Author's Note

Thanks for giving this story a chance! It's my first commission, and it's setting up to be a longer fic. I hope it lives up to everyone's expectations, especially wildredlifer's

Call of the Empty Courtroom

The Lord of Ponydom, First Stallion of State, His Most Fiery Majesty, Attendant to the Moon, Supreme Ruler of the Lands of the Oldest Meadows, Overseer of the Courts Most High, First Place winner of the Biannual Hayburger Swallowing Contest for eight years running, Second Highest in the Courts of Discord, Tea, and Comedy, and Crown Prince of Friendship, was deathly bored.

He raised his hoof to catch the large red rubber ball he had just tossed against the pillar to the left of the single throne he was laying in, the one he'd had installed to replace the two that had sat here years ago.

He paused at that thought, kicking his hind legs idly as he held the ball between his front hooves. He then sat up and hopped off the large chair. He looked over the tall back, made of white painted oak and plush indigo cushion, then at the gold base.

Absently he scratched at his mane, long and flowing as compared to the previously rough-cut style he'd kept since being old enough to be bothered about it. The front of his mane, the part that he'd used to cut ragged in an effort to keep out of his eyes while trying to read, had smoothed out and began to wrap around his head in a way he wasn't sure he liked but also wasn't sure what else to do about.

"Hey, Spike?" he called out, startling the dragon out of a comic book.

"Yeah Dusk?" the dragon called back, his voice barely an octave deeper than it had been years ago. His voice was actually the source of some light teasing between the two brothers, even though Dusk Shine's own was hardly a couple lower.

"Do you think I should replace my chair with something more personal?"

Spike groaned loudly, running a paw down his face before grabbing the other half of his comic and burying his nose between the pages, pointedly ignoring Dusk.

"I know, I know," Dusk said, waving a hoof through the air as Spike raised an eyebrow, but not his gaze. "This one was custom made out of a mix of the Sister's thrones, Celestia's base and Luna's cushions. But, I mean, come on now. I'm not just a stand-in for those two, I'm supposed to be a Prince in my own right! I'm not just ruling because they told me to, but because they believe in me! Because-"

Spike blew a long, wet raspberry, his ribbon-like tongue flailing in the air like a party horn.

"Didn't you decide that it was because Celestia wanted to own a fishing boat?" Spike said with a wry grin. "And Luna wanted to, what was it, '"find her muse", aka go through enormous amounts of stone trying to perfectly carve her moon without having to stop to do stupid things like attending Court'?"

"Hey," Dusk said with a frown. "Celestia said that last part, I figure she just wanted an excuse to make dirty comments to the other mares in the community without getting in real trouble."

"Ah, right right," Spike said with a grin. "Still, my point stands. You're here because they didn't want to be anymore, according to you."

Dusk blew out through his lips, letting the pseudo-raspberry reverberate in the empty room for a moment.

"Regardless, I'm the Prince now," he said, rolling his hoof through the air in front of his chest. "And regardless of what ponies think, I'm not just a replacement alicorn for the Sisters. I'm here to rule, for the good of all ponykind."

"And you're bored enough that you're talking about changing your chair, again," Spike said, flipping the page in his book. "Even though we've both talked about how that would be a waste of money and time, on top of not actually doing anything for your image." He sighed as he let his arms go limp, resting on his legs. "I still say you should just paint it."

Dusk frowned, scratching the slightly, very slightly, longer fur on his chin.

"But what color?" he said absently, lost in thought once more.

Spike made a chuff noise, in the top of his throat, before returning to his comic again. "Purple," he deadpanned.

"Too easy," Dusk said immediately, Spike rolling his eyes. "Too... expected. Maybe... Maybe green?"

They both snorted in tandem.

"Dude," Spike said, closing his book. "If you're bored enough to get Rarity to try and assassinate you, you should go find something to do. We've got-" he glanced up at a clock, directly over the door, "about thirty more minutes to the day. Take off, I've got this empty room locked down."

Dusk Shine sighed, looking up at the clock himself.

"Are you sure Spike? I can make it, I guess I'm just getting antsy," he admitted, sitting on the heavy red carpet leading from the door to the throne.

"Well you're making me antsy, so beat it," Spike chuckled, taking a moment to get his feet under him and hop over to the bigger chair. "That system you worked out the second year works way too well, you know. If you're really this bored, you should think about asking them to let a few ponies through for ya."

Dusk sighed, letting his ears flick a bit as he thought about it.

"Yeah," he finally said, nodding. "I think I'll do just that. I'll talk to Mirror on the way to the kitchens, grab a snack, then head to the Lab. You got this?" he said, flicking his ears to Spike and giving him a thin smile.

"I got this," Spike replied, grinning.

Dusk nodded, standing. Stretching with a grunt, he popped his hips before quickly trotting up to the dais and giving Spike a quick hug.

Spike laughed, hugging Dusk back with both arms looping around his withers and squeezing for a moment, before smacking his paw against Dusk's shoulder. "Have the colts send me a snack, would'ya?"

"'Course Spike," he said with a grin, before jogging over to the door and pulling on the handle with a bit of magic. "Hit me up later if you'd like, you'll know where I'll be."

Spike waved a paw through the air, his nose already back in the comic.

Dusk slipped out into the hallway, nodding at the two guards who tensed when he poked his head out.

"Anypony coming up from the smaller courtrooms?" he asked one, a mare by the name of Gallant Mind he believed.

"No, Prince Shine," the mare said, dipping her head a bit before returning to her attentive pose.

"Good," he said, slipping the rest of the way into the hall and closing the door behind him. "Lord Spike is acting as regent for the rest of the Court's day; anything he says, within reason, goes. I'm heading towards the kitchens, then my lab. You two want anything?"

The second mare, Heartstrings, opened her mouth for a moment, before a sharp glance from her commander caused her to falter. "I believe we are alright, your highness," she said, instead of whatever her original request had been.

Dusk snorted, leaning over to stage-whisper, "Pot of coffee and two blueberry scones?"

Her muzzle burned bright red, Dusk chuckling as Gallant sighed.

"I'll have a chocolate muffin, if they have any left," she said, accepting her fate.

"Thank you, Prince Shine," Heartstrings murmured, abandoning her bearing to paw shyly at the ground for a moment.

"No problem," he chuckled, extending a wing to press gently on her shoulders. "Back to attention, though, before Gallant takes your head off."

With a smart clack of her hoofs, Heartstrings gave a quick salute before regaining her stance. Dusk took the moment to dip his head to both of the ponies, before making his way down the hall. "Don't drink too much, it's getting late," he called over his shoulder, chuckling at the crisp replies.

Dusk trotted happily along the plush, warm carpet he'd recently had installed. It had taken him a bit to synthesize the fibers he'd discovered, but the hooves of both him and the castle's staff were thankful.

He smiled at the familiar windows, depicting scenes of his friend’s and his victories and shining moments, including now that disaster of a coronation, the crown hanging sideways along his horn as his wings flared. He paused and ran a hoof over the first window that had him in it. He hung in the air, lifted by the magic of friendship, five mares surrounding and supporting him, all six glowing with power.

"How the time does fly," he said, wondering what exactly his friends would be doing back in Ponyville.

Considering it was a Thursday, almost all of them would be at work; Fluttershy being the only outlier, as her work took her all over the nearby forests at all times. Rarity, however, could be counted on being squarely in her boutique, likely with a customer at this very moment; perhaps in her designing room?

Pinkie was as traceable as she ever had been, but was hopefully at least in the area of the bakery's dining room. Cheese had recently moved in as well, the bakery doing well enough to have the Cakes move into their own cozy home, and he'd been learning more of the business from Mrs. Cake.

Applejack had recently moved Rainbow in her room, according to their letters to Dusk, the pegasus's cloud home newly anchored over the orchard fields carefully not blocking any sort of sun to the trees. AJ was definitely out among them, Rainbow assisting the weather team in between her Wonderbolts duties.

He paused at one of the windows he was passing, sighing when it looked into Canterlot instead of his adopted home of Ponyville.

It was hardly another moment before he reached the doors he'd been walking towards, the offices therein having been repurposed into the newly created Tiered Courts Offices, jokingly named TeaCo by many ponies and picked up by even more as they heard the name.

Dusk gently opened the door, pausing as the comfortably warm air washed from the room; scents of bergamot and chamomile and, heaviest of all, black tea, carried along through the hall.

The twelve ponies inside looked up from their desks, smiling and waving at Dusk.

"My liege," one of the ponies, one of a pair in the front of the room, called in greeting. The ponies in here did not share the enchantment on the guard and cleaning staff to uniform their appearance, this particular pony having a creme fur and chocolate mane. "How may we assist you?"

"At ease, my ponies," Dusk said with a smile around the room. Most of them nodded and returned to their desktops, each desk accompanied by a couple of chairs in front of them. "You have been doing a wonderful job, each and every one of you. A little too wonderful, as a matter of fact," he said with a small grin.

The creme pony frowned. "You want us to do... a worse job?" he asked, confused and worried.

"No no no! Not at all Pale Pages," Dusk quickly soothed. "It's just... Well, it's a bit boring over in the main courts at the moment, and I was wondering if you would, I don't know," he said, ruffling the mane over his neck with a hoof idly, "maybe go ahead and send the overflow to me?"

"Oh," the stallion said, scrunching his muzzle for a moment before smiling. "Of course my liege! Would you want us to screen them first, or just send them as they arrive?"

"As they arrive please," Dusk said, smiling gratefully at the gathering. "Or if they have something that's actually urgent, you can go ahead and send them on to me and Spike. Oh, but that's starting tomorrow, I'm heading to the kitchens now and then to my lab. Anyone have any requests?"

Collectively they declined, one of them requesting a snack until the time was pointed out, and Dusk returned to his walking the halls.

His mind turned to his recent experiments as he walked, equations and thaumic components surfacing and submerging as he strode through the stone archways that lined the castle. He picked up his pace a bit as he had a small breakthrough, a tiny path created by synapses that fired just so.

He was so immersed that he walked by the double doors of the kitchen, catching himself at an intersection and turning around, smiling sheepishly at the guard at the door.

"I'm heading to my lab a bit early today," he said, and the guard made a quiet, "ah," before using his rear hoof to open the kitchen. The chefs looked up from their stations, the head chef nodding his head in understanding before waving a hoof at an attendee and nodding towards Dusk. The mare nodded and abandoned their cutting board, wiping a hoof as she made her way to the Prince.

"Hello, your majesty," she said with a smile, dipping her head before cocking it to the side. "Dinner will be ready in an hour or so, but if you're here I'm thinking you want something to tide you over?" she half asked.

"Yes please," he said, blushing a bit as he returned her smile. "I'm heading to my lab, so something like a sandwich would be great. Oh, and could I have some stuff sent to the guards at the courtroom doors?"

He quickly conveyed the orders over and was standing in the doors for a grand total of a minute and a half before he was on his way once again, a nicely sized sandwich wrapped in brown waxed paper and a flat glass flask of juice balanced between his wing joints after having used a weak 'sticky' spell to keep them in place.

He was soon down the hallway where he had set up the teleportation portal. Nodding to the settings pony, the portal was quickly powered on and he was through, a brief prickling sensation playing over his hide as he walked from the gate in Canterlot through the gate in his personal castle in Ponyville.

"A bit early my liege," said a bored stallion without looking up from his newspaper.

"You know how court goes," Dusk said with a heavy sigh, taking his tiara off and tossing it at a hat rack next to the gate.

"Doesn't," the stallion said, flipping a page. "Do not disturb?"

"Uhm, friends only," he said, taking off the gold peytral and hanging it next to the crown. "But let messages through, I'm not doing anything that should be dangerous."

"Ten-four, your highness."

Dusk chuckled as he started to make his way through the more familiar halls of his crystal palace, taking a moment to stop in at the public library and make his presence known there before continuing the three doors down to his laboratories.

He poked his head in, a small class of ponies, griffons, changelings, dragons, yaks, and even a cat from Abyssinia looking up when he opened the door.

"Hey there Apple Bloom," he said. "How's class going today?"

As he finished his question there was a small popping sound, followed by the sound of breaking glass and the filling of the room with light gray smoke. The window was slid up by a pink glow, and the smoke quickly pushed out of the room to display a stone-faced pale yellow mare.

"Oh, its goin' alright," she said, her gaze wandering over the room until she saw a cracked glass beaker, a blushing green colt with lowered ears meeting her eyes. "Dunno how young Erlenmeyer here discovered how to make a smoke bomb out of vinegar and baking soda, but ah also never did figure out how Professor Sweetie Bell burns cereal, so ah guess life will retain its mysteries."

There was a quiet laughing in the room at the mention of their other mentor's cooking skill, the colt looking relieved as he joined in with the chuckles.

"Well class," Bloom said while clacking her hooves together, looking at a clock. "It's a bit early still, but if Prince Dusk Shine is here then he probably wants ta use his personal equipment, so we'll call it a day."

Dusk raised a hoof as he started to say that he could wait, but was drowned out by cheering as the class put away their equipment and stampeded through the door, several of the tiny creatures running between his legs as he let out several giggles from tickling ears and shifted to let some of the taller ones through.

"Ya'll be back tomorrow!" Apple Bloom called down the hall. "We gotta finish our classes on reactions ya hear!"

Only giggling chatter came back to her, and she sighed before looking up at Dusk with a smile.

"Well hey there, Prince Dusk," she said, something in her tone and eyes making Dusk sweat. "How nice to see your royal countenance today."

Dusk let out an awkward laugh, quickly broken off as he cleared his throat.

"I don't suppose you'd be lookin' for a," Apple Bloom pressed her chest against his, leaning on her back legs a bit for leverage, before fluttering her long, dark eyelashes up at him, "partner in today's experiment, are ya?"

He immediately craned his head away, his long horn scratching his back as he said to the ceiling, "You know your sister doesn't care for you teasing me, Bloom."

He listened to her laughter, clear and sweet in its joy.

"Ya, I know," she said, backing away from him and his thundering heartbeat. He sighed and made the mistake of lowering his head, freezing when he found her eyes bare inches from hers, her breath playing over his muzzle sweetened by mint and a touch of vanilla.

"It's just so easy," she said, giving him a quick peck on his nose and prancing down the hallway giggling.

"Tell Scoots and Sweetie I said hi," he managed to call out, his face crimson as she turned down the hall and walked away. He counted to three before he lowered his head between his elbows, breathing steadily and clearing his head before he walked into the lab, shaking off the last of his blush.

With a sweep of his magic he cleared away the table used for the classes held here, the legs folding under as the solid wood stacked itself on a far wall, as well as closing the window. With a turn of his hoof on a certain tile and a spark of magic, the floor lit before certain parts raised, his personal tables floating up and clicking into place. Beakers and papers floated out from each slot, organizing themselves on tabletops before the floor once more became solid.

He used his telekinesis to slide the food on his back onto what amounted to his lead desk, the same one Apple Bloom had been using. He felt himself flush again as he caught an errant whiff of her sweet perfume, one she distilled herself, before he shook his head and walked over to his current project.

As he moved his horn lit, in essence telling the room's magic what he had planned for the day. The tables arranged themselves as he needed, stacks of paper rearranging and components filing along as they came together in the center of the room. A crystal on the wall lit from inside, telling Dusk that the magic inside was recording his voice as intended.

"Alright," he murmured, looking over the last bits of the equations that appeared on a chalkboard at the head of the room. Nodding, he noted with surprise that not only had Bloom been able to conjure the equations somehow, but she had added notes on some of the chemical components he'd been using. Swiftly checking them over, he found them sound, and once again had to shake his thoughts from his head.

"AJ would kill me, then Mac would bring me back, then kill me," he muttered under his breath. "Plus she's probably only teasing me, plus plus she's in a sort-of-thing with Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle," he finished.

He glanced at the whiteboard again, semi-consciously floating over the flask of juice and sipping it before shaking his head again.

Turning his attention to the table, he bundled his reagents and floated over a professional distillation kit. Adding in a certain batch of ingredients to a glass flask, he took an absent bite of his sandwich before lighting the can of jellied alcohol and cracking the window once again for ventilation.

Swirling the mix in the flask, he used a bit of magic on the particles floating in the liquid to imbue them with a temporary thaumic register before placing it on a wire stand over the burning jelly.

Checking his notes, he watched the combination fully merge as the magic dissolved.

He waited for a full minute, carefully watching the clear mixture, before taking a live seed from the table. Taking a deep breath, he raised an aura shield in front of him before dropping the seed into the mixture.

Holding his breath, he felt his heart pounding again, his pulse racing as his entire concentration weighed on the crystal flask.

And then the seed burst, slowly, brown tendrils slipping from it and creating a network as a single sprout pushed out from the top. It pushed, pushed, pushed out, growing two leaves, then a bulb, then blooming out into a fully formed Gardenia.

Carefully Dusk lifted it from the stove, swirling it gently in the air as it cooled.

As he watched, the fluid remained clear, and as it cooled, the flower retreated into its bulb, the bulb returned to a stalk, the leaves returning, then the roots, and in a minute he once again had a full seed, still living.

He watched this part very carefully, for a full few minutes, before sighing and placing the flask back on the stove.

"Fluid does affect the flow of time as hypothesized," he said aloud, picking up a quill and recording the final results. "Flower was recorded to fully bloom when the liquid is being heated, with the process reversing as the liquid cools."

He paused, letting that sink in before a large grin broke out on his face and he started prancing in place.

"I've done it!" he cried, flinging his wings out as he cried, "I've created liquid time!"

He then frowned at the flower, once again growing out of its seed.

"Fluid seems to be supporting the subject's nutritional needs as well as augmenting its growth speed," he noted, looking down at the notes he was taking. "Further experimentation needed to determine the sources it's pulling from, as well as how far forward the subject could reasonably and sustainably grow."

Dusk set down his notes. He gazed out of the window as he let his thoughts filter through his mind, and let his magic unwrap the sandwich on the table. He took an absent bite, his ear twitching at a crystalline chime he heard.

Wonder if that's from another class, he thought absently, taking another bite before he dropped the wrapped food on the desk.

"Further experimentation should also test different materials," he dictated to himself, glancing at his notes before nodding at the clear script. "Possibilities include stone and wood, and should include testing on what happens as the material is moved back in time. Do they also return to their starting point? Do they go further, becoming pieces of unworked stone and living wood?"

He glanced to the side, looking a large, distended flower bulb right in its petals.

"What would happen to living organic material, such as a common lab mouse?" he asked the bulb, watching as it spread its petals to display dark, slightly glowing pollen. "Would it revert to a single cell?"

His brain kicked itself in the shins, and his eyes widened.

His eyes rocketed down along the stem of the flower, following it down into the glass flask, the liquid inside having reached a roiling boil. The seed had grown a massive root network, filling the glass and spilling out the fluid, which was rewinding the time it fell through before splashing on the desk, the wood there sprouting up tiny saplings that wilted before growing more than half an inch.

Dusk watched in horror as the spaces that the droplets fell through, while themselves were unaffected, seemed to start affecting anything that passed through them. He watched as one of the saplings made it just higher than its brothers before suddenly reaching one of these pieces of affected air, and turning instantly into dust, aged beyond existence.

"Oh buck," Dusk Shine murmured, reaching out with his magic unconsciously, reaching out with a spell he'd been practicing, a quick clean-up spell he'd been trying to make.

A spell that rewinds the last few seconds of time.

His magic touched the liquid in the flask, the liquid concoction of time he'd created, and everything he knew was white and noise and power.

He felt himself being blown backward, flying through the air blindly as his eyes flashed glimpses of color in between the white, of the same power he'd harnessed with his friends to vanquish Nightmare Moon, vanquish Discord, vanquish Chrysalis. He watched as it formed an orb around him, a cannonball of sorts.

And then it shrunk in on Dusk Shine before the walls collapsed and faded away before a sharp pain struck his spine and all he knew was darkness.

***** ***** ***** ***** *****

Dusk Shine groaned, the noise instinctual and rough, his eyes almost cramping as they tried to shut themselves even harder than they already were. He licked his lips, tasting blood and stone and dust, before forcing his eyes to crack open.

He found himself in a familiar room, though it was swimming too much for him to truly recognize it. He shook his head before wincing and letting out another low moan.

He reopened his eyes, again, then rolled onto his belly to try and take better stock of the situation.

His back complained mightily, but he was able to move so it wasn't broken. He raised a hoof and touched the back of his head, wincing and looking at the hoof. Luckily it was still dry, telling him that while he'd had a head wound, it had stopped bleeding at least. Still tender, but not bleeding.

Wiggling all of his hooves, and listening to the scraping they made on the dusty stone floor, he sighed in relief before slowly, slowly starting to stand.

He found himself on his legs, looking blearily around the large room he'd landed in. Looking around at the walls, he focused as much as he could to stop the image from swimming. He narrowed his eyes, not believing them at first.

"Did I get blasted to the original Castle of the Two Sisters?" he asked the area, his tongue a bit sticky in his mouth. Possible dehydration? How long had he been out?

He looked around the room again, looking for the hole he'd had to have entered through.

Strangely though, the walls of the room were mostly intact, though there was some rubble lying around from some destroyed pillars. He looked up, seeing a dusky sky through the hole he'd come to learn had been caused by Nightmare Moon. Wondering what time it was, he stretched his wings before forcing them through the air, flapping them twice before actually lifting up into the air.

He broke out onto the roof, skidding to an uneasy halt while his world spun for a moment, letting out a dry gagging noise as he forced his sandwich to stay down. This feat accomplished, he raised his head, looking for the mountain in the distance and the city, his city, on its side.

He found the mountain, that was easy. But to his horror, the city that was supposed to be there, wasn't.

"Oh Celestia," he breathed, trotting to the edge of the roof and looking closer, "did I knock Canterlot off the side of the Canterhorn?"

As he looked closer, though, he saw something that made his blood freeze.

Ponies, crawling over the stone outcropping that formed the base of the city, its natural seat. Glancing to the east, his eyes swept the horizon a few times before being forced to admit that the Ponyville clock tower, as well as the towers of his castle, just weren't there.

His mind whirled, going over the few seconds he remembered after seeing the flower growing out of the flask, going over his spell-form as he reached out to try and turn back the local time around the flask.

As the form was swept into the time magics swirling wildly, boiling in the flask.

"Oh buck," he whispered, his eyes gazing hard at the horizon where Ponyville should be.

Where it would be.

"No," he breathed, before chuckling. "No, it's not possible. Anytime now, I should be sent forward to where I was. That's the way the Starswirl time dilation spell worked, this shouldn't be any different. The duration may be longer, but it still shouldn't last much longer than a minute."

Dusk took the time to breathe in, forcing himself to relax and get a good look around while he had the chance to take in the past state of Equestria.

"Hey, there's the path the girls and I used to get to the castle," he said, following what seemed to be a large wagon trail. "Looks like it used to be an actual road, I guess for getting supplies into this castle.

"Oh Celestia, speaking of," he said, looking down at the Castle of the Two Sisters. "There's the hole I saw Luna blast into the castle when she missed Celestia."

Looking down into the room, he let out a small ah when he saw a large contraption in the room he'd missed, with a large marble orb on top of several fixtures. "And there's the vault she kept the elements on until they stopped working for her."

Flicking his tail, he sat still for another moment, then two, before sighing.

"I guess the liquid time concoction strengthened the spell beyond its normal constraints," he said, fluttering down into the room. "I might need a catalyst to get back to my time in that case. Time for some," he picked up a shard of marble, clearing away a patch of ground as he smiled, "diagnostics."

Using the rock he scratched sigils and arcane circles meant to capture and direct thaumic energy, setting up a complex spell network designed to let him know certain properties about himself.

Using his being, his essence, as a base, he set up the network to tell him when he would return to his time, and if he needed to supply anything to do so.

The spell fizzled, and he frowned.

"Alright, let's get less specific," he murmured, using his magic to heal some of the scrapes on the stone, now seeing if there was a shell around him, a tether to his time.

The spell fizzled.

Frowning, he erased most of the sigil and some of the circles, now just trying to reach an anchor into his own time.

The spell fizzled.

He stood, powering up his horn and attempting a simple divination spell, to when he and Spike were resting together in the throne room, what was less than an hour ago in his personal timeline. As he had first hoof knowledge of the event, it should have shown easily, like a memory.

The spell fizzled.

He slammed his hoof, indenting the marble he stood on, casting the spell and receiving the same result.

"It's happened," he said to himself, starting to pace on the carpet that was only recently starting to molder. "It has already happened, the only way I wouldn't be able to access that point in time is..."

He slowed, looking at the bare bones circle that should have returned the location of his time. Chewing his bottom lip, he made some more alterations before powering the sigils again.

This time, the spell did not fizzle but instead returned a result.

A negative.

"My time doesn't exist," he whispered. "It's gone."