Chapter 1 : Many Moons Ago
"Twilight? Are you with us?"
Twilight's eyes cleared, sharpening her view of the battle map, its enchanted textile projecting shimmering miniature magic constructs of various earth ponies, unicorns and pegasi, armed to the teeth for what they would be facing. She felt her better instincts keeping her from taking just another discouraging look at the sheer number and size of the images depicting the enemy. They had already done enough of that.
"I'm fine. I think. No, I'm thinking we should look over formations again." Twilight's nervous wide grin contrasted sharply against the groans of discontent from around the table.
"Not again, Twilight. You said it yourself. We're ready as we'll ever be. All that's left is to hold the line when the time comes." The voice came from a stern-looking stallion of silver coat and and black mane. Damascus Steel, her field marshal. She both had never seen him before, yet had known him for years. "We'll ride into through the gates of the underworld. And either we put the enemy through there, or we'll take them with us, with pride."
Twilight's confusion belied the contented smile that graced her face. Around her were friends she never met before, yet knew as well as her own family "Tomorrow then."
KLANG! KLANG! The sentry bells called for alarm. "Manticores! Manticores advancing on the forward ramparts!" came a cry from outside.
"We ride, gentlecolts! We ride the edge of eternity, and sharpen our blades upon it!" Damascus Steel reached a hoof to his saddle, withdrawing a gleaming steel hoofsword from its sheath. He was joined by every other knight at the table, as they joined their weapons in a collective salute and charged out the tent. Whisked along without moving, Twilight thought she'd be caught up in their advance. But she in the next instant before she would have been blown out the tent flaps along with the charging warriors, she found herself face to face with a younger face remarkably like that of Damascus'.
"...Who are you? Please. Help us. Get us home! GET US HOME!"
Twilight sprang awake with such force she found herself in flight halfway to the ceiling, now in her own bedchamber at the castle.
~
(Later)
There was something new in the air. But to Spike the dragon, there was something familiar. Clear weather in the Ponyville area delivered softly warm sunlight through the stained glass windows and danced comfortable warmth across Spike's scales. No major disasters or monster attacks meant a nice quiet and even bird-song-y atmosphere to mingle with the friendly chatter of the daily goings-on. Heck, he was so ahead of his usual chores and duties that he was even able to make room for a quick comic break.
"Ahh, Excelsior..." he sighed contentedly as he closed the latest issue of Equestria's Greatest Heroes, #616. "Okay, hallways buffed, kitchen restocked, and incoming scrolls to look through." He looked to the basket of scrolls he gathered from the Castle of Friendship's message dropoff room. "Internal Revenue of Equestria. Pfft. That's gonna be a joy to sift through."
Messages like this had been part of the regular stream of messages ever since Twilight Sparkle had gone from student to magic master to defender of the realm and finally to Princess. Power, position, paperwork. Lots and lots of paperwork. As tedious as it could get, there was something comforting to know that he was the faithful assistant, the buffer between his adoptive sister and death by red tape.
Wait. Twilight. He hadn't spoken to her since the morning, and she was already deep in work when he woke up.
~
(Earlier that morning)
"Morning, Twilight," Spike yawned as he stretched and popped drowsy joints in his spiny back.
"Uh-hm, mernin'," she mumbled back.
He whipped up a quick breakfast of muffins quickly rewarmed with a quick puff of his fire breath and some of the extremely light caffeinated coffee Twilight had been forcing herself to drink these past few months.
"Gonna get a jump on work so I can make time for the new comics I bought today," he said.
"Yeah, thassagood-hmmm..." she said, continuing to pore over three books at once.
~
"Uh oh."
He should've KNOWN it was too quiet. The calm before the storm! Maybe things had been too good lately?
"All right, sidekick, move it!" He rushed halfway down the hall before he remembered the basket of scrolls. "C'mon, boring legal papers, we got a job to do!" Documents in tow, he rushed down the hall. Of course, he had to come to this realization a long way from the castle's library.
He had a situation to defuse. Tartarus or high water, he was NOT going to let it escalate into another thing on the level of Smarty-Pants riot.
~
The library was surprisingly in order. And Twilight didn't have the bug-eyed, hair-frayed, slasher-smile look he was fearing. No, in fact, she was leaning back on one of the couches. Her magic was humming away, levitating a book above her and rippling through the pages as her eyes did a slow back and forth. An empty, crumb-speckled plate and an empty cup resting on her worktable even said she had eaten the earlier breakfast.
"Oh hey, Spike. Don't worry, I got a full night's sleep." Her voice was perfectly even keeled too. Perfectly lucid, but it carried this edge of determination.
"So...no meltdown?" Spike started to hide the oversized butterfly net behind his back.
"No. No meltdown. Tell me, Spike. How many guys have you seen lately?"
"...Okay, I'm gonna give you about five seconds before you realize how that could sound--"
"YIPE!" the book flipped through the air before Twilight caught it in her hooves. "I-I-mean..." She sighed. "Sorry, Spike. I've been distracted for hours. It was something I noticed when going through that census report that arrived a few days ago."
"You mean the Ponyville role call?" Spike laughed. "That's basically the plain way of calling it."
"How many stallions and colts have you seen in Ponyville?"
"...I mean there's more than a few. I don't get what you're looking for me to say."
"But there's a LOT more mares and fillies, right? Like...a LOT more. And the bigger city populations get, the gap gets even wider." As Twilight spoke, reams of papers, statistic sheets filed by, levitated by Twilight's magic.
"...Uh...huh?"
"And I started to look back at earlier census reports. Years back. And you know something? I've studied genetic models and how populations get affected, disasters, birth rates, all that. The pattern only gets way more noticeable. It's like something happened to Equestria's stallions and colts a long time ago, and we're only now starting to recover from the LOSS of a lot of them."
"So you're saying...something happened to the guys in Equestria. How long ago?"
"...It would probably have been about a thousand years ago." Twilight turned from the spreadsheets and graphs to Spike with a worried glance.
"Wait, a thousand years ago as in when all that crazy magical doomsday stuff was going on when the Princesses were first ruling Equestria?"
"Exactly, Spike. And looking at what could've done this during that time..." Twilight's voice trailed off.
"Twilight, spit it out!"
"The missing generation of males in Equestria would've been anyone that qualified to serve if the Princesses called together an army."
"...Like, an entire army just gone all at once?" Spike started to feel a weight drop in his stomach.
"And not one Equestrian history book talks about it. Not one." Twilight gestured to the ENTIRE library spanning around them.
"What happened to them then?" Spike dreaded the answer as soon as the question was asked.
"I don't know. But I think I know two long-lived Alicorns who probably do know." Within seconds, her horn lit up and levitated her saddlebags and several choice books and documents into her pack. "Put a hold on everything else, Spike. We're headed to Canterlot."
"Why?" Spike's question made Twilight stop before the door. "I mean if we could help them, sure. But we learned time travel is a MESS. And besides, if they're gone, they're gone."
"Exactly. But I have a strange feeling. They're ALIVE, Spike. And I think the Princesses need to know it."
Chapter 2 : Old Friends Not Forgotten
Rainbow only got a chance to flick her gaze down to the clouds to see a glare and flash of energized flame blow a billowing hole straight through the wispy clouds and seared up into the sky above them and burst like a lethal firework. "Bolt! Bolt! Are ya..." She looked and saw the stomach-dropping form of a pegasus in a spiral towards the ground that would strike fear in pretty much anypony.
But not this pony.
By instinct, she her whole body into practiced maximum speed position, wind drag profile as small as possible, and put as much power into the one pulse of her honed wing muscles as possible. Her sharp eyes and sense of perception picked up on several more fireballs rocketing up from the ground below towards her. "Challenge accepted," she thought as she rolled, banked and sped around each one, turning the urges of fear and panic that she could feel into raw adrenaline that drove her forward whenever a projectile burst and threatened to cook her alive. But she was no chicken, roast or not! Each maneuver drove her closer to Bolt, and the moment she found that she COULD snag him, she did.
Fighting the weight of a whole other pony threatening to pull her into a dive, she clung onto him, gritting her teeth and using every trick she knew just to keep moving.
"Lass, let me go," he said, his voice weak as he tried to shout above the wind and explosions growing closer.
"No! Nobody gets left behind! Come on!"
The anti-air bursts grew closer but Rainbow knew if any of those strikes hit her, she could shake it off. She could heal, if she survived. But nothing could shake the thought of living while abandoning a fellow soldier.
~
No, she couldn't remember ever having done this kind of work before, but Applejack found that it fit her as easily as barn-raising. After all, palisades were just walls, and bunkers were just bigger ditches and towers like silos. And she was really happy that she took the time to construct them, because they were currently the only thing that could protect her and her supply wagon.
"Whaddaya waitin' for?! Close the gates!" As she barreled past two arrow-spined palisades and between two archer-topped towers, finally racing past the two iron-braced gates that slammed shut behind her.
"Your ladyship! The harrying party followed you all the way to the gates! When are the reinforcements coming in?" The guard of the outpost gathered around her. Didn't have any idea who any of them were, but she knew she could trust them with her life.
"There aren't any!" she replied with a happy song in her voice and heart as she easily lifted a war mallet mounted to the side of the wagon. "Won't need 'em. S'just a few unwelcome guests wanting free samples from the cart."
"Warm welcome, then?" the Captain replied with an inspired fire in his eyes that was reflected in that of the rest of the troops.
"Wouldn't be hospitable if we didn't!" Applejack's trot sped into a steady gallop up the stairs to the ramparts. When the first form clambered over the wall, she hooked its handle between her hooves and swung.
~
"Easy, dear! Just a little more fire on the forge, please!" Rarity felt the warm glow on her face bloom as she magically levitated the glowing steel into the forge. The smiling diamond dog working the bellows gave a bark and a hand wave. "Thank you~!"
"I see you've got some plans for that one!" Another worker of the forge, a Pegasus who had long since lost his right wing but bore a cutie mark that testified that he was still precisely in the place he loved most, dusted off his working apron.
"Oh, just a little something I want to pitch to the others. A little work of passion, of pizzazz, of practicality. Something that will put the world on its ear!" In her excitement, every flourish was punctuated with the glowing metal waving through the air in the grip of her magic. The poor diamond dog, terrified, ducked for cover. "OOPS! Darling, I'm so sorry!"
"You must be excited about this. What is it?" The pegasus looked at the plans she had pinned to a board.
"Two words! Arrow-deflecting! This one change in the peytral will make attacks slide right off, provides a dynamic profile of the silhouette from the side, and gives both a look of solid build to stallions and an alluring curvature to any mare that wears it."
"And...the gemstones?"
Rarity coughed. "Well, with the right placement, I could say 'opportunities for later enchantment' buuuut," she winked, "Let's face it. It's for the sake of design!"
"Lady Rarity! Very sorry, but we've the meeting's in less than an hour!" The diamond dog puffed the bellows again, resurging the flames.
"Quite right!" Rarity said as she harbored a lingering thought in the back of her mind that she had no idea how to shape metal and really had no such interest in it, and had no idea where she was. "Back to work!"
~
"I'm back from break! And you know what that means! Cake break!" Pinkie Pie bust through the doors with a cart full of meticulously baked and decorated sweetcakes.
Her enthusiastic cheer was echoed by the tired smiles and weak waves from the occupants of the camp's infirmary. Pinkie felt this surge of fear, of not belonging in her chest. How? Why was she here? Some of the things she was seeing as she wheeled her cart through, dropping off plates of sweets were things that she had only heard of happening to Ponies. In times long past, maybe, but not now.
Just smile. You're here for them. Oh. Oh, this one. Sweet Celestia, what HAPPENED to him?
The pony was a mess of bandages, amongst other things. But able to eat.
"You had a hard day. But now it's time for us to take care of you, all right?" She gently lifted the plate of food to his lips, and felt a gratified bittersweet swell in her heart when she saw his tired teeth devour the carefully made pastry.
"You are a good lass," came his voice in a slow breathy whisper, "Too good for all this."
The groan of pain shook Pinkie to her core.
~
The roar of a Cath Palug struck fear in most, but in Fluttershy's eyes, it was a language of its own.
"Well, beastmaster? What say you?" the huntspony alongside her whispered from his place in the brush.
"He's scared. And hungry. But now he's angry. That arrow in his flank didn't do us any favors."
"It was going to eat you."
"Look, you're right, the Stare wasn't quite enough to make it stand down. But I would REALLY appreciate it if you hold your arrows until AFTER I do my work?"
"Fine, fine. Show your stuff. And if we end up taking it back, we're...HOLY GODDESS!"
The massive shadowy feline was not feared without reason. The fact that it could sneak up on two trained wilderness rangers attested to that fact. Razor claws caught the moonlight, railroad-spike fangs glinted, and its eyes shone the pallor of moonlight and death. No time for the Stare to work. No angle to run.
~
Fluttershy stumbled into Ponyville, eyes utterly bloodshot. She needed a gentle tea to keep her awake this morning. She'd slept in the forest before, on tree branches, on the forest floor with actual rocks and tree roots jabbing into her back and in damp caves. In fact, what with all the different adventures she'd been on, she'd managed to find some rest everywhere in every terrain. Without a doubt that was one of the worst nights she'd ever weathered. She could no doubt imagine the wrinkles and dark circles around her bloodshot eyes and mane still looking disheveled no matter what she did to not look like she spent a night in a ditch.
Thankfully, she knew that even as Ponyville became more popular, she could always find a table at the Café Hay. It had been so long since she needed this mix of tea that she had forgotten to resupply from the local shops, and this was an easy place to get it brewed for her in a pinch. Plus, she could always depend on the table reserved by the owner for her friends. Saving Equestria and beyond, she supposed, earned her and the other girls plenty of perks. Granted, one of the few she felt good about partaking was the idea of a nice, quiet, table for some--
"EEEP!" Fluttershy nearly jumped out of her skin at the sight of her five friends, looking just as haggard as herself.
"Lemme guess. You've been having crazy dreams too?" Rainbow punctuated the question with a slug of apple juice. Her friends never let her drink cider so early in the day.
"I didn't think I could HAVE regular dreams that vivid. Not since that whole fight with the Tantibus," Fluttershy said, taking a seat at the table. "Hibiscus and rose, please," she said to a passing waiter.
"Aren't we a lovely ensemble," Rarity said, desperately trying to powder over some of the rather obvious bags under her eyes. "The five of us, all sleep deprived. Royally flushed, if you will."
"Are you all right, Pinkie?" Fluttershy asked. The pink pony was sitting rather blank-eyed at her one muffin sitting on the plate.
"That's what we were wondering. She tells us that she had a dream like we did, but hasn't said a lick of anything else." Applejack looked at everyone.
Rather unexpectedly, it was at this moment when Twilight, Spike upon her back and saddlebags at her sides, ran along with bangs and trail of her mane waving in the wind.
"AHA!" Pinkie suddenly outburst, sending everyone in proximity airborne in shock.
Twilight stopped on short on her hooftips. "Oh, hey gir-NYAAGH!"
"Yeah, yeah," Applejack interrupted, "We look like cats that been put through the wash and wringer."
"...Have you all been having trouble sleeping?"
Rainbow took to a drowsy loft. "Just that all of us suddenly started having dreams out of some super intense ancient history war movie!"
"Then if you're up anyway, we need to see Celestia and Luna. Something's happening, and it's taken over a thousand years to--"
"OH MAAAN! A thousand years ago again? Really?" Rainbow had her face in her hooves.
"Then saddle up, Ponies, we're headed out. Twilight, you brief us on the train,"
Pinkie suddenly perked up. "I bet it some evil nasty nightmare demons! Or a evil pixie trick! Or a really nasty trick from the Tooth Fairy on a bad night shift."
Fluttershy shuddered. "I hope so. I'm afraid to find out. I don't think anyone could be having a worst night than we did after that."
~
Earlier Last Night
"HAIL friends!" Damascus Steel called into the night air at the feast table at the center of the war camp, fires burning bright and cooking fires piled high with the finest foods fueled by the spoils of battle. "Our homelands are safe. Our enemies laid low. Our families sleep sound in their beds tonight knowing that those that endangered their lives are no more!"
A wild cheer rang out amongst the soldiers, stallions and mares of all three races, some of whom were still nursing treated wounds and wincing through black eyes to clash with the broad smiles on their faces.
"Each and every one of you stood your ground when other ponies would flee. You advanced when lesser ponies would freeze up. But look not down upon them that stand behind us. For they make a home worth coming home to. We have been given this burden upon our yokes, and pulled it together, and made together a ripe field fertile for peace and plenty. Our gifts, our cutie marks and the effort and determination that made our destinies manifest have led us here today. And we owe it all to our heroes. Our generals. Our princesses and divine holders of the Light of Justice and Purity!"
"HAIL CELESTIA! PRAISE THE SUN! OUR SWORDS ARE YOURS FOR NOW AND ALWAYS!
Celestia stood, happily downing a tankard of the soldiers' ale, casting the tankard to the ground, projecting in her full Canterlot voice as she wielded her Flare Wingblades gleaming in radiant solar fury. "And let this day be a message to any and all who think they can attack Equestria OR its allies! We stand united and strong. The Light protects, the Light reveals, and the Light TRIUMPHS!"
Suddenly all was silent. There was no more cheers. No more adulation. No more battlecries. In fact, all noise suddenly halted.
Celestia came to herself, suddenly freed from the reverie of the old memory, a day of one of the realm's most meaningful and glorious victories. Now she was aware the whole scene around her was now frozen. A snapshot of time suddenly rendered still. Banners hung starched mid-flap. Ponies downing ale and wine and mead stuck still with the liquid still mid-sip. The cooking fires, now holographic, cold ghosts. All, that is, except for the sound of a roaring east wind approaching. Suddenly she was aware of a dimming of all light, and the fading of shadows on the ground. She cast her eyes skyward and saw the sun and moon hung in equal positions in the sky, the deepness of space and stars on the side of the moon and clean crisp blue on the side of the sun. But something was happening to both the sun and moon.
A growing darkness, first appearing like an optical illusion, two black spots on the celestial bodies. It hardly even looked like marks on the sun and moon themselves, but like something unnatural superimposed upon them. It steadily grew larger, widening like wormholes in a motheaten garment, the world becoming more bleak and gray and lifeless as it did.
And then the east wind hit her. Harsher than any hurricane, she felt the full force of it, yet was not moved by it, leaving her to feel all the torrential crosswind without escape. Everything around her, Damascus Steel, the army, the camp, was suddenly shattered like they were merely made of ashen snow, blown away like dry dust in a sand storm. The growing darkness billowed like a cloud as a massive wave passed over her.
When she opened her eyes again, there was just a single pony, sleepily playing a strange rectangular wooden stringed instrument. A crwth, Celestia remembered, realizing she hadn't seen any such instrument in Equestria for many many years. He sat in a single spotlight of light amidst the darkness and Celestia found herself drawn to him despite being perfectly able to see him. He had a coat shockingly similar to Damascus'.
We stand, stone wall, 'pon the shore strong and tall
Time and tide wears us down to the ground
But stand we must, lest the land turn to dust
Til the Light shines again and we taste peace, A~aaamen.
Suddenly he opened his eyes, sad and wistful. A sign escaped his lips. But then he focused as if really seeing for the first time. He looked up from Celestia's hooves until he made direct eye contact...and flinched back so hard with a cry of "HOOOLY--!" that he fell out of the column of light.
Celestia awoke in her own bedchambers. The meaning of what she had been seeing crashed in like water through a floodgate. Forgoing wing or hoof, she put all her thoughts on Luna's location. With a flashing burst of golden magical energy, Celestia teleported to the highest tower of the castle of Canterlot, where the Princess of the Moon stood still as a statue.
"Sister...after so long...I FOUND THEM," Luna said breathlessly.
Celestia, for all her experience, power, and wisdom, actually found a time when she had absolutely nothing to say.
Author's Note
Thanks to everyone for your warm welcome and advice in the debut chapter.
I continue to welcome any and all proofreading comments, advice and canon information, as well as kind suggestions as to how to better execute the story as we go.
And even if the suggestions ain't so kind, hey, there's bound to be SOMETHING I can learn from it.
