At The End

Mark and Jack were still outside. The later embracing the former, trying to calm his fears. I knew all too well what Mark was feeling. Not wanting to be alienated by your own family because you dared to help a stranded princess in need of help, now your good deed must not go unpunished.

I moved away from the door and back into the throne room where Discord and the Doctor were both still working on figuring out who the Shadow was.

Last night, I had met with a strange bat named Squire Bottoms. A funny name but nothing that was worth mocking. If anything, Squire had been rather pleased to call me Fire Fly. Maybe that was why Mark was even more worried. I mean… being called Fire Fly by another pony felt kinda nice. Maybe Mark was right. Maybe Galaxia too, using too much magic and identifying as one of the locals here may put me and the other in jeopardy.

I would need to talk with Mark later about his family issues. Also to convince him that I had no intention on staying here. If we could get home, I would be there with them.

Discord and the Doc were not much help while I sat with them. They had spent the entire night working and fawning over the books that were left. Their pile was growing shorter and shorter. Twilight had asked her friends to start checking the old archive, maybe they would have more luck.

I had also spoken to Chrysalis with Twilight. The two were a little unsure of what to say to each other. Twilight was the one to apologise first however. She had attacked the poor creature without any clear signs of aggression. Chrysalis and Twilight had shared very little together, but they were willing to help each other out.

Learning about who Chrysalis was, was a perfect opportunity to try and get some information from her on what was going on. She had been ordered by the Shadow to replace Spike and have him placed in the dungeons.

Twilight had expressed the urgency of rescuing her adopted baby brother as well as the rest of her family. It was agreed that if the situation allowed, I would not hesitate to free her family with the rest of the State leaders that Twilight spoke of.

Chrysalis gave details of her mission, detailing that she was sure to be discovered and that she had been ordered to hold Twilight back from coming back. That surprised Twilight, she had said that her orders were a little vague but that she was ordered to either deal with the source of foreign magic, or to bring the source back to Canterlot as prisoner.

Delaying tactics? I had not expected such a thing, nor had I even begun to plan for that. However, from what Galaxia had said, maybe it was wise. We were obviously going to have a show down with the Shadow, but he was undefeatable according to Twilight and her friends. We needed a weapon, or something that we could use to stop the Shadow. But I had a feeling that it wasn’t as simple as what Twilight tended to say. There was something about this whole thing that didn’t make sense. The Shadow wanted to delay us, but why. If we were suppose to battle with the others surely he would want to fight us while we were still green, but maybe that was the problem. The technology of this world seemed… missing. Maybe the Shadow had no idea that we were here. Maybe he thought that it was Galaxia who was here.

If Galaxia was the real threat, then it would seem normal to want to delay the inevitable. But there had to be a purpose! Surely this was not an exercise in folly, the Shadow had shown no signs of idiocy nor was there anything here that screamed mistake! No...

The Peacocks. That was now twice that I had heard that name. The name had to be the key to this whole thing, I was sure of it. Or at least it would give us the identity of the Shadow, and that would be a huge boon for us.

I got Twilight and Chrysalis, who was still a bit sick, to come and help. Chrysalis did not seem like she wanted to help the Shadow any more than Twilight. She wanted to be free, and maybe this alliance and a gift of our friendship was the best we could give.

Jack joined us after some time. He had left Mark to relax and recover, explaining what had transpired.

Poor Mark.

I had no intention of alienating one of my best friends just because of what could end up happening. I was going to talk later, hopefully to get him to forget about Equestria and focus on the mission.

Hours passed and we were going through almost every register that the archive contained. I had even gone to the other chambers but they were being used as storage for mirrors, so nothing there.

We were running out of books before Jack finally struck oil!

There, in front of us, was a register of the old town prior to the rise of the Sisters. That meant that the register dated at least one hundred years before the death of the old King and Queen.

There were three Peacock families according to the book, one of them died out quite early on, the other two had continued well into the reign of the sisters. What was interesting was that the book detailed what each family member was doing at the year of recording. Herringbone Peacock, Plume Peacock and their child a son who was just called Peacock. Pony names were strange, almost like a title that they created when they were making a herd. That was Twilight’s theory anyway.

Herringbone was the farther and a builder, he worked for a construction company who worked for third party contactors for the government. Plume was the mother, she worked at the castle as an advisor to the royal family. She had been for over 15 years, the title read: spell caster. Twilight had explained that it was an old term to define old magicians of ancient times, the ones who wrote most of the spell books in this archive.

Starswirl the Bearded was one such pony that Twilight revered as a magic genius. She looked rather dreamy when she spoke of him.

There wasn’t much about the son, only that he was attending one of the schools on the north side before… well. The register gave no closure other than: Deceased in fire. So Twilight’s comment on their having been more than one fire within this town was accurate. The question now remained was what did they have to do with the Shadow.

I didn’t want to jump to conclusion, but my three helpers were more than happy to point out their hooves at Peacock. It did seem more likely that it could have been the son. But why?

With the information that we had accumulated now, we gathered the others to help us find more information on the family. There was a possibility that there could have been books here written by them, if anything, there should be some by Plume.

Mark had come down to join us late in the afternoon, his hair was ruffled and he bad some ice in a cloth atop his injured wing. Discord had magicked the ice up for him and Mark was thankful for it. Moving past us, I watched as he made his way down into the lower archive subsections. Watching him with concern, I made my move and followed him down, leaving Twilight and the others to continue to search for more clues.

He was standing by a larger book, a register of some kind. He seemed transfixed by the pages, barely acknowledging my arrival. He just stared at the pages of the book. We were in the mirror room, there no books here so I hadn’t even looked around before now.

I was glad to have such good night vision because seeing in the da rk was one of the better perks that came with this body.

“I’m sorry about earlier. I bet Jack told you everything?”

“Yes…” He sighed, at my response. He looked at me, straight into my eyes.

“Are you still Lou?” I opened and closed my mouth several times to try and come up with an answer to that. It was right to the point, no time wasting and I was not prepared.

“Yes I’m… I mean I am Lou, if that makes sense to you.”

“I’m not going to openly judge you, but every time I look at you, all I see is a pony who seems to be enjoying his life.” He said, moving past me and further down the hall of mirrors. I followed, unsure of what to say to that.

“Then I wake up to find Jack talking to our uninvited guest. They were practically falling over each other out there this morning. It made me snap. Why are you all so happy to be here, but I’m not…? I just want to go home…” He trailed off. I didn’t reply, there was nothing that I could say that would make him happy, or at least not lose his temper.

“But I probably won’t now… not after what happened with my parents. They’ll never look at me the same, especially with wings, pony ears and strange eyes…”

“Are your parents religious?”

“What does it matter, unless I can get home the same person as I was 4 years ago, they’ll never look at me the same.” He was right. My parents had also struggled with my return. I had nightmares that would wake them up. My sister often hoped that I would get better. But nothing could really prepare you for the return home.

Unlike my friends, I had nor returned crippled. Only a bullet wound right through the shoulder. The pain was still there sometimes, if my mind lingered on the memory too much.

“We’ll get you home Mark, no matter what.”The look he gave almost broke me. He just looked really sad, tired. Longing to return home.

“That’s just it. I don’t.”

“What?” He stood in front of me, his expression unwavering in sadness as he looked at himself in one of the mirrors and then at my own body.

“I flew today Lou.” He said, flexing his wings, wincing in pain as he moved his right one but did so nonetheless. Obviously his sprain had dissipated now. His face was renewed with a form of joy that I had not seen in him since our first meeting before the raid on Makin.

“I went flying down the stairs! Nothing spectacular, but I was doing it and it clicked with me…” He trailed off once more, his human mind finally realising what he was saying, trying now to suppress the joy that he felt once more.

“You want to fly?” He nodded slowly, staring off into the distance as if reliving an age old memory.

“Just like you enjoyed your time in the dream realm, if it actually exists-”

“It does.”

“-And how Jack absolutely loves using magic! I’ve seen him hoarding several books in his bag.” He laughed, moving past me once more to look at one of the mirrors, or should I say, lack of a mirror.

“You guys are happy with this. I’m not, I get the feeling that we’re not going home Lou. That scares me. I don’t want to sacrifice my happiness to be with my family, but I also don’t want to be with my parents if it stops me from enjoying this!” He then froze and looked to the mirror to his left and sighed.

“I’ve got to get out of here before I end up like you. Like Jack. I mustn’t stay here, or else I won’t want to…” I heard him sniff once, as I moved beside him, he whipped his tears with his forelegs and gave me a smile. I smiled back, unsure of what to tell him. He didn’t wait for me however, he just looked at the mirrors in front of us and gestured towards the absent one.

“This one was the one that was used to capture the Shadow.”

“The one that’s missing?”

“There’s two of them missing, one of them is in some place called the Crystal Empire. The other was moved to Galaxia’s quarters.” So she was involved quite deeply, so our reasoning for the Shadow to use delaying tactics made sense. If he didn’t want a repeat of what led to this situation it would make sense to try and delay her arrival. For what purpose? We had no idea.

“Each mirror has a different pediment, decorated with moons and suns. See there?” He pointed to one of the other mirrors. I could see that they each had their own unique name and pediment display.

“When was the mirror moved?”

“The date coincides about the same time that the old Monarchy was killed in a fire. Galaxia too, if what the books say are correct.” If Galaxia was truly living her story, then it was certain that she must have faked her own demise, but what was her role here? There was barely any mention of her in most books. If anything, they only ever referred to her as a third member of the royal family. Maybe she was the mother of one of the old royals.

“You found this out by yourself?” He nodded. I shook my head and gave him a hug with a wing.

“You stupid idiot, you could’ve gotten hurt!” I said in faux shock and anger. I did crack smile when he laughed himself and flexed his injured wing.

“I did.” H chuckled as we headed back. Looking ahead, Mark took on a worried look once more.

“I hope that Mom and Dad are alright. I think I gave them a heart attack when they found me.”

I had no reply to that. I wish I could have given him some more comfort, but I had none. The best I could do was help him get through this. And hopefully we would not be here too much longer. We had some good leads, all we had to do now was find a way to defeat the Shadow. Hopefully one of the spell books here would give us the answers.

As we both emerged from the archive, we were practically assaulted by Twilight as she bounced around holding a spell book within her chaos magic.

“The Doctor found it! He found it!” She said, bouncing around us and leading us over to one of the tables where everyone had gathered.

“Ms Rarity was very helpful.” The Doctor said, waving a hoof dismissively. The white mare with a purple mare blushed and waved her hoof also.

“It was nothing darlings.” The others regarded them with odd looks of suspicion but didn’t butt in. Discord took the book in his talon. He opened up the relevant page and began to read to us what the book had to offer.

It was a spell book of sorts, without any spells, but what it recounted was very intriguing. Plume was a student here, in her early thirties. She had been tasked by the royal court to do research into different types of magic. Plume had been tasked with researching one of the most dangerous forms of spell casting, Vengeance magic. The idea was to make records for all ponies, so that they could understand what magic worked for what situations or climate. Vengeance spell casting was a form of dark magic that was used back before the unification of the pony tribes.

The royals felt it necessary to look into cataloguing the most dangerous of magic so that future generations could be taught why such spells were banned and why they were too dangerous to use.

Twilight had known about most of the magic types, though Celestia had forbidden her to do any research on dark magic. She had looked of course, but hadn’t found out much.

The book didn’t really go into detail. It gave no mention on how to cast such spells, though Plume had obviously never tried using the spells herself. She had expressed her concerns about even trying to cast such spells because the magic could only be unlocked by a form of joining. A joining that meant becoming consumed by the desire for vengeance. A desire to kill, no matter what.

Discord explained what it meant. Unlike the ponies here, he was chaotic from the start, however ponies come natural with harmonious magic. That harmony is then broken down into subcategories depending on what tribe the pony was. The same was said for the Griffons, Yaks, Dragons and other creatures of Equus. He then explained that allowing a creature of harmony to become consumed, one must commit to the desire complete that one objective. Vengeance magic was there to replace the harmony that a pony had.

I was fascinated, Discord explained it in a way that was easy for me and the others to understand. Quite honestly, despite his chaotic appearance, he was by far one of the kindest people we could have hoped to have met while here. I had asked him about Twilight and her own magic, he said that for his full power to return, he would have to remove his from Twilight. Leaving her defenceless and without the ability to use magic, which she seemed rather worried about.

There wasn’t much more within the book that indicated what could have happened, or who the Shadow was, but I had a feeling of who it was. Peacock was student in the city, his mother a student of sorts herself. There was apparently a report that she had written detailing the use of spells. Further searching had proven fruitless, but I knew that the report wouldn’t be here. If anything, it was probably lost to time.

XXX

Squire was sat on the ground, looking through a book as I approached. He looked up, a smile spreading.

“Fire Fly!” He called, motioning for me to come and join him. I did, flying softly to him, my wings fully extended. He closed his book as I came to a stop beside him.

“Sit down dear boy! What have you to talk about then?” He asked.

“We found out about the Peacock family. Mark also found out about the mirror that was used to trap the Shadow.” I said, he looked to the sky thoughtfully before giving me a sly grin.

“And how is the poor boy, I hope you’re getting him set straight. He isn’t going to be an avian if he doesn’t learn how to fly!”

“Mark doesn’t want to be an avian, Squire. He wants to be human again.”

“Shame, he would be such a great flyer. But who knows, maybe once this is all over he’ll decide to stay for while.” He said, pulling an old pipe from thin air and beginning to smoke.

“Why do you want him to stay?”

“Imperial ponies like you are a rare breed. Not often that such great ponies return from the realm of extinction!” He exclaimed. I gave him an incredulous look which made him chuckle.

“You’re funny Fire Fly! But like I said, my offer still stands to help you learn how to control your dream magic. While I’m sure that Mark will find somepony to help him learn the magic of flight.”

“I thought that flying was more of an art.” I replied. He snorted, coughing up smoke from his pipe.

“Every form of magic is an art.” He said slyly as he leant over to whisper in my ear.

“Either way, I wish the boy the best. If he decides that flying isn’t what he wants well…” he trailed off, becoming distant for a moment. Looking at the full moon that was rising. I looked as well, though I saw nothing that stood out as strange.

“Fate will make the choice for him.” He grumbled.

“I want to learn about dream magic. I feel like I should while I’m here. If the others don’t want to explore their own powers, that is up to them.” I explained, shrugging my wings.

“I will warn you Fire Fly, if I you allow me to teach you dream magic, too much spell casting will start to blur the line between being human and pony. To the point where there will be no distinction between the two.” He teased in a sing song voice. Moving towards a large tree that arose from the ground with a slight tremor.

I moved to follow, a little nervous, but I was sure that I could take it. This was the dream realm right? This couldn’t affect the real world, so long as I kept spell casting to here, then I should be fine.

“I’m sure. I’m sure that I can keep spell casting to this realm, without affecting the real me on the other side.”

That mad him choke on his pipe once more. Looking back at me with devious grin he replied.

“Just keep watch and repeat, don’t over use your magic or the choice will be made for you. Don’t worry though, I’m sure you’ll be a great bat!”

“Squire can I ask you something?”

“Go right ahead!”

“Am I already trapped here? Are we all?” He froze for a moment, before turning to me with a one of the kindest smile that I had seen him give me.

“That depends, do you believe that being stuck here is a trap?” He asked. I just sighed, not really sure of what to say. I know that for me, I have something here, but Mark hasn’t. Apart from us, Jack I’m not so sure.

“You all have more to gain from staying here and accepting the magic of harmony.” He said, spreading a wing over my back. It was comforting.

“Now, let’s start with something simple…” With that, I began my apprenticeship in the field of dream spell casting.