failing body … an ignoble end, to be sure. Better to throw thyself on thy sword than suffer the pains and humiliations of age.”

“Thy ponies would disagree, old friend,” Smart Cookie pointed out. She stared into the fire, light flickering across her face. In the shifting shadows her features seemed to move between old and young from moment to moment. “And I hazard that thy devotion to them would stay thy hoof from using thy sword upon thyself. Thou wouldst not leave thy ponies while they need thee, surely.”

“Nay,” Hurricane admitted. “Though, in truth, they govern much themselves in these latest years and have little use for us.”

“Our city be well established now,” said Pansy. “Several generations of pegasi do now administer weather from thence.”

Smart Cookie insisted, “Such a thing would not have happened without thy guiding hooves and experience.”

“Cloudsdale thrives,” Hurricane agreed sullenly. “Tis all I imagined and more. Pegasi prosper, yet live not removed from thy earth ponies, nor from thy unicorns, Platinum.”

“Princess Platinum,” she corrected primly.

“Equestria,” Pansy murmured. “All we did desire and more. Princess Celestia and Princess Luna hath proved our faith well placed. Under their reign the country is united and prospers in safety. Could we have beaten back King Sanguine’s army and kept his claws at bay so long? Could we have defeated Discord? I say nay.”

“Though it pains me, I also say nay,” said Hurricane. “Their efforts do outshine our own.”

“Come now, Commander,” Platinum protested, sticking to titles out of long habit. She held a poker into the fire, toasting slices of bread to a perfect golden brown. These she passed around, making sure everypony else had some before toasting her own. “Belittle not our achievements. Without us, Equestria would not exist at all.”

“With us did Equestria almost not exist at all!” Puddinghead declared, his moustache swaying in the gently wafting heat. His coat was thinning these days and he wore a thick doublet with sleeves so puffed his forelegs stuck out nearly perpendicular to his body. “Or didst thou forget the Windigos?”

Platinum shuddered. “Indeed not.” She inspected the latest piece of toast before plucking it off the poker with her magic and levitating it onto Hurricane’s plate. “Ugh, wretched creatures. How fortunate we are that they remain at bay.”

“’Tis the warmth of our ponies’ hearts that protects them,” said Smart Cookie, biting into her toast.

“Nay,” Puddinghead chuckled, though it was a pale reflection of his usual laughter. “’Tis the warmth of Celestia’s sun that protects us!”

The other four chuckled along with him, though theirs were no brighter, nor any more convincing. The reason for their gathering hung over them the same way the pyre smoke hung over the castle.

“Clover was the best of us,” Smart Cookie said abruptly, and so forcefully that nopony present doubted her words. “’Tis shameful that we live while he be gone.”

“Shameful?” Pansy echoed. “Do not demean thy own worth, my friend. Thou art worth so much more than that.” She sighed, picking holes in her toast without eating any. “Life doth continue. Though we dislike death and fear what may come after, we may no more change it than we may change the flow of time that bears us toward it.”

“Time,” Platinum snorted. “I daresay Starswirl the Bearded may contend with thee on that point.”

“I daresay he would,” Pansy acknowledged. “Yet even he shalt one day know what doth lie beyond the gates of Tartarus. I, for one, do say it should be finest of adventures. ‘Tis best to think on death so, for it eases the fear of it. Think not of death as an ending, but as a beginning – something new to experience and learn.”

“Something new to learn?” Puddinghead chuckled. “Then Clover shalt enjoy it greatly. Mayhap he shalt even meet us there and teach us as he used to. Smart Cookie, dost though recall when he did stay with us one Winter and attempt to clear snow the earth pony way?”

This time Smart Cookie’s giggle was more genuine. “Oh, I do! Such a stir he did cause! I recall how stern I was with him for using magic. My face wouldst put flight a dozen mad wyverns! Yet afterwards my sides did fairly split from laughing as his rump did jut from the banked snow.”

“I do recall his attempts to blow glass,” Platinum said wistfully. “Many years did pass between our first farewell and second hello. Unicornia already held its repute for fine crafts in metal and glass. Clover brought with him strong spells for weaving any material, which my ponies use still to make thy pegasi’s armour, Hurricane. Clover didst try his hoof at blowing glass and fair exploded with but a tiny blown phial to show for it. ‘Methinks my mouth be better made for spell-casting and eating’, he did say unto me.” She smiled to herself. “I possess that phial still. I shall treasure it always, now.”

“Clover did cast a spell to walk upon the clouds as any pegasi may,” Hurricane muttered. “I confess, when I saw him prance upon them like a giddy foal, it gladdened my heart. I do almost wish anypony could cast such a spell and visit Cloudsdale to look upon its glory.” She smiled fiercely, in a way that might have intimidated her companions if they hadn’t known her so well. “Almost.”

Puddinghead took up the goblet of drink he had placed on the floor while he ate. Swallowing his mouthful of toast, he raised it high. “To Clover. May he ever be in our hearts.”

The others did likewise. “To Clover!”

Unbeknownst to the occupants of that nostalgic chamber, things were afoot that were about to shatter their world forever.

Far away, in a distant mountain range, a pony appeared in a flash of magic. He looked around, pawed at a split in the cliff face behind some old ruins, and vanished again in a second flash.

29. Blood

Celestia sighed and rubbed her temples with the tips of her hooves. She had not retired to her bedchamber, but had instead gone to her study. She was tired but too restless to sleep, so she had decided to look over yet more in what seemed like an endless stream of administrative duties. Paperwork stopped for nothing and nopony. Not even death. Not even Clover the Clever.

She surveyed the latest proposal from King Sanguine. He wanted more gems from the mines in the Unicornia Province. Platinum would not be happy about that. Neither was Celestia, to be honest. More gems for a kingdom that didn’t use them as currency, eat them or care about using them in jewellery? Luna was probably right about Gryphona using Equestria’s own resources to stack the dragons against them. Yet what could they do? If they refused, King Sanguine would consider the treaty broken and it would be back to the way things used to be. Any gamble of pony life that way was not acceptable. Yet if they complied with the amendment they might be setting themselves up as the griffins’ personal hunting ground, with dragons as gamekeepers stringing the gibbet.

A knock at the door provided a welcome distraction. The guards on the other side would not have let just anypony up to see her, so it had to be important.

“Enter,” she called.

The door opened and Luna strolled in. She was still wearing her cloak from the funeral. Celestia realised with surprise that she, too, had forgotten to remove hers and had been using a messy quill in her finery. Using her magic she undid the clasp, folded the cloak over the back of her chair and removed her tiara. In the absence of the Elements of Harmony, the true symbols of their office, both Celestia and Luna had worn specially forged crowns adorned with suns and moons picked out in ordinary gemstones instead. They were pretty but very heavy and pinched at the ears. Celestia’s skull felt like it expanded when she took it off.

“Luna,” she said warmly. “Thou art not with our guests?”

“I did tire of them. They did tire of me.” Luna shrugged. “’Tis all much of a much. Their chatter goes on unabated with neither you nor I present. My Captain Diamond and thy Captain Auburn do keep the peace well in our absence, though perchance Prince Goldenmane seeks to hold his own court.”

Celestia laughed. “He is indeed quite full of himself. Much like his mother at his age.”

“Indeed.” Luna eyed the table. “More treaties?”

“The latest amendment by King Sanguine,” Celestia sighed.

“More demands, thou doth mean,” Luna said bitterly. “Hast thou thought again on my proposal?”

“To use our sun and moon to force his acquiescence?” Celestia didn’t have the strength to go through this argument again. “No, Luna, I have not. Thou dost know my feelings on the matter.”

“And thou dost know mine,” Luna replied.

“It doth seem we are at an impasse. Prithee, may we leave the quarrel there tonight? We have buried a friend, Luna. Now is not the time to speak of war games in the land he made.”

“Thus the great Celestia hath spoken.”

“Luna, thy hostility is wearying. Wherefore dost thou think me thy enemy?”

“Wherefore dost thou treat me as thine?” Luna shot back.

“I do not –” Celestia cut herself off, turned back to her scrolls and waved a hoof in Luna’s direction. “I will not do this, Luna. Not this night.”

Luna sighed heavily. “’Tis good, then, that I bring thee a peace offering.” She held out the goblet she had been carrying. Celestia had assumed it was her own from the Great Hall. “I chanced upon a servant bringing this hence and thought to use it to remind myself why I sought thee out. I seek not to argue, Celestia. Thou art right. Not this night.” She held out the goblet. “’Tis not a night for pettiness.”

Celestia smiled and accepted it with her magic, bringing it gratefully to her own hoof. She was parched, which was why she had sent for the drink in the first place. Luna’s words eased her mind as the liquid eased her thirst.

“I am glad to hear such words from you, dear sister,” she said once she had drained it. Alone with Luna, she allowed herself to lapse from propriety and gulp instead of sip. Even the small release from decorum felt good. “I hate when we squabble.”

“As do I, dear sister.”

Something in the way she said this made Celestia raise her head and frown. “Luna? Wherefore –?” She got as far as the first word of her question before a bolt of pain rocketed through her. “What –?” Another came, squeezing her ribcage like an iron band. She couldn’t get her breath. When she tried to stand a third bolt lanced through her and she fell like a marionette with all its strings cut. Her flailing hoof caught the edge of the cloak she had thrown over the chair, bringing it down on top of her and flinging her tiara into the air. It clattered to the stone floor inches from her nose. It might as well have been miles, for all that she could reach it.

Silvery shoes appeared in her field of vision. Celestia managed to tilt her head enough to look up.

“Lu … na …” she croaked. “He … lp …”

“I am helping, dear sister,” Luna replied pitilessly. “I am helping Equestria. As I did say, ‘tis not a night for pettiness. ‘Tis instead a night for decisiveness.” She tilted her head pensively. “The poison doth work quickly. I did not know what dosage would do for thee. A pinch did serve for Clover, but an alicorn? Be grateful, Celestia. I did load thy drink with so much thy suffering should not be long.”

Celestia couldn’t believe what she was hearing. Poison?

“Know that I do this for the greater good,” Luna went on. “This land is in turmoil and doth need a firmer hoof than thine to save it. Too long hast thou stood in the sunlight while ponies praise thy decisions, good or bad, while I languish in shadow, ignored and dismissed as naught but an ugly, stupid fool.”

“N … nay …” Celestia croaked.

“Nay?” Luna laughed, her voice as bitter as salt. “Still thou dost deny how thou hath pushed me aside? Well, no more, Celestia. No more will I allow thee thy mistaken glory. Equestria hath no more need of thee.”

Celestia stared in horror as Luna’s eyes glowed until her pupils disappeared. Patches of what looked like black fire crawled across her face. Beneath her cloak her ruined wings moved and spread – but they weren’t ruined anymore. They were huge, lustrous and covered in black feathers that knifed out of the flames like something from a nightmare. She reared, bringing her forehooves down on Celestia’s tiara. It crumpled like old parchment.

“Equestria needs not two squabbling princesses,” Luna spat, her voice resonating around the chamber. She sounded older and harsher. Like a monstrous butterfly emerging from its fiery cocoon, she spread her wings and boomed, “Equestria doth need a queen!”

Accelerating waves of pain wracked Celestia’s body. She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.

Luna brought her face close. Her teeth were dragon-sharp, her eyes luminous and slitted. Clouds of starshine mane swirled around her head. Only her rump mark remained the same – the sole clue that this monster had once been her little sister.

“Now all ponies will know my night and revel in it,” she hissed. “For it is all they shall see. Without thee, I shall control thy sun and use it to teach King Sanguine the lesson he so richly deserves. Then my moon and I shall entrance all of Equestria, as it should have from the beginning. No more will ponies ignore me or my night! No more will I live in thy shadow, Celestia! Never again will I lower my beautiful, beautiful moon and stars. I have suffered and now I am reborn!”

Celestia gasped in agony. Black spots crowded her vision. Her heart raced and her mind swam. “Lu … na …”

The door burst open as her guards galloped in. They stopped at the sight of Luna standing over Celestia.

“Intruder!” one yelled, clearly not recognising her.

“Assassin!” cried the other.

“I am neither,” Luna replied icily. “I am thy sovereign. Bow before me or suffer the fate of all traitors.”

The guards ran at her, weapons drawn. She swept a hoof at them and her mane shot out. It encased both guards, lifting them off the floor. The pegasus beat his wings, screaming when a sliver of mane reached out and snapped each at the base joint. The unicorn tried using his magic to pick up the desk to throw at her. Luna’s tail whipped out, grabbed the missile and brought it down on his head instead. The crunch would have turned Celestia’s stomach if she wasn’t so absorbed in just trying to breathe. The pegasus guard threw his spear, his aim unerring despite the great deal of pain he had to be in. Again, Luna’s tail whipped out, grabbed the spear and rammed it backwards. The blunt end punched through the guard’s armour and out the other side.

She let their bodies drop and turned away like she didn’t care where they landed or what she had just done.

“How unfortunate,” she said. “Yet they provide a good lesson in my new regime. All shall bow before Equestria’s queen or they shall die. There is a simplicity to it that thy treaties lacked, Celestia.”

Celestia sagged, clutching her chest. She heard screams through the window. Luna trotted over to look and shook her head.

“’Twould seem Wind Racer is already spreading his dark devotion to my other guards. His eagerness is almost amusing, though I do not believe all would agree. Those he turns will flush out all traitors to my crown. I must depart, dear sister. My subjects await my introduction and I must inform them of their new fealty so that my guards may do their job.”

Celestia wanted to beg her not to. She wanted to demand to know what was going on. She wanted to know who this imposter was, or who had bewitched her poor sister. She wanted to beat whoever had done this to within an inch of their miserable life. This was not the Luna she knew. This was not the filly who had kept her alive when she wanted to give up in the caves. This was not the gentle mare who had wanted to go and save the Crystal Empire from Sombra. This was not the sister who had spent long hours crafting constellations simply for the pleasure of others. This monster was not Luna!

Celestia’s world greyed out as the sound of silvery shoes left her chamber. She was dying and she knew it. The only thing she could hope for was a release from the excruciating pain as her heart raced to end itself. Was this how Clover had felt at the end? Was this truly how he had died – not of old age and poor health, but murdered by one of the ponies he was trying to help?

She was too far gone to hear the crackle of magic or see the flash of light. She didn’t even feel the hooves that cradled her head, or hear the curse that would have made the most potty-mouthed brigand blush. She was, however, aware of the fact that her heart stopped.

For an eternal moment the world hung in endless motion sheathed in stillness. I am dead, she thought distantly. It was warm and cold and soft and hard and everything in between. This feels like … that time in the caves. So we did die that day after all …

Then, all at once, the stillness imploded. Her chest convulsed and she crashed back to herself and gasped in a lungful of air.

“Celestia?” said a gruff voice.

She gasped for several seconds before being able to open her eyes. The blotches of light and colour resolved themselves into a face she recognised. She also knew the jingling of bells.

“Star … swirl?” she wheezed.

“Cerberus’s balls! I was at least in time.” He sagged in relief. His horn glowed. Beside his head a ball of dark red liquid revolved, dripping and splashing as if against the inside of an invisible container. Celestia stared at it and at him. “I was forced to extract the poison quickly,” he explained. “Never before have I attempted teleportation of matter in this manner, but ‘twas this or certain death for thee. Regrettably I did bring some of thy heart-blood with it. Thou art not fully cleansed but ‘tis enough to preserve thy life. Thy natural alicorn healing will serve against the rest.”

So she wasn’t going to die after all. Not this time. Nonetheless, she felt weak as a new-born foal. “Lu … na.”

Instead of asking what she meant or thinking that Luna might also be in similar trouble, Starswirl’s face became grim. “I had hoped to return sooner but she vexed me by splitting the loose gems between locations. The notes I took from Clover’s belongings about her nightly ‘searches’ for them proved useful but it still did take me much time and energy to locate where she had hidden them. Teleportation is my greatest achievement, yet it doth sap even my energy with each casting.” Celestia realised for the first time that he was bathed in sweat, legs trembling like he had run a race against the strongest young unicorn mage in Equestria. “My magic is near spent and still I was too late.”

“Wh-what?”

“Princess Celestia, thy sister hath betrayed thee. Moreover, she hath committed her betrayal for a great long time. ‘Twas she who stole the Elements of Harmony and hid them away in secret places so that thou couldst not use them without her.”

“Without … her?”

“Thou didst question why I was late unto my own student’s funeral. I confess now that I was busy investigating the chamber in which he perished. I knew Clover better than anypony in Equestria. His heart was too strong to fail so. ‘Tis not an easy task to cast psychometry to see what the last psychometrist did see, but not beyond the achievement of a mage such as myself. I did see what Clover did see – the secret that brought about his murder. Princess Luna is corrupted. Her heart hath been darkened by some evil magic that hath twisted her beyond even my ken. The Elements of Harmony no longer reflect her. They have rejected her as their chosen. Her bond with them is gone.”

As was Luna herself. Celestia flashed to the image of that terrible face and the deaths of her guards. No doubt Starswirl could see their bodies only a few feet away. They had been good ponies who didn’t deserve to die.

“Yet thy bond with them remains, and this did drive her unto madness of a fearful sort. Hers is the madness of strategy and shadow.” Starswirl raised his head at the sound of booming laughter and screams from outside. “At least until now. I believe her mind hath snapped entirely this night, and the darkness infecting her heart hath changed her in reflection.”

“She … poison … goblet …” Celestia closed her eyes. “Have to … to stop … what’s she’s …”

“Canst thou stop her?” Starswirl asked. “Truly? Thine own sister?”

That wasn’t what she meant. Celestia struggled to sit upright. Her head swam and she nearly toppled over again. Starswirl was in no fit state to catch her and a broken skull from bouncing off the flagstones would not help matters. She caught side of the spreading pool of blood beneath the twisted limbs of her guards and shut her eyes again, stomach roiling. “Have to ... save her.”

“Save her” Starswirl gaped. “Princess Celestia, there is no ‘save her’! Thy sister is gone. Only her shell doth remain, powered by the darkness that hath over taken her heart. ‘Tis not thy sister laying waste to thy citizens!”

“Nay … ‘tis Luna still …” Celestia insisted. Every breath hurt and every heartbeat felt like a kick in the chest. “Somewhere … inside … ‘tis her.”

“Thou art a fool,” Starswirl declared. “I did think thee more intelligent than this. Dost the evidence laid before thee not convince thee? Her crimes are many and terrible. Even now, she doth commit them in thine own courtyard!”

The screams. Celestia heard the voices of confused and frightened ponies and it galvanised her to try to stand. They needed her. She couldn’t let them down. She half-fell, forelegs locked but hind legs unable to support her.

The door didn’t crash open, as it had for her guards. The noise of faltering hoofsteps alerted her to ponies entering her study.

“Princess Celestia!”

“Starswirl the Bearded? But thou art already departed.”

“What hath happened here?”

“Thy … thy guards …”

“What villainy is this?” Hurricane’s shout was unmistakable through the morass of voices.

Celestia turned to look, but even as she did so she felt a small body pressing against her. On trembling limbs of her own, Pansy tried to help push her to her hooves. Smart Cookie went to her other side and supported her there. Between them, the two ponies managed to get Celestia upright, though the three of them trembled so much it would only have taken a breath of wind to knock them all over.

“Celestia?” Platinum hobbled over, carefully keeping her gaze off the guards. “What wickedness hath occurred here?”

“Treachery of the worst sort,” Starswirl answered for her. “Princess Luna hath betrayed us all. She doth declare herself queen of all and did seek to poison her sister to claim the right to rule alone.”

All five founding ponies gasped and began to chatter.

Hurricane drew her sword, but it was only a decorative one she had worn for the funeral. “Where is she? Where is she? Such treachery cannot go unpunished!”

Starswirl didn’t look at Celestia. He gestured to the window. “Gaze outside, but keep thine heads down, else she may see and do to thee what she hath wrought upon these two poor stallions. She is much stronger than any of my predictions,” he added sombrely, as if thought he should share some of the blame for this.

Hurricane, Puddinghead and Platinum went to the window and peered over the edge. Platinum gasped. Puddinghead made a choking noise, as if he had swallowed part of his moustache while it was still attached. Hurricane growled. Slowly Pansy and Smart Cookie guided Celestia to see as well. Outside the courtyard was filled with ponies.

Palace servants stood with lesser nobles they had been serving in the Great Hall only a short while ago. Ponies from the provinces also stood with them, staring around in confusion. Like sheepdogs, huge grey stallions with bat-like wings and golden eyes herded them together. As Celestia watched, a unicorn mare in a torn dress made a break for it and tried to run away. One of the bat-ponies landed on her like an owl on a mouse. She shrieked as he gripped the scruff of her neck between his teeth and tossed her back into the crowd.

“Those poor ponies,” whispered Pansy.

Above the courtyard, languidly flapping her wings, Luna watched everything with a sharp-toothed grin. Celestia was struck once more by the changes and found herself focussing more than ever on Luna’s rump mark. That mark was unique. Nopony could ever have the talent of raising and lowering the moon, nor the rump mark to match it. That mark proved this pony was still her little sister.

Little? Luna was bigger than Celestia now. Her flowing mane and tail made her appear even larger.

A yell drew Celestia’s attention. An orange pegasus wearing the Moon Guard insignia shot from behind a castle turret. He was pursued by another bat-pony that twisted and turned as easily as he did. The guard was bleeding and had lost his spear. He doubled back and flew beneath his pursuer, clearly thinking to go over the castle walls and escape into the forest. Another bat-pony intercepted him like an arrow from a bow, knocking him out of the air. The guard was pinned against the turret wall, struggling as the bat-pony enveloped him with its wings. One flash of dark magic later, the bat-pony launched itself off the stonework and the transformed guard stretched bat-wings of his own. No longer protesting, he glided down to the crowd and began marshalling them into place too.

“Wind Racer!” Luna called. One of the bat-ponies soared up to her and managed to bow in the air. “Are all assembled here?” The bat-pony’s voice didn’t carry like hers, so only her response was audible. “Then find them and bring them here! All must witness my glory and have their fealty tested. Not even the founders may abscond.”

Pansy squeaked, the noise vibrating through Celestia’s wing. Puddinghead ducked behind the wall. Hurricane looked like she was about to leap out of the window and challenge Luna but Platinum held her back.

“Do not do anything foolish,” she scolded. “I have buried one friend. I will not lose another to her own recklessness.”

“Didst thou not hear her?” Hurricane demanded. “She sends her monstrous creations to find us and drag us to her!”

“And what wouldst thou do?” Platinum demanded. “Thou art a warrior no longer, Hurricane!”

“I am a warrior forever!” Hurricane thundered back.

“Keep thy voices low!” Starswirl snapped. “Dost thou seek to bring her creations down upon us? They shalt seek thee out in thy rooms first. We have but a little time.”

“For what? Escape?” Hurricane snorted. “I shall not run from battle.”

“’Twould seem escape is impossible,” said Smart Cookie. “Thou didst see Princess Luna’s monsters. We would not slip past them even if we were of a mind to leave.”

“Which we are not!” Hurricane hissed. “What should we do, Celestia?”

Celestia was shocked. “Thou dost ask me?” She had no idea what they should do. She was still reeling from all she had witnessed and learned.

“I did choose thee as my sovereign long ago,” said Hurricane. “I change not such a decision now. Thou art my princess still, though those … things may try to force me to say otherwise. I am thine, Celestia, now and forever.”

Celestia gaped – even more when Smart Cookie nodded.

“I agree. Thou hath done naught but good for Equestria and shown thy love for our ponies in every deed thou hast done. I am for thee, Celestia, though my old bones may do little good in a fight.”

“Mine also,” said Pansy. “My wings creak but they will fly me behind thee.”

“I … I …” Celestia didn’t know what to say.

Starswirl gave her a shrewd look. “’Twould seem thou art overflowing with champions. Thou art still ruler of Equestria, Princess Celestia, whatever thy sister doth claim.” He reached under his cloak, into a saddlebag hidden there. “And a true sovereign doth need a symbol of her office.” He pulled out something Celestia had thought she would never see again: a golden tiara topped with three gemstones shaped like blazing suns.

“The Elements of Harmony!” she breathed.

Starswirl laid the tiara down on the floor and produced three more gemstones, loose and uncut. These were the three that had formerly been part of Luna’s tiara. If Celestia needed further proof that Luna had been corrupted, here it was. She strained to hear the Elements, surprised she hadn’t been able to before, but their whisperings were so faint she might have been imagining them.

“Thy connection remains,” said Starswirl. “Thou art still the Elements’ chosen, Celestia.”

“But how may I use them?” she wailed, staring at the loose stones. “I am but one half of their chosen. Luna …” She choked off the words. Luna was the other. My other half.

“Didst thou not once tell me that the Elements of Harmony have power when souls are present that represent them? Laughter, honesty, loyalty, kindness and generosity?” Starswirl demanded. “That these five do create a spark of magic that ignites the sixth, and through that, the power of them all?”

“I … yes,” Celestia admitted.

Laughter, honesty, loyalty, kindness and generosity, whispered her memory. For a moment she was back in the caves beneath the smoking ruins of Canterlot village, her wing curled protectively over Luna’s tiny body as the soundless voices spoke into their minds for the first time. These bind lost souls closer and breed harmony from chaos. They also permit us to release our own power. There is strength in these five elements, for when they come together they create the spark of another and we are able to free ourselves.

“Look around thee, Celestia,” said Starswirl. “Look and tell me that thou dost not see five ponies whose hearts burn with these things.”

With growing understanding, Celestia followed his gaze. Hurricane stood proud and loyal, ready to go into battle without a hope of success because she would not abandon the promise she had made to follow Celestia. Pansy supported Celestia’s weakened body even though her own trembled with age and fear. Smart Cookie, Puddinghead, Platinum – they all stared right back at her as Starswirl’s meaning dawned on them too.

“We could release the Elements’ power?” Platinum echoed.

“I know not with certainty, but I think so,” Starswirl replied.

“’Twould make sense,” Smart Cookie said thoughtfully. “When Princess Luna ceased to embody these things they ceased to work for her.”

Celestia thought back. It was true. Luna had not laughed in so long. She had betrayed her own sister and, if her plans succeeded, soon her whole country and all the ponies in it. The generous heart that had made her want to help the Crystal Empire had given way to selfishness and vanity. In fact …

In fact all those things had happened ever since they returned from the Crystal Empire. Ever since they destroyed Sombra. Ever since…

“I will … endure! Thou shalt not … be rid of my darkness … Celestia!”

Sombra had tried to attack Celestia at the end. Luna had gotten in the way and been covered in his remains. Had he been trying to … Heavens, was it possible? Had she totally missed something so terrible?

“Thou shalt not … be rid of my darkness …”

“Nay,” she whispered. “I should have seen it. I should have guessed. This is my fault. This is my fault!”

“Celestia!” Puddinghead dived to get Smart Cookie out of the way as Celestia suddenly reared and toppled sideways. Pansy stumbled away, shocked.

“Luna!” Celestia cried. “I did not realise! I did not understand! Oh Luna, why did I not see until now? Why did so many other things distract me and blind me to the truth?”

“What?” Hurricane banged the tip of her sword on the ground. “Wherefore dost thou speak so, Celestia?”

“’Tis Sombra’s darkness,” Celestia sobbed. “His last curse. His magic hath done this. He must have infected poor Luna when we did vanquish him.” She wailed. “And I did not see! I did not see what he had done to my own dear sister!”

“Celestia!” Starswirl snapped, glancing uneasily at the window. “Compose thyself! Thou art a princess still, therefore conduct thyself as one! Or dost thou truly wish to abdicate now and leave the land to Princess Luna?”

Yes, she was a princess. A princess who had betrayed her sister long before Luna betrayed her, but she was still a princess of Equestria. She had made that commitment and, however hard it was to hear, no matter her grief, she had a duty to fulfil. Regretfully, Celestia pushed herself to her hooves and stood under her own power.

“Nay,” she said, drawing herself together with a shuddering sigh. “I remain Princess Celestia.” She raised her head. “Sunlight of Equestria.” She stepped towards the Elements of Harmony. “And Its Guiding Light.” She paused before touching her tiara. “I do not possess the right to ask this of thee, my friends, but wilt thou stand beside me now?”

“Do not possess the right?” Puddinghead blustered. “What poppycock. I am for thee, Celestia.”

“As am I,” said Smart Cookie.

“My son is in the courtyard,” said Platinum. “For the vow I made and for him, I am with thee, Celestia.”

“Thou dost already know my loyalty is to thee,” Hurricane barked. “Thou dost not need to ask it again.”

“Nor for mine,” Pansy added.

Celestia bowed her head. “I thank thee, my friends.”

As if the simple words were an incantation, the six gemstones began to glow. Celestia felt herself raised into the air as if on a warm thermal above the clouds. Hurricane, Pansy, Smart Cookie, Puddinghead and Platinum ascended with her, sighing as the magic seeped into them as it did to her.

Laughter, honesty, loyalty, kindness and generosity, the Elements of Harmony whispered into their minds. Be they shown in ponies old or young, great or small, these bind souls closer in adversity and breed harmony from chaos. There is strength in these five elements, for when they come together they create the spark of another.

Celestia’s tiara dissolved and the six stones circled around, as if choosing from the assembled ponies. One by one, a gemstone arced towards one of them, reforming itself into a necklace that fastened around their throat in a setting that matched their rump mark. Finally, the last one came to Celestia, lowering onto her head and blossoming into a gold crown with a single blazing sun at its centre.

The sixth element: magic, it whispered. Thou dost remain among our chosen, Celestia. Use us wisely.

As one, Celestia and the five founding ponies soared out of the window into the courtyard.

Luna turned in surprise. “Celestia? Thou art still alive?” Her eyes narrowed and glowed angrily. “And though doth once again possess the Elements of Harmony. I had thought them gone.”

“Not gone, villain!” Hurricane shouted. “Though thou art soon to be!”

Luna laughed uproariously. “What? Thou dost seek to defeat me? Thou art naught but a wizened old nag. Five wizened old nags and a princess whose veins run weak from poison. I tremble in fear. Truly.”

“Do not mock us, monster!” Hurricane continued to shout. The cyclone shaped Element at her throat glowed with magical energy. “We may be old but we shall vanquish thee regardless.”

“Oh?” Luna raised an eyebrow. “I think not. Wind Racer!”

The bat-pony was at her side in an instant. “Yes, my queen?”

“Call my dark devotees and annihilate these traitors to my crown.”

“By thy will, my queen.” He opened his mouth, emitting a shrill cry. Instantly all the bat-ponies in the courtyard took flight, assuming formation as if mentally linked. The one called Wind Racer pointed at Celestia and the founders. “For thy queen’s honour, attack!”

“Brace thyselves!” Hurricane warned, brandishing her sword.

Yet as they approached, the six gemstones glowed. Celestia felt power ribbon through her mind and body, briefly circling the intent in her heart as it checked it against those in the other ponies’. She recognised the sensation. Harmony truly meant harmony. She and Luna had been so in tune each time they used the Elements, thinking like one pony in two bodies: night and day, sister and sister, one half and the other.

Luna …

A rainbow of light streaked from the six gems, engulfing the oncoming bat-ponies. It swept over and through them like water washing dark ink from cloth, taking the darkness that had been planted in their hearts with it. When it had passed a flock of Moon Guards remained, their armour and insignias in tatters. The unicorns and earth ponies fell but were caught by the pegasi before they could hit the ground.

Luna gaped. Then she screamed. The noise echoed around the courtyard like the screech of an angry cat. Far below, the assembled ponies cowered. Even though they were no longer guarded, nopony moved. It was as if they were frozen as they watched one of their princesses battle the evil pony who had appeared out of nowhere.

They don’t know it’s Luna, Celestia realised. And why would they? She had been calling herself a queen, not a princess, and judging by the way Wind racer had talked none of her transformed guards had used her name. Could the ponies below see her rump mark? Would they recognise it for what it was?

“Thy treachery will be punished!” Luna screamed. “I am queen! Thou shalt bow before me or die!”

“Thou art no queen of mine!” Platinum yelled back. “Thou art naught but a nightmare!”

“A nightmare, am I?” Luna grinned wildly. “Then thy nightmare I shall be!” She flared her wings and lashed out with her mane and tail.

“Do not let them touch thee!” Celestia shouted, remembering the fate of her guards. She veered aside, knocking Pansy out of the way. Luna’s tail shot over their heads and smashed against the wall of Celestia’s chamber.

“Starswirl!” Platinum shrieked in horror, then again when she saw where the debris from the strike was falling. “Goldenmane!”

Celestia saw the pieces of wall, window and floor heading for the crowd. She felt her heart and mind synch with the five ponies around her. It wasn’t conscious, didn’t make it as far as words, but it was a shared intent that chimed in all of them at once.

We have to save them.

Another blast of rainbow light shot from the Elements of Harmony. It scooped up the debris, placing it to one side in the gardens where it wouldn’t hurt anypony. In the courtyard a blond unicorn stallion cried out, leading the rest of the crowd in a cheer.

There was no time to stop, no time to check whether Starswirl was all right. Luna lashed out again, whipping her head to bring her enormous mane around like a bullwhip. It cut through the air, zinging with magic so cold it took Celestia’s newly restored breath away. Puddinghead and Hurricane only just evaded it, flying like young pegasi despite their age and, in Puddinghead’s case, lack of wings. The power of the Elements had infused them with an extra lease of life beyond their years.

“Bow before me!” Luna screamed. “Bow before my beautiful endless night!”

“Thou shalt kill all in Equestria with endless night!” Smart Cookie shouted. “No land may survive without daylight! Is thy intent to murder everypony?”

“Nopony who matters can only exist in the sun. I shall banish the daylight and prove the supremacy of night!” Luna pedalled the air with her forelegs. “I shall fling the sun at Gryphona and burn that accursed place to cinders! Then there shall be only my moon and the night forever!”

“Thou art mad!” Hurricane declared.

“I am queen!” Luna dissolved into a flurry of stardust.

Hurricane gawped at the empty spot. “How –”

“Look out!” Pansy shrieked, barrelling towards her.

Too late. Luna coalesced behind Hurricane and kicked out. Her powerful buck sent the valiant pegasus scudding through the air. Pansy put herself in her friend’s path but the force of Hurricane’s flight knocked her aside and she grabbed the edge of the East Tower roof to save herself. Hurricane’s sword plummeted, embedding itself point first in the ground far below.

A bolt of rainbow light erupted around Hurricane as her Element and those of Pansy, Celestia, Puddinghead, Smart Cookie and Platinum formed a curve like a slice to catch and bring her back around. Hurricane let out a joyful shout, using the momentum of Luna’s own kick against her. She shot off the end of the rainbow slide and walloped hoof-first into Luna’s face.

The crowd cheered louder.

“How is that for a wizened old nag, nightmare?” Hurricane crowed.

“Thou shalt pay for thy insolence, wretch!” Luna snarled. She spat blood and bared her stained teeth. Her whole head seemed to flicker with black flames that coalesced into a silvery helmet to match her shoes and the armour that had formed on her body. “The penalty for laying a hoof on thy queen is death!” She dissolved again.

Celestia and the five founders drew close, facing outwards, their backs together, the better to see wherever Luna reappeared.

Suddenly a dark shape launched off the castle roof, flying straight at them. It was too small to be Luna but was still undoubtedly attacking them.

“Quick!” Hurricane shouted.

Yet their six hearts and mind did not synch. They were not agreed on how to deal with this unexpected attack. Should they strike it down or cleanse it of the darkness afflicting it? The Elements did not emit another rainbow, giving the shadow time to cannon into Smart Cookie.

“Death to all traitors!” yelled the black pegasus stallion trailing a tattered Moon Guard insignia.

“Smart Cookie!” Puddinghead and Hurricane dived after her.

“No, wait!” Celestia saw the sparkle of starshine only a moment before Luna appeared below them.

Her mane whipped out, surrounding all four descending ponies. She grinned viciously, contracting it inwards, clearly intending to crush them inside. Her expression shifted when the interior of her trap glowed with rainbow colours. Celestia’s Element shot forth its own light, as did Platinum’s and Pansy’s. The two halves of the rainbow met, making a path for Smart Cookie, Hurricane and Puddinghead to escape. Luna screamed in frustration, stamping the air and clenching her mane like a foal in a tantrum.

“Nay, my queen!” yelled a terror-stricken voice. “Please, I am yet within! I am with–”

Luna blinked in surprise at the abruptly ended scream. She tossed her head, flicking away the mangled body of the black pegasus as one might a bug that has become caught in one’s mane during a gallop. She watched the bloody corpse fall. Ponies screamed and scattered to get out of the way as it landed amongst them.

“How unfortunate,” she said, her tone disinterested. She flicked between emotions like she was playing hopscotch on flagstones carved with their names: first rage, then apathy, then manic delight. “Ah well, Wind Racer did say he would lay down his life for me.”

“Monster!” Platinum accused.

“Again? If thou dost insist on conducting thyself into death with insults on thy lips, I do prefer ‘nightmare’.” Luna grinned. “For I am the mare of the night. ‘Tis a pretty word game, to be sure. A mare of the night and the moon.” Her eyes glimmered. “I am Queen Nightmare Moon!”

Celestia stared at her sister as Luna threw her head back and laughed, face spattered with blood and filled with madness. For the rest of her life, however long that may be, Celestia knew that she would have that image tattooed on the inside of her eyelids whenever she closed them.

Abruptly Luna stopped laughing and snarled, “And I am done with thee.”

Her mane funnelled upwards in a whirlwind not unlike Hurricane’s rump mark. Lightning crackled in its centre, arcing towards them. Celestia and the founders dodged, evading the attack, but it struck the castle instead. The roof of the Great Hall exploded, the rest crumbling inward, exposing pillars and a table demolished by rubble. The magnificent chandelier lay shattered amongst the wreckage, coloured glass reflecting the light from Luna’s unnatural storm and the fire her lightning had caused.

“We must lead her away from the castle,” Celestia shouted. “Too many ponies stand in harm’s way here.”

“Lead me?” Luna laughed. “Queens are not led, Celestia. Queens lead others.” She opened her wings, beat them once and arrowed up like a bolt of lightning herself.

“After her!” Hurricane yelled, also flying skywards.

Pansy and Puddinghead followed her lead, Smart Cookie and Platinum hesitating but joining their friends a moment later. Celestia brought up the rear, apprehensive of what Luna was planning as they climbed higher and higher.

She found out the moment they broke through the upper cloud layer, where the air was thin and the ground no longer visible. This was pegasi territory and she did not miss how Smart Cookie, Puddinghead and Platinum looked down at the empty air beneath their hooves with matching worried expressions.

Luna lingered a few dozen feet away, horn wreathed with black flames. She faced away from them, forehooves raised like she was going to embrace somepony they couldn’t see. She laughed and laughed, mane and tail billowing behind her. When Hurricane flew at her it lashed at her and Hurricane fell back.

“’Tis like a razor!” she grunted, holding her bleeding foreleg. “She is more demon than pony!”

“A demon could not do as I do now, nag,” Luna called over her shoulder.

Celestia’s horn prickled from tip to base. The magical link she felt with the sun arched like a hissing cat. She realised what Luna was up to.

“Nay! Luna, do not do it!”

“What is she –?” Smart Cookie began.

“She intends to bring the moon down on us!” Celestia cut her off. She flew at her sister, shouting desperately, “Luna, stay thy magic! Release the moon!”

“Thou dost refuse to die or cede to me, Celestia,” Luna replied. “Thou didst scoff at my proposal to do this to Sanguine. Thy fear now doth show it as the wonderful plan it is. Imagine that fear in his treacherous griffin breast!” she laughed maniacally. “First I shall smite thee with the moon. Then, when thou art gone, I shall take control of the sun and use it on Gryphona. My night shall last forever and all who see it shall know my power and love me!”

“Luna, thou shalt destroy all if thou continues! Equestria will die! Luna! Luna!”

Celestia’s desperate cried fell on uncaring ears. She tried to reach her, to get her to understand, but Luna’s mane wrapped around her throat. She choked and kicked until Hurricane and Smart Cookie grabbed her wings and pulled her free. Evidently Luna’s grip had been affected by the huge amount of magic and concentration it took to draw the moon out of the sky.

She felt her heart and mind synch once more with the five founders. The shared intent chimed in all of them at once, flowing through their Elements and igniting their power.

We have to stop her.

Once again the rainbow of light erupted. It swirled around them as if building up momentum, then careened towards Luna. It struck her from behind. Though her mane and tail tried to deflect it, they were swept away by the sheer force of their shared desire to save Equestria. For the first time since the battle began, Luna’s scream was from pain and surprise instead of anger. The rainbow of light twisted her up as she had twisted up Wind Racer, but instead of twisting tighter until her body was wrung to death, the rainbow spun her in place, cutting off her connection with the moon. The Elements of Harmony had that power, Celestia knew. They had given herself and Luna their authority over the sun and moon. They could take it away again.

“Nay!” Luna shrieked. “I am queen! I am queen!”

“Though art a monster and an enemy of Equestria and ponykind,” Hurricane shouted. “‘Tis the task of the Elements of Harmony to cleanse our land of thee. They shalt choose thy punishment, nightmare.”

Abruptly Celestia’s own words floated back to her. “The Elements choose each punishment to reflect the crimes it is to punish. Discord was a creature of energy and life, therefore tedium in stone is the worst price for him to pay. This is a reflection of Sombra’s crimes also.”

Sombra had enslaved the Crystal Empire and murdered countless ponies on his rise to power. His punishment had been annihilation. It was his darkness that had infected Luna. Would her punishment be the same?

Please, do not let that happen, she thought. Do not let my little sister die that way.

The rainbow of light wavered. The founders cried out in dismay when Luna’s face appeared as she tried to fight her way free. Celestia felt them redouble their efforts, wishing with all their might to defeat this terrible threat to the country and ponies they had spent their lives protecting. That was her duty too. She was in synch with them about that.

But not about what should happen to Luna.

She wanted to save her sister, not kill her. She desperately hoped that some sliver of the real Luna remained inside what she had become. Her desire cut through the founders’, overruling them. It was unprecedented. Mid-attack, the Element of Magic changed her mind and before the lack of synchronisation could dissipate the rainbow of light Celestia’s consciousness rode the wave of power into Luna’s heart.

She heard a scream. Luna’s scream. The real Luna, lost and afraid, not the monster she had become. It ripped through her.

Celestia, Luna called in terror. I am frightened, sister. Celestia, please stop me –

The whispering voices of the Elements of Harmony crowded into Celestia’s mind, berating her for using them that way. Luna’s voice vanished in the melee as Celestia was forced back into her own head.

Do not let her die, she thought, putting all her authority as an alicorn and the Sun Princess of Equestria behind it. As thy chosen, I demand it! Thou shalt not let her die! Thou shalt find another way to punish her but thou shalt not let her die!

Punishment must be meted out, the whispering voices clamoured. Punishment must be fitting. But know this: thou art no longer our chosen. Thou hast betrayed our trust in thee. We grant thy request but reject thy heart for what it hath wrought among our chosen. Thy sister shall live for a thousand years as part of her beloved moon, Celestia, and in a thousand years we shall punish thee for what thou hast done. Our bond with thee is no more and thou shalt face her alone then.

Abruptly her mind emptied. Celestia was alone in her own head. She ricocheted backwards, turning end over end as the wavering rainbow of light shattered like a smashed stained glass window, sending fragments of power in all directions. She cried out when a few struck her and had to look away as the silhouetted form of a rearing alicorn was carried into the sky on a last, lingering scream.

And then there was only silence.

Celestia tumbled until she opened her wings, no longer supported by the Elements’ magic. Her tiara dissolved and she caught the gemstone when it fell off her head. Except that it wasn’t a gemstone anymore. Celestia stared at the lifeless rock in her hooves, of no particular shape or colour anymore. It was as if all its energy had been spent. Similar rocks were falling around her. Five of them. She flapped to catch each of them, cradling them in her telekinesis even though her horn ached like somepony had tried to snap it off. Not one of them resembled the rump marks they had formed when the five founding ponies wore them.

“Hurricane?” Celestia called, flying back up to the cloud layer she had left.

There was nopony there.

“Pansy? Platinum?”

She flew in circles, ducking above and below the clouds, bursting through them in case her old friends were there. As the seconds ticked by and none of them answered, dread grew inside her. She felt like she had swallowed Luna’s poison again as her chest tightened and her breathing quickened.

“Puddinghead?” She dived, heading back towards the castle. “Smart Cookie!”

Castle Everfree was ablaze. Some ponies worked to put it out, levitating and carrying buckets of water from the moat to douse the flames. The majority were already outside the castle walls. The drawbridge had been lowered and they were running for their lives. They didn’t know the danger was over. Their enemy had been defeated.

But at what cost?

Celestia realised what she had done. Changing her mind and breaking the harmony she had shared with her friends while using the Elements’ power had consequences she hadn’t been aware of. How could she have known? How?

Thou hast betrayed our trust in thee. We grant thy request but reject thy heart for what it hath wrought among our chosen.

The remaining five founders were gone; burnt up by that last desperate attack.

All but Celestia.

Thy sister shall live for a thousand years as part of her beloved moon, Celestia.

Luna was gone. Hurricane, Pansy, Smart Cookie, Puddinghead and Platinum were all gone too.

In a thousand years we shall punish thee for what thou hast done.

She had lost her sister and her friends in the same act. She had lost everything. Her castle burned, her citizens scattered and her heart finally broke.

Our bond with thee is no more and thou shalt face her alone then.

Suspended above Castle Everfree, clutching the inert Elements of Harmony like it would do any good, Celestia screamed out her misery.

30. Goodbye

Celestia sat in the ruins of the Great Hall and watched the sunrise through the hole in the roof. She hadn’t been sure she would ever see it again. Apparently, she could lower the moon as well as raise the sun now.

Marvellous, she thought dully.

Obligation and guilt had made her try it. She would rather have crawled into a hole and never come out again but Equestria needed her to change night into day. The pattern and balance needed to be maintained. The remaining five founders had died to make sure Equestria was safe and its ponies could continue to live. She could not betray her friends again by not even trying. She had a legacy on her shoulders now. It was even heavier than duty; heavier than a crown; heavier than any of the burdens she had ever railed against since she took the title ‘Princess’.

The crunch of glass behind her made her turn. Her heart lifted for the first time. “Starswirl! Thou livest still!” He had not been seen since the battle ended hours earlier and she had thought for certain that she must count him among the dead.

“Aye. I do declare that even if I should ever master time magic, teleportation shall remain the best spell I ever did invent, even if it did render me unconscious from exhaustion.” Starswirl stood amidst the wreckage, looking up at her sitting on the broken table. “Celestia. Thou art different than when I did see thee last.”

She pulled a lock of mane over her shoulder to examine it. When she let go, it drifted back into place as if she was drowning and it was buoyed by the water slowly killing her. “The colours are from when I was caught by shards of the Elements’ magic. T’will serve as a reminder of this night and all that occurred in’t.” She lifted her eyes once again. She couldn’t see the moon anymore, nor the impression of a mare’s face picked out in rocks on its surface. “Amongst other things.”

“I have heard ponies talking,” Starswirl said softly. “Is it true?”

“That the founders did perish in battle?” Celestia laughed bitterly. “Aye, ‘tis true, though ‘tis not as noble as they believe.”

“Prince Goldenmare is bereft. He believes his mother died a hero.”

“She did.”

Haltingly, Celestia told him what had happened, unable to watch his reaction. He made no move to come closer but also did not turn and leave her to rot in her own failure. She was not sure whether that was a good or a bad thing.

“So, Starswirl; thou art now the cleverest pony in Equestria. Was I mistaken? Should I have let Luna die? Was her life worth those of five other brave ponies who did nothing but care for Equestria?” Tears choked her voice, yet no longer cared about the propriety of a princess crying in public. “I … I heard her. At the end. Deep within the creature she became, she was still my Luna. And yet … my decision cost so much. I can never forgive myself for this, just as the Elements cannot forgive me. They did allow me to retain my sovereignty over the sun, and now the moon also, but my bond with them is broken.”

Starswirl was silent for a long time. When he spoke again, his voice was so low that even her enhanced alicorn senses could barely hear him. “It is not my place to judge thee, Celestia. I have my opinions but they are mine to keep. Thou doth weep – and have been weeping since the battle did end. Thy tears say enough and my words would add nothing to the grief already affixed to thine heart. You shall carry your guilt and see it in each mirror’s glance, each sunrise and sunset. Who am I to add to that millstone about thy neck?”

“I shall never forgive myself,” she hissed.

“Forever is a long time, Celestia.”

“I know what I say. I am an alicorn, Starswirl. I am made of forevers.”

He had nothing to say to that, so he instead asked, “What of those ponies who did flee into the forest?”

“Some hath returned already. Royal Guards have pursuit of the rest with news of the battle’s end and Lu- and of the nightmare’s defeat.”

“Nightmare?”

“They know not that the alicorn who waged war on Everfree was my dear sister.”

Starswirl nodded. “And thou dost intend this ignorance to remain so?”

“I do.” Celestia raised her head to look once more at the sky. “They shall think her the first casualty of the conflict, taken unawares by the dark force that did seek our destruction. It is not an untruth.”

“Nay,” he agreed. “Is it not.”

“You think me a monster for keeping this from my subjects?”

“I think thee in mourning, Celestia. Whether dead or imprisoned, thou hast lost a brace of kin tonight. Moreover, thou must consider the health of thy subjects’ minds and hearts. This night hath been traumatic for all and sundry. Luna will not return within their lifetimes, nor the lifetimes of their children or their children’s children. What purpose wouldst serve for them to know they were duped? Other than to make them trust thee less and thus imperil them through distrust, t’would serve none.”

“More lies,” Celestia muttered. “So many lies. So much hurt. So much damage. All because of me –”

Starswirl reared and struck the floor, hooves ringing out as clearly as a knell to a funeral. A small piece of ceiling broke off in a flurry of dust and crashed into the debris nearby. He ignored it and shook his head. “Nay, Celestia! The would-be-queen, Nightmare Moon, did steal away the Elements of Harmony and murder the valiant Princess Luna before any could know of her presence and she would have done the same to thee had the Founders not aided thee and laid down their lives to vanquish her and avenge thy fallen sister. This is what history will show. Thou art the ponies’ hero, Celestia. It needs must be thus, for the ponies’ trust shall be what allows thee to rebuild and protect them henceforth.”

“No.” Celestia closed her eyes and gave a shake of her head. Her new mane moved on its own, undulating around her head. It was a curious, not unpleasant sensation but she was still not used to it appearing in her peripheral vision.

“No?”

“I will not rebuild.”

“Celestia, thou remaineth a princess of the realm –”

“Not here,” she cut off Starswirl’s protest. “I shall not rebuild Castle Everfree. The magic of our battle hath altered the forest. The ponies who did flee into it hath reported … oddness abroad in the woods. Strangling vines that do seek to honour thy names by actually strangling ponies. Roots that do drag the unwary beneath the ground to nourish the trees. Creatures that turn ponies to stone with but a glance. Yet others whose hue and cry did shake their bones with fright.”

Starswirl stared. “Is’t credence to these claims?”

“I have flown above the treetops and sensed deep magic there that was not present before. Mayhap it is of the Elements’ doing, as is my mane. Mayhap it is yet more punishment for my crimes.” Celestia shrugged. “There be nopony to ask who may know.”

Starswirl’s resounding quiet drew her eye. She recognised his expression as one of deep thought, characterised by a relentless tugging at his beard that tinkled the bells on his hat.

“What then be thy plans?” he asked eventually.

This time, Celestia watched his face when she spoke. “Canterlot shall be the new capital of Equestria.”

“Canterlot?” he boggled. He knew of her history with the place – her and Luna’s both.

“Aye,” she said resolutely. “A fortress city of unicorns, earth ponies and pegasi, set between and within all three provinces. We shall build it together, using skills of all three pony races. It shall not be a place for pomp but a place from which I shall rule and be ruled by the needs of my ponies.”

For they were her ponies now – hers alone to care for, nurture and love. And if she was also trying to recapture some of the happiness she associated with the place where she and Luna grew up? Well … that was a fact pushed so far into the back of Celestia’s mind that even its echo echoed.

Starswirl looked unconvinced but something else stole across his face and twisted his mouth. “Then I shall help you build it.”

“You wish to help me rule?”

“Nay. I am not a ruler, Celestia. I am thy friend, guide and confidante but mine is not the mind to rule. I Have no stomach for politicking. Mine hooves would itch to travel soon enough and I would not wish to deceive thee into thinking I wouldst remain forever.”

She nodded. She had half-known he would answer this way and yet her heart still ached a little. “Thou art a nomadic scholar forever.”

“Not forever. Just this single life of mine.”

And I am made of forevers, she thought sadly.

Starswirl went on: “And, I fancy, I wish to know more of the forest of Everfree and its changes herein. Mayhap I can return it to normalcy someday, or perhaps distil the source of its strangeness. If t’were indeed the Elements’ magic, and it did happen while Princess Luna was banished, then mayhap …” He tugged ferociously at his beard. “Mayhap there is some secret to her imprisonment and restoration of her true self upon her return.”

Celestia’s jaw dropped. She had not even considered such a possibility. “Thinkest thou this may be true?”

“Only study shall prevail in my answer.”

She leapt to her hooves. “Then study thou shalt! Starswirl the Bearded, I do give thee this castle and as many servants as thou doth wish to aid thee in thy studies.” A thought struck her. “And the Elements! Thou shalt keep them here for study also.”

Her sudden movement made him jump back. “Princess, I am old and set in my ways – and those ways are the kind unused to servants.”

“But thou must have aid in thine endeavours!”

He closed his eyes in something a little too long to be a blink. “I should like … to take a student and train them here with me, if thou wouldst allow, much as I did with a precocious young colt many years ago.”

Clover’s smiling face flitted briefly through her mind, along with an accompanying stab of grief through her heart. “Of course!”

He nodded slowly. “When I did teleport away, sapped was my strength. I did land in the closest open space my magic couldst find. T’was the West Tower, whereupon I did collapse and remain insensate on a dirty floor for the remainder of thy defeat of the Nightmare.” For a moment something like guilt tilted his mouth into a grim line.

“Your comport is unquestionable, Starswirl,” Celestia hurried to reassure him. “Without thee, I would surely have been slain by my sister’s poison.”

“Ah. Yes. The poison that she did procure with no knowledge of herbalism or the like.” Starswirl huffed cautiously into his beard. “T’would seem Luna’s betrayals did stretch further than this night.”

“Of what speakest thee?”

“Not what but whom. Upon waking I did find my head upon the lap of a chained earth pony. She did prattle overmuch but I did perceive that Luna … that Nightmare Moon hath practised strange magics upon her and twisted her secret hedgewitch herbalism to her own dark ends.” He met Celestia’s gaze squarely. “And did twist her love for thy sister also. The poor mare is much broken by this violation of her thoughts and trust, Celestia; broken in spirit, in heart and in mind. Her ramblings did tell me as much. Even as I burned away her chains and brought her down to the care of physicians, she speaks naught but gibberish and madness sparks within her eyes. If left unchecked, t’will surely soil her soul irreversibly.”

Fresh tears clogged Celestia’s throat. Luna’s long-standing plans continued to unfold like a foul-smelling flower blossoming in the cool of evening. How long had her own sister been plotting against her in this way?

How long since her Luna had been overtaken by the cunning, deceitful Nightmare born of Sombra’s evil magic?

How long had Celestia failed to notice what was going on right under her own nose?

“It is this mare I wish to take as my student,” Starswirl finished.

Wanly, Celestia asked, “Wherefore?”

“To heal as much as to teach. Thou doth carry guilt in thy heart but … in truth, we were all to blame in Luna’s fall to darkness. We all failed to see, failed to perceive, failed to understand the truth of what was happening. Now we must all seek to help and to heal the wounds left in the wake of our failure.” Starswirl looked up at the roof and the burnished orange sky visible through it as the sun ascended. “We are powerful, Celestia. It is the task of the powerful to care for the weak. I am not a ruler. I am not even lesser royalty. I cannot care for a nation. But maybe … maybe I can save one pony.” And then, in a whisper Celestia somehow knew she was not supposed to hear, he added, “As I could not save Clover.”

“Wouldst thou sit with me a while?” she asked suddenly.

He blinked at her. “There is yet much work to be done.”

“I am aware. I ask not for the whole day. Only a while.” She swallowed but the lump in her throat did not disappear, only eased a little with the tilt of her neck. “Old friend.”

It took a moment but Starswirl clambered up and grunted as he sat his rump down beside hers. He was much older now and they had each changed a lot, but they sat together as they had, a long time ago, when a travelling magician found two strange fillies with wings and horns, sitting on a hilltop watching the stars with wings stretched over each other so tight that it was hard to tell where blue feathers ended and white began.

Thy sister shall live for a thousand years as part of her beloved moon, Celestia.

And I shall await her return, Celestia silently promised. Whenever and however that may be. And until then, my little ponies shall want for nothing and fear nothing. A tear slid down her cheek and vanishing into her undulating mane. I am diminished, but I am still Celestia, Princess of Equestria, and I vow that I shall never make the same mistakes again.

Silently, the old unicorn and ageless alicorn watched as the new day began.

Prologue: Bloodlust

The pegasi platoon circled the smoking shelf of flattened rock. The villagers who had carved out a space to live here had worn their hooves to the bone.

And all for naught, Hurricane thought bitterly.

She banked a sharp left, unused to the strange mountain air currents. One of the ponies behind her overcompensated and nearly flew into the cliff face.

“Watch yourselves!” she snapped, risking a look back. Though her carefully chosen platoon’s faces were all blank, she read in their stiff postures that they were horrified by the smoking ruins below. She wondered whether the idiot had really overcompensated or simply been too distracted to fly straight.

Three specks rose up to meet them. Pansy’s face was far from blank. “No raiders remain, Commander,” she said, falling into formation. Instinctively the rest of the platoon reordered themselves to give her secondary position a smidge behind Hurricane. “We did a wide sweep and then close reconnaissance.”

“We were too late,” Hurricane replied grimly. “May their eyes rot in their sockets.” She struggled to hold in the yell, tamping it down to a growl.

This wasn’t the first time they had heard about a raid too late to save anypony. Part of her wanted to decree that all pegasi return to the ever-growing city of Pegalopolis. There were so many ponies up there now they had formed offshoot communities that thrived and expanded in turn: Cirrus City, Cloudsdale, Wild Blue Town, all flourishing places where guards patrolled and kept the citizens safe.

Yet since the formation of Equestria there were pegasi who had given up the skies and gone to live on the ground instead. Hurricane couldn’t understand it. Who would want a life of hard floors and harder living? This burned out shell of a village was at least set between earth and sky, as if the residents couldn’t bring themselves to give either up completely.

Bloody fools, she thought. Bloody, bloody fools!

Somewhere in the distance an eagle screamed; a lost and lonely cry that sounded a lot like a grief-stricken wail.

“Descend!” Hurricane barked, tucking both wings and dropping. She was the best flier in Equestria. She knew she could pull out of a nosedive with only seconds to spare. Most of this platoon were good too, though nowhere near her standard. Pansy, for example. Pansy was a stamina flier. She could cover long distances without falling out of the sky from exhaustion but shorts bursts of speed were beyond her. She needed plenty of warning for a dive.

In perfect formation, the V-shaped platoon tucked and dropped, flaring their wings out again to alight on the ledge. The smell of burned wood and blood, weak at a distance, now filled theirs nostrils. Even Hurricane’s gorge rose. The raiders had left no full bodies behind. It had been a hunting party for certain. Tell-tale splashes of red and detached manes and tails told their own story of who, exactly, had done the raiding. Griffins couldn’t digest pony hair and often removed it before carrying their prizes away.

Pansy came to stand beside her. “Should we search for survivors, Commander?”

There will be none, whispered Hurricane’s brain. “Aye,” her mouth replied. “Search high and low. If any remain, bring them. We shall leave nopony in this terrible place.”

“They built too close to the border,” she heard a brawny tan stallion mutter as they split off in predetermined pairs, the better to watch each other’s backs. “A mountain village this near Gryphona? ‘Tis pure foolishness! They as good as signed their own death warrants.”

“The only safe place is in the sky,” his partner replied, nodding.

Idiots, Hurricane thought.

Griffins had wings too. They were much less likely to tackle a fully armed warrior on the wing, but it wasn’t unheard of. enemy raiders and hunting parties had experienced too many victories and it was making them arrogant. This village had been burned at night, when the highest number of villagers would be there. Hunting parties rarely numbered more than four or five griffins.

So many of ours slain. So few of them slaying.

“Commander?” Pansy prompted.

Without acknowledging the other mare’s encouragement, Hurricane stepped forward.

The village wasn’t brand new. They’d had chance to get established. Had the griffins across the border been watching them the whole time? Life was harsh and food scarce in their frozen country, especially now, in winter. Had they allowed their neighbours to live and fatten up to provide fresh –

She shook the useless thoughts away and pushed her head against door barely clinging to its hinges, as if bumping against the inside of her helmet might shake loose the things spinning through her mind. It swung inward and, despite herself, her heart picked up speed. The interior of the small dwelling was pitch-dark and could be hiding anything. Her nostrils flared as she inhaled sharply, scenting for the distinctive musty odour of griffin. She could smell them everywhere but the scent was overlaid with blood, telling her they hadn’t been back after they had killed the occupants.

She glanced around in the square of pale morning light the open door threw. A small stove sat in the corner, an overturned saucepan on the floor. Whatever had been cooking had congealed beneath it in an unpleasant brown mush. To her left was a large rumpled bed. Evidently at least one occupant had been in bed when the raiders came, while another cooked. Such simple domesticity. These ponies had not been expecting what had happened.

None of them had. As she and Pansy checked dwelling after dwelling. Hurricane found tarnished armour and few weapons. The village had grown complacent about their safety. They had stopped practising Pegasus Laws after they removed themselves from the rest of their race. Hurricane knew that many pegasi chafed against her laws, but this was why they needed such rigour and severity!

“Just look at what doth happen when they leave the flock!” she muttered to herself.

“They could not have known,” Pansy said softly.

“Known? Nay. Suspected?” Hurricane snorted. “They should have suspected the dangers they faced on their own. They grew lax, Pansy, and this is their reward.”

“Reward?”

“Punishment, then!” she snapped. “They should have stayed in Pegalopolis.”

“They needed to be free.” Pansy’s voice softened to a near-whisper.

“Free? Free!?” Hurricane whirled on her. “This is what that kind of freedom hath wrought! Only death doth await those who choose to live on the ground!”

Pansy levelled a strange look at her; part grief, part sympathy, and part sternness. She had changed since they facing the Windigos more than a decade earlier. Her backbone was made of stronger stuff these days. “Wouldst it be thy will to hold them under thy hoof, no matter their own wishes?”

“I wish for them to be safe!” Hurricane thundered back. It always happened this way. She grew disproportionately louder as Pansy grew quieter. She threw a hoof at the dwelling they had just left; little more than burned out husk. She trotted to another, where the door was sturdier, and bucked I open in impotent rage. “I wish for –” She stopped as she saw what lay within.

“Commander?” Pansy trotted toward her, obviously worried at the change in her expression. “Hurric-oh!”

A small tail lay on the floor. It had been cut off and discarded by whoever had been here. From tip to tip it stretched no further than the span of Hurricane’s hoof. Strands of fur slicked too red to tell its original colour remained on one end. A tiny wooden crib lay overturned in the corner.

Hurricane trembled with grief and fury. “I wish for our ponies to be safe,” she said, her voice choked. She was glad only Pansy could hear her. Every other Pegasus thought she was strong and immoveable. She couldn’t afford to let them know otherwise.

“That is why Equestria was founded.” Pansy leaned in a gently nuzzled her friend’s shoulder. Her nose hit armour but she kept nuzzling anyway. Ridiculously, it made Hurricane feel a little … not better. More centred, she supposed. Pansy usually had that effect on her. “Once a song is sung, one cannot un-sing it, Hurricane. Once a foal is birthed, one cannot un-birth it. And once thou hath given freedom of choice to thy citizens, thou cannot then remove it. These pegasi chose because thou didst give them the possibility of choice. That is a good thing. To do otherwise would be pure tyranny and that is not thee, old friend. Thou art strict and strong, but thou art not cruel.”

Hurricane hung her head. “It was not supposed to be this way,” she said hoarsely. “Equestria was meant to be a land of peace and plenty.”

“Where all three pony races live together in harmony,” Pansy agreed. “And we have done that.”

She didn’t add how relations were still a little strained sometimes. They were still far better than they had been in the beginning. Princess Platinum was actually letting unicorns live elsewhere than the Unicornia province these days and there was tell of growing intermarriage between the tribes. Just the other day a nervous Pegasus stallion in her own guard had come to Hurricane asking permission to marry an earth pony and move to the ground to be with her. Ponies –all ponies – it seemed, were making inroads on the prejudices that had divided them for so long.

But Equestria was not the paradise the six founders had hoped for. Fate was fickle and unkind. No sooner had the ponies begun healing rifts amongst themselves, they were beset by enemies from outside their borders. The enemies had always been there, picking off earth ponies, pegasi and even unicorns when they could. Now, however, circumstances were spiralling and Equestrian citizens were the ones paying the price.

Hurricane stamped a hoof. “This shall not stand,” she declared.

Pansy drew back. “Hurricane?”

“I aim to call a council. I shall summon all six founding ponies and we shall decide what is to be done about this heathen threat to us and ours.” She stamped her hoof again. “No more will we be too late to save another village, Pansy. No! More!” She wheeled around cantered away, yelling for the rest of the platoon to reconnoitre where they had landed.

Pansy took a moment longer. She half-turned, but then hesitated, one foreleg raised. Seeming to come to a decision, she knelt to pick up the discarded foal’s tail and tucked it gently into her saddlebag.

“I am so sorry, little one,” she whispered, voice cracking in a way she could never allow Hurricane to hear. “On my honour, I shall see thee to a true burial.”

With that, she cantered after her commander.

….

Hurricane slammed her hoof against the table. “Unacceptable!”

Platinum tossed her head, sending her silvery mane bouncing. She did that a lot when she was irritated. Since the summit started she had practically bounced her head right off her neck.

“Wherefore is this ‘unacceptable’?” she demanded.

“You place your unicorns’ lives above my pegasi!”

“I do no such thing,” she sniffed. “I merely state that it is preposterous to sacrifice ponies whose hooves remain on the ground to adversaries with wings.”

“But is it tolerable that my pegasi fight and die because they also wear feathers?”

“Be silent, Hurricane. I spake nothing for the sort.”

“thy meaning doth run clear as ice melting to water, Platinum.”

“Princess Platinum,” she corrected.

Hurricane snorted. “Have we need for archaic airs and graces here?”

“I know not, Commander,” Platinum replied, voice cool. “Have we?”

They both turned their heads at the sound of someone else tapping the table. “Ladies, ladies,” Puddinghead said cheerfully. “Since it took months for this meeting to be reached, let us not take it all up with petty arguing, hmm?” His bushy moustache wiggled from side to side as he smiled and wrinkled his nose. He hadn’t possessed the ridiculous thing the last time Hurricane had seen him, though he seemed quite proud of it now and moved his face constantly as if to show it off to the room-ful of ponies.

“Petty arguing?” Hurricane echoed incredulously. “The lives of our ponies are not petty, you impudent –”

Pansy placed a hoof on her shoulder. It had the same effect as splashing water on a spitting coal fire. Hurricane’s embers smouldered but her blazing temper died back a little.

Puddinghead’s moustache stopped wiggling. “Forgive me, Hurricane. I misspoke. Thy words are truth: the lives of our ponies are not petty. Many earth ponies have also been taken from their farms and homes. We know the same sting of loss as thee.”

It was so strange to see the relentlessly cheerful stallion act sombre for once that Hurricane was lost for words. It fell to Pansy to make her point for her, rolling her helmet between her hooves apprehensively. They had both removed their helmets upon entering the room as a show of good faith, though they kept them in hoof.

“Then we come to the crux of this meeting. What are we to do about the griffin threat?”

Puddinghead stared out of the window. This longhouse they were in had been built by earth ponies. Hurricane found herself drawn to whatever point he was looking at. Several ponies passed the window, though not all were earthers. A pegasus went by, helping to carry a huge basket of apples. A unicorn pulled the cart carrying the rest of the load, seeming not to care that his coat was covered in dirt as he chatted with the mare hitched beside him. Strangest of all, a tiny unicorn filly bounded around an earth pony mare who was her exact double in coat and hair colour, but lacked her horn.

Equestria was not just a place. It was something happening around them. It was something wonderful; something magical; something that had never happened before. They were witnessing history being made.

But how long could it last against outside threats?

“There have been … unicorn losses also,” Platinum admitted. She sighed, as if admitting this was something she had hoped not to do. She glanced at the empty seat beside her, reserved for Clover the Clever. One reason they had postponed the meeting until now was because they had been trying to track him down, but since he left the Unicornia Province he seemed to have fallen off the map. Nopony had been able to find him and they had eventually agreed to hold the summit with only five founders instead of six.

At Platinum’s admission and furtive glance, both pegasi and earth ponies shared the same thought: was Clover among the losses she spoke of? Had they not been able to find him because he wasn’t there to be found? The thought was horrifying. Clover was the strongest of them all, though neither Hurricane nor Platinum would ever admit that. If their enemies could kill him, what hope did the rest of them have?

“We cannot go to war,” Smart Cookie said flatly. She didn’t smack the table to get attention, yet her soft statement had every ear flicking towards her. “We are not equipped for that.”

“Pegasi are all combat trained,” Hurricane started to say, but faltered. They used to all be combat trained. Now only those in the pegasi cities were, and even then she could only swear to Pegalopolis. The offshoot cities were self-governing. It was possible that they, like the burned out village that had inspired her to call the other founders, had ceased following the Laws once they were away from her. Nonetheless, she squared her shoulders and hoped her misgivings didn’t show on her face.

“But earth ponies are not,” Smart Cookie replied. “We are ponies of soil and plough, not blade and blood. Unicorns are ponies of crafts and magic.”

“They could be trained,” Hurricane insisted, though there was less conviction to her tone than before.

She looked outside again, watching the little unicorn filly trot after her mother. A pair of pegasus colts whooshed past, chasing each other and laughing wildly. They were spindly little things, all too-long legs and big eyes. She tried to imagine them older, in armour, carrying spears and ready to face off against an experienced griffin hunting party. It used to be easy for her to imagine the next generation taking their rightful place in pegasus society. Now … not so much.

“Aye, they could,” Smart Cookie agreed. “And then what? Gryphona is not a fledgling country still trying to find its place in the world. It is old and so are its ways and customs. Loyalty to the king is absolute. He need only raise a single claw and more than mere raiders would pour over our borders. In a heartbeat Equestria would be razed to the ground.”

“Then what is thy suggestion?” Hurricane demanded. “Thou dost offer many nays but I have yet to hear any of thy solutions.”

“I …” Smart Cookie started, but her mouth remained open as she ran out of words after just that one. Her coat, the colour of dirt even when it was clean, seemed less lustrous than when Hurricane had seen her last. Smart Cookie was a work-pony through and through. She actually enjoying tending the land making things grow. She got some sort of pleasure from it that Hurricane couldn’t fathom, though she supposed Smart Cookie couldn’t understand her love of flight either. The founding of Equestria had done wonders for Smart Cookie’s po-faced disposition. Now, however, the worries and cares of running a country and keeping its inhabitants were clearly taking the its toll. Earth ponies didn’t live as long or retain their youth the way unicorns and pegasi did.

It occurred to Hurricane in a bolt of unwelcome clarity that, of the founding six, Smart Cookie and Puddinghead would likely be the first to die – provided she and Pansy didn’t get themselves killed first. She mulled the idea over and found it unpleasant in a way she would not have only a few short years ago. She would … miss them. It was ridiculous, but she would actually miss them.

A pegasus mourning mud-ponies? she thought, falling back onto the old nickname pegasi had used for earth ponies since time immemorial. Even calling them that felt unpleasant now, as if she had insulted them to their faces even though the words had only been inside her own head. She resisted the urge to hit herself with her own helmet. She was going soft in her dotage.

“What can we do?” Platinum said at last. “I mean not to offend thee or thine, Hurricane, but we are not warmongers.”

“Yet our hooves remain as stained with blood as the griffins’ if we do naught,” Hurricane snapped, bristling at herself and the other ponies around the table.

As if on cue, a splotch appeared in the centre of the table. At first, Hurricane thought it was a shadow. Then it rose off the wood and levitated into the air, undulating like a piece of hot pitch falling in reverse from a freshly thatched roof.

She was on her hooves in an instant, helmet on and sword unsheathed. A fraction behind her Pansy also drew her weapon, as Platinum, Puddinghead and Smart Cookie shot away from the table.

“What is this?” Hurricane demanded.

The splotch rippled and swelled, clumps of fur sprouting from it as tiny nubs appeared and lengthened. Several cracks were heard as these protuberances bent themselves into joints that had apparently not existed prior. The whole nightmarish thing kept growing and growing, until it towered over them, top half swinging forward like a spiked mace in the middle of battle. A horn popped out, and then another. Two lines appeared and popped open, revealing dull yellow eyes beneath. These rolled about in the still-undulating skull, until a newly formed upper limb reached up and smacked the back of its head.

“Ugh, I do so loathe it when that happens,” the creature said. It blinked a few times and then focussed anew on the founders. It smiled when it saw Hurricane and Pansy, seeming amused by their display. “Dost thou intend to stick me with thy tiny needles?”

“Needles!?” Hurricane thundered, rearing up and flaring her wings to make herself look larger. It was an old pegasus technique and, couples with her red coat and armour, made her look quite formidable. She managed to talk understandably around the sword-grip in her mouth, testament to the many battles and times she had repelled raiders while still barking orders to her warriors. “My sword shall find thy throat, intruder. What manner of beast art thou and what be thy business here?”

“My business?” The creature smiled wider. “So quick to turn to talk of business, little pony. As to what manner of ‘beast’ I am, well, I am all manner of beasts.” It laughed raucously, as if it had just made the best joke in the world.

Hurricane tightened her teeth around the sword-grip. Her wings trembled with the impulse to fly at whatever the thing was. The air reeked of sulphur from its entrance.

It looked like some godling had put together a collection of limbs without having a real working manner of what the word ‘body’ meant. Things had been thrown together haphazardly, with no thought for aesthetics. The creature’s eyes were two different sizes, one seemingly slipping down its long face. Its horns didn’t match. Neither did any of its four limbs. Some parts of it looked vaguely equine, while others reminded her of goats, dragons, snakes, lions and – she forced down a growl – griffins.

The creature sat back onto empty air and hung there as if taking a seat on an actual chair. It regarded them and snickered to itself again.

“I come to thee, ponies, with a proposition,” it chuckled. “This summit be to discuss the threat to thy country posed by King Slaughterbeak and his griffins. Is this so?”

“What interest is it of thine what we discuss?” Hurricane demanded.

“I have watched thy tiny country for some time now,” it replied. “Its struggles amuse me. Ponies are such amusing creatures. I would be saddened by its loss – and the loss of its citizens. Therefore I propose a solution to the threat whose shadow falls across it now.”

Hurricane made to speak again, but Smart Cookie coughed loudly. She looked across the table, peering past the creature’s undercarriage to meet Smart Cookie’s gaze. The other mare shook her head slightly and cleared her throat to get the creature’s attention.

“What is thy name?” she asked.

“Oh, I have had many.” The creature leaned forward, turning a slow somersault in the air. “Names are names are names are names. ‘Tis all much of a much in the end. I am old and I am young. I have nameless and yet I possess more names than all gathered here.” He focussed on each pony in turn. “Smart Cookie. Chancellor Puddinghead, Princess Platinum Pearlescent Resplendent-in-her-Glory, Liege of the United Ponies of Unicornia.” It tapped its chin. “Such a mouthful. Yet I still outstrip thee, princess, for my names are legion.”

“What should we call thee?” Smart Cookie maintained.

The creature sighed and scratched the back of its head with the tip of its lizardine tail. “Discordance,” it said at last. “I am an avatar of chaos in this world and I have chosen thee, little ponies, upon whom to lavish my attention. This ‘Equestria’ doth show much potential and I would have it continue, not fall to the claws of thy enemies. Therefore, I propose thus: let me save thee. I could but click my claws and the borders of Equestria would be safe again.” It grinned a mouth full of mismatched yellowing teeth.

Hurricane scowled. “And what payment wouldst thou expect for such a deed?” She still didn’t trust unicorn magic entirely. The idea of letting this thing loose on their borders made her stomach pulse cold.

“Simply thy time and company,” the creature replied. “Oh, and the time and company of thy citizens. All ponies amuse me. Their reactions to me and my powers are always so … entertaining.” It laughed again, twisting up to the ceiling and pushing off as if swimming back down to their level. “So what sayest thee, little ponies.” It cocked its head. “If it would aid the speed of their decision, I can tell thee that a small earth pony village on thy northern border suffers a raid at this very moment. I could save it as an act of goodwill, to prove my worth to thee.” It wiggled its eyebrows encouragingly. “A favour in want of no payment.”

“What village?” Puddinghead asked.

“I do believe its name is … hmm … Green Meadow.” The creature nodded. “Aye, named for the field upon which it was planted.”

Puddinghead and Smart Cookies exchanged a look. Evidently this was a real place.

“Where is it?” Hurricane asked them.

“Too far for even thee to reach it in time,” Smart Cookie replied grimly. “Dost thou play us false, Discordance?”

“Nay, I would never!” The creature raised its paw to its chest as if clasping its heart – although who knew how many it contained in that strange body. “My magic can transport us there is two shakes of a lamb’s tail.” It turned around, revealing its own tail had transformed into a long white woolly one. “Merely say aye and ‘tis done; thy ponies saved an my intentions made clear. I only wish to aid thee.”

Something about the way it smiled when saying this made Hurricane suspicious, but there was no time to think too hard about it.

“What say thee, friends?” Puddinghead asked.

Platinum, who had never once taken her eyes from the creature, spoke up in a watery voice. “I … I say aye.”

“As do I,” Smart Cookie agreed. “Our ponies’ lives are not ours to play with if aid is offered to save them, whatever the source.”

Pansy and Puddinghead agreed, which left only Hurricane. She let the growl she had tamped down earlier travel up her throat, making her sound like a feral dog, but nodded.

The creature clapped its misshapen paws together. “Wonderous! Come, new friends, and let us away to Green Meadow !”

The world tipped sideways, as if something had picked up the longhouse and shaken everything and everyone within it to one end. Hurricane stumbled and took to the air out of habit. Colour smeared across her vision. She heard cows lowing and chickens clucking, but the sound whipped by her. The laughter of foals slurred and became the screams of wounded and terrified ponies.

And then she was outside a small village being raided by a griffin hunting party.

“Oh my …” she heard Pansy say.

Author's Note

Full disclosure, I wrote this entirely in two weeks in 2013 before Season 4 gave us an insight into how Luna became Nightmare Moon. It is based on an old Livejournal challenge called '30 Deathfics' in which you picked a fandom or character and wrote 30 small stories based on 30 prompts based around death. I got all 30 parts written, as well as a few of the alternate prompts as a variety of epilogues. I was very new to the fandom at the time and immensely proud of what I'd written.

And then Season 4 premiered.

Viewing the opening two episodes of Season 4 immediately killed my impetus to finish what was the final epilogue to this fic and I put it away and ... completely forgot about it, taken as I was at the time with this new endeavour I was trying called 'fanfic readings on YouTube'.

Well now the world is entrenched in a pandemic and I'm on lockdown, which I spent a proportion of organizing my digital files. Lo and behold, a file called 'MLP - 30 Deathfics' revealed itself from the depths of my harddrive.

This fic is being posted exactly as it was written nearly seven years ago (albeit with tidied grammam and spelling). Since MLP canon has long since ended and no longer tallies up with even half of what I wrote, you can consider this an Alternate Universe historical fiction.

4. Jewel

4. Jewel

The Elements of Harmony sat on their pedestals, glittering like they were stars that had been plucked from the sky and encased in metal settings. Celestia bid her guards wait outside the chamber and approached them as one might a sleeping dragon.

Before she was less than twenty feet away she felt them buzzing in her mind, washing over her with their strange ancient magic. She had asked before how and why they had come to be but they never responded. It was not until they blessed her with the powers of an alicorn that she was truly able to hear them at all, and even now it was mostly whispers, like foals hiding behind doorways and giggling as she passed.

She cleared her throat. “Elements, I have come to thee above all else because I, Princess Celestia, Sunlight of Equestria and Its Guiding Light, am … worried.” She dropped her gaze, staring at the floor. “My sister has not been herself of late and I hear rumours that her strangeness continues in unpredictable ways.” She shut her eyes, trying not to think of the shouted conversation in her chambers only three days ago. “I thought her merely unwell but now I begin to wonder whether something more may be at work. I confess, I know not what this might be, therefore I do come before you now to ask for thy assistance.”

The Elements glittered. Celestia listened hard for actual words but, again, she heard only inaudible whispers. She pawed the ground in frustration.

“Elements of Harmony, I do beseech thee! Thou art our greatest weapon and our greatest hope for Equestria’s future. By thy will did my sister and I begin our reign of this land. By thy will did we defeat King Sombra and beat back the griffin hordes who did seek to invade our borders and dine on our citizens. By thy will did we select this place for our capital, call it ‘Everfree’ and build this castle to herald the new world order of that name. Please, do not forsake me now.”

The Elements went suddenly silent.

Celestia took a step forward but stopped when she heard breathing behind her. Scratchy, laboured breathing, as of one who is ill but has galloped through the castle regardless. She turned to see a silhouette framed in the flickering light of the torches.

“L-Luna,” she stuttered, guilt evident in her tone. “I … I did think thee abed at this noontime hour.”

Luna said nothing. Since her face was cast in shadow, Celestia could not see her expression. They remained where they were for a long moment, the air fairly crackling with tension. Finally Luna turned, kicked dirt in Celestia’s direction, and galloped back the way she had come.

13. Fate

13. Fate

The herald blew on his trumpet before he announced the next pony. Celestia fought the urge to yawn as she entered the third hour of the Sun Court. Today had been what seemed like a never-ending cavalcade of ponies and problems that made her wonder why they needed a princess’s judgement at all. Boundary disputes between farmers she could at least understand but arguments over whether somepony had insulted somepony else’s daughter and what recompense this required? Perhaps there was some merit to the idea of setting up some sort of council with representatives from the three races to listen to these sorts of problems so that she would not have to –

“Presenting Clove the Clever!” announced the herald, following up with another toot of his beloved trumpet.

Celestia raised her head. Clover the Clever? She hadn’t seen him since she and Luna arrived and he and his mentor declined Princess Platinum’s offer to accompany her to the Unicornia Province of Equestria. Both Celestia and Luna had been of the same mind that all the founding ponies should remain in positions of power within the country, though the founders themselves had agreed to defer to the sisters as absolute rulers. Platinum had been most concerned with retaining her title and had voiced the dissent that made Luna and Celestia agree to call themselves princesses rather than queens. Though they held sway over ruling the entire nation, while she governed only a small section of it, it gave the impression that they were all equal.

An unassuming green unicorn in a shabby brown cloak trotted up the red carpet towards her throne. Celestia stood and descended the steps to greet him.

“Clover! I see thy sense of fashion remains as dire as ever.”

He smiled unpretentiously, knowing she was only teasing. “Princess Celestia, thy beauty knoweth no bounds. Truly, thy loveliness hath grown unparalleled since I last laid eyes upon thee.”

“Flatterer,” she laughed. “It shall not garner thee an extra portion at dinner. Prithee, wilt thou stay and sup with us?”

“My journey hath been long, Highness, and fraught with difficulties. I would be most grateful for a crust of bread and drink of water.”

She raised an eyebrow. “Mayhap we may feed thee more ample fare than that. Herald?”

The grey earth pony bowed low. His jaunty red cap nearly tumbled from his head and he jumped to save it, nearly falling on his face when he also refused to let go of his trumpet. “Uh, yes Majesty?”

“Art there many more ponies who seek an audience this day?”

He consulted the scroll he carried with the day’s appointments on it. “A good many, Highness.”

She sighed. “Duty doth keep my name upon its lips, I fear. Clover, what bringeth thee to Everfree this day? A mere visit or some other problem for which thou art seeking guidance in the Sun Court?”

Clover shook his head. “In fact, Princess, I come hence to offer my services in the retrieval of the Elements of Harmony. I have heard rumours that they are missing, stolen by some wretch who came in the night to wrest them away.”

Celestia nodded. “These rumours be truth. Our efforts to locate them have proved unsuccessful, though Luna remains vigilant. I myself have put many fine unicorns of the Royal Guard to search the chamber, as well as what scholars and unicorn nobility live within these walls, yet they cannot identify what manner of thief was able to slip through the castle undetected, break down the door, steal the Elements and vanish with them into thin air before anypony realised.”

“My mentor did recently invent a spell that doth allow the caster to transport himself elsewhere in the blink of an eye,” Clover said pensively. “He hath named it ‘teleportation’. Mayhap your thief possesses some equal magic to this.”

Celestia gaped. “Starswirl hath truly created such a spell?”

“Well … partly. He strives to perfect it, inasmuch as he wishes to disappear from one location and reappear in one of his actual choosing, rather than simply near it.” Clover leaned in close and whispered, “One time did he attempt to take himself from his study to the garden, only to render himself within the privy hut instead! His cries of dismay and curses could be heard an entire village yonder!”

Celestia did not snigger. It was unbecoming for royalty to snigger, even at the idea of a po-faced magician like Starswirl the Bearded up to his fetlocks in dung. Nevertheless, her voice was not entirely steady when she next addressed the herald.

“Highness?”

“Fetch a servant to take Clover the Clever to the Great Hall and serve unto him whatever meal he doth desire. I shall join him shortly, upon the completion of my courtly duties.”

The herald bowed low. “’Twill be done, Highness.”

“And fetch Princess Luna also. I am confident her joy at thy presence will be as much as mine, dear Clover.”

Celestia smiled. Finally, something was going their way. With a practical, talented and experienced unicorn like Clover the Clever around, they would surely find the Elements of Harmony in no time and finally be able to punish whatever rogue had taken them.

20. Fear

Wind Racer couldn’t explain what made him think something was wrong. There was no sound from within Princess Luna’s chamber and nopony new in the corridor to raise any alarm. All he knew with sudden, ineffable certainty was that something had happened. Swift Wing, too, seemed to sense it, because he turned at the same moment, mimicking the shiver that went through Wind Racer. The doors they were guarding were not locked, but when the two stallions opened them they found an empty chamber within.

“Highness?” Swift Wing called.

“Princess Luna?” Wind Racer flicked his ears to catch any noise. He caught the sound of weeping and immediately ran to the balcony. Peering over the edge, he could see the princess sprawled on the grass below, in the embrace of the little yellow mare he recognised as her lover. “Swift Wing!” he shouted, vaulting over the edge.

The little mare looked up at his shout. Her face was tear-stained but Wind Racer had eyes only for the princess. He landed and whirled in case some enemy had hurt her and was still in the area.

“There is nopony else,” the little mare told him. “I … she … some malady ails her but she knew not what.”

“Wherefore was she here and not in her chambers?” Swift Wing asked as he inspected the princess.

“I … did call to her …” the little mare admitted. “But I knew not of her illness when I did so!”

Wind Racer turned and his heart nearly stopped. Princess Luna looked awful. Her whole body shuddered, though she was obviously unconscious. Flecks of foam speckled the corners of her mouth.

Poison! his mind hissed.

His gaze immediately shifted to the little yellow mare. He had surreptitiously asked other castle ponies about her since their last encounter. He knew her to be the daughter of a hedgewitch and more than likely one herself. If anyone knew how to poison a pony, it was a hedgewitch, and who else would have better access to deliver such a poison to the princess but a lover? If he had only been suspicious before, now he was convinced. No wonder the princess had taken such a dull commoner to her bed. Perhaps the hedgewitch had bewitched her. Perhaps she was even the cause of the illness that had robbed Princess Luna of so much of her beauty!

“Know this,” he growled, tipping the hedgewitch’s chin up with the butt of his spear so that she was forced to look at him. “If she dies, thou art to blame, and the vengeance I shall lay upon thee will be swift and terrible.”

She gawped at him. “I –”

Whatever she was trying to say was silenced by Princess Luna’s cry. The princess went suddenly rigid, all limbs splayed like she had been stung by a scorpion. The hedgewitch yelped as the top of the princess’s head smacked against the underside of her chin, knocking the spearbutt aside, but she didn’t let go. Instead, she clung on like a little yellow limpet, inspiring in Wind Racer such rage as he had never experienced before. Protectiveness over his princess welled up inside him and he went to pull her off, but was sent reeling by the blast of sudden cold from Luna’s body. The hedgewitch whimpered and Swift Wing barked in pain, wringing his hooves.

And just as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Princess Luna sat up, blinking like she had woken from a deep sleep. The hedgewitch slid off her, panting. Swift Wing and Wind Racer exchanged a pointed look and moved to detain the earth pony, pulling her away from their princess. She struggled against their hold and the princess turned on them a cool stare.

“Release her,” she said calmly, as if she had not just been trembling like a plague victim. There was no trace of hesitation, no uncertainty, just the calm detachment of a sovereign giving an order she expected to be obeyed.

“But Highness –” Wind Racer protested.

“Didst thou not hear me? Release her.”

Reluctantly, they did so. The hedgewitch stumbled to her hooves. “Luna, thou art … ‘tis a miracle!”

“Address the princess with due decorum!” Wind Racer barked.

“Wind Racer,” Princess Luna said coldly. “Swift Wing. Leave us.”

He was stunned. “But Highness –”

“Again thou art defiant. Perhaps I was mistaken to bring thee into my personal guard, Wind Racer. If thou cannot follow an order from thy princess, then I have little use for thee.”

Fear of dismissal took hold of him. He lived for the sight of her. He bowed low. “Nay, Highness, I hear and obey.”

“Good.”

“But before I take my leave, please, wilt thou allow us to escort thee to one of the castle physicians? Though thou appear well now, Highness, a moment ago thou didst seem at the gates of Tartarus.”

“I deny thy request,” Luna replied. “Though I will allow thee to provide transportation to my balcony. I must forthwith lower the moon and I prefer height for the task.”

He was reluctant to allow the hedgewitch further access to the princess, but it seemed his opinion didn’t count. However, Wind Racer now found himself not only able, but commanded to touch Princess Luna. Leaving his spear next to a squashed bunch of flowers, he gathered her into his forehooves and flew her the few dozen feet up to her balcony before Swift Wing could choose her instead of the hedgewitch.

Those few seconds were among the best of his life. The princess was light as breath. He alighted and she stepped away from him, inadvertently trailing her tail through over his hooves. It was wrong, and he knew it was wrong, but that simple thing was so arousing that he immediately leapt back over the edge to retrieve his spear so that his erect wings weren’t so obvious.

“Dost thou require us to resume our posts at thy door, Highness?” Swift Wing asked.

“If thou must,” Luna replied. “Close it tight.”

“As thou wish.” He waited for Wind Racer to soar across the room and through the door before closing it.

Once on the other side, Wind Racer set down and breathed out a single, heavy breath. He stayed that way for several seconds, eventually raising his head to meet Swift Wing’s knowing smirk.

“Thy wings betray thee, colt,” he snickered. “Some salt peter wouldst protect thy dignity and douse thy ardour.”

Wind Racer realised he had not folded them back and did so hastily, if with difficulty. “If I am a colt then thou art an old nag. How may thou jest after what have witnessed?”

Immediately Swift Wing’s expression soured. “’Tis a bad business,” he muttered.

“Worse than thou may think,” Wind Racer replied, and began to relate his suspicions of the hedgewitch.

Epilogue: Redemption

Twilight closed the book and laid both forehooves on the cover. She said nothing for a long time.

“So … this is all of it?”

“As best could be gathered.”

More silence. She licked her lips as if they were dry.

“I’m sorry,” she said eventually. “You have to understand … this is a lot to take in.”

“I am aware.”

A sliver of skin tore off her lower lip, allowing blood to bead. She had not even realised she was chewing it until the jab of pain made her stop. She brushed her mouth with a hoof and made to put it back on the book, pausing at the realisation she would wipe her own blood on it if she did. She settled for putting her hooves in her lap instead.

“Who … who else knows this?”

“Those who were there. Cadence. Shining Armour. I brought her here and let her read the book when she ascended and she requested to tell him the truth when they became engaged.”

“Right. Right.” Twilight closed her eyes, the better to centre herself. When she opened them again, she first looked up at the ancient vaulted ceiling and then at her mentor. “I … appreciate that you trusted me with this information.”

Celestia smiled sadly down at her. Twilight had seen many smiles from her over the years but this one was new. Or maybe it was seeing it in the context of these surroundings that made it seem new. She supposed it might be a very old smile that she had just never witnessed before.

“I hope you understand why,” Celestia murmured.

“Because I’m an alicorn now.” So many things could be explained away by those five words. She wondered how many more of them lay in her future.

“Yes. And because you, too, are a Princess of Equestria henceforth. Like me, you now have power and, as Starswirl said, is the task of the powerful to care for the weak.”

Twilight shifted her wings. The weight of them against her flank still felt odd and having two brand new limbs to move around was proving much more unnerving than she had anticipated. Sometimes it felt like they had a mind of their own and she had the alarming sensation that she was a guest in her own body. She glanced over her shoulder and rearranged her feathers, wondering whether she was truly ready for the kind of responsibility they were talking about.

“You might think it was I who chose you, Twilight, but the Elements of Harmony were aware of you long before I was. My bond with them was broken but they were far from inert. They spent the last thousand years waiting and searching for ponies who would be eligible to bear them once there was a need to do so. They were part of your life and those of your friends long before you all met and used them to save Luna.” Celestia paused momentarily. “The way I never could.”

“No, Princess!” Twilight stood. The desk, made as it was from pieces of broken stone, did not move when she jumped up but dust scattered from its surface when she thumped it. “You did save her! You kept her from being killed by the Founders!”

“Peace, Twilight.” Celestia raised one gold-clad hoof. “I have had a thousand years to come to terms with my mistakes and their consequences. I have tried to honour the Founders the way they would have wanted: by helping the land and the ponies they loved to flourish and grow and by aiding their own families over the centuries. Never so much that their lives became of my design but a little aid here and there to keep them safe and alive. Bequests of lands, appropriate tutelage when requested, honouring of titles they wished to keep etcetera – though only one unicorn line actually chose to do the latter.”

Twilight’s eyes rounded in comprehension. “Prince Blueblood is related to Princess Platinum herself?”

“Indeed,” Celestia said with easy grace. “To be honest, Twilight, I am a little surprised you did not realise that earlier.”

“I thought it was an affectation.” Twilight frowned at memories of her teenage years. Blueblood was older than her and had graduated from Celestia’s School For Gifted Unicorns long before her but he had maintained emotional maturity of a foal and the entitlement of a purebred cat on a silk cushion. She recalled the times he had tried to make her attend the Grand Galloping Gala as his date and the unpleasantness that followed the one time she agreed and realised he saw her not as a pony but as a stepping stone to networking with the throne. “I avoided him as much as I could whenever I came to the castle to see you.” She shook the unpleasant memories away. “So … all the Founders’ lines are still around?”

“In some form or another. A few married into other families and the original names were lost long ago but their bloodlines remain in Equestria to this day. A thousand years is a long time, after all. Things change.”

Twilight nodded. She looked down at the book with its hoofwritten cover, tattered bindings and plentiful ink splats. It smelled old when she breathed in, like the restricted section of the Canterlot Library. She never would have guessed it had been kept in a draughty, damp old castle in the middle of the Everfree if she had not witnessed Celestia fetching it from a hidden partition in the stonework. There were clearly enchantments on the book to keep it from disintegrating past the point when it was finished but the original author had not kept it in pristine condition up to then.

“This must have taken a long time to assemble.”

“Yes. Finding the finer details of events that happened when I was not present was indeed … difficult. Thankfully I was not alone in collecting it all.”

“Starswirl.” Twilight tapped a looping capital letter. “I recognise his writing from the unfinished spell you gave me.”

Celestia nodded. “He spoke to the castle ponies and painstakingly discovered who knew what, then penned it all and bound it himself. He sometimes had to travel to those who had left the area following that dreadful night, though he always returned to Everfree Castle for what he considered his real work: trying to decipher the secrets of the Elements.” Celestia looked between each of the empty plinths around them. “Though unfortunately, as you are well aware, he never did succeed in that endeavour.” There was that sad smile again. “I visited whenever I could. The pressures of building Canterlot and all that entailed often kept me busy but whenever he sent me a scroll I would be here in a moment. He was always waiting in the same place,” she added softly. “At this very desk by the plinths he had built himself to study the Elements. And come rain or shine, Posy would be along in a few minutes of my arrival with some special tea she had brewed from her herb garden.”

Twilight swallowed. “What … happened to her?” Of all the ponies whose stories she had read in Starswirl’s book, that of the little earth pony who had loved and been betrayed by Luna had struck her the most. She hoped Posy’s tale had a happy ending.

In answer, Celestia got to her hooves and gestured for Twilight to follow. Her horn glowed and the book floated along in their wake.

“She never left here. Ever. Even when Starswirl travelled to interview ponies or follow up on some lead or other, Posy stayed behind. Her state of mind was always very fragile and I think she was afraid that if she left here, it would shatter again and this time Starswirl would not be able to help her put herself back together.”

Twilight’s heart sank. “So … she just lived out her whole life here in an empty castle?”

They reached the bottom of the main staircase and trotted into what might once have been a garden, judging by the remains of walls around it. In the farthest corner, set amidst a thriving patch of flowers, were two gravestones. Celestia gestured Twilight forward.

“Posy,” Twilight read aloud. Her neck arched a little in shock at the name on the second marker. “And … Starswirl? But his tomb is in Canterlot! I’ve seen it!”

“It contains the ashes of what we burned on his pyre,” Celestia replied. “But it was not his body. At his request, I held my own funeral out here and cremated his real body. He didn’t want any future evil sorcerers to break into a well-known tomb try to use his remains in dark magic rituals, so when he knew he was dying he revealed that he had spent years growing a fake skeleton out of calcium and other minerals and had clothed it in false flesh. I was never quite sure of the specifics to be honest but it worked for allowing ponies to mourn him without giving rogue spellcasters something to steal and use against those same ponies. The Canterlot memorial is just that: a memorial only. This is his final resting place, alongside the little earth pony I think he grew to love, in his own way. They were inseparable you see. Decades of living together and relying on each other will do that to ponies. When she died … that is when he began his unfinished spell.”

“The one I finished …” Twilight breathed, still staring at the carved names.

“It was the last piece of research he did into the Elements before mortality claimed him too.”

From one to another, another to one. A mark of one's destiny singled out alone, fulfilled.

Not for the first time, Twilight wondered what Starswirl had actually intended of that spell. This new information just provoked further questions she would come back to later, in quieter moments, when the weight of her wings and other ponies’ expectations made her question her own wording in how she had finished it and what ponies who came after her would think of her intentions for the magic.

Celestia’s eyes were fixed forward but unfocussed on the present, instead looking back at her own memories. “When he died, a caravan of wagons came here. I thought them gypsies but they were nomadic hedgewitches who had come to honour Posy and the pony who cared for her. They and I were the only attendees at Starswirl’s true pyre. One of them was an elderly pegasus called Masquerade who claimed to be Posy’s relative. She planted the first flowers here on their graves. It has become a tradition since then for me to come and plant a new one each year.”

“That’s a nice tradition,” said Twilight, instantly feeling idiotic at the banality of the words. How was she ever supposed to make speeches to nations and other world leaders if that was the best she could do during solemn moments?

“I kept track of the family line after that, as I did with the Founders. Posy had no children of her own but I wanted to honour her bloodline as much as I was able anyway. The hedgewitches eventually died out, mostly from settling down and intermingling with ponies in established communities across Equestria. Masquerade’s line migrated up to Cloudsdale, which isn’t very surprising. What did surprise me was when the latest pony in the bloodline showed a proclivity for aspects of hedgewitchery that have not shown up for generations – and that she moved back to the ground, the traditional home of hedgewitches.” Celestia’s gaze slid to Twilight. “Specifically, animal language and Ponyville.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped. “Fluttershy?”

“Distantly but yes. I think Luna suspects, though she has not asked me to confirm it and I will not volunteer the information until she does. The resemblance is certainly uncanny. Given Posy’s omission from most historical archives, I doubt Fluttershy herself knows.”

Twilight was not sure what to think of this information. She gawped at the ground for a moment, trying to absorb it. She looked at the gravestones again, reading them over while processing all she had learned since Celestia fetched her from her bedroom earlier today. There was a line of text under each name on the gravestones, clearly etched by unicorn magic and ensorcelled to not wear away over time.

“Here lieth Posy, she of the woods and hedges, greatly missed in every second the silence be not filled with the sound of her voice and hoofsteps,” Twilight intoned. “Here lieth Starswirl the Bearded, mage, friend and father, though he admit to that affection only in death, now reunited with C-Clover and … and P-Posy.”

“Twilight?” Celestia stepped closer to her.

“I’m sorry, it’s just …” Twilight brushed furiously at her wet eyes. “It’s all so sad.”

“It is that.” She laid a hoof over her former student’s withers. “It is indeed that.”

“Was … was Posy ever happy again?”

“In her own way. But I will not lie to you, Twilight: her pain over Luna’s betrayal was a wound that never, ever healed. Not all stories have satisfying endings.” Celestia’s ears laid flat. “Nor neat and tidy ones. Sometimes the ending of a story makes you question the validity of everything that happened within it.”

“Why did I need to know these things, Princess? Could you not have just … told me the truth about Luna and the Founders and the Elements … and left out the rest?”

“I could have. Do you think I should have?”

Twilight’s own ears folded back. “No. No, I don’t. Even if wider Equestria doesn’t know it … someone has to remember those ponies.” Her eye was drawn again to the sad little graves with their meagre markers. “And what they went through.”

She felt the tingle of Celestia’s magic as the book levitated up to her face again. “Finish reading, Twilight.”

“Wh-what?” Twilight’s brow furrowed in confusion. “I read it all, Princess.”

“Look at the back page.”

Twilight accepted the book into her own telekinetic field. She had stopped when she reached the end of Starswirl’s writing and seen it was followed by nothing but blank sheets of paper. At the very back, however, pressed flush to the worn cover, was a page with fresh writing on it. Twilight could tell at a glance that this was much newer and had not been penned by the same pony. It had none of the flourishes of Starswirl’s penmanship, instead being rather scratchy, as though whoever wrote it was unused to holding a pen anymore.

Twilight stared at it, then at Celestia.

“I gave her the book when she returned and offered to let her keep it in Canterlot. She opted to leave it here, with them.” Celestia nodded at the graves, which Twilight now noticed were not nearly as overgrown as they should have been for their age. Somepony had been diligently tending the flowers there, encouraging them to grow healthy and strong. Nearby, fresh seedlings had been planted and were just beginning to poke through the turned soil. “She spent much of her first year recovering from her imprisonment. Being here brought her comfort; allowed her to regain her strength and confidence before returning to public life. Did you not question her absence whenever you visited Canterlot to see me? Nor her changed appearance when she came to Ponyville for Nightmare Night?”

Twilight felt like she was supposed to say something profound and meaningful but all she could do was press her tongue to the roof of her dry mouth and try to force sounds out.

“I wasn’t sure it was a good idea at first but … I think it been benefited her in the end. Brought her some closure.” Celestia sat down in the dirt and loam. Her white fur was instantly stained but she seemed not to care. “I love my sister, Twilight. She is my family. I have missed her more than I could ever put into words and I am grateful beyond reason to you for bringing her back to me – and for helping her to heal after her return. Becoming her friend, forgiving her past indiscretions, welcoming her into your life and the lives of your friends … she is my Luna again.” With a start, Twilight realised that tears glistened in Celestia’s eyes. “The Luna I remember from when we were foals, before we lost our family, before the Elements changed us and before we took on the burden of ruling a country that wasn’t even sure it was a country yet. I see some of that pony shining in her eyes again now. There is still a lot of healing to do but … you have given me hope that it can be done. That we can be a true family again.” She paused. “That I, too, can be forgiven for what I did.”

“Oh … Princess …”

Celestia cleared her throat. When she spoke again, her voice was rusty, as if reciting lines from a play last performed long ago. “Wouldst thou sit with me a while?”

Twilight blinked at her. She was about to question the sudden switch to old Equestrian, but in that same moment what Celestia wanted from this exchange clicked in her mind. She drew in a breath. “There is yet much work to be done.”

“I am aware. I ask not for the whole day. Only a while.” Celestia looked up at the night sky and the stars arranged in the pattern of a trio of flowers. “My friend.”

Twilight placed the book down on the grass and sat beside her. She looked once more at the last page but said nothing. There was nothing left to say in this moment. There would be time later for words. For now, she joined Celestia in watching the sky.

A light breeze ruffled the old paper of the book, half concealing the words written there.

My Posy.

I never deserved you and I shall never forgive myself for what I did to you. I wish I could tell you that I returned your love even from the dark place to which I went. What little there was left of me in the Nightmare loved you even at the end. I wish I could hold you now and give you the life you should have had. I wish I could take away the pain you felt. I have a million wishes for you, yet I can grant none of them. So instead, I shall honour those wishes and you with a new constellation; the first in a thousand years. I hope ponies make wishes on those stars and find the happiness we did not.

Sleep well, my Posy. I love thee still and shall until I do see thee again.

Your Luna.

Author's Note

The second half of the previous chapter and this epilogue are the only parts of this story written in 2020. With that, I close out this story that took one week to start and seven years to finish. I hope y'all enjoyed reading it, I certainly enjoyed finally finishing something for a change.

Next up, Playing With My Heart.