Truth from Lies

Truth From Lies

Chapter 2

Revelations - Part 2

A thick layer of silence buried the room in its noise-nullifying blanket of nothing. Shining Armor stood before the ponies before him, utterly shocked by the ludicrously absurd revelation. Not a single word that came from the maw of Celestia reached his ears as he remained oblivious to the outside world.

Noticing his current state of shock, Shining regained his composure to deliver his response.

“You Majesty” Shining began, interrupting the rant of the princess he was speaking to. “Are you serious to tell me that you, the ruler of all of Equestria, gave birth to me?” The pale stallion lightly chuckled to himself. “You’re playing another joke on me, aren’t you?”

This remark puzzled Celestia. Shining Armor had been the soldier that had trusted every word that she said. Without question. Heck, when he was a recruit, he had believed her when she let slip that the drill sergeant had once had an affair with her. Not that it wasn’t true...

“Shining,” Celestia replied “I know this must come as a shock - the word shock being an incredible understatement - but the words from my lips are the absolute truth. I’ve hidden this from you for far too long, and this is a tale that must be told.”

Shining was aware of the seriousness in Celestia’s tone. The alicorn was only know to use such a tone in times of imperative matters that needed to be conversed about, or in situations of incredible disappointment. He had learned of the latter of the two the hard way.

But still, what she was proposing was outrageous! He had known his mother his entire life; Twilight was his sister, for pony’s sake! To say that Celestia was his mother was like saying Pinkie Pie had stopped eating cupcakes, at which point the world would promptly implode.

This new information was mentally jarring to say the least. The simple consideration of this theory contradicted everything that Shining knew was truth. But at the same time, Shining knew that there was something significant of this reveal. It was something that dug at his heart - something that he wanted to believe - but couldn’t.

“I’m sorry, your majesty. But what you’re proposing is something that is simply to outrageous to come to terms with.” Shining solemnly replied. “Now if you’ll excuse me, the are repairs that I have to oversee.”

With nothing more left to say, Shining Armor trotted out of the throne room of the Royal Sisters, leaving the two matriarchs behind, with only Cadence and Twilight to suggest the next course of action in this rising tension.

Celestia let out a heavy sigh of worry and disappointment. What had caused the stallion to act in such a way? Yes, the fact that Celestia had revealed that she was indeed Shining’s mother may have thrown the captain for a loop, but it was the absolute truth.

She had watched from afar, in the confines of her towers, always being forced to go into the affairs of whatever out-of-Canterlot dignitary had decided to “grace her presence”, as it were. The years were long and dull, and every day she hid the truth from the lightning-maned stallion, her heartstrings played an ever-more somber symphony.

The day that Shining had become Captain of the Royal Guard, Celestia couldn’t have been prouder to see a colt of his caliber in such a position of power. Midnight Shadow and Velvet Dusk had been just as proud that day, if not even more proud. Every fiber of her being screeched desperately to let the truth slip to the decorated soldier, but her fear of the results of her actions took advantage of her as they always had, and so the truth remained secret.

And now that Shining knew the truth, her feelings were now in a higher frenzy than they ever had been when this had been kept under wraps. The colt in question had just trotted out the door without another word, leaving the alicorn to contemplate what would become of the following minutes, hours, and even days afterwards.

Seeing her mentor distraught, Twilight decided to walk over to the matriarch to offer some words of comfort in what could be called a failure.

“Don’t worry, Princess Celestia.” Twilight offered her teacher. “It’s perfectly normal for somepony to go through reactions such as this when faced with a truth so shocking.” Her gaze steeled as she gazed down the rest of the throne room. The copping of hooves against marble rang out as Shining exited the building. “Just give it time. He’ll come around.”

‘I hope so, my faithful student.’ Celestia thought to herself. ‘I hope so.’

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‘This has to be a prank. There’s no possible way that I could be the son of the most powerful person in Equestria.’ Shining said to himself as he continued back into the town square. ‘I mean, my parents would’ve told me if I was adopted.’

The stallion halted in his movements. “Right?”

This had to be some kind of joke, like that time that Celestia had assigned him a “top secret mission” only for him to be a guest speaker at a Magic Kindergarten class. Fear for one's well being was redefined that day, not to mention that a new self-defense class was opened for newly-recruited soldiers.

Besides, the life that Shining had lived thus far was all that he ever knew. And now he had been told that this was all nothing more than... a lie? The stallion hadn’t the inkling of an idea what to think anymore.

But he still had a job to do. Tossing these worrying thoughts away, at least for now, Shining continued down the steps of Canterlot Castle, back to his mundane day job of overseeing the idiotic blunders of his cohorts.

Down at the base of the entrance to Canterlot Castle, Shining let out a sigh of annoyance at the sight of two unicorns, unicorns, fooling around with the plaster mixer. And had ended up becoming encased in plaster in the process.

‘As if today couldn’t get any worse.’ Thought the captain as he trotted over to the two blunder-heads to chisel them from their shells.

“What were you two thinking?” Shining berated as he sent the wedge into the casing of the unicorn.. Unicorns, as far as the studies he researched showed, were always the leading species of pony in terms of intelligence. Though some earth pony or pegasus would become a prodigy in aerodynamics or advanced mathematics every few years or so.

“Well, we had finished re-plastering the marble pillars at city hall, and we had nothing better to do.” The first replied as the stone around him began to crack.

“So, we decided to encase ourselves in plaster to see if we could break out. You know, since our sergeant is always telling us to test ourselves.”

The eyes of the colt stayed shut in utter embarrassment. He was always the one that got stuck with the bottom ten percent of every school in Canterlot. He knew ponies in the bottom ten percent from Appleoosa that were better than this!

“He meant to test yourselves on your own time.” said Shining as he broke the finally pieces of plaster from the unicorn’s bodies. “And not with a plaster mixer!”

With the two idiots now out of his jurisdiction (at least until their next mishap), Shining decided to head to city hall to see if the two had even done their assigned job correctly.

Arriving at the building, Shining began to thoroughly inspect the marble pillars of the construct, checking for any fractures, incomplete fillings and shattered pieces of stone. At the third pillar, the stallion hadn’t noticed anything potentially dangerous with the supports. The two unicorns, despite their IQ of eighty, had done an excellent job with the repairs.

Shining had never been so wrong.

Reaching the fourth pillar, a... peculiar sound began to trickle into the stallion’s ears. It was spine-tingling; eerily familiar but drastically worrying. Like the creaking of a slightly cracked door in the middle of the night. Like the pounding of drums in the climax of an orchestral composition. Like...

Fracturing stone that supports a building.

Shining Armor, instantly realizing the catastrophe in wait cried,“EVERYPONY, MOVE!”, already taking a grip on the pillars and awning of the governmental building with his magic. A plethora of ponies began to pour out of the building of marble in a panic as the stone holding the structure aloft continued to crack and break.

As the citizens within the surrounding area continued to evacuate, the pillars began to collapse on themselves, breaking into platforms and boulders within Shining’s grasp. At this point, the weight was going to overtake him, and the awning, and possibly the entire structure, would come to ruin.

Within a single minute, the ponies that had been inside the building had successfully been escorted from the premises with the stallion still upholding the tumbling structure. Already, four pillars had fully given way to the crushing weight of the full-marble stone slab above them, leaving the awning to fracture like the standings that used to support it.

Shining’s strength continued to grow weaker. The constant requirement of support sapped his physical capabilities. The aura surrounding the collapsing boulders flashed in weakness, vanishing once or twice before the colt took hold of the rubble again.

‘No! If this awning crumbles the building goes with it!’ Shining reminded himself.  ‘I can’t let this crumble. Even... if I...’

But alas, even through the desperate cries of his mental conscious, ordering him not to quit, his physical limitations said otherwise. For the final time, the aura of the captain faded from the crumbling structure, letting City Hall, pillars, awning and all, plummet to Equestria.

“Shining Armor!” exclaimed a voice as she galloped onto the streets where the occurrence continued.

Reawakened from his weakness, Shining’s eyes were brought to the attention of Princess Luna as she trotted up to the weakened stallion, supporting the falling rubble with her own magic.

“Quickly!” Luna ordered. “Thine magic should be able to restore the pillars to their original state. Make haste, captain! I cannot support these ruins forever.”

Shining Armor nodded in compliance. With the boulders of the building enveloped in her night blue aura, Luna began to stack the pillars back together, Shining using a replication spell to restore the shattered areas of the structural supports. One after the other, the marble cylinders continued to be reformed to their fullest state, the overlaying awning was finally stacked atop the pillars, the pale white stallion repairing the marble as he had its supports.

Fatigue soon took over Shining’s body. His forelegs trembled in weakness from the over-exposure to his body’s intense use of magic, bringing him to his knees in weariness.

Within the eyes of the weary stallion, unknown visions of events from times either long forgotten, or yet to be.

Fires flared on the grounds of what seemed to be a small town surrounded by fields of wheat set ablaze by their surroundings. The rooftops of surrounding homes turned to ash as ponies of all shapes, sizes and colors sprinted from the epicenter of the destruction in a panicked frenzy. Soldiers at the front lines of the battlefield engaged in combat with a plethora of timberwolves, manticores and even deadly prides of Chimera.

Luna had joined the ranks of the armored soldiers, valiantly combating against the threats that continued to ravage the village she was defending. Luna’s head shot towards the head of the battle, a shadow cobalt ray of light exploding from her horn. And at the front of the enemy lines, Discord, master of chaos and disarray, commanded his hordes of feral beasts of the forest. The incredible blast of energy from the Alicorn of Night simply pounced of the lion paw of the madman as his cackles rang out in the burning fields of violence.

With the vision fading away, Shining found himself back in reality, a crowd of those he had rescued gathering around the colt in burnout. The stallion heaved in weakness, his eyes on a swivel as they mirrored the gaze of those overlooking him.

“Shining Armor?” Luna inquired as she trotted up to the weakened soldier. “Is thou alright? Perhaps thou should’st take a leave of absence. Your duties to the city seem to be showing too much for thine body to resist.”

No. It was much more than simple hysteria and hallucinations. But Luna’s suggestion did provide an excellent opportunity for research...

“Maybe you’re right, your Majesty. I think I’ll be taking my leave now.” Shining replied, picking himself off the pavement. “Do notify my squad and my second in command that I’m taking a leave.”

Luna nodded her head in reply before flapping her wings and taking back to the skies, while Shining began to gallop as fast as his legs would carry him to the only section that had any information on what the vision had revealed to him.

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‘Ruins of Discord, History of Discord... Anatomy of Discord?!’ Shining thought to himself as he frantically searched the Starswirl the Bearded section of the Canterlot Libraries. After all, being Captain of the Royal Guard did come with its perks, and that included total access to every chamber, hallway, nook and cranny of the castle. And that meant every chamber.

Of course, Shining had been brought up right, and thankfully, absolute power, much like the Royal Sisters (to an extent) didn’t corrupt absolutely.

The stallion continued to trot through the annals of the library as his eyes scanned shelf after shelf for a sign, a clue to what was happening to him. Starswirl had recorded nearly five-hundred tomes in his lifetime. He must’ve written something about the reign of Discord!

Finally, his skittering pupils came to halt at the sight of the record he sought.

“Days of Chaos: The Wars of Discord”

This was exactly what Shining needed. Without a second to waste, the knight plucked the tome from the shelves of the case that held it and teleported to the nearest table in the next instant. The pages flew open in a flurry of paper, coming to a stop at Chapter 8: The Fields of Mephiles.

I had never seen such a massacre before in my life. Spoke the words of the deceased Starswirl through the writing in the work. The fires which consumed the wheat fields were unrelenting in their never-ending consumption of our surroundings. I had stayed behind to deliver support for as long as I could, assisting Princess Luna against our opposition.

Hordes of soldiers, from both the Royal Equestrian Army and the League of Discord, continued to slay each other and trample their bodies into the dust. Metal clashed against the claws of the beasts  assaulting the lines of warriors, spilling a river of blood across the battlefield.

The battle raged on, the ringing of steel never leaving my equine ears for the battle’s entirety. The corpses of both armies pilled atop each other in rapid succession, until the equines of their majesties ultimately drove away the League, though failing to defeat Discord.

His General, Mephiles, had been slain in the confrontation by the Princess of the Night. A great triumph has come from this, but was it worth the slaughter of innocent ponies in cold blood? This violence has to cease. The constant cycle of bloodshed, burials and burnings will bring nothing but ruin to the world as we know it. I can only hope that my journey shalt not be in vain, but even with Luna’s Eye, I cannot be certain whether or not it will reveal to me the location of the Elements of Harmony.

Luna’s Eye. The name buzzed in Shining’s mind like a hornet ready to strike at its aggressor. He had heard sailors mention the item multiple times in his travels to the Zebrican Islands.

From Shining could recall, Luna’s Eye was an item that was once owned by Starswirl in the times of Discord. The legendary artifact had been created from a shard of the moon by Princess Luna had presented as a gift to Starswirl for his heroic deeds in the Hippogriff Trials. The item was rumored to reveal any truth that the user could be questioning, even those of events far behind or yet to come.

However, the artifact had been lost within the mists of time, thought to be destroyed by its first and only use by Starswirl. The stone could reveal anything known, or unknown, to ponykind, but the revelation of locations required power beyond its parameters. When the ancient wizard has used this to locate the Elements of Harmony, it had been obliterated in the process. But Shining couldn’t simply throw this rumor to the wind. This was his best, maybe even his only chance to discover the truth of his heritage.

With this knowledge in hoof, Shining Armor took the tome from the table as his magic sent it back to the indention it had left. The stallion had a long and winding journey ahead of him, but one question continued to haunt him.

Is this really what I want?

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The luminescent  light of Celestia’s sun had finally vanished below the horizon. The pale glow of Luna’s moon, accompanied only by the dimly glimmering stars above, filled the night with a lightly arctic cool that lulled the city into a wavering state of hypnosis.

The high-class aristocrats and always bickering bureaucrats had long since gone to their penthouse suites and alabaster mansion to rest their heads, finally allowing the streets to be flooded with the children of night-life, alcohol and dubstep.

The pounding bass and wubs from the speakers of every club in Canterlot shook the cobblestone walkways, even through the muffling effect of the windows set up at the buildings.

In a much higher location, however, two ponies slept together peacefully, both trying to recover from the events that the day had brought forth. Inside their private tower, the princess and the soldier slept soundly in the chilled caress of the night.

Well, one the slept, at least.

The moment finally opportune, Shining’s eyes shot open as his conscious state of mind flooded back into his system. In his days regulating the criminal levels within the Saber Tundras, the stallion had been taught to awaken at any given moment, at the slightest movement of any given object. Thankfully, the blasting bass and near-exploding speakers shaking every inch of the ground did just that.

Shining Armor slowly rose to his feet, carefully plucking himself from under the gentle wing of Cadence as he chest rose and fell in absolute solace. The alicorn was simply so at peace, it tore Shining Armor to shreds to have to leave her. But this was something that he had to go through on his own. He didn’t want anyone else getting hurt because of his desire for truth; if that happened, he would never be able to forgive himself.

Out from under the velvet covering of the sheets, the pale colt trotted over to the desk that he had brought into the tower ever since repairs on the city began. Taking out a lone scroll, a pool of ink and a quill, Shining began to write the note his rose lover would find come the morn.

To Cadence, Twilight, Your Majesties, and whoever else it may concern

This sudden event of my unexplained disappearance is shocking to all of you but I have my reasons. First, Cadence, I’m terribly sorry that I had to leave you behind for my own desires, and I love you so much. But I can’t allow myself to see you hurt, so I couldn’t allow you to accompany me in my journey.

Second, Twilight, I plead to you not to follow. My destination and course that I have plotted out winds through territories controlled by atrocities that only I’ve witnessed, and wished that I could forget. The risks that I take ahead are far too great to you allow you to take, so for both your good and mine, stay behind with Princess Celestia.

And Princess Celestia, I’m sorry to disappoint you by taking a course of action such as this. I am sure that you wish to tell me everything that I am searching for yourself, but this is something that I must find for myself. You’ve always told me to chase whatever I desire, and I know pursue the truth of my origins. Please... don’t deny me this. If I truly am your son, you will allow me this; this answer to the most important question in my life.

I promise that I will return once this question has been answered but for know, I must go to find who I really am. Forever a soldier of the Equestrian Military and Royal Canterlot Guard

Shining Armor

With his message set in the black ink of his medium, the aura around the feather faded into the darkness of the room as it floated back down to the desk. Shining Armor looked back at the message that was to be left for those he loved; his discharge from the safety of Canterlot as he into the hell-holes that continued to haunt him to this very day.

The parchment rolled into the scroll that was to be left behind, and the stallion began to trot over to a large wooden trunk that he and Cadence had owned since they had been foals. It was originally a toy chest that Shining had owned, one that Cadence had restored from the years of abuse that the stallion had given it. Inside, Shining had stored their most precious possessions inside the case.

Taking in a breath of calm, the memories of pasts long forgotten flooding back, Shining lifted the covering of the chest, finding the silver armor of his early years in the military where he had left it all those years ago.

Within minutes, the stallion was garbed in the metal of the past. Inside the armor, a lone map, covered in dust, lay inside a hidden hold in the undercoating of the armor. Turning back to the bed, Shining wandered over to the alicorn in deep slumber.

As a final gesture, Shining knelt down to the sleeping mare, gently pecking her forehead in good-bye.

With his final farewell delivered, Shining Armor let his magic seep through his system as his body sank into the floor.

And so his journey for truth begins.