Weapons of War

Twilight Sparkle trotted inside canterlot castle on her way to meet with the Princess of the Sun, her number one assistant waddling behind her with a pile of books about Equestria’s ancient history in his claws.

The sight was familiar to anyone having ever worked in the castle, and no one would have ever minded it before. But last week, Twilight Sparkle had ascended as an alicorn and was crowned princess. The new princess now had her fair share of maids and guards bowing to her, despite her insistence that she was still just Celestia’s student and that they shouldn’t treat her differently.

Today, her mind was set on something else. Her ascension came with lots of perks that proved rather pleasant. While most ponies would love to swim in the literal pools of bits in the royal vault, the access to the extra restricted section of the royal library proved to be much more interesting to Twilight.

During her research in this whole new section full of books she’s never read, Twilight came across interesting information about the weapons of the Princesses. She knew that Celestia and Luna used to wield powerful weapons but most descriptions of them showed an axe or a hallebarde for Celestia and a spear for Luna.

However, she discovered a book about a strange sword that could transmutate itself into different weapons. The same book called it a Regalia; a symbol of royalty. It must have belonged to the Princesses. After looking into other pre-celestial era history books, Twilight found mentions of other weapons and even a grimoire, all referred to as Regalia! She had to ask the Princess as soon as possible, and so she was trotting with her number one assistant to the Sun’s private study.

Arriving in front of Celestia’s office, where two celestial guards were standing, Twilight and Spike took a break, the latter needing to catch his breath, given the physical effort of following the new princess around with so many books. “Did you really need me for this Twilight?” complained Spike. “Couldn’t you have let me sleep a bit, it’s been three days since I’ve had a full night's sleep. You should rest more as well.”

“I don’t need sleep, I need answers,” declared Twilight. “It just doesn’t make sense, I get that history can change a bit but these are completely different Regalia from the most accepted ones, there must have been a time where the Princesses had dozens of those weapons if the books are anything to go by,” she rambled on excitedly, before sighing. “Look, Spike, I’m sorry I dragged you into this. I’ll talk to the Princess myself, you can go back to my room and sleep a bit, okay? We’ll pack our bags later before going back to ponyville.”

“Sure thing Twi,” said Spike with a yawn. “See you in the morning, then,” he announced, departing in the direction of their room, leaving the new Princess alone with the two stoic guards.

“Princess Twilight,” welcomed one of them. “Princess Celestia is expecting you, you can go in.”

Twilight nodded in confirmation and opened the door with her lavender magic. The inside of Celestia’s study never appeared to change, no matter how many times she entered the room. The single bookshelf full of Celestia’s personal collection of books sat opposite from the seemingly perpetually lit fireplace. Celestia herself was sitting on a pile of pillows in front of the fireplace, reading a book. Twilight was surprised that her teacher wasn’t sitting at her desk as usual. Usually, the Princess would be at her desk if they needed to talk about Twilight’s research, the pillows were reserved for tea time and such.

“Oh, Twilight, I’m glad you’re here. You took your time so I made myself comfortable if you don’t mind,” stated Celestia as Twilight closed the door behind her.

“Not at all, Princess!”

“I told you many times already; you and I are equals now, you can drop the ‘princess’ title and just call me Celestia,” remarqued the sun Princess. “Now, why did you want to see me? Your letter just told me that you had questions about our history.”

“Sorry,” sheepishly apologized Twilight. “And yes, I had some questions about Regalia.”

Celestia looked at her golden peytral and gave a quick glance towards her crown. “What about them?” she asked curiously.

“Not those, I mean these,” said Twilight as she levitated one of the books she brought to the princess and opened it to an illustration of a mighty golden hallebarde. “We don’t know much about pre-celestial era times and weapons just like that — all called Regalia too — appear in a number of ancient books. What’s up with that? Did you and Princess Luna have the need for so many weapons?”

Celestia’s mood fell visible. “Oh my dear student— No, I guess you’re not my student anymore. As I said, we’re equals and you have the right as a princess yourself now to know,” declared Celestia. “Come and sit down with me,” she offered.

Twilight trotted next to her mentor and sat on the pillows, deposing her pile of books near them. The alabaster alicorn dropped a wing on the smaller lavender princess. “You see Twilight, do you remember what I told you when you ascended?”

“You mean your lullaby?”

Celestia blushed lighty. “No, after that,” she said with a chuckle.

“You said that I had created new magic?” guessed Twilight after some reflection.

“Exactly. You see, the ascension to alicornhood never was a secret, it is just forgotten because of how rare it became over the millennia.”

“But, that is so vague of a requirement! There must have been so many alicorns in the past!”

“Well, yes, there used to be more of us, and if the stories I’ve been told are true, there even used to be a civilisation full of alicorns,” simply stated Celestia, making Twilight froze from shock. “Don’t look at me like that, there are some things even I don’t know, and what happened before my time is one of those things.”

“But you’re almost two thousand years old!”

“Are you calling me old, Twilight?” indignantly asked Celestia.

“What? No!” panicked Twilight.

A silence fell into the room for a moment before Celestia exploded into laughter.

“I’m sorry Twilight, you should have seen your face ahah,” chuckled the sun Princess, which helped remove the fake tension.

“Luna was right, you really enjoy mean jokes like this,” pouted Twilight.

“Let’s go back to the matter at hoof,” proposed Celestia and continued without any response. “As new magic was getting rarer, some of us started to disappear.”

“Why was that happening?” inquired Twilight.

“Grogar was happening. He created magic to steal other’s magic but didn’t ascend. And so, he chose to hunt the alicorns instead,” responded Celestia.

“The Grogar? The father of monsters? I thought he was just a legend!” exclaimed the lavender alicorn.

“He wasn’t, unfortunately. He and his student were the reason the Regalia were made, it was during a time where the elements let themselves be used only on rare occasions by non-wielders, so we needed another way to defend ourselves.”

“But what are they exactly? And how many were there?” questioned Twilight.

Celestia shivered. “There were six. For the six of us who managed to live long enough to make them. They are powerful weapons made to channel our respective powers and help us defeat Grogar and his student.”

“Was he really such a threat?” sadly asked Twilight.

“We believed he was, both to us and to ponykind. His own power gave him so much control over the world that we had to respond with our own creations. A hallebarde that could shatter mountains, a bow that could pierce its target before the string on it relaxed, and four other weapons of such power were necessary to slow him down enough for us to come up with a plan.”

“A plan for what?”

“We couldn’t kill him, he and his student had made themselves into shadows that could never be erased and so we decided that the only thing we could do was to banish them.”

“How did you do it then?”

“Me? I didn’t do it. No, another alicorn, one of my dearest friends, had the idea at the time.”

“Who was it?”

“Gusty the great, alicorn of enchantments.”