Midnight Hour [Fall of Equestria ANTIDOTE story]

"'Moon slut'?" Whisper Blue's lip curled as Silver Song told her everything she had seen, and Crystal Clear rubbed her forehead to get the mental image of the guards abusing their mare co-workers like that out of her mind.

"I never got to see where the Princesses were kept, but it's clear that they are being used as slaves for this 'King Dainn'" Silver Song confirmed, "We didn't see him either, apparently he was busy with a meeting with some sort of Council. None of the Princesses are ruling, none of them are supposed to have their titles, but the ponies seem to bring up the titles almost as a habit. Princess Cadence is in the Crystal Empire, Princess Twilight I don't know ... and Princess Celestia and Princess Luna ..."

"Are there" Whisper looked over her shoulder towards the Castle, her heart hardening as they knew exactly what they must do. Crystal Clear, however, asked the important question.

"Who are the Caribou? I've heard of deer like King Aspen, I've heard of the Reindeer who can wield magic, but Caribou?"

"They are from the absolute North, a land East of the Crystal Empire like the tour guide said" Whisper Blue explained, pulling on the knowledge she had gathered from the IlLUNAnati's library and some scant references in obscure books from the Royal Archives, "The last time they contacted ponies was before the Princesses, before even the uniting of the three tribes ... I did not think they would wish to visit Equestria, let alone take it over. As far as I know, Princess Celestia had sent a party to try and locate their land after seeing them mentioned in an old tome, but found nothing, and had assumed they simply didn't exist or were so isolated they couldn't be contacted. Little wonder this invasion came as a shock"

"Are they like Reindeer?"

"They ARE Reindeer, technically. From what I have read, the Caribou are larger than the Reindeer that we know, they are stronger, longer fur for the harsher land they come from. They don't use their horns for magic, they do have it, but how they use it I don't know"

"There were stones in the Throne Room" Silver Song mused, "Dark coloured rocks with glowing carvings on them. I can't tell what magic they had, if any, but there was something about them I didn't like"

"A magic that we might not know about, then" Crystal Clear worried the inside of her lip with her teeth, "That ...we'll have to deal with when we come to it. You said that you saw a sign that there was a version of us here?"

"Yes, the masonry in the Guard's Room had a sign. But the entranceways didn't seem to have been moved or disturbed. If we have the same enclave here, then it's still sealed. There might not be a hidden society here"

"We'll just have to find out, won't we ... "

There were a few ways to get into the enclave in their world, it all depended on the best way to slip by the guards unnoticed, or on how they would be able to get in. Silver Song was able to fly to high doorways, Crystal Clear could use her magic to unseal barriers, and Whisper Blue ... just had to be not seen, really.

Considering the state of the Castle, they all decided that simply slipping in and using a main entrance was not feasible. It would call for entering from the outside, taking a risk that the guards patrolling the outer walls wouldn't see them, but it was a smaller risk than trying to enter.
Their cloaks had been charged in moonlight before leaving their world, but they noted that it felt like it would not last as long here, the moon feeling slightly different, possibly due to the different way that Princess Luna turned back from Nightmare Moon. Whatever the reason, they had a small amount of time to use it to get into the enclave, and they wanted to use the rest of their time using to rescue the Princess.

"I'm scared" Crystal Clear admitted, clinging onto Whisper Blue as the two stood at the top of the riverway snaking through Canterlot's mountains. The river spilled out over the edge of a cliff at the mouth of a cave, joining the much larger streams that tumbled from the higher altitudes above them. They chose this river over the larger ones, as the larger ones were rougher and harder, pushing the risk of drowning even further.

"I know" Whisper Blue said, more or less saying that she also felt fear without saying it out loud, "We will be okay. We just need to be unseen, then we will reach the fall, and our Brother will catch us and take us inside"

Almost on cue, Silver Song flew past them, his passage invisible to most ponies but themselves, as they could see someone cloaked in the IlLUNAnati's garb as clearly as they could see the waxing moon in the sky. It was a sign that Silver Song had gone ahead and made sure there was an entrance to the enclave in the same place as it was in their world, and would be ready to catch them.

"This is it" Whisper Blue nodded, waiting until Silver Song disappeared again towards a waterfall that ran down the side of the castle, fed from the rivers of Canterlot Mountain to tumble into the plains below. These waterfalls fed the plumbing of the city as a whole, as well as the Castle, and there many passages that simply weren't guarded or watched. One place was the aforementioned waterfall that had an entrance behind it, hidden by the rushing waters and would never be found normally. It also made it pretty much inaccessible.

Unless you had a plan.

Crystal Clear cast a small bubble around the mouth and nose of herself and Whisper Blue. Just enough air inside to let them breathe for a few short minutes underwater, but no more. They couldn't risk having someone detect in-use magic from Crystal Clear's horn whilst they were swimming. Carefully, they leapt down the fall, keeping their hands clasped firmly together to make sure one did not drift away from the other.

The shock of the cold water had to be overridden to stop them involuntarily gasping all the air in their bubbles already. Once in the water, they allowed the currents to sweep them along, taking them to the waterfall on the other side. Squeezing Crystal Clear's hand to indicate when the drop was coming, they braced themselves as the waters picked up speed, their vision nothing but swirling white bubbles and the world suddenly dropped underneath them.

Crystal Clear's heart leapt into her throat, she almost screamed, and probably would have done if she didn't suddenly feel Silver Song's arms grab her and Whisper Blue, stopping their fall as his wings beat frantically with the effort of carrying all three of them.
He quickly brought them over to the algae-covered wall behind the waterfall, pressing his elbow onto a slab of rock as Crystal Clear and Whisper Blue did the same with their hands. Thankfully, the rock slide aside with the touch of the three ILUNAnati members, and they all tumbled inside just as the slab started to close again ...

"I can fully believe that no-one has been here in many a century ..." Whisper Blue noted as they made their way to the enclave, wrinkling her nose at the smell of dust and neglect. Crystal Clear cast a small light spell on the end of her horn until they finally reached the enclave, noting that the moonlight torches automatically lit up the moment they entered, activated by their cloaks. Cobwebs and star spiders littered everything, and it took her back to when she was first brought into the ILUNAnati by Whisper Blue herself.

"Do you think the abandonment was the same in our world?" Silver Song wrung out some water from his sodden wings, thankful that he would not need to use that entrance again for a little while.

"Very possibly" Whisper Blue made her way over to a lectern with an open book, noting that the past members had written very much the same messages as their world's past members. The fall of the Princess, lamenting how blind and useless they had been ... It was almost like reliving the past in strange bodies, and with a nightmare playing upstairs in the main castle.

"I wonder where we are. I mean, this world's version of us ... Do we simply not exist?" Crystal Clear broached the obvious question, "If we exist ..."

"I don't want to think about it!" Silver Song quickly interjected, "I don't want to know if I'm like the stallions we've seen ... Oh, stars, I don't want to know ..."

"First thing's first" Whisper Blue said, shutting the book on the lectern and sending dust into the air, "We must dry ourselves and make this place fit for our purposes, and for visitors. And then ..."

"Then we will rescue Our Princess ..."