20 Flower Moon 1008

Ponyville was burning.

That, in itself, wasn’t such a surprise. Twilight had expected fires to break out during the short but decisive Battle for Ponyville. It was just a part of war.

But the battle had been six months ago. By now, Nightmare Moon controlled all of Equestria and the Crystal Empire, and her wife, Chrysalis - and Twilight had no idea how they had ended up together - ruled the Changeling Lands. There was no conflict anymore, no battle, just underground resistance.

Resistance that Twilight was desperately trying to organize and coordinate. Processing all of the information she received here, in her hideout in the Twilight Mountains, was a job that never rested, even with the help of her friends.

One such piece of information was lying on her desk. It was a report written by Fluttershy, who had asked one of her many animal friends to fly over Ponyville and check on the state of the town.

Twilight hadn’t known that Fluttershy could write so detailed and clinical. When she had asked about it, Fluttershy had explained, in her usual meek way, that as Ponyville’s veterinarian she had to write many reports about the condition of the animals she cared for, so she knew what information was important and what could be left out.

The report itself was short, just two pages, but reading it had made Twilight sick and disgusted, but also relieved that she and her friends had evacuated as many as possible in time.

Nightmare Moon had initially left Ponyville alone, aside from imposing the standard rules for everywhere in Equestria. But after Chrysalis’ coronation - which had been the day after the horrifying ritual that Twilight had received a second-by-second description of via a turncoat Lunar Guard - Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis had travelled together to Ponyville a few days later. Everyone that was still in town - roughly half of the population - was put on a train to the north, and anyone who made trouble or refused to leave was executed.

Then, the two whorses - Twilight refused to call them by their titles - had descended upon her castle. For hours they had assaulted it with magic: Rainbow had said she had been able to see a constantly colour-changing light from her cloud a few kilometres to the west.

The castle hadn’t cared half a damn. Apparently, the crystals hadn’t so much as chipped. Twilight was glad for that, if nothing else.

When Nightmare and Chrysalis had finally determined that they could not destroy the castle, they had unleashed their fury on Ponyville itself. For two more hours they rampaged through the town, before finally leaving.

And now, it was still aflame. If Twilight didn’t know better, she’d say that they would have placed fire-repelling spells on the place before burning it, as no fire could burn for that long on just wood and stone.

A project for another time.

‘’Twilight?’’ That was Starlight. What did she want?

Twilight looked up from her desk at the other mare as she stepped into the tent and instinctively shuffled closer to one of the magical lamps Twilight had created to keep the camp warm. ‘’Hi Starlight.’’

‘’Hello Twilight,’’ Starlight said with a smile. ‘’I’ve got some good news.’’

Twilight leaned forward. ‘’What is it?’’

Starlight’s smile widened. ‘’Sunburst’s alive, and he’s headed here!’’

That was good. Maybe he knows what happened to Flurry.

Twilight smiled as well. ‘’That’s good news indeed, Starlight. When will he be arriving?’’

‘’In a couple of days,’’ Starlight replied. ‘’Sunburst’s letter said that he had to flee from Crystal City and then he followed the Snowy River down south until he reached Whinnyapolis. He’ll be arriving from the west.’’

Twilight nodded. ‘’That sounds logical. I’ll tell Rainbow to watch out for him.’’

‘’Thank you.’’ For a moment, there was silence. Then Starlight tried, ‘’Twilight, I know you’re busy-’’

Twilight cut her off with a kind yet firm smile. ‘’I’ll join you in a few minutes,’’ she promised. ‘’Who’s cooking?’’

‘’Pinkie.’’

‘’Delicious.’’

Pinkie, even without sugar and other sweet stuff to add to the food, could cook surprisingly well, and Twilight always felt revitalized after one of her dinners. She, Applejack, and Sunset had been taking turns cooking for their small group, using their supplies as well as gathering from the nearby forest.

Worst comes to pass, we can always eat the grass, Twilight thought grimly, though she wasn’t intending to stay here indefinitely.

In fact, they had already been staying too long, in her opinion. But she also didn’t know where they could go.

There were more than enough places in Equestria they could hide: the Badlands, San Palomino, the Everfree, the jungles in the south-east, Fairflanks, or in the north around Neighgara. But all of them were out of the way: and if Twilight was going to create a resistance movement against Nightmare Moon, she needed to be in a location that was easily reachable from all around the nation.

‘’Hi Twilight!’’ Pinkie suddenly appeared in her view. ‘’Whatcha thinking about?’’

Twilight smiled at her friend. ‘’Hi Pinkie. What are we having for dinner?’’

‘’Pie Family Recipe!’’ Pinkie replied. ‘’It’s a surprise!’’

‘’I’m sure it’ll be tasty,’’ Spike remarked. He was sitting on a branch, holding a cup of something, either water or tea. Sitting next to him was Sweetie Belle, and if either of them thought anyone didn’t notice the looks they shot each other, Twilight would call them fools.

‘’Hi Spike, Sweetie. Where are the others?’’ she asked as she sat down on another branch.

‘’Scootaloo and Rainbow are up there,’’ Sweetie gestured up at the clouds, ‘’Fluttershy is out with the animals somewhere, Applejack and Sunset are over there,’’ she pointed at their silhouettes, standing next to the small waterfall providing their water, ‘’Applebloom and Starlight are doing… something, and I don’t know where Trixie or Rarity are.’’

‘’Thanks.’’ Twilight nodded. ‘’Had a good day?’’

Spike shrugged. ‘’As good as any lately.’’

That was about what Twilight had expected. There wasn’t a lot to do here, after all. Twilight had reluctantly agreed that they should all take up shooting with guns, but they didn’t have a lot of ammunition or weapons, so it was mostly just learning how to handle the things.

In the corner of her eye, Twilight caught Applejack and Sunset walking towards them, each carrying large canisters that were probably filled with water from the falls.

‘’’Lo, Twi,’’ Applejack drawled. ‘’Finally got outta that tent of yers?’’

‘’I had to get fresh air sometime,’’ Twilight quipped before anyone else could. ‘’How are you, Sunset, Applejack?’’

‘’I’m good, all things considered,’’ Sunset said with a shrug.

‘’It’s not ideal, but Ah’we lived through worse. Hay, we all have,’’ Applejack drawled. ‘’Gotta ask though, Twi: any idea where we’re leaving fer?’’

Twilight could only shrug. ‘’Not yet,’’ she admitted. ‘’I’m open to ideas, and we could always stay here, but, well…’’

‘’Ah’m gonna pass,’’ Applejack declared as she sat herself down next to the fire. ‘’Ah don’t mind camping, but we’ve gotta build some houses or find some other shelter. Ponies weren’t made to live in tents.’’

Twilight suppressed the instinct to tell her that ponies did live in tents for years during the Great Migrations. Instead, she said, ‘’If we do decide to stay here, we could probably build some small cottages.’’

‘’Hide ‘em with some wards?’’ Sunset picked up on Twilight’s train of thought. ‘’That could work.’’

‘’What kind of spellwork would you need?’’ Spike asked.

Well… ‘’We’d need to mask the trees we’d be cutting down, and then the houses. Runestones could work, but making those takes time.’’

‘’Time we have,’’ Sunset put in. ‘’Power, on the other hoof… It’d be noticeable.’’

‘’True,’’ Twilight acknowledged.

‘’Which would kind of defeat the point… so magical hiding is out,’’ Sweetie concluded. ‘’What if we skipped that part?’’

‘’Then we’d be found by the first patrol with unicorns in it. They’re bound to know life-detecting spells if they’re searching for us,’’ Sunset replied. ‘’We’d-’’

‘’Wait, what is Rainbow doing?’’ Spike pointed his claw up at the sky.

Twilight followed where he was pointing at, and raised an eyebrow. The faint streak of Rainbow’s flying was visible, and it was headed from the clouds down to the ground. She’d obviously seen something, but what?

Twilight spread her wings. ‘’I’ll go have a look.’’

‘’Twi, you’re the leader,’’ Sunset cut in. ‘’You can’t go out and face a potential unknown threat by yourself.’’

‘’I should be doing that because I am the leader,’’ Twilight retorted. ‘’And if they are friendly, we’ll need to talk.’’

‘’Oh, they’re friendly!’’ Scootaloo’s voice called out from above. ‘’Heads up down there! We’ve got a group of friends headed here! Rainbow is talking to ‘em now!’’

‘’Who are they?!’’ Twilight shouted back.

After a moment, the reply came. ‘’It’s our friends from Ponyville! I see Diamond Tiara, and Rumble next to her, and a lot of others!’’

The only reply Twilight had to that was silence as she tried to think, and it seemed the rest shared her idea.

‘’Well,’’ Spike quipped after a few seconds, ‘’I guess we’re going to need more tents.’’

‘’Oh Celestia, what if something happened to them?’’ Sweetie asked, sounding horrified.

At that moment, the trees burst apart to reveal Rainbow and Fluttershy, followed by a group of ponies. Twilight saw Lyra and Bon Bon walking together, and many other ponies as well.

‘’Hey guys!’’ Rainbow greeted as Twilight approached the group. ‘’Look what I found!’’

‘’Princess,’’ Diamond Tiara said with a bow of her head. ‘’Forgive me if I don’t bow.’’

‘’Of course,’’ Twilight said. ‘’And congratulations! What’s her name?’’

Diamond glanced down at the giggling foal attached to a harness on her chest. ‘’Amethyst Rich,’’ she replied. ‘’She’s already a month old.’’

‘’Congratulations,’’ Twilight repeated.

‘’Thanks,’’ Rumble said, and just now Twilight noticed he had put his wing around Diamond. Adorable.

And Twilight wasn’t sure why they’d come here. ‘’How did you find us?’’

‘’Uh, I led them here,’’ Fluttershy confessed. ‘’One of my friends found them wandering about two days ago. They were looking for us, and I thought we needed the help.’’

‘’Fluttershy,’’ Twilight chose her next words very carefully, ‘’I appreciate that you did that, but please tell me in the future. It could be dangerous.’’

Fluttershy nodded very seriously. ‘’I will, Twilight.’’

‘’Princess?’’

Twilight turned around to see Bon Bon and Lyra had broken off from the main group, who was talking with Twilight’s friends, and approached her. ‘’Yes, Bon Bon?’’

‘’We want to help,’’ Bon Bon declared. ‘’And I have to apologize for not doing so from the beginning.’’

‘’Bon Bon was being very worried about me,’’ Lyra added as an explanation. ‘’It’s cute, but I had to convince her I could handle myself.’’

Twilight didn’t need to be told how that convincing had gone. So, she just nodded. ‘’Well, you’re all welcome to help. But I’m afraid we don’t any way to feed and shelter everyone.’’

‘’We’ve got our own food and tents,’’ Rumble spoke up. ‘’And Bon Bon knows a lot about keeping things out of sight and setting traps.’’

Of course she does, Twilight thought. It used to be her job.

She clapped her hooves together. ‘’In that case, welcome!’’

Author's Note

And here stars the resistance against Nightmare Moon and Chrysalis!

Twilight (and occasionally her friends) will get her own chapters every now and then. I already have another planned and partially written out. This one is a little short, but there wasn't really much to do, unfortunately.

(Edited on 9-10-2021)