Game of Worlds

by DualThrone

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Queen Chrysalis, Adventure, Violence, Princess Celestia, Dark, Alternate Universe, Main 6, Princess Luna
Length: 412047

Six months after finding the Empty Room, unnoticed among the dust and loss, another shadow stirs to reshape Equestria.

It is six months after the Fall of the Guardian. The Mane Six and all of Equestria are coping with the losses they have suffered, but the day seems lighter than it was before. Yet unnoticed among the dust of the Fall, a shadow begins again to stir...

A/N This story is set six months after the conclusion of Wanderer D's excellent work "The Empty Room" and I highly recommend it. Constructive criticism, comments, and suggestions are eagerly, eagerly accepted. Hope you enjoy reading as much as I enjoyed writing.

Published 2012-09-09 09:54:05 UTC
Last updated 2024-08-28 09:44:08 UTC

Stakes and Pawns

He stared down at the game board for a long space of time, eyes fixed on the game piece across from his, a statuette of a black dragon’s forepaw grasping a hinged locket on a simple chain. Was this feeling awe? He decided that it was, and spoke appropriately. “The Handmaiden.”

She smirked but didn’t reply.

“You invoke the Handmaiden,” he repeated. “But how? She is not bound to you, she can’t be. Everyone knows that she is friend and servant to the Sixth and the Sixth would never bargain her away, not even to you.”

She snorted disdainfully. “You are a fool. Of course she doesn’t answer to me and of course she wasn’t bargained to me. But she is the right hand of my ally and allies are tools in our game, as you agreed.”

He frowned at this, glaring pensively at the board and trying to quash the disturbing feeling that he’d been tricked somehow. “That is fair,” he admitted after long moments wrestling his disgust with himself down to a manageable level. “Still, that’s a powerful opening invocation, far more powerful than you’re known for.”

“I’ve received an education of late,” she admitted in an almost indifferent way. “There is no one so wise that it’s impossible for them to be humbled, save perhaps the Weaver or the Reaper, and as much as I project my arrogance and sneer at you, there are Powers greater than I.”

“Humility?” He sneered.

“Intelligence,” she corrected him with disdainful amusement. “I lose less and less often as I learn from more and more painful lessons. Perhaps, if you can survive, you will eventually learn something. I shan’t hold my breath.”

“I’m not dead.”

“Neither am I.” She nodded, however. “But your point is taken. How a lieutenant and protégé of that imbecile was permitted to walk off the field without his legs ripped off as reminders is beyond my comprehension, but walk off you did. Still, the lesson of simple survival is hardly germane to your self-inflicted situation.”

“If I inflicted this on myself, you did as well.” He grinned.

“But I won’t die of it,” she retorted calmly. “Oh, and so long as we’re on the topic, have you seen the gates of Auralis of late? I find the new ornamentation to be quite… appropriate.”

He kept his face carefully stone although the mention brought to his mind, unbidden, a twisted image that made him shudder imperceptibly. “What do you mean?”

“Well, I liked the ornamentation so much that I got my own.” Her face suddenly came forward, all pretense of amusement vaporizing. “Are you not the least bit curious as to the source of my opening bid?”

“Corruption is regularly vanquished and in more ways than either of us can grasp.” He affected a shrug although her abrupt intensity was making him slightly nervous. “Your vanquished is represented by a snake’s scale. What of it?”

“Well, I lied to you, although not by what I said myself. I believe that I implied that yours is the first bid upon this second of my patron worlds.” She gestured to a side where a wall would be if they were in any place that resembled a structure. “I also warned you that if you cheated or did inordinate harm, you would be forfeit instead of merely your bids being so.”

“How is any of this germane?”

“Because there cannot be too many warnings given,” she replied, her golden eyes afire like they had been before the first invocations were exchanged. “There is no such thing as making it too clear that I will see my own saved or revenge myself upon you for doing them harm.”

“Come now,” he scoffed. “You aren’t seriously threatening to make an example of me just because a few of your precious dwellers get a boo-boo.”

Her eyes narrowed in a way that made him suddenly regret the taunt. “No, minister, I won’t hurt you just because of a few hurt dwellers who, under our rules, are harmed by your tools. However, if you strike deep into the very Light of Sol Selune, if you murder love, murder friendship, torment the good for sadistic glee… well...”

The hand that was gesturing at the imagined wall casually rotated to bring its palm to face it and the misty nothing coalesced into a grisly display. A skeletal body, the lights that once glowed in empty eye sockets extinguished, the withered flesh distorted, every last inch of the dead form radiating unholy agony from unspeakable torture, dressed in the most exquisite silk formal robes, hung from the wall. Great golden spikes had been driven into the wrists, the ankles, into the tiny spaces under the collar bone, and ones of silvered iron hammed into its forehead, mouth, neck, heart, solar plexus, and belly. He shrank from the sight, breathless with fear and sick with horrible recognition.

“But… you’re… you’re…”

“A Light?” She sneered. “That is certainly true, boy, but you’ll recall that the highest laws of our game permit me to rip my pounds of flesh from an offender if they give me lawful cause to revenge myself. She bargained for this, the second of my patron worlds, and spat upon my tolerance by sating your kind’s sadism on the most innocent and in that moment when the knife would cut deepest. Be warned, minister, that you are safe under my courtesy and tolerance but I am now quick to anger where I was once slow. I shall soften this display by rescinding my previous vow to destroy you in your loss and vow that if you obey the highest laws, I will take naught but your wagers in my victory. However, do not forget what I can, what I shall do if your withered hand touches the very Light of my patronage. I allowed her to die quickly for she was not forewarned; I will not permit you to die at all for you are forewarned.”

He stared at her for minutes, neither of them saying anything as the fiery golden eyes of the predator burned coldly into the trembling prey, before something occurred to him and the look of fear turned into mingled curiosity and respect. “You are requiring me to act as Darkness for our contest.”

A tiny smile bent the corners of her muzzle. “And you finally understand it. It’s for your own good, my rival, for I have danced to this music with countless Evils but have only conceded to Darkness.”

He inclined his head to her in honest respect. “And so the mask falls. I had wondered what motive you could possibly have had to let me lay my challenge—and now, it’s so clear that I’m ashamed at being so obtuse. That conceded, however, this game has just begun and you’ve played a trump card in the first moments. I wonder how many more you have.”

“If you survive, Evil, you’ll eventually discover that it’s not the number of trump cards I play, but the quality of the trump cards I play.” She sat back contentedly. “It’s appropriate that we play this game for Sol Selune because the most painful lesson that I intend to inflict on you is one that is highly important here.”

“What might that be, pray tell?”

“The power of friendship, my dear minister.” She offered an upturned palm. “And here shall be my next wager…”

“Counterclockwise!” Rainbow Dash yelled frantically. “Counterclockwise! Up and…”

Of course, by the time Twilight actually heard her flight instructor, she was already most of the way through a clockwise roll and just like a rookie, she instinctively and thoughtlessly reacted by doing exactly that. Suddenly being mostly buried in a cloud and looking up at the sky in utter befuddlement was her first clue that something hadn’t worked quite right.

“Oh good… the condensation quotient in the lower leading edge is sufficient to support the weight of an alicorn,” she woozily announced to the world.

An exasperated cry was her only warning before she found her view of the sunny sky obscured by a cyan coat and a vibrant rainbow of color from which a blazing pair of pink eyes glared. “Argh! C’mon, you’re killing me here, Twi!” Rainbow declared as she hovered above her awkwardly-sprawled friend. “A climbing reverse is totally basic!”

Twilight groaned as she rolled out of the deep divot in the cloud and brushed clinging puffs of white off her shoulders. “But the flight school curriculum said that they wait until the end of the first year to do climbing reverses,” she protested.

Rainbow facehoofed. “Well, yeah but how many rookies are total eggheads?” Her eyes narrowed. “And why’re you reading the flight school curriculum anyway?”

“Egghead, remember?” Twilight grinned at her. “And come on, Dash… if I could just read this in a book and get it right the first time, I’d be more awesome than you.”

Long experience had taught her that the most reliable way to distract Rainbow (and thus, in this instance, get a few moments to catch her breath) was to challenge either her abilities or her awesomeness and Dash didn’t disappoint: eyes widened and then narrowed, lips compressed, her pink irises seemed to catch fire, and her posture immediately went aggressive. “‘Scuse me?” She demanded, immediately zipping up so Twilight was nose-to-nose with her.

“I said, if I can read how to do it in a book and get it right the first time, I’ll be more awesome than you,” Twilight repeated, doing her best smug smile.

The pegasus snorted. “As if!” She declared, somersaulting away from Twilight so she could cross her forelegs and fix Twilight with a deathglare. “Fastest flier in Equestria right here and total shoe-in for the Wonderbolts. No way you can be more awesome than that!”

“Bet I could keep up with you in a race.” Twilight grinned.

That actually made the pegasus freeze, her eyes wide in astonishment at the audacity of the challenge, before she collapsed into fits of laughter on the nearest cloud. “Heh heh… y.. yeah… sure…” she managed to gasp out as she ran out steam after a few minutes. “You? Can barely do the basics? Keep up with me in a race?”

“It’s not that funny,” Twilight protested. She then paused. “OK, maybe it is that funny but still…”

Rainbow snickered. “Are you really serious, Twilight? You really want to take me on?”

“It’s not like I can do worse than faceplanting in clouds every other maneuver,” she pointed out.

“True.” Rainbow looked appraisingly at her. “OK, get up here and let’s see it. I’m dying to see you even try to keep up with the fastest flier ever.”

“What’s our destination?” Twilight asked as she took off and flew up to keep pace with the other mare, pleased with herself for having at last gotten to the point where she could do simple flying.

“See that storm front building above the Everfree?”

Twilight squinted. “Yes.”

“First one there wins.” As Rainbow turned, Twilight lit her horn and prepared her spell. While reading about how to fly didn’t help her fly any better, learning about all of the physics and science involved and things like wind shear, drag, and friction yielded some interesting insights—like the one she was planning to take full advantage of. “OK, one two…”

As expected, the Fastest Flier in Equestria was off like a shot even as she said the word ‘three’ and, extending her wings fully and setting them for a glide, Twilight was off like a shot along with her, tethering herself to her friend with a light chain of magic that she’d worked to make imperceptible to touch and making minute adjustments to stay in the slipstream generated by Rainbow’s incomparable speed. The biggest challenge was figuring out how to tie her momentum to Dash’s without creating drag that the hyperaware pegasus would notice and the key, according to her research, was to tie herself to the magical corona of flight magic that was unique to every pegasus and allowed them to bypass pesky physical laws problems. For instance, gravity: a hovering pegasus quite literally sat on the invisible corona that the mere movement of wings created even when those wings were moving at a languid pace. Because the corona was created by Dash and tied to Dash but couldn’t transfer physical phenomena to Dash (since it acted to negate such phenomena), tethering herself to it would both allow her to follow at her friend’s breakneck speed and avoid Dash noticing that Twilight was borrowing her speed to justify her claim.

When they were close enough to the cloud bank for momentum to carry her the rest of the way, she released the tether and flared her wings (a valuable skill to learn when most of your flying lessons ended up with you heading towards the ground at breakneck speed), coasting to a stop just behind Dash.

“Hah! What cha think of…” Rainbow turned around. “…that…” She blinked. “OK, what the hay?”

Twilight grinned and let her horn glow briefly. “Element of Magic, remember?”

Rainbow just stared at her for a moment. “That was…” Her face lit up. “…totally awesome!”

Twilight blinked at her. “So… not mad at me for…?”

“Cheating?” Rainbow laughed. “Naw, shoulda known you were up to somethin’ when you said you could keep up with me. Besides, it’s not cheating if I didn’t say ‘no horns’ is it?”

She smiled at her. “Nope.”

Rainbow grinned. “Got that out of a book?”

“Well, when I visited Mom yesterday, I borrowed the Canterlot Library copy of ‘Applied Aerodynamics’,” the alicorn admitted. “And looked up a paper on ‘Fluid Air Movements in Open System’ and…”

Rainbow planted her hoof on Twilight’s muzzle, rolling her eyes. “Pfft, boring. You’re supposed to say something awesome like ‘I went totally egghead on your flank, Dash’.”

Twilight paused and gave her friend a grin. “I went totally egghead on your flank, Dash.”

Rainbow affected grabbing her heart. “Aw, c’mon! Make it awesome.”

“I went totally egghead on your flank, Dash.” Twilight repeated, trying to strike the affectation she remembered hearing when… and realized what she would have reminded Rainbow of the precise second the pegasi’s face fell.

She sighed and facehoofed. “Sorry Dash.”

Rainbow took in a deep breath and let it out, shaking her head as if to deny that anything was wrong, although she alighted on a nearby cloud so she could tuck her wings in, the exact gesture Fluttershy always made when she was nervous or sad. “Naw, don’t be. Don’t need ponies being all careful around me just cuz…” She frowned. “…just cuz of… well…”

“Just because you lost a friend and it hurts?” Twilight smiled a little, alighting on the same cloud. “Come on, Rainbow… friends, remember? I know it’s easy to forget, now that I can keep up with you in flying…”

Rainbow snorted. “Heh-heh… whatever Twi.”

“Well, I just did, didn’t I?”

The pegasus brightened marginally and suddenly threw her hooves around Twilight. “You’re one hay of a cool egghead, Twi. I know you’re serious and it’s really great of you. It’s just not something you can fix by being really smart.”

“Did it help any that the griffins treated her like a hero?”

“Well, they should have!” Rainbow declared fiercely. “Because she totally was! Took the hit so she could stuff the bomb in that mare’s stupid mouth.” She sniffed. “Stupid alicorn… stupid ugly reptile thing…”

Twilight just laid a broad wing over her friend and didn’t say anything; after spending weeks helping with the restoration of Canterlot in the aftermath, and meeting more ponies than she could count that had taken an emotional hit during the assault by the Guardian, she’d quickly learned that sometimes just standing there and resting her wing over them seemed to do more than anything she said.

After a minute, she felt Rainbow lean against her side lightly. “Thanks, Twi. I… it’s good to do a little banter again with a friend. Reminds me of some really good times.” She suddenly jumped into the air and began hovering, giving Twilight a fierce grin. “But it doesn’t meant I’m gonna let you off easy. Come on, you’ll be at least twenty percent cooler if you can get the climbing reverse down.”

Twilight groaned audibly for Rainbow’s benefit but as she joined the pegasus, she smiled, glad that Rainbow seemed to be feeling much better… even if she was going to be sore in the morning.

Far below the pair, a vague shadowy shape lowered her spyglass and tucked it away, smiling to herself as she leaned against the trunk of the tree she was perched in. She commented to the air.

A scratching against the trunk below her invited her attention downwards and, confident that Twilight was safe in the company of her rainbow-maned companion, she let it drift. A pair of solemn lupine eyes looked up at her, a look that she easily read as the polite request for an audience that it was, and she slipped down the trunk to take a knee in front of the timber wolf.

She asked, letting hands drift with an almost affectionate gentleness over his wood-like exterior. To her amazement and utter delight, she’d discovered that this “Everfree Forest” had at least one pack of wolves. True, they looked somewhat unusual and appeared to be carved from wood, but they were was intelligent as any wolves she’d worked with before and were even easier than normal to commune with. Gaining their trust and affection had been easy: taking her favored shape, she’d shown the pack how it could drive away and even hunt the manticores that had long harassed the pack and would steal their prey from them. Their joy at the first kill had been palpable even without her needing to use her communion spell to ‘speak’ to them.

The communion was a complex spell, some eclectic blend of psychic link and plane projection, and with wolves it manifested as a lush forest filled with the shadows a pack on the hunt loved best. “The pale sick one passes before us.” The wolf told her, his speech as plain as if he was speaking although his muzzle remained still. The illusion of speech was just that, an illusion, and was actually her mind interpreting the details of scent, sight, and instinct that wolves thought in. “She leaves her abode with the blessing of the tree-hunters and goes along unaware.”

“You hunt well, little hunter, and all your pack,” she told him, mentally tinting her words with praise and affection. “Will you hunt her without hunting her, and tell me of her path?”

“The pack will hunt her without hunting her, for its sister-hunter without pack,” he replied with a broad lupine smile. “She has made us greater hunters of greater prey, and is friend.”

“Thank you.” She hugged the image of the wolf, intensifying her projection of affection and gratitude, before letting the communion lapse and watching the timber wolf slip off into the forest, silent as a shadow.

She said to the air, returning to her perch in the tree above.

<><

“Ah tell ya, Twi, Ah’ve never seen anyhin’ like it before,” Applejack told her, keeping her voice down as the two crouched behind a convenient farm wagon, watching the shapes of timber wolves in the morning mist.

“M… maybe they’re just curious about your visitor,” Fluttershy’s natural almost-whisper suggested. “They’re a very nice pack and they stopped hunting chickens when I asked nicely.”

“Maybe, sugarcube, but Ah never seen more’n two or three at a time an’ that looks like the entire lot o’ ‘em.” Applejack replied. “Do ya think ya could… Ah dunno…”

“Speak with them?” The pink-maned pegasus brightened noticeably at the prospect of talking to animals, which more than ever seemed to include animals that used to make her quiver fearfully at the mere thought of.
Twilight, all the girls in fact, had fully expected that Fluttershy’s experience of being thrown into the middle of the terrifying battle at Canterlot would make their naturally shy and quiet friend even more nervous than she already was. Instead, experiencing real terror at real dangers had made her less likely to be frightened of dangers that were mostly in her head, and Twilight had enjoyed seeing the gentle mare emerge from her shell a little and be a little more part of the social fabric. Equestria, Twilight thought, needed a little more Kindness in the aftermath and Fluttershy’s discovery of a little more courage had provided wonderfully.

Applejack smiled at her. “That’d be dandy, if ya dun mind.”

“Oh, oh I don’t,” Fluttershy assured her with the beautifully shy smile she wore with increasing frequency. “If you’ll just stay here and keep your voices down, believing that somepony is watching them from the shadows makes them nervous you see, I’ll ask them if anything’s the matter.”

Which, Twilight reflected with a touch of a grin as Fluttershy trotted towards the shadows, was yet another change: the previous habit of constantly asking permission to have an opinion or tell others what to do had mostly gone away.

“Ah’m sure glad t’ see her buck up a lil,” Applejack commented lowly, watching the yellow pegasus with a touch of friendly pride. “Equestria can use all the Kindness it can get these days an’ Ah think feelin’ a lil more courageous is makin’ her happier.”

“I’m glad some good came of that horribleness,” Twilight nodded. “I think there was more to Gilda’s death than Dash is saying. I don’t feel comfortable prying, but still hurting so much that she flinched a little when I tried taking a tone similar to Gilda seems… well, not Rainbow. I’ve never seen her stay in a bad place this long, even after we hurt her playing Mare Do Well.”

“She’s Loyalty, Twi,” Applejack offered. “She sorta lost ‘er best friend growin’ up then gets ‘er back only t’ lose ‘er right after. It’d make anypony feel bad but even more if ya represent Loyalty an’ feel like ya weren’t loyal.”

“I feel like it’s deeper than missing a friend and feeling as if she’s failed, though,” Twilight shook her head. “I’m just glad Pinkie hasn’t tried throwing her parties until she feels better.”

“From time t’ time, Pinkie seems t’ turn off th’ crazy a mite an’ figger that a party ain’t always the solution.” Applejack grinned. “Sometimes Ah wish she’d do it more often but ‘er heart’s always right, an’ Equestria could always use more ponies with their hearts in th’ right place.”

Twilight nodded with a smile. “So how’ve things gone with Lily Shell?”

“Eh, nothin’ too bad happened.” Her face became troubled. “She was always flawlessly polite an’ all, willing an’ almost eager t’ help, really nice t’ Applebloom and respectful to Granny. In fact, she almost acted… reverent t’wards Granny an’ it wasn’t an act, it was definitely part o’ her upbringin’.”

“But…?” Twilight prompted when her friend went silent a few moments.

“But she was way too protective of them saddlebags o’ hers,” Applejack said. “It wasn’t any sorta resentment or secretiveness or nothin’… Ah think she was really and truly scared that somepony would get hurt if they trifled with th’ things. An’ when Applebloom picked up that stick o’ hers? Never seen a mare nearly half that scared an’ it most definitely wasn’t for ‘erself. By th’ time we woke this mornin’, she was already packed and jus’ about out the door. Ah think she woulda stayed for a spell longer but Ah think th’ incident with that rod spooked ‘er somethin’ awful. Honestly, Ah wouldna minded ‘er lingerin’ some, despite th’ fact that she wasn’t entirely honest. Ah’ve had lots worse guests, though none stranger.”

“I wonder what could have been in the bags,” Twilight mused. “Or better yet, what that rod of hers does if she was so terrified that Applebloom might get hurt just touching it.”

“Couldn’t tell ya, sugarcube,” Applejack shrugged. “All I know is, she’s gone an’ she’s headin’ t’wards the griffin lands; that much was true when she said it.”

Any further conversation was forestalled by Fluttershy appearing out of the late morning mist as the shadows of the timber wolf pack disappeared in the other direction. “They said that somepony asked them to keep an eye on your farm,” she informed Applejack. “And somepony they... they described as ‘the pale sick one’.”

Twilight and Applejack stared at her, causing her to shrink very slightly. “That’s… that’s what they said, anyway…” she added, her voice softening to a shy whisper at the last word.

“Somepony… asked ‘em t’ watch mah farm?” Applejack repeated with an incredulous look. “An’ t’ watch Lily?”

Fluttershy’s squeak somehow conveyed an affirmative.

“What did they say they looked like?” Twilight asked, nosing lightly at the quivering pegasus in hopes of calming her down enough to speak; even having become more courageous after Canterlot, the shy mare still reverted to classic Fluttershy in the face of attention or scrutiny.

Fluttershy shuddered and took a deep breath, looking apologetically at Twilight. “They… I don’t think they’re… sure,” she admitted. “They described her as ‘sister-hunter’, ‘one without pack’, ‘kind shadow’ and ‘teacher-hunter’ but the… they said… she…” she took another breath. “They said that they could touch her and smell her and hear her but that… they couldn’t quite… see her. Like… um… trying to see something dark in deep shadow.”

“An’ she could speak to ‘em like you can.” Applejack didn’t try to conceal her amazement. “Shoot, Shy… Ah always thought ya were unique or somethin’. Never ever heard of another pony that’s as good as ya are with critters, much less able t’ talk to ‘em.”

Fluttershy smiled shyly and blushed. “T..thanks, AJ, but I’m not unique. I think the Princesses can converse with animals and the keeper of the castle gardens certainly can. This mysterious mare can… I mean, if she’s a mare…”

“What do you mean?” Twilight asked her curiously.

“Just… most of the ways they refer to her are… how they talk about each other. But she can’t be another wolf or they’d have… said so.” Fluttershy explained. “Feelings like… ‘hunter’ and ‘sister’ and ‘shadow’ and calling her ‘one without pack’. But the idea isn’t… like for another wolf… which…” She lowered her head. “I don’t understand. I’m not sure they really do either.”

“Well, Ah say that if she wants wolves t’ watch Lily, Ah don’t think she has her best interests in mind.” Applejack concluded grimly. “We need t’ warn her. Lily is a strange sort but she ain’t done any wrong t’ us an’ Ah say it says lots about what kinda pony she is that she up an’ left outta fear that she could get near-strangers hurt.”

“What’s wrong with wolves?” Fluttershy asked, looking steadily at Applejack, her voice suddenly without the hushed quality it normally had.

“Nothin’ especially but they ain’t cuddly an’ cute an’ harmless. They’re predators, an’ any good predator has t’ be good at killin’ to stay alive,” Applejack replied, edging away from Fluttershy slightly; ‘Shy speaking at a normal volume was never a good sign of anything. “A bird or such could probably do a much better job o’ watching th’ farm an’ a pony so why ask somethin’ awful good at killin’ and sorta good at makin’ ponies nervous t’ do the job?”

“Oh, OK.” The potential for The Stare dissolved into a shy, apologetic smile.

“You make a good point, AJ,” Twilight said thoughtfully. “If you can ask any animal to do it, why one that draws attention and makes ponies nervous even when they’re being friendly?”

“Hang the ‘why’, Twi. We need t’ find that starved lil thing an’ warn her.” Without any communication, both of them had the same thought and turned their heads at the same time to look at the shy, butter-colored pegasus who wasn’t sore from Rainbow Dash flight school the day before. Fluttershy read the look, her eyes got wide and she squeaked, hiding under her wings before they could even ask.

“Shy, we were just going to ask you to look for Rainbow.” Twilight told her. “I’d go, but I’m sorta sore from ‘the basics’.”

Fluttershy peeked out from under her wings, her face a picture of empathy. “Oh, poor Twilight,” she said as she got up. “Rainbow always forgets that not everypony is her. Don’t worry, I’ll go ask her to fly off and warn Lily.” She paused. “Um, what does Lily look like?”

<><

“You told them that I asked you to watch the farm and the pale sick one?” She couldn’t keep the dismay out of her voice and the young wolf, barely older than a pup, lowered his ears and stooped his shoulders.

“The… small soft-kind wingpony is friend…” He whined plaintively. “We are sorry, sister-hunter.”

She forced herself to smile and tinged her words with affection. “Don’t sorrow, your pack has been kind and faithful to me and I am grateful. You should not sorrow for being truthful to a kind pony. But I must hunt alone now. Will the pack watch the small soft-kind wingpony and her pack?”

Ears came up again with a shy lupine smile. "Yes, the pack will watch them and keep them safe. For the sister-hunter and for the soft-kind wingpony.”

She let the communion lapse and ran the side of her muzzle along the muzzle of the pup, hoping the affection and gratitude carried, before she let him go and looked skyward.

She sighed as she slipped into the tree above her head. Her monologue was interrupted by a stiff breeze passing by—with a hint of rainbow in the wake it left behind—moving in the direction that her lupine scouts had said that Lily was traveling. She wasn’t even conscious of the numerous intricate actions that took place in the next split second—vaulting from the branch, slithering in between the crown and using each one as just another rung on the ladder into the air, gathering herself for the leap even as her wings flared outwards to catch the slightest air current—but centuries had made it all so automatic that she was airborne and riding the pegasus’ wake before she was entirely conscious of forming the intent.

Let the game begin. She thought as she pumped her wings to try and catch the speeding Dash. First one to the finish gets one sickly white unicorn, slightly used and very abused.

Author's Note

5. The Weaver is one of the two Absolute Gods, the immortal embodiment of fate and able to weave any fate she wishes into any creature, mortal or otherwise. While it's the role of the Weaver to be a totally neutral guide of fate for both mortals and gods, this Weaver has somehow managed to break the natural order and largely leaves the fates to themselves; when she doesn't do this, she guides fate according to her personal sense of moral right and wrong. As a consequence, added to the fact that she's very friendly with great personal warmth, she easily cultivates real and genuine friendships with many of the beings whose fate she controls. It hovers between well-known and generally-assumed that she and the Reaper are mates.
Her given name, from her mortal existence, is Morgana.

6. The Reaper is the other of the two Absolute Gods, the immortal embodiment of death. He has no beginning that he remembers and no end that he can imagine and like in the classic assumption of Death, he carries a great scythe as the symbol of his office. Dour, humorless, but known for his immense compassion (a natural result of an existence where you have no purpose but to take people from the warmth and life they've always known), he's the epitome of duty. He preserves his own vast army of jackal-like creatures that are empowered to act in his name in the collection of souls and the occasional matter of judgement, the reincarnated souls of a peculiar necromancer cult, the only one in all the countless worlds that practiced death-magic without dragging souls back from their rest and forcibly fusing them to a dead body. Formerly a skeletal being, he was restored to an actual body by the Weaver cheerfully reweaving his thread of fate. The appreciation eventually turned to affection and then to love and as a consequence, the only two gods invulnerable to the power and whim of any other gods are mates.
His given name, given to him by The Weaver when she restored his body, is Phyrrus.

7. The "gates of Auralis" referred to are the ponderous gates of the capital city of the monarchy of Auric. Towards the end of the massive invasion by the forces of four of the Helles, the vast army led by Lord Quazelege of the Seventh (whose astonishing foolishness during the invasion, including the fact of the invasion, would earn him the moniker "Folly") were lured into a trap outside the capital. In the Battle of the Blood Plain Auric's ally nations encircled the Dark armies to prevent escape and provide the anvil against which the Aurican hammer would crush Quezelzege's forces. During the unmitigated slaughter, the Sixth sent her Handmaiden after the Fourth, a sadism-maddened abomination called Rijii, settling their rivalry in a very permanent fashion. Rijii's headless body was discovered far back from the other dead and the Aurican soldiers decided to nail it to their gates as a symbol of victory--and a grim warning. Because of the body's unusual nature, infused enough with the Void to remain perfectly preserved, it's still there.

Rainbows and Revelations

“You’re quite extraordinary, you know.”

His head shot up from gazing at the game board. “Pardon me.” He mimed cleaning out his ears. “Say that again. I could swear on my kith and kin that I just heard you call me extraordinary.”

She rolled her eyes. “It’s a statement of fact, not flattery.”

“Oh, it’s fact now.” He eyed her skeptically. “Do explain.”

“Your first piece explains the matter quite nicely,” she replied, gesturing to the figurine, now having morphed into an equine-faced female holding a mirrored sphere in the hand that had once carried an upturned pistol “She’s dead.”

“Technically, yours has never been alive.”

She waved a hand. “Semantics. She’s always been complete.”

“The ruins of that fragment are more soul and spirit than the ordinary mortal will ever have,” he huffed. “Besides, she asked.”

She fixed him with a dim look. “Which, translated to the way in which ministers see the universe, means that she broadcast despair which meant that she was agreeing to your terms before having had them offered to her.”

“It’s a more proactive approach.” He ran a long nail over the contours of the figurine’s face as he nudged it sideways a space. “You require that the Reaper bring lost spirits and decide how those spirits should be reborn. Being dependent, moment by moment, on the whims of Death and its servants is the way of the slave, licking its chops over the scraps its master deigns to sweep its way.”

“It’s a matter of quality over quantity,” she replied indifferently, nudging her unchanging statuette in diagonal after his. “Medusa and her kin, the erinyes, the Ten Families…”

He quirked a brow, his figurine retreating a space. “Should I take anything from the fact that when you speak of the great examples of your Reaper’s wisdom, you name none of your own minions?”

“He does what he does in his own time and with an understanding of what is, was, and will yet be,” she shrugged. “There’s great profit in sitting by dumbly and not questioning. After all, it placed the Handmaiden in my hands already forged, completed, and deadly in her grace. You wield the shadow of a shadow, a manipulator’s spirit remade from the shattered ruins of mingled Evil and humanity, a spirit that was a shadow of her actual self, an actual self that still exists.”

“She’s not the only fragment I’ve snatched and remade,” he retorted in irritation. “I’ve numerous other ruins that have passed into my hands as they drift the Void, disintegrating and dying and meet as raw material.”

The fact that this drew a brief, very real, very pleased smile gave him that disquieting feeling that she’d tricked him again. “I am aware of that,” she responded calmly, composing her face into the studied neutral mask of the seasoned competitor. “Do you have in invocation?”

“I do.” In his hand, a short, squat stature of an unnaturally long-nailed hand with its bared nails dug into the ground materialized and conforming to his unspoken intent, the first gameboard rose off the table and a second appeared under it. Studying the board as if it was a map, he placed his figure to the middle-right and the new board disappeared under the old. “I invoke ministry.”

She blinked in blank surprise before her eyes narrowed dangerously. “I have just barely emphasized the horrible fate that awaits you if you touch the Light of Sol Selune and you are sending an Evil as your agent?”

“Calm yourself,” he said, a palm upraised in a calming gesture. “We’ve already agreed that I’m at least aware and intelligent enough to see to my survival. Slapping you across the face with a gross offense so soon after you showed off your trophy would be suicide, and I’m not prone to suicide.”

The dangerous narrowing eased marginally. “Yes, you’re correct,” she agreed, leaning back in her chair. “Still, it’s a dangerous choice when, by mutual consent, we are forbidden to command death or forbid it.”

He decided a touch of flattery couldn’t hurt. “When faced with a Power that can invoke agents like the Handmaiden, risk becomes necessary or there’s no chance for victory at all.”

She smirked but the flattery had the intended effect of easing the aggression in her posture. “Everyone likes flattery and where royalty is concerned, it’s best to apply it with a trowel?”

He grinned fiercely. “Das ist der Mann, after all.”

She laughed in genuine pleasure. “Yes, that’s it precisely. Ah, but I would have loved to place that soul at my right hand but alas, the cunning without limits fit poorly in the hands of the Light.”

“What does fit into the hands of the Light, if I may ask?”

She snorted. “The innocent, the boring, the too-principled-to-act-intelligently. How else does a young foolish girl rise to the highest position while making time for amorous indulgence with her mate?”

He snorted in reply, grinning. “That’s quite a bit more than I ever cared to know.”

“It’s not something you could comprehend.”

“Nor do I wish to,” he replied immediately. “Sacrificing the benefits to avoid the pitfalls is a fine bargain and frees the attention for the accumulation of things that are of greater long-term impact.”

She eyed him and shook her head. “Remember when I said that there were things that separated Powers from everyone else, minister?”

“I do, although you referred specifically to prizes. What of it?”

“So long as you cling to that exchange, minister, you will never be Powerful.”

Rainbow Dash liked her naps, in the same way that a starving pony liked food. They were appropriate to most occasions and had the added benefit of deterring ponies who wanted to make her do something boring, like reading (which, of course, didn’t include “Daring Do” books because Daring Do books were obviously too cool to be "reading", duh). As such, the normal penalty for awakening Rainbow Dash, especially before noon on any day that ended in the word “day”, was a grumble of resentment followed by a well-aimed kick.

Except when the designated awaken-er was shy, soft-spoken, and her friend since forever. Which is why Rainbow was speeding in a vaguely northwest direction while the sun was still in the process of rising, with nothing more than the obligatory complaints about needing her awesomeness-sleep so she could be at her coolest for the rest of the day.

“Who the hay is this mare anyway?” She grumbled as she swept over the forest at a height and speed that would be studiously avoided by a wiser pegasus (or, translated into Rainbow Dash, a less awesome one). “So somepony’s watching her with a pack of wolves... so what? She’s a unicorn, she can deal with a few dumb wolves. You don’t need to be Twilight to have awesome magic.” She considered. “Of course, Twi has awesome egghead magic so that might be totally different.”

She rolled lazily in midair, feeling entitled to enjoy it a bit in retaliation for being made to go flying after some stranger hours before anypony should have been allowed to wake her up. A rotary barrel-roll or two made her grin despite herself and she threw in a climbing reverse and then stated on the mirror when her eye caught something and she turned the reverse into a stall, freefalling to regain momentum before somersaulting and catching the momentum to rocket in the direction she’d been originally going.

It’d only been a glimpse but she knew, with all the intuition of a lifelong stunt flier and relatively skilled weatherpony, that the flashes of shadow low over the crown of the trees was somepony racing in the same direction as her and trying very hard not to be seen doing it—which brought her mind abruptly to two suddenly important facts: first, that whoever was asking the wolves to watch AJ’s farm and follow this “Lily Shell” mare could obviously speak to the wolves.

Second, the only pony she knew that could speak to animals was a pegasus.

For somepony who always loudly protested that she was not an egghead because that wouldn’t be cool, her brain processed the disconcerting fact that whoever wanted to get this Lily might be racing to do it with her own two hooves quite rapidly, and with only a moment of freeze-up, she accelerated, the fact that she’d be unable to see a small white unicorn on the ground below at her new speed entirely disregarded.

The forest under her abruptly disappeared into the rolling grasslands through which the train passed to Canterlot and Rainbow chanced a glance backwards to see what the other pony looked like without the shadows of the trees to hide in. There was nopony there and Rainbow blinked; had she been imagining somepony racing her out of boredom? In answer, a shadow fall over the edge of her vision and she rolled sideways just in time to avoid a black shape shooting passed her, the wake of so much displaced air buffeting her.

What the HAY? She demanded in her head mouth open in disbelief as she caught another momentary glimpse of a the shadowy pegasus pulling out of the dive like a pro, twisting as she rose, rocketing back at Rainbow so fast that the rainbow-maned pony couldn’t see anything about her before she had to twist again to avoid the charge, again buffeted by displaced air.

She came about in time to watch her opponent reverse on a dime and veer into the blinding corona of the rising sun, causing Rainbow to involuntarily turn her head away from the stab of pain the blazing light caused and grunted as the virtual cannon of air blasted her sideways, forcing her to expend precious moments of concentration to correct and leaving her unable to do anything but cry out in frustration as the cannon rammed into her from the other direction.

How the HAY is she DOING that? Her mental voice demanded again she corrected a second time, having just enough time to brace herself before the next blast hit her from a rear angle. “Oh, buck this!” She cried, giving a few flaps of her wing and accelerating forwards, feeling the wake of her attacker’s air cannon race through her tail as she did. “C’mon, loser, let’s see if you can keep up with the fastest flier in Equestria.”

This time, she didn’t try looking back or otherwise checking where the other pegasus was; all that mattered was speed and speed was something that Rainbow Dash did better than any other pony. As she accelerated, she moved her head down in line with the rest of her body, squinting as the wind whipped through her mane. Rear legs went back and she stretched her front legs forward, streamlining to reduce air resistance. Wings beat and trembled as she stretched them out and thrust them down again, almost climbing through the air as it began to be a solid wall of roaring sound, the friction in the air causing sparks to dance around her. The wall began to bend inwards, becoming cone-shaped, hardening in defiance of the pegasus struggling against it. She could feel the moment approaching, the snap and an explosion of light and sound that would leave her pursuer in the dust. She shut her eyes in preparation…

Agony like she’d never imagined hit her across her back like somepony had dropped an anvil on her and the disappeared, leaving her breathless with pain that seemed to be everywhere at once. Blood dripped from her nose as if somepony had slugged her in the face and it was only the unconscious and automatic muscle memory of a born flier that kept her in the air, drifting stunned in the building light of morning.

“What… the… hay…?” She croaked, pressing a hoof against her nose, bringing it away to see the bright red blood on it. “How the hay…”

She shook her head, the pain fading as she looked around, expecting to see a black shape closing in for the kill, but there was nothing. No evidence that she was being pursued, nopony in sight that could be responsible for her abrupt exit from the air-cone that preceded a sonic rainboom, nothing at all.

“What the hay just happened?” She asked, both audibly and in her head, still thoroughly stunned by the hit she’d taken. Another look around confirmed that she was in the precise middle of nowhere, a dirt road winding below her with a white-coated mare carrying a large number of saddlebags trotting along, the tracks of the train off to the west and glinting in the rising sun, grasslands…

Rainbow blinked as her jilted brain suddenly connected and she looked down again. White-coated, golden-maned, carrying tons of saddlebags, a horn just visible at this distance… she grinned. “Hah! In your face, loser!” She proclaimed with a laugh. “Nopony can beat Rainbow Dash at her own game! Best flier in Equestria, right here, right now, at least twenty percent cooler!”

Her proclamations of awesome were apparently enough to reach the ground because the unicorn looked up at her, looking quite puzzled as Rainbow began descending, before a smile stretched over a starved-looking face and she raised her hoof, waving pleasantly as the messenger grew closer… until without any warning, a pleasant and pretty expression twisted into an ugly sneer and a large mirrored sphere floated out of her saddlebags, writhing with luminous black energy.

“Spite!” She hissed in a rasping, snarling voice that was very much not the voice of the extremely polite, harmless mare that Fluttershy had described. “The Sixth’s tame little pet.” The sphere was dropped to the ground where it still shone with the luminous blackness and Lily Shell raised a hoof above it. “Catch me if you can, fool. Klesae, pegasi EIT!” She stomped downwards and the sphere shattered.

Rainbow was dimly aware of a hollow, hungry howl filling the air as a blackness filled the air in front of her, a blackness that shown with the same luminous darkness as the white mare’s magic and she had an impression of a mouth, its inside blacker than black, the sum total of pure nothing gaping in front of her.

Time stopped. A chill wove through her hooves, her legs, her wings, everywhere, a chill that seemed to stab deeper than any physical cold and was both a force of nature and… alive. Weakness, soul-deep weakness, wrapped itself around her and she could feel her wings stop moving, her eyes drifting shut, that nothing getting closer…

Time started again and she was laying on her side in soft, plains grass, the gentle sunshine bathing her in comforting, safe warmth. Her brain lazily noted that she was in the air a second ago and now she wasn’t and gee, the sun was really warm and comfortable if only ponies would stop roaring and howling at each other. The thought of howling caused her languid brain to struggle out of its stupor and note that something big and black and terrible had just tried to eat her and she was now on the ground with no idea of why she was.

A keening roar drew her attention skyward and she looked up. A serpentine black dragon just barely twice the size of a pony was backwinging away from a towering… something. It looked like a shadow, if it was possible for a shadow to be as tall as the Canterlot castle and to be standing upright and taking broad, vicious swipes at the ebony-colored creature that was in the midst of roaring at it in a way that, without words, promised death and slaughter to whatever offended its owner.

The shadow took another flowing swipe at the dragon, and the shadowy appendage was met with a stream of glowing flame that seemed to be made of sunlight instead of fire, the shadow recoiling with a scream of such volume that it could be felt, a sonic expression of surprised pain. The hovering dragon didn’t give it a chance to recover, motes of light glimmering into existence around its four feet and being flung like a fist full of rocks at the recoiling shadow as the dragon spun upright in midair, its movements more like the pirouette of a dancer than a stunt maneuver. The light punched visible holes in the shadow, causing it to retreat with another tangible wail of pain.

The fight retreated into the background for a moment as another soul-deep wave of stomach-churning weakness washed over her, the accompanying sickness so intense that she retched, her stomach trying to heave up her last meal only to find that her last meal wasn’t there to be vomited. This somehow caused yet another wave of weakness to surge in her limbs, muddying her thinking to the point of incoherence, making the next cry of pain, now tinged with definite fear, recede into irrelevance for the wounded pegasus. The rust in her mental gears endured for an indeterminate length of time before, once again, her natural keenness kicked her thoughts into gear again and she struggled to raise her head.

The shadow was still there and still towering but it seemed… effervescent, the substance of its being drifting off of it sluggishly as if was blood instead of the absence of light. The dragon had alighted in the middle of the road, its posture one of mingled unconcern and hyperawareness of its towering adversary, and Rainbow could make out puffs of dust rising as the creature seemed to be writing in the road. Her vision blurred with exhaustion but she fought it off, the sight refocusing into the dragon rearing back onto its hind legs, its front paws igniting with the same sunlight-flame it’d used against the shadow, and it came down on them with a forceful air of finality.

The ground seemed to explode into white light, forcing Rainbow to clench her jaw against the stabbing pain of the brightness and her eyes shut against the blinding intensity. She heard the rapid-fire clinking of metal against metal, as if somepony was drumming on a length of pipe, and a despairing cry of agony and fear that all but deafened her, the cacophony forcing her to cant her ears in a desperate attempt to shut out the painful racket. The sound continued, pulsating, deafening, the air vibrating so hard with it that she could feel herself trembling before it.

And then it was gone and a soft, featherweight touch was drifting over her face and sides and her wings, light as a breeze, and the delicate scent of jasmine filled her nostrils. “That… animal,” A feminine voice hissed in an undertone, rich and throaty but trembling with rage. “To call a demon-shadow against an innocent just to save her worthless hide…”

Rainbow felt the weakness pressing in yet again. “Whuzzat?” she managed to ask in a thick, exhausted voice.

The voice sighed tiredly and the light touch went away. “It’s nothing. You have been gnawed on, brave pegasus, by something that should never have been permitted to touch you. I’m sorry; I’ve failed you.”

Rainbow blinked, trying to resolve the dark blur in front of her exhausted eyes into something that made sense while her befuddled brain tried to work through the words, failed, and decided they weren’t important. “Wha wuzzit?”

“Something foul that has been sent back to where it belongs,” the voice growled. “It means nothing; all that matters now is you. You have a valiant spirit and it fought the hunger of the klesae better than any in recent memory. But now, it and you are exhausted and must sleep.”

That seemed like a good idea. “Oh, sleep kay…” She managed, smiling weakly at the prospect.

The voice gave a short, strained laugh. “Yes, sleep is okay.” The gentle, barely-there touch rested over her eyes. “Rest well, Rainbow Dash; you have finished your race and won your honor and now await your crown.” A wave of drowsiness, a warm and pleasant and comfortable drowsiness, settled on her like a warm blanket, and with a yawn, Rainbow slipped into the dreamless oblivion.

Spite gently lifted her hand from the face of the slumbering pegasus and sat back on her heels, contemplating the battered form and fearfully listening to the slight unevenness in her breathing, and the small but revealing tics that signaled extremely deep wounds in her lifeforce. She had been perfectly truthful with Rainbow: the sheer stubborn loyalty woven throughout her spirit had proven very difficult for the klesae to consume. The tragedy was that any wounds to the substance of the spirit were dangerous, the smallest nick being nearly as dangerous as a gaping hole hemorrhaging life.

Oh, what I wouldn’t do for even the crudest apprentice healer of the Families! She sighed. It would make this so much easier. But, no, penance is required for my failure and this is my responsibility. I just... She snorted amusedly at herself. Heh, who would have imagined that I’d ever see someone with a dragon’s greatness and majesty of soul, and then be called upon to make it literal? The circle is closed in the most unexpected of ways.

Ironically, this most significant of acts, infusing fragments of the Void translated through herself into a mortal, was one of the easiest acts as well. It was different in every situation; in hers, it happened in the form of motes of luminous darkness welling up on her fingers, and being absorbed into the soft, cyan coat as she ran them gently over the toned athletic form sprawled in the grass. The process brought a grimace to her face, not because it hurt or cost her anything but because of the opposite: the flow of the life-destroying substance of the Void was far too easy and natural. At least, she reminded herself, I can take some comfort in the fact that if I was any other scion of the Void, I would be poisoning this innocent creature instead of saving her.

To her relief, the tics quickly faded and her breathing became slow and even, making it easy to deliberately forget the fundamental rule of the transference: you cannot infuse the Void into a mortal without changing them in some way. Pushing the uncomfortable thought aside, she stooped down and gathered Rainbow into her arms, a quick push of her legs and sweep of her vast wings letting her slip easily into the sky and propel her on the way to Ponyville and relative safety.

After a few minutes, Spite looked down at the sleeping pegasus in her arms, leaning down to nose one of the mare’s multicolored strands of mane into a semblance of order as her wings carried her over the light woodlands. The valiant pony had given her quite a chase, recovering stubbornly from each of her attempts to knock her down and exhaust her until she could no longer carry her message. It was only with a quick shadowstep, timing her next charge so it would strike Rainbow just as she’d reached the velocity that would make the air itself as hard as a brick wall, that she’d finally stopped her.

Too late. Lily couldn’t have prepared a spell of that magnitude or complexity if she didn’t have fair warning and while she’d played the surprised and innocent unicorn when Dash had approached, her real self roiled and oozed beneath the surface. Using a valiant and entirely innocent creature as a distraction was vintage Lashaal and within herself, Spite raged at the mad spirit—and herself.

I should have been faster. She raged. Should have hung close enough that when she commanded the klesae’s hunger, I could have thrown Rainbow out of the way. She knew it was incapable of even stirring a strand of my mane but that… abomination was not meant for me. She gritted her teeth. That… animal! That rabid, drooling, pathetic excuse for a web-weaver! Unleashing a demon-shadow on an innocent! Oh, when I get my claws on that… that… twisted whore, I’ll make Rejnu look like a mercy killing!

Her rage suddenly spent itself and she sighed, chuckling softly. She said in her native draconic tongue, letting a clawed finger run gently through the windblown rainbow-colored mane.

She set her wings and let her muscle memory, built through centuries of flying in all sorts of conditions and winds, instinctively handle the mechanics of the flight.

“I should change that.” Without even thinking about it, she’d slipped into the tongue of the ponies and said the words out loud. She blinked at herself, surprised to hear the words from her own mouth, before she smiled a little. “Yes, I imagine I’ll have a great deal to talk to you about, Rainbow Dash. The love of flight to start, and then perhaps the pride that comes of knowing that whenever your friends need you, they know that you’ll be there.”

The pegasus stirred a little, murmuring incomprehensibly, and Spite gently reinforced the spell the kept the pony in the charmed, recuperative, deep sleep that would do more to repair her tattered spirit than even the emergency measures she’d taken. “This is going to be one hell… one hay of a situation, Rainbow,” she commented to her unhearing listener. “As far as any of your friends know, as far as even the wolves I befriended know, Lashaal is what she appears to be. I, on the other hand, will show up with your limp body in my grasp, telling a fantastic story about Lily Shell unleashing a demonic shadow on you to prevent me from tracking her to wherever she’s going. Me, who asked wolves to follow Lily, and who has every reason in the world to be the one that harmed you to stop you from alerting her. And one of those friends? She’s an alicorn, one of astonishing intellect and magical power who, if she’s even remotely reasonable, will worry first about saving her friend from the scary black dragon, and then worry about whether that dragon keeps breathing.”

She suddenly laughed. “You know, the best description of this situation comes from a people you do not know and probably never will. The humans say that your friends will ‘shit kine’.” She paused and frowned. “Or is that ‘have a cow’? Colloquialisms have never been my strongest subject.” She contemplated it a moment and shook her head. “Anyway, Rainbow, I doubt it will go well if I meet your friends while I’m carrying you to get help. I do hope you understand, and can forgive me for leaving you in a crumpled heap in front instead of carrying you in myself.”

<><

Applejack was the first one to break the heavy silence. “Ah dun get it.”

The silence endured some more before Twilight glanced over at the farmer-pony. “What do you mean?”

“Ah mean, Ah don’t get it,” Applejack repeated. “We jus’ got Rainbow outta bed an’ ask ‘er to zip down th’ road a bit an’ deliver a message that somepony who dun feel comfortable spyin’ herself is sendin’ some wolves t’ follow Lily. An’ ‘bout two hours later, the hospital’s sendin’ messages t’ the lot of us sayin’ that she got so thrashed that she’s in a coma. How th’ hay does it get from deliverin’ a message t’ one o’ the fastest an’ most skilled pegasi in all o’ Equestria cata… cata…”

“Catatonic?” Twilight supplied.

“Yeah, that.” Applejack looked worriedly at the prone form of their friend, breathing deeply and easily but totally unresponsive since one of the patients, leaving after a simple test, had come running back in telling the doctors that there was a pegasus outside bleeding and unconscious in the grass.

“Aww, don’t worry AJ.” Pinkie smiled, giving Applejack a one-leg hug. “Dashie gets bumped and bruised allllll the time and she just gets up and keeps going and is all like ‘yeah, I’m Dashie and I’m so cool and awesome’ and then is like ‘whiz, boom’ and…”

“Pinkie…”

The bouncing pink earth pony’s dazzling smile dropped from an eleven to something around seven or eight and her mane lost some of its curly cohesion. “Sorry Twi, just trying to make AJ feel better.”

“And you’re doing a fabulous job, darling,” Rarity assured her. “But maybe wait until after the shock wears off?”

“Okie-dokie-lokie.” Pinkie Pie continued to beam but Twilight could see the well-hidden maturity that had become an increasing hallmark of Pinkie-when-nopony-was-looking poking out in the way she was just… there, comforting instead of the focal point for all the attention in the room.

Given her crazy, random, reality-defying, free-floating-happy nature, it was jarring to realize that of all of them, the affair of the Guardian had changed Pinkie the most. It’d been quite subtle at first: a radiant smile that was just barely less radiant, a few less balloons at a party, a slight downgrade in the frequency with which Pinkie popped out of nowhere to startle ponies, and other things of that nature. It wasn’t until Twilight was on a trip to Canterlot and came across Pinkie Pie talking to someponies over a light lunch that the change became readily apparent. The insane Pinkie of the wildly curly mane had become a serious, considerate, gently-smiling Pinkie of a simply-styled straight mane that had internalized the fact that ponies in emotional pain sometimes needed quiet, considerate happiness rather than loud, colorful happiness. Even more jarring was that, with the couple Pinkie had been talking to still nearby, Twilight had the first conversation she could ever remember with a mature, wise mare whose aptitude for simple kindness was a rival for Fluttershy’s. Naturally, when the couple she’d been comforting was gone, insane Pinkie was back, but the glimpse into the deeply good mare under that nonsensical skin was something that had stayed with Twilight.

Since their meeting in Canterlot, Twilight could see more and more of the warm and subtle Pinkamena peeking through the odd and obnoxious Pinkie and it made her actually appreciate the walking, talking party-in-pony-form rather than just liking her. She also had a suspicion that the reason the rest of the girls were coping so well with the aftermath was that she wasn’t the only one to have gotten a visit from Pinkie’s underlying mature side. The situation here illustrated it perfectly: she’d only needed to say Pinkie’s name with a slightly pleading tone, and Rarity only had to ask, and Pinkie was there to comfort by being an available and accepting presence instead of through the antics that made her the more literal Laughter.

“I can only think of one explanation,” Twilight said after another moment. “Whoever was after Lily figured out what Dash was doing and ambushed her, but Dash didn’t matter to her, so she brought Dash here to get help then went after Lily.”

“But wouldn’t that mean she already knew where Lily was?” Rarity pointed out. “To ambush somepony, you need to know where they’ll be and when they’ll be, and that would mean she knew where Dash was going… which would mean she knew were Lily was.”

“How’d ya figger…” Applejack paused. “Oh, right, fergot.”

Rarity gave her a tolerant, although slightly strained, smile before looking at Twilight. “Which means she followed Rainbow.”

“So she’s as fast as Dashie?” Pinkie’s eyes became impossibly wide. “Wow! So she’s, like, the fastestest flier in Equestria?”

“So now our mysterious pony is a pegasus, as fast or faster than the only pegasus in generations to fully master the sonic rainboom, and can talk to wolves, not to mention making the wolves like her enough to do something because she asks nicely,” Twilight summarized. “Is that our working theory?”

“Um… she’s also nice,” Fluttershy offered.

Rarity glanced at her. “Why do you say that, Fluttershy darling?”

“Well, um…” Fluttershy smiled shyly. “…the wolves said so. And she has to be nice if she was trying to catch somepony going north and west but took the time to get Rainbow help instead of just leaving her. And… she must have caught Rainbow far enough away that nopony noticed… and… and so she went very far to make sure she was… looked after.”

“Amend it then,” Twilight gave Fluttershy a nod of acknowledgement. “A pegasus as fast or faster than Rainbow Dash, that can talk to wolves, that has earned the loyalty of those wolves, is determined enough to hurt Rainbow, but kind enough to go out of her way to help her.”

At the chorus of nods, Twilight frowned. “I think this calls for a letter. First Lily appears, a starved-looking unicorn who’s carrying awfully dangerous things in her saddlebags, if how she acted at Applejack’s house is any indication, then this mysterious multitalented pegasus appears to try and keep an eye on her.”

“Why not give her the message in person, darling?” Rarity suggested with a broad smile. “It’ll give you a wonderful excuse to wear your new dress.”

Twilight eyed her. “You’re… already done with it?”

Rarity affected a sad look. “Twilight, you wound me! As if I’d put a dress for a friend going to spend time with her mother on the back burner!

Twilight eyed her again and couldn’t help but add a smile. “You never fail to impress, Rarity.”

Rarity beamed. “Oh darling, what a kind thing to say! But wait until I get you back to the shop before you praise my work.”

“I’m sure it’s a wonderful dress, Rarity,” she assured the fashionista. “So, girls, does anypony mind if I take first watch?”

“Why don’t we all stay?”

“Because when Rainbow wakes up, it’s much easier to find out important things from her if just one pony is standing watch,” Twilight replied. “By the time everypony had welcomed her back and hugged her and—Pinkie, I can see that cupcake box, stop trying to sneak it under the bed—asked questions, precious time could be lost. So I think it’d be best if we took turns.”

“Fair ‘nuff, sugarcube.” Applejack agreed, seeming to be speaking for the rest if their various expressions were any indication. “Jus’ dun get so caught up in askin’ questions that ya forget t’ send a message t’ the rest of us.”

“I won’t forget,” she promised.

Her friends filed out of the room, Pinkie hoofing her the cupcake box and solemnly informing her that the cupcake with her cutie mark painted on the top was hers and the one with Rainbow’s was Rainbows. Twilight thanked her with a quick hug then trotted over to the comfortable chair beside the stricken Dash’s bed, pulling out one of her friend’s favorite Daring Do books and settling in to read it to her, as much to pass the time as to greet her with one of her favorite stories if—and when—she emerged from sleep.

She was a few dozen pages in when she noticed that everything had become… quiet. The normal sounds of the hospital seemed to be filtered through cotton, sunlight streaming in through the window was muted as if passing through darkened glass, and Rainbow herself seemed to somehow slow down. Curious, she looked up from the book and discovered that the room had changed. Specifically, everything faded out beyond the circle composed of her, Rainbow Dash… and a dragon unlike any she’d seen before.

Where young dragons like Spike stood upright on hind legs, this one lounged casually on her side in an obviously quadruped way. The adult she and the girls had shooed away from Ponyville was horned but his one’s head was smooth and serpentine. She couldn’t remember having ever seen a dragon with a mane, but this one’s charcoal-colored one spilled off her head in shining luxury that would make Rarity envious. Most noticeably, at least to a highly intellectual pony like Twilight, was that her manipulatory digits were unusually long and clearly meant to grasp things and make fine, precise movements. The dragoness regarded her with vividly amethyst eyes and a placid expression, the barest hint of a smile curling the edges of her muzzle.

“Good afternoon to you, Twilight Sparkle.” She said, her voice rich with an exotic accent Twilight couldn’t place that had a strong, purring quality to it.

The book dropped to the floor as Twilight leapt to her feet, her horn blazing with magic awaiting an application. “Who are you? How’d you get in?”

“Calm yourself, Twilight,” the dragoness replied, raising both paws in a calming gesture. “I will explain that, but I’ll first say that I’m not here to fight you or to do you harm. Quite the opposite in fact; I admit that I was hoping Rainbow would be unattended so that I could look in on her.”

“Look in on her?” Surprise and a touch of confusion made Twilight dim her horn slightly. “Are you a friend?”

The dragoness smiled sadly. “I most earnestly wish to be but no, I’ve not had the chance to win her friendship.”

“Then why…?”

“Would an apparent stranger want to look in on her?” The smile lost some of its sadness. “Firstly, I was and am still concerned for her. Secondly, I felt guilty for not having stayed at her side when I brought her to the doors of the hospital. Thirdly, although I had hoped she would be alone, I couldn’t pass up the chance to meet you, Lady Sparkle.”

“But why?”

“Because Lashaal has slipped my grasp, one of the Elements lies gravely wounded…” She took a breath and let it out again, the gesture seeming frustrated and worried. “…and I don’t think it wise to continue without explaining a few things.”

A/N: Here's hoping my solution to the Pinkie-writing problem I mentioned in my blog is credible!

Author's Note

8. The various "home worlds" of Dark and Light are populated entirely by mortals who've died and been reborn as various creatures according to the grand designs of the Reaper. Most of them have no memory of a previous existence; they're literally reborn in a different form without any notion of having been anything else. In their new forms, they're both immortal and subject to a second death; what happens after that second death is known only to the Reaper and his servants. Certain souls, however, insist on oblivion after dying and the Reaper invariably responds by abandoning them to their own devices. Some of these become the various forms of ghosts but the majority wander the Void in a formless state until they either gather enough of the less-than-nothing material that the Void is made from or are captured in their fragmented state by some of the more predatory beings that dwell in the Void, some of which delight in making slaves and puppets of these unfortunates.

Medusa is the selfsame gorgon mentioned in Greek mythology. Stripped of all of her memories of her time as a gorgon (but allowed to keep all her memories of being a faithful priestess of Poseidon prior to her being cursed by Athena), the Reaper first reconstituted her in the form of a highly attractive anthropomorphic reptile with hair composed of symbiotic creatures that put her legendary petrification power fully under her control. Pleased with his work, and how naturally Medusa fell back into the habits of a generally harmless young priestess, he decided to use her as a template for creating an entire race composed entirely of the souls of the dead mortals cursed by the Olympians. The Medusans exist entirely in the Sixth Helle and act as lay clergy for a semi-religious faith dedicated to the veneration of the Weaver, although like the young woman they're based on, their serpentine hair makes them extremely dangerous if attacked.
10. Erinyes are another Dark race derived from the creatures of the same name in Greek mythology. After being essentially stripped of the only role they'd ever known as minor deities of vengeance, they eventually rebelled and were slaughtered by the Olympians with the dismissive ease of children disposing of a no-longer-favored toy. The Reaper collected them and reconstituted them, their forms essentially unchanged, in the Eighth Helle but with their rebirth, allowed them to decide what they'd be in their new existence. They were reborn during a major upheaval in the order of the Helles and quite unexpectedly, they discovered that the Helles had a need for scribes, administrators, quartermasters, messengers, and other components of the support staff of a formal army. Free of the compulsion to revenge, they settled into a new, and much more peaceful, existence. Their success in their chosen role is such that anyone who's anyone in the Helles counts a great number of erinyes among their personal retinue.

11. While there are only Nine Primes, one for each of the Helles, there's actually a tenth major power among the nine worlds of Darkness, and these are generally known as the Ten Families. They're composed of three races: anthropomorphic lupines called "jei", the vulpine kitsunes, and the halfbreed children of jei and kitsunes called "jeikitsu". Until extremely recently in the Helles, the Ten Families were the only beings that possessed all the trappings of civilization: a system of laws, sophisticated works of structural engineering, and a formal professional army. More than this, the typical member of the Families is a highly refined and deadly warrior similar to the elite among the samurai of Earth; numbering nearly a million altogether, they were more than equal to any Prime and recognized no lord or master but themselves. This changed with the rise of the present Sixth Prime who, with her personal honor and wholehearted embrace of the same elements of civilization that the Families valued, won their allegiance and friendship. Although still technically independent, they're generally regarded as the core of the Sixth's vast personal armies, making her the envy of the Primes and the Lights alike.

12. “Everyone likes flattery and where royalty is concerned, it’s best to apply it with a trowel.” is a paraphrase of a sentiment expressed by British Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli.

13. The entire quote by German chancellor Otto Von Bismark is "Der alte Jude, das ist der Mann!" ("The old Jew, that is the man!") and was spoken in admiration of Prime Minister Benjamin Disraeli at the Congress of Berlin.

Sixth's Handmaiden

Her stare burned into his as he shifted his web-weaver figurine to yet another of the game boards. He did his best to ignore the intensity of the look and the feeling of subtle dread it was inspiring in him, at least until he was done with his move. He then folded his hands and looked neutrally across the board. “Is something the matter?”

“Surprisingly, no,” she replied after a moment of visible thought. “I apologize for staring so intently, but I wasn’t sure that I believed my eyes or any of my other senses.”

He blinked, genuinely astonished. “You… are not angry?”

“Angry?” She grinned fiercely. “Whyever would I be angry at you, minister?”

The feeling of dread grew stronger. “I… imagined that one of my agents sending a demon-shadow after an innocent and terribly wounding her would earn me grievous punishment, even though I regarded the risk as a worthy one.”

“Oh, I won’t pretend that I didn’t feel a flicker of rage and a momentary impulse to geld you to make a point, but then I contemplated the big picture.” The grin grew fiercer, if that was possible. “Your agent did something on my behalf that would have otherwise been impossible to do with any subtlety. It was something I had wished to accomplish myself, and even made elaborate plans to do it, but in the end, I only needed to sit back and watch.”

“You’re making no sense,” he all but growled. “She unleashed a klesae and slipped the grasp of the Handmaiden. I see no benefit in this for you and I know, for a fact, that spiritually wounding the pegasus would never be an objective of yours.”

She sighed. “I realize that it’s a very foreign concept to you, but I trust the tools in my hands. I invoke their aid because I know that I can rely on them to do the best thing, and I typically know what that best thing is. The Handmaiden accomplished something, but you can’t see it because I didn’t command her to do it; I simply trusted that she would, and she did.”

He frowned pensively at the game board, studying the game piece that represented the dragoness and idly noting that the hand grasping the locket was clearly feminine. “I can’t help but notice that you’ve only invoked one tool.”

“I’m stunned by your incisive powers of observation,” she remarked dryly.

He bristled a little. “It just seems very unusual for you to let someone else define the board. Even for a Light, it’s very… passive.”

“‘Even for a Light’?” She eyed him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You know perfectly well what it means,” he replied evenly. “That bizarre tableau of a collection of angels lounging on clouds and plucking harps is more literal than the Lights like to admit. Granted, your creatures are more fantastical than small, naked, human infants with tiny wings but the principle’s the same.”

“Sometimes, good things come to those that wait.” She settled back. “I’m a great deal more aggressive than… others.” Her mouth twisted briefly with distaste. “But you’d be surprised how much succulent fruit has just… fallen into my lap because an opponent felt compelled to do something, while I wisely did nothing.”

“Deflect until they’re exhausted, then surge.” He considered this. “I find that difficult to credit in this situation.”

“No, in this situation I plan to wait only until my anvil is in place and then drop the hammer.” Without any warning, cups of tea in exquisite rose-patterned porcelain appeared in front of the two contestants, causing him to jump a little as she reached for her cup and sipped placidly. “Speaking of hammers and anvils, I hear that every creature of any intelligence and significance has a story of how they escaped the Blood Plain.”

“Would you not do that?” He responded in irritation.

“Offering a pleasant drink is a standard courtesy among Powers.” She managed to restrain her grin to a little twitch at the corners of her muzzle. “Do you not like tea?”

He contented himself with a glare before sighing and taking a sip; naturally, it was the perfect temperature and his favorite flavor, par for the course in her realm where her rules of reality ruled. “There is precious little to tell,” he responded after another sip. “I lingered no longer than my master then proceeded to run, as the humans put it, like a little girl. And I’m not the least bit ashamed of it; there would have been no purpose in being brave, dead, and stupid and stupid is precisely what it is when you stay on a battlefield where your dead have to be numbered by the wagon.”

“And even with that, you seem irritated when I refer to him as ‘Folly’.” She noted.

“I learned a valuable survival skill from his example,” he smirked. “Hard to disparage the one that is responsible for your continued living.”

She visibly contemplated this. “It makes a certain sort of sense,” she admitted after a moment. “So, do you have any more immediate intentions for the game board?”

He looked it over thoughtfully. “Not at the moment. Thank you for the tea.”

She grinned over the rim of her cup. “I didn’t summon any tea.”

“But it’s the perfect flavor and temperature…” He paused and set his cup down with a sigh. “…and you’re more of a whiskey person, aren’t you?”

She laughed. “If only I’d been lucky enough to have something as refined as whiskey when soldiering. We typically had to make due with straining from fermented mash. But yes, the simpler tastes of a soldier in mortality, the same in immortality.” She took another delicate sip. “Although I never turn down a nice, flavorful drink if I can help it.”

“I’m ever so pleased that my efforts are appreciated, Lady Aon.” Just like that, a leaf appeared on the left side of the table with a luxurious divan pulled up to it. Lounging on the furniture was a serpent-like creature that looked like he was stitched together by a madman: one eagle wing, one dragon wing. A lion’s paw and an eagle’s claw. A goat’s head with an antler, twisted horn, and snaggle tooth. One rear leg from a horse and the other from some unknown reptile and a dragon’s tail to top it off.

“Ah, I haven’t missed the chaos,” he grinned. “Excellent.”

Twilight Sparkle eyed her visitor warily, but the dragon seemed sincere enough and she could probably have done whatever she wanted in the time before Twilight had noticed her, if she had evil intentions. “OK then,” she said, returning to the chair. “Let’s proceed under the assumption that I accept your sincerity. Who’re you? Who’s Lashaal? What do you think I need to know?”

“For those outside of the Elements and your family, I wish to use the name Myrilandel,” the dragoness replied. “My true name is Spite.”

Twilight blinked. “Spite?”

“Spite.” She smiled a little. “I wasn’t named by people who like me, and I didn’t earn the name by good deeds. But when spoken with affection, by friends, I’m proud of it.”

“How’d you get it?”

Spite looked seriously at her. “When I win your affection and trust, such that you come to regard me as a friend, I’ll tell you that story. For now, I’ll say that I haven’t always been the kind of dragoness who would abandon her quarry to save the life of a stranger.”

Twilight searched her face, noted the determination, and decided to let it go. “So who’s this Lashaal you mentioned?”

“You know her as ‘Lily Shell’, although I would think that’d be obvious: there’s only one pony I’m chasing, and thus could be said to have ‘slipped my grasp’,” Spite replied. “Who is she? I know some things about her but no details of her history. Suffice it to say, she’s not a pony by any stretch of the imagination.”

“Is that related to her odd manner of speech and her starved appearance?” Twilight asked thoughtfully.

“Yes,” Spite responded. “She has limited experience being around mortals and reverts to old speech patterns. I’m… not really sure about the emaciation. It could be her attempt to remake the shell she seized…”

“Excuse me, ‘shell she seized’?” Twilight felt her stomach twist. “She stole somepony’s body?”

“Yes,” Spite confirmed. “She has little power of her own beyond knowledge. To accomplish whatever her design is, she would need a physical body and the best of those, in her mind, would be that of a unicorn.”

“Why not a dragon like you?”

“Because she’s not strong enough.” The dragoness grimaced. “And as much as I’d dearly love to see her try, I wouldn’t wish the pain and spiritual wounds on my most hated enemy. No I don’t speak from personal experience, but I was shown the remains of a spirit that made such an attempt, and I’d just as soon forget the sight.”

“So she’s a ghost that stole somepony’s body.” Twilight concluded.

“A ghost that’s a few apples short of a pie, equipped with horrifyingly dangerous ritual objects, that stole somepony’s body.” Spite corrected her. “She unleashed one of those objects on Rainbow Dash to prevent me from following her.”

“What… kind of object?”

“A magic-infused sphere linked into the Void that would call a klesae bound to the will of the summoner,” she answered. “It’s a animalistic beast, essentially soulless, that exists to eat living spirits, which is what it started to do to Rainbow before I could interpose myself and get her to safety.”

Twilight felt herself pale. “It… was eating her… um…”

“Will. Soul. Spirit. Self.” Spite supplied. “There’s many names for it, all refer to the invisible and imperceptible force in living creatures that gives them their unique selves and determines their nature at its most basic level. And that was the part of Rainbow Dash that the klesae began to feed on—as Lashaal intended, for it was the only way to distract me from pursuing her.”

Twilight looked fearfully at the prone form of her pegasus friend. “Will she be alright?”

“Yes,” Spite assured her with a warm, reassuring smile. “Your friend is very strong and her soul is also very strong. A lesser spirit would have been swallowed entirely before I could do anything, for it was a very large, powerful, and hungry klesae. But although she was wounded in soul, she was still alive and with enough strength to fight through the weaknesss and comprehend my presence.” The smile faded. “I was forced to take extreme measures to save her life, however, and repair her ragged spirit enough that I could place her in a regenerative sleep state. She’ll recover completely on her own now, but there’ll be consequences for what I did to save her.”

“What kind of ‘consequences’?”

“I honestly don’t know,” the dragoness closed her eyes and sighed. “I can only tell you that the consequences will not harm her. In fact, it’s entirely possible that the infusion will make her even more of what she already is; there’s simply no way to be sure.”

Twilight looked steadily at her. “What exactly did you do?”

“That is another one of those things I can’t really explain unless I’ve earned your trust,” Spite replied, opening her eyes again, meeting Twilight’s gaze evenly. “It’d require explaining what I am, which would require explaining why I’m different, which would require explaining my history, which I’ve already said is something that can’t be adequately explained without an existing bond of friendship and trust.”

Twilight frowned, considering this. “More of what Lily did, hinting at a larger truth but refusing to expound until an undefined ‘later’ isn’t good enough, Spite,” she told the dragoness firmly. “Within the last week, I’ve already had one total stranger pretend to be harmless and sincere, only for another total stranger to bring my friend back in a coma, claiming that the first stranger attacked her on a spiritual level. You seem nice, but it’s just not reasonable to sit here, smile, and trust that you’re not lying to me.”

Spite sighed heavily but she nodded. “You’re right, my mere assurances aren’t good enough. If you’d like, I’ll leave, but I can’t promise that I won’t visit Rainbow from time to time.”

“Why would you?”

“Because, whether you believe it or no, I care about her well-being. I care about the well-being of all six of you, but I haven’t failed all six of you; I’ve failed her.” She paused. “So, may I stay, or would you prefer that I go?”

“I wouldn’t mind asking Applejack to listen to what you have to say,” Twilight responded.

“Applejack?” She thought. “Oh yes, your farmer friend. The Element of Honesty, if I recall correctly. So she’s in-tune with her Element to the degree that she can reliably separate truth from lie? Or, to put it another way, if she spoke to me and declared that I was being honest, would you accept it without doubt?”

“Absolutely,” Twilight replied without any hesitation.

Spite smiled broadly. “I’m pleased to hear that, more that you trust her so absolutely than that you’d accept my honesty if she declared it.”

“Until then, though, I have a friend who’s very vulnerable and I’m uncomfortable with someone I’m unsure about being in the room.” Twilight continued with a slight note of polite apology. “Granted, you’ve been extremely pleasant and open but Lily… er, Lashaal seemed the same way.”

“And I have no doubt she did that deliberately, damn her.” Spite sighed disgustedly. “Before I go, you should know that Lashaal is just the tip of the iceberg. She’s the servant of another, and she’s far from the only one. Be very careful, Twilight; I was there to save Rainbow but while I plan to keep watch on the six of you, I cannot possibly be everywhere at once.”

“Speaking of keeping watch, why wolves?”

Spite grinned. “Why not?”

“Well, for one thing, they’re noticeable and for another, they make ponies nervous because they’re not ordinarily friendly,” Twilight pointed out.

Spite snorted and shook her head. “It’s amazing how scared you ponies can get at a wolf. I myself would cross the entire breadth of the world alone, and keep no watch, if I had a pack of greys hanging on my flanks as I went. If you gain their trust and friendship, there is no creature more loyal, nor one that will fight so hard to protect pack.”

“And they regard you as part of their pack?”

“They do, along with the soft-kind wingpony.” Spite smiled placidly. “Even a predator, who needs to live by the ethic of kill or be killed, basks in the serenity of your soft-spoken friend. So is there anything else you wish of me before I leave you to your vigil?”

“Just one thing.” Twilight gestured around her. “How’re you doing this? I’ve never seen a spell like it before.”

“Trade secret,” Spite responded instantly, amethyst eyes twinkling. “Maybe one day, you’ll see just what can be done with it. For now, however, I think I ought to bid you farewell for your own peace of mind.”

“Farewell then.” Twilight paused. “And… assuming what you say is true, assuming that you actually intervened to save my friend’s life and weren’t the one who tried to harm her... thank you.”

“Doing a good turn for any of you six is my honor, Twilight,” Spite said warmly. “Be safe, Lady, and be watchful. I hope we shall meet again soon and do give Rainbow my best wishes when she awakens.”

And just like that, Spite was gone and reality reasserted itself instantly. Sun streamed into the room, the noises of the hospital filled her ears, and Rainbow’s chest continued to rise and fall steadily. Twilight stared at the space that, a moment before, had been occupied by the black-scaled dragon, and looked at Rainbow. “Wish you were awake, Dash… right now, even a conversation punctuated by ‘pfft, boring’ would be welcome. I mean, I just had a dragon appear out of thin air, tell me that a harmless-seeming pony was an evil ghost that tried to kill you, and disappear back into thin air.” She paused. “And yes, I know how insane that sounds.”

She shook her head. “I know I should tell the girls but…” She broke off and began to chuckle. “What am I saying? You wouldn’t want me here when I should be doing something important, would you? I guess it’s fortunate that you can’t talk to me or you’d be hurting yourself trying to kick my flanks out the door.”

“Why would she be kickin’ yer flanks out th’ door, Twi?” Applejack inquired from the doorway.

Twilight jumped slightly, blinking. “AJ? What’re you doing here?”

Applejack gave her a funny look. “Ah’m here t’ spell ya, sugarcube. Ya’ve been here fer hours already.”

Twilight facehoofed. “But she was only here a few minutes!”

The look from the apple farmer turned to utter confusion. “Um… who was only here for a few minutes, Twi?”

Twilight waved a hoof. “Don’t worry about it. Round up the girls; things just got complicated.”

<><

“They represent the greatest single concentration of complimentary talents in the entirety of Sol Selune.” The precisely-accented, and eerily resonant, voice of the spymaster echoed in Spite’s memory as she watched from a corner of the room, melded into the shadows and watching as the six ponies (which included Twilight Sparkle’s “twin sister”, Dawn) talked anxiously amongst themselves. “There are, of course, immense talents to be found elsewhere and among the other peoples of the world, but they are the concentration of said talents within a particular grouping. They can be roughly, albeit not entirely accurately, compared to the thirteen Templar of the Order in their concentration of talent and importance. You are of nature with Amarra in your interpersonal interactions so this ought to be a natural setting for you.”

“There is no leader as such but the role of guide is naturally assumed by one Twilight Sparkle, lately discovered child of the world’s solar goddess, Celestia,” the voice of her memory continued as she shifted her gaze to the lavender alicorn, idly thinking it a shame that the practical mare didn’t give her color-streaked mane some fashionable attention. “Exceptional, incisive intellect combined with natural intellectual curiosity augments her magical potential above specimens of comparable or higher magical reserves. Not that hers are to be sneezed at; prior to her full manifestation as an alicorn, she had sufficient magic and exquisite control to simultaneously manage sustained telekinetic levitation of a tenfold mass, and the complex serious of fine manipulations and movement to, in the colorful description of my eyes, ‘give a massive ursine cub its bottle and rock it to sleep’. As with any specimen that is simultaneously very powerful and highly intelligent, she is a significant obstacle to your goal; that said, I recommend her as an initial point of infiltration. She is most able to suspend subjective emotional strain sufficient to consider evidence with admirable dispassion, and if told your objectives and intentions with honesty, is most likely to see said objectives and intentions in the most objectively correct light. Put simply, you can trust her and having trusted her, can cultivate her into a trump-card asset, especially in the sense that she is the key to the cultivation of her five most common companions.”

“Applejack.” Her eyes turned to the orange farmer pony, handsome in a feminine way, solid and hard with honest muscle from honest work. “Element of Honesty. Simple-minded, although sufficiently intelligent that her comprehension is at least equal to the seventy-fifth percentile of ponies overall, although a precise rating is impossible without extreme measures. Above-average manual dexterity, ninetieth percentile muscular strength, has an instinctive feel for truth and untruth that is augmented by her Element to be virtually impossible to deceive. Exceptionally fit, but not exceptionally fit in the athletic manner, which presents a point of physical vulnerability.”

“Fluttershy.” She couldn’t help but smile broadly as she looked at the butter-colored pegasus with the soft, gentle eyes and a pretty light pink mane that seemed symbolic of how utterly sweet and harmless she was. “Element of Kindness and radiates it with every gesture. Highly detailed knowledge of all world fauna and a nearly-unique ability to communicate safely with that fauna, although her mental and physical attributes are impossible to determine. Slipping out of her cripplingly shy personality due to stress or emotional strain empowers her to exert a force of absolute will through locking eyes with the target of that will, allowing her to compel obedience, although there is no evidence of malicious effect from this Stare-related compulsion. Frankly, Spite, you’ll likely want to expend some of your free time just hugging her or some such foolishness; my eyes tell me that she has a similar effect to a security blanket or a favored stuffed animal.”

“Pinkamena Diane Pie, commonly called ‘Pinkie’.” Spite carefully avoided looking towards Pinkie Pie, trying to avoid the possibility that the mare’s odd extrasensory perceptions would allow her to see her. “Element of Laughter, typical case of mirror personalities. First personality is mentally-unbalanced, obsessed with parties, displays little to no apparent comprehension of the world around her. Second personality is sober, warm, and displays a hyperawareness of her surroundings, and especially of the mental states of those around her, with an emphasis on friends. Both personalities manifest tactile precognition and remote awareness, high intelligence, and the capacity to bend or break reality selectively to accomplish feats of teleportation or omniscience that are generally limited to certain gods and god-like entities. Personalities are aware of one another and can share information, although they have distinct and delineated roles that don’t overlap. I recommend a combination of tolerance and avoidance.”

“Rainbow Miriam Dash.” Here, Spite looked towards the prone pegasus with a mixture of warm regard and sadness, feeling that uncomfortable clenching in her gut that always accompanied being reminded of a failure. She looked over that rainbow-colored mane and smiled a little, enjoying the irony of the fact that of the six, it was the pony that most hated high society, fashion, and elegant mannerisms that could be the eye-catching beauty that would fit very easily into that world. “Element of Loyalty, the most exceptional specimen within her realm except for Twilight Sparkle. Brash, prideful, borderline arrogance, active loathing of anything that she designates ‘frou-frou’. Also possessed of immense focus, an incisive intelligence that is entirely concealed by her personality traits, and an absolute loyalty towards friends and towards her ideals. Ninety-first percentile strength, above-exceptional manual dexterity, exceptionally fit in an athletic manner. Possesses a unique mastery of a flying maneuver called a ‘sonic rainboom’ and a related speed and agility that allow her to compensate with raw talent for deficiencies in training. She’s your sister under the skin, Spite; if you can’t clever your way into Twilight Sparkle’s confidence, she’s the optimal second point of infiltration.”

“Rarity.” The alabaster unicorn was the only one of the ponies she glanced at that she couldn’t see being anything else; somehow, she looked like she’d just come from getting her mane styled although Spite knew that the elegant pony had been fretting in her shop and left without even bothering to comb. “Element of Generosity, selfless and giving of her time and talents. Appears to have an intimate affinity with gemstones of all kinds, able to locate them with minimal effort, a talent appropriate to the marking on her flank. Dressmaker of notable renown which results in her being quite wealthy, although most of her wealth is dedicated to improving her craft by improving her selection of materials. Of common birth but is self-taught in the mannerisms of nobility, such that she imitates the appropriate affectations effortlessly. Assassin.”

It’d been the last assertion, a single word delivered with dismissive casualness, that had taken Spite aback and she dared to meet the pitiless eyes of the towering sea hydrus. “Assassin?”

He’d grinned toothily down at her. “Of course, my dear. You know I would not offer to fully brief you on the six and then tell an outright lie. That would be a calculated insult, and I do not pay Amarra calculated insults, not after the incident in front of the Palace.”

She’d accepted that, although she still couldn’t figure out how “assassin” fit a mare who could be traumatized into incoherence at a little mud. And looking at Rarity, her posture subtly concerned, her head occasionally twitching in the direction of Rainbow Dash, she simply couldn’t see such a genuinely selfless creature accepting money to kill someone, for no other reason than the weight of the bits in her pouch.

She sensed that the tempo of the conversation had begun to slow and drift towards some kind of conclusion, and she slipped close enough to be slightly out of range of being instinctively bucked, and let the cloak of the shadows she’d been wearing dissolve off her shoulders. Thus revealed, and so far unnoticed, she awaited developments.

“So, sis, some black-scaled dragon pops out of nowhere, claims to have a heart overflowing with warm fuzzy feelings towards us all, and admits to being the one that brought Dash back in a coma.” Dawn said in a dry tone of voice. “And you believe she’s… sincere.”

“Well, no, not…” Twilight shifted uncomfortable under her sister’s gaze. “Not necessarily but she seemed to harbor no ill-intent and…”

“Do you have any objective evidence that what seemed to be true was, in fact, true?” Dawn interrupted. “Did she offer any proofs that could objectively establish her harmlessness? Did she offer any proofs at all?”

“Um…”

“Guess not.” Dawn looked at Applejack. “Whatcha think, AJ? Do you think some dragon that’s been spying on us and sent wolves after Lily Shell is on the level?”

Applejack frowned. “Ah’m sorry, Twi, but it jus’ don’t sit well with me. She claims Lily did this t’ Dash? The same Lily that seemed t’ be terrified that she might accidentally get Applebloom hurt? Polite an’ nervous an’…”

“…leaving you wondering if anything she said was true?” Spite suggested.

It was at this point that she discovered that while she was well outside the range of being bucked in the face by a normal pony, Applejack was very much not a normal pony. Some objective part of her mind, the part not reacting to the exquisitely painful sensations of her nose and jaw breaking, noted that the apple farmer had an amazing reach and more power than she would have ever imagined. Of course, admiration for the strength and skill of Applejack’s rear hooves was effectively swallowed up in a combination of annoyance at her newfound inability to speak, and the idle curiosity over why someone was stabbing her face with a hot poker.

Sometime later, she found herself looking up at six colorful equine faces, two of which looked so similar that she briefly wondered how Twilight had duplicated herself. Twilight-without-a-horn looked at Twilight-with-a-horn and then back down at Spite. “Spite, right?”

Spite held up a claw, indicating that Twilight-without-a-horn should wait for a moment and then she shadowstepped, her vision briefly overtaken by the more-black-than-black sight of the Void, before she found herself looking up at those six faces again, all of which now looked six different variants of shocked. She opened and shut her jaw, working the structures that had been entirely restored by a brief sojourn in a formless state, and then propped herself up on her elbows.

“Yes, and that hurt like a motherbucker.” She informed Dawn, looking obliquely at Applejack. “I hope you don’t find it too unreasonable if I ask you to not break my face again.”

“Wha… wha’ th’ hay?” Applejack responded, eyes wide as saucers.

“I heal fast,” Spite deadpanned. “May I get up?”

“Um, sure.” Twilight replied, staring, but apparently enough in command of her faculties to respond to the situation.

“Thank you.” She smiled at the lavender alicorn and rolled to her feet, the ponies backing up to give her room as she cricked her neck and stretched her wings a bit. “Sorry for surprising you like that.”

“What th’ hay didja jus’ do?” Applejack demanded, eyes still wide.

“I reverted briefly to a formless state and then reformed in my shape as it existed prior to having my jaw and nose broken by a surprisingly powerful kick to the face.” She frowned. “Not that I had any intention of explaining that aspect of myself before at least one sleepover and a shopping trip or two, but circumstances necessitate that I provide accurate information to you sooner than I otherwise would have.”

If anything, this blunt statement seemed to shock Applejack more and she sat down roughly on her flank. “That… so…?” She managed.

“If it wasn’t, you’d be giving your friend significant looks indicating that I’m lying my tail off.” She reached over and patted the stunned farmer gently on the shoulder. “I imagine this comes as quite a shock, somepony telling you something like that and it not being a ridiculous lie.”

Applejack gave her a slightly shaky look of gratitude. “Ya have no idea.” She then looked at her friends. “Might be hard t’ believe but she’s on th’ level, at least as far as the disappearin’ and reappearin’ all healthy goes.”

“I could have told you that,” Dawn scoffed. “I mean, we sort of watched her do it. But if she’s telling the truth about how Rainbow Dash got hurt, that’s a really good first step.”

“Only a first step?” Spite asked with a touch of amusement.

“Lily being the one that hurt her and you being the one that brought her in just means that Lily means us ill and that you wanted to save Dash’s life,” Twilight pointed out reasonably. “It doesn’t mean your motives are pure or that you mean us well. At least… I think that’s what my sister meant…?”

“More or less, although my working theory is that you’re head over heels for sleeping beauty.” Dawn gave her a grin that was one part leer to two parts challenge with a hint of joking thrown in somewhere.

“My interest in Rainbow Dash has nothing to do with the fact that she’d be absolutely beautiful if she ever wanted to be,” Spite informed the earth pony amusedly. “I admire, and feel kinship to, anyone as dedicated to her friends as Rainbow Dash is. That I had to outthink her, and couldn’t outfly her, is just icing on the cake. My personal feelings about her aside, however…” She looked squarely at Applejack. “Lily, whose real name is Lashaal, attacked your friend without provocation to distract me from pursuing her. I fought and mauled the bestial demon-shadow Lashaal used in her attack and drove it off. I then took emergency measures to save Rainbow Dash before placing in her a recuperative sleep and bringing her here to be cared for. My intentions towards the six of you, or the seven of you if we include Dawn, are to see you safe and well.”

Applejack looked steadily at her before grinning widely. “Well then, sugarcube, we’re glad t’ have ya. Sorry ‘bout th’ face… ya startled me.”

“As you can see, no harm done.” Spite responded affably.

The farmpony’s reaction made all the tension and suspicion drain out of the other six ponies; unsurprisingly, Twilight was the first to trot closer and embrace her. “Thanks for saving her, Spite.”

“It was my honor,” Spite replied, embracing the alicorn and briefly enjoying the feeling of a soft, warm body against hers, sighing with nostalgia for when the warm body was one of her own dear friends. “I only regret that I failed to prevent her injury; I knew of Lashaal but had no idea that she was so vicious, nor that she had such deadly and evil tools at hoof.”

“Why were you watching us anyway?” Dawn asked her. “I mean, obviously you’re trying to keep an eye out for us and do the ‘shadowy protector’ thing but why’d you show up in the first place? Why’d Lashaal, for that matter?”

“My queen, who also happens to be my sister and my dearest friend in the world, asked me to lend my service to a close friend and ally of hers. That friend and ally told me that she would have many uses for me, but the first task she needed done was keeping a close eye on you seven,” Spite replied carefully.

“But why?”

“Because your well-being is important to her for reasons she didn’t tell me.” Which was true enough; the Archangel hadn’t come out and told her why the Six were important but she knew without needing to be told, something that She was well aware of. “I don’t believe that her intentions are anything but good, and I have faith that my sister wouldn’t ask me to serve her if she had any doubts about the morality of what she planned to do.”

“And Lashaal?” Dawn persisted.

“I have no way to know,” Spite admitted. “Partly why I was keeping a close eye on her: I was attempting to figure out her purpose by following her until it became clear to me. Now, she’s slipped my grasp and I have no idea where she’s going.”

“She said she was going to the griffin lands,” Twilight offered. “She claimed to have started in the arid lands to the east and was heading to the mesas that the Griffin Provinces occupy.”

Spite eyed her. “And she… volunteered this information? Freely?”

“Yeah, an’ she was tellin’ the truth when she said it,” Applejack interjected. “Can’t fathom why she’d be honest ‘bout it if someone was after her.”

“She probably saw no point in lying.” Spite shrugged. “You weren’t going to interfere with her, and piling more untruths on top of the ones she’d already told would have made you suspicious. So, the Griffin Provinces…” She tapped her chin. “I can’t imagine there being any information to discover there and she’s far too gauche to be an assassin.”

“Sometimes, being too obvious to be an assassin is the best concealment an assassin can ask for,” Rarity commented, the first time the alabaster mare had spoken since Spite had revealed herself. “Being disregarded and ignored can be a dream come true, and based on what I’ve heard about Lashaal’s disguise, she’d be very easy to ignore if she was trying to seem unimportant.”

Spite looked at her with blank surprise. “Aren’t you a dressmaker?”

Rarity sniffed proudly. “Of course! My designs are renowned in Manehattan, Filyldelphia, and even among the nobility of Canterlot.”

“And yet you have intelligent insights into the tradecraft of an assassin.”

The unicorn looked suddenly uncomfortable. “Well… yes.”

Spite looked at her steadily as she winced internally, dreading yet another smugly superior ‘I told you so’ smirk from Trilychi. “I don’t suppose you’re willing to connect those two dots for me?”

Rarity’s visible discomfort intensified until Spite sighed and shook her head. “Don’t worry about it, Rarity. It’s… not important. What is important is that your insight, however, you obtained it, is correct. However, what I meant by Lashaal being far too gauche is that she’s a sledgehammer when an assassin needs a dagger. Her method of trying to shake my pursuit proves the point: she used her biggest, strongest, most evil ritual object, threw it more or less in my direction, and ran the other way. Instead of using something I was unprepared for or would struggle to deal with, possible being harmed by, she threw something that would only do damage if I couldn’t get Rainbow out of the way in time. That did turn out to be the case, but she couldn’t have known that beforehoof.”

“Is the klesae still… here?”

“I sent it back where it came from.” Spite gave the alicorn as reassuring a look as she could. “There was no need to kill it; as horrible and evil as it is, it’s part of the Void and was only here because it was made to be.”

Twilight acknowledged this with a nod and looked at the other five mares. “Well, I’m satisfied that she at least means well and intends no harm.”

“Ah concur, Twi.”

“I vote that we trust the really creepy dragon that can heal herself instantly and turn into smoke and back again without effort, and whose unnamed friend of a friend wants her to spy on us.” Dawn said with an absolute deadpan. “I’m sure we can be absolutely and unquestioningly certain that she’s full of love, fluffiness, and puppies, and wants rainbows and sunshine for all.”

“It’s a noble effort, Dawn, but a few centuries interacting with my sister’s colleagues has given me an immunity to snark.” Spite responded with equal deadpan. “Besides, miss objectvive-proof-requred, all that blatherskite doesn’t amount to an assessment.”

Dawn looked genuinely taken aback before she grinned. “And I despaired of meeting another pony that’d give it back to me like Dash does. Just for that, I’m voting to trust you, for real this time.”

“I trust her,” Fluttershy offered. “She… was kind to the wolves and they called her ‘sister’ which means a lot coming from them.”

Rarity gave her an appraising look. “Green.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Green,” Rarity repeated. “A deeper one, just the lightest hint of blue tone, like an emerald. The contrast would be exquisite.”

Spite eyed her, puzzling out what the mare was talking about. And then it hit her and she stared. “You haven’t even voted that I’m trustworthy and you’re already making fashion plans?”

“Oh, trusting you is a foregone conclusion, darling,” Rarity replied airily. “But if you’re to walk around, you simply must do so with a modicum of style.”

Spite chuckled. “I’m sure we’ll have a lively discussion on the issue later, Rarity. So, then, I suppose you’re…”

As she turned to address herself to Pinkie Pie, her voice faltered at the calm, penetrating look from a straight-maned pink mare that was only recognizable as Pinkie because of her cutie mark. “I’m what?” She asked calmly, with a slight tilt of her head and a genuinely interested expression.

“…the, um, last pony that hasn’t registered an opinion about whether I’m trustworthy.” Spite finished, unnerved by the very much not-Pinkie Pinkie standing there and looking at her.

Pinkie smiled broadly. “Don’t be silly; of course you’re trustworthy. But what about everypony else? Is your mysterious boss trustworthy? Are we, including yourself, pawns in a larger plan, or does she plan to exert herself as much as you intend to in the interests of keeping us safe? Are you her only servant here, and if not, can we also trust the others like we can trust you? They might not be immediately important, but they’re good questions to ask.”

Spite couldn’t help but stare, slightly open-mouthed. Yes, she’d been warned that Pinkie Pie had a serious side that acted like a mirror to her crazy, partying side but being told that the perpetually hyperactive and silly mare could be serious and thoughtful and seeing it were totally different things. “Y..yes, I suppose they are,” she admitted after several seconds of stunned silence. “All I can offer is that the seven of you and a few others are of vital importance in her eyes, and to my knowledge, my power and disposition are typical of her servants. I don’t know whether she intends to use more tools than just me, however.”

“OK,” Pinkie replied. “Which leaves just one more vital question.”

“What’s that?”

A broad grin that somehow suggested that the pink earth pony was laughing merrily behind it, spread over Pinkie’s face. “Raspberry or buttercream?”

Royalty and Reverberations

Dead silence reigned at the table as both of them stared at the bizarre creature stretched out on the divan and calmly sipping from a cup of tea that never seemed to diminish. After a moment, he put the cup down and looked between them.

“The answer to your first question is no. The answer to your second is, I felt like it and it’s quite appropriate to the setting. The answer to your third is, full avatar; I’d use my ordinary voice, but it seems to distract you poor one-headed creatures.” He picked the cup back up and resumed sipping it. “I don’t suppose I could trouble you for a bracer, my dear? Perhaps something… light and apple, if you have it.”

“I’ve been saving an excellent north-coastal Touchstone schnapps for distinguished company,” she offered with a polite smile. “I also picked up a delicious, full-bodied apple wine last I was in Auric.”

“You are an angel and a lady,” he informed her with unfeigned warmth. “Which begs the question of why… this was allowed through your door.” He continued, pointing at the minister. “Francois here is a large step down from your typical company.”

He just barely bit back an angrier retort. “Fronck-Kais, my lord.”

“Excuse me?” Pitiless alien eyes totally out of place on that otherwise comical body locked on him, displaying irises that were three distinct bands of color instead of the ordinary uniform coloration. Eerily, the bands of bright green, ice blue, and intense gold constantly changed places with one another, as the deadly being using the creature as a willing puppet regarded him with the disconcerting focus of a predator licking its chops over helpless prey.

He swallowed. “I said, Fronck-Kais, my…”

“Not your lord,” The Discord-appearing entity interrupted with a low growl. “Not your anything, except perhaps master. What do you mean coming here and engaging in the Game without my leave? You are mine, Evil, and have been since I tore your chains from the lifeless husk of your former master. It is only reverence for the laws of this Game that stay my claws; there will be a reckoning, Francois, and I guarantee that you shan’t enjoy it.”

He swallowed again, his mouth dry, but was saved from having to figure out a response by his hostess’ return with a jeweled flask. “I allowed him through my door because he offered a lawful challenge and I began the Game because he offered a legitimate wager. Granted his presumption offended, and still offends, me but I’ve been well-taught to seize even the slightest chance to profit from a situation.”

His lion paw reached up and patted her head with definite affection; somehow, the gesture didn’t seem at all condescending although Franck wasn’t sure of why it didn’t. “You’ve been a good student, Kaiya, and you are a hostess of outstanding virtue if you can tolerate this in your home. May I have leave to examine your game?”

“The minor intellectual exercise of reading the beginning of the game from its middle is to be your intended payment for your courtesy in mediating this Game,” Kaiya replied, unsealing the flask and pouring a touch of the fragrant liquor into his cup. “I’d be glad to furnish other payments and amusements if it fails to satisfy.”

“That won’t be necessary,” he assured her with a sip. “Mmm… unsealing one of your delicious collection on my behalf is more than enough to settle any debts between us. And this is certainly a delectable one, my dear. The Touchstone?”

“Yes,” she confirmed, finishing off her tea in a single gulp then replacing it with a generous shot of the schnapps. “I’m told that it uses the purified mash from arid tambootie berries infused with ordinary root.”

He grinned widely as he stretched out the eagle claw, the board splitting into three and two of them rising into the air to reveal all the pieces. “You’re set to place Touchstone under your patronage as well then. This is good; Touchstone has withered under the incompetent touch of Darkness for far too long. As if you needed it, Lady Aon, you have my blessing in this.”

Fronck-Kais cleared his throat as politely as he could; the glares from the Light and the Dark made him swallow and hunch his shoulders, looking away rather than try to meet those predatory eyes.

“Terribly rude creature, isn’t he?”

“He is, but he has a fair point,” Kaiya responded. “As important as our business is, I’m here to be a player and you’ve come to act as our mediator, Lord Trilychi. It’s not as if the matter of Touchstone will be turned one way or the other in the span of a few mortal months.”

“That is true,” Trilychi agreed, leaning closer to examine the game boards, moving his lion paw to hover over the figure representing wrath and watchfulness. Fronck watched with interest as the figure reverted backwards to the human in a trenchcoat and tall hat carrying an upraised gun and a scroll. He looked thoughtfully at the reverted figure before moving on, the figurine resuming its previous shape. He did the same with the “ministry” figurine before moving on to the “Handmaiden” and here, he stopped and looked genuinely surprised.

“My dear Kaiya… I seem to be perceiving a partly-realized multiple-tier Zenos Gambit,” he mentioned, giving her a curious look. “May I ask what the partial realization is?”

“His ‘wrath and watchfulness’ sent a klesae against one of the Six, Rainbow Dash. My Handmaiden mauled the klesae… and took the only measure she could to save Rainbow’s life.” Kaiya replied, smiling broadly. “As I knew she would, knowing her the way I do.”

He gave a short bark of delighted laughter. “Kaiya, you devious little voop! Undoing the risk of a high-risk strategy by rigging the second-tier rules in your favor is a move equal to, well, me. I’m very impressed, my dear, and that’s difficult to do.”

She smiled. “To be fair, Lord Trilychi, I’m not playing the game against someone of your caliber so my achievement is not nearly as impressive as it might otherwise be.”

He snorted and waved this off. “Don’t sell yourself short, Archangel. You have unique advantages that you crafted with your own cunning and nature, and those advantages are clearly responsible for the achievement, not the ignorance of Francois here.”

“Oh, good, you remembered that I’m here.” Fronck-Kais tried to keep the biting sarcasm out of his tone but the severe looks he got from the two others told him that he’d failed. Frowning, he pressed on. “I know you think very poorly of my intelligence but I would expect that ones of your high ranks had become capable of at least pretending to observe the basic courtesies. Phlyaxis was better-treated by the lot of you and he was a Slayer! Your Sargeas gave a more polite hearing to distolvers and Dark keeps a close eye on them lest they randomly decide to start genocide for their amusement. The casual condescension and puerile contempt grows tiresome.”

“What do you know? Francois grew a backbone,” Trilychi sneered. “I like it, makes him more…”

“No, wait, he has a point,” Kaiya sighed. “Weaver knows he deserves the mockery but constantly taunting an accepted guest, however little I like that guest, is inappropriate.”

Trilychi rolled his eyes. “I always forget how much silly things like ‘propriety’ annoy me until I run up against them. However… your realm, your rules, and the schnapps makes up for many a tiny irritant.”

“You’re growing milder in your old age, my Lord,” she teased lightly.

“No, simply more accepting of the fact that if I mean to embrace ‘good’ for the furtherance of my own schemes, there are certain… prices to pay,” he sighed, taking a long draw from his cup. “Well, what are you waiting for? Give me something to mediate before I set Francois on fire for my own entertainment.”

“You know, according to the Pinkie Pie Laws of Parties, a New Dragon Party requires at least two cakes, six party games, twenty guests, and roughly twenty weights of gems,” Pinkamena informed Spite as they trotted through the streets of Canterlot. “I get that we can’t throw you a party because you don’t want to be seen by everypony but still… I’ve got a reputation.”

“If you keep trotting along, trotting along mind you, without doing anything insane and reality-defying, your reputation will be shot anyway,” Spite retorted dryly. “I’m not complaining, mind you, but I’m still trying to understand how… well, you could be the mare under the mental patient.”

Pinkamena sighed tiredly. “Element of Laughter, Spite. By its nature, laughter is joy bubbling over, unrestrained by anything at all. I’m naturally joy bubbling over with no restraint, not even the restraint of reality. How could you know me by my full given name, and yet not know the most important thing of all?”

“Because I had to rely on a source of information that is dry, technical… and, to be frank, regards the goal of spreading laughter with silliness and parties to be proof that you are a pathetic specimen.”

Pinkamena laughed, the honest statement of Trilychi’s probable opinion on Pinkie not bothering her in the slightest, at least not visibly. “Well, he sounds like a real Grumpy McGrumpypants. I’ve got a party for that, you know, and I can totally turn that frown upside down. Lessee… um, party cannon, six cakes, fifteen party games, at least one gallon of hot sauce… yes, yes I’ve got a party for that.”

“How… do you get all those supplies?”

Pinkie gave her a reality-defying grin. “Silly Spite… you don’t ask about the party supplies. The party supplies just are. It’s like how the butterfly fluttering its wings will cause a typoon in Manehattan if the wind is southerly on a blue moon. Speaking of such, how can a moon be blue? I’ve seen an orange moon and a white moon and a moon with a mare in it and a moon that’s made of cheese and one that’s turned to blood so the stars can…” She paused. “No, that still hasn’t happened, never mind. Anyway, I’ve seen a blue moon before but not a yellow one.”

Spite stared at her before laughing softly. “I think you’re the happiest creature I’ve ever met by far, Pinkie Pie.”

“All part of the Laughter!” Pinkie beamed at her. “Speaking of such, can I throw you a party after you no longer need to be all sneaky and stealthy and mysterious? Please, pretty please, with cupcake?”

“I’m not sure about the cupcake…”

“Not sure about the cupcake?” Pinkie gasped. “But… but… cupcake!” Before Spite could think about it, defend herself, or figure out how Pinkie Pie came to be holding a cupcake when she hadn’t been before, a whole cupcake had been stuffed into her mouth. “See?”

Spite stopped and blinked, chewing thoughtfully on the diabetes-inducing treat and licking her chops to take care of any frosting. “Actually, I do. I have no idea how ‘cupcake’ constitutes an argument, but it somehow makes perfect sense.”

“Nonsense has a way o’ makin’ perfect sense when Pinkie’s involved, sugarcube,” Applejack offered, grinning. “An’ ya missed a spot on yer chin.”

“Thanks.” Spite snaked her tongue out and caught the stray bit of frosting. “I’m sort of surprised that I can just stroll down the streets of your capital looking like this and nopony seems to regard it as out of the ordinary.”

All seven of them stopped almost as one and looked at her. “Spite, you do realize that there’re dragons here, right?” Twilight asked. “I mean, my research assistant is a young dragon named Spike. There’s a vast stretch of land north of Equestria that make up the various territories of the dragons. We even maintain diplomatic relations with them.”

Spite blinked, genuinely taken-aback. “That… sort of explains why you asked who I was instead of what I was…”

“And you didn’t pick up anything from the fact that Pinkie Pie has a type of party for welcoming new dragons?”

“She’s Pinkie Pie,” Spite pointed out.

“Good point…”

“At any rate, darling, dragons are quite common although they tend to be… rather rude creatures,” Rarity supplied. “Granted, you seem an unusual breed of dragon—ours don’t have manes, you see—but unless a pony looked closely, you fit right in.”

Spite chuckled ruefully. “Fit right in… I never thought I’d hear that phrase related to being a dragon. I’m used to being an oddity, even in places where dragons are an ordinary part of society and life.”

“What kinds of places?”

“Oh, Touchstone, Tirror, Lychais… lots of places, really.” She furrowed her brow in memory. “Touchstone was… not the most pleasant place to be until it got sorted out. But in the end, all was well and I actually borrowed my public name from one of the dragonesses there. Sweet girl, a little scarred, but I’ve rarely seen a more joyful mother.”

“Um… Touchstone?” Twilight asked tentatively.

“You’re familiar with the theory of multiple worlds?”

“Yes.”

“Not just a theory. There’s lots of them, thousands at last count. This particular one, the one where we’re walking around right now, is commonly called ‘Sol Selune’ in recognition of the fact that it’s two greatest powers are sisters who manage the sun and the moon.” Spite smiled a little. “Touchstone is another one and it was… is, quite different. It’s primary inhabitants are creatures called ‘humans’, a bipedal, primate species distinct for their unusual mastery of toolmaking. The dragons there are commonly called ‘glass’ dragons, because they’re naturally extremely difficult to see with the naked eye, appearing to be made of glass that can be seen through clearly.”

“Why’d it need t’ get sorted out?” Applejack asked.

“Because early on, someone interfered,” Spite replied grimly. “Manipulated the births so that dragons with violet-edged scales, called purple-tips, would always be born twins—and neuters. Manipulated the society of the dragons so that they believed that the purple-tips were portents of legend—but that more than one living purple-tip would spell disaster. Cracked the barrier between the physical world and a plane of pure magical energy, called the Aethir, so that the most common food-plant would be almost toxic with magical energy—and then saw to it that the natural magic of the dragons withered and replaced with a virtual addiction to the berries of the tambootie.”

She paused to take in the stunned looks around her then concluded. “Whoever did it—and there is no doubt that it was deliberate—had an evil purpose and justice demanded recompense. So my queen’s friend, the one who sent me here, took advantage of the chaos that sprung from the Thousand-Year Crusade of a great warlord whose conquests spanned hundreds, if not thousands, of worlds. She commissioned the help of one of her mate’s friends to intervene and restore what was taken from Touchstone by the malice of the unknown manipulator.”

She smiled. “And one of the two purple-tips who was saved by the intervention, named Amethyst, lent me the name of her human shape—don’t ask, she’s never explained and I’ve never asked—because for the time being, she’s remaining in her natural shape to raise her children. Her brood is the first generation of dragons who were never poisoned with tambootie or with the malicious belief that a purple-tip drakling must be murdered to keep the world safe.”

“He sounds far worse than the Guardian,” Twilight said quietly.

“Guardian?”

“It’s what he called himself,” she replied. “Mom thinks he was the eventual corruption of a being called ‘Order’, counterpart to another called ‘Discord’.”

“They sound like two halves of the trouble coin,” Spite commented. “One dangerously singlemindedly obsessed with absolute control, the other combining Pinkie’s ability to break the rules of reality with a total lack of self-control. How bad of a monster was he?”

“He killed, or caused to be killed, lots of ponies,” Rarity said, her accent slightly diminished by the sadness in her voice. “Friends of ours, friends of others, families… and Rainbow Dash’s dearest friend, a griffin named Gilda.”

“That bad, huh?” Spite sighed. “But yet, the unknown manipulator in Touchstone was much more of a monster, for he ensured that every mother of every purple-tipped pair would suffer horrible soul-deep agony as she was forced to kill her own child by a lie. Oh, I wish I could get my claws on him…”

“What wouldja do?” Dawn asked curiously.

Spite smiled tightly. “Nothing I’d tell you six about. Not until much later, and not until you know me much better. Suffice it to say, I’m very pleasant and warm towards you but towards evil things, I’m the very definition of a monster.”

“Meaning…?”

“Meaning, it’s none of your bucking business, Dawn,” Spite retorted evenly. “The things I’ve done that I’m not proud of, and the things I’m proud of doing but would make you think less of me, are my affair. I’ll tell you all, probably, eventually, but my past changes nothing about my good intentions towards you.”

Several minutes after passed in silence, each pony alone with her thoughts, before Fluttershy trotted up to walk at Spite’s side. “I’m… sorry I asked the wolves to tell me about who else they were watching,” she said quietly, her eyes averted.

Spite turned to look curiously at the shy pegasus before turning back to watch the keep grow gradually larger on the horizon. “Why are you sorry, Fluttershy?”

“Well… b... because she escaped and… and it got Rainbow… hurt…” Her voice trailed off into a near whisper at the end. She squeaked with surprise as Spite lowered a wing to drape gently over her.

“As I told the wolves, they were right to be honest with the soft-kind wingpony,” she replied warmly. “You did no wrong, Fluttershy, and you bear absolutely none of the blame for what happened to Rainbow. It was Lashaal, and not you, that did evil to your friend. Evil is never the fault of the innocent, however the evil try to pretend that it is so. Rainbow is safe, little pegasus, and will awaken and be back to her old self.” She put on an exaggerated grimace. “On second thought, perhaps I should keep her asleep a little longer…”

Fluttershy giggled a little. “You don’t mean that.”

“I’m a stranger to you. How can you be sure?”

“Because the wolves said so,” Fluttershy informed her matter-of-factly. “They didn’t just call you ‘hunter’ but ‘sister-hunter’. I… I know that pack, Spite… they don’t trust that easily. They don’t call strangers… family unless they… unless the stranger smells right. I mean… seems like they… they’d be a good part of the pack. Loyal to the pack.”

Spite smiled. “I’m flattered by the sentiment. I try to be a good friend to the wolves I meet, for they’re invaluable friends; as I said to Twilight, I could cross this entire world and keep no watch if I had a pack of wolves at my flanks as I went.”

Fluttershy gave her a small smile of appreciation as they got within sight of the castle gates. Spite paused and looked back at Twilight. “Any advice? I doubt the guards will be pleased to have a strange dragon bigger than them wander up to the castle and ask to come inside.”

Twilight laughed. “Spite, my mom’s the Princess. I might hate getting called ‘princess’ and ‘lady’ all the time, and getting bowed to like I’m special or something, but there’re times when it’s really useful.”

Spite smiled gratefully to her as they reached the guards. Before she could say anything, both immediately inclined their heads in Twilight and Dawn’s directions.

“Lady Twilight, La…”

“Call me ‘lady’ and I’ll plant an unladylike hoof up your tailhole,” Dawn informed him with the casualness of somepony commenting on the weather.

“…um…” The guard looked lost. “…Dawn?”

Dawn grinned. “Good boy. Now imitate a statue.”

He visibly ignored this and looked at Twilight. “Lady Twilight, your mother’s with the consul-general of the Griffin Provinces. You didn’t hear this from me, but I think she’d enjoy having her daughters accidentally come into the throne room.”

Spite felt a little shiver go through her. “The Griffin Provinces, you say?”

The guard turned and looked at her. “And you are…?”

“Carrying a letter of introduction from my own monarch to be presented to Princess Celestia herself,” Spite replied smoothly. “But you can call me Myrilandel.”

The other guard looked steadily at her before nodding once. “Can you vouch for this dragon, Lady Twilight?”

“Without reservation.”

“Then I bid you welcome to Canterlot, capital of Equestria,” the guard said politely, nodding to Spite respectfully.

“It’s my joy and honor to be here,” Spite smiled sincerely. “It’s a beautiful city, fully reflective of the nature of its rulers.”

Both guards let the corners of their mouths upturn just slightly before stepping aside and waving the party through.

“Does anypony else think it’s a coincidence that Lashaal goes to the Provinces and by the time we get to Canterlot, the griffins are agitated enough that Princess Celestia wants to be rescued from their ambassador?” Spite asked as they got out of earshot of the front gate.

She looked around at the seven expressions, every one a version of expecting the worst. She sighed and shook her head. “I didn’t think so.”

<><

“…furthermore, griffin citizens are clearly not safe in Equestria, despite Your Majesty’s earnest assertions otherwise,” the consul concluded, drawing himself up haughtily and purposefully displaying his very carefully-preened “wig” of thick white feathers.

Princess Celestia hung her head, closing her eyes a moment to find her unflappable royal calm, before taking a deep breath and meeting the consul-general’s eyes with her ordinary air of quiet assurance. “I feel it incumbent on me to point out, Consul Halia, that the entire affair of the self-proclaimed Guardian was an extremely unusual situation,” she said with a touch of firmness, trying not to let exasperation creep into her tone. It was the second day that this circular argument had been going on, and it was slowly beginning to exhaust even her considerable reserves of patience and understanding. Moreover, the issue had been settled until the agitated consul had arrived, and blindsided her with a return to a conversation she had thought ended nearly six months ago. The abruptness was extremely strange to her but she knew, from long experience, that it’d be fruitless to try to extract the information from the griffin. Seaponies had their odd hourly rituals, dragons their gargantuan egos (not wholly unearned, she admitted to herself), and griffins loved to carry on for literal days before zeroing in on their purpose, which was usually something minor that they were incredibly easygoing and reasonable about. Thus, it was typically best to let a griffin exhaust his blathering, politely pretending to listen all the while, until it was time for the business at hoof. Knowing this, however, didn’t make it any easier to tolerate the ranting from the unusually pretentious leoavian.

“Even more unusual was his apparent ability to revive four alicorns who had died thousands of years ago and use them as his weapons,” she continued. “Have you heard cause to complain of the well-being of your citizens in Equestria prior to the incident?”

“We’d not heard of such a cause but clearly, there was such a cause and it wasn’t reported,” he returned. “In fact, during the entire incident, no one was told of the happening in Equestria. No one was warned that they should take shelter in their home nations. If we had but…”

Celestia sighed and turned him out, recognizing the beginning of another long tirade as she let her eyes drift around the room, looking for some way, any way, to escape. At that precise moment, the doors to the throne room opened and in trotted six young mares that Celestia knew all too well, followed by a black-scaled dragon she’d never seen before. The matter of the dragon quickly slipped into irrelevance as her eyes found and fixed on the lavender alicorn and deeper violet earth pony that were leading the gaggle. She beamed happily and, unconscious of the fact that the consul was still talking, started down from her throne.

“Twilight! Dawn!” She exclaimed, trotting around the taken-aback griffin and unhesitatingly embracing her two daughters.

“Hi Mom,” Twilight replied, nuzzling into her mother’s embrace with daughterly affection.

“Hey there, Mum,” Dawn greeted, leaning into the hug, relaxing comfortably.

“What’re you doing here?” Celestia asked them, releasing them and turning her eyes to the rest of the ponies, including them in the question.

“We’ve got an… issue,” Twilight admitted, gesturing towards the dragon behind them who was watching politely, although smiling lightly at the scene of Celestia hugging her daughters against her.

“Family issues, your Majesty?” The consul inquired with a surprising amount of politeness given that the arrival of the mares had interrupted him.

“It seems so,” Celestia admitted, turning to him. “I wish to…”

“I understand completely, Your Highness,” he interrupted. “We can continue the matter tomorrow.” He inclined his head to Twilight as he walked out. At the door, he turned and looked over his shoulder with an expression of mild irritation. “…when I expect we shall have no further interruptions.”

“Self-important buzzard,” Dawn snorted as soon as the door closed behind the miffed griffin.

Celestia sighed, but smiled at her less couth daughter. “Yes, but he’s a very important self-important buzzard, dear. Ambassadors, or consuls in his case, generally are. I just wish I knew why he was so agitated over this issue; I thought it was settled months ago.”

“What issue, yer Highness?” Applejack asked. “Uh, Ah mean, Princess Celestia, ma’am.”

Celestia laughed softly and smiled warmly to the orange farmpony. “Applejack, I’m not offended if you’re informal with me. All six of the Elements are already close to my heart, for you gave my sister back to me and now, I’m your friend’s mother as well. Don’t feel that you need to bow and scrape before me; it makes me uncomfortable when other of the common ponies do it and I don’t want you doing it as well. But the issue seems to be a question of the safety of griffin citizens in Equestria.”

Almost as one, they blinked at her. “Ah know they were awful sore at Gilda gettin’ killed bein’ especially heroic but Ah thought they’d made peace with it. Yanno, buried her with honors, sung her praises, an’ acknowledged that ya’ll couldn’t be properly blamed.”

“I had believed the same,” Celestia admitted, letting Dawn and Twilight go with a light maternal nuzzle. “But then, their consul-general arrived two days ago to revive the issue. Which is a bit… unusual but hardly…”

“Are you sure it’s him?” The dragoness inquired in a pleasantly exotic voice.

Celestia blinked, taken aback, then looked harder at the dragon. “Excuse me?”

“I asked, are you certain that the griffin is the consul-general?” She repeated.

“It’s related to the issue we need to talk to you about, Mom,” Twilight interjected before Celestia could ask. “Is Luna… I mean, Aunt Luna awake yet?”

Celestia chuckled. “Still getting used to calling her ‘aunt’, dear?”

“It’s… still a hard adjustment,” Twilight admitted, coloring a little. “I mean, it’s much easier with you because you’ve always been like a mother to me but Aunt Luna is…”

“…a cute piece of flank…”

Twilight’s coloration went a beet red. “Dawn! No, and no, and… and… no! She’s your aunt! She’s my aunt! No, no, no, and… no!”

“Methinks thou doth protest too much, sister dear,” Dawn grinned widely.

Celestia wasn’t sure how it was possible, but Twilight seemed to blush even harder at the jab. “You know how I was starting to like you? That was before I learned you were evil.”

“Sticks and stones!” Dawn replied in a sing-song, laughing.

Celestia smiled and learned down to her blushing and befuddled daughter. “I’d stop while you’re ahead, dear,” she murmured, giving the lavender alicorn a gentle motherly kiss on her forehead. “I have a sister just like her and believe me, protesting just encourages them.”

Twilight gave her a look of desperate gratitude. “What I was going to say is, ever since that first Nightmare Night, I’d always thought of Aunt Luna as a friend and maybe even a really close friend and then, I find out she’s my aunt. It’s sort of hard to go from ‘potential best friend’ to ‘aunt’.”

Celestia nuzzled her. “I’m sure she won’t mind if you slip up and think of her as a friend, Twilight. I know it’d make her very happy.”

“Would you send for her then?” The dragoness asked. “What I have to say is something that both Princesses need to hear.”

Celestia studied the strange dragon, noting that her head was smooth and of an unusual grace… and that she had a mane, something she never remembered seeing on a dragon before. Her eyes were amethyst and full of the grave, heavy burden of experience that was eerily familiar—it was the look she saw in the mirror each morning, and in the eyes of her deceptively young-looking sister. She had the feeling that the unnamed dragoness was studying her in kind and after a moment, a smile spread over her features, an approving smile of someone who was pleased with what they saw.

“Will you send for Luna, Princess Celestia?” She repeated, but more quietly.

“Yes.” She looked at the side of the throne room door, where she knew a guard would be because it was where a guard always was. “Please convey my apologies to my sister and my request that she come to the throne room.”

“Your Majesty,” he acknowledged before the solid visage of one of the royal guards, his armor glimmering in the light, flashed across the slightly-open door.

“If you would be so kind, I think this matter requires privacy, Guards,” she commented to the ever-present Throne Guard, who immediately bowed their heads and obediently disappeared out the door, joining their fellow who’d heard her request and was already leaving his post. The guards taken care of, Celestia turned back to the young mares and their draconic companion. “Who are you?”

“Outside of the company of your daughters, the Elements, and your sister, you may call me Myrilandel.” The dragoness reached back and into a small leather case that had simply seemed to materialize at her side from thin air. She drew out a tightly-rolled scroll, sealed with a wax stamp that looked like two dragons entwined in an almost intimate way, and offered it to her. “As to my actual name, I bear a letter of introduction from my queen for your eyes and the eyes of your sister.”

Celestia was taken-aback by the gesture; she could barely remember being presented with a formal letter of introduction and the tradition had gone out of style hundreds of years ago. After a moment of surprise, however, she accepted the letter and carefully broke the seal, unrolling it. The hoofwriting was exquisite, elegant, slender, and flowing in an almost callighraphy fashion although Celestia sensed that the writer wasn’t putting on airs or trying to impress, but wrote with the same elegant precision all the time.

“To Their Majesties, Princess Celestia and Princess Luna, Bearers of Sun and Moon respectively, I send sincerest greetings and wishes of best health upon Their Majesties, and beg to present to them and all their court this, my Handmaiden,” the letter read. “She is most beloved to my heart, as a sister and family to me, and most trusted of all my servants. She is my hand in this, and my voice to Your Ears on matters of the most signal and grave importance. I have required of her to be shield to Your Daughters and Nieces, and then to be hunter of evil things that have lately stirred in the very shadows of your kingdom. It is my most earnest pleasure to commit into your service Spite, and would beg your indulgence, to treat her with trust and with kindness and consideration.
Signed, yours in the pursuit of those things most good and the protection of those things most loved,

Amarra Drae’thul, Sixth in the Helles.”

Celestia looked over the edge of the scroll to see that the dragoness, Spite apparently, was looking at her with an expression of genuine pride, seeming to have at least some idea of what the letter said and aware that the signer, this “Amarra Drae’thul”, had praised her effusively. She paused, weighing her options. “I can tell that your queen adores you quite a bit, Spite, and I feel I ought to be honored to meet you. But… I don’t know this Amarra Drae’thul.”

“Neither of us expected that you would, Your Highness,” Spite replied pleasantly. “But it seemed proper to her that she treat you with the same respect she would to any other sovereign of royal lineage, and send along a formal epistle expressing her well wishes and introducing me to you in a formal manner.”

Celestia smiled warmly to the dragoness. “Then I’m honored by your thoughtfulness, even if it was not necessary. I’m perfectly happy to receive strangers informally and familiarly with little more than the expressed confidence of somepony I trust. For example, either of my daughters.”

“She’s been nothing but considerate and honest with us, Mom,” Twilight offered. “And she saved Rainbow’s life.”

Celestia felt a surge of alarm shoot through her. “Rainbow Dash?”

“Only Rainbow we know, Mum.”

“What…” Celestia shook her head. “Is she alright?”

“She’ll live, Your Majesty, although the form of her living is beyond my ability to predict,” Spite answered. “The monster my quarry unleashed on her gnawed at her very soul and wounded it very deeply. I took the only measure I could, and it certainly saved her life and her sanity, but it was a crude, battlefield measure that is only used when there’s no other choice. She’s very strong, Princess, and her soul is also very strong, the very picture of undying Loyalty, so what I did for her cannot alter who she is or take away her virtues, or her personal merits. But the precise effects cannot be known until it’s safe to wake her from the regenerative sleep I laid on her.”

“Your quarry?”

“Yes,” Spite confirmed. “I’ll explain when your sister arrives so…”

“I’m here,” Luna interrupted, folding her wings down as she came in from the balcony, smiling warmly to her two nieces. “And happy to see that my nieces have come to visit.”

“Hey there, Auntie Luna,” Dawn said cheerfully.

“Hi Luna,” Twilight added with a touch of shyness. “I mean, Aunt…”

“Luna’s fine, Twilight,” the royal blue alicorn assured her with a chuckle. “I’m still getting used to it too.” She looked over at Spite. “Good afternoon, Spite. Are you well?”

Both Spite and Celestia gave her similar looks of blank surprise. “Sister, you… know her?”

Luna grinned at the surprised looks and reached out a hoof, lightly poking Celestia in the side. “Princess of the moon and night, Tia.”

“Oh, right.” Celestia gave her a sheepish smile.

Luna covered her muzzle with a hoof and giggled, giving her sister a mischievous and teasing look before she sobered, looking over at Spite. “Although I admit that I don’t actually know why I’m so familiar with you. Your presence and existence touches my night but you’re obviously alive.”

“Night encompasses darkness and I’m aligned to the Darkness, even if it’s a much gentler and more virtuous Darkness than normal,” Spite replied. “Although I’m just as surprised as you are that my existence touches on your night.”

“Aligned to darkness?” Celestia repeated, frowning.

“Yes, Darkness,” Spite confirmed with a nod. “There’s a strong strain of Light in me as well—it’s why I could wield Light-infused flame against the klesae—but my primary affiliation is Darkness. It’s… confusing, I know.”

“More than you know,” Celestia told her, frowning more heavily. “I don’t understand much of what you just said. You use ‘darkness’ as if it’s a… faction, I suppose, and ‘light’ the same way. And what’s a klesae?”

Spite blinked and suddenly looked very sheepish, reaching a paw up and rubbing the back of her head in a distinctly embarrassed-looking way. “Yes… I… suppose that would require some explanation. Simply put, at least as far as my understanding goes, there are two fundamental forces of creation in the wider universe, that of Light and that of Dark. Both are creative forces, infusing things with life and virtue in their own way although they’re technically opposites in the way that ordinary light and dark are. The division is more in the tendencies of the two forces: Darkness tends to be more unrestrained, creative, and chaotic and Light tends to be more orderly, rule-bound, and rationalistic.”

“Like us, Sister,” Luna added, nodding at the explanation. “You’re much better at legalistic things and making good, reasonable laws for Equestria…”

“…and you’re the more artistic and creative and, frankly, a bit more chaotic,” Celestia nodded, smiling affectionately at her sister.

“Yes,” Spite confirmed. “The two forces are unusually powerful when wielded against one another although the strongest powers that represent them tend to be very closely-aligned, much like Your Majesties have the love of family between you although you loosely represent opposite ends of the Light/Dark spectrum. But as my Queen puts it, the forces are black and white but individuals are grey; there…”

“…is no such thing as someone who’s all Dark or all Light cuz even Dark people have some rules and even Light people are creative and emotional.” Pinkie offered.

“Well, yes…” Spite replied, smiling appreciatively at the pink earth pony with a mane straighter than it had been moments ago.

“Then I got a question: does that mean I’m sorta Dark?”

“I… suppose…”

“But I can still keep the coat color, right? Because this is a really cool color and if it went away I’d be all like ‘waaah, I wanna be pink’ and then I’d have to get berries and squish them all over me and then I’d be all red and then ponies would be all like ‘aaah, Pinkie is murdered’ and then they’d be all sad and it’d be the end of parties.” Pinkie grabbed Spite’s face and stared into the surprised dragoness’ eyes. “The party… must… go… on!”

“Party can never die,” Spite intoned with as serious an expression as somepony could manage with Pinkie’s face mashed against their own.

“Party can never die,” Pinkie agreed solemnly, letting her go.

There was silence for a long moment while Spite combed through her mane where Pinkie had gripped it and the rest of the ponies that had watched tried to figure out just what to say before the dragoness looked up at the two Princesses. “So, with that out of the way, I have a few things to explain to Your Majesties, for I fear that my quarry slipping my grasp means that Equestria is no longer the only kingdom in danger.”

Tinge of the Corruption

“You know, prior to this little game of yours, I’d have never imagined that Francois was so rich,” Trilychi commented idly as he lounged on the divan, which had now begun to hover a length or two off the ground. “More instances of hope extinguished than I’ve seen since dear little Rijii. Speaking of such, do you think if I returned the contents of Aqualinius’ vaults, Auric would let me have the body?”

Kaiya looked curiously at him. “You still have it?”

“I’ve been looking, but there’re very few places I can spend gold by the cubic yard,” he responded dryly. “Most mortals experience reactions markedly similar to severe trauma when you offer them a pile of valuables taller than they are.”

“So, like a magpie that’s spied a shiny object, you collected immense wealth on impulse and have no idea what to do with it?” Fronck-Kais smirked.

Instead of being offended, Trilychi snickered. “Wealth… oh, honestly, are you so limited that you think of a pile of gold and jewels as wealth?” He gestured to the wagers arranged alongside the game board. “Those are wealth, little minister. The significances, compiled and carefully spent.”

“Lord Trilychi, would you please stop taunting him?” Kaiya sighed. “It becomes very dull very swiftly, especially since he’s actually intelligent enough to realize he’s being mocked. It was enjoyable with Folly because you could sneer at him to his face and he’d be entirely unaware of it. Besides, my point wasn’t surprise that you hadn’t spent it—that would be absurd—but that it remained intact.”

“You’ve never met a gremlin before?”

“Actually, no,” she admitted. “Heard of them, just never met one.”

“Crazy, skilled, scary, and various combinations of the three,” Fronck-Kais supplied. “But there’s a good reason your friends shamelessly bribe them with hammers.”

“…hammers.”

He smirked at her. “Oh, dear, this is far too good. Don’t tell me the all-knowing, all-powerful Ninth Archangel is actually ignorant of something.”

Her eyes narrowed at him. “I’ll thank you not to sneer, especially when you’re in the position you are in our game.”

“And what position is that, pray tell?” He quashed his sudden twinge of uncertainty under a mocking grin. “Your one play is an inert one, dawdling in Equestria while my pieces do as they will elsewhere. You haven’t even increased your wagers or made any particular moves. I’m beginning to think your strategy is to bore me into submission.”

She simply smiled at him, the smile somehow all the more disturbing for the fact that it was genuine—and visibly amused. She turned to the hovering Trilychi. “Why would you bribe gremlins with hammers, Lord?”

“They measure wealth by tools,” he replied. “The more exotic the tool, the more valuable it is. I seem to recall that Amarra once outfitted an army with the finest gremlin-forged implements by offering a clan chief this ingenious wrench she’d found.”

“Surely you exaggerate.”

“Somewhat,” he admitted. “They drove a hard bargain for the odd war machine she’d found a prototype of. A curious device making use of a black sulfurous powder to propel a projectile.”

“Ah, the gremlin firesticks?”

He eyed her. “You don’t know anything about them, but you know of one of their inventions?”

“Sargeas gave me one of their variants as a display piece.” She gave Trilychi a sly grin. “A variant I’m sure you’re extremely familiar with.”

The amalgamation creature treated her to a sly grin in return. “Even if true, you know I wouldn’t admit it.”

Fronck-Kais for once was glad that the Dark and Light entities were ignoring him so they couldn’t see his complexion lighten a little. “Of course,” he growled to himself. “Of course they’d both be familiar with the various variants on those bizarre little creatures’ exotic weapon.”

“Beg pardon, minister?” Kaiya said politely, turning to him.

“I said, of course you’ve lapsed into ignoring me again,” he sighed. “I’m not sure why I even bother to think on it. I don’t suppose you plan to actually participate, Lady Aon?”

She looked steadily at him and he caught her lips compressing slightly. “You seem determined to provoke me into acting, Minister Fronck-Kais. This without having the slightest comprehension of what tools I could bring to bear, and what wagers I could make to my advantage. Are you truly so stupid that you can’t see the danger to you of me giving in?”

“You know, you keep assuring me that you have all sorts of incomprehensible tools just laying around waiting to be used. I’m beginning to be sorely tempted to call such claims a bluff.” He replied, folding his arms.

Kaiya gave him another steady look, visibly weighing, before she gave a slight nod of her head. “Perhaps you’re right. Perhaps a… demonstration.”

“Oh please…” Trilychi snorted. “You’re going to let him provoke you?”

“Of course not.” She snorted, fixing Fronck-Kais with a look that made him suddenly regret opening his big mouth. “He’s calling my bluff, correctly pointing out that I’ve been nothing but talk and a couple miniscule moves. A demonstration is in order, one of the few invocations only I can make.”

“And that is?” Fronck-Kais prompted her

In answer, Kaiya extended her palm upwards and milky white power flowed upwards and coalesced into a figurine of a tall, austere human in a long billowing robe that was held shut by a simple stole of ordinary-looking rope. Fronck-Kais could vaguely make out the shape of the Weaver’s woven cruciform around the humans neck and in a hand raised high above his cowl-covered head,, he held a lantern of intricate and frankly beautiful workmanship. In the other hand, he bore an intricate-looking misericorde-style dagger. “Inquisition,” she replied gravely.

He stared at her in disbelief for a moment before doing the only thing that was appropriate to the situation: tilted his head back and laughed uproariously.

“The Inquisition?” He repeated. “You… you’re not joking are you? That’s just precious... Inquisition indeed, what a…”He trailed off as he saw her expression: not offended or angry or even bemused but genuinely amazed.

“You… don’t know it, do you?” He found that he very much did not like the toothy and predatory grin that stretched over her vulpine muzzle. “Oh, this is going to be such fun.” The figuring melted back down into her palm and she grinned widely at him. “I think I shall permit you to continue thinking I’m bluffing, Fronck-Kais. In the meantime, let us see what your minions have been doing with their initiative.”

“So there is a… thing, wandering our kingdom, hurting our little ponies, and has outright killed one of them and gravely wounded another.”

Spite looked calmly up at the ivory-white alicorn, idly admiring the way her mane constantly flowed and shifted as if of its own accord. “Yes.”

“And the one she… it murdered… it… stole their body and goes around pretending that the body is its own.”

This time, she nodded to Luna with a grave expression.

The two Sisters stood quietly for a moment, looking at her without seeing her, contemplative expressions on their faces. Then Luna’s eyes turned cold and hard. “And you say that it may be also stalking griffins in this way. May have, in fact, killed and stolen the consul-general and is now trifling with us.”

“That’s what I’m saying, yes,” Spite confirmed.

“And this is all at someone’s orders?”

“Yes.”

Celestia looked worriedly at her sister. “Luna…”

Luna looked up at her sister, her face set in an expression of barely-contained fury. “Sister, We not as patient and benevolent as thee. Thou wouldst have Us be calm and patient and approach this… open insult to Our sovereignty, this violation of Our precious subjects coolly and thoughtfully? Nay! We say to thee, nay, dear Sister Ours! It hath been but six months past that the Guardian corrupted thee, made its… tools murder Our niece and thy daughter. That foul beast visited murder and evil upon Our little ponies and We were made to sit by and do nothing lest by haste, We endanger Our subjects further.” She shook her head. “Nay, Sister, We shall not stand idle a second time. We are the Princess of the Moon and of the Night! We cause the moon to dance and fill the skies with stars and shelter Our ponies in the gentle Night! What is this… this… Lashaal that it dares to harm Our subjects? By what right does it do such? How can thou ask that We do not rend it to pieces?”

“With respect, Your Majesty, you can’t rend an enemy that you cannot see,” Spite pointed out evenly. “We must find her first.”

Luna nodded once, her eyes actually smoldering with her anger. “It shall not hide from Our night. Wherever it goes, even into the very darkest places, there We shall rake for it.”

“My intention as well, Princess,” Spite assured her. “She has been my prey ever since she came here, and I fully intend to run her to ground and take her sins out of her miserable hide. It’ll be the deepest honor to have you at my side as I do. But Lashaal’s master has many tools and the pursuit that would most benefit him is to harm the Elements, especially Twilight.”

Luna’s burning anger almost instantly turned into fearful concern, an expression mirrored with even greater intensity in Celestia’s expression. “Why… especially Twilight?”

“Most valuable asset,” Spite replied. “Meaning no disrespect to the other Elements or her sister, but I imagine that there are very few ponies with an intellect, breadth of knowledge, and magical talent even remotely comparable to Twilight’s.”

“Hey, I’ve got the brains and the book smarts.” Dawn protested.

Spite blinked and looked at her. “You do?”

“Uh, yeah, duh.” The dark earth pony smirked. “I don’t look like her duplicate out of hero-worship or anything. Total copy, but without all the nice extras.”

Spite looked between Dawn and the sighing Twilight. “I’m tempted to ask, but I’m afraid my head will implode from the effort of understanding how the duplicate of a mild-mannered alicorn is a nymphomaniacal earth pony with a big mouth.”

Dawn laughed. “I knew I liked you. Learned some snark from that colleague, huh?”

“Naw, I just use the sounds that come out when you move your muzzle as inspiration.” Spite returned, smirking.

The earth pony eyed her. “You’re single, right?”

“…single?”

“Yeah, like, unattached.”

“I’m attached to my job…”

Dawn gave her a deadpan look. “Is there someone back home that you boink for fun and profit?”

Spite studied her for a moment, sorely tempted. Oh, buck it, this could be fun. “Not any one person, no.”

“…not any one…?”

Spite grinned fiercely at her. “I have a nice, long list.”

“A… long list, you say?”

“I’m thousands of years old, Dawn. I’ve had lots of time to… indulge.”

“…” Dawn turned to Twilight and pointed at Spite. “Take notes, Sis, because that dragon, right there, is the most awesome role model ever.”

“Spite, stop corrupting my sister,” Twilight sighed with a slight blush. “And aren’t we sort of getting off the point?”

“Twi, Ah don’t think it’s possible t’ corrupt ‘er any more than she is,” Applejack chuckled, giving Spite a surreptitious wink, letting her know she’d noticed the slight harmless untruth but apparently wasn’t going to say anything. “But yeah, Ah’m thinkin’ we need ta track Lashaal down an’ buck ‘er through a window or somethin’.”

“I agree, but how can we find somepony who can just grab a new body as she pleases?” Twilight asked, sweeping her gaze among everyone present.

“It’s not that simple,” Spite said. “It takes time and effort to do and a strong-willed being can make it hurt. It’s why only the strongest and most ancient of such spirits even attempt to seize a draconic body: the typical dragon has so much magical and will power that the spirit is horribly mauled even if they succeed. It’s why I suspect the consul-general: by their nature, ambassadors can choose to be alone for a very long time and servants are obligated to attend to their requests. He’d be the perfect target for her, especially since she now knows that she’s being hunted and who’s hunting her.”

“C… can she take an animal?” Fluttershy asked timidly. “It seems like it’d be the perfect disguise…”

“She could, but it’s… generally unwise,” Spite frowned. “I suppose it’d be safe if she was to take a wolf or some other creature with a greater physical size and spiritual weight but it’d require immense skill to immobilize your next host without harming them. I don’t see Lashaal doing so.”

“So examining the consul is our first step?” Pinkamena asked. “Make sure we’re not leaving Lashaal or something like her back here where they can do all sorts of bad things?”

“Sensible, although the fact that he didn’t react at all to me makes me a little doubtful.”

“Why?”

“Because spirits see the world around them very differently than mortals do and this ‘grave sight’ persists even when they’re in a body,” she explained. “Even a spirit that doesn’t know who I am would be extremely uncomfortable and at least somewhat fearful around me because to them, I’d be utterly terrifying-looking.”

“Why?” Twilight looked curiously at her. “What do they see?”

“I don’t know; I can’t exactly look into a mirror and see what they see.” She furrowed her brow. “I know it has something to do with pyramids, though. Apparently, spirits are terrified of mathematically-sophisticated architecture.”

“Pyramids.”

She shrugged. “I don’t make the rules and I certainly have nothing to do with the oddities of body-stealing spirits. Speaking of such, Pinkie makes an excellent point, even if I’m doubtful that the consul has been seized by one of Lashaal’s unsavory kind.”

“How would we be able to tell, though? You said that you can’t see spirits…”

“No, I said that I can’t see the way spirits do. I can see them, or more precisely sense them, with sustained physical contact. Figuring out Lashaal didn’t require it because she was so obvious.” She paused and gave Applejack and Twilight apologetic looks. “I mean, obvious to someone who knows what to look for.”

“S’okay, sugarcube,” Applejack assured her. “Shoulda seen it when she up an’ admitted that she wasn’t bein’ truthful with us. ‘Least when yer bein’ evasive, ya come right out an’ say that yer plannin’ on tellin’ us when ya think we trust ya enough t’ not overreact. An’ Ah dunno… yer evasion feels more like tellin’ us everything ya think ya safely can rather than only what ya need t’ say t’ get by and play us.”

“A cynic, and I’m uncomfortably well-acquainted with the best cynic in all existence, would say that I’m doling out the truth to you in measured doses to trick you into trusting me.” Spite smiled.

Applejack studied her. “Naw, it don’t fit,” she declared. “When ya said ya mauled somethin’ that can just eat souls, you were bein’ totally truthful an’ Ah can’t see someone with that kinda power an’ so little hesitation ta use it goin’ the route o’ trickery to do us harm. Waste of time, and ya’ll don’t seem the sort to waste yer time.”

“Which is somewhat ironic since I have more of it than I know what to do with,” Spite chuckled. “At any rate, Twilight, Princess Luna, would you be so good as to accompany me?”

“Pray tell, why us?” Luna asked with a curious expression.

“You’re a Princess, and thus have an excuse to see him. You’re also strongly aligned with the magic I use for examination, and thus wouldn’t interfere with me if you needed to magically restrain him,” the dragoness explained. “Twilight is magically gifted and highly intelligent, thus she’s most likely to be able to duplicate my method by observation.”

“And what should the rest of use be doing while you examine the consul?” Rarity asked.

“Determine the best way to get where Lashaal was going and where she was coming from,” Spite suggested. “I came out of the shadows and introduced myself to the Princesses because it’s no longer possible for me to fight Lashaal and fight her master’s plan at the same time. And frankly, I don’t think either one of them anticipate having to deal with the Elements and the Princesses both this early in the game. Speaking of such…” She looked at Fluttershy. “I think somepony should be standing vigil over Rainbow Dash until it’s safe to wake her up, and I can’t think of a better Element than Kindness.”

“M… m… me?” Fluttershy squeaked.

“Do you see any other soft-kind wingponies that fierce predators love and respect in the room?”

The pink-haired pegasus blinked a little and smiled shyly. “N..no…”

“Then you’re the perfect pony for the job.” Spite told her, gesturing with her head for Luna and Twilight to follow her as she pushed the throne room doors open. “Plus, if I remember correctly, you’ve known her longer than any other pony. I’m sure the familiar face of Kindness would be the best possible sight to wake up to.”

<><

“Yes, yes, what do you want?” The slightly reedy and very querulous voice of the consul-general answered from the other side of his office door. “I’m busy, so this had best be important.”

“Consul Halia, it’s Princess Luna,” Luna replied through the door, a slight tensing of her expression the only way Twilight could tell that her aunt was annoyed at the griffin’s rudeness. “May we speak?”

There was a long pause that practically radiated consternation. “Oh… I… I apologize for my manner, Your Majesty,” he said, sounding subdued and more than just a little embarrassed. “I’ll unbar the door, just a moment.”

“Unbar the door?” Twilight repeated lowly.

“Griffins and dragons both prefer a working space that can be locked,” Luna explained lowly in return. “Still… I don’t remember it involving a bar…”

There was the sound of a bolt being drawn back and wood scraping against wood before the door fell open, revealing the visage of Consul Halia with a mildly curious expression. “Good afternoon Princess Luna, Lady Sparkle…” He paused as his eyes took in Spite. “…um, madame dragoness. What may I do for you?”

“We listened carefully to thy conversation with Our sister, Consul-General,” Luna replied as she stepped smoothly into the office, forcing the griffin to retreat a few steps, temporarily off-balance enough that he didn’t seem to notice Twilight and Spite entering on the alicorn’s heels. “And it’s Our belief that thou art concealing something of great import from both Her and Ourself. Clearly, thou felt unable to speak of it in open court, so We have come to the privacy of thy office to hear the truth from thou.”

Twilight had to stop herself from looking confusedly at her aunt. When did anypony mention anything about the consul hiding something? But then she got it: having put the consul off-balanced by stepping into his personal space, Luna was keeping him wrongfooted by asking a question he’d feel obligated to answer. She noticed that while Luna was holding the consul’s attention, Spite was edging gradually out of his peripheral vision, moving closer as she drifted towards a position where she’d be less noticed.

The consult studied Luna for several long moments before nodding briskly. “Your insight is very impressive, Your Majesty,” he replied, inclining his head with visible and sincere respect. “It’s a complex matter, related to provincial and court politics.”

“This diplomatic mission and renewing a settled complaint is meant to prove strength in counterbalance to…?”

“The provinces,” he replied. “Specifically, the six coastal… what exactly are you doing?”

Somehow, he’d noticed that Spite had been circling around him stealthily but, based on her stance, Twilight surmised that he’d noticed her too late to prevent her from doing whatever she intended to do. She was proven right a moment later when the dragoness appeared to flow at him, grasping his face in one palm, the claws digging in with great care to threaten his eyes with their razor-sharp tips without actually doing any harm. The dragoness shifted he body close against the griffin’s, effectively neutralizing his talons and their wicked claws by giving him too little room to move them, before using the hand gripping his face to very carefully, very gently, turn his shocked eyes to meet hers.

“I regret this necessity, Consul, but there are evil things stirring and we must know that they’ve not gotten their claws into you and sent you here,” she said lowly. “I will not harm you unless you resist so please, be still.” She turned her eyes away from him and Twilight twitched a little, seeing that the dragoness’ irises and pupils had vanished, making her eyes look to be entirely white. “Twilight, come closer and observe. It may be necessary for you to administer this test on your own soon.”

Twilight found herself unable to move, staring at the all-white of the dragoness’ eyes. Spite sighed. “Twilight, please. The longer I have to hold him still, the more likely he’ll be injured accidentally and I don’t want to accidentally harm someone who’s done nothing wrong.”

Twilight took a breath and forced herself out of it. “OK. Alright. Um… what does the spell do?”

“It creates a veneer over your eyes that allows you to see non-mortal things,” Spite replied, turning her gaze back to the clearly-frightened consul. “Have you ever attempted to study the sun using your telescope?”

“A few times.”

“Then you use special filters that obscure some of the rays so you can see the sun itself without damaging your eyes.”

“Yes.”

“Same principle here,” Spite told her. “The veneer, which to someone looking at you makes your iris and pupil appear to vanish, obscures mortal things. Like a living body, bones, physical structures, things of that nature. Now, watch.”

With that firm but gentle grasp, she centered her gaze on the consul’s eyes and stared unblinkingly. A small shudder went through him but he seemed to be strangely entranced by the white, featureless eyes he was staring into. Spite’s brow furrowed and her eyes moved slightly, seeming to follow something down the griffin’s neck towards his chest, before her expression turned sour and she closed her eyes, releasing him and stepping back. The consul remained frozen in the same position for a moment longer before he, too, blinked and looked hard at Spite.

“Satisfied?”

“No,” Spite growled, turning around, taking a step, swinging back around. “In the last day or so, have the Provinces received a pony visitor? Thin, almost emaciated, dirty blonde hair, white coat, carrying a large number of saddlebags, has some very strange speech mannerisms?”

The anger that the consul had been working himself up to visibly dissipated at the question. “In fact… yes. I seem to recall such a pony appearing just shortly before trouble came.”

“So she definitely arrived,” Twilight stated. “But how’d she get there so fast? You can’t even get to the Provinces in a day or less when riding a train.”

“I can get from here to the Provinces in five minutes if I know where I’m going,” Spite shrugged. “I was pretty sure that the moment Lashaal smashed that orb to unleash the klesae, she immediately jumped ahead to wherever she was going. This confirms it.” She sighed. “It also confirms that she’s getting help, lots of help and some of it uncomfortably professional.”

“What are you talking about?” Halia asked, starting to look mildly frightened. “Who’s Lashaal? What do you mean, you just confirmed that she’s getting help? Help to do what?”

“To harm your people and ours, Consul,” Luna told him gravely. “I don’t know what Myrilandel means that her quarry is getting professional, but I assume that it’s not a good thing.”

“It’s not.” Spite sighed. “But the most important thing I’ve learned is that Consul Halia is himself, fully and completely.”

“You thought I wasn’t?” The look of fright increased.

“I’m hunting quarry that can kill and then seize the body of the one she killed,” Spite told him. “And there may be many more of her kind about. We came here to ensure that you weren’t one such victim before we left to hunt Lashaal herself. I’m sorry we couldn’t warn you but…”

“…giving me fair warning if it wasn’t actually me would have endangered you,” he finished, the frightened look fading, the griffin visibly accepting it, internalizing it, then filing it away. Twilight recognized the process because it was one she utilized often to great effect, putting things aside for the moment so more immediate problems could be ameliorated. “Is there a defense?”

“Symbols of belief, as cliché as that might seem,” Spite replied. “Magical and will power are the two weapons a mortal has against being seized in that fashion, and a symbol of belief helps because it gives you something to focus that willpower on. There is, however, a passive defense that has proven to be effective.” From the leather case that had contained her letter of introduction from Amarra Drae’thul, Spite drew an intricately woven cross-shaped symbol on a necklace and offered it to the griffin.

“Yes, it resembles one of the symbols of belief, not that I expect you’ve seen the symbol this one resembles, but it’s actually a highly complex magical construct that has been bound to a physical form,” she explained as he gingerly accepted it. “It channels the magical presence of a goddess known as The Weaver and inherently repels things of the Void, such as the malevolent spirits that seize mortal bodies forcibly. You need not wear it around your neck; just keep it somewhere on you and it’ll work to protect you.”

“Is there a reason it’s this particular shape?”

“The Weaver tells me that she did it as a joke. She’s never told me who she was pranking, but it was apparently memorable enough that she kept this as her personal symbol.” She rolled her eyes, albeit with a slight smile. “There’re days when I think she’s not quite right in the head but she has a personality like Pinkie Pie’s—the mature considerate side, not the insane party pony side—and it’s well worth it to tolerate her oddities.”

“You speak of her like she’s just another acquaintance…” Twilight said, curiously.

Spite laughed. “Twilight, you were just being hugged by a sun goddess an hour ago and standing beside you is a moon goddess who, I’m told, thinks very fondly of you. Is it really that odd that I occasionally have tea and muffins with one?”

“I’m not a goddess, Myrilandel,” Luna told her with an amused look.

“Unusually powerful, well-nigh immortal, a specific role in the natural order,” Spite countered. “I realize the term is vastly more consequential to you than it is to me—I know a few dozen deities personally and of roughly a thousand others—but from my perspective, you’re the goddess of the moon and your sister is the goddess of the sun. And to be perfectly frank, Luna, there’re goddesses I’ve known personally that aren’t even half as beautiful as a teal-eyed, blue-violet coated, winged pegasus with a rather cute horn. For my bits, there’re plenty of places you’d be instantly declared a goddess just by sipping a glass of cider you’re holding with levitation magic.”

Luna blushed in a cutely pretty way and smiled. “Thank you, Myri. But back to business.” She looked at the consul. “I wish we could offer you evidence you could take to your people, Consul Halia, and warn them of what Lashaal is and her evil intentions towards griffins.”

“I wish there was as well, Your Majesty,” he replied with an inclination of his head. “I’m certain that your personal testimony and a demonstration from… Miss Myrilandel would be of great help but I can’t think of any other way.”

Twilight eyed him. “Why do you seem so willing to just… believe?” She asked. “What Myrilandel is telling you is sort of… fantastic and if I didn’t have another reason to trust her, I wouldn’t believe it. So why do you?”

He looked blankly at her. “Uh… what?”

Twilight’s brow furrowed and she looked hard at Spite whose brow was also furrowing in thought, giving the distinct impression that the dragoness hadn’t thought that the griffin suddenly believing her unquestioningly was at all unusual. Twilight made a mental note to ask her about it later before turning back to the confused consul. “What Myrilandel is claiming—invisible spirits floating around stealing bodies, a pony being actually an evil creature wearing some poor pony as a skin, this being a threat to the Provinces—is actually sort of unlikely. So why do you believe her?”

He closed his eyes and grimaced. “B... because… I believe…” He replied in a strained way. “Head… tells me she’s… she’s right… ugh…”

“Spite, what’s happening to him?” Luna asked sharply.

“I… I have no idea. I mean, I sort of do but… I’ve only heard about this sort of work, never seen it,” the dragoness replied as the consul grasped his head in his talons.

“…hurts… must believe… hurts…” He groaned as he sank towards the ground.

“Spite, what is this?” Luna demanded, punching the stunned-looking dragoness on the shoulder to get her attention.

“I… I think it’s a memory compulsion…” She stared as blood started dripping from one of his nostrils and an ear. “…oh, Weaver, the tripwire!”

“The what?”

“One of you, get some healers!” Spite replied, suddenly snapping out of her reverie. “Healers, especially ones that have experience with the mind.”

“Me,” Luna replied. “Dreamgazing, illusion, all related to the mind.”

Spite looked at her a moment. “Not quite, but it’ll do. Twilight, go get help; your aunt and I will do what we can for him.”

Twilight stared as blood started coming from the other nostril. Suddenly, she felt a clawed hand grasp her muzzle firmly and forcibly turn her head to look into the crystalline irises of the black-scaled dragoness. “Twilight, go.”

Twilight nodded and Spite let her go, turning back to the stricken griffin who was starting to moan with pain. “Now Luna… the moment I induce sleep…”

Those were the last words Twilight heard before the lavender of her own magic blinded her and sent her hurtling towards the nearest hospital—and, hopefully, help.

<><

“I cannot say zat I know griffin physiology vell, vut it appears zat zee consul has been stabilized, at least for now.” The unicorn doctor with a suture needle and image of a stitched-together wound on his flank fixed Spite with a severe look. “Although I have little experience treating the physical effects of psychic trauma.”

“That’s why I have a Princess on hoof, doctor,” Spite told him with a touch of amusement. “The Princess who has experience, at the very least, with dreams and other mental phenomenon.” She turned and looked admiringly at Luna, standing on the other side of the room and talking quietly with the Elements and her sister. “Who is, I might add, one of the most impressive goddesses I’ve seen in decades when it comes to her place in the natural order. Saved this griffin’s life and mind just as much as your excellent staff and with the unhesitating obedience of an experienced soldier.” She smiled a little, unconsciously lapsing into the harsh hissing sound of her native tongue. She sighed and shook her head wistfully.

“I… don’t know what zat means, miss.”

“Hmm?”

“Vut vas zee last thing you said?”

She waved a hand. “Nothing, doctor, don’t concern yourself with it. Just… feeling nostalgic, being reminded of some dear friends and missing them a bit.”

The doctor gave her a small smile. “It seems to me zat you have friends enough in zis room. Perhaps you should make yourself less lonely?”

She chuckled and shook her head. “I’ve known them for all of two days, the Princesses for a few hours at best. It’s quite early to be calling our relationship ‘friendship’, especially since I’m a virtual unknown to them.”

“Why not correct zat?”

Spite eyed him. “Why do you care?”

He shrugged. “I spend my every vaking moment concerning myself vith ze health and happiness of total strangers. Vut’s one more?”

“Fair enough,” she conceded. “So, if you had to make the call, how would you characterize the consul’s prognosis?”

“Excellent,” he replied. “I don’t have much experience in zis area, the physical effects of psychic trauma, but ze combination of your guidance and ze power of our beloved Moon Princess seem to have limited ze harm. I estimate another week until he can awaken safely.”

“At least he’ll live and be able to provide information later.” She nodded to the stallion. “Thank you, Doctor. If there’s any change, I’ll be here at least a few more days and the Princesses, who are also concerned for his welfare as a matter of state at the very least, are a constant presence.”

“You’re welcome, miss…?”

“Myrilandel,” Spite replied with a smile and a slight polite inclination of her head. The doctor turned to check the monitors on another patient and Spite took the opportunity to slip away and pad over to where the Elements and two Princesses were conversing lowly.

“…trust her, without any question now, but I’m beginning to think we need to insist that she be more forthright,” Luna was saying as Spite got within earshot. “What was it she said to you, Twilight? That she…?”

“…felt unable to tell me things until a bond of trust and friendship had been established,” Twilight filled in. “She was willing to risk being turned away if it meant keeping her secrets.”

“And although the situation has become somewhat more serious, that remains the case,” Spite said, causing several of them to jump slightly. “I wish to correct something, however: what I’m concealing are not secrets so much as a mix of private matters and information that would have done nothing but frighten you earlier. Now, you have some context upon which to base what I can tell you.”

“We’re listening,” Luna prompted with a motion of her hoof.

“The hospital room of the griffin consul-general is probably not the best place for this discussion, Your Majesty,” Spite replied with a gently chiding tone. “And before I tell you anything, I would prefer to see if it’s possible for all the Elements to hear my explanation.”

“You want to see if Rainbow Dash can be awakened.”

“Yes,” Spite confirmed. “But more than that, I want to face the results of my greatest failure thus far before moving on to the next stage of this game.”

Explanations and Tales

“Tell me, minister: were you there for the intervention?” Trilychi had abandoned his divan and was now curled up to a side, his avatar having expanded its size so that the mismatched imitation of Discord could address him with its chin propped up in his hand.

Fronck-Kais sighed internally, having given up trying to brush off the Eighth Prime’s random inquiries. “I was, and wished I was not. Coldest place I’ve ever been, including the Void.”

“Was it nice, feeling hope that Folly had actually retrieved the situation by pulling the Palace from the depths?”

He snorted. “There was no such hope. I followed Quezelzege on his mad adventure out of hope that while he capered around pissing off everyone who’s anyone, some gains could be realized. No one, not even his most ardent supporters, believed that Quezelzege had the barest modicum of intelligence. The most any of us hoped from the Palace was that it would distract that freakish hybrid and her hymn-humming friends so we could make good our escape. It worked, needless to say.”

Kaiya snorted. “Freakish hybrid? Hymn-humming friends? I’d pay dearly to see you try to say those things to their faces, especially Templar Drake. Or, even better, I’d love to see you say ‘freakish hybrid’ in the hearing of Drake’s adoptive family. I could carry you away in a drinking glass.”

He gave her a sour look but sighed and conceded the point with a nod. “At any rate, we hoped that the Palace would distract, and it did. The Sixth taking the field personally, with her armies and the full participation of the Elite Guard? That, no one could have anticipated.”

“I did,” Kaiya snorted. “Trilychi did. Weaver-damned Heccate did, and she takes great pains to ignore everything that goes on in the Helles. If none of you had the wit to anticipate that the sweet-natured Power with an enduring grudge against Folly would step in to ruin his plans, you had only yourselves to blame.”

“Oh, sure,” he retorted scornfully. “We’re supposed to obtain a deep understanding of the nature of one of the Primes, when her Helle is patrolled by Void-damned jei, she has an entire Family of expert spy-hunters who emphatically do not like Evils, and she herself is unfailingly, unfailingly, sweet-natured and friendly. How precisely do you imagine that we can understand the Void-damned Sixth, when the only Evil allowed in her presence is her tame void-dragon?”

Kaiya began to reply, stopped, and frowned thoughtfully. “He poses an excellent riddle, Trilychi. What say you?”

“I say that he and his kind ought to have utilized the most basic powers of observation,” Trilychi snorted. “She’s a dragon. In what world are dragons not fiercely powerful predators that, as often as not, have the raw physical and magical power to break entire armies? Beyond that, Amarra Drae’thul’s nature and danger are quite apparent to the most casual observer: she is the sword and shield of the first Prime to unite all nine Helles under a single banner; all ten Families both like and respect her, something they only do with equals; and the merciless way she dealt with Rijii, stepping directly into the toxic Void-infused aura that she projected around her and laying hands on her, is generally known among the Helles, so it wouldn’t have been necessary to spy on her to know of it.”

He felt his eyes widen and mouth gape involuntarily. “How is that possible?”

“For the same reason the demon-shadow your agent set loose to distract the Handmaiden cowered when she wielded pure Light against it,” Kaiya replied. “For the same reason that even an Evil as strong as a distolver fears and respects Light and Dark. Like water against a rock, Rijii’s aura broke against her own without making the slightest impression.”

“And all the Helles knows it, thus it would be easily possible for you to have known it, if you paid any attention at all,” Trilychi concluded with a smirk. “No spies, infiltration, or incisive cunning needed.”

He treated the pair of them to another sour look before he sighed, feeling the barest touch of shame. “In retrospect, someone should have realized that that damn red-scale with the innocently warm personality was at least as dangerous as the Ninth himself.”

“I’ve warned her about being too nice,” Trilychi sighed. “It’s a weakness unseemly for such a powerful and intelligent creature as she. And yet, it’s dreadfully hard to gainsay her after she’s risen from neophyte to Power without being the slightest bit hobbled.”

“Eventually, Lord Trilychi, you’ll acknowledge that she’s a Power because of what you term her weakness, not in spite of it.” Kaiya smiled at him, her tone that of someone who’s had the exact conversation hundreds of time and expected she’d have it hundreds of times more.

“And eventually, Lady Aon, you’ll realize that no amount of proof will ever convince me that concerted warmth and kindness is anything but an indulgence of fools, pathetic mortals, and Amarra Drae’thul,” Trilychi retorted with a genuine smile and the exact same tone.

“And your explanation for me offering you an exceptionally fine and valuable vintage of drink?”

“You’re a fool,” he stated cheerfully. “Which in no way detracts from the gratitude I feel towards you for the kind gesture of respect, even if I disdain as weakness the kindness that led to it.”

Fronck-Kais sighed lightly and tuned out the banter between the Eighth Prime and Ninth Archangel as he studied the game board. Almost all of his pieces were in place and his plan for this Game was unfolding perfectly. In her stupid desperation, Lashaal had gravely injured one of the Elements, by far the boldest and most mobile one, and it’d proven an unexpected boon for his grand design. And yet…

He turned his eyes to the figuring representing The Handmaiden, now positioned holding the bloodstained locket in such a way as to make it seem like it was being held up to the light for study. He knew generally about her, every creature of the Void did, but beyond her species, information about her was frustratingly vague. She was the literal hand of the Sixth Prime, a Prime famous for both her unfeigned personal goodness and her immense power, and had proven herself superior in power to many Primes by assassinating the Fourth Prime at the behest of her mistress.

But she was proving extremely frustrating, enough so that Fronck-Kais was beginning to see why Lady Aon seemed in no hurry to invoke other agents to aid her. The mere threat of her presence was enough to send Lashaal into a mindless panic and caused her to flee northwest before she could complete either of her intended tasks in Equestria. Even when she’d stumbled into doing something right, The Handmaiden mauled the klesae to the point of disintegration, something he’d have never imagined to be possible, and saved Loyalty from death.

She’d even somehow spotted the gaes another of his agents had laid on the griffin consul and destroyed it, all but guaranteeing that Fronck-Kais would be missing vital intelligence until another of his agents had finished their tasks and could move on to retrieve the results of Lashaal’s cowardice. If he didn’t know that Kaiya Aon was obsessively dedicated to the letter and spirit of the rules, he’d suspect that she was conveying his plans to her agent.

He noticed that the Light and Dark seemed to be winding down and looked up to convey attention. She may be a tamed void-dragon, he thought, but she’s lost none of her race’s love of stirring up trouble. Something has to be done or I may just have to concede that Lady Aon is correct: my bid to control Sol Selune is truly in vain. “I take it you have no plans for this turn, milady?”

“I’m thinking… not quite yet,” she chuckled. “Do go on, however. I enjoy watching plans play out, even if they’re the plans of my foe.”

It was black everywhere. It wasn’t simply black under her hooves or in front of her, but in every possible direction. She could see her hooves and when she looked back, her wings and her rainbow-colored tail, but there wasn’t any kind of light or any reason she’d be able to see, and it bothered her for some reason. That, and it was so boring here.

“You know, as dreams go, this one sort of bites,” she informed the blackness in every direction. “I mean, the entire ‘you can’t see what you’re standing on’ mystery thing is really, like, intellectual and all but you’ve got the wrong pony. Egghead stuff is for Twi, not me.”

The blackness didn’t seem to have anything to say to this and Rainbow sat back on her haunches with a huff. “I mean, I feel totally gypped here. Usually, my dreams are really awesome and fun but this? This just doesn’t fly.”

“You, however, do,” a silky, beautifully-exotic voice commented in a conversational tone from behind her. “And you seem quite good at it, child, although I simply must question the wisdom of trifling with the sound barrier at whim.”

Before Rainbow could get up or even turn, the owner of the voice strolled passed her, her steps causing the blackness to ripple softly at each point of contact, before she turned and sat on her haunches before Rainbow, looking down at her with a smile. It was a dragoness, but taller than Spike and built along slim, serpentine lines with a luxurious charcoal-black mane spilling off her hornless head, contrasting vividly with bright scarlet scales. Her irises were a vivid emerald green and around her neck, she wore a hinged gold locket stained with blood on a delicate golden chain. The dragoness folded her hands across her belly and bowed elegantly to Rainbow.

“I might add that unless I read you wrongly, this flying generally involves a lovely young griffiness whose image gives you comfort and peace,” the dragoness continued. “I’m not reading your mind, Rainbow Dash, but simply seeing flashes of your most important and intense memories.”

Rainbow found her voice. “Who the hay are you?”

“A close companion to a valiant dragoness who fearlessly charged a demon-shadow for your sake and afterwards, seeing the rents in the very fabric of your soul, infused you with a portion of her strength and self,” she replied. “Your body lies in a coma in a hospital bed, a gentle creature keeping faithful vigil over it in the way that family or a very dear friend would.”

She grinned a little. “Flutters.”

“If that is the one who fits that description,” the dragoness agreed pleasantly. “Although, I find it delightful that you’re so blasé about being in a coma.”

“Well, am I gonna wake up?”

“Without a doubt, and quite soon.”

“And can I still fly like I did before when I do?”

“I believe you’ll be even more capable than you were.”

Rainbow grinned. “Then why worry? I’m still me, still awesome, and the newest Daring Do book is gonna be out soon.”

The dragoness grinned at her fiercely, looking delighted by this response. “Yes, you’re still awesome, Dash. So, before you wake up and it becomes a bit harder to do this, I’d like to have a word. You’re probably wondering what the hay this all is, right?”

“Yeah, sorta occurred to me,” Rainbow admitted. “So what the hay is it?”

“A blank space between what is real and what is merely believed,” she replied. “For most of the last two days or so, your sleep has been regenerative and dreamless. That sleep will inevitably end, and probably much sooner than is wisest, and so the time to speak with you is now.”

“And you can talk to me… how?”

“It’s complicated but once, I did for the dragoness what she did for you, and some thread of me is still woven through her. Part of that thread was passed to you, and since it’s in tune with my own self, I can speak to you in this blank space.” The dragoness looked over her with a fond smile. “You are well worthy of that effort, Rainbow Dash. You are a valiant creature, as she is, and absolutely loyal to what you are and those you care about, which is what I love so dearly about her.”

“OK, enough with the flowery stuff; I already know how awesome I am. What do ya want, mysterious dragoness?”

“To get you up to speed, as it were,” she replied. “It’s only been two days but much has happened. The first, and most important, is that the pony you were sent to warn is a monster, and now the proper ponies are aware of it.”

The image of that emaciated white face twisting into a look of pure, sadistic, hateful ugliness flickered in the blackness behind the dragoness and a snarl of “Klesae, pegasi EIT!” echoed in the nothingness around them. Rainbow shuddered involuntarily. “Yeah, I remember.”

“I can see that you do,” she gave Rainbow a sympathetic look. “If it helps, your savior hurt it many times worse than it hurt you.”

Again, a memory flickered against the blackness, that of watching light-infused flames spew from the dragoness’ gaping maw, followed by the graceful pirouette that riddled the shadow monster with fireballs. It was followed by the vivid sensation of soft, gentle hands drifting over her face and sides, pleasant coolness emanating from the touches, then the wonderful sensation of being wrapped in a warm cloud-soft blanket and then… being here.

Rainbow became aware of the scarlet dragoness watching where the images had flashed, her expression proud and happy. “So she finally mastered the infusion,” she commented, turning that happy expression, heavily tinged with warmth, on Rainbow. “Honestly, I’m amazed that a flier of your skill and speed could ever be touched by a klesae. They’re dumb beasts and quite ponderous.”

“I was sorta… hurting…” Rainbow admitted, shifting uncomfortably on her hooves. “Now that I think about it, I think your friend was trying to stop me from reaching Lily Shell so she was doing lots of near-misses to throw me off my game. Not sure what the last thing she did was, but it hurt like hay.”

“She probably charged you when you were building up speed so that the onrushing air would hit like a brick wall,” her companion opined. “Which I’m sure she’ll be apologizing for profusely when you wake up, since it indirectly led to you getting nibbled on by the klesae.”

Rainbow snorted. “Naw, it was totally fair and totally not her fault. I think she was majorly pissed that Lily…”

“Lashaal, actually.”

“…yeah, OK, Lashaal used that klesae thing on me to distract her from running her down. That counts for a lot. And this klesae thing… pretty dangerous right?”

“Extremely so.”

“So she went right after that thing for a total stranger, without really stopping to think about it.” Rainbow grinned. “Which was cool of her and I’m pretty sure she kicked its plot, which makes her way awesome.”

The dragoness laughed at this. “I’m sure she’ll feel honored that the great Rainbow Dash, fastest flier in Equestria, heir apparent to leadership in the Wonderbolts, and Element of Loyalty regards her as ‘cool’ and ‘awesome’.” She gestured to the blackness. “Not to wander from the subject at hand, but would you prefer that we ditched this background and went someplace cooler?”

Rainbow eyed her. “Uh, if this is someplace between real and imagination, how do we get out of it?”

“It’s a blank space, a ready canvas for whoever wishes to paint on it,” she informed her. “For example, if a certain red-scaled dragoness felt like hanging out in a peaceful village with a viewing platform directly above a majestic waterfall, she could totally take a certain cyan pegasus there.”

It was, it seemed, as simple as that for without any apparent pause, the blackness dissipated and the low, basso rumble of a giant waterfall filled Rainbow’s ears. She was now standing on a wooden platform with a nicely-carved hoof rail all around it and steps leading down to a cobblestone path. A gentle sun shined softly overhead and sparkling mist rolled off the falling water to shroud the platform in a cool and pleasant cloud of vapor. The foliage on the other side of the river looked green and lush, and the village to the other side looked colorful, the homes all with gently-sloped roofs and small decorative gardens around them.

“Hano,” the dragoness supplied fondly as she strolled over, her claws clacking almost inaudibly against the wood. “I’m sorry that I can’t imagine any of its people—I visit often but trying to keep track of hundreds of inhabitants with my imagination is a bit beyond me.”

“So this is where you’re from?” Rainbow asked, looking around.

“No.” She gave Rainbow a peaceful smile, a dead ringer for gentle, beautiful little smile that Flutters occasionally let out from under her shyness. “But it’s near the winter home of my minister of state, and he invites me here often to enjoy time away from my duties.”

“What kind of duties?”

“Alas, I would tell you but although there’s no limit to the space I can imagine, there is a limit to my time in your company, Rainbow Dash,” the dragoness told her. “So sadly, we cannot linger on pleasant and pedestrian things. The last thing I need to tell you, to get you up to speed, is that the consul-general to Equestria, one Egret Halia…”

“Eggie?” Rainbow interrupted.

“Eggie?” She blinked and a look of comprehension dawned. “…oh, you know him.”

“Yeah, he was like a combo father and big brother to… Gilda,” Rainbow explained, canting her ears fractionally. “So what’s going on with him?”

“One of Lashaal’s little helpers got into his head,” she told her grimly. “Laid a pretty deep memory compulsion on him that nearly killed him when my friend, the dragoness who saved you from the klesae, was trying to examine him. She was trying to make sure that he wasn’t being used as a puppet by Lashaal to stir up trouble with Equestria.”

Rainbow gulped. “But he’s… OK, right?”

“Yes.” Rainbow sagged slightly, relieved. “Your Princess Luna has a gift for the sort of intricate mental magic that can undo that manner of meddling. He’ll be fine within the week, if past experience holds true.”

“Past experience?” Rainbow frowned. “Who the hay are you?”

“Friend of a friend.” The dragoness considered this. “Call me ‘Mera’ if you wish. Or don’t, as you’re very soon to awaken, and it’s unlikely that you’ll see me again anytime soon.”

“How soon?”

“Oh, call it about a minute.” She chuckled. “Oh, and a piece of advice: when you start waking up, count to thirty.”

Rainbow stared at the merrily-grinning Mera, abruptly aware of the roar of the waterfall suddenly becoming muted, and the scene around her starting to fade slowly. “Um, why?”

“You’ll see.” Mera smiled warmly as the blackness closed in on her. “I hope that fate will allow us another conversation, Rainbow. Enjoy the mass hysteria.”

“...mass hysteria?”

<><

“Just keep in mind that pulling her out of the deep, soul-regenerating sleep I put her in may be hazardous,” Spite told them seriously as they gathered around the bedside of the stricken pegasus. “Princesses, I’d be grateful of your assistance if trouble arises.”

“What kind of trouble do you imagine, Spite?” Celestia asked, looking at Rainbow with compassionate concern.

“I can’t, really,” Spite admitted. “This is a totally unprecedented situation. Not only was I the one doing the initial work, I’m pulling her out earlier than is normally done, although I don’t know the reason for the practice. So hold some magic at the ready and I’ll begin.”

Twilight watched as the black dragoness reached a paw up and very gently stroked he claws through Rainbow’s rainbow mane before settling her hand over the cyan pony’s face, two fingers resting on the eyelids. Twilight felt a gentle swell of magic and Rainbow immediately began to stir. Spite stepped back and out of the way as the pegasus twisted in bed and opened her eyes, her mouth moving, looking like she was… counting? What was going on was destined to forever remain a mystery because at the same moment Twilight noticed that Rainbow seemed to be counting up from zero, she noticed other details about the awakening pegasus’ appearance.

A longer, more lush rainbow mane. Pink irises now a jewel-like amethyst—and slit pupils. Longer, more slender legs with broader and slightly oddly-shaped wings. But most prominently, s the pegasus got free of the sheets concealing it, thin, spidery lines of extremely faint luminous black energy arcing delicately along where Twilight knew veins and capillaries to be. Twilight glanced around, seeing that the other girls had noticed the same things she had, and a heavy silence pressed down on them, broken only by the sound of Rainbow’s voice softly saying “…twenty-five, twenty-six…”

Seconds later, a cacophony of nine different voices had replaced the heavy silence as nine different mares reacted to the situation: Rainbow trying to say something to Spite, the other Elements expressing their various versions of shock, Dawn laughing, the Princesses trying to calm everyone, Spite trying to answer Rainbow, and so on. Abruptly, the world assumed the muted, quieted appearance that Twilight remembered from when Spite had first appeared to her and the nine voices faded under its effects.

“Sorry, force of habit,” Spite said as she made a gesture and the muted effect dissipated. “What were you saying, Rainbow?”

“That was bucking awesome,” Rainbow declared with a grin. “Thirty seconds, right on the dot.”

The expression of vintage Rainbow Dash triggered a mass rush of the other Elements to embrace her and once again break the silence with a happy chorus of greetings, an embrace Twilight joined without hesitation. The burning question of the significance of thirty seconds and what was ‘right on the dot’ would have to wait: Rainbow was OK and whatever she looked like, she was still Rainbow.

“How’re y’all feelin’ sugarcube?” Applejacked asked her as they backed off to let Rainbow recover from the overjoyed group hug.

“Buckin’ awesome, AJ,” Rainbow declared with a cheeky grin. “For the first time ever, I’ve gotten to sleep in without anypony trying to kick me out of bed to go wrangle a storm or something. It’s way cool.”

“Do you… remember how you got here? Remember what led up to it?” Twilight asked her.

“Flutters got me up to chase down somepony named ‘Lily Shell’ and tell her that somepony was after her,” Rainbow replied without hesitation. “Turned out that Lily Shell was a bad sort, and the somepony after her beat down a big demon shadow thing and saved my plot. After somehow outrunning me when I was working up to a sonic rainboom. Which is, possibly, the most awesome thing I can imagine, taken together.”

“I sort of cheated,” Spite admitted, smiling broadly. “I’m pleased to see you well, Rainbow. I’d worried that the infusion I did to save your life would have some… untoward effects. I didn’t think it would, but few things are entirely impossible.”

“Well…” Rainbow turned and eyed her modified wings, now with a greater surface area. She then considered her longer, more elegant body shape, what little she could see of it by turning her head. She then batted at her longer, more lush mane with a sour expression. “…I can always cut the mane.”

This pronouncement caused a surprised Rainbow to be abruptly nose-to-nose with a scarily serious Rarity. “Rainbow Dash, you shall not!”

“But it’s all… frou-frou…”

Rarity backed up and mimed clutching her heart. “Frou-frou? No, no, Rainbow! It’s… it’s…” Her eyes gleamed. “…perfect.”

“Twi…” Rainbow gave the alicorn a pleading look.

Twilight had to work hard not to laugh at the desperate expression. “You might as well indulge her, Dash. It’s not as if manestyle is permanent.”

“And seriously, Dash,” Spite added, her eyes dancing. “If you’re out to be world-famous, what’s the harm in looking as awesome as you are?”

“But… but… the short cut is already awesome!”

“Well, yeah, but looking good enough to catch the eye of whatever stallion or mare you want is more awesome-er than just plain old awesome.”

Rainbow gave the dragoness a skeptical look, although her cheeks colored very lightly. “Seriously?”

“Cross my heart.” Spite replied solemnly.

“And hope to fly?” Pinkie asked.

“I can do that already.”

“Stick a cupcake in your eye?”

“When I could stick it in my mouth?” Spite laughed. “Are you crazy?”

The pink party-pony considered this with a perfectly serious expression. “You have a point…” She gave the dragoness a broad smile. “You get used to this pretty fast for somepony that’s practically new.”

“I can manage serious conversations with people so crazy that they’ve spontaneously become sane,” Spite smiled a little in return. “After Vampvipers, you’re easy.”

“Vamipric vipers?” Pinkamena eyed her. “Wouldn’t that be kinda hard with the poison fangs and all?”

Spite chuckled. “I have no clue where his name comes from or their name comes from; point is, he’s Vampvipers and made entirely out of vampvipers so naturally, he’s insane to the point of sanity. Case in point: his version of ‘have a nice day’ is ‘collections of white moonlight sun’.”

Pinkamena considered this. “Yeah, sounds pretty insane to me. How do you converse with him?”

“After a few decades, you learn to speak ‘schizophrenic’ like a champ,” Spite replied wryly. “Anyway, Rainbow, I’m quite serious: rumor has it that being physically desirable and an outstanding athlete is more awesome than just being an outstanding athlete.”

“You’re just saying that because you want her,” Dawn smirked.

“Dawn vas Celestia, do you want me to bounce you off a wall?” Spite sighed. “I like pretty things and I happen to have some affinity for Dash and that’s it. Not everypony nurses fantasies of tying your love interest up and having your way with her.”

“Well, duh… she’s a farmpony, she’s great with rope.” Dawn grinned. “I’m thinking something more… competitive between you and the rainbow-mane. Maybe…”

“Dawn when do you have time to think about these things?” Celestia asked of her daughter in wonderment. “Or inclination, for that matter?”

“Trust me, mum… Twi thinks of these things too. She just doesn’t let them out of her head.”

“I do not!” Twilight protested, blushing deeply.

“Yeah, yeah, sure,” Dawn scoffed. “You’re gonna stand there and tell me you never think of this sorta stuff? Never indulge in one of those sappy novels as a guilty pleasure? Never look at a flank and think ‘I could hit that if I wanted it’? Never imagined somethin’ more than friendly with somepony? Never? Never ever?”

Twilight turned beet red. “N… never!”

Dawn laughed. “OK, sure, whatever you say bookworm. I know your type.”

Twilight stared at the ground, blushing fiercely as she sternly banished anything even resembling such thoughts, wishing she could think up a better strategy than just denying it when Dawn got like this.

“OK, OK, fine… I’ll let Rarity do the… whatever…” Rainbow grimaced. “I swear, Rarity, if you try to put me in a dress…”

“Heavens no, darling… you’d ruin it,” Rarity replied with a wave of her hoof.

“Oh.” The pegasus looked relieved. “Well, good.”

“So, now that Rainbow Dash is awakened and is well… I believe you promised us an explanation, Spite?” Celestia suggested with a beatific smile in the dragoness’ direction.

“Sure. Just get close enough that I can shift us out and give us some privacy.”

“Shift us out?” Luna inquired as she and Celestia obligingly trotted closer.

“It’s how I create the barrier around us that prevents use from seeing or interacting with outside, and outside seeing or interacting with us: I move us outside the ordinary flow of reality, slightly closer to the Void without exposing us to it,” Spite explained. “It requires very little effort for me, since I have a strong sympathetic aethirical resonance with both reality and Void.”

“That explains that creepy healing trick you did.”

“Um, yes, sort of.” Spite shifted uncomfortably. “Anyway, it’s possible to do it on a much larger scale and much more completely, but it’s only been necessary once.” She made a gesture with a hand and the world outside their little circle seemed to fade into the background. “Quite handy if you need to have a private conversation…”

“Or get off,” Dawn observed.

“That has honestly never occurred to me,” she retorted loftily. “So, moving on to the situation at hoof, you recall that I explained the concepts of Light and Dark?”

“We do,” Luna confirmed.

“Long and the short of it is that there’re nine… beings, I guess, who’re the strongest beings of Light and Dark in existence. There’re eighteen of them, nine per force, and each one rules over their own individual realm, called ‘Helles’ for Dark and ‘Heavens’ for Light,” Spite explained. “They tend to make themselves patrons of worlds, which gives them prestige among their peers and obligates them to defend the patronized worlds. Generally, they don’t switch hands but when they do, it’s always the result of a Game.”

“Your patroness, Amarra Drae’thul, is one of these?” Celestia asked.

“Yes.” Spite beamed proudly. “One of the strongest overall and the second-strongest military power among the eighteen, second only to the Ninth Prime. Anyway, the situation you confront now is the second Game that’s occurred in the last year, the first one concluding just six months prior.”

There was dead silence. “Thou sayest that the destruction of Our kingdom, the slaying of Our little ponies, the corruption of Our extended family, the corruption of Order, all the suffering that has come of it are Us being used as the… playthings of one of these entities of Light or Dark?” Luna inquired, her voice becoming resonant with building anger.

Spite sighed. “It’s a great deal more nuanced and complicated than that. The term ‘game’ is used because that’s often the most helpful representation: pieces on a chess board. Various of the extremely powerful entities of Light and Dark developed it as a system for gaining plunder, conquest, and prestige without doing great harm to the denizens of a world. The matter of the Guardian is a very rare case of one player cheating to sate their sadism.”

The glow of rage diminished fractionally. “Cheating?”

“There’s a rule that a player isn’t responsible for the conduct of their pieces unless they instructed the pieces to take the offending action.” Spite grimaced. “The Evil that was using the Guardian dodged the rule by stripping him of most free will when she engineered his corruption. Thus, while she didn’t tell him to do any of the evils he did, she made certain that he would do nothing else.”

“Well, we defeated the Guardian so I assume she lost,” Twilight mentioned.

“It’s better than that. You defeated the Guardian because she lost.” Spite smiled a little. “The other player was incoherent with rage when she realized what the offender was doing, and she declared the game forfeit with the approval of the mediator. The offender was subsequently executed in retaliation for the damage she did and the lives she destroyed.”

“Good,” Rainbow growled—actually and literally growled, Twilight noted—as she stomped the floor with a hoof for emphasis. “Pile of horsehapples took lotsa friends, took my very best friend in fact. Did she die hard?”

“Very hard.” Spite inclined her head gently in Rainbow’s direction. “My knowledge of the players is limited to the Ninth Light, who claims this world as one of her patron worlds and is the defender in the Game. Beyond her, and my own sister and queen, I know very about this particular game. Lashaal is certainly a piece and whatever creature laid the compulsion on the consul is another. We can only assume, therefore, that there’re still others that we don’t know about.”

“What about more of you?” Celestia asked. “By which I mean, what about more pieces who’re in the service of this Ninth Light that is acting as our unseen defender?”

“I’m all you get for the time being,” Spite smiled a little sheepishly. “I know Kaiya Aon, the Ninth Light, well enough to know her habits, and her habit in this instance is to spend her strength carefully until she knows the shape of the opponent’s plan. Make no mistake: if an army is what it takes to break her opponent and secure Sol Selune, an army is what she’ll send. But the plan isn’t known yet, so the entire array of her pieces begins and ends with me.”

“She must have the utmost confidence in you.”

“It’s very well-justified.” Spite looked over the ponies. “So now you know all I know about the situation. Admittedly, it’s not as much as I wish I knew, but it’s all I have.”

“How does your queen fit into all of this, though?” Celestia inquired. “If she’s not a player in this ‘Game’, what’s her interest in it?”

Spite tilted her head in a curious way. “Why do you need to know?”

“Because her letter is pleasant and polite, but anypony can write eloquent words,” Celestia replied. “In fact, most ponies can speak eloquently when they want to, and the most eloquent are frequently up to something. The question of whether you are in earnest is well-settled: the Element of Honesty confirms your truthfulness, and I know of at least two troubles that you’ve taken on and resolved just since my daughters became aware of you. However, knowing you tells me only that Amarra Drae’thul has a very earnest and truthful servant, nothing about Amarra herself.”

“Fair enough,” Spite acknowledged. “I think that going into her history would be a waste of time right now, but I can tell you the important bits. My queen and sister, Amarra Drae’thul, is the Sixth Prime and possesses the largest organized army in all the Helles. She is personally stronger than any Prime except for her master, the Ninth Prime. She has a warm and open personality, not unlike your own Your Majesty, and is regarded as exceptionally lovely by mortal standards. We’re actually twins, fraternal, so she looks like me except with brilliant red scales and green eyes.”

“Does she call herself ‘Mera’ sometimes?” Rainbow asked.

“…yes.” Spite looked thoroughly shocked by the question. “Although I tend to call her ‘Amy.’ But how would you know that?”

“Just before I woke up, she popped up in some ‘blank space between reality’ or something like that and told me what’s what,” Rainbow replied, looking like she was enjoying the look of shock from Spite. “Seemed really nice and for being a queen, she sounds like, well, me.”

The dragoness looked at her for a moment before shaking it off and giving a short bark of laughter. “Hah! I’ll bet she took advantage of the tiny thread of herself that I passed to you. And yes, she’s far more conversant in the way that more modern people and ponies speak than your typical Light or Dark, partly out of a nostalgic fondness for mortal things.” She visibly thought about this. “Well, damn… big sister’s pitching in, more than likely without seeking or receiving permission from the players. This can’t help but be fantastically good.”

“Is she actually permitted to intervene in the operations of the Game?” Luna asked.

“There’s no rule one way or the other.” Spite shrugged. “The possibility that there’d be a third party, with the power and inclination to simply step in and take action outside the confines of the formal Game, was never contemplated. The rules were formulated long before I was born and millennia before the rise of Primes and Archangels who maintained highly disciplined, well-trained military forces.”

“So shoot big sis a letter and have her sort this entire thing out.” Dawn suggested. “If she’s anything like you, she’s probably chomping at the bit to start the dance music.”

“And just what is that supposed to mean?”

“I dunno… the entire spying on us with wolves and going after Rainbow to try and bring her down seems sorta intervention-ish.” Dawn smirked. “And showing up with a letter of introduction, and being right on the edge of giving us a couple quests and sending us on our way.”

“Oooh… quests!” Pinkie grinned her impossible grin. “Where’re we going? We’re going west, right? Because ‘go west, young stallion’ is a totally cool idea, and I think Applejack has a cousin out that direction, and he’s all nice and stuff, and we could totally recruit the buffalo, and then we’d have tanks to help us on the raid.”

“…um…” Spite was at a temporary loss for words, staring at the peppy pink party pony before shaking off the confusion. “I… was thinking more northwest and east but if you’re really attached to buffalo…”

“Naw, I’m totally ready to look to the east.” Pinkie tapped her chin with a hoof and her mane lost some of its curl. “So we’re going to the griffin lands, where Lashaal was going, and the eastern barrens where she came from?”

Spite smiled. “Yes, that was going to be my suggestion. How’d you know?”

“It was sort of inevitable,” Twilight offered. “We’ve got to stop Lashaal from doing to others what she did to Consul Halia and if she came from the east like she claims, she probably set things in motion there that we also want to stop. So it was sort of obvious that you were going to work around to suggesting that we split up and take care of both things at once. It’s the most optimal use of time and resources given our present circumstances.”

“To translate from sexually-repressed egghead to nymphomaniac egghead…”

“I’m not sexually repressed!”

“Mmmhmm,” Dawn grinned at her. “So you say, sis, so you say.”

Twilight did her best impression of an exasperated growl before looking at Spite. “It’s a good idea, Spite, but I think we need to split three ways to take care of Equestria while we’re off chasing Lashaal.”

“That’ll spread us pretty thin,” Spite pointed out, visibly struggling not to grin at Dawn’s needling.

“Not as much as you’d think,” Twilight countered. “We’ve got more assets than you’re aware of.”

“Such as…?”

Twilight smiled at the mental image of the unicorn she had in mind. “Well, I’m thinking we could really use somepony Great and Powerful.”

The Great and Powerful

“So, tell me about this ‘Great and Powerful’ pony.” Spite said as they trotted away from the train station. Spite had offered to use her peculiar teleportation ability to get them instantly from Canterlot to Ponyville but, remembering the exceedingly creepy way she’d healed herself, they’d all politely declined. Leaving the two Princesses to hold court and discuss their course of action, they’d boarded a train back home. Spite had proven to be pleasant enough company, although she still seemed reluctant to talk very much about herself, a reluctance Twilight attributed to her comment to Dawn that she was more than capable of being a monster. “Is ‘Great and Powerful’ a title she earned for some great feat?”

“Actually, it’s a stage name,” Twilight replied. “She works as a traveling stage magician using the title ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’. Her given name is Trixie Lulamoon.”

“Trixie Lulamoon,” Spite repeated thoughtfully. “Her last name sounds to be on the exotic side, like from somewhere outside the main pony cities I’ve heard of.”

“I think her family’s originally from a city called Neigh Orleans.”

“Really?” Rarity perked her ears. “Neigh Orleans?”

“Yes…”

“The crescent moon city? Eclectic mix of Prench and middle sea culture?” The fashionista’s eyes were beginning to shine.

“Down girl!” Spite grinned. “Besides, I thought you were obsessed with the fashions of Manehattan and Canterlot, not this Neigh Orleans place.”

“A proper lady keeps herself aware of any new developments in the realm of fashion,” Rarity sniffed, smiling. “Besides, I don’t care about the fashions—they’re hideously gaudy and totally inappropriate to the establishments that a lady should frequent—but the culture, oh the culture!”

“All the culture I’ll ever need, I can find within a short walk from home,” Spite chuckled.

“Oh?” The white unicorn swiveled her ears with clear interest. “Are there many art museums and theaters near your home?”

“Kabuki theater, perhaps.”

“Kabuki?”

“A style of storytelling using dance and extremely elaborate makeup and costuming,” Spite told her. “The kitsune copied it from a mortal realm, and the Ten Families picked it up from there. It’s a very popular form of entertainment where I come from, although the kabuki wasn’t quite what I was referring to when I spoke of culture within a short walk.”

“What then?”

“Everything.” Spite smiled nostalgically. “The refuge gardens the Ten Families maintain in their estates. The universities that are as large as cities, with towering libraries and cathedrals. Vast bazaars where you can find literally anything that exists, or someone who can get it for you. The cavern-foundries of the gremlin clans, gargantuan engineering marvels that can create manufacture by the thousand-fold. The magisteriums where you can hear moraeu and erinye scholars host week-long philosophical contemplations. My queen’s kingdom is a haven of learning, artisanship, and culture unlike any other Helle.”

All the ponies stopped and looked at her in awe. “Yer not jus’ bragging, are ya?”

“Nope.” Spite smiled happily. “I love my home, from its skies to its waters to its very soil to all the peoples that inhabit it. Your Equestria reminds me very strongly of it, with its simple beauties, lush flora and fauna, and a people that are industrious and warm. That’s why it’s so important to me that I do all I can for you and yours: Sol Selune is far too wonderful a place to suffer the spoliation that would accompany the Evil’s success. I just hope this Trixie is up to the task of shielding Equestria from further machinations.”

“Well, she’ll certainly tell you that she can do it,” Rainbow grinned. “There’s self-confidence, there’s arrogance, there’s boasting… and then, there’s Trixie.”

“Be nice, Rainbow!” Twilight admonished. “She hasn’t been that mare for months now.”

“An’ besides, she treats Big Mac like a prince most times,” Applejack added. “Ah’ll put even bits that I’ll have a new sister in law by this time next year.”

“Yeah, yeah, she’s cool now,” Rainbow acknowledged. “So you’ve seen her since the thing with the Guardian, Twi… what’s up with her?”

“Still doing her act,” Twilight replied as they entered Ponyville’s main square in front of both city hall and the library. Parked at the far end, near the market stalls, was a large wooden wagon painted light blue with a lavender roof decorated liberally with stars. On the side, forward of the door, was painted ‘The Great and Powerful Twixie: Mare of Mystery, Enchantment, and Awe-Inspiring Magical Mysticism’. Spite stopped in her tracks at this and looked over at Twilight.

“OK, so, remind me again: this Trixie can do the job, right?” She asked apprehensively. “She’s not just a traveling showmare with enough magic and skill to delight little foals, but lacking the ability to defend herself? Because I don’t want to waste my time or hers discussing this with her if her idea of a defense is a fireworks display.”

“That might have been the case once, and might have been the case if the Guardian had never shown up,” Twilight acknowledged, feeling a twinge of emotional pain that she was sure showed on her face. “But yes, she’s capable of what we’re planning to ask. More than capable; her magical font isn’t even a fraction of mine, but she can do more with less than I can.”

Spite noticed the expression. “That pains you, doesn’t it?”

“Yes.” Twilight slumped a little as they neared the wagon, remembering Trixie being particularly subdued the day she finally mastered the ability to call and use magical fire as a weapon. “Teaching a harmless entertainer, whose profession is making little foals laugh happily, how to do violence is very painful.”

“I think it’d be much more painful to her to be ‘Great and Powerful’ but have to stand by and watch someone she cares about be hurt.” Spite reached over and patted her on the shoulder, her hand striking Twilight as being oddly soft for being an appendage the dragoness walked on. “It may be painful for you both, but I imagine she feels secretly better when she can look over at Big Mac and know that if the moment comes when doing violence can save his life, she’ll be capable of it.”

Twilight nodded, giving Spite a brief smile, before walking up to the door of the wagon and knocking on it.

“Jus’ a sec.” Came a handsomely basso voice from inside before the door opened, and Twilight found herself face-to-face with what was easily the largest stallion she’d ever met. She politely stepped aside so he could step out of the mobile home.

“Afternoon, y’all.” He rumbled. “Afternoon, ‘Jack.”

“Hey Big Mac.” Applejack grinned as she came forward, throwing her hooves around him. Despite the difference in size, they were clearly brother and sister: their similarities in build, in accent, and face were just too similar for it to be anything else.

Big Mac smiled a little as he embraced his sister in return. “What brings y’all here?”

“We need to talk to Trixie, Big Macintosh,” Twilight told him, putting up a façade of brightness to hide the discomfort she felt at their errand. “Is she inside?”

“Eenope. Went fer carrots.” He looked over at Spite then at Rainbow and then back at Twilight. “Somethin’s wrong, innit?”

Twilight sighed, reminding herself once again that despite being plain and simple pony folk, the Apples were nopony’s fools, and the stoic Big Mac was no exception. “Yes.”

The big stallion grimaced. “Ah hope this dun have anythin’ t’ do with mah Trixie. Ah jus’ lost ‘er six months prior, Miz Sparkle, and Ah’m not fixin’ t’ do it again.”

“Trixie was killed by the Guardian?” Spite blinked.

“Eeyup.”

“But she’s not still dead.”

“Eenope.”

Spite snorted. “Naturally. Everyone else is in on the party, why not Phyrrus too?”

“There’s a party?” Spite found herself face-to-face with the pink party pony and Twilight watched her expression strain briefly as she embarked on the perpetually futile exercise of figuring how Pinkie Pie could be Pinkie Pie. “And I wasn’t invited?”

“Oh, you were invited, Pinkie,” Rarity stepped in, gently pulling Pinkie back to a more less-invasive-of-personal-space distance. “And you showed up fashionably late.”

Pinkie giggled. “Silly Rarity, that wasn’t a party. That was a fight.”

“Which is what I meant by ‘party’,” Spite chuckled. “At any rate, I regret to admit that this does have something to do with your Trixie, Big Macintosh. I’m told she’s a great and powerful pony, and Equestria may need one of those.”

“Did somepony mention the Great and Powerful Trixie?” Came a youthful voice with more than a hint of Rarity’s high society accent. Twilight looked over the heads of her friends to see a familiar blue unicorn with a long-cut white mane levitating a basket of plump carrots as she trotted towards the wagon. Trixie wore her cap and cape, both lavender, both liberally decorated with stars, although both articles showed all the hallmarks of having been professionally-made and made of much finer materials than her original clothing had been. Twilight looked sideways at Rarity and caught the expected flash of work-pride, causing Twilight herself to smile a little at the latest example of her fastidiously fashionable friend’s generous nature.

“Hey Trixie,” Twilight said, turning the smile up a notch for the other unicorn.

“Twilight Sparkle.” Trixie smiled warmly in return as she trotted passed her, pausing to kiss Big Mac. “I’ll be right with you, just need to put these away.”

Big Mac didn’t say anything but the subdued, somewhat silly, smile on his face loudly broadcasted his opinion that he was the luckiest stallion in Equestria.

Trixie emerged and immediately embraced Twilight. “It’s been months, Twilight!”

Twilight beamed as she wrapped forelegs and wings over the smaller unicorn. “Yeah, I’m sorry about that Trixie. There’s been… lots to do. But I caught a couple of your shows when you were in Canterlot a few weeks ago. You looked as Great and Powerful as I’ve ever seen you.”

“You’re kind to say so, Twiligjht.” Trixie released her and looked over the crowd. “…Trixie, er, I see you brought all your friends. Is it a special occasion, or are you all just that happy to see me?”

“A special occasion,” Twilight admitted. “We need your help, Trixie.”

Trixie responded by staring, open-mouthed. “S…say that again..?” She managed weakly.

“We need your help, Trixie,” Twilight repeated, leaning down to meet Trixie’s astonished eyes. “It’s not a joke and you’re not imagining this; we really and truly need you.”

“But…” Trixie was actually looking faint. “…you… you truly need me? The… the Elements of Harmony… need me?”

Twilight felt the other Elements staring at the ordinarily confident-just-short-of-arrogant showmare in open astonishment, silent for several moments before Rainbow trotted forward, took a surprised Trixie’s face in her hooves, and turned the unicorn’s face so they were eye to eye. “Who are you, and what’d you do with Trixie?”

“And just what does that mean?” Trixie demanded sharply, trying to pull her head away.

Rainbow let her go. “Ya stopped being a jerk but since when have you ever been doubtful that you were far better than everypony else?”

“Since I watched some… thing tearing apart Canterlot, killing ponies I knew, threatening my family, killing your friend, and I could do nothing about it,” Trixie retorted sharply, her amazement at what Twilight said dissipating under the intensity of her words. “The Great and Powerful Trixie couldn’t do anything about that… whatever it was, that Guardian beast. It was like watching Twilight take care of then Ursa Minor that those colts, inspired by my bragging unleashed on Ponyville but much worse.”

“Are you better now?”

“Excuse me?” Trixie looked at Spite.

“I asked, are you better now?” Spite repeated. “Are you still that helpless mare who had to watch a beast hurting ponies while could do nothing, or can you now do something?”

Trixie looked at Twilight, who gave her a smile and an encouraging nod, before looking back at Spite. “I’m… not as helpless as I once was…” She replied cautiously.

“Will you show me?”

Trixie looked aghast. “Show you? As in, hurt somepony for your amusement?”

“Actually, I had in mind you attempting to hurt me,” Spite grinned toothily. “Putting emphasis on the ‘attempting’.”

Trixie looked steadily at her. “So you wish me to attack somepony who isn’t threatening me, has no intention of hurting me, and seems to be a guest, or at least friendly acquaintance, of one of my very few friends?”

Spite sighed. “Yes. Keep in mind, I’d be in no danger from you; in the inconceivably unlikely event that you accidentally hurt me, I’m practically impossible to kill and can recover instantaneously from injury. Ask any of these seven: Applejack accidentally broke my jaw when I startled her, and it only took me a few seconds to be as good as new.”

Trixie turned, got a silent and slightly embarrassed nod from Applejack, then turned back. “Why wouldn’t demonstrating on a rock do just as well?”

“Because even though I’m confident you can’t harm me, you attempting to do so will allow me to assess what you can do,” the dragoness told her. “For me, given my nature, being able to accurately assess what kinds of magic a potential enemy can use and how effectively they can use it, is the most basic and important of survival skills. With my longevity, an instinctive assessment is now fully in my control, and I can objectively analyze the nature and potential of the magic being used in my vicinity, especially if it’s used directly against me.”

“Really now…” Twilight looked intensely interested. “How does that work?”

“All magical energy being put to practical use is essentially a conversion from pure aethir to the form of the magic being used,” Spite replied. “As the aethir typically requires a transitional mechanism, such as focus-words or the horn of a unicorn, it acquires certain amplitudinal variances as well as transitional frequency reiterations that a creature of inherent magical alignment, such as a typical dragon, can intrinsically sense.”

Twilight caught Dawn nodding out of the corner of her eye and felt a small surge of pride in her sister before she noticed everypony else staring blankly at Spite. “Does that come translated from egghead to normal?” Dash asked.

Spite grinned at her. “Maaaaaaybe.”

“Unicorns have different-colored magic from each other,” Dawn told the pegasus.

“Next time you’re having fun, remind me to ruin it for you,” Spite glared.

“You must only use the power of Egghead for good, young grasshopper,” Dawn replied with a cheeky grin.

Spite rolled her eyes, grinning a little in return, before turning back to Trixie. “The long and the short of all that, Miss Lulamoon, is that being magically attacked by you will allow me to discern whether the request we plan to make would be fair to you, or if we’d be putting an unfair burden on a pony who has no ability to bear it.”

Trixie looked at her before looking at Twilight in silent inquiry. Twilight gave her a reassuring nod and a smile, and Trixie returned her gaze to the expectant dragoness. “Very well. But only if we move someplace where nopony else could get hurt, even accidentally.”

“I was planning to suggest the Everfree Forest anyway,” Spite nodded. “Just give me a few minutes to find the local timberwolf pack so they know to stay clear and perhaps keep the other animals away as well.”

“I can help with that,” Fluttershy offered with a shy smile although, notably, not in her nervous almost-whisper.

Spite smiled back warmly. “Then I welcome your company, soft-kind wingpony.”

Fluttershy blushed and ducked her head under her wing, replying in an inaudible whisper, causing Spite to laugh and start towards the Everfree, the butter-colored pegasus following a moment later.

Twilight watched them go and then turned back to Trixie. “You don’t have to do this,
Trixie. You’ve already proven yourself as far as everypony here is concerned.”

Trixie smiled. “You’re kind to say so, Twilight Sparkle, but Trixie doesn’t call herself the ‘Great and Powerful Trixie’ for nothing. And you say that you need my help, and friends help.”

“Man, you’re really gotten awesome since ya first rolled into Ponyville,” Dash laughed. “First, ya come back from the dead, and then ya snag the big guy here, and now you’re all set to go off and help us save Equestria.”

“Save Equestria?” Trixie repeated.

Twilight threw Dash a dirty look. “Yes,” she confirmed. “While Spite and Fluttershy are making the Everfree ready, I think you need to know what’s going on.

<><

“I wish you’d told me you were coming, Spite. I’d have done my spring cleaning early.”

Spite smiled pleasantly at the nearest draconic head. “By which you mean, you’d have hidden the shallow graves better?”

“Ah, someone who understands me,” Trilychi sighed happily as each of his heads assumed a different expression of happiness. “You, Amarra, the High Lord, Kaiya… so few entities in whose company I can derive pleasure.”

“To be fair, My Lord, few entities feel entirely comfortable surrounded by the heads of dragons,” she told him, still keeping her light and pleasant tone. Finding the wolf pack and giving them the message had taken a very short time so Spite had taken the opportunity to slip away, leaving Fluttershy to enjoy the highly affectionate company of the pack, and found a safe perch so she could project a part of herself to speak with the Eighth.

It was always an interesting experience to speak to the actual Prime instead of to one of his millions of minions through whom he’d project his consciousness. Interesting, because the sea hydrus was utterly unique. He was the only one of his kind, a three-headed creature of immense size that was entirely confined to sea water yet had a reach and power that rivaled any Prime or Archangel. It was also interesting because he was a single mind with multiple heads, and exercised such exquisite detailed control that he could pretend all kinds of things: three heads with three separate minds, that he was in a constant state of argument with himself, that the visitor could conspire with one head against the others, and dozens more similar fictions. But for her, and a few others that he respected, the heads spoke and acted as one.

Usually, anyway, since at the moment he was speaking using just the center head while the other two nodded and gave him worshipful looks. “Granted, which explains why my favorite void-dragon has absolutely no fear of me. But you’re not projecting your consciousness to me so we can enjoy word games. What do you need, Handmaiden of the Sixth?”

“Trixie Lulamoon.”

“I’m afraid that if you’re looking to seduce some nice piece of tail, Heccate can give you much better advice than I can,” he grinned toothily.

Spite kept her face passive, earning a flash of visible irritation from the three-headed Prime as she denied him the reaction he was looking for. “I don’t need to seduce her… I need to know more about her so I can recruit her to the cause.”

All three heads quirked the same brow simultaneously. “So you’ve involved a seventh pony in this affair.”

“Actually four others,” Spite grinned. “A twin sister of Twilight Sparkle’s that I wasn’t aware of, this Trixie Lulamoon, and both Princesses.”

“You, my dear, are delightfully irrepressible; I can see why Amarra has you wander around showing her flag and making her look good. However, Twilight Sparkle has a brother, not a sister.” His eyes narrowed. “Although… wait… no… oh, yes, yes, it… no…”

Spite sat back on her haunches and waited politely. Most of Trilychi’s power was related to his immense store of knowledge and information, both of which were relentlessly gathered by doppelganger agents that seemed to be omnipresent based on how well-informed their master was. Part of having that knowledge, however, was making proper use of it and it was the use of information that made Trilychi fully as dangerous as a Prime that could move freely wherever he wished. As such, his mind was a very organized place and audibly talking to himself was how the massive Prime accessed and made sense of his agents’ memories.

“Ah, yes, Twilight Sparkle’s twin sister.” He smirked threefold. “A magical creation, actually, based on a somewhat… indisposed Celestia’s memories of her dear student, recently found to be her daughter. Disagreeable personality combined with Sparkle’s incisive intellect. Nyphomaniacal, although she’s actually worse than sea nymphs; they’re depressingly uptight for such aesthetically-pleasing anthropomorphizations of…”

“Trixie Lulamoon, m’lord,” Spite reminded him.

One thing Spite had never been sure about was what Trilychi looked like beneath the surface; a massive draconic paw with webbing between the fingers, emerging from the water and shaking one of those fingers at her in a scolding fashion answered the question nicely. “Don’t interrupt your elders, whelp.”

“If I had the time, Lord Trilychi, I’d have gradually worked around to the subject in the interest of teasing as much information from you as I could,” Spite replied. “I do not. I need to know of this mare before I examine her magical potential in detail.”

He regarded her thoughtfully, drawing the paw back down to his side under the water. “Yes… you would be taking your time if you had the time to take. Very well. Trixie Lulamoon is a traveling showmare with a high degree of talent in illusion and conjuration, although there’re credible indications that she’s been well-instructed in invocations, ‘well-instructed’ meaning that Twilight Sparkle has tutored her. As such, you can expect unusually refined magic of esoteric patterns in keeping with Sparkle’s tendencies towards highly orthodox literature-driven spell development combined with top-level weave theoretical application. For a long time, Trixie Lulamoon was distinct for her arrogant, highly boastful, highly disagreeable personality that she couldn’t justify through discernible merit. To be frank, Spite, I paid her very little attention because she lacked the personality and personal connections to constitute a consequential force in Equestria. I have reams of information that will tell you everything and give you nothing useful, but that would waste my time to tell you and your time to listen.”

Spite nodded. “Is there anything else?”

“On Trixie Lulamoon, very little. I’m certain that you’ve already discovered that she’s pursuing a relationship with the Element of Honesty’s elder brother, and that connection is the only other consequential information I can offer you. On more important matters, I can tell you much more of much greater consequence.”

“What would you have in exchange?”

He looked at her with three variations on curious. “Why would I have anything from Amarra’s sister and handmaiden in exchange for information? All that I give you is free because you’re Amarra’s strong right hand.”

“Then I thank you for whatever you’re willing to provide.”

He smirked. “With respect to your time constraints, I have four things to say to you on important matters. The first is that the challenger is the black minister Fronck-Kais.”

“Quezelzege’s toady?” Spite snorted. “What am I not surprised?”

“Because you’re too old to be surprised by the easily predicted.” He cleared three throats. “The second thing is that you are to be reinforced with invocations at least comparable to your own power. The third is that Twilight Sparkle must go east to set events in motion that will lead to the acquisition of one of the strongest reinforcements Kaiya Aon can provide.”

“It’ll be nice to shift the burden a little.” Spite smiled, “What’s the fourth thing?”

His expressions became solemn and deadly serious. “Kaiya turned one of her trump cards face up of late. The invocation she threatens to use is the Inquisition.”

Spite gaped openly at him. “How’d she gain that? I mean, I know the Inquisition was partly her creation…”

“Wait, wait…” He stared at her. “She partly created it?”

“Counterpart to the Order in Auric,” Spite nodded. “Except that unlike the Order, she made every attempt to be subtle, for reasons only she knows. I know because my sister knows, and she knows because it was conveyed to her by High Lord Daemoni.”

“…who was told by his personal friend, likely out of a sense of pride in her accomplishment.” He grinned fiercely. “Oh dear me, I knew I liked that vixen. But yes, she gained it and when she turned it face-up, I could tell that it wasn’t a bluff.”

Spite nodded. “Well, things are slightly better than I thought they were. Fronck-Kais though… very interesting. What’s his prize?”

“I haven’t yet asked, mostly because I can’t see how it matters.” He grinned. “Shortly, that miserable Evil will join Rijii and Rejnu as a decoration. Beautiful work, by the way.”

“Thank you, m’lord.” She gave him a smile and a bow. “I’d prefer to linger, if only to learn the latest news about the Helles and Heavens, but I need to return to my task.”

He inclined his heads politely. “Success to you then, Spite Drae’thul. I’ll be watching.”

“Of course he’ll be watching…” She sighed as the projection dissipated, leaving her lounging securely on a high tree branch. Stretching a bit, she slipped to the ground and started towards where she planned to meet the Elements and Equestria’s possible defender. “Well, on to Miss Lulamoon.”

<><

“Just a bit more… a bit more… a little… there.” Spite smiled at the blue unicorn as the mare slowly lit her horn with her face scrunched in concentration. “That’s quite an impressive level of precision control, Trixie.”

“Well, the Great and Powerful Trixie is, after all, great and powerful,” Trixie smiled back as she let the glow lapse. Spite had returned from the forest with the slightest bounce in her step; naturally, this meant that Dawn felt an obligation to needle her before Twilight politely (or at least, as politely as she could, considering) clamped her sister’s muzzle closed with a touch of telekinesis before inquiring. Spite had dismissed the question with a wave of a hand and a “later” before starting her testing. For the test, they’d elected to leave the other elements (and a worried Big Mac) behind so the four of them could concentrate on Spite’s examination of the showmare.

“Powerful is yet to be seen, but I’ll concede the ‘great’ part,” Spite chuckled as she started towards the other side of the small clearing. “Now, let’s get you primed a bit. Hit me with whatever comes to your head first. Don’t take time to worry about it being inappropriate, just belt it out.”

Trixie gave Twilight a glance, receiving an encouraging nod from the alicorn, then her horn sprang to life and out popped streams of sound, light, and color. Twilight slapped her hooves over her ears at the cacophony, not pausing to see how her sister was reacting to the stunning display. Only when the flashes of light had ceased to burn through her eyelids did she dare to look, finding Spite’s end of the clearing singed but the dragoness apparently unaffected.

“You know, I feel the need to state the obvious: that… was possibly the coolest thing I’ve ever seen,” Spite grinned. “I mean, damn… that was the first thing that came to your head, Trixie?”

Trixie grinned back and pointed at herself with a hoof. “Showmare?”

“…Good point.” Spite looked over at Twilight. “Just so I have some idea of what to expect, what path did you take in tutoring her?”

Twilight blinked. “Um… covered some primary theory followed by focus drills and practical instruction. How’d you know?”

“One of my sister’s colleagues acts as her lord’s spymaster, and he has an obsessive lust for knowledge and, for some reason, acts as if he owes my sister a debt of honor,” she explained. “This means that he forgoes the normal round of negotiating a price before giving me any information I want.” She looked down the field at Trixie. “Alright, Miss Lulamoon, I’ve seen what manner of spell is topmost in your mind. Now, I wish to test your reflexive spell. Remember, you can’t hurt me and I will not hurt you.”

“Uh, quick question, miss spooky dragoness,” Dawn interrupted. “How much does this spymaster of yours know?”

“No one knows, but he seems to know everything about everyone.” She sighed. “And boy, does he make sure you know it. Nor do I know how he collects the information; naturally, as a spymaster, he keeps that a secret.”

“Joy,” Dawn groaned. “There’s a creepy thing follow me and everypony else around.”

“Dawn, I’m reasonably confident that you have nothing to worry about,” Spite grinned at her.

Dawn glared at her, earning a chuckle as the dragoness turned back to the matter at hoof.

Twilight saw Spite lower her stance marginally and realized what the dragoness had in mind. “Spite, I didn’t…” Either she didn’t hear or she ignored her because with a sharp crack-crack, the black-scaled female blinked forward, instantly going from one side of the clearing to just inches away from Trixie. And then there was a deafening boom and as quickly as Spite had arrived, she was suddenly sprawled on her back on the grass, looking mildly stunned. Trixie stared at her, her eyes wide and her horn still glowing as she panted from the surge of fear and adrenaline that the dragoness’ test had provoked.

“…alrighty then.” Spite commented in the sort of casual tone that one used to comment on the weather, remaining sprawled on the ground. “That was… not quite what I expected.”

“Hah! Little miss magician totally knocked you on your plot, oh ye high and mighty dragoness,” Dawn laughed.

“Ah’m… awful sorry… miz dragoness… Ah… I mean, Myrilandel,” Trixie panted. “You just… startled me…”

“That was sort of the point, miss Lulamoon,” Spite smiled as she climbed to her feet, making a point of ignoring Dawn. “I’m impressed; on nothing but instinct, you planted my plot but good. How the hay did you learn how to do a magical flechette blast?”

“F… flechette?”

“Yes, a cone of eldritch darts that would blast a hole as big as your head through most bodies. Fortunately…” Spite rapped on her chest, producing a hollow metallic clang “…I was prepared for the kind of raw magical power that I thought only Lady Sparkle or another alicorn could wield.”

“You were wearing armor?” Twilight asked, trotting over curiously.

“In the end, Twilight, I’m a soldier and no soldier goes about entirely disarmed.” She smiled broadly. “You can examine the magical sigils that keep it hidden and silent later, if you’d like, but the important thing is that Trixie passed the second of my tests with flying colors.” She glanced at the blue mare, still trembling, and walked over, laying a wing over her shoulders in a gentle embrace. “I’m still not sure how, though.”

“I… might have some idea,” Twilight admitted. “I’ll explain later, though. Do you need to test her anymore?”

“Two more things, a bit less… stressful than the last two.” She hugged Trixie with the wing she’d draped over her. “Are you OK, Trixie?”

“Yes,” the mare replied with a shiver. “What do you need me to do next?”

“I want to see you create a bubble shield,” Spite replied, letting her go and taking a step backwards. “Or at least a semihemispherical shield.”

“A what?”

“A shield that resembles a fragment of a sphere’s surface,” Dawn offered. “You know, in case you can’t do full coverage.”

“That was what I was trying to do when I, um, hit her with the flechette,” Trixie admitted with a slight coloring.

Spite looked genuinely taken-aback. “So the flechette was a complete accident?”

“Yes.”

Spite nodded at this. “Hmm. Well, this means that the shield test will be more important than I thought. Can you create a shield of some sort, Trixie?”

Trixie gave her a genuinely affronted look. “Of course I can!” Her horn glowed and a thin thread of magic streamed out of it, striking a point in midair and spreading out like an umbrella until a solid wall of blue-tinted power stood between Trixie and an interested-looking Spite.

“I begin to see how you accidentally produced the flechette,” Spite commented as she walked forward and very carefully placed an open hand on the energy wall. “Could I trouble you to lower and raise it a few times? There’s something… interesting in your method.”

Trixie beamed at the observation and did as the dragoness requested, letting the shield drop and then restoring it until Spite gave her a nod to indicate that she’d gotten what she was after.

”Thank you,” she said, giving the mare a brief smile. “I need to ask something of Twilight Sparkle right now but I’ll return shortly; there’s just one more thing to examine, although I think all my questions have been answered.”

Twilight gave Trixie a smile of her own before Spite gently pushed her to an edge of the clearing and moved around so she could look Twilight in the eye. She raised a hand with her fingers spread, crackling bolts of magic jumping between her claw tips in a very orderly, very controlled pattern. “So, you were going to explain to me how Trixie is able to use magic that far outstrips her personal aethir reserves.”

“Well, there’s lots of technical details but what it comes down to is that her personal magical talent tilts towards extreme efficiency instead of immense magical reserves,” Twilight replied. “She can do much more with a dribble than most unicorns, including me in fact, can do with a torrent. Trixie didn’t look like much more than a boastful and mean celebrity when she first came to Ponyville, enough so that none of us knew how much she could actually do with her magic. Based on what she showed, we thought she was a minor talent at best. We were wrong; Trixie has so much ability that she resonates noticeably with the Element of Magic.”

“Which is why you thought of her immediately, and are so confident that she can carry out the heavy task we’re putting to her.” Spite nodded, thoughtful. “I know we’ve already hashed this out, but are you certain that an extra protector is necessary? There’s an old saying that sending the untrained to war is little better than murdering them, and no matter how powerful Trixie is, she has no formal training. At least the Elements have engaged in earnest combat in the past; she doesn’t even really have that.”

“She was part of the battle against the Guardian’s four alicorn… minions,” Twilight mentioned. “Granted, her ability to fight them was limited but she was still part of the fight.”

“The Guardian enlisted alicorns to his cause?” Spite’s brow furrowed. “Which ones?”

“Mom called them ‘Summer’, ‘Spring’, ‘Fall’, and ‘Winter’,” Twilight replied. “I guess they used to represent the four yearly seasons before being corrupted by the Guardian, forcing the others of their kind to kill them.”

The brow furrowed more. “So this Guardian resurrected four long-dead alicorns and twisted them into his own minions?”

“Yes.”

“And Trixie was among those that fought them off?”

“She was.”

The dragoness contemplated this and nodded. “Well, she’s not dead and she’s not a gibbering pile of neurosis, so I take it she weathered the experience rather well.”

“As well as you can when you have the experience of feeling totally helpless in the face of powerful ponies that want to kill you,” Dawn said. “She came to sis for tutoring practically the day after things settled down a bit. Something about seeing Dash’s griffin main squeeze get herself killed right there sorta threw her for a loop.”

“Griffin main squeeze?”

“Yup.” Dawn nodded. “Didn’t get to see much of her, damn shame, but she had a beak on her and a attitude that makes Rainbow look all humble. Took one of the more psycho alicorns with her.”

“Interesting.” Spite looked over at Twilight. “Well, this tells me something highly positive about Trixie: smart enough to know when she’s out of her league, and smart enough to ask somepony for help who can give her a leg up for next time.”

“I think she was hoping there wouldn’t be a next time… but she thought it best to prepare anyway.”

“Smart girl.” Spite gave Twilight a nod before padding back over to Trixie. “Now for one last little thing: maximum output. Hit me as hard as you can for as long as you can. You won’t be able to hurt me, partly because of the armor, partly because I’ll be actively defending against it, so don’t hold back out of fear of harming me.”

“I think we sort of settled that when I blew you off your feet without hurting you,” Trixie grinned, turning to trot to her end of the clearing. “Now, watch in awe as the Great and Powerful Trixie unleashes her full power on the hapless dragon challenger.”

“Just make sure you bring the power, Trixie, and I don’t mind being hapless,” Spite chuckled as she blinked to the other side of the clearing and reared up on her haunches, extending one palm towards Trixie while the other faced the ground. “Begin.”

Trixie braced herself, lowering her head to point her horn straight at Spite, then lit her horn. Motes of light sparked into existence around the extended appendage, seeming to tremble in midair, growing larger and brighter, before one streaked forward and rocketed towards the target, splashing with a flash against a barrier that flickered into place but disappeared just as quickly. It was followed by another, with the same result, and another and then two and three and within moments, motes of magical energy were bombarding Spite so thick and fast that the black female was totally obscured behind a wall of blinding, writhing light.

Twilight couldn’t help but stare in awe, ignoring the way the intense light was causing her eyes to ache. She’d never seen Trixie just unleash her magic like this, without caution or reserve, and it brought home to her just how powerful the seemingly low-powered showmare actually was. She could tell that Trixie had nothing near her reserves, as she was already starting to slow and tire after only a minute of the staggering assault, but the fact that Trixie was able to do this at all was a testament to how incredibly efficient she was with the lower amount that she did have.

Trixie lasted another full minute before her horn blinked out and she slumped to the ground, panting. Twilight looked at her sister and, to her surprise, Dawn didn’t even need to be asked, trotting over to make sure Trixie was alright as Twilight turned to Spite. The end of the clearing that Trixie had been aiming her attack at was completely obliterated, the ground scorched and gouged, the plant life blasted like it’d been hit by a tornado, and even small fires smoldering on the remaining grass. Except for a small island where a very shaky-looking dragoness was standing.

“Your friend has some serious firepower, Lady Sparkle,” she informed her, taking a hesitant step off her sanctuary and into the pitted earth around her. “Even better than that, however…” She smiled and held up the palm that had been positioned facing the ground. Twilight saw blue-tinged motes of light dancing between the dragoness’ claws, flowing and arcing with an almost biological pulse. “…her magical structure is exquisite.”

Twilight stepped closer and looked curiously at the display. “You… captured some of it?”

“Just enough to sample its weave,” Spite replied as she closed her palm over the magic, extinguishing it. “Alpha and epsilon amplitudes have a wave-like fallout, with the gamma ninety degrees and the omega one hundred eighty degrees out of phase. It’s an elegant solution to the problem of initiating and sustaining efficient magical flow, elegant enough that it has to be inborn.”

“Like I said… Element of Magic resonates with her.” Twilight smiled as the two of them joined Trixie and Dawn.

“Is… not Trixie… Great… and… Powerful?” The showmare inquired with a faint roguish grin.

“Very,” Spite agreed. “Enough so that I think it’s fair to say that we have our defender.” She strode close enough to enfold a slightly surprised Trixie in a light embrace. “Welcome to our little fellowship, Trixie Lulamoon.”

Twilight: Rolling Stock

“He’s meant to be a moderator, isn’t he?”

“If he isn’t, I’ve just managed to waste an excellent bottle of spirits,” Kaiya chuckled. “But I’m reasonably certain he’s a moderator.”

“Then why, pray tell, is he aiding one of the pieces?” Fronk-Kais growled at his opponent. “He cannot possibly be a neutral party if he is aiding one party and not the other.”

“Don’t be childish, Francois,” Trilychi chided bemusedly. “Kaiya was cunning enough to choose a piece who, through her Lady, has paid my price for information. If your pieces paid my price, they would get just as much information as the Handmaiden did.”

“I know you think me stupid but I’m not nearly that stupid. She paid no price; you just like pretty…”

“Stop.” The glacial cold and implacable command in just one word made Fronck-Kais freeze as Trilych thrust his borrowed face up against his, the look in his multicolored eyes absolutely murderous. “You wonder why I treat you with an almost puerile disdain, Fronck-Kais? It is because of this very thing: your inability to speak wisely and only those words that it is wise to speak.”

“My, so easily needled, Lord Trilychi,” Kaiya chuckled. “He’s at least intelligent enough to know what would most anger you, and say that thing. I myself am perplexed: I thought you regarded Amarra as a joke outside her merits as a warrior.”

The deadly eyes turned on her. “You know that to be false.”

“I do, but that simple fib was enough to disrupt the legendary coolness of Lord Trulychi, Eighth of the Helles.” Kaiya took a short draw from the mysteriously still-full bottle. “You present two possibilities, both equally interesting: first, that you are pretending greater regard for her than you feel in the pursuit of some subtle goal incomprehensible through the application of ordinary reasoning; or second, that you have greater regard for her than you’ve permitted to be known and for reasons similarly incomprehensible, believe that these are the best circumstances to tip your hand.” She sipped. “As I said, both are equally interesting.”

The murderous look evaporated and Trilychi returned to his divan. “You think it’s that simple?”

“Well, I considered the possibility that you were doing it for your own amusement, but you’re not known to waste your time with such pointless triviality,” she smirked.

Trilychi treated her to a dim look before turning his attention back to Fronck-Kais. “In your own stupid way, you make a point: it seems that Amarra paid no price for the information I give so freely to her servants. I will give you the opportunity to pay the price she did, however, and shall aid your own servants just as freely.”

“And what price is that?” He asked, immediately certain that the price would exceed any possibility of him meeting it.

“Through force of sheer persuasion and personality, rally the strongest beings of the Dark to your banner and lead them to a world entirely foreign to their experience, in an environment that is the most uncomfortable possible for beings used to a mildly warm environment, and cause them to zealously charge forth to destroy the essentially limitless numbers of a Prime whose goals they have sympathy for.” Trilychi looked steadily at him. “And do it all at will, with minimal preparation.”

Fronck-Kais gaped. “The price was that idealistic intervention of hers? You actually expect me to imitate traits that we both regard as weakness and contemptible?”

Trilychi smirked. “You wanted to know the price, Francois. You get no relief by appealing to the fact that for Amarra, those traits are instinctive and natural, and that I regard them as otherwise weak.”

“As ‘otherwise’ weak?”

“If they were weaknesses in her, explain her success.” He shrugged mismatched shoulders.“ I’ll save you time, Francois: there is no explanation in our philosophy. In Amarra Drae’thul, compassion, kindness, idealism, morality, friendship, and loyalty are strengths. ‘Virtus and the love of the people for them’, as it were.”

Fronck-Kais eyed the jumbled being. “You’re mocking me again, aren’t you?”

“To a limited degree,” Trilychi admitted. “But for the most part, I’m quite serious. There can be no rational argument with the fact of her success. It is also not possible to argue with the fact of her status or the fact of her power. Finally, it’s not possible to rationally argue with the fact of her characteristics that we regard as weaknesses. Please, if you think yourself wiser than I, posit an explanation that would tie all of these facts together.”

“It hasn’t occurred to you that she’s successful despite her weaknesses?”

“Of course it has, but that is inadequate. To explain how one so apparently riddled with crippling weaknesses can acquire the kind of…”

“I’m thinking that it’s time to show my hand, just a little.”

Both of them turned to look at the placid vixen. “What was that?” Fronck-Kais asked.

“The budding argument is fun, boys, but there’s a game to play and I think it’s time that I showed what’s truly in my hand,” Kaiya replied. “Until now, it’s just been the Handmaiden and while she has proven to be enormously successful, more than I could have wished, no one Void dragon can see to every little matter in a world as vast as that of Sol Selune.”

“In other words, your do-gooders split into three groups and you want to hedge your bets,” Fronck-Kais smirked.

“When it’s so easy to do, why not?” She chuckled. “First, I lay as wager unending defiance.” In the upturned palm of her hand, a figurine depicting a dying soldier on the ground burying a spear in the heart of the enemy that evidently just killed him materialized. Fronck-Kais could feel the significance and power of the wager wafting off of it like waves of heat and felt his eyes grow wide.

“And with that wager, I invoke The Crusader and The Inquisitor,” Kaiya continued, reversing her palm so that it faced down towards the board. Shadows flowed into the space and solidified into the image of a human in exquisite fully-articulated plate mail bearing a long blade in one hand and gazing upwards at the Weaver’s Cruciform held aloft above her head. The armor bore the same symbol, stylized in a way that was shockingly familiar—for Fronck-Kais vividly remembered its twin on dozens of snow-white banners as they snapped and fluttered in the stiff breeze above the Blood Plain, the symbol of the Teutonic Order, held aloft as they charged into battle to shatter Quezelzege’s armies.

The other figurine that flowed into existence was much more simple: a human in hood and cloak holding a lantern against her chest, her grasped hands and bowed head projecting an attitude of prayer and submission. Where The Crusader was obviously one of the dread members of the Order, The Inquisitor seemed to be little more than a monk or hedge clergy of some sort praying over a lantern. As he watched, she moved the two pieces onto the board occupied by his Ministry piece.

“A member of the Order and a… priestess.” He blinked. “And you imagine that this is enough to beat odds of thousands to one.”

Kaiya smiled in a way that sent a chill up Fronck-Kai’s back. “I admit it’s not quite a fair fight but I don’t think you have tens of thousands of minions to spend.”

“Ten thousand to one?” He scoffed.

“As you know from personal experience, my dear Fronck-Kais, a Templar is an army unto himself.” She replied casually. “Especially a Templar named Drake.”

“So how far out does the Friendship Express go?” Dawn asked as she turned away from the window she’d been staring out of. “Cuz I just know we’re gonna spend most of our time walking or something.”

“You could have always gone with Spite to the griffins,” Twilight mentioned.

Dawn stuck her tongue out at her. “And have to beg a ride every time I wanted to go anywhere? Ugh, no thanks sis.”

“Ya’ll haven’t already gotten used t’ that after six months, Dawn?” Applejack chuckled.

“I’m happy to just not fly especially after the Griffinchaser Mark Eight incident,” Dawn retorted with an involuntary shudder.

“But you were so good at peddling.” Pinkie commented from the ceiling.

“You threw me off a cliff!”

“That’s how you learn, silly!” The pink pony grinned. “Fear of mud is a great way to motivate beginning griffin-chasers. Especially when it’s Rarity cuz she shrieks and does this really funny dance.” Pinkie immediately went into an upside-down rendition of the white-coated unicorn grimacing as she tried to lift all four hooves off a phantom muddy ground, right down to the “ew, ew, ew” in Rarity’s higher-pitched accented voice.

“Does she ever turn that off?” Dawn sighed. “Seriously, Pinkster… we’re off to stop some dastardly plot by some crazy evil blackness thing and you’re… you’re…”

“…being Pinkie?” Twilight deadpanned.

“Being Pinkie!” Dawn agreed, looking up to where Pinkie was still incessantly imitating Rarity. “It’s so bad that I don’t even notice her being a pain in my plot anymore. C’mon, Pie… please? Just… shut up and be the cool mare for a while?”

Pinkie stopped in mid-bounce, which had the bizarre effect of her hanging in midair as she twisted her head around to look at Dawn. “But it’s so funny!”

“Not when we’ve seen the same joke played out every single time she encounters dirt,” Dawn retorted. “I mean, I’ve only known her for a few months and I’ve gotten so used to her weirdness that it stopped being a joke. You’ve known her for, what, her entire life or something? And you still think it’s funny that she’s an uptight priss?”

Pinkie considered this and giggled. “Well, yeah!”

Dawn buried her face in the nearest seat back. “Great… I’m on a mad crusade with my sister, an apple farmer, a priss, and a clown. Somepony out there’s laughing at me.”

“Ya get used t’ it, sugarcube,” Applejack consoled her, patting the lavender pony on the shoulder sympathetically.

“Oh goddesses, please no…” Dawn groaned.

Twilight smiled to herself as she looked out the window, watching the lighter forests south of the Everfree whiz by as they headed east. After Trixie had passed her test with flying colors, Spite had insisted that they return to Canterlot and determine who was going where. She’d further insisted that they do so via her teleportation magic so that, if they needed to take advantage of it in the future, they’d know what to expect and further, would know that it wouldn’t harm them. It turned out that despite the odd way Spite described it, her teleportation was no different than any other and they emerged at the Palace gates not even a second later. Spite’s suggestion was that, at minimum, Rainbow and Luna should go north with her because they could be certain that Luna’s magic would be needed to counter more of the psychic chaining that had affected Consul Halia, and Rainbow was known to the griffins as a close and dear friend of the heroic Gilda.

Spite then insisted that Twilight and Dawn go east, relaying a message from somepony by the name of “Trilychi” that Twilight would be needed there. The rest of the girls had volunteered for one group or the other; Rarity, surprisingly, wanted to go east because “I hear that the views are simply marvelous, darling” and both Pinkamena and Applejack felt that they’d be most useful going somewhere that they didn’t need to rely on charity or temporary magical wings to get around. Fluttershy, in her characteristic “I’d like to, if it’s OK with you” way, expressed a desire to go with Spite, saying that she had lots of bird friends in the griffin lands; Twilight also suspected that the shy pegasus wanted to go north because Spite was the only other person any of them knew that was even somewhat as affectionate towards animals as Fluttershy herself was.

Truth be told, Twilight would have wanted to be the one going east even if Spite hadn’t insisted. The wastes in the east were relatively unexplored and unknown, for reasons that all the books she consulted were extremely vague about, and Twilight was excited at the prospect of exploring someplace new. Her friends and sister seemed to understand this because not one of them commented on her mining the library for every relevant book she could get and packing them into the cargo car. What was to be done with them when they arrived at the end of the line hadn’t occasioned much deep thought from her as of yet, but having the car detached and left at the end of the line seemed like a good idea.

At this point, her musings were interrupted by Rarity trotting into the car, mostly because Pinkie’s exaggerated imitation of the alabaster mare stopped as abruptly as if somepony had thrown the off switch. Being Rarity, the fashionista probably knew exactly what Pinkie had been doing; also being Rarity, she had evidently decided that acknowledging Pinkie’s imitation of her was beneath her dignity.

“Enjoying the scenery, Rares?” Dawn asked, not moving from her position of having buried her face in a seat cushion.

Rarity showed no signs of having heard the deliberately disrespectful nickname. “Why yes, darling. Thank you everso much for asking. The trees are simply marvelous this time of year, all green and beautiful and lush.”

Twilight studied the elegant unicorn a moment, smiling knowingly. “So who’s wearing the new dresses?”

Her friend beamed and trotted over, floating her ever-present sketchpad out of her saddlebag and starting to flip pages. “I was thinking something… leafy, perhaps a fall theme with all the various colors,” she replied, proudly displaying a gorgeously flowing dress fit to a certain slim, long-limbed, broad-winged, rainbow-maned pegasus mare. “It would do a lovely joy of complimenting a long cut with her delightful coloration. A little contrast, not too pretentious or gaudy…”

“What happened to not sticking Rainbow in a dress?” Twilight grinned.

Rarity affected a perfectly innocent look. “I’m not!”

“Rarity…”

“Darling, I’m just throwing ideas around,” the other unicorn insisted. “If I didn’t constantly experiment and imagine designs, designs wouldn’t come to me when I need them. Besides… do you know how long I’ve waited to see what Dash’s mane looks like grown out? It’s a rare opportunity that no dressmaker worth her tape measure could pass up.”

“I might give her a hard time, but Spite was totally right: Rainbow looks much more awesome with the long mane thing going on,” Dawn opined, removing her face from the cushion. “So Twi… whatcha make of the luminous black magic flowing across her chest? Looks creepy, but it doesn’t seem to be doing anything evil to her.”

“I think that’s… I…” Twilight frowned. “Spite talked about infusing her with something to save her life and how she couldn’t predict what effect it’d have. I think… she infused Rainbow with parts of herself, somehow.”

“An’ how would that work?” Applejack asked. “Ah mean, Ah’ve heard of transplants and such, medical treatments usin’ organs when there ain’t a medical unicorn around to do some fixing…”

“If I understood her correctly, the principle is similar, except instead of transplanting organs, she transplanted bits of her… um, soul, I guess.” Twilight’s frown got heavier. “I don’t know how that could work. I guess she wasn’t really confident either because she talked about it like it was a desperate last-ditch treatment she had to resort to because she had no other option. I mean, it’d certainly fit with her claiming to have no idea what the treatment would do and what would happen to Rainbow if she was awoken from her coma earlier than usual.”

“OK, super, but what do you think of the magic flow?” Dawn persisted. “It looks like there’s part of her vein and capillary network that has magic flowing instead of blood, and it’s the sort of magic that Spite uses.”

“I think it’s a physical marker of Spite infusing her with magic that’s utterly foreign to her body in an attempt to save her life,” Pinkamena said, still in casual defiance of physics, right down to her straight mane flowing towards where her feet were. “Sort of like a surgical scar, but made of remnants of the magic.”

Dawn looked up at her. “Pinkamena, I presume.”

“No, Pinkie,” Pinkamena corrected her. “Well, yes, Pinkamena also but the way you say that makes it sound like you’re talking to a different pony than me. I’d have thought you’d have gotten used to my serious side and my fun side being two sides of the same coin.”

“Pinkster, for me, your serious side is your fun side,” Dawn informed her. “You’re way cooler when you’re being subtle and nice instead of when you’re being insane and nice. I don’t know why the straight mane isn’t your norm instead of your exception, but it’d be great if it was.”

Pinkamena looked at her for a moment before grinning. “Maybe it will be. Maybe it won’t. It’s so much more fun for me if I’m the only pony that knows. Anyway, back to Dashie.”

“I think your theory is good,” Twilight said, looking up to the earth pony mare and deliberately ignoring the part of her mind screaming at the impossibility. “It’d make perfect sense that such a dramatic change would leave scarring.”

“Well, I know she has a slimmer profile and longer mane…” Rarity offered.

“Well, yes, she’s got those things but I find the other things more… interesting, I guess,” Twilight responded. “Her eyes looking exactly like Spite’s, her wings were broader and shaped oddly, and especially... well, I’m not sure if you girls heard it but at one point during the conversation, she growled at something. Growled like a dragon, as a point of fact.”

“So ya think that by doin’ the infusion thing t’ save her, Spite accidentally… what, made ‘er part-dragon?”

“That’s my hypothesis at this point,” Twilight nodded. “Which raises all sorts of questions about what Spite actually did. I know she said that the klesae had wounded Rainbow’s soul so whatever she did must have helped with that somehow, but… you can’t take out your soul and give it to somepony else. Or slice off pieces of it and graft them on or whatever other possibilities are plausible. All my books are clear on that: distinct, indivisible, and fundamental.”

“Twi, do any of yer books contemplate somethin’ like Spite?” Applejack asked. “Looks like a dragon but can teleport, and do that spell that sorta moves someplace outta reality, and instantly heal broken bones an’ such?”

“Well… none…”

“So maybe yer books aren’t the best guide?” Applejack grinned a little. “Amazing as that might seem t’ you.”

Twilight treated her to a dim look before sighing and chuckling at herself. “Yes, I guess you’re right. I just wish we had time to find out what Spite did. Rainbow seems perfectly fine, but how can we know? Spite doesn’t seem to be sure, and she’s the one that did whatever it was she did.”

“Twi, darling, we’re all concerned about Rainbow but there’s no point in worrying,” Rarity told her, reaching up to pat her on the shoulder. “We can’t do anything right now. Besides, she traveling with Fluttershy and Princess Luna. I’m sure that if there’s anything wrong, they can help her.”

“Yeah, sis. Auntie Luna isn’t gonna let her favorite niece’s friend die,” Dawn added. “Besides, Mum and Auntie Luna both gave her a thorough magical look before we even left the hospital and if anypony could tell that something wasn’t right, it’d be them.”

Twilight smiled a little and gave Rarity a brief hug. “Thanks girls,” she said, seating herself and scooting close to the window so she could watch the landscape go by. “You know, I’d have never thought that the southern edge of the Everfree could look so… pleasant.”

“Well, it is a great deal thinned out from around Ponyville,” Rarity said as she look the seat opposite Twilight, leaning so she could also watch the scenery. “It’s why I volunteered to come, Twilight: I’ve heard that the views were marvelous down here and I simply couldn’t pass up the opportunity to see for myself. Why, all that delightful green rushing by makes me think of a Gala—green is in this season after all—and the nice celebration we can have when this is all over.”

“Doncha think it’s a bit early to be planning a shindig, Rares?” Dawn grinned.

“Darling, it’s never too early to plan ahead,” Rarity retorted loftily. “Such as, how I might convince Spite to try something… complimenting.”

“You want to make a dress for a dragon?” Twilight stared at her fashionable friend like she’d spit her bit. “Rarity, are you feeling OK?”

Rarity covered her muzzle as she giggled, making the fillyish action somehow demure and ladylike. “I’m joking, Twilight. I think she’d react rather… strongly to any suggestion that she allow me to make her a dress.”

“That didn’t stop you from assaulting Rainbow Dash with your tape measure,” Twilight smirked.

“Rainbow Dash doesn’t have claws,” Rarity pointed out with a little smirk of her own. “Besides, I promised that I wouldn’t put her in a dress, and a lady keeps her promises.”

“Say, speaking of what a lady does, how’s the entire Jade thing shaking out between you and Sweetie?” Dawn asked. “I mean, the entire ‘tinker, tailor, assassin, dressmaker’ thing is possibly the coolest thing in the history of ever but it’s always seemed a little outside your wheelhouse, if you know what I mean.”

Rarity turned to fully face Dawn, her expression becoming icy and cold. “Jade is dead,” she informed the light pink pony in a void that perfectly matched her expression. “I buried the mask, the blade, and am putting it all out of my mind.”

“Did Sweetie?”

The cold thawed a little. “What?”

“Did Sweetie bury the mask, the blade, and put it all out of her mind?” Dawn asked, showing no hint of the childish smirking that she normally did. “Her sister’s been hiding the fact that she kills others on commission. And this changes nothing?”

Rarity went silent and then looked away. “I thought it was alright for a while but then…” She tossed her mane. “…she figured out where I laid Jade to rest and… she wanted to… she wanted me to show her how, tell her more. It’s been up and down since then… she wants to explore that part of my life, I insist that there’s nothing left to explore, that it’s all gone. She resents me for not being open with her and then, after a day or so, forgives me and the cycle begins again.” The fashionista shrank a little. “I don’t know what to do.”

“Why not tell her?” Pinkamena inquired from a position directly above Rarity’s head.

“Because she might want to… follow in my hoofsteps,” the alabaster unicorn admitted. “And I don’t want her to. I want her to be successful, find a good stallion, settle down. Assassins don’t get to do that, don’t get to retire, at least not usually. Being one of the Elements, being the first assassin in a thousand years to see Nightmare Moon and be commanded by her, being a close personal friend of the royal family…” She treated Twilight to a brief smile. “…allows me to do what assassins normally can’t: break the chain, leave it all behind, forget all about it, and focus on my public face and my dresses. I can’t allow Sweetie to reforge the chain… I just… can’t. She might never escape it.”

“You don’t think she’d understand that if you told her?” Twilight asked, laying a wing gently over her distressed friend. “You have a really smart little sister, Rarity. Are you sure that she’s not smart enough to heed your warnings?”

Rarity gave her a deadpan look. “Cutie Mark Crusaders?”

“Point,” Twilight acknowledged. “Have you explained your reasons at least?”

“Of course, darling!” Rarity looked slightly affronted. “She’s much too old to accept ‘because I said so’, even if it took that unfortunate Sisterhooves Social to awaken me to it. Yes, I’ve told Sweetie why I don’t want to talk about it, yet she persists.”

“Rarity, if ya already sat ‘er down and told ‘er why not an’ why you don’t want to tell her, ya can’t do much else ‘cept trust that she’ll grow up a bit an’ trust that ya’ll are refusing out of love, not cuz ya think she’s too young to hear it,” Applejack assured her, adding a light pat on the shoulder to Twilight’s wing. “She’ll come around…”

“…although maybe you should show her some things,” Pinkie suggested as she turned and began walking down the side of the car to return to uprightness. “What Spite said, about it hurting more to need to fight but not being able to fight, than losing some of your innocence by learning how to fight, is true.”

“But she’s so young…”

“Rares, do ya think the thing that sent a big horrible demon-shadow after Rainbow Dash is gonna give two shakes that Sweetie is young?” Dawn asked her with a snort.

Rarity frowned. “I… see your point.” She sighed and leaned into the consoling wing Twilight had laid over her. “I wish I didn’t, though. Learning how to be Jade was… very unpleasant.”

“Demanding?”

“More than you could understand.” She sighed and leaned against the window. “Twilight, darling… is it just me, or does the landscape seem to be passing more slowly than it did?”

Twilight leaned over her friend and immediately noted that she was right: they were definitely slowing down. “Maybe we’re nearing the end of the tracks?”

“I hope not!” Dawn groused. “We’re not even passed the Everfree yet! It’s gonna be one hay of a walk to get wherever we’re going.”

“It was always going to be,” Twilight sighed, thinking wistfully of the car full of books she’d hoped to have near enough to be within easy teleport distance of their destination. “Still, you have a point, Dawn: I could have sworn that the tracks are supposed to go well beyond the Everfree.”

“Ah could go up an’ check,” Applejack offered.

“That’d be great, AJ. Thanks.” Twilight treated the earth pony to a smile as she trotted by, heading up to the engine. “Perhaps there’s an obstruction on the tracks?”

“It’d be the perfect place for it,” Pinkamena commented, actually frowning. “Area of dense trees, lots of shadows to hide in, our view of the air obscured, plenty of trees to fell across the tracks, and we know that something very bad is lurking.”

Twilight looked askance at her pink earth pony friend, starting to feel slightly uncomfortable with seeing Pinkie remain in her thoughtful and serious persona for more than a few minutes at a time. “Ambush?”

“It couldn’t hurt to be prepared for that eventuality.” Pinkamena sighed. “I’m ashamed to admit, however, that I have some serious doubts about my effectiveness if it comes to a fight. It’s a choice of simply immersing myself in what seems to be regarded as my ‘insane’ aspect or being helpless and useless.”

Rarity looked sidelong at Twilight before looking confusedly at Pinkamena. “You talk as if you don’t like to be the Pinkie we all know and have gotten used to, darling. Didn’t you defend that… aspect of yourself to Spite?”

Pinkamena smiled a little. “You said it… the Pinkie you’ve gotten used to. Be honest, Rarity… do you enjoy being around me when I’m popping out of potted plants, getting in your face over a Pinkie Promise, or babbling like a buffoon? Or do you like me, and tolerate the rest?”

Rarity looked pained. “Pinkie, we’re your friends. We like you. Everypony has little things about them that annoy, but friends look passed that. You’re no different.”

Pinkamena grinned in her face-splitting way. “That’s not an answer, but at the same time, it is. I think that if you enjoyed it, you’d have said so.” She suddenly pulled Rarity over and hugged her. “Thanks for pretending, though.”

“It’s what friends are for, darling,” Rarity replied, patting Pinkie on the nearest arm.

“So what’s making you all normal now?” Dawn asked. “It’s cool but it’s sorta… weird.”

Pinkamena shrugged. “The world is changing, and I’m changing along with it. It’s getting easier and easier to just… stay calm, I guess.” She grinned widely again. “And it’s really, really fun! Ponies talk more to me and listen more. I get taken seriously. More ponies come and get hugs. I don’t do as many parties, but the parties I do make ponies happier. I don’t know why but I feel…” The grin faded into an expression of quiet joy. “…I feel like I’ve figured something out that’s really important and now I’m a better Element of Laughter than I was.”

Dawn snorted, grinning. “Heh… trust the nutso pony to be the one that came out of the Guardian thing a better pony than she was when she went in. That’s great, Pinkster.”

Pinkie just smiled and shook her head, giving Rarity another quick chaste squeeze before letting her go. “So, Twi, what do you think the plan should be if…”

The door to the forward cars suddenly shot open. “We got a heap o’ trouble, girls,” Applejack announced as she trotted through. “Ain’t a normal obstruction across the tracks. Somepony built somethin’ there, a big somethin’. Ain’t no way we’re gettin’ any further on the train.”

“Can you describe it?” Twilight asked, thinking regretfully of her books a second time.

“Big ol’ structure of some kind. Crenul… crenul…”

“Crenulations?”

“Ayup. Bunch of those all along the top with holes cut inta the sides. Looks sorta like a tiny castle or somethin’.”

Dawn frowned as she looked at Twilight, her brow furrowing in an all-too-familiar way. “Sis, that sound like fortifications to you? Like somepony…”

“…was expecting us a long time in advance.” Twilight finished grimly. “Even bits that they started building the moment Lashaal came west. But who are ‘they’?”

“Probably things that work for that Evil that Spite was talking about.” Dawn looked out the window. “I say, it’d be great if we were somewhere else when they come to see who’s on the train.”

“I am afraid that it is far too late for that.” As one, the five mares in the car turned towards the source of the strongly masculine voice with the clipped and precise accent and found themselves looking upwards. The creature that greeted them seemed to fill the end of the train car and bore a slight resemblance to Spite, except for the fact that he was much larger and seemed more… indistinct, more shadow and mist than defined form.

“Imagine my delight when the very targets of my vigil along this frightfully dull section of track roll right up to the barrier and simply stand here, planning,” he continued, drifting gently down to the floor so his indistinctly draconic face was at their level, seeming to pay no attention to Twilight lighting her horn and constructing a solid wall of magic between them and the shadowy being. “Really, I had hoped that this would be vastly more interesting but, such is the life of my kind. Now, where shall I begin…”

“You’ll begin nowhere,” Twilight told him, glaring. “Get off our train and leave us alone.”

He snorted a puff of shadow and chuckled lowly. “Mmm… defiance. I’ve not enjoyed real defiance since… oh, so many years ago.” The shape of his head flowed into a tilted position. “Decades? Centuries? Millennia? Ah, it all blends together in the end…” The flow reversed and Twilight felt predatory eyes boring into her. “And yet, you hear me speak, you watch a shadow threaten you, yet you fear not. Curious little creatures.”

“Well, it freaked us out the first time we saw it but you’re not as cool when you do the shadowy trick,” Dawn informed him with an exaggerated yawn. “Spite…”

The shadowy dragon recoiled, hissing as he reared up. “You speak its name!”

“What, Spite?”

He hissed again and Twilight suddenly felt a surge of force impact her shield, causing her to take an involuntary step back from the sheer momentum as the dragon threw itself against her barrier, suddenly distinct teeth bared. “That name! How do you know it? Why do you speak it? When have you laid eyes on it?”

Twilight didn’t dare take her eyes off the creature but if she could, she’d have exchanged glances with her sister. Why would the thing attacking them know Spite? And why did it react so strongly at the mere mention of her name? Reinforcing her shield, she forced herself to meet its furious, predatory eyes calmly. “What is it to you?”

Her shield sparked as the shadow dragon raked his claws over it with a snarl. “It is abomination!”

“How so?” Twilight inquired, keeping her voice casually polite. As the dragon growled and raked her shield again in impotent fury, she heard a very faint clinkclinkclinkclinkclink as if somepony was tapping rapidly on metal then stopping suddenly. She tilted her head curiously, perking her ears to try and catch it but it didn’t repeat. The dragon seemed to take this as an affront, batting even harder at her shield and snarling as sparks from the backlash cascaded over his face. Almost the second he touched the shield, Twilight heard it again: clinkclinkclinkclinkclink, but slightly louder this time, closer.

“How is Spite an…”

“Do not speak the name!” He roared, lashing at her shield, trying to dig his claws in and use pure physical mass to get through; a quick surge of energy frustrated his ambitions.

“You don’t seem able to do anything about it.” Dawn snarked. “So why should we not use Spite’s name?”

A low, guttural growl came from the dragon-shaped shadow. “You do not know, cannot know, what that… thing is. Anathema! Blasphemy! Abomination! It obeys a mortal! It slays its own! It is unnatural and grotesque! It… it…” He seemed to lose his voice from the thickness of the revulsion welling up in his tone. “…it keeps a mortal form as its own. Mutant thing!”

All the while through the rant, Twilight could distinctly hear the clinking sound growing closer and closer until she could see the unopened door behind the shadow dragon begin to move very, very slowly, creeping open soundlessly. Not wanting to reveal what she was seeing to the dragon, she forcefully averted her eyes and looked at him. “So she’s an… outcast among whatever you are.” She paused. “What are you? Are you a klesae?”

The question made him freeze and Twilight got the distinct impression that he was dumbfounded by her question.

“A… a…” His face came into being enough that she could see the amazement in his black-scaled expression. “A klesae?”

In the brief moment that she’d taken her eyes off the door, it had opened and filling the frame was what seemed to be a griffin but… wrong somehow. Twilight only got a glimpse of it before the roiling of the dragon’s form obscured the shape behind his drifting shadows.

“Why would you assume me a klesae?” The dragon asked, looking and sounding genuinely curious, seeming to forget entirely about Spite. “Have you no idea of what one…?”

He stopped abruptly and the roiling nature of his form suddenly froze. “I could hear ye goin’ on aboot Spite, m’lad,” a husky feminine voice, strongly infused with a lilting accent, commented from behind the dragon. “And I think I could add a bit to what ye was sayin’. That Spite lass is loyalty. She is honor, and friendship, and familial love as well. And yes, she is also death ta perverted things like yar kind.”

The speaker stepped out from around the frozen dragon with the distinct clinkclinkclinkclinkclink Twilight had been hearing, and she could now see why. The griffiness was sheathed from head to hind in articulated plate armor, elegant helm fitting the subtle curves of her head and face, jointed gauntlets covering her talons and even sheathing their razor sharpness in polished steel, even chain mesh covering her wings, attached to wingblades that fit so snugly and perfectly over the hard bony ridge on the leading edge of a griffin’s wing, it was hard to tell they hadn’t been somehow melded into the bones themselves. As the griffin walked, Twilight caught a brief glimpse of an empty scabbard strapped across her back and an intricate and familiar symbol—one that resembled the cruciform that Spite had given the griffin consul to protect him—emblazoned on the armor over her chest.

“And bucko, ye might not be the spirit o’ hate an’ hunger like a klesae but…” She reached back and twisted something with vicious force. The shadow-dragon made a sound that sounded like a pained gasp and his form melted into smoky shadow, rapidly vanishing like fog before the sunlight, revealing the long, elegant sword that fit into the scabbard across the griffin’s back. “…yer made o’ the same toxic rot.” With a practiced, elegant motion, she turned the blade around and slid it soundlessly into its home before turning to look at a surprised Twilight and the other four mares.

“Well, good evenin’ m’dears,” she said, the edges of her beak lifting in a broad griffin smile. “I trust that ye are unhurt?”

“Uh, yeah.” Dawn eyed her. “And who the hay are you?”

“Lady Templar Elizabeth Rachel Drake, at your service,” the griffiness replied with an elegant bow. “Though I much prefer t’ be called either Elli or Serafine.”

“I take it that Spite asked you to follow us?” Twilight guessed.

“In a manner o’ speakin’.” Elli chuckled. “Wasn’t entirely my choice, but I find meself grateful that someone farced it upon meh. O’ course, the greatest joy is that I haven’t the slightest notion o’ who ye are, other than my charges.”

“An’ that makes ya… happy,” Applejack deadpanned.

“O’ course. It means I get ta know ye and meet ye before I know yer names,” Elli smiled again. “So if ye don’t mind…” She suddenly reached a hand up and smacked her helmet with it, producing a loud clang. “Curse me for a wanker… I forget ta tell Del that it’s safe t’ approach!”

“Ye needn’t worry, Sera, I could see it.” As one, all five mares turned around to see a griffiness, just a bit smaller than Elli and wearing a lovely cloak that appeared to be made of silk or another similar material, emerging from the doorway that led to the front of the train. Her head and chest plumage was a snowy white with a rich pattern of charcoal rings and grey splotches that continued on to her leonine hindquarters, and her brilliantly amethyst eyes, with the same jewel-like qualities as Spite’s, were alight with a gentle happiness and warmth.

“Delphine Miriam Drake,” she said with an elegant bow that precisely mirrored the one that Elli had offered, her accent milder and more lyrical than Elli’s. “A pleasure, and a delight, to meet you.”

“Sister, ah told ye to stay concealed,” Elli sighed, her tone unmistakably that of an older sister addressing a misbehaving younger. “These creatures are not kind and good like those of the Helles. Ye cannot cavort about them safely, darl.”

“And yet, sister, I remain perfectly well, without so much as a damaged feather from the tools of the Evil,” Delphine smiled tranquilly. “Come now, let us forget this and busy ourselves coming t’ know these that Kaiya would see shielded from Evil’s machinations.”

“Spite sent two of you?” Dawn looked between them. “I get that we might need a little hoof up but, seriously?”

“Spite didn’t send us, lass, though we would have happily answered her call if she had,” Delphine told her as she walked closer, her cloak swishing almost soundlessly around her. “We are here at the request of Kaiya Aon, and to fulfill a debt of honor ta her. It’s likely that Spite has no idea that we’re even here, and most regretfully, that situation shall likely persist.”

“So who are you two?” Twilight asked them as she stepped aside for Delphine to slip by and join her sister. “You’ve told us your names, but not who you are.”

“We’re sisters in arms, representin’ different orders formed with the intent o’ protectin’ the innocent and strikin’ down th’ Evils that plague our home,” Elli replied, giving Delphine a one-armed hug when she drew near. “We are also literal sisters, born t’ the same mother.”

“The Ninth Archangel, who plays th’ game on behalf of both Dark and Light, bid us come here and look after ye,” Delphine added, smiling as she nestled into her sister’s casually affectionate embrace. “So who are we? We are for now your guardians, Elements of Harmony.”

Author's Note

For reference, Elli and Delphine have accents that sound strongly Irish. Elli's is much thicker than her sister's.

Spite: Long Shadow

Spite closed her eyes and inhaled deeply as the wind whipped by her face. “Oh, Weaver… it’s been such a long time since I’ve been able to let my mane down and just… fly.”

“What, they don’t have sky where you’re from?” Rainbow Dash grinned, flying in lazy barrel rolls around her.

“They’ve got plenty of sky, and as much of it as I could ever ask for,” Spite replied, smiling contentedly. “But I have many duties, many obligations. My sister depends on me to be her eyes and her hands where she cannot see or reach. Rare is the day when I don’t have promises to keep, and miles to go before I sleep.”

“That does not sound cool,” Rainbow opined, drifting above her. “So c’mon… spill.”

“Spill what?”

“How the hay you got ahead of me when you were chasing me down,” Rainbow snorted. “There’s nopony that fast. No one’s even gotten close but then you show up and it’s like I’m standing still for you.”

“Tactically, you were,” Spite replied, smiling up at the pegasus. “You were moving in a straight, predictable line. I didn’t outfly you, Dash, because you’re right: your speed and agility are so far beyond your nearest competitor that I couldn’t physically outdo you. But I can move from Ponyville to Canterlot with a moment of thought and minimum effort and it’s not possible to be faster than thought.”

“So ya teleported to where my straight line went,” Rainbow surmised.

Spite dipped her head in agreement. “The only advantage any of us ever have is wisdom and intelligence. I don’t bear the title of ‘Handmaiden’ because I’m the strongest or the fastest—far from it, believe it or not—but because I outthink the hoards of things that are stronger and deadlier than I.” She paused before giving Rainbow an apologetic look. “Not that I think of you as stupid.”

Dash waved a hoof. “Heh, don’t worry, one of my friends is the queen of the eggheads. I’m totally used to somepony being smarter than me.”

“I… think Twilight is just more willing to show it…” Fluttershy offered from her position off Spite’s right wing. “I think you’re a very smart pony, Rainbow.”

Spite smiled, resisting the impulse to look at the shy pegasus, knowing that it would just make her blush and try to hide behind her mane. “I agree. I’ve a feeling that there’s a good reason that Twilight Sparkle would bring an adventure novel with her while she kept watch at your bedside.”

She could have sworn she saw Rainbow blush at the mention of the novel but at her angle, she couldn’t be sure. “Twilight? With an adventure novel? Naw, you must have read it wrong or something.”

“Speaking of that, you’re from a different place, aren’t you?” Luna asked, coming up on Spite’s left. “A different world, with very different peoples?”

“I am.”

“Then how is it that your Amarra Drae’thul writes in perfect Equestrian?” The moon princess continued. “How can you read Equestrian? How is it that we understand each other as if you were born here and grew up speaking the language?”

Spite treated the royal blue alicorn to sidelong glance. “Why do you ask? Or, better question, what gives you the impression that I’d have any insight into something so esoteric? Respectfully, Princess, I’m not your niece.”

“No, no you’re not,” Luna responded with a touch of wistful fondness. “I am amazed that Twilight didn’t try to uproot the Ponyville library and carry it with her.”

“It wasn’t for lack of trying,” Spite grinned, picturing the train car with every nook and cranny filled with meticulously organized books, each one somehow relevant to the eastern lands of Equestria. Which, as she thought about it, was very odd: why would Twilight feel the need to carry so many? Unless… “Princess?”

“Yes?”

“The eastern lands… are they terra incognita or something?”

“Terra…?”

“Unknown lands.”

Luna frowned thoughtfully. “I believe so.”

Spite almost missed a wingbeat. “You and Princess Celestia have been on the thrones for… how long?”

“Several thousand years, although there was a period when I was…” Luna hestitated uncomfortably, “…not.”

Spite turned to stare at the princess. “You’ve been on the thrones for thousands of years and an entire segment of your lands are unexplored? No explorers? No cartographers? No attempt to survey it, establish outposts in it, cultivate it, or contact its peoples and treat with them?”

“There have been attempts!” Luna replied heatedly. “They… didn’t go well and we… I don’t know why.”

Spite’s brow furrowed. “But you’re the coregeant of Equestria and the co-goddess of Sol Selune. How can you not know?”

Luna’s features tightened and she turned away, looking straight ahead. “I was gone for a thousand years.”

“Oh.” Spite sighed and nodded. “I can understand that. But I can’t imagine that your sister wouldn’t keep you appraised of important things like…”

“She tried,” Luna interrupted bitterly, her voice suddenly tight with muted emotional pain. “Collapsed from grief on hundreds of occasions trying, but during those thousand years, we were… separate.”

Spite felt a twinge of dimly remembered pain in her chest, remembering all the centuries essentially anchorless, drifting, with neither permanent form nor strong master. “What power could possibly keep her sister from this world’s sun goddess?” she asked in wonder. “I’m surprised she didn’t just… scorch them from existence for daring to take her sister.”

Luna sighed deeply. “I was not imprisoned by another. I was banished to the moon for a thousand years, and my sister was right.”

Shocked, Spite actually dropped altitude a moment before she remembered to keep her wings beating. “She was?”

“She was,” the princess confirmed quietly. “I’m the princess of the night, the moon, and the stars. I put my entire self into the night and especially the stars and a thousand years ago, I watched as ponies ignored my night and reveled in my sister’s day. I held court in the evenings and maybe one or two ponies would show up every few days. I put all my creativity into the design of my Royal Guards’ armor and nopony cared. I went out of my way to be the princess of the common pony and was greeted with indifference.
“Over time, I felt ill-used, unloved, disrespected, and deeply jealous of my older sister who could enjoy the adulation of Equestria by simply sitting on her throne and smiling. Sadness turned to anger, wistfulness to envy and then jealousy, thoughts of how to make it right became…”

“…twisted into an unthinking focus on revenge,” Spite finished heavily. “You were hurting, and the only comfort became the thought of how you would make them pay. They would scream with your pain, beg for your mercy, and receive nothing but delighted laughter in return. You would set such things against those heedless creatures that they’d suffer as much from the fear of those things as they did from your vengeance. And then you would bring their goddess low, make it clear that no one and no pony could save them, and so enjoy your revenge against those that hurt you—and a beloved sister who did no wrong but be more attractive to those heedless, common ponies.”

Luna looked askance at her. “You… sound familiar with it.”

“Intimately,” Spite closed her eyes against the memories. “And in that state, you found yourself consoled by a voice that spoke for your evil impulses. A… presence that offered to do your evil for you, but in such subtle ways that you believed that presence to be your own self. One that insinuated itself slowly and with care, until only the smallest shard of yourself realized that you weren’t the only one in your head.”

She could feel the shocked eyes of all three of her companions on her. “…yes,” Luna finally said. “Nightmare Moon. I became Nightmare Moon, the monster of the scariest little foal’s stories, a dragon-eyed queen of darkness and the Eternal Night. There was a war. Ponies died and were maimed and entire cities devastated. Celestia would have been right to slay me, to save all of Equestria. But she… she used the Elements of Harmony to imprison me until the Elements would be held by six very special ponies who were strong enough to return me to myself.”

Spite opened her eyes and noticed Luna looking steadily at her. “It worked, I returned to myself, and all was well. Then six months ago, the Guardian returned me to being Nightmare but it was…”

“…readily apparent that what you believed to be a part of yourself was actually a real mare, one that was alive and had her own mind and sense of self.” Spite nodded. “And I’ll put good bits down that she had no love for the Guardian and actively worked to bring him down.”

Luna was silent for several long moments before her expression grew hard. “How dost thou know such things of Us and Nightmare Moon?”

“Because your story is actually quite common, but for the last element: yours is the only time I know of that the thing of the Void that latched onto a living being as their anchor reformed and became good,” Spite told her. “Whoever the entity that became Nightmare Moon is, she must be an extremely unusual example of her kind.”

“Was,” Luna corrected, the hardness melting, replaced by a touch of sadness. “When the Guardian was defeated, she let go and evaporated.”

Spite swallowed at that. A being of the Void surrendering a real form voluntarily? This Nightmare Moon, or whatever her actual name was, must have been a really unusual one. “You miss her?”

“Screw a thousand years ago… Night was a bucking hero,” Rainbow Dash declared. “They even added her statue to the memorial to everyone that died taking down the Guardian.”

Spite smiled. “I wish I could have known her then. She sounds like my sister under the skin. History takes so many strange paths… imagine if circumstances had ended with Nightmare remaining? Imagine a duo of thrones becoming a trio, a pair of sisters becoming three, Fronck-Kais being made to confront one more goddess than before, and one accustomed to less… savory means.”

“That would be awesome!” Rainbow grinned, emphasizing her opinion with a half-barrel that brought her just above Spite. “So Spite, level: what exactly didja do to me? And is there anything new coming or is the long mane and better aerodynamics all I get out of the deal?”

“I don’t really understand it myself, actually,” Spite admitted. “For lack of a better explanation I transfused part of my… soul, I guess you’d call it, into you, grafting it onto yours to repair the damage the klesae caused.”

“You stuck a piece of your soul in me.” Rainbow gave her a very nonplussed look.

“I’ve got plenty to spare,” Spite couldn’t help but smirk a little. “My soul is not mortal; it’s constantly infused with the Void, constantly rebuilt and kept in pristine order, which is why I’m essentially immortal. A mortal soul can only recover from damage very slowly and only if it’s allowed to rest for long periods in an enforced, coma-like sleep.”

“So that’s why I ended up in a coma in the hospital…”

“Well, after being forced to infuse you like that, I didn’t want to risk not following it up with the regenerative sleep. And then I had to cut it short because, frankly, this isn’t something that could be done without you.” Spite shrugged. “Take a trip to the griffins without the best flier in Equestria? Naw, not smart.”

Rainbow grinned broadly. “Hay yeah! So, I’ve got a piece of your soul like… melded to mine, huh?”

“More like, used as a patch to cover the deep wounds until you could heal them yourself. And there was lots and lots of patching done.” Spite frowned a little. “Weaver, I wish I had a way to grab an expert in this sort of thing, someone who could properly examine and diagnose you. But they’re all back home and bringing one here on my own would cause… issues.”

“What kind of issues?” Luna asked.

“They’re… somewhat singleminded,” Spite replied, wavering uncomfortably. “They’re fantastic warriors and a majority are good people. But they’d take one look at you, Your Highness, and declare it their solemn duty to slay the monster.”

Luna blinked. “Why?”

“They’d be able to literally see the echoes of Nightmare Moon in your visage and they rarely make a distinction between someone who’s been touched but is no longer in thrall, and someone who is entirely in thrall to an Evil.” She looked at Rainbow. “Because I grafted pieces of myself onto your soul to save your life, they’d regard you as Enthralled as well. By now, they recognize me for who I am but only the most skilled and ancient of their people could discern that my graft no more enthralls you to me than it turns you into a stallion.” Rainbow turned and gave her a deadpan look, provoking a cheeky grin. “And no, I’m positive that won’t happen.”

“But will something m… more happen, Spite?” Spite startled a little at the soft, shy voice practically whispering into her ear from how closely she’d drawn while Spite was occupied speaking with Luna and Rainbow. She heard the predictable “eep” off to the right and she caught the pegasus before she could retreat behind her mane.

“Judging by the wings… yes, but I don’t see anything beyond that.” Spite replied, patting Fluttershy’s nearest leg in what she hoped was a consoling manner. It seemed to have worked, at least a little, because the butter-colored pegasus smiled shyly at her instead of retreating.

“What about the wings?” The dragoness took a moment to marvel at the fact that Rainbow could fly backwards at least as fast as Spite was flying forwards before she answered the pegasus.

“Surely you’ve noticed that your wings don’t look the way they did, or work the way they did,” she pointed out. “As near as I can determine, the patching seems to have transferred some of my physical traits to you: a longer, lither body type, jewel-like amethyst eyes, a silkier mane, at least one draconic vocalization, and it would appear, the broad, light, flexible wings of a dragon.”

Interestingly, it was only the last part that seemed to draw a reaction from Rainbow. “What?” She looked at her wings in open dismay. “That’s what’s happening? I’m getting… bat wings?”

“Dragon wings,” Spite corrected, slightly affronted. “Bat wings are highly maneuverable but weak and unsteady, perfect for something that likes to move in a quick, highly unpredictable fashion to both catch prey and dodge predators. Dragon wings, on the other hoof, have disproportionately high surface area and with your incredibly developed musculature, great straight-line acceleration to go with the maneuverability that bat wings have.”

Rainbow eyed her skeptically. “Zat so…”

“I’ll just put it this way, Dash; there was a reason that I, more of a combat flier than a stunt or racing flier, could catch up to you initially with very little effort,” she chuckled. “There was also a reason I could continually hit you with blasts of air from near-misses, reversing my direction and coming again before you could effectively get out of the way.”

Rainbow gave her another skeptical glance, but it was now tempered with a touch of interest and thought. “So… just as fast, lots more maneuverable?”

“Well that depends.” Spite gave her a fierce, challenging grin. “Are you planning to wimp out and settle for just being as fast as you were with pegasus wings?”

As she intended, the question drew a look of affront from the rainbow-maned mare. “Me? Wimp out? As if!”

“Then, kid, you’ll be faster than you were and can pole-dance with the best of us,” Spite assured her.

“…pole-dance?”

Spite suddenly realized what she’d just said and coughed. “Uh, yeah, it’s not what you think. I mean being able to zigzag in a serpentine motion between poles that are spaced no wider than your height without touching any of them. Of course, that might be a little too much to promise; the dragons that can do it have such flexibility that they can bend backwards and touch their muzzle to their flanks.” She paused as Rainbows face contorted. “Uh…”

“So… they can kiss…. their own flanks?” She managed, her eyes dancing as she tried to hold it in.

“…yeah, I…”

Rainbow proceeded to double over in midair, laughing (and yet, Spite noted, still managing to keep up the pace) as Spite felt her cheeks get warm. “…it’s not that funny.”

“Oh, but it is!” Rainbow gasped. “Because… because you just… i… implied that you can… pole-dance… can you… kiss your own flanks… too…?”

“Don’t knock it,” Spite retorted in as dignified a manner as she could manage with her cheeks flushing and Rainbow laughing herself to tears. “When you’re really, really lonely, it comes in handy.”

It took a second until the comment registered and Rainbow’s merriment died as she gave Spite a slightly ill look. “OK, way too much information.”

“Serves you right for laughing at the depressingly ancient dragoness,” Spite grinned, sticking her tongue out and flickering it, snakelike, at Rainbow.

Rainbow snorted and grinned back. “You know, you really don’t act all that ancient.”

“I attribute it to a life spent in wholesome activities.” Spite turned to Luna. “So about how long of a flight is it to the Griffin Provinces, Your Majesty?”

“Luna’s fine, Spite,” Luna replied, frowning. “Truth be told, I’d have thought we’d have been challenged by their sentries by now. They typically maintain a cloud outpost with an excellent view of the approaches nearly an hour in advance of their borders.”

“And you… allow this?” Spite blinked.

“We have outposts similarly deep into their lands,” the princess shrugged. “The mutual threat builds mutual interest in mutual peace, or so Tia tells me.”

“So Tia tells you?” Spite repeated. “Don’t you have a say?”

Luna smiled a little. “My sister and I have always divided our responsibilities according to what we do best and we try not to step on each other’s hooves out of love and respect.”

“If matters of diplomacy aren’t what you do, what is?”

“I take care of the subtle and secret matters of state, the things that require a hoof-on approach. Celestia is the grand, glorious, beautiful symbol of the diarchy and I’m its everyday touch. She receives diplomats, makes laws, and hears the needs of the common pony; I see to the honesty of the diplomats, the application of the laws, and see to it that the matters of the ordinary ponies that are brought to Celestia are resolved.” Luna paused, her slight smile gaining gravity. “In war, the very rare wars that have happened, Celestia is the planner, the grand strategist, the one with the vast overarching vision of what must be done; I’m the tactician at the front, making the millions of tiny, all-important decisions at the point of bloodshed and even shedding blood myself.”

“Then I’m all the gladder to have you with me,” Spite smiled. “Are they normally really sensitive about their borders?”

“More like, very dedicated to proper forms and protocols,” Luna replied.

“Yeah, they get a real stick up their plots if you don’t recite all this mumbo-jumbo with a bunch of ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ and ‘hast’ and all that other ancient stuff,” Rainbow added. “Er, no offense Your Highness.”

“Rainbow Dash! Why would We ever think thou wast offending Us?” Luna replied with a twinkle in her eye. “Thou art known for thy… quick tongue and We should hardly regard thee as a friend if We were offended by thy speech.”

“Thanks, Princess,” Rainbow replied a bit sheepishly. “So yeah, where the hay are they? The couple times I hung out with Gilda at her place, they always got up in your face before you even saw ‘em. Pains in the flanks even when they were being cool about it.”

“Ah yes, Gilda. Your… best friend, wasn’t she?”

“Yeah.” Rainbow deflated visibly. “Best friend all the time growing up. Then we got split up by something so bucking stupid and I didn’t… we barely had time to fix things up before…”

Spite drifted up and reached out to pat Rainbow’s side kindly. “But did you? Fix things up, I mean?”

“Yeah, sorta.” Rainbow unconsciously pressed against the consoling touch. “I mean, we ended things square but we… there might have been…”

“…more,” Spite finished with a sigh. “I guess that every kind and comforting word that’s possible to say has been said. I know that you barely know me Rainbow Dash but for what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, everypony is,” Rainbow turned and gave her a little smile. “But it’s cool of you to try to care.”

“I don’t need to try; I genuinely do care. About you, about the other Elements, about the Princesses, about Equestria, about this entire world.” Spite looked ahead, seeing the clouds without really seeing them. “I’ve seen the shadow stretch for far too long over far too many places; it shall not stretch here, not if I can halt it.”

“You’re not the only one fighting, yanno.” Rainbow grinned, rearing back a little and mimed boxing with her hooves. “You’ve got the Princess, who’s way cool, and Flutters, who’s got that Stare thing down pat, and you’ve got the single most awesome pegasus in all of Equestria.”

Spite chuckled. “Yes, I do. It’s very comforting and familiar to me, having boon companions when I set out to do things. Usually, those companions include my sister and her two…”

“The sentries!” Luna exclaimed, relief evident in her voice. “Finally.”

Spite followed Luna’s gaze downwards to see four shapes, still made vague by the cloud cover below them, swooping upwards to meet them. After another moment, however, it occurred to her that something looked… off about the dimensions of the four fliers coming towards them. Their structure looked more like dragon flowing into pony instead of eagle flowing into lion. And it looked like they had… four wings…?

“Horseapples!” Rainbow exclaimed.

“Wild guess: not sentries?”

“Not griffins,” she corrected grimly. “But last time I saw them was six months ago.”

“Horseapples,” Spite agreed. “How fast are they?”

“Faster than Flutters.” Which, Spite could tell, settled things as far as the rainbow-maned pegasus was concerned. She smiled a little, taking a moment to admire this, before looking down towards the approaching creatures.

“Anything else?”

“Breathe fire, claws, very tough, incredibly agile,” Luna told her, her horn beginning to glow. “Like dragons, in a way, but not quite as dangerous.”

“Most things aren’t quite as dangerous as dragons.” Spite glanced over at the frightened-looking Fluttershy. “Rainbow, would you mind…?”

“Sure thing.” Dash had already dropped back and was flying close enough that Fluttershy’s visibly building terror was dying down. “You kick their flanks, I’ll hang out with Flutters here.”

“You’re a real gem, kid,” Spite smiled before angling downwards to meet the rising creatures, taking position just behind Luna’s right wing. “Is there anything else about them I should know?”

“When we last saw them, they were ordinary ponies that had been changed by a nightmare,” Luna replied. “Not Moon… Flare.”

Spite considered this. “Celestia was also…?”

“It’ll take too much time to explain fully, but yes.”

Spite nodded. “Well, then it seems best to presume that these, too, are victims. Pity… I’d really hoped to make an example out of one of Fronck-Kais’ playthings.”

“Fronck-Kais?”

“I’ll explain later. You take care of those on the left, I on the right.” Spite didn’t give Luna a chance to respond as she folded her wings and let gravity take over. She caught a brief glimpse of one of the creatures as she rocketed past, getting an impression of something partly pony and partly dragon, before she was below it and opening her wings, using the momentum of the fall to catch herself and sail upwards again, hoping to catch the creatures from below where they wouldn’t be looking. When she caught up to the one she’d fallen passed, she was still looking intently where Spite had been—when meant that she was caught totally by surprise when Spite’s shoulder caught her hard in the gut and a whipping blow from the Void dragoness’ tail violently jerked her head to one side, causing her to falter momentarily as she tried to shake it off.

Spite took advantage of the creature’s momentary stunning to neatly let her go, turn on herself, and grab her opponent’s shoulders, folding her wings so the altered griffiness (which is what Spite assumed the creature to be) was suddenly struggling to keep aloft both her own weight and the weight of the larger dragon. A head-butt stunned her still further and she momentarily forgot to move her wings. Spite used the opportunity to flip them around so the creature was below her and then headbutt again, hard enough that she went limp and they began to freefall. Out of danger, for the moment, Spite took a moment to study the other female. The avian beak had been reduced to a hard sheath of keratin at the end of a blunt draconic muzzle, the vicious, ripping carnivorous teeth of the dragon replacing the toothlessness of the griffin mouth. Hard, thick scales covered her body and what had probably been an attractive feather crest was reduced to a few sad decorative plumes. Claws that mirrored her own adorned all four limbs and a feline tail was now serpentine with a wicked probably venomous stinger protruding from its tip like that of a scorpion. She was mildly surprised that the body she clutched in their mutual fall was mildly warm and the scales of its belly supple, almost feeling like the luxurious softness of lion instead of the armored feel of dragon. To top off the ensemble, the chimera had two sets of wings, one the broad, beautiful things of the half-eagle griffins and the other the jagged bat-like wings of the feral dragon.

The female began to stir as they broke cloud cover and the ground loomed large. Large, frightened reptilian eyes flew open and stared momentarily into her own before Spite spread her wings simultaneous to submerging into the Void, letting its nothingness fill her senses just long enough to emerge at a height where she could release the captive and the creature slammed into the ground hard enough to audibly snap the bones of its wings but otherwise survive. Spite sailed close enough to do a quick look-over, satisfying herself that the injured but innocent being was in no serious danger, before another, longer submersion in the Void brought her back to the altitude from which she’d plucked her first victim.

She emerged to see that Luna was acquitting herself like the field general she’d claimed to be, three changed griffins enfolded in blazing spheres of indigo that were sending bolts of debilitating magic shooting through their bodies. Luna’s body was entirely unmarked and the effort of confining her captives seemed to be taking no toll on her. Satisfied that the moon princess had the situation well in hoof, Spite sailed back towards Rainbow and Fluttershy, keeping an eye out for any other attackers as she went.

She came upon Rainbow battling a pair of the changed griffins—and Spite could instantly see that the pegasus was just as unusual as she’d expected from the first glance she’d gotten days ago, when Dash was helping Twilight Sparkle learn to use her (relatively) new wings. It wasn’t just that she darted and struck with the effortless grace of a born athlete—that much had been expected—but she wasn’t fighting like a winged equine at all. Rainbow didn’t thrust her hooves, striking with the hard, strong bone like a club, but swept with them, striking hard but lightly, swinging her hooves in across-her-body diagonals… like she had talons and was raking a foe with claws. She didn’t sweep her wings back, protecting the avian-like bones with the hardened muscle and bone of her athlete’s body, but led with the wing, distracting and disorientating as each slashing strike went home. Rear hooves weren’t used in the double-hoof buck that had shattered Spite’s jaw when Applejack used it, but in arcs that took full advantage of lateral velocity to throw their target off and induce painful (but not fatal) soft-tissue injuries that would be debilitating later in the form of sore joints, aching muscles, and wrenched limbs. Watching for a moment, feeling her eyes widen, Spite realized that the pegasus was fighting like a griffin and she was doing it with the instinctive ease of a born leoavian.

The sharp, hot pain of scythelike claws digging into her sides hit her like a hammer, briefly stunning her with the unexpected agony before another sharp spike of pain in the back of her head made her gasp. Ultimately, reversing the situation wasn’t hard—she briefly relished the growl of mingled surprise and irritation as she let her essence flow out of the chimera’s claws and behind it—but slipping her enemy’s grasp made her realize that there was a damn good reason she hadn’t noticed the former griffin’s approach.

The malformed creature she’d examined on the way to the ground was clearly typical of the work whatever Evil was assisting Lashaal did: crude, cruel, and thoughtless. Just as clearly, the beast leading them had garnered much greater care and the full application of the demented being’s skills. The hard, ugly armor-like scales gave way to smooth elegant ones decorated with a full feathered crest that looked markedly mane-line. Its muzzle was longer, slimmer, with a handsome osprey hook at the tip, looking more like an elongated beak than a draconic muzzle. The five-fingered claws on all four limbs were now scything eagle talons on the front and the three-and-one sickle-like claws on the back. Its four wings were identical in size and beat in perfect harmony, briefly looking like the broad leathery sails of dragon wings had acquired a jet-black plumage. Finally, the scorpion sting of one tail had become a pair of muscular appendages, each with its own spade-like tail blade.

Most menacing by far, however, was that this new creature had a smoky indistinct aura around its black shape, the toxic material of the Void wafting off of it like steam off hot metal. It was, Spite realized with an unpleasant twist in her gut, an infusion of Void into a living creature—just short of what Luna had called a “nightmare”. The beast studied her, its ice-blue draconic eyes cold and calculating, before it bared its teeth. “Spite!”

“Oh, I have an admirer,” she replied sweetly, filling one of her hands with the Light-infused flame she’d used against the klesae. “I’m flattered.”

The sarcasm drew a snarling growl from the amalgamation. “How dare you! I, admire the deviant thing that you have made yourself? Your very existence is blasphemy, pet of the Sixth!”

“Temper, temper,” she scolded with a mocking grin. “I’d hate to do unto you as I did unto Lashaal’s little klesae.”

He returned her mocking grin. “Go right ahead; I have no particular attachment to my construct. You, on the other hand, would very much like to know my purpose.”

Spite frowned thoughtfully, feigning contemplation as she idly glanced over the construct’s shoulder, noting that Rainbow had already driven off the two altered griffins and was now drifting towards him with a grin of anticipation, the jewel-like amethyst of her irises glittering. “You make a good case,” she admitted to the construct. “It’d be wonderful to know what your purpose is.”

He snorted. “You think it’s…”

“Of course, it’d be much more satisfying to give your punching bag a nice thrashing, just to prove a point: I do not bargain with Evils, nor do I abide cowards.” The sphere of flame neatly disintegrated one of the shadow-thing’s front limbs, evoking a very avian squawk of surprise as it unthinkingly backpedaled and rose… just as Rainbow casually somersaulted in the air and drove both her rear hooves into the top of the construct’s skull with a klomp that sounded all the world like metal being bashed out of shape by a hammer. For being technically unable to feel pain and being technically not-alive, the construct reacted remarkably similar to a living thing; all four wings folding as it simply dropped, streaming Void substance like blood as its broken form spiraled out of sight.

“What a loser,” Rainbow snorted, grinning as Spite winged over to her, following her back to and oddly unafraid-looking Fluttershy. “Don’t remember these things being nearly that easy.”

Which was an excellent, and disturbing, point but Spite didn't let her expression betray this fact to Rainbow. “You weren’t part-dragon last time,” Spite pointed out.

“True.” Rainbow grinned at the observation but the smug expression faded suddenly. “Do you think they’ll be alright, though? I mean, all the griffins?”

“We can only hope so.” Spite grimaced. “I bucking hate things that’re too cowardly to come right out and fight. There’re times I wish they’d just forget the Game and duke it out somewhere so we can nail more Void-things to more city gates…” She paused a moment before looking at Rainbow. “Who taught you how to fight?”

“Gilda,” the pegasus replied shortly. “Why, you have a problem with how I fight or something?”

“Not as such, no,” Spite replied. “It’s just… unusual because you’re a pegasus but you fight like a griffin or, I suppose, a dragon. Keeping your hooves and head forward, following a blow from your hoof with a wing, striking downwards and across…”

“Yeah, Gilda was an awesome teacher.” Rainbow grinned, her eyes getting a look of distance and nostalgia. “Back in flight camp, we got really well-known… Gilda and Dash, most awesome pair in the entire bucking camp.”

Spite chuckled. “Well, she certainly taught you well. Being hit like that would come like a bolt from the blue, much in the way that enemies are stunned and even scared when they come across someone gifted in the art of berzerkergang. The unexpected is powerful weapon to use in battle and if someone didn’t know you, Rainbow, they’d never expect something like what I was seeing.” She then turned to look directly at the pegasus. “Just be really careful with your wings. You don’t have the hard bone on the leading edge of your wing frame that…”

“Aw, c’mon… do ya really think Gilda would forget that when she was giving me pointers?” Dash interrupted. “She… had my back, all the time, even grabbed my wing and stepped on it to make a point. Hurt like hay but I got it.”

“It didn’t look like you ‘got it’,” Spite retorted skeptically.

“Yeah, well, you’re a dragon. You don’t know how to fight like a dragon without being a dragon. If you weren’t a dragon but some dragon taught you how to fight like a dragon, you’d totally know the score,” Rainbow announced confidently. “It’s like the Rainboom… this is the kind of thing I do.”

Spite chuckled, shaking her head. “Yes, I suppose you’re right. It’s just… I didn’t save your life just to see some dumb thing like a broken wing get you killed.”

“Hah! As if I’d ever let that… oh, hey Princess.”

Spite turned as the princess of the moon sailed gracefully into their company from the direction of a nearby cloud bank. “Rainbow Dash,” she greeted with a small smile. She then turned her head and looked at Spite, her smile evaporating into an expression of real fear that made Spite’s stomach drop. “We need speak to thee, Spite, alone.”

“Of course, Your Majesty.”

“As We’ve said, Spite, thou mayest call Us Luna,” Luna said, almost automatically. “Come.”

“Of course, Luna.” She followed the royal blue alicorn out a short distance before Luna turned to her, no longer bothering to disguise her frightened expression.

“Dost thou know of the Guardian, Spite?”

“I do, but only vaguely.”

Luna took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. “Until the Guardian, We believed that nothing was worse than the Nightmare. You cannot know what it did to Our little ponies, to Our Equestria. It killed so many, made so many miserable, destroyed so many lives. It…” She swallowed. “…it took Twilight from Us. The pony who saved Us from the nightmare, the pony who awoke the Element of Magic just by being who she is, the pony who… who was Our first friend when We recovered. It murdered her and We only got her back by glorious, glorious chance and… We are so fond of her, Our niece, Our friend.” There was another paused while Luna gathered herself. “And it killed so many more than just her, destroyed so many others, destroyed lives, destroyed families, dragged Our alicorn friends of old back from rest to be its playthings. We see that these… things…”

“These things look like the victims of the Guardian’s work, don’t they?” Spite inquired, feeling her heart ache for the naked pain she saw in the lovely alicorn’s expression, feeling honored at the same time that Luna was letting her see behind the regal mask royalty necessarily wore.

“Yes,” she confirmed. “It can’t have survived… We saw it die and cried with relief over its shattered body. Thou knowest of the matters of this Void and the Evils that are within it, like the Evil that corrupted Order and made him the Guardian. Could… could it be…?”

“It could,” Spite admitted. “But if it is, your Majesty, there is a very important difference. While certain beings of the Void could have reconstituted the Guardian, they could not make him live in the same way. Even with world-shattering power, a being that is made alive through the Void hates and fears magic that’s infused with truly living power, like your sister’s Light or your own Dark.”

Luna considered this, the pain fading somewhat and the tenseness in her body relaxing visibly. “And thyself?”

“Excuse me?”

“Thou sayest that a being made alive through the Void hates and fears magic infused with living power. What of thyself? Art thou not one that is made alive through the Void?”

Spite frowned, thinking of how to best answer the entirely reasonable question. “I’m…” She sighed. “It’s very difficult to describe how I’m different unless you’ve met another Void dragon face-to-face. I have an actual, living form, not a construct built around my essence. I don’t radiate the energy of the Void because I have no need to consciously hold my form in its present state; it’s inherent to me, the way that your body is inherent to you.”

Luna gave her a somewhat puzzled look. “Are not all of your kind alive?”

“In… a way.” Spite thought a moment. “Things of the Void are alive in that they have a soul and a coherence but in a mortal realm, they imitate living things because they’re naturally without body or form. I, however, have a body that’s bound to me, as much a part of me as my soul. Granted, I can alter the form somewhat and I admit that I naturally look different then I appear to you but no matter my form, I eat, I breathe, and I experience all the other natural aspects of being alive.”

The princess nodded thoughtfully. “Thus magic infused with Light or Dark…”

“…affects me no differently than any being of the Dark,” Spite confirmed. “Light-infused magic is more harmful, Dark-infused less. With a creature fully of the Void, there is no difference; both are equally dangerous to them. Tying it back to what I was saying about the Guardian, even if he was to return, he would return with a very significant weakness to your magic or that of your sister.” She reached out and gently laid both hands on Luna’s shoulders. “In other words, Luna, this Guardian can only live so long as he does not attract the righteous fury of the sister goddesses that reign over sun and moon.”

Luna smiled a little, her stance broadcasting her relief just as much as her expression did. “We… I thank you for your consoling words, Spite.” She looked towards the north and her mouth set in a hard line. “But now that I fear not the Guardian, I fear for the griffins and what we may find. Clearly, the weak one that fled before you has aid, and strong aid at that.”

“Then there’s only one way to do this.” Both Spite and Luna turned their eyes to Rainbow, who was making no attempt to hide the fact that she’d clearly been eavesdropping.

Luna, of course, recovered her regal bearing first. “And that is…?”

“We do for ‘em what one real awesome griffin did for us,” Rainbow replied, grinning but her eyes as serious as Spite had ever seen. “We kick their plots back to whatever hole they crawled outta.”

Trixie: Taint

“Breakfast! Come an’ get it while it’s hot!”

The Great and Powerful Trixie (“Mare of Mystery, Enchantment, and Awe-Inspiring Magical Mysticism”) startled a little at the youthful, drawling, filly voice that appeared to originate roughly two inches from her and did her very best to glare without opening her eyes.

“The Great And Powerful Trixie warns you that when she opens her eyes, she had best be able to see the sun,” she grumbled.

The grouchy statement just drew a giggle and a little hoof poking her through the sheets. “If ya don’t want ta get up with the hens, ya shouldn’ta fallen for an Apple,” Applebloom informed her cheerfully. “Now git up, ‘less ya wanna eat Granny’s apple flapjacks cold.”

If the mouth-watering smell of said pancakes hadn’t chosen that exactly instant to attest to the truth of the little filly’s statement, Trixie wasn’t sure what she would have done. But her nose didn’t lie: there were, indeed, hot apple pancakes just coming off the griddle and with those pancakes always came a nice, big, warm pitcher of shockingly good zapapple syrup.

Trixie sighed to herself, did her very best to gather her showpony dignity, and opened her eyes. As expected, the sun hadn’t risen; less expected was Applebloom’s bright filly eyes no more than an inch away from her face. All in all, Trixie thought she handled the situation well; instead of doing something untoward to the Apple filly’s mane, she picked the little pony up and deposited her on the other side of the room, making a point of dropping her just a little high so Applebloom had to stumble to catch herself.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie…”

“Yer usin’ third pony again.” Applebloom interrupted.

Trixie sighed again, closed her eyes, and rubbed between them with a hoof. “Trixie… um… I didn’t mean to. Thank you for reminding her… I mean, me.”

“No problem,” the filly replied brightly. “Big Mac’s waitin’ on ya.”

Trixie yawned. “Tell him I’ll… mm… be right along,” she said as she rolled out of the bed and felt the aged, solid timbers of the Apple family farmhouse under her hooves. She started rolling her shoulders and tilting her head back and forth, going through the well-practiced motions of limbering up, when her head caught up to her habit and she stopped. This wasn’t her old wagon, she wasn’t sleeping on a bare pad on the hard wood, and she could still faintly smell the earthy scent of her Big Mac on her coat from spending the night cradled in his hooves.

Her Big Mac.

Checking that Applebloom had disappeared and that there was no possible threat to her image as the pompous, showy, indifferent Great and Powerful Trixie, Trixie let herself grin in a way that she knew quite well was irredeemably silly. Her Big Mac. She savored the words in her head, words she’d honestly never believed that she’d utter, even in her own mind. It seemed just yesterday that she was nothing to these ponies, nothing but a petty, mean, boastful showmare that had gotten shown up by the town librarian.

And then the town librarian had shown up in the dive Trixie was staying in after her humiliation. The earnest, slightly socially awkward, almost painfully humble lavender unicorn… who, without Trixie realizing it, became her first genuine friend, even if the friendship was initially very strained. It had been partly to vindicate Twilight’s earnest belief that Trixie could be much more than a showmare living out of a wagon that had led Trixie to seek out the legendary beast that turned out to be the Guardian.

Somehow, dying was the best thing that had ever happened to her.

“Trixie?” The blue showmare was startled out of her reminiscing by a certain rumbly voice belonging to the only pony she didn’t mind seeing her standing there with a silly smile on her face.

“Sorry, dear,” she said as she trotted over to the tall, solid stallion and learned up to give him a quick kiss. “Just… thinking back.”

“What ‘bout?” He asked as he leaned down to nuzzle her cheek

“You’ll think it’s silly,” she demurred.

“Eeenope,” he replied with a smile.

“Just thinking… it’s morbid, I know, but dying was one of the best things that ever happened to me,” she told him, shaking her head in amusement at how utterly bizarre the sentiment sounded.

As usual, her stallion had very little to say to this; also as usual, he said quite a bit without a word, and what he was saying now was that he was worried about her. She gave him another kiss. “Don’t worry, Macintosh… I’m fine, honest.”

“Don’t normally talk ‘bout bein’ dead when yer fine,” he pointed out, the worried look persisting.

The point hit home and Trixie sighed. “You’re right. I’m still… absorbing all of this.” She summoned all of her showpony élan and treated him to a broad smile. “But the apple flapjacks are getting cold and I’m hungry. Maybe…”

Big Mac eyed her, contemplated this for a long moment, before ducking his head down and kissing her. “…talk later.”

“Eeyup,” she replied, giving him a coquettish look, getting one of affection in return, before she pulled on her trademark cloak and walked to breakfast with Big Mac. Of course, Applebloom was already there and using the mysterious ability to swallow unhealthy amounts of food in a tiny window of time that seemed universal among foals, was already on her last of what had obviously been a healthy stack of flapjacks

“Hey y’all!” She greeted cheerfully. “Flapjacks were getting’ cold so Ah took yours, hope y’all dun mind. Granny’s fryin’ up s’more.”

“It’s alright, Applebloom. The Great and Powerful Trixie is in a forgiving mood this morning,” Trixie assured her in her best lofty tone.

Applebloom giggled. “Now yer just doin’ it deliberately. And ya got bed-head.”

“Trixie has no idea what you’re talking about,” the unicorn mare replied, straightening her mane with a touch of magic. “Trixie always talks this way and she is certainly immune to bed-head. Just ask Big Macintosh.”

“Eeeeeeeyup,” Big Mac nodded gravely, then proceeded to ruin her act with a light nip on the tip of one of her ears.

“Macintosh!” She chided with a totally un-Trixie giggle.

“Eeyup,” he acknowledged, then proceeded to do it to her other ear.

“Oh, get off, you big oaf,” she chuckled as Granny set down a plate of piping hot apple pancakes and a light smack on her hoof with a previously-invisible wooden spoon when she reached for her fork first.

“Sorry. Thank you, Granny,” Trixie said, getting the expected curt nod of approval before the elderly green mare turned around and went back to the kitchen. Trixie then picked up her fork as she levitated the pitcher of zapapple syrup over, giving the flapjacks a generous coating before taking a bite. Ambrosia, as always.

“Hey, Miz Lulamoon?”

Trixie fought the irrational impulse to look around for her mother. “Applebloom, I’ve been your big brother’s marefriend for six months now,” she told the filly with an amused smirk. “So this would be the… fifteenth…?”

“Seventeenth.”

“…seventheeth time I’ve told you, you may call me Trixie,” she finished with a smile, taking another bite of the flapjacks.

Applebloom paused then said, in the exact same questioning tone. “Hey, Trixie?”

Trixie chuckled. “Yes?”

“Who was that black dragon Big Mac an’ you were talkin’ to by yer wagon the other day? Some relative o’ Spike?”

Trixie hesitated a moment, glancing at Big Mac for confirmation; this turned out to be as much of a mistake as coming right out and telling her that it was none of her business because the filly’s face fell a little. “If it ain’t any o’ mah business…”

“Oh, no, nothing like that,” Trixie assured her quickly. “It’s just, um, she’s a… colleague of Twilight Sparkle and what she had to say wasn’t something… rather, it was something important but would be…”

“Summat private,” Big Mac summarized.

“Oh, OK.” Trixie was in the middle of breathing a relieved sigh when she kept going. “Cuz Sweetie Belle thought she was someone ya owed money to, and Ah said ‘horseapples’…”

“‘Bloom…” Big Mac said sternly.

“Sorry, Big Mac,” the filly responded, looking contrite. “Ah mean… uh, ‘ponyfeathers’…” She paused to check that this was acceptable before continuing, “cuz Ah know ya’ve been real popular an’ such with yer shows. An’ Ah thought she was a special messenger from Canterlot bringing real bad news, seein’ as how ya looked like someone bucked ya in the gut…” She paused again and looked extremely worried in the way that only a filly could. “Yer family’s alright, right? Cuz they seemed like real great folks when they visited last month.”

“Trixie’s… my family is fine, as far as I know,” Trixie assured her. “So what’d Scootaloo think?”

“Scoots thought she was comin’ from Princess Celestia with a super-secret mission or somethin’ cuz Twilight and all ‘er best friends were with ‘er,” Applebloom informed her. “An Ah told her ‘she ain’t Rainbow Dash, Scoots’ an’ we had a good laugh. But we had a vote an’ Ah was nominated ta ask ya, if it wasn’t too private-like.”

“Summat private,” Big Mac repeated with a shrug.

“Oh, OK.” Applebloom looked thoughtful before starting to clear her dishes from the table. The moment she disappeared into the kitchen, Trixie released a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and looked over at Big Mac.

“And Scootaloo just guessed that?” She asked in slight disbelief. Six months of experience with the energetic, blank-flanked fillies who called themselves ‘The Cutie-Mark Crusaders’ had taught her that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree with Sweetie and Applebloom, and she suspected that Scootaloo was just as bright as her two friends, but it was still mildly disconcerting how close to the mark the little pegasus was.

“Ain’t lackin’ for smarts, jus’ sense,” he replied with a shrug. With that said, he enthusiastically tucked in to his own considerable stack of apple pancakes, leaving Trixie to finish breakfast eating slowly, thoughtfully, as the mention of Spite brought to mind the short conversation she had with Twilight and the dragoness about the results of her test.

“I’m pleased to say that you appear to have power to spare, Trixie,” the dragoness had told her with a broad, disconcertingly toothy, smile. “Not the most abundant personal reserve, of course, but your economy of use is quite impressive.”

“Economy of…?”

“She means you can do with a small amount of magic what takes most ponies a large amount of magic,” Twilight had explained.

“More bang for your buck…” At the wide-eyed looks from Twilight and Trixie, Spite had seemed to blush. “Um… I guess that saying means something entirely different in Equestrian. Anyway, yes, you get more result for your output. You’ve no doubt noticed that you can keep up the use of your magic throughout an entire performance despite having only average reserves?”

“I…” Frankly, Trixie had never consciously noticed that keeping up the magical effects, the fireworks, the alterations to her voice, the illusions, and the other magical aspects to her show, had never really drained her. “…had not really noticed. I was always tired after a show, but it was physical tiredness. I’ve not always been the kindest pony or really taken much interest in others so I... didn’t realize that my lack of exhaustion was unusual.”

Spite had laughed at that. “Well, it is unusual Miss Lulamoon, at least as unusual as a unicorn with Twilight’s incisive intellect and vast magical reserves. I’m told that Twilight has been tutoring you, at your request, since the demise of the Guardian?”

In one of the few times she let herself smile broadly and unreservedly while another pony was there to see it, Trixie beamed. “She has, and you have seen how well she tutors. I used to be unable to do a proper shield spell, or exercise fine control over my hornpower level, or juggle multiple magical spheres at once while constantly throwing them forward and renewing them as they were expended.”

Twilight had blushed hard at the praise (which, although Trixie would never admit it, not even to Big Mac, made the lavender mare look quite cute) and Spite had laughed with delight at the reply she’d gotten. “I agree, although you seem to have innovated that amazing flechette on your own. Not deliberately, I know, but having discovered it, you ought to refine it and then wield it. It may be hard to appreciate how powerful it is since it did me no harm, but my accruements are extremely unusual; with anyone, anything else, it would have blown a hole as large as a pony’s head straight through them. And that, Trixie, is where your profession will benefit you immeasurably.”

Trixie had given her a mildly confused look. “How would doing stage tricks for crowds benefit me in a fight?”

“You pull rabbits out of your hat, saw ponies in half, making castles disappear, and psychically guess which card the volunteer picked,” Spite grinned. “Misdirection, surprise, adept manipulation of the truth, reading the pony so you know how to make them believe in the trick… all of these things make you a stronger fighter. It’s pure serendipity that you already do those things, and get paid and admired for it.”

In the present, Trixie smiled to herself around a mouthful of the pancakes. There was something altogether alien about Spite (including her name; who would call a child ‘Spite’?) but for someone who could take a blast at point-blank that could supposedly blast her clean in half, the dragon also seemed… harmless. Harmless, and seemed to have no idea who Trixie was outside of generalities, an ignorance that Trixie suspected was due to the Elements neglecting to mention that they were still getting used to her being a better pony than she’d once been, and a devoted marefriend to Big Mac.

The dragon’s confidence aside, she’d had more long, deep, emotional conversations with Big Mac about this topic than in their previous six months combined. Trusting her, Trixie Lulamoon, a traveling showpony with a not-to-long-ago reputation for being a shuckster, a braggart, and just plain mean besides, with the minding of Equestria while the Elements were away?

“Yer fixin’ ta start frettin’ again, Trixie,” Big Mac rumbled, accompanying the observation with a soft I’m-here-for-you nuzzle.

Trixie took in a deep breath and let it out, leaning a little into the nuzzle. “I think I shall be fretting for a long time, Macintosh,” she admitted. “Oh, I know I’m not doing this by myself, not by a long ways. I have you, and our families, and all the other ponies of Equestria, and I have no doubt that Princess Celestia will put her hoof in as well. But…”

“…they dun ask any of them other folks,” Big Mac smiled, giving the same answer he had the last four times she’d fretted, the unhurried cadence of his voice never changing. “Jus’ keep up the drills Miz Sparkle worked up for ya an’ dun worry about the rest.”

For some reason, the mention of the drills immediately brought to her mind’s eye the image of an extremely earnest lavender alicorn simultaneously explaining the drills to her, demonstrating them to her… and at the same time, making a detailed checklist for each one. Trixie giggled lightly at the mental image, thinking of the exactingly organized, carefully-stapled, precisely-written drill checklists currently laid out in a dresser drawer of her wagon, ready to be used on an every-other-day basis. “Yes, the drills… Twilight sure loves her checklists.”

“No kiddin’!” Applebloom said from the other side of the table as she picked up the butter and syrup. “Spike says she jus’ about loses her mind without some sorta organizational thing.”

Even the stoic Big Mac had to chuckle at that. “Eeyup.”

“Y’all done?” Applebloom hitched a big innocent filly smile on her face. “Ah’ll take care o’ yer plates if ya want.”

The filly's intent was utterly transparent and Trixie laughed with a touch of fondness. “Nice try, ‘Bloom. Trixie invented the art of buttering a pony up to get something from them.” She smiled at the filly. “You could just ask.”

Applebloom eyed her before grinning. “Well, me an’ the other Crusaders were thinkin’, since yer around right now, that it’d be the perfect time ta try fer showpony cutie marks.”

Trixie let her smile drop and she treated the bright yellow filly to an absolutely deadpan look. “I heard about the talent show.”

Applebloom suddenly found her hooves very interesting. “Oh, heh… ya did, didja?”

“Yes, I did.” Trixie kept the deadpan look fixed on her. “Clearly an effort in desperate need of professional help.”

The filly looked crestfallen. “Oh, well…”

Trixie had to struggle not to ruin the effect by smiling too early. “I seem to recall that there’s a professional showpony in Ponyville right now named Trixie Lulamoon…”

Applebloom furrowed her brow. “Uh, yer talkin’ in…” The light visible dawned and a grin split her face. “Really?”

“A wise pony once told me that eventually, you learn everything everypony else can teach you and if you want to become better, you teach somepony else.” That the ‘wise pony’ was the perennially insane Pinkie Pie, apparently in the middle of some sort of psychotic break that made her briefly Twilight-level smart and mildly normal, was something Trixie vowed to never admit to anyone, lest they think her insane. “Besides, I’m told that Sweetie Belle didn’t do the music, Scootaloo didn’t do the dances, and you didn’t do set design.”

Applebloom looked perplexed. “Well, yeah. Why?”

“I’ll explain later,” she promised. “In the meantime, let me help you with the dishes.”

“Ah said Ah’d do them…”

“If you do them, it’d be like you gave me something in exchange,” Trixie smiled as she enveloped her and Big Mac’s plates in her magic. “Paying me for my skills is something strangers do, not family.”

Applebloom beamed. “Yer great, Trixie.”

“There’s a reason the wagon says ‘The Great and Powerful Trixie’,” Trixie pointed out with a smile as she followed Applebloom to the kitchen.

<><

Trixie had never entirely understood why Rarity seemed so emotionally fragile and prone to overly dramatic displays of distress, especially after she revealed that she was also an assassin named “Jade” who had proven quite capable of taking on an alicorn by herself. She had not understood, that is, until right this moment as she watched a performance train wreck hurtling down the tracks.

It wasn’t that the performers were unskilled—quite the opposite, in fact—but they were mismatched to an extreme that threw Trixie’s showpony soul into seizures of exquisite agony. The set designer was the choreographer and while Applebloom had thrown herself into the task with the almost supernatural industriousness that seemed to flow in the blood of the Apple family, there were only so many dance moves that could go with—shudder—kung-fu. The choreographer was determinedly belting out a melody that could only generously be called ‘music’, Scootaloo’s occasional pirouettes and moves in time with the music hinting at her real showpony skill. And the singer’s set design… Sweetie Belle was just as much an artist as her fabulous dressmaker sister but she was born to sing, not design sets.

The train wreck finally, mercifully, skidded to a halt and Trixie took a deep breath and trotted over to the three fillies. “Do you want me to be nice or honest?”

“They’re mutually exclusive?”

“In the world of performance, yes they are,” she told them confidently. “Critics who’re nice to you are rarely the critics who’re honest with you. The first make you feel better but don’t make you a better showpony; the second make you feel horrible but they tell you what you did wrong so you can do it right.”

“Jus’ be honest then, Trixie,” Applebloom replied instantly. “Ya ain’t gonna be jus’ plain mean cuz Big Mac’ll give ya one of them stern, disapprovin’ looks he’s good at, but he’s right behind ya if yer honest.”

Trixie gave the filly a serious nod, remembering such looks from Big Mac on those occasions when she’d indulged the petty, mean, boastful side she’d initially shown to Ponyville. “Then honestly, girls, that performance was all wrong,” she said. “You have a singer who didn’t sing, a dancer who didn’t dance, and a builder who didn’t build. Instead, the singer built, the dancer sang, and the builder danced.”

The three of them looked blankly at her and then at each other before their looks descended into various types of hurt. “You didn’t like the scenery?” Sweetie Belle inquired in a small voice.

“It was like seeing Rarity sell her dress shop and buck apples, Sweetie,” Trixie replied, trying to insert an edge of kindness in her tone. “Your sister makes dresses, and she makes dresses better than anypony I’ve heard of. Apple-bucking is just all wrong for her. Similarly, scenery-building is just all wrong for you because you have a voice that, with a little bit of voice-coaching would make Sapphire Shores envious.”

Sweetie blushed a little. “R…really? Better than… Sapphire?”

“Why not?” Trixie smiled broadly to her. “Anypony who’s ever heard you sing would swear up and down that your special talent is song… and Trixie has heard you sing.”

“Well, that can’t be her special talent… she sings all the time and she’s still blank-flank,” Scootaloo pointed out.

Trixie shrugged. “Who knows how cutie-marks work? I just know that until I believed, without doubt, without hesitation, without fear that I, Trixie Lulamoon, had a special talent for doing magic tricks to delight and amaze ponies, I was a blank-flank too.” She gave Sweetie a reassuring look. “I’m sure that if you got up on stage and sang from your heart and heard the adoration of your listeners, you’d know what anypony who hears you knows: you sing like your sister makes dresses.”

“So what ‘bout us two?” Applebloom asked. “Ya called me a builder and Scoots a dancer. Ah’m not much of a…”

“Eh-hem… clubhouse?”

Applebloom stopped with her mouth still open before she gave Trixie a sheepish look. “Point taken.”

“And before you ask, Scootaloo, you’re going to stand there and tell me that a little filly who does, on the ground and with a scooter, what Rainbow Dash does in the air with her wings isn’t a dancer?”

Scootaloo looked slightly bashful. “Um… well…”

“Trixie is pleased to hear it.” Trixie smiled at the three of them. “‘Bloom asked me to help you be showponies so here’s my advice in short: Sweetie should handle music, Scootaloo should do the dances, and Applebloom should do the building of things. It’ll make your performance…” She gave Scootaloo a look. “…at least twenty percent cooler.”

Scootaloo picked up on her idol’s catchphrase instantly and grinned widely. “Yeah!”

Trixie matched her grin. “You know, I might even have an idea of where you can put this into…”

“Trixie!” Hearing the familiar, although totally unexpected, of Twilight Sparkle’s live-in companion and magical assistant, Trixie stopped and turned to watch the small purple dragon jogging through the grass, clearly out of breath.

“Spike?” Trixie blinked, feeling an icy dread seize her heart, fearing that the terrible things that Spite and Twilight had warned her about were already showing themselves. “Is something wrong at the library?”

“N… no… not… really…” Spike panted, doubling over and looking completely spent. “Just… had to run all over… looking for you…”

“Why?” The question came from Applebloom as she and the other Cutie Mark Crusaders trotted around Trixie and stopped to look curious at the heavily-breathing reptile.

Spike held up a claw indicating that he’d answer in a moment before finally catching his breath and standing up straight. “Because somepony wanted Twilight’s help but she’s gone and told me to take any issues to Trixie until she got back.” He gave her a sheepish look. “Twilight is sort of the… Ponyville problem-solver.”

Trixie chuckled. “Of course she is. Mare couldn’t leave a vexing problem alone if it killed her.”

Spike looked relieved. “So you don’t mind?”

“Twilight Sparkle did ask me to watch over Equestria for her while she was away and I did agree,” Trixie answered before glancing at the CMC. “Sorry, girls; it sounds like somepony just can’t do without the assistance of the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Sweetie waved off the apology with a hoof in an exact imitation of her older sister’s mannerisms. “Thanks for the advice.”

“You’re welcome.” Trixie gave Spike an expectant look and he turned and started back towards the town. “So, what’s this problem that needs the talented touch of the Great and Powerful Trixie?”

<><

“…and it’s happening with an entire section of the fields,” Carrot Top said, her face tight with distress. “An entire quarter of the crop, ruined!”

Trixie tentatively reached out and patted the mare on the shoulder as she tried to reconcile Spike running all over town looking for her with what appeared to be a serious, although ordinary, problem. She’d expected that he’d take her back to the library before telling her what it was all about but the mare with the problem was right next door to Sweet Apple Acres and they were now standing at her gate, talking. “Has this… happened before?” She asked.

Carrot shook her head. “No, not even close. I typically don’t lose more than a pound out of every thirty to disease, animals, or other causes. The last time I can remember this kind of… loss…” She paused, screwing up her face. “No, let me correct that… I’ve never experienced this kind of crop failure, nor has my family in my lifetime. I mean, I remember grandmother Danver mentioning a major failure when she was a filly but…”

Trixie internally debated what to do. On one hoof, massive crop failures weren't exactly supernatural; even a lifelong showpony knew that much. It seemed like a lean year for Carrot Top and her family but the only thing Trixie could think of to do about that was to comfort the poor mare and send her on her way. At the same time…

“Given the general pattern Evils like to follow, they’re most likely going to try something very dangerous but also very subtle,” Spite’s voice echoed from her memory. “By now, even the most stupid agent of the Void knows that both Princesses are aware of them and there are very, very few Evils permitted under the rules of the Game with the power to survive the displeasure of either one.” Spite had also briefly explained the nature of the Void to her, relating that its energies were toxic to life itself and Trixie couldn't shake the sinking feeling that such a large part of Carrot’s farm being affected at the same time tracked uncomfortably closely with what Spite had warned.

With that in mind, Trixie decided that the best thing to do at the moment would be to borrow a page from the data-obsessed mare that had tutored her and learn more facts before she jumped to conclusions. “And you said it was an entire… section of your fields, a full quarter of the crop.”

“Yes.”

“What… happened, exactly?” Carrot opened her mouth, probably to emphasize for the fifth or sixth time that it was a crop failure, before Trixie hurriedly clarified. “I mean, what form does the failure take? Just… dead plants? The carrots rotting in the ground? Holes chewed through them?”

“Yes, yes, and no,” Carrot replied. “The tops are withered and dead, turned almost black in fact, and the carrots are withered and rotting like they’d been left too long in the root cellar. But carrots never wither when they rot. It’s like a… dry rot.”

“Did you happen to bring one?

Carrot smiled humorlessly. “No, but I’ve got about twenty acres of examples for you.”

Trxie thought about this and nodded. “That might be better, actually, helping us narrow it down when we do a Twilight and spend a week obsessing over every book ever written on the subject of crop failures and plant diseases.”

Carrot and Spike both eyed her. “Disparaging Twilight Sparkle…”

“Disparaging?” Trixie shook her head emphatically. “Never! Twilight Sparkle is a wonderful pony, good enough to have been kind to me when I had treated her and her friends horribly. But if you know Twilight, and I know her at least reasonably well, you know that that is how she conducts research.”

“She has a point.” Spike admitted. “Although… Trixie, are you seriously going to try and pull one of Twi’s research sessions?”

Trixie laughed. “Hay no! I don’t think a Twilight Sparkle research session can be survived by anypony but Twilight Sparkle. Well… perhaps her Aunt Luna, Trixie has heard that she’s quite the scholar herself… but I digress. What I need right now is a ‘number-one assistant’ to help me find all the information the Ponyville library has on crop disease and causes of crop failure.”

Spike looked at her for a long moment before smiling. “Sure. You take a look at the carrots, I’ll get some books.”

“Thanks, Spike,” Trixie gave him a broad smile, watching him turn and jog away with his slightly hopping gait before turning back to Carrot. “When did you first notice the withering?”

“Three days ago,” Carrot replied as she turned and started trotting across the field, expertly placing her hooves so that she didn’t tread on any of the newly-planted furrows as she walked through. “Although my cousin Autumn thought the harvest nearby was looking a little… off five days prior.”

“Off?” Trixie asked, carefully trying to step in Carrot’s hoofprints as she followed her.

“Yup, a bit more wilted than normal.” The mare noticed Trixie’s careful stepping and chuckled. “Miz Lulamoon, you’re not nearly heavy enough to hurt the seedlings by walking on them; it takes them a few weeks to grow to that point. I trot like this out of long habit.”

Trixie nodded but still kept her eyes on her hooves. “So you harvested and sold them?”

“It is what we farmers do, Trixie,” Carrot deadpanned. “As long as the fruit isn’t damaged, we sell it and ponies buy it with enthusiasm.” She drew up and her eyes shown with the pride the Apple family always exuded when talking about Sweet Apple Acres. “Manechester Table Farm is the largest and most well-regarded carrot-grower in Equestria. Sweet, firm, succulent roots for every pony, every season, for as long as I can remember.”

Trixie smiled at her, thinking of the delicious carrots she’d bought and shared with Big Mac the other day when the Elements had come by to ask for her help. “That’s wonderful, Carrot,” she said sincerely. “I can see why you were so upset when you came to ask for help.”

Carrot sighed and nodded. “If it was just one farmpony’s misfortune, I might not have asked but with twenty acres worth of carrots suddenly not coming to market… it’ll hurt ponies.” At Trixie’s curious look, she continued. “If we grow fewer carrots, carrots are more expensive to buy and everything that uses carrots becomes more expensive. More expensive means that you can’t have as much of it and when ‘it’ is food…”

Trixie nodded a bit more emphatically than she meant to, feeling the brief twinge of remembered hunger pangs from when she was… less than well-off. “Yes, Trixie is… painfully aware of that.” She frowned as she considered the implications of what Carrot was saying. It might not be shadowy horrors slaughtering ponies but destroying food in such large amounts fit Spite’s warning about “subtle but dangerous” uncomfortably well. Done with other crops in other places… “I realize this might be a strange question, but did you notice anyone or anything sort of… lingering around your fields before you discovered the problem?”

Carrot stopped and stared at her. “You think somepony might have done this?”

“Trixie… I didn’t say that.” Trixie replied carefully, mindful that there was probably a very good reason she was approached privately instead of being announced to everypony.

Carrot watched her steadily for several seconds before apparently deciding to let it go, turning to continue to trot. “I haven’t seen anypony strange around the farm but I did see…” She frowned thoughtfully. “I thought it was a bird but it didn’t look quite right.”

“Did you tell Fluttershy about it?” Trixie asked.

“Well, that’s why I started thinking it didn’t look right,” Carrot replied. “I got a good look at it and described it to her but she didn’t know what it was. And you know Fluttershy… she’s forgotten more animals than anypony else has ever heard of. She thought it could possibly have been a baby roc…”

“Excuse me… did you just say ‘a baby rock’?”

“I did.”

“Oh.” Trixie considered this but, given that this was Fluttershy, she decided that there really must be a bird called a ‘rock’. “Continue then.”

“Anyway, Fluttershy thought it might have been a baby roc but it was definitely a wild guess. I do remember her saying that she’s never heard of a bird as I described it that could fly, which this bird definitely did.”

Trixie frowned thoughtfully. “Could you describe it to me?”

“It had a body about the size of a foal, proportions of one too,” Carrot replied. “Its wings were much larger than it was and looked… skeletal, I guess. Very bony, more like those of a bat than a bird. Its neck seemed very thick and its beak was extremely long and thin, like half again as long as the body. I think it must have seen me watching it because it looked in my direction and took off. The eyes were… wrong, somehow, too large for its head and appeared to have no eyelids.”

“A bird with bat wings, extremely long and thin beak, and overly large eyes,” Trixie summarized.

“Yes.”

“Could it have been something other than a bird?”

“Well, it wasn’t a pegasus or a griffin… wrong proportions and even Princess Luna’s Night Guard have wings that are fuller and more dragon-like than bat-like.” Carrot tilted her head thoughtfully. “I can’t think of anything else and Fluttershy had no suggestions other than ‘roc’.”

Trixie furrowed her brow pensively as she contemplated this, following the farmpony forward unconsciously as she did… which meant that when she stepped onto the blackened soil of the ruined acreage, the overwhelming feeling of rotten, corrupt, wrongness would have knocked her off her feet if Carrot hadn’t been there to brace her up.

“Trixie! What’s wrong?” She asked.

Trixie couldn’t answer her as vertigo struck and she stumbled away, falling to her knees and barely managing to turn her head away before vomiting violently. She tried to rise, another wave of vertigo striking her, her head throbbing in time with the pulsating rhythm of utter wrong radiating from the soil, another wave of bile carrying the contents of her stomach out of her mouth.

And suddenly, it was over and Trixie sagged to the ground in relief. “You… couldn’t feel it…?” She managed to gasp, spitting to clear the foul taste of her stomach contents from her mouth.

Carrot was silent, prompting Trixie to look up at the other mare, meeting eyes that were rimmed in red from how widely she’d opened them, gaping at Trixie in real and visible fear. “N... no…” She managed. “What… what’s wrong? What just happened?”

“Trixie doesn’t know,” Trixie panted, staring at the blackened ground in front of her. “It… it’s magic! Foul, horrible magic… I’ve… I’ve never…”

But some small corner of her mind informed her that she had, in fact, felt the tiniest hint of this brand of magic, a foul corrosive corrupt magical energy that had pushed back against the pounding force of the spheres Trixie had thrown at Spite to demonstrate her raw power to the dragoness. A suspicion formed but Trixie immediately quashed it; if she, hardly the most talented of unicorns, could make the connection, Twilight Sparkle would have without effort and if not her, the Princesses. She might have felt the energy before around Spite but Trixie’s intuition with people had yet to fail—and years of showpony experience, playing just the right way to each crowd she came across, depending completely on that instinct to feed her from day to day, told her that Spite did not do this. Which meant quite a few things, each one worse than the last.

“I’ve never…” She trailed off and, conscious of Carrot Top still looking fearfully at her, she shakily pushed herself to her hooves. “I’ve never seen anything like this but… I was warned that I might. I… stand back, I need to be sure.”

Spite had made it clear that the energy of the Void was toxic and corrosive to living things but had also made it clear that the blade cut both ways: ordinary magic was corrosive and poisonous to anything of the Void, and the light-spheres Twilight had taught her, the ones she’d used in demonstration, were especially powerful when used against anything Evil. Trixie was surprised to find that even with the violent way the tainted land had affected her, magic flowed easily from her horn and coalesced into a gently-glowing ball of light.

She didn’t even need to move it forward; immediately, the rays of magical light falling off her ball caused the blackness in the soil to visibly shrink away, acrid smoke rising wherever the light touched it. Emboldened, Trixie took a step forward, thrusting her sphere out in front of her like a lit torch and watched the taint recede rapidly—and keep receding, as if the energy itself somehow sensed that destruction was advancing on it and was trying to flee.

Satisfied but fighting a growing sense of dread, Trixie turned to Carrot. “It’s not a disease and not an animal. It’s… a spell, a very horrible spell.”

“Somepony… did this?” Carrot asked weakly.

“Somepony… or something,” Trixie replied quietly. “I need to find Spike so he can send a letter to the Princess. I… don’t try to walk on it, it hurts.”

“I could see,” her companion replied in a small voice. “What could have done this? Who could have done this? Why?”

The helpless and frightened undercurrent in the mare’s voice aroused a touch of anger at this unidentified force, this ‘Evil’, that had ruined so much of this innocent pony’s livelihood and she felt her jaw clench ever so slightly. “Trixie does not know… but she will find out.”

What she would do about it, though, she couldn't begin to imagine.

Twilight: Walking the Rails

“So where in do you come from?” Twilight asked the sisters as they disembarked from the train, checking that the staff was alright and discovering that whatever had confronted them in the train car, it had no apparent interest in anypony else.

“The kingdom o’ Auric, born an’ bred,” Elli replied proudly.

“Though I live in Ratnisbon most o’ the time,” Delphine added. “Aboot a thousand miles west of the Lightbringer Pass that marks the border between Auric an’ Ratnisbon.”

“I take it that’s a different world than this one?”

“Aye, Triumvirate,” Elli confirmed. “Helluva thing, gettin’ sent oot ta another war in another place before we could even rebuild from th’ last. But such is the life of a good soldier, not fer ourselves alone but fer th’ innocent an’ good people that depend on us.”

“Elli, don’t burden the dears with our issues,” Delphine chided. “The rebuildin’ will happen and happen well no matter where we are at a moment.” She sighed heavily. “Besides, there’s nuttin’ a coupla soldiers can do to undo the worst of it. I know ye don’t really mourn th’ loss o’…”

“No one mourns it,” Elli interrupted with the barest hint of a growl. “Should give th’ bloody three-headed wank a kiss ta each pair o’ ugly lips. Only wish ol’ Aurelius had lived ta piss on th’ ashes; wish ta Weaver I coulda.”

“Elli!” Delphine gave her a look of real shock and disappointment. “Lives are sacred sister! That’s an unworthy thing ta say, an’ ye ought ta be ashamed.”

Elli snorted. “Says th’ sister who never had ta suffer under th’ foul ideas that came from that nation o’ thieves an’ whores. Good riddance, I say.”

Delphine flinched slightly at that. “I… admit that I never had ta suffer their foolishness, sister, but to heap hatred upon the dead, to disregard the sacredness of each life… tis unworthy of ye, Serafine.”

“Um, question?” Dawn interrupted, raising a hoof in the manner of a filly asking a question of her teacher. “What the buck are you two going on about?”

“It’s… nothin’, darl,” Delphine sighed. “Just old concerns, old scars.”

“They don’t sound old,” Dawn retorted. “C’mon, you can’t just babble on about a war and cleaning up and nations full of thieves and whores without giving the nice ponies something.”

“Dawn, it’s probably none of our business,” Twilight said, giving the two sisters a apologetic look.

“It could be, if ya wanted it ta be,” Elli offered. “Tis not as if it’s some dark secret that’s deeply private or some such rot. Th’ entire array o’ Light an’ Dark an’ Void are in th’ know; entirely fair that ye get some fair warnin’ since long-lived things tend ta take what works one place, an’ use it in another.”

“Well, we do have a really long walk ahead of us.” Twilight looked at them. “We appreciate it but…”

“If we were overly worried about privacy, miss, we wouldn’t be talkin’ ‘bout it in front of ye,” Elli assured her.

“Then git on with the tellin’,” Applejack grinned. “No finer pastime than shootin’ the breeze.”

“I’ll begin then, since I’m the beginnin’ of the story,” Delphine said. “See, it started with an attempt to assassinate my sister, but there’s no way t’ tell us apart without speaking ta one of us in conversation. So the mastermind of the whole thing sends an army to collect the body of a girl who liked ta paint lifelike portraits and sell ‘em to passers-by.”

“That doesn’t sound much like an assassination, darling,” Rarity commented. “Usually, assassination is one assassin stalking and killing her prey after making certain that the one she is going to kill is the one that’s supposed to die.”

Delphine chuckled mirthlessly. “Well, th’ mastermind was very attached to brute force an’ terror. So he sends an army after me because he hears a rumor that I’m my sister but being the genius that he was, he send the army after a heavily-fortified city an’ challenged them ta a straight-up fight if they wouldn’t hand me over.”

“I’m surprised they didn’t jus’ laugh their arses off at ‘is lil minion leadin’ th’ army,” Elli grinned.

“That was more o’ less their reaction, although they thought it’d be a fine plan ta sneak me off ta Ratnisbon for safekeeping,” Delphine smiled. “I admit that I wasn’t particularly aware o’ what was happenin’ so I thought it a fine vacation. Still not sure how they got saavy ta how to get to Tirror and how they knew of Ratnisbon, but it was sheer good fortune that they knew both.”

“So you were living in an entirely different world when this army came for you?” Twilight looked between Elli and Delphine. “So if you two weren’t even in the same world, how is it that you’re sisters?”

“Don’t know,” Elli shrugged. “Never thought ta ask mum how me twin sister ended up an’ entire world away. But there’s no doubt we’re sisters, none at all; mum confirms it an’ we’ve got each other’s eyes an’ patterns an’ appearances.”

“Aye, I’m the only one Elli’s age allowed ta chide her for her loose tongue. She won’t accept it from anyone not family or much older.” Delphine’s eyes twinkled mirthfully as she gave her sister a cheeky grin. “At any rate, they got me ta Ratnisbon and then they took care of the army. Made a gift of the minion’s head ta th’ fool that sent ‘em.”

“But the bugger wouldn’t give up, so he hatched th’ most genius of all plans: take his army an’ every army he could trick, bribe, o’ blackmail inta followin’ ‘im an’ start his bonny little invasion,” Elli said, taking up the tale from her sister. “Fer becomin’ a legend fer bein’ a fool, such that most jus’ call ‘im ‘Folly’ and are done, he managed to net ‘imself quite th’ collection o’ Primes ta help ‘im.”

“Primes?” Twilight asked.

“Aye the nine Primes, masters o’ the nine Helles,” Elli replied. “Th’ nine strongest creatures o’ Dark in all th’ endless worlds. As ye can imagine, bein’ able ta recruit any one o’ ‘em, much less six, is quite near impossible but Folly somehow managed. Didn’t win th’ heart o’ th’ Sixth, though, an’ she’s the one that matters. At any rate, he managed ta do somethin’ foolish an brilliant at th’ same time: he invaded Ratnisbon at first ta get at th’ target his minion failed ta claim. He even started out intelligently, preparin’ the field as it were.”

“Destroying resources, assassinating useful targets, spying out vital interests, poisoning food supplies.” Delphine frowned. “Speakin’ of the last, I recall that he favored a peculiar an’ rare thing of foulness to do his work in that regard.”

“Oh, don’t remind me…” Elli sighed. “‘ated the bloody things and their damned masks. ‘ated more what they did ta land. Entire swaths o’ territory, black an’ dead an’ requirin’ th’ nearest thing ta bloody exorcisms ta get sorted out again.” She looked at them with a grave expression. “Here’s hopin’ that’s not one o’ th’ tools yer tormentor decides ta use this time ‘round.”

“Is there anything that can be done to guard against it?” Twilight asked.

“Stake them down, set them afire, and take careful stock o’ anything that comes from the fields they blacken,” Delphine replied grimly. “For lack o’ a better name, we used to call them ‘black spots’ after th’ symbol common to quarantine flags. We never learned how to prevent them from poisonin’ land.”

“So Folly began pretty smartly, preparin’ th’ way with his ‘black spots’ an’ his assassins and all sorts o’ infiltrators and spies. O’ course, he probably had nothin’ ta do with intelligent use o’ ‘is assets but there ain’t a way ta distinguish.” Elli grinned a little. “But he fucked th’ pooch…”

“Elli, language!” Delphine admonished. “We’re in polite company.”

Elli just gave her a cheeky grin. “…fucked th’ pooch somethin’ fierce by invadin’ Ratnisbon first. An’ then he figures out where sis is livin’ an’ sends somethin’ ta get ‘er, still thinkin’ she’s me, an’ pays no attention ta the fact that the village is hostin’ an Inquisition.”

“Why would it be hosting an inquisition?” Twilight blinked. “Did something go wrong?”

“Oh no, nothing like that,” Delphine assured her. “Hosting an Inquisition simply means that they were having one o’ my order staying with them for some days to rest from the long circuit he was riding.”

“And?” Applejack prompted.

Delphine blinked at her. “And explaining what an Inquisition entails will take a long time and is quite a bit off th’ point, so I answered with the Inquisitor’s primary purpose in visitin’ the village.” She paused and looked curiously at Applejack. “How could you tell?”

“Element of Honesty,” Applejack answered proudly.

“I’d say you have more than an element o’ honesty if ye could pick up on that,” Delphine smiled to her. “More like, an almost supernatural attunement to it.”

“No Ah bear the Element of Honesty,” Applejack told her. “Ya’ll ain’t heard of the Elements of Harmony?”

The sisters looked at one another. “We have not,” Delphine admitted. “Kaiya didn’t share much in the way o’ details when she sent us.”

Twilight quirked an eyebrow. “The strongest single magical force in the world seems like a pretty big thing to omit.”

“Eh, Kaiya’s got as much fluff in her head as she has hangin’ off her arse,” Elli chuckled. “Ta be fair, she was occupied so she had ta rely on a messenger ta give us particulars. All we know ‘bout you darlings are that ye’re important and that we need ta see ye kept safe.”

“We’d be happy to introduce ourselves,” Twilight smiled. “Although you don’t need to interrupt your story if you don’t want to.”

“Tis not a happy story, even with its triumphant end,” Delphine smiled back. “We’d be delighted to be introduced to ye and your companions.”

“Great!” Twilight happily clapped her hooves together. “My name is Twilight Sparkle. I’m the Bearer of the… what?”

Both sisters were openly gaping at her. “Yer Twilight Sparkle?” Elli managed after a moment. “Then… who’s she?” She pointed at Rarity.

Rarity looked quite taken-aback before recovering elegantly. “My name is Rarity, darling, and… you thought I was Twilight? Whyever would you think that?”

“The white coat, the markin’ on your flank, your regal bearing, your manner of speech,” Delphine replied. “We mean no unkindness to ye, Twilight, but the one thing we were told of ye was that you were the daughter of a white-coated alicorn who is coregent of Equestria. So we saw a white-coated unicorn with a markin’ that looked sparkle-like and the bearin’ and accent of royalty and we thought…” She looked embarrassed. “I beg your pardon, Lady Sparkle… we meant nothing by it.”

Strangely, Twilight felt more amused by the error than hurt by it, the feeling helped by Rarity’s obvious astonishment that anyone would mistake her for Twilight. She chuckled and patted Delphine on the shoulder. “I guess I take more after my aunt Luna, at least in coloration,” she said kindly. “But I’d have thought that my being an alicorn would have made a difference.”

“When ye’ve met as many offspring of godlike creatures as we have, Lady Sparkle, ye tend not to assume things,” Delphine smiled, laying a talon over the hoof on her shoulder and grasping it lightly. “An’ we aren’t familiar with pony races; for all we know, alicorns are quite common here.”

“I’m afraid not. It’s just me, my mother and her sister, and my old foalsitter, Cadance.” Twilight grinned a bit sheepishly. “Well, not old… more like former. I think she may only be five or so years older then me.”

Delphine chuckled. “Well, tis a pleasure to make your acquaintance, milady.”

“So what’s th’ story with the hornless wingless pink pony that looks like yer twin?” Elli asked, looking Dawn up and down.

“Dawn Sparkle,” Dawn replied immediately. “Her twin sister, complicated story, please don’t ask.”

“See? This is why we assume nothin’ when dealing with the offspring of divinity,” Delphine offered Dawn a talon, which Dawn shook politely. “A pleasure as well, Dawn, though I should like ta hear that story sometime.”

“Well, you won’t,” Dawn replied bluntly.

Delphine smirked. “We’ll see about that, darl.”

“What, are you planning to rummage around in my head for it or something?” Dawn snorted.

“Oh no, darl… if I wanted ye to, you would tell it to me and in very great detail,” Delphine smiled broadly.

“…OK, creepy griffin girl, whatever you say.” Dawn thought a moment then grinned. “If you can make sense of Pinkie over there, I’ll tell you the story.”

“I’m not a prop, Dawn,” Pinkamena sighed. “Pinkamena Diane Pie, please call me ‘Pinkie’, glad to see that Kaiya is stepping up her Game instead of making Spite do it all.”

Elli grinned and took the pink party pony’s proffered hoof, pumping it vigorously. “Well, Pinkie, I think I like ye already. But believe ye me, darl, there’s a devious mind in between those pointy ears and excessive amount o’ fluff.” She suddenly frowned, letting Pinkie’s hoof go. “Although somethin’ is definitely not right. Pullin’ in a Void dragon ta assault ye on the train an’ preparin’ th’ tracks with fortifications are far too insightful for a discipline o’ Quezelzege.”

“Well, he did have very intelligent help at times, sister,” Delphine pointed out. “Though they were foolish enough ta be tricked, Heccate and Vampvipers were quite cunning, dangerous while they were on the field, smart enough to see th’ failure coming and leaving before it hit.”

“But they wouldn’t return in th’ thrall of a hanger-on,” Elli countered. “No one knows how Folly managed th’ feat, but it wouldn’t be possible ta repeat it, not after the Ninth chastised them.”

“Possibly,” Dephine allowed. “So ye, bearer of the Element of Honesty… may I know yer name?”

“Applejack, ma’am,” Applejack replied, sweeping her Stetson off with a smile and offering a hoof. Delphine took it and shook politely, smiling warmly.

“An immense pleasure to meet ye, Applejack. I feel some kinship to ye, with your attunement to honesty and truth, and that is always a joy,” she said with a warmth to match her smile.

“Aw, shucks sugarcube… Ah was just raised right.” But she smiled back as Delphine dropped her hoof and turned to Rarity.

“An’ you’re Rarity,” she said. “A very appropriate name, I wager.”

“I like to think so, darling,” Rarity replied with a bright smile.

“An’ now that we know th’ names o’ the bright pastel-colored ponies, shall we finish our little tale?” Elli grinned.

“Sister, slow down an’ enjoy the moment. We’re in pleasant company, and we can rarely say that.” Delphine gave them all a smile. “Ah, but it would have been a pleasure if we could o’ met ye at the station and taken the entire journey with ye. I’ve never been on a train, you see, and certainly never with ponies.”

For some reason, this came as a surprise to Twilight. “They don’t have trains where you’re from?”

“No, milady Sparkle. The principle of the locomotive is generally understood, but the ability to manufacture the fine pieces of one is still many years away,” Delphine told her. “Mind, one of the new initiatives being worked out between Auric and Ratnisbon is the construction of the rails for the train, but if we intend to use those rails, there is but one way an’ that way is very… complicated.”

“So how do you get around, other than flying?”

“Well, flying is only an option for dragons and simply not practical for any other being,” Delphine explained. “So we… um….” The giffiness blushed and looked uncomfortable. “…uh…”

“We ride horses,” Elli said bluntly. “Similar to yer kind, Lady Sparkle, but much taller an’ they are dumb beasts. They cannot speak an’ according ta those that can understand their minds, they have naught ta say in th’ first place. As you can imagine, meeting highly intelligent equines that kin speak an’ are magically adept was quite astonishing fer us.”

“Need ye have been so blunt, sister?” Delphine sighed as she surveyed the surprised expressions on the five ponies.

“I’ve little time for niceties, sister,” Elli shrugged. “Besides, they don’t seem too traumatized.”

Delphine heaved a great sigh. “One o’ these days, sister…” She shook her head and directed her attention back to Twilight. “At any rate Lady Sparkle if ye would hear it, we could finish the tale.”

“Thought ye wanted to take it slow, sister,” Elli teased.

“If I wait any longer, ye’ll probably begin telling them about Aqualinusian culinary delicacies and there’s just not enough alcohol in the world ta cure them of that trauma,” Delphine told her with a tiny grimace. “Let us see… ah yes, ye’d gotten to the first major error Folly made.”

“Th’ second,” Elli corrected her. “Th’ first was ta invade through Ratnisbon instead of Auric or Aqualinus. Takin’ ‘is strongest opposition by surprise, possibly takin’ them entirely out o’ th’ game, woulda made success possible.”

“I don’t know ‘bout that, sister,” Delphine smirked. “Tis not as if he had an easy time trying to overcome Ratnisbon before marchin’ on. And ta be frank, he never actually gained victory.”

“Neither did they.” Elli paused. “O’ course, ol’ Erik never really intended ta win, jus’ hound ‘em ‘till they made a mistake they couldn’t recover. Which, really, happened before Erik even got inta th’ game, what with sendin’ an assassin, a smart one that knew what there was ta know, stumbled inta a village with one o’ your Inquisitor friends.”

“That’s the second time you’ve mentioned Inquisitors and Inquisition,” Twilight said. “Why is that significant?”

“Imagine th’ most effective an’ cruel interrogator ye’ve ever heard o’ read of, Lady Sparkle,” Elli replied. “Contemplate how they are able ta force th’ truth from anyone with days, weeks, months o’ suffering in every possible manner.”

Twilight’s mind immediately, and involuntarily, leapt to all manner of horrifying examples she’d found through her obsessive devouring of Equestrian history books; needless to say, she’d had a crisis of faith for a few days. And then her unsparing intellect had thrashed her stomach-churning horror into submission and forced her to speak to Celestia about it. Frank honesty from her mother and aunt had helped immeasurably; two quarts of wonderful chocolate-fudge ice cream and the Princesses letting their manes down for a bit, letting her see them just being ponies, had ended any question of there being the slightest trace of the Princesses the history books talked about. Before any of the three knew that Twilight was Celestia’s literal daughter, seeing under the Princess’ masks and talking to them like friends and equals was the most loved and happy Twilight could remember feeling. Aware of Elli’s eyes on her, she nodded to indicate she knew what the griffin was talking about.

“The assassin got itself captured by an interrogator that was even more effective than that,” the helmeted griffiness said. “It told him everything, an’ then he slew it as one never wisely permits an Evil ta live. With full knowledge o’ what Quezelzege intended, th’ Ratnisbonians did what they do best: they left home and went ta live in th’ deserts. Let Folly grab some empty cities fer fun, all th’ while slaughterin’ massive pieces of ‘is armies. Made ‘im madder than anythin’ so ‘e did what a fool does best: turned ‘is back on a foe, writ off half o’ his armies as collateral damage, an’ marched fer Lightbringer Pass.”

“We make it sound like it was an easy time but it wasn’t,” Delphine added soberly. “Quezelzege was a fool an’ he brought some fools with him but the Ninth hand-picked certain o’ the Primes. The First and Second Primes were selected by him and they sold the lives of their minions at a very, very high price. And then there was Phylaxis, the Fifth Prime, the Death-Maker, and the Abomination as well. He was Quezelzege’s trump card, his unliving weapon, a being of pure death and a monstrosity of deepest blackest Evil. Unlike most Evils of his power, he was entirely sane, calculating, and he had no fear of Light o’ Dark.”

“But isn’t Light and Dark magic…?”

“Aye, darl, but there is a difference ‘tween respecting what Light and Dark can do and fearing it,” Delphine replied. “Almost all Evils fear it and those that don’t are either too insane ta know fear or are so powerful and cold that they acknowledge the danger without feeling fear of it. Phylaxis was the second type an’ it made him far and away the most dangerous of Folly’s lackeys.”

“All th’ same, Folly showed astonishin’ restraint when he reached Liminata, the heavy fortifications that bar Lightbringer Pass an’ make it all but impossible ta go from Ratnisbon ta Auric without leave of the garrison in th’ fortress atop the Pass-spannin’ wall,” Elli continued. “He besieged th’ fortifications for nearly two months before he lost his patience an’ sent Phylaxis ta storm th’ walls an slaughter th’ garrison. An’ this, my darlin’ ponies, is where I come inta this story.”
“Ye see, dears, I was a tad unlike Delphine here in that I hadn’t determined my course in life ‘till I was about 18. Oh, I’d determined that I’d be a warrior o’ some sort, but nothin’ more specific. An’ then I heard a bit more ‘bout th’ Teutonic Order an’ determined ta go an’ be a member. Th’ Praetor, the unofficial leader o’ the Twelve Templar that led th’ Order, gave ‘is approval an’ off I went.”

The griffin paused and beneath her helmet, Twilight got the impression of golden eyes becoming melancholy and it was reflected in her voice when she resumed. “I was actually in th’ Cathedral, headquarters of my Order, when a messenger came stumblin’ through th’ doors with tidings. It was th’ first time in hundreds o’ years that the Sentry Bells of the Cathedral had been rung ta warn that Auric or its allies had been invaded an’ that war was upon us. War changes everythin’: even in a nation that’s prepared, some hear an’ know that they will die, mothers hold their children close an’ wives cry in th’ arms o’ their husbands that will soon be called ta service. Even in victory, war is th’ most evil o’ beasts and it’s much, much worse when th’ war is against an Evil an’ their rotten kind. I can’t an’ won’t describe what Evils do ta those mortals they kill, but there is no words for it; Evils are literally named, for they indulge in every evil impulse ‘pon the bodies o’ those brave enough ta oppose them. ‘Tis why Orders like mine an’ Delphine’s exist; ‘tis why, I suspect, there are Elements o’ Harmony in your world an’ two goddesses rulin’ in th’ mortal realms: ta defend yerselves from what lays out there in the blackness ‘tween worlds, waitin’ hungrily ta pounce ‘pon their prey.”

“Ye’re becoming melancholy, sister,” Delphine said softly, stretching a cloak-covered wing out and laying it gently over her sister. “Have cheer, for I know that ye takes great relish in speaking of your confrontation with Phylaxis and what came of it.”

“Aye,” Elli acknowledged, leaning into her sister’s side slightly. “Th’ experience made a very deep impression on me an’ it seemed th’ right time ta bring it up.” She took a steadying breath. “Auric took th’ time that Ratnisbon gave us ta fulfill our part of an ancient oath between their Emperor an’ our King: Ratnisbon would bleed th’ enemy, woundin’ and distactin’ while Auric gathered herself fer one mighty blow that would destroy th’ enemy. They bought us nearly a year an’ when th’ call came from Liminata that a fell an’ terrible creature had taken th’ field ta slaughter all the garrison, my Order sent its thirteenth Templar, its newly-minted Hand, ta slay the abomination while ‘e was foolishly exposed. I was… I am uniquely able in that regard an’…”

“…and you slew the Slayer, the first mortal in a thousand generations to kill a phlaxi.” The precise and clipped masculine voice was familiar, one that Twilight had heard but an hour ago and this knowledge made her construct her shield even as she turned to look at the looming dragon that seemed to be made of the shadows themselves. He bared his teeth in a hungry grin as he loomed over the ponies and the griffin sisters, his paw now easily as big as Twilight herself.

“Oh, yer back,” Elli sighed, reaching back and sliding her sword out of its scabbard. “Barely an hour ta restore yerself and reform a shell… impressive for a Void dragon that ain’t Spite.”

The dragon’s eyes narrowed briefly and for a moment, Twilight felt sure that he’d react with the same animal rage as last time. But he snorted twin puffs of shadow and restrained himself. “Let us just say, Templar, that wounded pride recovers faster than a soul set afire.” His eyes fell on Twilight. “We did not complete our conversation, Twilight Sparkle, and we really must.”

“I’ll say the same thing as before,” Twilight replied. “Leave us alone.”

“That is not possible,” he smirked, bringing his head down so Twilight could see smoldering amber eyes shining from the mass of shadows that seemed to form the physical shape of the Void dragon. “Now outside the protection of your lovely train, this can happen one of two ways Twilight Sparkle: we can converse in a civil manner and you can civilly trot along to your destination, where you and your companions will be prisoners. Or, and I much prefer this ‘or’, we can thrash you until you’re faint with pain and the loss of blood… and force-march you to your destination, where you and your companions will be prisoners.”

“Why even make them choose, beast?” Delphine asked with a touch of curiousity.

“Because I am subject to another, and it is that other’s will that Twilight Sparkle and all her companions be brought willingly and unharmed to their imprisonment.” He shrugged, or at least his shape shifted in a way that strongly suggested a shrug. “I much prefer to teach this arrogant mortal morsel her place in the universe and show that I fear no bastard progeny of a petty half-goddess.”

“Heh,” Elli snickered. “Yer kind has always been far more self-assured than yer success justifies. You, so easily dissipated an’ wounded by a little mortal, presumes ta teach Lady Sparkle her place? Ye are pathetic an’ I have no doubt that the master holdin’ your leash will thank us for riddin’ ‘im of such a burdensome pet. So c’mon, boyo… let’s see ye teach ‘er.”

He laughed amusedly and with a chilling level of confidence. “And place myself within your striking distance? I am arrogant, not stupid. Besides, why soil my claws on this when I, like the delightsome little ponies, have friends?”

As if the last word was a signal, a cacophony of brush rustling and breaking under hundreds of hooves erupted from every direction and bluish points of light filled the shadows on either side of them. The Void dragon chuckled with the self-assured rumble of someone who knows that they’ve won and are simply waiting to see their victory come to fruition as he started to dissipate into the shadows of the forest. “Don’t kill them,” he said, apparently to his allies. “And do try to avoid damaging them too much… I’ve had enough holes torn in me by a petulant brat for one day.”

And just like that, the forest exploded into onrushing forms. Twilight got a brief impression of some nightmarish amalgamation of pony, dog, and insect before a flash of light and heat staggered her and the creature rushing directly at her simply… went away. “Don’t jus’ stand there, lass!” Elli yelled. “Keep mobile an’ start wit’ th’ magic tricks!”

Twilight lit her horn, extending her shield into a half-sphere covering her and Dawn, trying to buy a moment to logically assess the situation and formulate a response. In the amethyst glow of her magical construct, she saw doglike creatures with eyes glowing a menacing blue-white and gleaming scything talons protruding from limb and paws alike rushing her friends and the griffin sisters alike with lupine howls and barks. She noticed it, noted it, and calmly put the observation aside to turn her focus on the developing melee.

Twilight Sparkle had always been different from other unicorns her age, and it really had nothing to do with the fact that she had a magical font akin to a small inland sea. As a filly, it’d just made her different; when she grew up a little and had spent some years in Princess Celestia’s personal care, she realized that her growing-up oddity was an instinct for order. It manifested in her occasional blind panic when her personal order was disrupted but it also added a third leg to the traditional fight-or-flight response: analyze. Combined with her intense concentration, in which she could entirely shut out the world and just absorb knowledge from the books she loved so much, it meant that a howling mass of alien bodies became, in her mind’s eye, about two hundred individual bodies.

<><

“Men of Ratnisbon, women of Ratnisbon, my brothers and my sisters in this, the cause of all Tirror! Behold the Great Silent Plain before Auricus, the great city of Auric in which its king rules and gives law to all under the star and dragon banner! Behold our enemy, numerous as the sands, bestial and without mercy, driven onwards by monsters that would feast upon our children, despoil our lands, and have murdered His High Majesty Richard Aurelius!
“Men of Ratnisbon, women of Ratnisbon, my brothers and my sisters in this, the cause of all Tirror! Behold the proud banners of Auric that stretch from one end of the sky to the next, defiant against these monsters, bloody meat for their mindless hunger, a lure to their folly, the hammer! Behold the proud banners of Ratnisbon that stretch from one end of the sky to the next, hands bathed in the blood of these monsters, the door to their cage, incidental to their folly, the anvil!
“Men of Ratnisbon, women of Ratnisbon, my brothers and my sisters in this, the cause of all Tirror! Behold the sky full of the vengeful fire of dragonkind, friends to the Sword Crown and the Steel Throne, clutch of the revered Matriarch of the Hundred Isles, glorious beyond all creatures and mighty even as the gods beyond the Void, terror of these monsters and all that drive them to the slaughter! Behold the hammer already to strike, and the anvil already to stand, and the terror already to fall!
“Fear naught, for even as these demons drive slavering to their supposed prey, they are as cattle to the slaughterhouse, in our hands to be broken that they might never rise again! Forever we shall name this place the Blood Plain, for the grasses shall drink demon blood for a thousand times a thousand years and our revenge upon these shall be so mighty that all worlds shall speak of it! Your steel is strong, your wills are invulnerable, your lives are yours, your courage unshakable!”

The towering Templar with his moustache falling almost to his collarbone, a decoration that would be immensely silly on any other man and in any other place, smiled with the fierce pride of a true patriot surveying the greatest of his countrymen. Sister-Inquisitor Delphine Miriam Drake smiled as she turned her gaze to the vast plain, seething with the monstrous forms of the beasts the remaining Primes of Quezelzege’s army had brought with them to this place to destroy the heart of Auric, and imagined that she could see the minarets of the Teutonic Cathedral rising above the city walls. The sea of howling, blood-maddened hellspawn surging towards the shallow line behind which she stood were almost a separate phenomenon, strangely unreal and irrelevant, for every man and woman knew that they would not break. They were the anvil for the hammer to drive against, the unshakable rock in the midst of the river, and as the Templar raised his sword and took his place in the line, his vast shield before him, Delphine raised the inscribed lantern that was the symbol of her order and let its Light bathe the Ratnisbonian soldiers, a physical sign of the Weaver that they gave homage to and the Archangel that had commissioned them for this cause alone.

“Soldiers of Ratnisbon!” The Templar roared as the enraged and bloodthirsty animals reached the line and gathered themselves to leap upon their supposedly helpless prey. “STAND FAST!”

The memory of the battle just five years prior brought a nostalgic smile to Delphine’s face as she glanced over at her sister, seeing the same wistful smile. “I think I’ve been here before, sister,” She laughed at the wave of talon-covered creatures came in sight.

“Aye,” Serafine agreed cheerfully. “Th’ wanker that warned against history repeatin’ itself was stark ravin’ mad.” She slipped her sword out of its sheath and swept it in a gentle circle in front of her as the first creatures gathered themselves to leap. “I sorta like gettin’ ta do th’ best parts over.”

<><

A majority of these flowed at the griffin sisters whom the Void dragon seemed to regard as the biggest threat. Unlike her, they didn’t brace against the tide but let it envelope them—and then a cacophony of light, sound, and sharp shining metal seemed to explode out of the roiling mass, a magical dome construct pushing out from Delphine with an almost explosive intensity as Elli’s sword swept out and took a scythe-like claw off the shoulder of the nearest beast, causing it to tighten in sudden pain.

“Uh, sis? You’re not going out in that melee, are you?” Dawn inquired tentatively. “Because I’m not really good with these hooves and…”

And suddenly, the pink earth pony was quiet, enclosed in a soundproof bubble and then she was invisible inside an illusion that made her appear to be not there at all; already in an intense state of concentration, siphoning her vast font off into the pair of spells was as easy as wishing it. With that, Twilight contracted the shield bubble around her and walked calmly towards the mass that had swallowed Pinkie Pie, searching for her cheery friend in the attacking creatures.

Pinkamena was… actually, it was difficult to figure out exactly what she was doing but it seemed to be making it impossible for the creatures’ claws to connect. A creature would leap at her and crash into a fellow because Pinkie was now standing on top of their two stunned forms. Claws swung at her horizontally dug into the ground because they had somehow ended up tilted to one side and found themselves laying there trying to tug the grounded talons free of the earth. Creatures that tried to grab her got a hug from behind before Pinkie butted them in the back of the head, laying them out unconscious. When many of them tried to coordinate, they ended up in a pile with Pinkie standing beside them giggling as the confused creatures tried to figure out what had just happened. Despite Pinkamena’s glum assurance that she’d be useless in a fight, she seemed to be doing quite well.

Twilight skirted the edge of the melee, batting a couple creatures aside that had caught a glimpse of her and begun to turn, and looked for Rarity, who her logical mind informed her would be the least well-equipped for this battle: even as Jade, the elegant alabaster unicorn relied on an array of tools to turn her intense training of mind and body into a one-pony storm of death.

Her logical mind, it appeared, was wrong. At that point, a body struck her shield, making it flicker as the dying animal ricocheted off and lay there unmoving, its blood pooling under it from what looked like a stab wound that went through its entire body. What was even more surprising was the pony that put it there: somehow, and Twilight had no idea how, Rarity had her hoof blades and all the light, deadly equipment she wielded in her Jade persona strapped to her body. She’d even taken a moment to tie back her mane and turn it a deep, forest green, lacking only the outfit she normally wore in her assassin guise to conceal who she really was.

“Am I imagining things?” Twilight asked herself as she stopped, staring as a head popped off a pair of shoulders seemingly of its own accord. “But she buried the…” She paused and grimaced as her mind took the step. “…she lied to us,” she concluded with a pang of hurt; even working on being objective, she still felt a tiny stab in her gut realizing that Rarity had blatantly lied—and the stab went deeper as she realized that Applejack would have easily picked up on the lie, and she chose to keep it to herself. Granted, Rarity’s life as Jade was her affair, her business, and even a dear friend had no right to demand that she tell all. Still… the lie hurt a bit. Twilight shook her head. “Notice it, note it, put it aside,” she told herself, taking a breath and obeying her own advice. Rarity didn’t need her, at least not at the moment, and some part of Twilight didn’t want to see the Element of Generosity killing with cold, easy efficiency. ‘Jade’ always felt wrong and unnatural to Twilight, the antithesis of a beautiful, selfless mare that spent most of her time immersed in her limitless creativity—and was swiftly becoming famous for her combination of flawless high-society mannerisms and gorgeous dressmaking.

She was distracted enough by the disturbing sight of Rarity flowing between attackers, bathing in their blood by simple proximity, that she was almost knocked over when a quartet of creatures bounded from the forest and went straight for her. Now, one of the first things she’d taught Trixie while schooling her in combat magic was a spell that allowed a mare with limited reserves to throw lots of power in a very short time, forming dozens of small spheres of force and then throwing them with a tiny effort of magic. Trixie, however, didn’t have the font to use the spell to its limit; Twilight did. Turning towards the woods, where she knew nearly a hundred more creatures were skulking, waiting to rush in and reinforce the efforts of companions, the air crackled as thousands of tiny spheres, each no bigger than a ping-pong ball, sparkled into existence. Five each hit all four of the creatures rushing at her, sending them flying into the underbush—and the forest began exploding.

Bushes were ripped up and sent flying, coming apart in midair and turning into tiny wooden missiles as the spheres outpaced them. Entire trees were obliterated as hundreds of spheres blasted straight through them like bullets. Plants were shredded into scorched green paste and impacts with the earth threw up so much mud, dust, and rocky debris that it was hard to tell that Twilight was bombarding the forest with telekinestic magic: it looked all the world like she was lifting up a tidal wave of ground and sending it sweeping into the woods in front of her. She kept it going for precisely two minutes (somehow, her own mental voice had begun calmly counting “one-one thousand, two-one thousand, three-one thousand…”) before cutting off the flow as neatly as Rarity might snip a thread and turned to find Applejack in the fight.

Applejack wasn’t hard to find at all; she was the only one that wasn’t really moving around as she fought back. Any of the creatures that got close enough got a patented Apple family double-hoof buck to the head and in the flickering light of her shield, Twilight’s stomach rumbled threateningly as she realized that the greenish fluid on the earth pony’s hooves was the blood of the creatures. Apparently, Applejack realized it too: Twilight got a brief glimpse of a pony doing her very best not to think about the fact that she was collapsing skulls, not bucking apples out of trees. After the first rush, the creatures were circling her warily, one rushing and then another, testing her reactions as they stayed clear of the fatal blows Applejack seemed to be distributing without effort. Twilight knew, though, that it was only a matter of time, and the creatures seemed to be in no hurry, steadily wearing the earth pony down by inches.

Having rested on the train and let herself relax in the presence of close friends and the knowledge of a small library a mere car away, her font was full and seeing her friend bloody and bloodies, exhausted and being worn down, Twilight felt no compunction about spending it lavishly. The first creatures she laid eyes on found themselves lifted into the air and their heads cracked together. A knot of them had tendrils of lavender magic wrapped around their middles and flung heedlessly into the thick forests in the other direction, away from the twenty foot deep blast zone Twilight’s rolling bombardment had carved into the woods where the four attacker had originated, rushing, Twilight now realized, to reinforce their comrades trying to wear down Applejack. Blasts of force flung the other creatures by ones and by groups away from the stubborn farmpony and the moment they were gone, Twilight dashed over to her friend, taking advantage of what she was certain would be a temporary lull to check over the other mare.

She was bruised with small cuts from incidental strikes and was breathing heavily, but Applejack seemed otherwise fine. “T… thanks Twi,” she managed between panting breaths.

“What’re friends for?” Twilight smiled before lighting her horn again. She was no healer but the horrifying event of the Guardian had convinced her to make an intense study of the subject of healing magic; being Twilight, she’d also dabbled in (as in, read “only” fifteen comprehensive books) anatomy and physiology. As such, she could do a simple cantrip and simply pour lots of magic into it. The orange earth pony shuddered with relief and her breathing stabilized as the warm rush of rejuvenating magic swept over her.

“Heh,” Applejack grinned.

“What?”

“Wish ya’ll could see yourself, Twi… ya never looked more like your mother’s daughter than right now, standin’ there all cool and calm with a sweet smile and healin’ a friend with an effortless touch of yer horn,” Applejack smiled, her face showing with the frank honesty that was as much a part of her as her apple cutie mark.

Twilight felt her cheeks get warm. “Thanks AJ,” she smiled more broadly, briefly, before the smile evaporated. “By the way, I saw Rarity a few minutes ago and she reminded me of somepony…”

Applejack’s smile evaporated as well and she suddenly looked deeply uncomfortable. Before she could reply, though, she heard a sharp cry from where she’d left Dawn and whirled around. The creatures were circling a certain earth pony who was doing her best to turn along with them, nervously eyeing them. How the sound and invisibility bubble had vanished and how the creatures could possibly have seen through it were questions that fell by the wayside. Suddenly, nothing mattered except her sister being stalked by several bestial-looking creatures with glowing eyes and like moments of intense concentration, using her magic was as easy as wishing and six very large spheres of the magical force she’d bombarded the forest with snapped into existence.

Several moments passed between Twilight forming the spheres and her standing by her sister, laying a consoling wing over her as she trembled but she was unconscious of just what passed in those moments; all she knew was that the creatures had just gone away and her sister was safe again and really, what else mattered?

“Sis…” Dawn said in a trembling voice.

“Yeah?”

“Next time you just shut me up and do the invisible thing on me without adding a bucking shield, can I kick you flank? Like, really really hard?”

Twilight gave a short, weak chuckle. “Glad you’re OK, Dawn.”

“Well how about you, miss badflank goddess-child?” Dawn grinned. “Mum didn’t even do half that many awesome things, even when she’d gone all evil and scary.”

Twilight blinked at her sister and blushed hard. “Um… thanks, I guess…”

“So, how about we, like, stick together until all the weird things go away?” She frowned. “And what the hay happened to our self-appointed bodyguards? Why’re we all fighting instead of them kicking plot for us?”

Twilight frowned in a mirror of her sister’s as she expanded and reinforced her shield. “Good question…” She turned in the last direction she’d seen the sisters and forced her mind to still and focus on the far end of the battle, the end that seemed to have the largest and most chaotic maelstrom of creatures attacking. Only a moment of observation made it clear why Kaiya Aon would send these two to keep watch over them.

Elli wielded her blade with an easy, fluid motion that made clear that she was fully as talented as her story had implied, easily comparable to Rarity in the effortless fluidity of her movements. The griffin seemed to never stop moving, catching descending talons, slashing across faces, bringing an outstretched armored wing around to club a foe into unconsciousness. Scythe-like claws were swept off paws and joints and unmoving bodies seemed to follow her but her blade was almost entirely clean of blood. Delphine was almost the opposite, the consummate rock in the midst of the river, serene and almost unmoving as she wove magic like ethereal clay around herself. Spheres of force and fire flowed with dismissive ease from Delphine’s talons but the fire crashed to earth, causing the creatures to jump back and the force grazed, causing pain and ripping off pieces of carapace but not cracking them in half or caving in skulls. With the grim, almost enthusiastic, way that they’d discussed war, Twilight wouldn’t have ever expected to see the pair making such an obvious effort to be nonlethal.

She was prevented from focusing further on the mystery by a sudden impact against her shield from behind, hard enough to cause her to stumble slightly, and she turned to see one of the creature rearing up for another solid buck that Twilight had a funny feeling was easily comparable to Applejack’s best work. Well, that wouldn’t do at all so she waited until the beast… wait, buck? The sudden question in her head scrambled her attempt to trip up the creature and this time, she stumbled and fell off her feet. Another solid kick and her attacker turned to begin raking at the shield with its wicked claws. Twilight huffed a breath of slight annoyance, not even remotely threatened by the attack, and crafted a band of magic around the creature’s front legs, causing it to fall on its face, then following it up by restraining its rear legs.

The creature laid there for a moment, its sides heaving, before turning its head and looking up at her with what was very clearly an annoyed expression. The clear demonstration of a mind much more complex than the bestial appearance suggested made Twilight realize that the Void dragon wasn’t talking to some unseen controller of their attackers but to these creatures specifically… it was clear that they understood Equiish quite well if he could give them the instructions he had and expect them to understand. For a moment, she shuffled the noise and chaos of the battle into the back of her mind and looked down at the creature she’d just confined.

“You can understand me, can’t you?”

Intensely blue featureless eyes stared into hers for several moments and then the creature gave a curt nod.

“Why do you obey that… creature that was ordering you to capture me and my friends?”

She got a dumbfounded stare in return before the corners of the creature’s face twitched slightly in what Twilight supposed was a tiny smirk before her captive laid their head back down and visibly relaxed, seemingly unconcerned about their bonds and not the least bit uncomfortable laying there helpless while the fight continued outside the bubble of protective magic.

“Sis, did you honestly expect a random… um, whatever that is to answer that?” Dawn snorted. “I mean, assuming it even can with that mouth. It doesn’t look well-configured for Equiish speech or any other language you know.”

“It can’t hurt to try,” Twilight shrugged as she turned back to observing the battle. She had to admit that the creatures was amazingly well-coordinated; she’d just barely left Applejack’s side, even blasting the forest back to dissuade further attacks from that direction, but they were already swarming the earth pony a second time and in even greater numbers… and, Twilight realized as she watched, with vastly more cunning coordination. Creatures would get into range of a buck but be just out of it or below the blow when it came; meanwhile, others would dart in and score a small hit. A small one, but it was already undoing all the healing work she’d done and then some. From where she was standing, she knew that it was impossible to reliably take out the attackers without accidentally hurting AJ.

It was approximately at this point that her head finally brought up something that had been tickling the back of her mind ever since the first rush: only two of the creatures had made any attempt to attack her and it wasn’t until she was far away that they attempted to hurt Dawn; all the attacks seemed focused on disabling the other ponies and entirely ignoring the alicorn.

“You see it too, huh?” Dawn grinned a little mockingly. “Too ya long enough, genius. Awful strange that the dragon that bosses these things around talked directly to you, threatening bodily harm, and then his minions make no attempt to hurt you”

“It is,” Twilight agreed, thinking. “I’m going to try an experiment.”

“Let me guess: you’re going to lose the shield to see what happens.”

“Essentially.”

“Sis, if this gets us beaten up, remember that I hate you very much.”

Twilight grinned at her and doused her horn. Without the eerie lavender-tinted light of her shield around her, the area immediately dimmed and Twilight belatedly lit her horn again so she could continue to see. It was just as she expected: the creatures were ignoring her entirely despite the Void dragon’s threat and they were also paying Dawn no attention since Twilight had rejoined her. Lighting her horn, however, revealed two pieces of less welcome news: in the very brief moment of darkness, when Twilight’s lavender beacon of a horn engaged in serious spellcraft had been doused, Applejack and Rarity were down, a creature literally sitting on each of their four legs. Applejack looked quite a bit worse for wear, although it was hard to tell from a distance how badly-off she was; she certainly looked exhausted but Twilight noted with relief that she wasn’t wincing or showing signs of being in real pain.

Rarity, on the other hand, looked blood-soaked but it being Rarity, being covered in green-tinged blood became some sort of macabre fashion statement. Notable, though, was the fact that the creatures had not merely disarmed her but had somehow broken every piece of assassin equipment Rarity had been carrying. Knives had their handles snapped off, her leg blades had been broken in half and the straps for securing them had been ripped off and shredded, noxious powders had been dumped haphazardly on the ground and the delicate glass containers that made them into weapons shattered with apparent vigor, and the pony herself was being restrained not only by creatures holding her legs but a scything claw pressed against her neck tightly, the razor-sharp inside cutting circle tinged with Rarity’s blood from a tiny cut its owner had inadvertently inflicted.

Pinkie was easily dodging still but Twilight caught her eye and realized that she was doing it for pettiness now; she’d apparently noticed that their friends were down and under threat and her eyes asked for Twilight’s permission to stop. Twilight, her eyes fixing on Applejack and Rarity, suddenly unsure of her ability to free them before the creatures could harm them, gave her a small nod. Almost comically, the creatures that had been trying to seize her immediately piled on her as if they were afraid that she was about to get loose again and continue her escapades; notably, though, they didn’t bother to restrain her.

Twilight turned to the griffin sisters to tell them that the fight appeared to be over but, to her surprise, the two were placidly lounged on the ground and talking between them in low tones, totally heedless of the confused-looking creatures surrounding them and looking warily between the two. Twilight took a step towards them, gauging the reaction of the creatures; at their non-response, she turned and trotted over to the pair.

“…burn like hellhouds, though,” Elli was saying as she got close enough to hear. “I admit, sister, that I am out of me depth here.”

“Aye, we are indeed,” Delphine responded. “If we weren’t so sure that it was impossible, I’d think them Elites.”

“What’re you two talking about?” Twilight furrowed her brow. “Hellhounds?”

“Jus’ speculatin’ on what our friends here are,” Elli replied. “They look like spittin’ images o’ a critter called a hellhound but they got th’ glowin’ eyes o’ what’re called Ninth Hellhounds o’ Elites. That, an’ they’re fully ascended.”

“It means that they’re thinkin’ and reasonin’ creatures,” Delphine supplied before Twilight could ask. “They can clearly understand yer language and think abstractly, as they recognized yer assassin friend’s tools as what they are and systematically destroyed ‘em. And yet, they’re restraining your friends like soldiers takin’ other soldiers prisoner. Be mighty fine if we could converse with ‘em, but I doubt they’re capable o’ forming the words of our language.”

“I noticed you trying to avoid killing them.”

“Well, we don’t think they’re Elites but unless we had it confirmed by one o’ ‘em directly… well, it’s very, very unwise ta trifle with any servant o’ the Ninth Prime.” Elli grimaced. “Not a bad sort, actually quite honorable an’ pleasant, but he takes th’ well-bein’ of ‘is servants very seriously.”

“And they weren’t trying to kill us or do us serious harm,” Delphine replied. “We could tell immediately, all sorts of very subtle signs that they were makin’ a supreme effort ta subdue without harm.”

Twilight felt a tap on her shoulder and she turned to see the creature she’d bound with magic (although she wasn’t sure how she knew this since all of them looked identical) looking steadily at her before gesturing towards her subdued friends with a toss of its head.

“I have no intention of trying to fight you, if that’s what you’re asking me,” Twilight informed it. “Three of my friends pinned and threatened sort of makes sure of that.”

The creature gave her a look of mild embarrassment before nodding and using a paw to make a gesture to the rest. As one, the creatures lets her friends up and began to quickly and efficiently go from fallen to fallen, checking each for signs of life and leaving the ones that were dead. A few of them strode over to where the griffin sisters had left their pile of disabled but not seriously hurt attackers and looked genuinely surprised when they realized that the griffins hadn’t killed anyone. One of them (which looked slightly smaller than the others) turned and suddenly threw its legs around a startled Delphine’s neck, making a series of growls, whistles, and clicks that seemed to be the language the creatures spoke. Delphine tentatively patted the creatures back, smiling nervously, before she was released and the creatures began to care for their wounded.

“So you can speak, just not our language,” Twilight said to the apparent leader.

She was surprised when the leader shook its head and gave her what was quite obviously a tiny, enigmatic smile before turning and starting to call out instructions to its subordinates in the odd language, striding away with a liquid grace, a reptilian tail Twilight hadn’t noticed before flowing back and forth as it went.

“OK, that confirms that they’re not any sort o’ hellhound,” Delphine mentioned. “Hellhounds, even ascended ones, can’t make sounds o’ any sophistication, certainly nothing so complex as that language.” She frowned thoughtfully. “Something damn familiar about their language, though. It sounds sort of like…”

“…low Draconic,” Elli finished. “Could they be a dragonspawned race?”

“It’d match. Intelligence, manifest emotion, pack mentality, clear hierarchy, military-like obedience ta someone higher in the hierarchy…”

“Well gals whatever they call themselves, there’s definitely one thing we know they are,” Dawn piped up.

“An’ what’s that, darl?”

“Our captors.”

Spite: Void's Grasp

“So these are the Griffin Provinces,” Spite commented as she adjusted her course to glide under a bank of clouds, smiling. The line between Equestria and the Provinces was amazingly stark: on one side of the divide was a fertile, verdant, green land and on the other, a monochromatic desert as far as the eye could see, its flat expanse broken only by massive pillars of rock, mesas upon which thriving cities of griffins were built. The walls and structures of the cities weren’t only built on the mesas but even from the distance she was at, Spite could tell that the structures were built though the mesas as well, the gargantuan natural features built into the living spaces of the leonine avians and probably even molded by centuries of patient effort.

“Yup, boring as ever,” Rainbow commented, gliding casually on her back, rear legs crossed as if she was lounging on solid ground. “Most awesome thermals in the world, though.”

“One of the best things about deserts,” Spite sighed happily as she descended low enough to feel the warm, dry air wafting over her wing membranes. “Second only to medusae and sandrunners, at least where I come from.”

“Medusae?” Luna asked as she took a position at Spite’s wing. “That name sounds much like ‘Maredusa’, a gorgon in one of our old foal’s tales.”

“Who, in turn, sounds like Medusa, the girl for whom medusae are named.” Spite closed her eyes, recalling…
…a girl, adult in truth but a quite young in comparison to her, taking Spite’s hand in two of hers the touch pleasantly warm and comfortable, looking slightly up with vibrant, emerald-green serpentine eyes. “I am honored, Spite Drae’thul, to meet the sister of my queen and lady,” she says in a pan pipes voice. “You are beautiful in my sight and the all-knowing sight of the Weaver, made all the lovelier by bonds of family and friendship.” She then stands on tiptoes and warm, whisper-soft lips press against Spite’s forehead in a gesture of friendship and blessing entirely appropriate for a priestess to bestow upon an adherent. With Medusa, though, the chaste kiss on the forehead was inevitably followed by the soft cool scales of her serpent-hair nuzzling softly and briefly at the one their owner had bestowed the mark of affection on.
“Thank you, High Priestess,” Spite had replied with a smile to match the beatific expression on Medusa’s face. “I appreciate your time.”
“My time is for the faithful, and you know the Weaver as well as any.” Medusa had bowed deeply, her palms open and her arms spread, a traditional gesture of harmlessness and peace that the matriarch of her race had somehow picked up, snow-white robes of silk that preserved her modesty while displaying the graceful slimness of her scaled form pooling at her feet. ”Give your sister my best, I pray thee.”
…and she smiled even more broadly, letting her eyes open again. “Who, I might add, is a lovely girl and a well-loved priestess in the semi-religious faith called The Way of the Balanced Hand, the veneration of The Weaver.”

Luna looked at her steadily before smiling a little. “Remembering her?”

“She’s difficult to forget,” Spite chuckled. “She’s young, practically a newborn child in comparison to me, and yet she has immense power in her hands. And what does she do with this terrible and deadly power? She serves as a priestess, one known for being sweet-natured.” She glanced over at Luna. “What do the stories say that Maredusa is like?”

“Our myths are vague on the subject of what kind of being she was, only going so far as to call her a monster and talk about her death at the hooves of a pegasus hero in the distant past,” Luna told her. “Given my own experience with being poorly-understood, I don’t put as much stock in such simple things.”

“Was she real?”

“She is real.” Luna smiled very slightly. “I remembered her from a thousand years ago and visited her after my return to see how she was. She had a daughter, Marr Belle, and was quite pleasant to me, although she is still very prickly when it comes to pegasi and alicorns.”

“Why?” Spite barely jumped at the soft voice of Fluttershy, starting to get used to the supremely unobtrusive pegasus seeming to appear out of nowhere. She was surprised to hear a strong note of sadness in the butter-colored mare’s voice.

“A pegasus, the pegasus that the myths claimed killed her in fact, took advantage of her and broke her heart,” Luna replied with a touch of terseness. “It made her very bitter towards ponies generally and winged ponies specifically.” She gave Fluttershy a reassuring look. “Although if anypony could break through her bitterness, it’d be the Element of Kindness.”

Fluttershy gave her a shy look of gratitude. “Oh, that would be very nice.”

Spite nodded. “Does she live in the griffin lands?”

“No, she lives in the eastern lands. The ones that are uncharted,” Luna admitted. “Which is partly why they’re uncharted: Maredusa is just one of the legendary creatures that shelter there, away from ponykind where they will remain undisturbed and more importantly, won’t hurt anypony.”

“Are they prisoners?”

“Only of their own personal honor and self-interest,” the alicorn replied. “Personal honor, because they gave their word that they’d leave ponykind alone if ponykind left them alone. Self-interest because most of them had suffered at the hooves of ponies, sometimes for good cause and sometimes out of sheer prejudice.”

“That’s…” Spite frowned. “Honestly, that’s sort of sad. If the monsters of your legends are anything like the monsters of my home, their presence would be a joy to your people.”

Luna smiled at this as they descended to skim the sands where the rising heat from the arid soil made gliding effortless. “I’d like to hear about the monsters of your home sometime, Spite. You seem to think fondly of your home’s counterpart to Maredusa, and you didn’t say what sandrunners are.”

“Oh, I could talk for days about the races of the Helles,” Spite beamed. “For example, sandrunners are…”

Precisely what sandrunners were, she didn’t get a chance to say because the sand exploded. More accurately, the tentacled creature of the Void that had been hiding under the sand used its supernatural strength to shove ten times its body weight in sand and sunbaked clay up in a huge geyser, attempting to blind its prey as dozens of barbed tentacles whipped out to grab them. The strike was blindingly fast; the strike was too slow to catch a rainbow-maned pegasus and the terrified friend she hauled out of the way, leaving the tentacles to flail uselessly against thin air.

“Go, Flutters!” Spite heard Rainbow call in the back of her mind that wasn’t occupied with slipping in between the striking appendages with the fluidity that would have made her fellow pole-dancers envious, flicking a few sparks of Light at the passing limbs and letting herself enjoy a moment of satisfaction as a sharp keen of pain slipped from the mostly-concealed being. That was, until she realized that the beast wasn’t recoiling away from her but cringing away from a point just behind her and to the right.

Without the slightest hint of pride or bragging, Luna had casually mentioned acting as the field general when Equestria was forced into war, and offhandedly admitting to having shed blood with her own hooves. Twisting around to see what was causing the Void being to back away, Spite saw that the Princess of the Moon was being modest. Where the beast had two dozen tentacles when it had attacked, six now twitched on the arid ground below, the severed stumps bubbling with an acidic decay from the pair of elegant Darkness blades that twirled with lethal beauty in midair to either side of the alicorn diarch. The lovely and subtle smile of relaxed happiness was gone, replaced by eyes of predatory focus that literally shimmered with the awesome power of a goddess. Silver armor that seemed to be made of moonlight itself covered her from hoof to wing to the tip of her muzzle, sigils of protection literally flowing into place over the gleaming surface that, in the light of the desert sun, momentarily blinded the surprised Void dragoness. The starry twinkle of her mane seemed to flow out into what was visible of her coat, now turned the jet black of the deepest, darkest, hour of nighttime and deep violet magic writhed and sparkled around the lethal-looking spike of Luna’s horn.

“Foul and foolish creature!” Luna cried, her Royal Canterlot Voice vibrating with terrible power, a pulsating physical presence against Spite’s magical senses. “Thou has erred in supposing that thou canst lay thy foul touch upon Us or harm even a hair on Our companions!” She gracefully alighted on the ground before the clearly-surprised Void creature, her blades twirling and sweeping in a deadly dance, particles of sand dancing around her hooves from the power that emanated from her. “In thy arrogance, thou hast drawn the notice of a goddess; reap the fruit of thy folly!”

The chobbath (with the dust clearing, Spite could clearly see the single eye and mass of tentacle-tongues spilling out of a half dozen fanged mouths surrounding it), having recovered from the shock of tentacles being surgically severed by magical blades, emitted a bubbling sound of amused contempt and snaked the rest of its tentacles around to wave in every direction around the grounded mare, a tubelike body stretching forward from one of its tunnels as it reared up and hissed threateningly. With its attention focused totally on Luna, Spite gathered some Light around a paw and flicked it at the giant and heedless being. The resulting warbling shriek was a wall of sound that staggered her, making her briefly falter and just barely twist aside as a tentacle was flung at her in retaliation… only to be hit squarely by the one whipping around from the other direction. Red-hot spikes of pain exploded from her wing, and she found herself quite abruptly on her back and looking up at a pair of snakelike appendages brimming with razor-sharp spines poised to skewer her.

Somehow, it wasn’t particularly surprising when one of those tentacles was the subject of a bone-shattering, four-hoof, high-velocity impact from a cyan streak of pegasus mare that was already out of reach by the time that the outraged chobbath processed what was happening and sought to retaliate. Recovering her wits, Spite gathered some more Light from the abundant source in the sky and directed it into the stream of fire that she spewed at the uninjured tentacle, which was promptly scorched down to a twitching stump, earning another air-throbbing scream from the hapless beast. A moment bought, Spite slipped into the Void on her way to a point several feet above the chobbath where a visibly stunned Fluttershy was flapping weakly, clearly entirely overcome by the horrific sight.

“Wh… what is it…?” She stammered, wide-eyed with warring fear and the deep fascination of a mare that spent her entire life dealing with bad-tempered creatures that invariably became like lambs under her Kind hoof.

“Chobbath,” Spite told her, drifting close enough to offer her a warm body to press against, feeling the mare’s trembling lessen noticeably at the feel of a friendly person physically touching her. “Void beast of hunger and fear. Main body is like a combination of millipede and worm and you can see what the front end is like. Cheap muscle, in the hierarchy of power in the Void, but no less deadly for their absence of status. Not the crispest crackers but a lack of intelligence is usually compensated for by pure presence and power.”

Which, she didn’t feel the need to say aloud, was certainly not the case here. There were a few creatures that could confront a chobbath: dragons bathed their faces in fire and, while the beast was screaming and spitting up charred pieces of not-flesh, they’d drag the thing out of its tunnel and butcher it with little trouble; what the jei and jeikitsu of the Ten Families did to chobbaths (and any other Void creature) was not something any sane person thought too deeply on; and Spite was certain that her sister could dispose of one, if there was a chobbath insane enough to stand its ground against a Prime, especially one of Amarra’s immense power. But dragons possessed immense size and godlike power, the Ten Families fought like frighteningly disciplined cogs in a machine, and every Void creature that didn’t flee in mad terror from a Prime was ancient and powerful enough to be known only by name; Luna was none of these, and yet Spite immediately put her in their company.

In the brief time that Spite had lost line of sight to the alicorn, the chobbath had sacrificed another four tentacles to the princess’ agile bladework and was weaving back and forth, looking for an opening to attack the morsel that was hurting it; with the two it’d lost trying to kill Spite, it now had only a dozen tentacles left. Ordinarily, chobbaths could regrow tentacles like a hydra replaced heads, multiplying every loss by two but whether she knew this or not, Luna severing tentacles with Dark magic had cauterized the stumps with poisonous energy and this only augmented the weakening effect of having limbs cut off. More than just the feat of hurting the hulking creature was the fact that Luna radiated regal contempt at the chobbath’s pathetic attempts to hurt her.

“Come now,” she taunted, the resonant power of her Voice making her as audible as if Spite was standing right next to her, a subtle touch of bemusement in her tone. “Thou art a tentacled horror from this Void. Surely thou canst put a single mark on a little pony. Art thou afraid of the little Princess of the Moon? Art thou holding back out of pity? Shall We wound thee more, cause thee to try harder?”

It may not have been able to understand her but the chobbath clearly understood the amused and contemptuous tone because it burbled with anger and struck with ten of its tentacles at once, each coming in from a different angle, making it impossible to sever all of them before they struck. Luna didn’t even try; her horn flared brightly, releasing her hold on the blade constructs, and what looked like wires of pure concentrated magic shot out towards each of the incoming tentacles, piercing them and then wrapping them in toxic Dark-infused magic. The chobbath screamed, tugging desperately on its trapped appendages, flailing and writhing, and Spite watched with a gaping mouth as veins of violet energy flowed slowly along the captured limbs, causing the Void energy that the chobbath’s physical form was built from to visibly bubble away. It didn’t even seem to occur to the creature to use its last two tentacles to attack its tormentor, merely letting them flop around like a struggling fish as it kept trying to pull free, its fanged mouths drooling and its limp tentacle-tongues twitching as it wailed.

While her prey writhed, Luna walked regally forward towards the center of the creature, her eyes meeting its single giant one as she approached, keeping hold of it and even pulling it forward as she approached. Finally, she was literally eye-to-eye with the chobbath and finally released her hold on its ruined tentacles. The chobbath sagged to the ground, barely coherent from the torturous hold of the alicorn princess’ natural magic on its Void-forged body. Smiling in a terrible, soul-chilling way, Luna raised a hoof and placed it almost gently on the patch of twitching flesh right underneath the massive oculus she was staring into.

“We understand that destroying thee here will but send thee back into the Void to lick thy wounds,” she thundered to it, each word causing the defeated creature to twitch in barely-conscious fear and pain. “We understand that thou art summoned here by another, that thou answereth to a master like his little pet. Tell thy master that this world is Ours and that thou were but an insect upon which Luna, Goddess of the Moon, the Dark, and the Night treads. We bid thy master to remember that We repay our debts and do not forget; We are not Our gentle sister, full of justice and wisdom, but the Mare of the Night, full of vengeance and retribution.” Motes of violet-tinged Dark magic gathered around the hoof she had planted on the chobbath, writhing around the silvery armor and crackling as it built to lethal intensity. “Get thee hence, monster; go back to the Void from which thou spawned!”

The blast of energy was blinding, forcing Spite to look away but the intensity still managed to burn obscuring afterimages into her retinas. When the shadow shape of a disintegrating Void beast faded enough, Spite looked down to see Luna standing there, looking down at the hissing ruins of the chobbath’s head with majestic disdain, the tentacles around her already withering and flaking away into dust, returning back to the formlessness of the Void from which it was drawn to create the similitude of a body. Spite glided to the ground and walked over to the lunar princess, stepping around a sizzling limb and looking towards the tunnel and watching as the Dark magic slowly ate its way into the lightless tube.

“A field general, you say,” she managed after a pregnant silence.

“Yea,” Luna agreed, dousing her horn and letting the accruements dissolve into thin air, her coat returning to its normal appearance and the scarily predatory look disappearing from her face. “It almost pains me that I’ve become so skilled that I can toy with a creature that large and not be injured for my arrogance.”

Spite smiled. “Almost?”

Luna grinned fiercely. “It can be somewhat… pleasurable to play the part of a wrathful goddess. Tia can project the image better than I can but she’s never been on the field of battle; she can only be so convincing when she’s been the strategist and planner but rarely forced to get her hooves dirty.”

“Well, that was an amazing performance, Your Majesty,” Spite told her, looking towards the gaping tunnel. “Chobbaths are ordinarily very hard kills because they can appear from anywhere and few of the things it tries to kill can use Dark or Light magic to seal the stumps of its tentacles after cutting them off. Those are beautiful constructs, by the way.”

“Yeah, Princess! Those were totally awesome!” Rainbow declared as she joined them, a hiding-behind-her-mane Fluttershy in tow. “You destroyed that thing!”

“That she did,” Spite agreed, looking thoughtfully at the tunnel the chobbath left behind. “Your Majesty, it occurs to me that the tunnel the chobbath dug for itself might lead directly back to whoever brought it here.”

“And it occurs to me that I can’t fly in there,” Rainbow pointed out. “And it occurs to me that maybe we want to avoid whatever whistled that creepy thing up. I mean, if he can make something like that obey him, and obey enough that it stayed for Princess to blow its face off, then he can’t be a pushover.”

Spite thought of the arrogant construct she’d faced briefly before she and Rainbow had thrashed him and sent him plummeting to his doom. “I only saw the construct he was using to communicate, but to make one with that power and sophistication at what must have been a great distance speaks of power to spare. Still, I think it telling that he was reluctant to confront me and Princess Luna directly.”

“Let’s not mistake caution for fear,” Luna said chidingly. “The Guardian proved to have little to fear from us, but his plans to oppress the entire world took place slowly, carefully, over thousands of years. Would you say that summoning a…”

“…chobbath…”

“…chobbath requires a great deal of personal power?”

Spite tilted her head, thinking. “Not particularly. They’re regarded as cheap muscle, having virtually no status or importance of their own despite being very large and deadly, and so anyone with a basic modicum of power can use them, primarily as terror weapons. The construct he used to taunt me, however, requires a level of fine control over crafting the substance of the Void that is exclusive to very strong and high-status beings.”

“He didn’t seem to like you much,” Rainbow noted. “I heard ‘deviant’ and ‘blasphemy’ when I was sneaking up on him.”

“I’m really unpopular with Void creatures,” Spite shrugged. “I don’t lose sleep over it.”

“Seems like lots more than ‘unpopular’.” But Rainbow grinned. “To hay with ‘em, right?”

“Right,” Spite agreed. “So this tunnel: bad idea?”

“Bad idea,” Luna and Rainbow said almost simultaneously.

“Then we’ll need to stay higher in case any more chobbaths, or anything lots less pleasant, are hiding under the sand in ambush,” Spite concluded, sweeping into the air with one downdraft of her wings. Her three feathered-wing companions joined her and she waited a moment before looking back at them. “So can anypony suggest a way to figure out which of these mesa cities is hiding our little friend?”

Luna tapped her chin with a hoof. “Did not Consul Halia briefly mention coastal provinces?”

Spite thought back and nodded. “Yes, six coastal ones.” Which, if the capital of the Provinces is in the center and the coastal provinces are furthest from… “Do you happen to know whether the coastal provinces are the ones furthest away from their capital city?”

“The Provinces have no capital city,” Luna replied. “Their central government is a council, and that council meets in a different one of the city-states every month.” She paused thoughtfully. “You’re thinking that whatever’s wormed its way in here is where the council is, and that council happened to be at a point furthest away from their coastal provinces.”

“The point furthest from is the point most difficult to control,” Spite confirmed. “At the very least, the coastal provinces give us a destination and it’s likely that someone there knows where their council is meeting. I wish I had a good idea of its location so I could step us there without wading through whatever creatures are waiting for us.”

“You need to have knowledge of your destination before you can ‘step’ there?” Luna asked.

“I do.”

“So how do you, or any other creatures from other places end up in exactly the place you wish to be when you come here?”

Spite laughed. “With lots and lots of help, Princess. Without Kaiya showing me an accurate representation of Sweet Apple Acres, I would never have found it. With my affinity for deserts, I’d have probably ended up in the middle of a griffin city-state and had much to explain.”

“So if you knew exactly what your destination looked like…”

“Looks like,” Spite corrected her. “As you’re likely aware, teleportation isn’t only moving to a place but a time. You’re using magic to place yourself at a place as it looks in your mind and if that place doesn’t look the way it does in your mind, your reference point is going to be skewed and sometimes skewed dangerously. A photograph of one of the provinces, for example, will only help if what the photograph depicts hasn’t changed much.”

“Is it hard to do?” Rainbow asked, taking position right to the left.

“Quite easy, actually.”

“Then why not do a bunch of jumps?” Rainbow suggested. “You know, get up high so you have a really long line of sight and then teleport to the edge. Just do it over and over again and we’ll get there in no time.”

Spite nodded. “Excellent idea. Thinking of how I jumped ahead of you for the ambush?”

“You don’t get as awesome as I am unless you can learn by doing,” Rainbow grinned rakishly.

<><

Just as she’d assured Rainbow, the multiple short ‘hops’ to the horizon had proven virtually effortless. More importantly, the short and rapid jumping appeared to be dissuading pursuit; in the last three hours, they hadn’t seen anyone, much less the poor victims of the still-nameless Void being that appeared to be Fronck-Kais’ designated representative in the north. The black minister’s movements were still puzzling her. He’d sent Lashaal from the eastern lands, the virtual prison of Equestria’s fantastical creatures, through Ponyville and then towards the Griffin Provinces, but except for meeting two of the Elements of Harmony and nearly killing a third, the apparition seemed to have done nothing useful. Then someone had wired a compulsion into the griffin consul but hadn’t made it fast-acting enough to kill before Luna could dissipate it with her version of mental magic, another instance where Fronck-Kais gained no discernible advantage. Finally, he’d sent a servant who seemed more powerful than the former right hand of Quezelzege could possibly command, to the Provinces to seize control and start turning innocent griffins into expendable foot soldiers. Spite had no doubt that branches of his plan were also to be found in Equestria and the eastern lands, but none of the facts made any sense.

Chobbaths were cheap muscle but you still had to have something to trade for their loyalty, and Fronck-Kais wasn’t known for his overabundance of influence in the Void. Clearly, he’d also obtained the services of another Void being that was emphatically not cheap and had some genuine ability in twisting mortal creatures according to his sick whims. Added to this, the kind of mutation that she’d seen in the griffins took time to perfect even when undertaken by a powerful and experienced experimenter; one didn’t simply make a gesture and poof, instant stable hybrid.

“You seem pensive, Spite,” Luna noted. “Like Tia when she’s figured something out that’s very unpleasant and is trying to hide the fact.”

“There’s something very off-kilter about what we’re seeing,” Spite replied. “Fronck-Kais simply doesn’t have the power and influence to be accomplishing what he is. Several moves have been made with no apparent purpose. The work that the Void being here has done couldn’t have been accomplished in less than a week; not even a being like Phylaxis the Slayer, who was strong enough to take on entire armies in pitched battle, could have gained enough control to have chobbaths patrolling the border this quickly. I’m beginning to fear that we’re seeing the first moves in a much more subtle attempt than Rejnu was capable of to break the rules of the game without it being noticed by the other player.”

“You call this subtle?” Rainbow snorted. “Big tentacled thing wandering around the Provinces?”

“Perhaps it’s not meant to be subtle,” Luna said, thoughtful. “You think it’s meant to attract our attention while the enemy moves elsewhere?”

“That’s certainly a possibility, Your Majesty, but this situation is also much more than mere appearance. The enemy is actually here, for reasons we don’t know, and could potentially accomplish something by it.” Spite shook her head. “No, I think the plan is that the enemy threatens multiple points and forces us to at least investigate all of them. Fortunately, it’s been conveyed to me by a trusted source that powerful help will be meeting Twilight and her friends in the east so they’re at least safer than they were.”

“That’s good,” Luna smiled. “But Rainbow asks a good question: how is something so blatant an example of them being subtle?”

“Because Fronck-Kais cannot have enough personal power to enlist a being of the Void like the one whose construct taunted me, and if that being came here of his own volition, Kaiya would intervene directly and kill him. So he must have appeared to be a perfectly ordinary piece, but concealed so Kaiya didn’t ask questions.”

“Could more than one have done this?”

“It depends.” Spite thought a moment. “In certain circumstances, concepts are considered pieces. For example, the same source that alerted me to the help for Twilight remarked that Kaiya threatened to play the piece representing the concept of something called the Ratnisbonian Inquisition. The actual form this piece could legally take could be anything from a single representative, to the entire Order of the Inquisitors that carried it out, to a vast magical attack that would imitate the effects of the Inquisition.”

“So this Fronck-Kais plays a piece that represents the concept that this being and others fit under…”

“…and an entire slew of beings far too powerful to be in Fronck-Kais’ thrall slip in under the technical cover of the concept, although their presence would provoke lethal retaliation from Kaiya if they’re been brought in individually and openly.” Spite nodded. “It’s extremely clever because the only way the Game could be declared forfeit is if there was direct proof that the rules were violated in that way. I, or another piece, would have to personally witness and speak to one such being and then personally report to either Kaiya or whoever’s moderating the Game.”

Luna frowned. “My testimonial would be insufficient?”

Spite cringed a little, knowing perfectly well how this was going to sound and knowing just as well that it would anger the Princess. “You’re… not regarded as a person under the rules of the Game.”

Eyes narrowed. “What?”

“Well, the world being fought over is considered property and… um… so are the…” Spite dropped her voice to almost Fluttershy proportions, “…residents. And property cannot speak for itself.”

The princess’ eyes bored into her. “Thy Game regards Us as mere property?”

“It’s not my Game,” Spite protested. “And if it helps at all, the pieces are considered property as well. But property representing the player, so they can speak for themselves.”

Luna watched her for a few more moments before sighing and looking away. “This Game is… disagreeable.”

“Everyone, and I mean everyone, despises the Game for one reason or another. But it prevents dozens of virtual gods from descending on any world in dispute and trying to kill each other.” Spite sighed as well. “It’s all we have unless someone can persuade The Weaver and The Reaper to devise something else. And she simply will not do that; devising a structure and rules to prevent all-out world-breaking battles was her initiative after a well-meaning but stupid Ninth Archangel, Kaiya Aon’s predecessor, went after a coalition of Evils and ended up scouring an entire world clean by the time the Evils were destroyed. Over eight billion people and countless trillion creatures and plants, all wiped away in the titanic struggle.”

Luna swallowed audibly. “That is more disagreeable.”

Spite spread her hands. “And thus, the Game.”

“Yeah, well, it bucking sucks,” Rainbow interjected. “Where do these things get off playing with us like we’re marbles? This ‘Kaiya’ lady included… why does she say she ‘owns’ us, like we’re some kinda pretty gem she can keep in a desk drawer?”

“Might makes right,” Spite shrugged. “There’s nothing we can…”

“Does might make Mera right?”

“Well, no, but that’s…”

“Then why does might make Kaiya or this Fronck-Kais jerk right?” The pegasus demanded.

Spite gave her an appraising look. “You know, I knew I liked you right off, before I even met you. Amarra asked me that same question once.”

“So what’d you say?”

“Nothing,” Spite admitted. “I still have no answer to that question. I’ll say, though, that Kaiya does not regard Sol Selune as property; she may call it hers, but her version of ‘ownership’ is keeping it shiny and leaving it alone.”

“So she doesn’t get anything out of keeping it?”

“Personal pride and the respect of her peers but no, nothing tangible.”

“So why does the jerk want it? Seems like a lot of effort to go through to get warm fuzzy feelings.”

“Two reasons: first, he can become extremely wealthy here,” Spite replied. “At the level of power that many Evils and both Primes and Archangels exist at, wealth is measured in what are called ‘prizes’, metaphysical representations of achievements and proofs of their power. The misery, despair, pain, suffering, and corruption he could bring about in such a beautiful place as this would make him the wealthiest Evil in all of existence. The second is that no Evil has ever won a Game in tens of thousands of years of attempts, and Fronck-Kais wants to be the first.”

The three pegasi slowed so they could turn and look at her with surprise. “They’re s.. so horrible but they’ve never… w… won?” Fluttershy asked.

“Never,” Spite confirmed. “Horrible though they may be, they’ve never managed to defeat even the weakest Dark or Light in the Game.”

“Why?”

“Popular theory is that although she’s supposed to be neutral, The Weaver will never permit Evil to obtain a world of their own,” the dragoness replied. “So she twists fate and fortune so that the Evil gets close, but never succeeds. I, however, prefer to think that Dark and Light are simply stronger for being representatives of creation and life.”

“We all like to believe that we’re better simply by virtue of being who we are,” Luna smiled a little sadly. “But I think we should be nearing the coastal provinces by now. A couple more hops should do it.”

“It’ll be nice to get to our destination,” Spite said. “As much as I love deserts, sailing over one that has been smothered by Evil, always watching for some Void beast to explode out of the ground and try to kill me, ruins it for me. Normally, deserts are places of starkness, trial, silence, and a quiet beauty in my eyes but now…”

“…they’ve ruined it for you,” Fluttershy observed quietly, giving Spite a look of sympathy. “They’ve m… made it hostile and filled it with their evil.” She paused and bit her lip. “D… do you think they h… hurt all the little animals too, like they… like they did the griffins?”

Spite considered her, debating. She knew perfectly well that Evils took pleasure in torturing helpless and innocent creatures to assuage their sadism but it seemed cruel to say so to Fluttershy. So she gave the shy pegasus a reassuring smile. “I’m sure they find little creatures beneath their notice and not worth their time, Fluttershy.”

Contrary to her expectations, the attempt at reassurance caused Fluttershy to cringe and draw her legs closer to herself. “Spite, I’ve had good friends that care about me for as long as I can remember,” she said quietly. “Good friends who care about you care enough to lie to you, trying to protect you.” She turned her head and the innocent shy look that she’d shown ever since Spite had first met her faded a little into something entirely different, briefly showing a glimpse of steel that she hadn’t realized the soft-spoken pony had. “I appreciate that you care, but I’m fifteen years too old to be patted on the head and told little lies to spare my feelings. Please, be truthful; it will hurt a moment but so does pulling a thorn out a manticore’s paw, and like that it’ll be better afterwards.”

Spite paused again at the very non-Fluttershy firmness combined with the soothing softness of the very Fluttershy voice and inclined her head to the pegasus to convey respect and apology. “They will actively seek out small, innocent, helpless creatures to torture for amusement and to sate their limitless sadism. They love to watch the pain they inflict, and moreso when their prey can’t fight them.”

Fluttershy cringed again but it was somehow less than the first time. She gave Spite one of her small, beautiful little smiles, now heavily colored with a quiet bravery. “Then it’s good that we can fight back, isn’t it?”

“We can indeed,” Spite assured her, smiling in return before turning her eyes forward to the horizon. “I think just this one hop and I’ll uncase my field glasses to make sure we’re not going to teleport into a battle or something.”

“Field glasses?”

“I’ll show you in a minute.” Spite stared ahead memorizing what she was seeing, holding that image in her mind, extending her inherent self-awareness outwards to touch on the three ponies flying with her, and then there was a brief flash of utter lifeless cold darkness… and they were at the picture in her mind. After a brief glance confirmed that her companions were still with her, she reached into her holding pouch and brought out the spyglass she’d been using to observe Rainbow and Twilight’s practices. “What was it… only two, three days ago?” She murmured to herself as she brought the piece to her eye and let its precisely-ground series of convex and concave lenses magnify the mesa on the far horizon.

Griffin city-states (Luna had explained that the “nation” was more of a coalition of independent provinces rather than a coherent entity) seemed more akin to pieces of installation art than the vast amalgamation of shops, hostels, and entertainment spread out with a manor as the central piece and a towering wall around it. The flat top of the mesa had the familiar wall with certain structures but she could see passage openings riddling the mesa and open-sided walkways had been carved into the sides with generous clearances so that a griffin might come and go at their leisure. At the same time, every one of the passages were chokepoints that could be easily defended… which seemed to be what the griffins were doing.

For a moment, Spite froze a little in shock at just how many griffins their unnamed enemy had seized and infused with the Void—and, based on how many small variations she could see through the spyglass, the Void being was not just modifying them but experimenting as well. Some of his creations were virtually without modification; some were barely recognizable as griffins anymore, looking much closer to feathered dragons than half-eagle half-lion creatures. It was clear that whoever was doing the modification was trying out various alterations to find the best killer and just as clear that he’d somehow gained access to a very large stable of ‘lab rats’ to play with. It was one more indication that something about the speed and nature of this attack just didn’t fit the way a near-nobody like Fronck-Kais played a Game.

“I see them too,” Luna remarked quietly before Spite could say anything. “There’s no possible way that so many griffins could be captured and twisted like this in the short time since you reported Lashaal being in Equestria.”

“More to the point, I can’t imagine this many griffins being captured and used like this without an overt invasion in the short time since the Game began,” Spite replied grimly. “Which means they found a way to slip in early without being noticed.”

“Heh, ‘bout time you figured it out.” Spite jumped a little and looked upwards. For a moment, she thought that the construct had been reconstituted by its controller but then her awareness caught up to her senses and she became aware of three things: first, that this creature had none of the wafting Void energy that the construct did, indicating that this was a real living creature; second, that both voice and the slimmer lines were feminine; and third, that Dash was all but frozen in place, staring at the creature, an expression of horrified recognition stretching across her features.

“Another construct? Really?” Spite snorted, deciding to play stupid to see what the creature would do—and give herself a moment to work out why Dash appeared to recognize the mutated griffiness lounging above them on a small cloud. “Didn’t caving in the last one’s skull send a clear enough message that I’m not interested in discussing your allegedly brilliant schemes with you?”

“Sorry but your mastermind’s in another body, precious,” she smirked. “Which you know, so you’re just fucking with me now to buy time. Which means you’re wasting my time, and that makes me all cranky.”

“Gee, I made one of his playthings cranky at me,” Spite smirked back. “Whatever will I…”

“G… G… Gilda…?” Dash choked out.

“Well hey rainbow-mane, what’s shakin’? You know, other than you.” The mutate grinned malevolently. “Great look, by the way… I love the ‘horrified and sick at heart’ schtick, very you.”

“You… can’t be, that’s not possible…”

The twisted griffin laughed, tapping the side of her head. “Oh, it’s possible, Dashie-poo. I’ve got Gilly-girl right up here, screamin’ her mental lungs off in my head. She knows some colorful ones, let me tell ya. Nice body too, and boy does she have good taste in flank.”

“Enough of this,” Luna all but growled, lifting herself up to the same level as the creature. “Get thee hence or We shall smite thee as We smote the chobbath which evoked Our wrath.”

She looked supremely unconcerned. “Yeah, about that… nasty work there, Nightmare Moon. I thoroughly…”

“Thy corrupt lips profane her name, creature!” The Princess pronounced, her horn starting to glow threateningly. “Thy master knows that We are not Nightmare and thou knowest it as well. And thou art in error… We did not learn to smite Our enemies from Nightmare Moon, she learned it from Us.”

“Yawn, little princess throwing a temper…” Spite had to give the creature credit for speed and reflexes; the lash of Dark magic Luna threw at her failed to wrap around her neck as Luna clearly intended, drawing a bubbling wound across her chest instead as she jumped back. “YOUCH! Hey, you little cunt, that hurt!”

Luna’s eyes narrowed, and the glowing wires of Darkness she’d used against the chobbath snaked out of thin air, weaving and darting like serpents as the armor of moonlight spread over her and her coat turned starry and black. “Stand still and We shall show thee what ‘hurt’ feels like, beast.”

“Wow, OK, turn down the smiting goddess… holy FUCK, cut it out!” Two wires had darted at her, marking her skin with two thin lines of Void energy writhing at the touch of Dark. “I ain’t even threatened you yet, you stupid witch!”

“Thou hast denied a hero of Our nation her rightful rest and taunt one dear to her and to US with her voice,” Luna retorted. “We merely seek to instruct thee in the consequences of such foalishness.”

“Hey Princess Dweeb, this is my voice, my body!” The being growled, coming to rest on another cloud safely out of range of Luna’s wires. “And I ain’t mocking… well, OK, I’m totally fucking with her because that sick expression is just golden… but c’mon, give a girl a break here.”

“We shall be overjoyed to break thee.”

“…OK, points for grabbing the straight line and running with it but… OW! Fucking little… argh!” Luna had taken the abandoned cloud as a platform and swiped at the being with the same two wires as before, inflicting yet more wounds. The draconic eyes of what was apparently Gilda’s body suddenly glowed a vibrant crimson and her pupils simply disappeared.

“My patience for this farce is over,” she snarled, her voice quavering oddly. “You speak of teaching a lesson, infant? So be it.” And just like that, without a gesture or even a pulse of reality being displaced by a massive magical working, the sun was gone. Spite blinked, realized that she could still see the other dimly, and then looked up. Like a vast tidal wave of pure Void matter, hundreds of thick, muscular, barbed tentacles arched over their heads along with a moist rattle that sounded all the world like someone dying of lung sickness desperately trying to suck in a breath.

“More chobbath?” Luna sneered as she calmly watched the tentacles. “Thou supposes that if one fails, many will succeed?”

“Of course not,” the mutate snorted. “I think that if one fails, you simply stitch a few dozen together and feed them a moon princess.”

“Stitch a few dozen together…?”

Spite knew she shouldn’t look because when the cackling Void creature cheerfully mentions melding a few dozen of the already nightmarish chobbath together, there was no way that looking could turn out well. Worse was the fact that chobbath were formless outside of mortal realms, like all things of the Void, so it wasn’t possible to literally take a needle and thread and sew their bodies together. Knowing this, Spite turned around.

She had severely underestimated how insane and demented the Evil frequenting the Griffin Provinces was, she saw. The part of her conscious mind not connected to the sick feeling that churned in her stomach noted that in a very sick way, the nameless Evil was a master of his craft. A few dozen single eyes had been fastidiously dissected and the tissue painstakingly matched and put together to form a gargantuan central eye that was proportionally perfect but from the seams leaked pus and ichor; the eye was literally decaying in its socket, impressive but blind. The Evil had been much less careful with the mouths, or perhaps he simply didn’t care because trembling mouths and their tentacle-like tongues decorated the entire surface of the head, misshapen, facing totally random directions, some even melded into the useless eyelid… some melded the wrong way into the useless eyelid. Void matter dribbed out of the mouths like blood and with a shiver of horror, Spite realized that the sound of gasping, labored breathing was the attempt of a few dozen chobbath trying to scream but in such profound agony that they could do nothing but breathe their torment. It was about this moment that Spite doubled over and began retching, arms clutched around her spasming stomach as it attempted to physically express the revulsion that was too immense for her mind to properly process.

“So this is the fate of those without status in the Void.” Luna’s voice was detached, calm, utterly without emotion or even the slightest hint that the alicorn was rattled. “If thy display is done, doth thou wish to impart the lesson thou intends?”

“I do, in fact,” the creature replied calmly. “Make an uproar in the east and strike in the west.” Spite turned to look at her as she turned her head to a side, apparently looking at someone that Spite couldn’t see. “Eviscerate Kindness. Make Loyalty watch another friend die that she was just too weak to save.”

Somehow, in between the tentacles of the tortured colonial chobbaths arcing over them to block the sun and them turning back from gazing at the thing in abject horror, two of the modified griffins that the Gilda-beast had brought with her had silently seized Rainbow Dash and Fluttershy and now, one of them had a long scything talon resting on the terrified pegasus’ belly while the other had used its larger body to physically pin Rainbow to its chest, gripping her head in a taloned hand to force her to look at what they were about to do to Flutters.

Luna regarded this impassively before turning her head to look at the supremely smug creature that appeared to be in command. “Wrong lesson, beast.”

The world disappeared in a howling maelstrom of divine wrath.

It was impossible to determine exactly what was happening beyond the pulsations of reality itself, as wave after wave of earthshaking magical workings radiated from the goddess of the moon and the night sky. Determining exactly what Luna had done, would do, and was even now doing was simply impossible; every time she thought she had it nailed down, another working would knock her off her feet and she’d lose track. All that she could be sure of, however, was that Luna was singlehoofedly wiping away every tiny vestige of Void as far as the eyes could see… and yet, Spite was perfectly intact. It had been her experience that every time an entity of world-making or world-breaking power totally lost themselves to their emotions, their power slaughtered indiscriminately, directed by their unconscious thoughts. Then again, none of those entities had the focus and discipline to craft very deadly and precise magical workings at whim, and wield those workings with a surgeon’s deftness; Luna’s swords and wires were quick, surgically precise, and seemed to come to her with no more effort than it would take to breath. Although she’d never seen Twilight Sparkle unleash her full power, Spite had a suspicion that Celestia’s daughter had the same instinctive control that her aunt did… which, as Spite thought about it while the maelstrom whirled around her, seemed very unusual. Children, after all, tended to take after their parents but Twilight appeared to take after her aunt.

She was prevented from considering this line of thought any further by the fading of the magical storm and she dared to open her eyes again, half-wondering if the full wrath of Princess Luna had made a glassy crater of the sand she stood on. The first thing she noticed was that the sun was blazing away cheerfully above them; the second was that two griffins, one male and the other female, lay sprawled in the sand out cold but seeming otherwise in good health. Thirdly, she saw no sign of the twisted version of Gilda; keeping in character with the default cowardice of Void creatures, she had no doubt fled just ahead of Luna’s wrath. None of this compared to Luna herself. Cutting loose with her full power had transformed the moon princess beyond even the armor-clad field general she was when she was wielding her swords and for the first time, Spite could fully appreciate the family resemblance between her and Celestia.

The burnished silver but somewhat utilitarian crown she usually wore had been transformed into a light thing that looked to be woven out of silver spider’s silk and adorned with amethysts, sapphires, and polished onyx stones. Full moonlight armor had been replaced with a simple breastplate emblazoned with Luna’s cutie mark and jeweled in the same manner as her crown. To top it all off, Luna had grown to be long-limbed and slender like her sister, but with an ethereal beauty that was quite different from Celestia’s regal splender but somehow more lovely, the effect added to by her starry mane and tail that seemed to drift around her like a gentle evening breeze was stirring it. Her eyes, hard and predatory as a field general, blazed with a fierce blue flame that actually seemed to radiate from her eyes, as if the eyes themselves had caught fire.

But as the storm of spells wound down, the glorious visage of a wrathful goddess drifted away until Luna was once again the small, lovely pony she normally appeared to be. An utterly exhausted pony that would have collapsed in place if Spite hadn’t been there to catch her and gently lower her to the ground.

“Are you alright, Luna?” She asked with concern.

“We are… I am fine, Spite,” the alicorn assured her. “What of Rainbow and Fluttershy? Were they… did that thing’s minions manage to harm Fluttershy?”

“I’m fine, Your Highness,” Fluttershy’s small voice assured her. “Rainbow, though…”

It was then that Spite saw the rainbow-maned mare laying on the ground, looking dead but for her lack of visible injury and the tiny expansion and compression of her sides. Everything, from the way her wings were haphazardly laying to the defeated slump of her entire body broadcasted a mare teetering on the edge of total despair.

“Rainbow, are you…”

“No.” Rainbow’s voice was as dead as her posture, so completely devoid of any life that Spite felt herself cringe at it. “I just watched a thing walking around in my dead friend’s skin, speaking with her voice, sneering at me with her mannerisms and word choice, ordering her minions to murder my only other childhood friend and make me watch.” Rainbow lifted her head just enough to turn it so Spite could see the hurt-beyond-pain radiating from those jewel-like irises. “I buried her. I… I cried for her, been crying for her for months now. I still hurt whenever someone even accidentally mentions her or talks like she did. I’ve been hurting, I’ve been missing her, I’ve been wanting so badly to just see her again. But this? Like this? Watching my best friend in the world order the murder of a friend, order her thugs to make me watch helplessly as Fluttershy… d… d… died slowly just out of my reach?”

“I want her back but not like this! I don’t fucking want her back like this!” And Rainbow put her head back down and began sobbing softly, Fluttershy walking over and very gently laying a wing over her and laying against her side, not saying anything, just being there and radiating support and kindness to her suffering friend.

Spite watched this before looking over at Luna. “You no doubt realize this already, your Majesty, but there is a damn good reason we call these cowardly, sadistic, lickspittles ‘evils’,” she said quietly. “I generally feel satisfied when I put these things through but this time? I think this time, I’m going to enjoy it.”

Author's Note

Oh, the fun I had writing the Luna Being Badass segments of this chapter. :D

Trixie: Contagion

“…and I confirmed it by using a sphere of Light magic that Twilight Sparkle taught me to probe at the tainted ground,” Trixie explained to Princess Celestia as she stood beside the Sun Princess, gesturing to the sickly black soil in front of them. “The blackness boiled away and actually appeared to recoil away from the mere illumination of the sphere. So based on what Spite told me, Your Highness, this field has been tainted by Void energy.”

Trixie had been surprised, and not a little shaken, by how quickly the princess had responded to the letter she’d dictated to Spike. Barely half an hour after the baby dragon had sent the letter, the solar diarch had appeared in a flash of teleportation magic at the gate to Manechester Table Farm, causing Trixie to just about jump out of her skin. Given how unkind she’d initially been to Celestia’s daughter, she’d been slightly surprised to receive a warm greeting from the alicorn and Celestia had politely asked to be led to the sickened land.

“Trixie, you’re a friend of my daughter and her choice to watch over Equestria in her absence,” Celestia smiled. “You have royal permission to use my name if you wish.” She looked at the field, frowning a little. “I admit that when Spite warned us that our enemy may engineer some mischief, I didn’t expect this. And Carrot Top believed that she saw a bird lingering around the field before she noticed signs of crop failure?”

“Neither she nor Fluttershy could think of what else it might be, Princess,” Trixie replied, still cowed by the diarch’s presence even though Celestia had treated her warmly and invited her to speak familiarly with her. “It’s not a griffin, dragon, manticore, or any other being we know of that has wings—the shape and proportions are wrong.”

“And you believe her description reliable?”

Trixie nodded. “If the Carrot family is anything like the Apple family, Princess, there’s not many ponies that are more reliable.”

Celestia smiled gently. “I asked if you thought her description reliable, not the pony herself.”

“I do,” Trixie confirmed. “Farmponies have to keep a close eye on their crops all the time, and have to be able to tell the difference between different creatures at a distance so they can do the best thing.”

This provoked a soft, almost affectionate, laugh. “It still amazes me that you and my daughter weren’t friends at first sight. You sounded very much like her, just then.”

“Thank you,” Trixie smiled up at the princess. “But yes, I believe her description to be reliable and the land is definitely corrupted somehow. I mistakenly set hoof on it and…” She shuddered. “It was unlike anything I’ve ever felt before. Wave after wave of pain and sickness and just wrongness…”

“There are a few… downsides to being gifted with magic,” Celestia said sympathetically. “Still, you seem to be well and that’s always a relief. For all the subtlety to it, simply destroying crops and making the ground itself dangerous to walk on is distressing but Equestria will survive having less carrots. What worries me is that this is not the only crop that will receive this treatment; I hardly need to explain what might happen if this ‘bird’ wanders to the next farm over.”

Trixie nodded vigorously at this. “It would be very difficult to cope with the loss of the most basic staple crop,” she said. “Which makes me wonder: why not attack Sweet Apple Acres first? Why attack just next door, destroying a crop that’s very important but not critical.”

“Why indeed…” Celestia mused. “One supposes that this ‘bird’ didn’t want to be noticed by the ponies and non-ponies that have been around Sweet Apple Acres these last few days. And it seems far too perfect that this happens just when Spite and my sister are too far away to return quickly; I have no doubt that Spite knows what the ‘bird’ is, what it has done, and may even have had drinks with it at one point.” Celestia’s eyes twinkled a little at the last.

The tiny touch of humor made Trixie smile despite herself. “Probably not,” she said. “She said very little about the Void directly but when she did say something, I got the impression that she hates those of the Void and is hated by them.”

The solar princess made a thoughtful noise. “So the helper sent to us is of the Void but hated of the Void and hates it in turn. A very mysterious creature, but I feel no hesitation letting my sister accompany her and following her advice about how to best fight the Evils.”

“The Evils, your majesty?”

“It’s apparently a term that is commonly used for beings of the Void.” Celestia glanced over the fallow field, her expression hardening marginally. “It’s not hard to see why: their quarrel is with me, my sister, perhaps the Elements, but the innocent ponies that are suddenly forced to strive harder just to have enough to eat are not their enemy, and should never be a target of their schemes. We will not abide this cowardly attempt to harm Our little ponies; the question is, how can we find the thing doing this, that We might bring it to justice for the ills it’s done?”

“Well, magic infused with Light repels and hurts it, right?” Trixie suggested. “Is there any way to somehow… um, fence in the farms with magic?”

“There is…” Celestia abruptly looked slightly embarrassed. “But Luna is the one who took great pains to become highly educated in rune work and my daughter recently took up that study… but neither of them are here.”

Trixie blinked. “But…”

Celestia laughed softly. “But I’m the perfect, immortal, all-powerful, all-knowing Princess of the Sun? Part of wisdom is knowing what you don’t know, and runecraft is one thing I cannot do well. Adequately, possibly better than most, but I’m not Luna and Luna is the one of us two that could actually do what you suggest.”

Trixie continued to stare, genuinely at a loss for words for a full minute, before shaking off her amazement. “Then maybe… uh… have the farmers set a watch on their fields and try to interfere…?”

“It may fear the Elements or a few others, Trixie, but I doubt that the thing doing this has any fear of ordinary ponies,” Celestia pointed out.

“Everypony thought Trixie was an ‘ordinary pony’,” Trixie returned, struggling to keep the touch of umbrage she felt out of her voice. “And now, the Elements of Harmony have asked me to help watch over all of Equestria.”

Celestia’s smile was gentle. “Everypony was wrong. But ask yourself: how many earth ponies can learn how to channel the Light with your ease? How many pegasi can fight for their friends and loved ones with magic? How many unicorns are born with talents like yours and my Twilight’s? I fear that if we ask earth farmponies to keep a watch and confront this thing, it will hurt them or do something much worse, and they cannot defend themselves the way you can.”

“Then what can we do?” Trixie asked in frustration. “We can’t shield the fields because we don’t know a pony skilled with runes. We can’t ask the farmers to watch their fields because this Void thing could hurt them. We can’t set up patrols of pegasi for that reason and we can’t expect all unicorns to be capable of the kind of magic that Twilight and I can do. So what can we do, Princess? I can’t… I won’t believe that some evil thing can just ruin pony lives and I can do nothing to help.”

Celestia’s smile turned positively radiant. “Your concern for the well-being of others is noble, and I’m very proud of you my little pony. As it so happens, I believe there is a way that we can keep watch for this ‘bird’ that Carrot Top describes and I shall take care of that personally. And you can indeed do something: every great help begins with a small kindness, and I can’t think of a better small kindness than to restore Carrot Top’s fields to her.”

Trixie considered this and smiled. “Well, it would feel nice to be able to do something about the tainting of the fields instead of just wish I could…”

“Trixie! Trixie!” Trixie just barely got turned around when a familiar red scooter went flying passed minus its customary rider (making Trixie briefly wonder how Scootaloo had managed to stay on it this long) followed by a very familiar trio of blank-flanked fillies, looking none the worse for wear after their high-velocity ride.

“What in Equestria, girls?” She asked, hoping that the question registered before…

“Trixie, come quick!”
“We were jus’ in the market an’…”
“…a large panic…”
“…throwing up all over the place…”
“…at Sugarcube Corner…”
“…livin’ daylights scared outta her…”
“…took him to the hospital…”
“…it sorta looked lahk roofin’ tar…”

Trixie mentally sighed. Too late. “Girls, please, one at a time,” she urged them, aware of Celestia’s visible surprise off to one side. “What’s wrong?”

The three looked at one another before the gazes of the other two settled on Apple Bloom, nominating her as their spokesfilly. “Well, we jus’ got done having a Cutie Mark Crusaders club meeting about yer suggestions for our show so we went ta have a snack at Sugarcube corner,” Applebloom said, the normal (partly faked) flash of resentment at being voted the official speaker ominously absent. “We were passin’ through the market when there was this awful shriek o’ terror from one o’ the carrot stalls.”

Trixie felt her stomach drop. Carrot Top mentioned a crop that was… oh goddesses… oh goddesses… “C… carrot stalls?” She repeated, trying to force the quaver out of her voice.

Fortunately, the CMC didn’t notice her stricken expression. “Yeah. So like good Cutie Mark Crusaders, we go rushin’ over ta see what we can do to help and there’s this li’l colt an’ he’s layin’ on the ground an’ shaking an’ barfing but it’s all black like roofing tar…”

“Are you sure it was a carrot stall, Apple Bloom?” Celestia’s voice was soft and nonthreatening but Trixie caught a glimpse of her eyes and saw that behind an outward placidity, something primal and terrible was beginning to flicker.

“Y… your Highness!” Apple Bloom yelped, her and her friends immediately dropping into bows before the imposing white alicorn.

Celestia’s perfect royal mask, visible to Trixie only because she’d seen such a false face in her own mirror almost every day before a show, bestowed a benevolent and comforting smile on the yellow filly. “You don’t need to bow to me, my little ponies,” she assured them kindly. “Please, answer my question.”

“Yup,” the little filly nodded rapidly. “Still got their sign up fer the real good stuff from Carrot Top’s acres.”

“Thank you,” Celestia smiled benevolently but when she shifted her eyes to Trixie, the flicker had grown a bit brighter. “Miss Lulamoon, I think we need to ask something of Carrot Top.”

“Yes,” Trixie agreed, seeing that the diarch was trying to avoid frightening the trio any more than they already are. “Don’t worry, girls… we’re going to go help him.” She threw in a smile to mirror Celestia’s. “Thank you for bringing the message to us.”

“Glad ta help, Trixie,” Apple Bloom replied. “Kin we help at all?”

“If you could get Spike, that would be wonderful,” Celestia told her. “We might need to send a few letters, and he’s the best.”

“Sure thing, Princess.” Scootaloo grinned. “Now, where’d that scooter land…”

Trixie joined Celestia trotting towards the gate and glanced back, making sure the Crusaders were still looking for the scooter, before she leaned closer to Celestia. “We don’t need to bother, Your Majesty. Carrot Top told me that they harvested and shipped part of their harvest fives days ago, and that she remembered her cousin saying that something seemed off about the carrots.”

“Yet they sold them,” Celestia noted calmly.

“I guess they weren’t bad enough to be rejected, only slightly more wilted than normal.” Trixie shook her head, anger at herself flaring. “I should have been suspicious… the timing was just too coincidental.”

“You had no reason to be, Trixie,” Celestia told her firmly. “Five days ago would have meant that this creature arrived before Spite did and was bold enough to begin its work with the Elements all around town, any one of them dangerous to it, especially my daughter.” The primal fire flickered even brighter. “This is its plan then: poison some of the crops so they aren’t noticed, then distract by poisoning the land in a way that attracts attention, so nopony thinks anything of the slightly withered crop that has been harvested. I suspect that the withering of the dead lands didn’t become serious enough to warrant attention until anypony that could have seen the tainting for what it was had left.”

Trixie smirked. “I guess it didn’t count on the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Celestia smiled in a genuine way. “Evil creatures have a habit of underestimating good ponies. Likely, Nightmare Moon had trouble imagining that a bookish little unicorn and her acquaintances could possibly defeat her; likely, Discord was more shocked by who defeated him than by the fact he was defeated.”

Trixie nodded, giving the alicorn a grateful smile, before looking ahead. “Your Majesty, wouldn’t it be faster to simply teleport to the market instead of…” And they were abruptly at the edge of the market. “…er… trotting… never mind.”

Celestia’s eyes had a hint of mischief in them before she grew serious and trotted towards the knot of clearly frightened ponies clustered around a carrot stand. She didn’t even need to ask them to move aside; the crowd simply parted before her like a wave of grain and Trixie followed in her wake, not wanting to see what the poisoning had done to the colt but at the same time, forcing herself to look, sensing that there would be much worse things to come in the immediate future.

Laying right on front of the carrot stand was… something. If she hadn’t been told, Trixie wouldn’t have been able to tell that it was a pony at all, much less a colt. The little pony laying in a reeking black pool of his own vomit was trembling, his eyes clenched shut and the part of his face that was still visible soaked with tears. His limbs were twisted and bony, joints and hooves bleeding lazily from what looked like… claws shoving their way through the skin. His neck had become abnormally long and what had probably once been a fine tail and mane was almost bare, protrusions that looked disturbingly like tendrils forcing their way out where mane hair had once been. Even the side of him that wasn’t laying in the vomit was streaked with a definite pattern of branching black lines that seemed to pulsate with luminous darkness; Trixie looked closer and realized, with a twist in her gut, that she was seeing the poor colt’s veins and capillaries through his coat glowing from the magic-tainted blood flowing through them.

Heedless of the fact that she was getting her coat filthy, the colt’s mother held her child, her face streaked with tears as she brokenly tried to hush the tiny sounds of pain and fear that came from the husk she held, not even aware of Celestia standing over here, looking down at the colt with mingled fury and heartbreaking sadness.

“May I see him?” She asked with a quiet tenderness.

The mare sniffed and looked up at the Princess with an expression of exquisite devastation. “Y… your Majesty…?”

“May I see him?” Celestia repeated, the loving gentleness in her tone somehow increasing. “I wish to help.”

“M… may I…?”

“I would never ask a mother to cease cradling her child while he’s hurt and afraid.” Celestia replied to the incomplete question, her horn beginning to shimmer with luminous Light and power. She leaned down and lightly touched the colt’s forehead with her horn and a wave of soft, silvery light radiated from the point where her horn had touched, running over the colt like fire through dry grass. Where the Light touched, wounds closed, the luminous black lines flickered and died down, the trembling stopped, and the colt slumped against his mother, his breathing ragged but even.

Trixie’s attention was more drawn to the sickly fluid the colt was laying in: just like the blackness on Carrot Top’s fields, the fluid evaporated and shrunk from Celestia’s Light, steaming and bubbling as its opposite thoroughly destroyed it. The sight should have been comforting; instead, it was chilling: a single infected carrot, perhaps two, could do this to a pony, turning their blood and even their vomit black with Void energy.

The mother mare gave a choked sob and embraced Celestia’s nearest leg, smearing the remains of the vomit that was sticking to her coat all over the limb as she whispered her thanks. Celestia didn’t even seem to noticed her perfect white coat being sullied as she kindly patted the mare on the shoulder. “Your son is resting,” she murmred to the mare. “But he needs to be taken to a hospital, where he can be cared for.” Trixie felt something metal brush by her, jumping slightly as two Royal Guards whom she hadn’t even noticed arrive politely pushed passed her and took position at Celestia’s side. “My Royal Guard will ensure that you get there safely and quickly. I wish you the very best, and hope that all will be well.”

The Royal Guard apparently needed no more instruction than that, for one gently lifted the mother up and let her lean against him while the other gathered up the sleeping colt and carefully walked him and his mother out of sight, probably to a chariot. Celestia smiled peacefully at the gathered ponies. “I’m sure the child will be fine. Does anypony know what happened?”

“She bought a half-dozen carrots,” the market pony, who apparently owned the stall, offered. “She gave him one to nibble on while she continued shopping. I turned away for only a minute when I heard her scream and he was on the ground, shaking and… and…”

“It’s alright,” Celestia said, raising a hoof to stop the stallkeeper. “I… saw what the result was.” She looked around. “Please, continue with your daily tasks, my little ponies. The child has been helped and there is no cause to crowd the stall and worry yourselves. I will see to it personally that this matter is resolved.”

It was a mark of the astonishing trust that the ponies had in their Princess that being bid to stop worrying and go about their lives seemed to be all that was required; the crowd rapidly disappeared in different directions, leaving Trixie and Celestia alone with the stallkeeper. Without anypony else watching, Celestia looked down at the still-shaken stallion. “Where do you buy your carrots?”

“Manechester Table Farms, Your Majesty,” he replied.

Celestial let out a puff of breath and frowned. “Then I’m afraid that I’ll need your stock. There has been word of a plant illness making the rounds between various farms that can infect produce without being visible, and causing extreme illness if the produce is consumed. I shall need to examine your carrots to make sure this illness isn’t in them.”

“M… my carrots made him sick?” He asked, his eyes going wide.

“If they did. you did nothing wrong,” Celestia consoled him. “You cannot be blamed for selling ponies carrots from a farm with an exemplary reputation that looked perfectly fine to you.”

He sagged with relief. “I’m glad.”

“But I do need to examine the carrots,” she added.

“Of course Your Majesty, take them,” he said. “I… need to settle my nerves anyway. So horrible, that poor little colt…” He shook his head and trotted away, his distress hanging over him like a black cloud as he went. With everypony but Trixie now gone, Celestia let her mask go and her expression grew both agonized and tight with anger.

“How dare these Evils!” she exclaimed lowly. “Destroying my little ponies’ livelihoods, poisoning little colts, infecting my subjects with fear? I should like to have them before my throne so that I might mete out fierce judgment against them.”

“Will the colt…?”

The anger went out of her face and stance and Celestia hung her head. “As Twilight would put it, he is the index case, the ‘patient zero’ for this Void disease. And the chances for a patient zero are precisely that. I made him comfortable, ensured that he would survive for a time without pain, long enough for loving farewells…”

“But your magic healed all of his injuries…”

“My magic healed the surface injuries, banished his sickness, vanquished his pain, cleansed his blood of the Void material… but I cannot mold him back into a healthy colt,” Celestia sighed. “The Void disease, in only the relatively few minutes since he bit into the carrot, has twisted his body in ways I can’t repair. When I was under the influence of Nightmare Flare, I could and did twist good ponies into loyal playthings but without the evil power that form gave me, I cannot any longer.”

“Is there any way to get it…?”

“NO!” The vehemence of Celestia’s reply, with a touch of the Royal Canterlot Voice that her sister would sometimes slip into, froze Trixie in place for a moment. “Trixie, I know the question was meant innocently and with pure intentions but I would not seek it if I could. Evil power can only be used for evil; not even I can violate that one ironclad rule.”

Trixie nodded sadly. “Then there is nothing we can do for him?”

“We have done all we could,” Celestia responded. “We arrived to save him while everypony else stood in horror. Kindness was shown to the soon-to-be bereaved mother even though it cannot save her son. One of the rulers of Equestria, a goddess in her eyes, conveyed her son to the hospital on her own sun chariot. He will be comfortable and without pain, and will die without suffering. His family will have time to gather around, love him, and bid him goodbye. Short of making him well, there is nothing else that can be done.” She paused. “Well, one little thing…”

“Slay the monster that murdered him?” Trixie asked.

“Slay the monster that murdered him,” Celestia agreed. “And find some way to seize the rest of that crop until we can find a way to make it safe. And then, find a way to protect other crops from infection.”

Trixie considered this. More than likely, whatever creature had done this was a thing of the Void and as Spite had said (and had been vividly proven by both Celestia and Trixie), magic infused with Light was toxic to the Void. It was so toxic that the Void matter had sizzled and evaporated from the mere luminance of the Light magic when…

“I think I have an idea, Your Majesty,” Trixie said. “The matter of the Void seems like it burns and flees from just the radiance of Light magic. What if we set up the patrols I thought of but gave each one a… lantern or something else they can easily hold or put around their neck that radiates Light? They could cleanse fields by themselves and if rays of light from Light magic hurt things of the Void…”

“…any pony could meet this creature and force it to retreat because the Light is poisonous to it.” Celestia smiled. “I may not be gifted with runcraft but runes of sunlight, longevity, and illumination are among the easiest to inscribe. That’s a very clever solution, Trixie.”

“Being a showpony is all about the improv,” Trixie smiled a little in return. “Speaking of improvisation, there may be another way to fight this creature without needing to find it: we could attempt to deceive it. Grifters do it all the time, and I haven’t always been the most… honest about how I keep bits in my bag.”

“I know,” Celestia’s eye got that slightly playful twinkle. “Would you be surprised to know that I made sure I knew everything there was to know about the unicorn mare my daughter was mentoring?”

“Not really,” Trixie admitted. “Did Twilight know?”

“She didn’t want to; your past didn’t matter to her.” Celestia sighed with a touch of fondness. “If I and Luna were mortal, I could easily see Twilight succeeding us when we passed… she would be a very enlightened monarch, I think, possibly the most enlightened since dear old Starswirl.”

Trixie laughed at this. “Queen Twilight Sparkle? As wonderful as that sounds, can you imagine your daughter conducting state business without taking frequent book breaks?”

Celestia’s eyes twinkled mirthfully. “No, I couldn’t imagine that,” she admitted. “So, why did you bring up grifters?”

“Because they get bits from marks by letting the mark believe that they’re winning, winning big, and could win everything… and then at the last moment, they pull their trick, make it impossible for the mark to win, and collect the pot,” the showmare explained. “I think we need to play the same game with this creature: make it overconfident, sure of victory, and then mete out fierce justice upon it. It’s the only way I can think of that we could catch it without needing to find it first.”

“And by making the attempt, we could choose where it attacks and when it attacks and have ponies there to repel and hurt it,” Celestia nodded. “A sound strategy. But one that has to start with the most difficult first step: warning my little ponies of this monster without provoking a panic.”

“Would you like me to attempt to examine the carrots, Princess?”

“Would you?” Celestia smiled. “I think it best that you make the first attempt and see what can be seen without an overabundance of power and experience, what might be seen by another unicorn if they were looking for it.”

“Would you like me to find you afterwards?”

“If you would.” Celestia leaned down and kissed the top of Trixie’s head. “I appreciate what you’ve done, Trixie. You identified the danger and devised a way to address it, at least in part. You have been welcome company, especially when we discovered just what had befallen the poor colt. I hope we shall be able to work together, the two of us with the aid of other good ponies, to repel this assault on Our kingdom.”

“It has been my honor, Princess Celestia,” Trixie beamed, giving the solar diarch her most elegant bow.

She turned away and felt the constant warm presence of the princess recede as Celestia trotted away, and she stepped over to examine the carrots on the stand. Just as Carrot Top had described, every one of them had slightly wilted stems, something that Trixie wouldn’t have even given a second glance to if she hadn’t been looking for it. They were otherwise all that a carrot should be: a deep appetizing orange color, the flesh firm and succulent, no spots of rot, carefully hoof-washed that very morning so they still smelled as fresh as they looked, and stacked in angled rows to emphasize their delicious abundance.

Trixie stared at the carrots and bit her lip lightly. The memory of the sick, almost painful, wrongness of the magic that laid over Carrot Tops’ field came to the forefront of her mind but she tried to shake that off, telling herself that she had a defense against it now and was fully aware of what she was dealing with. Of far greater concern was the fact that Twilight hadn’t been able to give her as much instruction with magical discernment as she had with combat magic and other principles, so she was genuinely worried that she’d be unable to get much of anything off the carrots, assuming that there was anything to get; Trixie was well aware of the concept of a one-use magical trap and it could easily have been triggered, and burned out, when the colt had taken a bite of the root.

Hoping for the best, she lit her horn softly and moved it closer to the pile of carrots, closing her eyes so she could more easily block out distractions of sights, scents and sounds to make it easier to read the spell on the vegetables. A moment later, she found herself laying on the ground a few lengths away, her stomach churning threateningly and a throbbing pain spreading across her back where the trap embedded in the spell had thrown her against a cart. She blinked and tried to move, wincing as her back revolted against the action, and pushed through the pain to get to her hooves. She didn’t know magical theory well but she was pretty sure that weaving that kind of power into an enchantment, enough to pick up a pony and throw them at the slightest provocation, bespoke immense power in the enchanter and enough sophistication to hide such a powerful enchantment from easy detection.

She took a tentative step forward, wincing again as her back protested, and very nearly tripped over one of the carrots that had been thrown free when the trap went off. She gave the innocent-looking vegetable a glare as ponies came rushing over.

“Miss Lulamoon, are you alright?” A mare (Trixie seemed to recall that her name was Berry Punch) asked, head tilting with a concerned expression.

“The Great and Powerful Trixie is… don’t touch those!” Several ponies froze in place at her panicked command, hooves and mouths stopping just short of touching the carrots. “Princess Celestia is concerned that the carrots were tainted with a plant illness and asked me to examine them,” she added hurriedly. “She gave me a cantrip so I can handle them safely so please, let me take care of it.”

Some part of her conscience twitched at the lie and how easily and smoothly it came out, but stunned expressions gave way to cautious but not frightened wariness and the ponies respectfully backed away from the rogue vegetables. Trixie gave them what she hoped was a reassuring smile before extending her telekinetic magic and wrapping it around one of the carrots. This time, the spell didn’t lash out but Trixie felt her hold weakening, as if the enchantment was actively struggling against her. She almost dropped it in surprise but, frowning, she sent out more magic through the link and strengthened her grip, hoisting it into the air. She trotted forward with the vegetable in her telekinetic grip and firmly stacked it with those of its kind that remained on the stand.

She grabbed the next and then another, making sure to use more magic then necessary to counteract the odd resistance to her grasp. Finally, there was one left and it was the one nearest to the stand, as if the explosion had caused it to simply roll off rather than be thrown by the force. She seized it like she had the others but unlike the others, it didn’t simply seem to resist her hold: a hammer of force and Void slammed into her head and she toppled, her stomach churning as it tried expel its contents but for the fact that Trixie hadn’t eaten since going to Carrot’s fields. Her vision clouded a moment and then she felt a hoof on her shoulder and looked blearily up at the same mare as before, definitely Berry Punch.

“That’s not a plant disease,” she said lowly. She then looked up and said more loudly. “You look like you’re a bit tired-out from a show, Miss Lulamon. Are you sure you wouldn’t like some help?”

Trixie blinked up owlishly at the plum mare, her muddled brain trying to figure out how the town drunk was both sharp enough to notice the lie that had fooled everypony else, and quick enough to recognize that what she’d figured out shouldn’t be said out loud, and went straight to covering Trixie’s flank. Then her normally-sharp brain unmuddled a little and helpfully pointed out that ‘town drunk’ was a gossipy rumor she’d picked up last time she’d come to Ponyville; it also pointed out that the only thing she’d ever seen Berry Punch drinking was… berry punch. “Yes, the Great and Powerful Trixie could use her beauty sleep. Would you mind to…”

“…help you to your wagon?”

“And tell Big Macintosh where I am,” Trixie nodded.

“Certainly.” Berry leaned down and draped one of Trixie’s legs over her shoulders, helping her to her hooves then provided a solid body to lean against as the blue unicorn carefully walked towards her garish wagon parked nearby. “So, not a plant disease.”

“Yes.”

“Spell?”

“Yes, actually.” Trixie looked curiously at her. “Trixie begs your pardon but…”

“I’m a wine-maker not a wine-bibber,” Berry stated bluntly.

“I didn’t think otherwise,” Trixie assured her. “I was going to say that you show a great deal of fast thinking and discretion for a wine-maker.”

Berry smiled pleasantly. “When you and Big Mac tie the knot and you make Ponyville your home, I think you’ll enjoy getting to know ponies outside just the Apples and your circle of friends. I think we’ll surprise you.” She chuckled. “But outside of that, I’m close friends with Carrot Top; she told me what happened to the fields and everypony in Ponyville is used to watching magic behave… oddly. I just put two and two together.”

Trixie swallowed. “So… how many other ponies would put two and two together?”

Berry shrugged. “Most of them. But I think you underestimate how much we love and trust the Princesses. Most of us are parents, we get it, you can’t always tell your children everything and sometimes you have to tell a lie to them out of love and for their own good. So if Princess Celestia tells us that it’s a plant disease that can cause sickness… well, it’s a plant disease that can cause sickness, even though it’s not.”

Trixie gave Berry a little smile as they got to her wagon. “Thank you.”

“Of course.” The mare smiled broadly. “But in return, I’d like to know what the real truth is. I won’t tell others without your permission, but I think you’ll need more ponies than just your coltfriend and his family to deal with whatever this actually is.”

<><

“It sounds like we’ve got a big problem,” Berry commented when Trixie was done. While Berry Punch had gone to tell Big Mac where she was and assure him that she was fine, Trixie had worked on preparing a social nicety that frequent visits to Rarity’s Carousel Boutique had taught her: afternoon tea. The presence of the tea was strangely comforting and pleasant and reminded Trixie of the elegant unicorn, who was also comforting and pleasant (after she’d decided that Trixie had made amends for her behavior). Berry Punch, born and raised in Ponyville, clearly appreciated Trixie borrowing the afternoon tea tradition from the alabaster dressmaker.

“More than just a big problem, I’m afraid,” Trixie sighed. “It could strike any field, anytime. The produce could be shipped anywhere in Equestria before we knew what’d happened. We have no idea what the thing actually looks like, beyond a misshapen bird and that’s assuming that it’s not clever enough to use a disguise.”

Berry considered this. “Fine. We have a huge, world-ending problem we can do nothing about. We should go home, hug our loved ones, and await the end.”

Trixie gave the other mare a dim look and received a cheeky grin in return. “That’s not helpful.”

“Neither is exaggerating the problem,” Berry pointed out with a sip of the tea. “So that one carrot that was laying near the stand… what was different about it? It looked like you were trying to pick it up but then you toppled over and started retching like you’d gotten bucked in the stomach.”

“I don’t know,” Trixie admitted. “All the carrots I picked up felt like they were resisting my magic slightly but that one… it fought back.”

“Fought back.” Berry looked askance at her.

“I don’t know how else to describe it. It’s like the spell was designed to attack anypony that tried to touch the carrot with magic, and attack hard.” Trixie shook her head in between another sip. “But where could it get enough of it to blast me off my hooves at first and then throw a hammer of magical force at me when I tried to pick it up?”

The other mare considered this. “I don’t know what’s going on exactly but here’s a thought: when a farmpony spreads fertilizer on their fields, the plants under where they keep it are always much larger, stronger, and hardier. Maybe that carrot was at the very center of the field when this thing infected that acreage so it was the most strongly enchanted.”

“So the enchantment on it would be the most durable…” Trixie said thoughtfully. “Something to try at least.” She got up and started towards the door of the wagon.

“What are you thinking?” Berry asked, following her out. “And are you feeling well enough to try it?”

“Considering what’s at stake, I feel well enough to try it,” Trixie replied. “And I’m thinking that if that enchantment is stronger, a little Light might take the fight out of it, as it were.”

“Poison the poison.” Berry chuckled. “It’s poetic, at least.”

“I thought so.” Trixie had worried a little that in her absence, somepony would have absentmindedly picked up the carrot and put it away or a foal had gotten it in their mouths, but the carrot was lying where it had fallen, looking entirely innocent and like any other carrot—but Trixie knew better. This time, she didn’t try to be careful or subtle; right off, she wove the telekinesis heavily with the same magic that she used in her sphere of Light and wrapped it around the offending vegetable. She had a brief impression of something trying to push back but Trixie gave it no chance to attack again, weaving her grip, and the infusion of Light, tighter around it as she lifted it up to put it back into place.

The magical resistance of the spell surged again and this time, Trixie could see smoke coming from the carrot as the Void energy was scorched by the Light. But more than that, in the brief moment of the surge, Trixie could feel the distinct traces of a transformation spell in the midst of the disease—a complex one, rivaling the complexity of the spell Twilight had shown her that gave fully functional wings to a flightless pony for a time. But this one had a sickly feeling of malevolence about it, and vastly more power than it would take to simply add a couple limbs; suddenly the appearance of claws and bone spurs growing through the colt’s skin made a certain chilling sense. What was even more distinct about this spell, however, was what it didn’t feel like: it has no feeling of disease, virulence, or anything else she’d associate with a spell designed to sicken and kill.

Her concentration on the enspelled carrot was broken by a surge of a familiar radiant aura around her and she turned to find Celestia standing at her side, looking strangely distressed.

“Your…”

“Trixie, have you learned anything about the spell?” Celestia interrupted.

“I can resist my telekinetic hold as if it was alive,” she replied, sensing that it wasn’t the time to delay. “And apparently, the carrot closest to the caster when he cast the spell absorbed an immense amount of magic, enough that the spell was complex enough to actively attack me until I scorched it with Light. And… it’s a transformation spell, Your Majesty, an extremely strong and complex one. Twilight could understand what it does but me…”

“You’ve done fine, Trixie,” Celestia assured her with a sigh. “You’ve done more than I could have expected and as much as I could have asked.”

“You seem… disappointed.”

Celestia smiled. “I am, and it’s wrong of me to feel so. You’re the first pony outside of my daughter that I’ve trusted to act as my hoof in anything for nearly a thousand years. But that is my disappointment.” Her face became lined with worry. “I flew in the direction the chariot would have taken; I should have overtaken them almost instantly, yet I haven’t seen them at all. My Royal Guard are exhaustively trained, able to fly in any weather or recognize when the weather is too dangerous to fly in, yet it is as if they’ve gotten lost. They’ve… it’s been centuries since that’s happened, and both Canterlot and Ponyville are places they fly to constantly.”

“Could carrying a distressed passenger and her ill colt have changed anything about their route or how they fly?” Trixie asked.

“They would have gone slower and taken the quickest route,” Celestia grimaced. “Moreover, I’ve spoken to Carrot Top and by now, most of the infected crop has reached its various destinations: Manehattan, Stalliongrad, Hoofington, Baltimare, Neigh Orleans… Canterlot. I expect to hear news of outbreaks soon, and that doesn’t even consider the possibility that the creature may have done its work on crops of alfalfa, tomato, apples, daffodils, daisies… anything that ponies eat in large amounts, this beast may have made diseased.”

“It’s late in the season for most of those, Your Majesty,” Berry Punch offered. “And those that it’s not late for would be a poor choice to taint.”

Celestia appeared to not have noticed Berry Punch standing nearby, just close enough to overhear without being obvious about it, because she turned and looked at the mare curiously. “Please explain, Miss Punch.”

“Alfalfa and tomatoes were harvested and shipped well over a week ago,” the earth pony explained. “And both daffodils and daisies are so common that they’re harvested as needed throughout the season. The only of the major crops that’s left is apples, and Sweet Apple Acres is clean.”

“How can you…?” Celestia glanced at Trixie. “Ah, I see. How much are you aware of?”

“Most things,” Berry admitted. “I asked for the entire truth when I helped her back to her wagon after the strong spell knocked her on her flanks and covered for her, although I could tell that what was going on is no plant disease.”

“I appreciate your discretion, Berry Punch,” Celestia smiled.

“Think nothing of it, Your Highness,” the mare responded cheerfully. “Any questions any of us may have had about whether our Princesses have our best interests in mind were answered long ago. We trust you, Princess, like foals trust their parents and like our parent, we’re aware that you have to occasionally be less than honest for our own good. Telling everypony that some evil thing is running around infecting random food crops couldn’t have ended well.”

The solar princess beamed at the earth pony before her smile disappeared back into her worried expression. “I’m grateful for the trust of my little ponies but we must still contend with the fact that the distribution will lead to pandemic, and I must find that chariot and the Royal Guard that were with it.”

“Before you go, Princess, how complicated would it be to create a few of the lanterns I suggested?” Trixie asked. “This started in Ponyville; it’s more than possible that the creature is lingering to ensure that its attack is playing out according to its desires.”

“Of course, Trixie.” Celestia gave her a smile. “I seem to recall that Rarity keeps a great store of gems at her Carousel Boutique.” With a small surge of magic, a pouch of bits popped into midair and Celestia floated it over so Trixie could take it in her telekinesis. “If she was here, I’m sure she’d refuse compensation, so it’s very fortunate that she isn’t here.”

Trixie tested the weight of the pouch. “Not the least of which because there’s enough bits here to buy the Boutique itself.”

Celestia chuckled. “Being generous with the Element of Generosity seems appropriate to me. I’ll be here when you return.”

“Yes, Your Majesty.” Trixie turned and, flanked by Berry, trotted towards the prominent dress shop. It was as colorful and elegant as she remembered, garish but somehow subdued in a way that its white-coated owner would approve of. The only thing that was new was as tattered yellow flag with a black spot in the middle tacked to the door. Looking at Berry and getting a sinking feeling, Trixie trotted closer—and immediately felt like she’d walked into an invisible wall of the sickly, noxious energy of the Void. It was fully as strong as the pallor that hung over Carrot’s fields but more… solid somehow, like it had been concentrated.

Trixie gritted her teeth and brought out her sphere of Light, pushing the Void back as she leaned in to examine the strange flag. The tacks that were driven through the fabric were strange-looking, their heads rectangular and off-center and stamped with a cluster of three tiny stars in a triangle. The flag itself was careworn, threadbare, and had clearly been subjected to both weaponry and being partly scorched by fire. Trixie had the sudden impression that she was looking at something that was ancient, and the recognition that no resident of Ponyville could have put it there made her back away.

“What the hay does that mean?” Berry asked, pointing at the flag.

“It means we need to get back to Princess Celestia,” Trixie replied grimly. “Because whoever put it there somehow did it without being seen and that flag is far too old to have been put here by anypony. I think it’s safe to say that this creature infecting carrots isn’t the only person at work.”

Author's Note

I realize up front that some of this chapter has a very "mailed it in" feel to it so more than others, feedback is desired to see if I can unknot some of what plagues it.

Spite: Master of Puppets

Spite watched through her field glasses as the altered griffins continued their frenzied attack against the walled griffin city in the distance. Even this far away, she caught the very faint scent of salt water and fish, a smell of ocean that caused a brief flood of sweet and bittersweet memory to flash before her mind’s eye. So many hours spent in the howling gales from the northeast, reveling in the glorious fury of the storms…going there to bid so many friends so many farewells… She pushed it aside and forced herself to focus on the battle. It was readily apparent that even with all sorts of meddling to make them stronger and deadlier, the altered griffins were struggling mightily to get into the city, unable to use their greater numbers and strength because of thousands of bolt holes and choke points that allowed a smaller number to drive the Evil’s minions back again and again. It seemed odd to her that they weren’t attempting to enter the city by simply flying over the walls, but she assumed that there was an excellent reason, which she resolved to ask the two griffins who were, even now, exuberantly expressing their gratitude to Luna by crushing her between them.

“Thank you, Princess! We owe you everything!” one of the two griffins exclaimed as she and her mate embraced Princess Luna from either side. It appeared that Luna’s spellwork had been fully as effective as it first appeared: the two griffins emerged from the storm of Dark magic and divine wrath completely purged of Void corruption—and wildly grateful to the slightly-blushing alicorn who found herself trapped between two overjoyed leoavians.

“You’re welcome, both of you,” she managed, smiling. “An unintended, but welcome, consequence of the battle with that… corrupt one.”

“More like a smiting,” Spite chuckled lowly, turning away from the battle ahead of them and casing the glasses, putting them away in her holding pouch. “I know I insisted that you and your sister are goddesses, Your Majesty, but I did so without realizing how literally true that is. Even more impressive, though, is that you were actually in control of that maelstrom.”

“Well, I could hardly let the spell harm a faithful companion,” Luna replied lightly, giving Spite a small smile as she politely wiggled free of the griffins’ grateful embrace. “Worthy griffins, may I know your names?”

“Gryta of the White Mountain Aerie and of the Second Farsighted Wing,” the female replied.

“Osper of the Painted Mesa Aerie and of the Second Farsighted Wing,” her mate added.

“I’m honored to meet two valiant soldiers of the Provinces, and pleased that I was able to help you,” Luna said.

“It is we who are honored, Your Majesty,” Gryta said, bowing deeply to the alicorn. “You’ve saved us, not only from that horrible hold, but also from the shame of betraying nest and province in servitude to the one called ‘Master’.”

“Original name,” Spike snorted. “Have either of you actually laid eyes on this ‘Master’? I’d dearly love to find out what the demented coward looks like.”

“No one sees Master and remembers seeing him,” Osper told her solemnly. “They are brought into his presence to be altered and know nothing but his command until they’re released. I and my mate certainly looked upon him, but we’ll never know what we saw.”

The dragoness frowned as she acknowledged this with a nod. “That actually narrows it down, although I truly wish it did not. The kind of alteration you speak of, the erasure or blocking of memories combined with being able to infuse a creature with the Void and shape the result, is a rare property and found only amongst the most ancient.”

“When she was Nightmare Flare, my sister was able,” Luna pointed out.

“As I said, found only among the most ancient,” Spite returned. “I’m certain you and your sister are both very old and I suspect that both your nightmare and hers were similarly ancient.”

“You spoke earlier as if you… knew something of her,” Luna mentioned.

“Based on the few things you’ve said or implied, it’s possible that I do. However…” Spite gestured pointedly at the two griffins, then at a Rainbow Dash still curled into the fetal position with Fluttershy gently consoling her, then at the distant griffin city under attack.

Luna smiled slightly. “Yes, there’s more important things to take care of than the past. Gryta, Osper, can you tell us anything about the minion of ‘Master’ that we confronted?”

“Only that he calls her ‘Grimfeathers’ instead of her actual name,” Gryta replied. “It seems to make her very angry.”

“Heh.” Spite turned to look at where Rainbow Dash remained slumped and hugged up against a consoling Fluttershy. “So Gilda’s family name pisses her off? Well, that’s too bucking bad, isn’t it? Shoulda… shoulda done it to a different…” Her voice faltered and she swallowed audibly. “Shoulda done it to a different griffin then. Too bucking bad.”

“I’m sure ‘Master’ is regretting his choice of departed soul to drag back into life to serve as a thug,” Spite agreed, her brow furrowing. “Although if that’s what he’s done…”

She fell into silence, contemplating this a moment. No way in existence that Phyrrus would let an insult like that go by, especially from an Evil… and any Evil that attempted it would know damn well the price for pissing off Death himself. And yet, Gilda was clearly dead and is now alive, if only in the head of that ‘Grimfeathers’ beast that ‘Master’ has created. Almost unsurprising, considering that another minion of the Evils managed to resurrect and control four alicorns, each of which I can reasonably assume had power comparable to Celestia and Luna. This… does not bode well. “Yet another thing that doesn’t add up, and is all the more scary because it doesn’t add up,” she concluded aloud. “Assuming that ‘Grimfeathers’ isn’t lying, a very dubious assumption mind you, bringing Gilda back is an immense gamble, one that the Guardian apparently didn’t resort to until the final battle if the short accounts I’ve heard are accurate. It’s a desperation move because it would be suicidal; The Reaper normally either kills necromancers immediately or punishes them when they fall into his hands. The only other possibility is difficult to explain, but…”

“We’ve got work to do,” Rainbow finished dispiritedly before she looked at Gryta and Osper. “So what’s the deal with the city-aerie ahead?”

“It’s one of three places where all griffins who have their own minds gather,” Osper replied. “It’s being attacked because it amuses ‘Master’ to make the defenders hurt their kin. It’s hazy but…”

“…we were definitely attacking with the aid of a mighty beast before ‘Grimfeathers’ commanded that we come with here to ambush you,” Gryta finished. “It left just as we did.”

“Then it has been destroyed,” Luna stated confidently.

“No, Princess Luna,” Gryta replied with a frown. “What was destroyed by you was a plaything of ‘Master’, an… experiment. The beast I’m talking about flowed above the land and seemed to be made of many creatures that acted mindlessly as one. It could not speak or reason, but it was deadly, invincible, with a ravenous hunger. I think it was being told exactly what to do all the time, because it seemed to be incapable of acting without pausing, as if waiting to be given instructions.”

“Did you get a good look at the creatures that made it?” Spite asked, looking intently at the griffiness. “Did they fly without wings and eat without mouths?”

“No and no, although they saw without eyes and smelled without nostrils,” she replied. “They looked like fish but with the faces of parasprites and their wings look like the wings of a fly but larger.”

“Strange…” Spite murmured. “Don’t mind me, though; please continue.”

“‘Master’ sends us and those like us against the refuges to hurt their spirit because he knows he can’t defeat them,” Gryta said. “The griffins strongest in war have always come from near the sea and the aeries are all near the waters, so ‘Master’ cannot starve them.”

“He doesn’t attempt to ambush fishers over the ocean?” Luna asked with an audible touch of surprise.

“Naw.” All four of them now looked towards Rainbow who’d raised her head and was looking more directly at them than before, her red-rimmed eyes full of pain. “Thermals out over the water are horseapples and the currents are absolute murder. Griffin fishers can figure ‘em out because they’ve been playing in ‘em since before they could fly.”

“And ‘Master’ fears the water, as do all of his servants,” Osper added. “The two times he came to watch, he stayed far away from the cliffs, although they offered the best view of the harm he was doing.”

“So he maintains a siege upon them, one that cannot starve them out,” Luna frowned. “Sadism cannot be the only reason, unless he has a goal other than dominating the Provinces and subjugating them.”

“You underestimate how important sadism is to Evils,” Spite replied grimly. “A goodly number of them need no more reason than the chance to inflict suffering.” She looked towards the besieged city. “Speaking of such, I’m thinking we shouldn’t be standing here and watching while ‘Master’ has his fun. Are you feeling rested enough to get back to it, Luna?”

Luna nodded solemnly. “Not as much as if my moon was in the sky, but more than enough to deal with a few of this Evil’s minions. I just hope we don’t have to reckon with another of those… creations.”

“Yeah, so what if we do?” Rainbow had gotten to her feet and very gently pushed aside Fluttershy’s concerned wing. “I’m coming with you.”

“Rainbow Dash, I…”

“I don’t care,” Rainbow interrupted Luna harshly. “After what that… thing did, stealing my friend’s voice, her appearance, taunting me with it, threatening to kill Flutters slowly… I bucking deserve a shot at her, and her ‘Master’, and her friends, and all of those horseapples. I’ll start with the ones attacking the city; maybe ‘Master’ will show up and I can buck him off a cliff and see if he can swim.”

Luna glanced at Spite and she could see her concern reflected in the night princess’ eyes. “We… I recognize that, Rainbow Dash,” she said in a gentle tone, looking back at the rainbow-maned mare. “However, you’re a very intelligent mare, more than you’re willing to admit. Can you look me in the eyes and tell me, honestly, that you’re cool-headed? That you won’t be reckless if you see a chance to hurt Grimfeathers or ‘Master’? That I won’t have to tell my niece that I let you charge into the middle of a fight in a state of blind rage, leading to you being gravely injured? Can you look me in the eyes and tell me that?”

Rainbow swallowed and her ears lay down a little. “…no,” she growled.

“Then I want you to remain here,” Luna told her with the same gentleness, adding a touch of firmness. “Let Kindness care for you and soothe your pain.”

“Y..yes,” Fluttershy added, leaning against Rainbow’s side and draping a wing over her. “S… stay with me and let the others fight, Dash. B… besides… th.. they need everyone they can get so I don’t have anyone else to stay while everyone else… f… f… fights.”

Spite took the opportunity of Rainbow looking away, leaning a little into the consoling embrace, to look curiously at the shy pegasus, having not heard her stutter badly before, and saw a fierceness in those gentle blue eyes, the same quiet boldness that had come out when Spite had tried to soften the casual sadism of the Evils to her. The unusual fire in those eyes made Spite smile and give her a nod of understanding; the stuttering timidity was for her friend’s benefit, to convince her to stay back where it was safe.

Fluttershy’s soft-spoken request and physical touch seemed to take the fight out of Rainbow and she nestled into the proffered embrace. “Heh… sure, Flutters, I’ll hang with you.” She looked over and let her intense jewel-like eyes roam over the others. “Just as long as they promise to beat the horseapples out of ‘Master’ if they see him.”

“Of course we will,” Spite assured her. “Just remember that we’re not only urging you to stay behind because you’re very upset at the moment. You’re a strong mare, Rainbow Dash, and almost recklessly courageous so when the Evil sends his minions to hurt Fluttershy—and he will indeed do that, he won’t be able to help himself—you’ll be here.”

Fluttershy sort of shrank against Rainbow, who almost automatically used her wing to press the other pegasus nearer consolingly. “Yeah, I will,” she agreed. “Hope ya chase ‘em off fast—griffin city-states are pretty bucking cool.”

<><><

When they’d left Fluttershy and Rainbow, Osper and Gryta had offered to take point, reasoning that the corrupted griffins that were attacking would be confused by their cleansing for long enough that the mated pair could strike first and draw first blood. Given that many of the stronger Evils were prone to personally overseeing every move their minions made, Spite wasn’t the least bit surprised when the griffins’ plan worked as intended: the Void-shaped nearest the pair were badly mauled before they realized what was happening.

Partly, that was due to the griffins themselves: despite being scouts (or perhaps because of it), they clawed, bit, and buffeted like enraged lions that happened to fly about, and the apparent scales of the Void-shaped seemed to do little to turn aside the avian talons or razor-sharp beaks. Thus, when Spite folded her wings and dropped her full weight on the nearest victim, few could spare the attention to notice her; Luna’s wire-like constructs grabbing four by the throats and throttling them into unconsciousness attracted a bit more notice. At which point, Luna proved fully as adept with mere hooves as she was with her immense magical font: a Void-shaped with ample boldness but very little smarts approached from behind, only to receive a double-legged buck that would make Applejack proud; Spite winced involuntarily as flickers of sympathy pain arched over her face.

“You may find this difficult to imagine,” Spite yelled over to Luna as she used the forearm of an attacking corrupted griffin as a ladder, swinging onto its back and dealing it a hard headbutt to its head, then letting go to allow the limp form to bounce its way down to the sand below. “But I’ve never being in earnest combat in all my thousands of years.”

“Thou art acquitting thyself quite well then!” Luna replied as she released the quartet of griffins that she’d just finished strangling into unconsciousness with her Darkness wires, a quick cantrip slowing their falls to survivable speeds. “But how hast thou lived so long without being once in earnest combat?”

“I actively—whoops,” she dropped below a blatantly-telegraphed slash and doubled the offender over with a good solid blow from her tail, “avoid fair fights of any kind. I’m very gifted at striking first and striking last, but not nearly as good at this sort of thing.”

She used the doubled-over foe as a battering ram, a hard grasp and a neat aerial pirouette seeing the corrupted griffin flung into a mass of its fellows that were mounting a renewed effort to push into the city with sheer mass. The hapless Void-shaped bowled over half a dozen, hollowing the push and giving the defenders a chance to push them back.

“Then thou art more of an assassin than a warrior?” Luna inquired, looking curiously at her as she unconsciously batted a pair of the griffins aside and threw yet another into his fellow, causing the pair to drop like a rock in a tangle of limbs and wings.

“I’m more of a right-hand dragon than anything else,” Spite told her. “Left”

Luna instantly swept with a wing to disorientate the attacker than followed it up with a hoof-thrust that snapped her opponent’s head back. A downstroke of her wings pulled her above the mutated leoavian’s level then a downthrust with both front hooves sent him spiraling down in an unconscious heap. “Thank you. What doth a right-hand dragon do, pray tell?”

“Whatever her sister, and queen, needs her to do,” Spite replied, smirking slightly in the direction of the piled Void-shaped griffins that were being set upon with a will by the untainted defenders. “Sometimes harmless tasks, like delivering a message or representing her to a foreign court. Sometimes dangerous tasks, like protecting good ponies from Evils.” She paused. “Sometimes… things that I’m not proud of, but needed to be done.”

Luna gave her a look of understanding sympathy. “Tis a burden that We know all too well,” she said, using her wires to smash the heads of a pair of stragglers together then two others to grab them around the middles and throw both downwards, causing the thoroughly stunned flyers to instinctively snap all four wings open and glide towards an hard, but not fatal, landing. “It was once Ours to do the same for Our sister, to keep Her hooves clean and Her glory unsullied.”

“Part of what led you into the grasp of your nightmare?”

“It may seem strange to thee but… no, We loved it,” the moon princess corrected her, drawing close to watch the mass of Master’s minions trying vainly to compensate for an assault from in front while a goddess and her companions assaulted from the back. “It was the only real challenge We had; most other duties were dull and unimportant but acting as Our sister’s hoof, working such that everypony knew We were at work but nopony could prove it, was exciting and vital.”

“Well, it’s much easier for me: there’s never a need to hide the fact that I’m carrying out Amarra’s wishes,” Spite said as Gryta and Osper joined them, looking none the worse for wear. “I admit, I wouldn’t have expected scouts to be good brawlers.”

Both griffins gave her a curious look. “Why not?” Osper asked.

“In all the armies I’ve seen, scouts are quick and intelligent, but far from possessed of the ability to trade punishment with their foes,” she admitted. “Of course, I’ve never fought against or alongside griffins.”

“Well, we have to fight far in advance of the wing, with very little help,” Gryta told her. “We literally have ourselves and perhaps one or two other scouts. If you cannot fight very well, you die very pointlessly.”

“Heh.” Spite nodded and looked over the melee below. “Anyone you know down there?”

Both gave her tight, bitter smiles. “Why else do you think Master posted us here? We know all of them,” Gryta replied. “I suppose he was thinking ahead, considering how he might punish us if we ever got free of his grasp.”

“Well, it doesn’t look like he had that much insight,” Spite observed as the mass of Void-shaped griffins began to break and scatter before the counterattack. “If he hoped to achieve something besides emotional hurt, he’s failed.”

“As we told you, milady dragon, emotional torment is his purpose,” Osper said. “What other point could there be in bleeding his minions in battles he can’t win?”

“Testing,” Luna offered. “It’s possible that he’s using pointless battles that can’t hurt him if lost to test his creations and further improve them. It’s brutal, yes, but I doubt that the evil of their ways deters the Evils at all. It would also explain the great beast you spoke of: why throw something like that into a fight you can’t win if not to discover its weaknesses and make it stronger?”

“Perhaps our free brethren can help us know,” Gryta suggested, gesturing towards the defenders of the city-state even now emerging from their positions, their gazes turned upwards with looks of curiosity, caution, and pleasant surprise. “Many of them have bled the beast we speak of and all have been throwing back Master’s attempts to seize them.”

“Princess Luna!” One of the griffins exclaimed joyfully as soon as they came in earshot. “You’re here, and you’ve freed two of our own! Does this mean Halia successfully delivered his message to you?”

“I’m afraid that Consul-General Halia was quite frail, last We saw him,” Luna replied solemnly as she alighted with casual regal grace in front of the gathering. “He was unable to deliver any message to us, for Master had put a spell on his mind that would have killed him if We had not intervened.”

As Spite slighted beside the lunar monarch, she could see the worried murmurs rippling through the battle-weary leoavians. The designated speaker furrowed his brow. “If he didn’t deliver his message, what wonderful gift of fate has brought you to our aid, Your Highness?”

“We have come north hunting a creature in the shape of a pony,” Spite answered. “I had come to Equestria hunting her, but she slipped my grasp, gravely wounding Rainbow Dash…”

The ripples became alarmed. “The Element of Loyalty lies wounded?” the speaker asked fearfully. “Is she… will she live?”

“She’s been healed, enough that she and Fluttershy, the Element of Kindness, were able to accompany us,” Luna reassured him. “Gryta, Esper, would you be willing to go to them and tell them that they can approach safely?”

“Of course, Princess,” Osper replied with a bow, he and his mate turning and taking wing in the direction where they’d left the two pegasus mares. Spite glanced after them then turned back to the griffins.

“How do you know Rainbow?” she asked. “I know she had a very dear griffin friend who died during the incident with the Guardian but I hadn’t equated that with general admiration for her.”

“Pegasi and griffins are both fliers, and our nations have a warm, if distant, relationship,” the griffin related, gesturing towards the walled city in mute invitation. “Gilda Grimfeathers and Rainbow Dash were a… well-known pair. For a while… well, some of their old friends from flight camp thought that it’d end up being more than friends but you know how it goes.”

“Separate ways, separate lives,” Spite nodded. “I almost wish I could meet Gilda; Grimfeathers, the being using her voice and body, is very unpleasant.”

As she and Luna joined him, the griffin chuckled slightly. “If you’ve met her, you’ve met Gilda. Or at least, Gilda’s mean streak, which was a mile wide and growing right before the end. There’s a good reason Master mocks her by calling her Grimfeathers: she’s too uncreative to be anything more than half an imitation of her hostess.”

“You know of him then?” Luna asked.

“He doesn’t make any real effort to conceal himself,” their host replied, banking in a lazy circle to wait while other griffins entered the city ahead. “We don’t know anything of him or his appearance, but he’s a braggart of the highest order, and a fool besides. He can’t enter our city, and attacking it just bleeds him.”

“I’m surprised he doesn’t just come through the uncovered top,” Spite mentioned. “You don’t even appear to watch it.”

He snickered. “Who said he didn’t try? He learned his lesson right quick, and we had meat that wasn’t fish for a couple nights.”

Luna gave him a slightly nauseated look. “That’s not funny.”

“I’m not joking,” he deadpanned. “Or, rather, I wouldn’t be joking if the corpses weren’t horribly diseased. Lost hundreds to a black death that rotted their insides and then turned them into puppets to some dark power, dead as can be but moving around and trying to spread the sickness. If not for the aid of some pegasi and a unicorn visitor, we’d have been killed by our own foolishness.”

“A unicorn visitor?” Spite repeated, furrowing her brow.

“Yes,” he replied with a smile. “Lovely young mare, practically falling over under the weight of her saddlebags, speaks with a very light lisp. A… Lily something.”

“Lily Shell,” Spite filled in, baring her teeth involuntarily.

“Yes, that’s the name,” he agreed, not catching the look she and Luna shared. “She just got back from a short jaunt east if you’d like to say hello.”

“Oh, I’d love that very much,” Spite said with relish. “So you say she was very helpful in dealing with the disease?”

“Vital,” he asserted, banking back towards the now-empty landing platform. “She’s the one that called it a ‘black death’, said that it’s created by creatures called ‘Plagues’ and that the best solution to is the use of fire on the bodies and anything infected by it.”

That brought Spite up short. What the buck? “So this Lily Shell… helped you? Legitimately helped?”

The griffin glanced back at her, looking confused. “You sound as if that surprises you.”

“It does, honored griffin,” Luna said to him. “The creature in the shape of a pony that we’ve come north hunting is a unicorn that speaks with a light lisp and goes about heavy-laden and uses the name Lily Shell.”

The griffin just barely avoided slamming into the wall on the other side of the platform, tumbling ungracefully as he landed and ending up in a thoroughly annoyed heap. “Could there be two of them?” He asked as he attempted to salvage his dignity by climbing back to his feet and ruffling his wings to shake the dust off.

“I can’t say,” Luna admitted as she landed beside him, the picture of predatory grace as she folded her wings. “I’ve never met her.”

“And I’ve met her just long enough for her to snarl at me and send a beast after Rainbow to draw me off,” Spite added, alighting beside the lunar princess. “Evils—that’s the general term for what she is—can be extremely mercurial and unpredictable, but going from trying to hurt an innocent to saving thousands of them with timely and correct advice is a very abrupt change.”

“Perhaps she’s remorseful, and came here to do good in make up for her evil?” He suggested with a touch of hopefulness as he slipped into the entrance just off the platform, narrow enough that it worked very well as a chokepoint, while wide enough that even with her wider wingspan, Spite could stretch out and just barely touch the sides. The tunnel had clearly been violently blasted step-by-step into the rock of the mesa and then refined with picks and hammers to be more or less uniform, the very slight indentations into the floor of the tunnel speaking of explosive charges of some kind inserted into prepared blasting holes and set off.

“Impressive use of explosives,” Spite commented.

“Yes,” their guide nodded proudly. “Carving our cities into these natural formation was no easy feat, but it was well worth it.”

“So how has Master been seizing your cities?” Luna asked. “He cannot besiege them all, and he’s clearly no tactician. Does he smash in using those disagreeable burrowing beasts?”

“Chobbaths aren’t strong enough to burrow through rock, Princess,” Spite interjected before the griffin could answer. “Perhaps that monstrous one, but something that massive would destroy so much of a city that capturing it and its inhabitants would be totally moot.”

“Your companion’s correct, your majesty,” their guide confirmed as the rock of the tunnel gave way to an alley formed by two stone structures to either side. “We have no idea how he’s seizing our cities and our selves, just that a city will resist for a long while and then it’ll fall abruptly and completely. It’s as if our brothers abruptly decide to stop fighting, unthinkable to any proper griffin. It’s partly out of fear of this fate that we’ves been so diligent about our defenses.

Remembering that these defenses included something above the city, Spite looked up and could see the sky above… and several flashes of the sun glinting off of something, or several somethings. She frowned and then a realization came to her.

“Kill wires!” She exclaimed. “That’s why Master can’t approach you by air… you have magically-taut magically-sharp wires stretched across the access!”

He grinned. “Exactly. It was a gift from some pegasi who’d been adopted by the city’s governing family. We’d begun trading the craft to other cities but Master arrived before all could share in it.”

“A pity,” Spite remarked as they emerged from the alley into a bright, frantic menagerie of color, sound, and life. The griffins had hollowed out the inside of the mesa and secured their homes and structures to the inside walls by some means she couldn’t see. Vast suspended bridges flowed from place to place, spaciously spaced out so that griffins could easily get around them. In the very center, suspended at their level, was a two-story wooden structure that Spite guessed to be the city hall surrounded by a massive platform that was now accommodating dozens of vendor’s stalls and carts. Almost as amazing as their city was the sheer variety of griffins. There were the classic white-and-golden griffins, generously interspaced among ones that were larger with tuft-less tails, ones that had gorgeous patterns on their feline rears and even more stunning ones on their avian fronts, and dozens of pegasi with all the colorful variety inherent to ponies.

“Bucking cool…” she breathed in awe, feeling a sharp pang of homesickness as she gazed out on a scene that could have been plucked straight out of Tempesthaven, the massive capital city where she and Amarra made their home. Mornings spent just sitting on the western balcony and listening to the music of millions laughing, crying, dancing, drinking, and so very much living… “There’s so much… life here!”

“Yes,” Luna agreed with a warm, benevolent smile directed at the dragoness. “You love it like I do, the thousands of people with thousands of stories going around living. Another reason I so loved that part of my responsibilities: even more than my sister, who loves Our little ponies like her own children, hasn’t mingled so seamlessly and often with them. I could tell so many stories…”

“And it would be a delight to hear them, Princess Luna, but I’m sure you’re rather satisfy yourself about Lily Shell,” the griffin remarked.

“That would be preferred, yes.”

“After she did such a kindness to us, we offered her a bed in the city hall where guests of the ruling family usually stay,” he related, stretching his wings and leaping off the little balcony they’d eventually emerged on. “She protested, and then she submitted graciously. She prefers to stay near the hall, it seems, because she never seems to emerge except to get some fresh fruits from the merchants.”

“Well, I hear that she was a good houseguest to the Apples,” Spite said as she and Luna followed him towards the structure suspended in the center of the city.

“She’s given us no trouble at all,” their guide replied, already touching down from the very short jaunt through the air to the platform. “Very protective of her saddlebags, though, and she seems afraid of someone accidentally touching that wooden rod she carries.”

“If what she carries in those saddlebags is even half as dangerous as that orb that bound the klesae, I can see why she’d want to keep others away from them, at least until she had need of what was inside.” Spite approached the structure, flanked by Luna and the griffin, noting that it seemed colorful and cheerful, with large-pane windows and heavy cloth instead of a door. “So which floor is this room of hers on?”

At that precise moment, before the griffin could even begin replying, the cloth was pushed aside by blue-tinged unicorn magic and out trotted a slender, white-coated, blonde-maned unicorn mare with a small book held in easy reading position by part of her magic and a succulent apple held in the rest. Lily turned her head slightly, moving the apple closer to take a big bite, never taking her eyes off her reading material. Fully emerging from the city hall, she seemed to sense eyes on her because she sighed and looked up at them.

Time seemed to stand still as fierce sapphire eyes regarded them over the rim of the untitled book, the disguised Evil’s expression bizarrely calm, before she looked at her apple, then at them, then at the apple again and shrugged, taking another smaller bite. “Honored griffin, do ye see a black-scaled dragoness and a resplendent alicorn beside ye?” she asked in a strong, steady voice with a touch of curiosity.

“Y… yes,” he answered after a moment, sounding slightly confused by the odd question.

Lily visibly considered this information before she floated a small scrap of paper from her saddlebags and carefully marked her place, shutting the book as she took another bite of apple. “That ist unfortunate, for I had hoped that this apple was rotted somehow and that I was hallucinating.” Those intensely sapphire eyes studied Spite for a brief instant before the Evil turned her gaze to Luna. “You are Princess Luna, sovereign of the moon and the night?”

“I am,” Luna acknowledged evenly.

To Luna’s visible astonishment, Lily immediately dropped into a deep bow. “It ist my deepest and gravest honor to be in yer presence, Divine One of the Night and Moon. Long has the night been my loyal friend and ally, and in this place, ye are its lady and ruler.”

“I… thank you for the respect,” Luna replied with an uncertain expression. “Thank you also for not attacking us on sight and hurting yet another innocent.”

“If I wish ye to come to harm, I need not attack ye,” Lashaal said calmly as she straightened. “Although because ye are here, I find myself at an advantage I had not anticipated.”

Spite eyed her. “If you pull out another klesae orb…”

“…ye will tear my head off and do profane things to it.” The false unicorn brushed this aside with a wave of her hoof. “I know this, and do not mean to do it. The advantage I speak of ist that only I know the evil planned for this city and how to prevent it, and ye desire to know this plan and how to prevent it. I desire to live.”

Spite looked harder at her. “Why?”

“Because to live is…”

“No, why are you offering to help us save this city?” Spite interrupted. “Assuming that you’re not lying, why would an Evil care at all about mortals?”

“Evils are sands on a vast shore,” Lashaal responded. “Some are cold and murderous, as the Slayer was. Others are mad and sadistic, as Rijii and Rejnu were. Still others are Dark and deadly, as ye and the Dread Empress are. And then there are those like me, indifferent to suffering, full of lies, but neither sadistic nor murderous. Ye are of the Void, Spite, and know these things; that ye are now in the service of the Darkness and enemy to Evil changes nothing that ist true.”

“Let us say that you are in earnest,” Luna said evenly before Spite could respond to the Evil’s calm rebuttal. “What are your terms?”

“Only that when ye hear wicked things swarming from the depths, ye let me escape your claws and slay the things that are mindless and hungry,” Lashaal replied, inclining her head deeply again as she responded. “I have sinned against ye by doing evil to one of yer dear subjects. This I know, and can only say that it was not my intention. I acted out of mindless fear, knowing that the Handmaiden would slay me if I fell into her hands, and so betrayed a binding and heartfelt oath to Lady Twilight Sparkle that no secret I held would do her or hers any harm. I am a liar, but not an oath-breaker and the breaking of that oath taxes and grieves me. I swear that ye shall have justice for the wrongs I have done ye, Divine One, but I wish to trade one of my secrets to ye and Spite to defer yer judgment.”

“That isn’t good enough,” Luna responded. “The night approaches, and I am powerful enough to slay the monstrous chobbath of this ‘Master’ without the light and strength of my moon to draw on, yet my touch is delicate enough to strip the Void from two victims and do no harm to Spite standing near. What secrets could you offer that would profit me more than what I already have?”

“Would yer vast power leave even one of the things alive that ye could follow them back to their master’s lair?” Lashaal smiled slightly. “Could ye be so precise that ye kill just enough to terrify their animal minds, yet leave enough that they know where safety lies? Do ye know what they fear to the utter depths of their limited minds? Ye are a goddess in rhetoric and truth, Divine One, but ye cannot be all-knowing, even with the aid of the Handmaiden.”

“So the hive-mind beast is very much like Vampvipers?” Spite asked.

“I will answer that, and tell ye more, if the goddess agrees to my terms,” Lashaal returned.

“You give your oath that you will submit to my justice?”

“I swear that I will submit to yer justice, whatever form that justice takes,” the Evil replied. “I swear it by what I am, and in the name of the Dread Empress.”

Luna looked at Spite. “She was your quarry long before she did me any evil, Spite. What say you?”

<><><

“We have to keep up with them!” Spite exclaimed as she used the claws of all four limbs to propel herself onwards through the narrow halls. “This could be our chance to find the Evil responsible for this invasion!”

“Are… are you sure that these creature aren’t leading us into a trap?” Luna asked, her horn glowing as she used her magic to cut through air resistance directly ahead of herself, allowing her to easily keep pace with the racing dragoness. “We did hear all we know about them from a source you deeply distrust.”

“Of course they’re leading us to a trap,” Spite replied, bounding off a wall and twisting herself around to land four-footed on the wall directly ahead and throw herself forward, neatly cornering as they chased the fleeing mass of hive creatures. “But her information has proven entirely accurate in every way so far, so I trust it even if I distrust her.”

Lashaal had proven to be as good as her word: when Spite accepted her terms, the disguised Evil had laid out the entire plan to them. Master’s apparently pointless use of his forces to attack the griffin cities was a clever way for him to gradually map out part of the city from hundreds of fragmented memories. Once he’d learned enough, he created a tear through the Void to a location chosen from the assembled fragments and sent the fierce beast Gryta and Esper had warned of through. The ‘beast’ was, as Spite had surmised from the griffins and Lashaal’s vague description, a massive hive-mind creature that was a deliberate imitation of the Second Prime, Vampvipers. It was still a dumb beast, where Vampvipers was fully awakened and extremely cunning, but the shock value of the ravenous swarm shattered any resistance—and Master had a new city of playthings.

But the hive mind had a serious weakness that Vampvipers also shared but unlike Vampvipers, the beast had nothing but an instinctive animal intelligence to deal with an attack of fire. Where the sentient and cunning Second Prime could coolly pull back and slip around the one attacking with fire, the animal intelligence could only recoil fearfully from it. A stream of Light-woven flame from Spite, and Luna displaying yet more of her deadly precision with her magic, creating nigh-invisible lashes around her Darkness wires and whipping them through the roiling mass, had the effect Lashaal had promised: the beast had flown into a state of mindless terror and fled towards what, if Lashaal was right, was safe haven in the embrace of its master.

“But the Evil cannot possibly wield enough power to contain you, Princess,” Spite continued as she whipped around yet another corner in pursuit. “He’s a cunning creature, not one of immense power, which means he strikes from the shadows and… whoah!”

She practically had to flip around and dig her claws into the stone below her to stop, seeing the mass weave through a narrow door directly ahead and disappear into the room beyond, a room that appeared to have no windows or means of exit.

“Why've you stopped, Spite?” Luna asked as she gracefully flared her wings and touched down. “We appear to have trapped them.”

“Luna, I’m pretty sure that if I tried to soar through that gap with my wings extended, the frame would tear them off. That would hurt.” Spite stalked forward and tapped on the stonework. “Clever. Just wide enough to admit the beasts and far too narrow for anyone to follow.” She smirked. “Well, too narrow for a living being to follow at any rate.”

“Surely you don’t mean to follow them in alone,” Luna said with a touch of disbelief. “As you just said, this Evil cannot anticipate me but you’d be alone beyond this door.”

“I thought you could revert to a mass of…”

“That was with the aid of the nightmare,” Luna interrupted. “And although I’m certain that she meant to teach me the magic, the affair of The Guardian interrupted her plans and shortly afterwards, she left. If you step through, Spite, I won’t be able to follow.”

Spite frowned at this. “Well… buck. This is an opportunity we cannot, must not miss, but if he’s set a trap, he could slip the noose and disappear to practically anywhere.”

“I could blast a hole through this stonework with ease,” the moon princess offered.

“Even the most stupid Evil is clever enough to inscribe backlash runes on important portals, and the more power you throw at such a rune, the stronger the backlash will be,” Spite told her, pursing her lips. “Mmm… well, there’s no help for it. If we do nothing, he’s gone; if I try to follow his minions in, at least there’s a chance of locating him.”

“I don’t think it’s worth the risk,” Luna said firmly. “You’re our only source of guidance on this Game, on the Evils, on what they can do and what dangers they represent. What do we do when we run across a new Evil or a new Void creature and you’re not here to warn us? Worse, what happens if we meet a strange being that seems to be of the Void but is actually an ally sent by this Kaiya Aon... and we attack it because we can’t take the risk? This seems very foolhardy.”

Spite chuckled. “Luna, would you accept any advice I might offer on dealing with the moon? This is precisely what I do, all the time, for my sister: go into the lairs of horrible things and come out with their heads. Don’t worry about me; you keep your eye on Master’s playthings, I’ll keep my eye on Master.”

In truth, Spite suspected that she knew exactly what the doorway was for and what manner of spells were placed on it. Invisible ‘pocket’ doors were the classic way to ensnare anything that used the Void to travel—classic, because they were effective against all but the most powerful Evils who could simply burn out the spells. Thus, when she gave Luna a reassuring pat on the shoulder and dipped into the Void to travel forward, the feeling of being snatched by the spell and hurled in an unanticipated direction came as no surprise at all. What was a surprise was that the other end was a circle of faint false light in the middle of a darkened room, instead of the chamber of horrors that Evils tended to prefer. Another surprise was that by the time she became cognizant of being in the circle of light, wire-thin tendrils of Void had snaked around all four of her limbs and were holding her in place, firmly but not painfully.

“Well, well, well… check this action out.” Spite sighed as the smooth voice that Rainbow Dash had identified as that of her departed friend Gilda, now being used by the Void creature that Gryta and Osper called Grimfeathers, slithered out of the darkness, smirking with an air of malicious delight. “Good ol’ Spite, trapped like a rat and looking as lame as they come.”

“I guess you found somewhere to hide after you ran away from Luna’s little demonstration,” Spite smirked back. “I wish you’d held you temper a bit longer; it was fun to watch the moon princess slap you down with about as much effort as stepping on an ant.”

“At least I didn’t walk straight into a trap, knowing it was a trap,” Grimfeathers sneered. “I’m sorta let down, dweeb… thought you were supposed to be smart.”

“I am.” Spite gave her a predatory grin, which made the altered griffiness step back. “This is what I’m best at: going after things in their lair, getting trapped, breaking out, then carrying out their heads. Speaking of such, I owe you a good solid hour of bouncing you off of random objects for taunting Loyalty.”

Grimfeather snorted and rolled her eyes. “It’s nothin’ personal, precious. Yeah, sorta fun to mess with her but it’s the standard exchange between foes, especially respected foes. You’re an old pro, Ein; you know that.”

The abrupt twitch from attitude-laden adolescent to a more serious demeanor, not to mention the use of a friendly shortening of her given name, took Spite aback and she blinked, looking askance at the Void-shaped creature. “You know me?”

“Of you. It’s hard not to know something of you, and I know more than most. Few still live from that time before that…” Grimfeathers’ face twisted with distaste. “…incident with Cold Mountain. Helluva way to earn a familiar name, legendary even, but keepin’ the place as your personal trump card? That’s cold, precious, and no mistake.”

“Like you said, it’s how the game gets played,” Spite replied after a moment of pushing past her amazement at this being revealing an unusual level of recognition—and not snarling at her the way most Void creatures did. “The only piece of a world any Evil has ever gotten their claws on. I couldn't not take the opportunity, not when it ran up and begged to be taken. So how do I know you?”

“Ya don’t.” Grimfeathers smirked. “Ya might call me a fan, especially of the later stuff. I don’t think ya quite get the impact of any Evil, especially one that’s won a familiar name, goin’ Dark. You think you do, but you ain’t got a clue.”

“I know I’m widely reviled,” she said. “I know my familiar name is a curse word. What else is there?”

Gimfeathers looked steadily at her. “You don’t even know why, do you?”

“I’ve never had reason to care.”

Grimfeathers looked steadily at her for a few moments longer, visibly wrestling with something, before she started to open her mouth, presumably to reply. Before she could say anything, a wire of Void similar to the ones that were binding her shot out of the darkness around them and wrapped around Grimfeathers’ muzzle, snapping it shut.

“No telling, my little puppet,” a weirdly quavering voice said from behind Spite. “We wouldn’t want to put a thought in that… mmm… little head of hers, mmm?”

Grimfathers bent her legs and bowed deeply in the direction of the voice. “N…no, Master.”

“There’s a good little thing,” the voice said approvingly, shifting into a calm mellowness. “Now trot along and bring me materials, for I shall now deal with the… hee… servant.”

“As you will,” Grimfeather replied with a touch of annoyed weariness in her voice, turning and slipping away silently. Spite watched her go and then returned to looking straight ahead, trying to ignore the presence in the dark.

“Why so silent, thing of Helles? Did you think that I had left you all for good?” Spite turned her head towards the source of the warbling voice, as what appeared to be a pile of rags drifted by her, the only thing visible a pair of gleaming incisors bared in a grisly smile. “Do they miss me in the Helles? Do they miss my great creations? Just being here, I’ve rendered dozens…” The figure flashed forward to be almost nose-to-nose with Spite, causing her to instinctively recoil from him, getting a brief impression of a flat, noseless face with eyes gaping red-rimmed with madness, before he drifted back again, spreading a sextet of unnaturally thin arms. “All around us, my puppets, my creations, my things!”

All around her, wire-like constructs that reminded her vividly of the ones that Luna used, stirred and snaked into the shadows around her, emitting a choking aura of malice and sadism. Master, or the thing that Spite took to be Master, settled to the ground, giving her a look of unsettling intensity. “Mmm… hee hee… I admit that the first attempts were… unsatisfactory,” he said in that disturbing voice, one that alternated between a calm mellowness, and something almost a scream that was punctuated liberally with mad giggling. “Inferior materials, inferior methods… out of practice… mmm…”

Spite put aside the strange references to the Helles missing him—Void beings in the Helles were so uncommon that everyone would remember one existing there—and listened to the sounds of something being dragged across the stone. She turned her head to see a griffin, wings tied to her body and limbs restrained by more of the wire that Master was using to drag her, being pulled across the floor, eyes clenched shut as she made a soft groaning sound of pain. Swallowing, having a bad feeling that she knew where this was going, she turned back towards Master and was again confronted with that flat, wide-eyed face staring at her with distinctively rectangular pupils that Spite could have sworn weren’t there a moment ago.

“Don’t take your eyes off the ball, little Helles-thing,” he said with a sadistic grin. “I hate it when my newest raw material decides to be bad.”

Spite narrowed her eyes and blew a tiny flare at him, infusing a touch of Darkness into it. Master flinched then gritted his teeth, his strange mad eyes flaring red. “Oh, that was not very nice, was it?” He hissed, no longer warbling between the mad screech and the languid mellowness but was now all nasally snarl. “Quite… rude, little thing of the Helles.”

“Just reminding you that not everything you catch in what you style to be your web is a fly,” Spite retorted with a toothy grin of her own. “Nor a fool, for that matter. The ‘mad as a march hare’ act might fool others but I’ve exchanged words with you before, through your…”

She trailed off as Master went totally and abruptly still, not even drifting anymore before he bared his teeth and yanked the griffin over, stopping the groaning leoavian hard against a falcon-like foot. “Inferior raw materials indeed,” he growled, dealing his captive a vicious kick, looking down at her. “Your eyes can see the fleas on a dog’s back but not the Handmaiden come to call. Useless…” another kick “…crude…” another, even more vicious “…weak…” a kick missed just barely, scoring the griffin’s face with a talon “…beast!”

“If you mean to lash out, lash out at me,” Spite growled. “It’s easy, and cowardly, to beat a creature that cannot defend itself, that you’ve tied up and made helpless.”

He eyed her before giving her an amused smirk. “Provoking me won’t work, bitch of the Sixth,” he replied, leaning down to his moaning victim and spreading the fingers of one of his hands, threads of Void gathering in it. “Your simplistic attempts to incite me merely amuse. Mine, on the other hand…” Another of the hands, long claws gleaming in the dimness, plunged into the griffin’s chest making the poor creature cry out in agony, trying vainly to cringe away from the pain as threads of Void began flowing down the arm and into the suffering griffin’s body. Her whimpers of pain and fear made Spite clench her teeth in frustration, yanking at the wire-like constructs that kept her in place and seemed to make it impossible for her to step into the Void.

“Mine appear to provoke you rather well,” he finished with a cackle. “Ah, you cannot imagine the joy that comes from dissecting these beasts while they are still alive. I’m sure it’d comfort them to know that they’re being molded into a more perfect form… which is why I don’t allow them to know that.”

“Are there any of you Evils that don’t follow the same tired old sadist script?” Spite snorted half-heartedly. “Weaver it must be dull to be one of you.”

“Don’t be so pedestrian,” Master replied in a bored tone, moving the hand with the already-gathered threads down and placing it on the griffin’s head. “Certainly, many of the higher Evils are addicted to the simplistic pleasures of innocent agony but for the proper scientist, the pleasures of your experiment’s pain are the fine wine after a delectable repast. Far more important is the science, the experiments, the shaping, the failures and successes, and most importantly of all… the data. It’s not so easy as it seems to make these delightsome little minions, bitch of the Sixth. It requires patience, experimentation, and an intellect far in excess of what can be mustered by… mmm… other peers of oneself.” He turned to fix eyes glimmering red on her as the griffin’s face began to distort and stretch into the familiar semi-draconic muzzle. “Intercepting my courier with my materials, and tricking that little cretin into expending those materials in her own defense was most unwelcome. My work has been set back weeks, and that irritates me.”

“And what is your work?”

He smirked. “Ah, that would be telling and although I don’t think that you’re leaving my company, I should hate to be proven wrong and find myself to have unintentionally aided you in sticking your nose where it emphatically does not belong. This matter is, to put as blunt a point on it as possible, none of your business servant of the Helles for you’re not a participant in the Game and have no part in its outcome.”

“Nor are you,” Spite pointed out.

Master stopped his work and looked intently at her. “Why do you say so?”

“Well, the fact that you aren’t sneering at me for being simple-minded is a good start,” Spite grinned toothily at him. “But you’re not a powerful Evil. A cunning one, but not one of overwhelming power. More than the other major Evils, you would have been easily broken by the Sisters early on if you attracted their notice, so you were forced to be subtle—and being subtle takes a great deal of time. The Game has only been in force for a week, perhaps two, so you preceded the Game and cannot be a part of it.”

The flat-faced creature eyed her before his gleaming incisors bared in a delighted smile. “I hereby promote you from witless to half-wit,” he said with a tone of approval. “You are a strange creature, Einspithiana, and would be an excellent replacement for the raw material that that imbecile webweaver failed to deliver.” He turned his attention back to the griffin. “Far superior raw material to these beasts. They tolerate such little meddling before their constitutions succumb to frailty, and I am coming to despair of producing more than one Grimfeathers. Ah, the travails of genius deprived of the tools to realize that genius…”

“And how would you realize that genius, if you had the tools?” Spite asked, curious despite herself.

“A perfected hybrid with dragons,” he replied with a tone that indicated he believed this to be obvious. “There is no more refined design in existence, and a proper genius always makes maximum use of existing designs to further the perfection of his own. Additionally, a preponderance of the power and influence in the larger universe is concentrated into dragons or those with distinctly draconic characteristics. The data points to the inescapable conclusion that dragons and those things with their characteristics have an overwhelmingly high chance of being demonstrably superior in a given encounter with beings of similar size, intelligence, and experience. Finally, all things draconic enjoy an inherent connection to the Aethir which permits their extraordinary characteristics and the use of magic at a level far out of proportion to their magical ‘weight’ as determined by ocular magical resonance, otherwise called ‘mage-sight’ in cretin parlance.”

“To convert all of that from full-of-himself scholarly blather to plain language, dragons are inherently superior so you’d imitate the design as much as possible, while adding your own improvements,” Spite summarized.

He gave her a sour look. “If you truly must display intellectual infantilism, your summary is… accurate.”

Spite snorted and considered him. “You know, if you were even half as brilliant as you think you are, I wouldn’t be in your trap at all, because I wouldn’t have been close enough to necessitate setting a trap.”

“I wanted you close,” he replied nonchalantly, the secondary wings now starting to flow out from the female’s body, flesh in other places melting away before Spite’s eyes to create the new structure. “Your very existence here, on this world, necessitated the trap. I cannot actually use you for raw material, incidentally—I wish it was so, but wishes cannot make a thing true—but your shell is of an exquisite design that could very well prove the missing piece I require to push this substandard raw material to its highest degree of perfection.”

Shell? Spite thought confusedly before she blinked. He doesn’t realize that I have a body instead of a shell! But… how could he not know that? He can certainly see souls well enough to stitch them together and peer into the inner operations of a body so he can reshape it. “Why can’t you?”

Master threw her a very dim look. “Don’t insult my intelligence. I know perfectly well that your manifestation is tied to a physical object and so long as that object remains intact, I can neither kill you nor twist you. I even know that your anchor is in the hands of your master, and that I’m not nearly strong enough to seize or trick it from him.”

“Mistress,” Spite corrected automatically.

“Eh?” The dim look turned into an intense one. “What do you mean, mistress?”

“Amarra Drae’thul is female,” Spite told him, seeing no way to worm out of it after he’d clearly heard what she’d said.

He stared in honest amazement. “Maelphiis was overthrown? By a female?”

She stared back in confusion equal to his amazement. “Who in the Weaver’s name is Maelphiis?”

Master abandoned the griffin and floated over to her, staring hard at her, searching her face for signs of deception, before his nearly non-existent brow furrowed. “Void take and scatter me… it’s been so long that my colleague is forgotten?”

“Colleague?” Suddenly, connections jumped together in her head: referring to creatures as raw materials, creating a swarm of creature suspiciously like Vampvipers, crudely stitching together chobbaths into a single being, his arrogant regard for his own intellect, his mocking question of whether the Helles missed him. “You’re a PRIME?”

“Was a Prime, but essentially correct,” Master replied, reaching three of his hands over to grasp the edge of his rag mass and pull it side, revealing a skeleton-thin humanoid body with massive gaping holes torn through it and Void material dribbling from the holes like blood. “Dying severely complicates one’s ability to administer one’s Helle.”

Spite gaped openly at him. “But… you’re working with…”

“The Evils are a means to an end. I desire leave to experiment, the greatest Evils desire the results of my work, I fit very easily into their company… the arrangement is quite natural and mutually-beneficial.” He smirked as he closed the mass. “So lest you think that I can be swayed against them, be assured that not even wanton betrayal will turn me against my sponsors. There is far too much potential for continued progress while in their company for me to surrender such a relationship except in the greatest extremity.”

Spite forced a smirk in return. “That would be pointless, and I don’t care to do it in the first place. I’d much rather consign you and the other Evils to the flame, and it’s hardly as amusing when you’re squabbling like children.”

To her mild surprise, he shrugged. “Consign who you will to what you will. I’ve died before and am not afraid of it. Now, if all the ruckus about my former identity is over with…?”

“But you haven’t identified yourself at all,” Spite pointed out. “You’ve allowed yourself to be called ‘Master’ but you’re no such thing.”

“I’ve been called the master of puppets.” He considered. “But you’re essentially correct. Let us strike a bargain, bitch of the usurper Sixth: I will trade you the title the Helles knew me by, and you will permit me to examine your design to the utmost detail without the need to continue to restrain you.”

“Evils aren’t known for their honor,” Spite replied skeptically.

“Which is why I propose a bargain where my fulfillment of the arrangement will be unmistakable; without question, you shall receive my former name and then I shall receive the data I require.” He spread all six arms in an innocent gesture. “The choice is yours, Einspithiana, but that is the deal I offer.”

“And if I don’t take it?”

“Then you’ll have plenty of time to enjoy my experimental methods and a considerable period of crippling boredom.” He shrugged again. “I have no intention of giving you your liberty without a bargain; as you’ve proved, you’re dangerous to me without any weapons at all.”

“So what guarantee do you have that I’ll abide by my end?”

“Unlike me, you have a code of honor,” he chuckled. “An unseemly weakness, but one that I’m delighted to exploit to its fullest. Besides which, I haven’t yet given you an opportunity to assassinate me for maximum effect so barring some compulsion for imbecile and pointless heroics, I don’t fear treachery from you.”

Spite considered him thoughtfully. He’s offering something that’s essentially useless—the only person who might recognize his title is Trilychi, or perhaps Heccate—and I hesitate to be of use to him. On the other hand, as anyone who’s even been an intimate ally of any dragon knows, those like me are very… independent; there seems an opportunity here to turn this creature’s obsessions against him, and use his own purposes to do so. “Very well then; I accept.”

“Of course you do,” Master snorted. “I might rail on your lesser intellect but one does not become the servant of a Prime without at least a modicum of cunning and skill. No doubt you wish to delay, to gather information on me to better bring about my downfall. No doubt you regard the information I offer to be useless to you, but possibly vital to another. No doubt you hesitate to assist my endeavors. But in the end, the only calculation you could have made was the one you have.”

Spite actually grinned at that. “I’d give good coin to see you and Lord Trilychi banter. So what was your title in the Helles?”

Master grinned widely and gave her a sweeping, mocking bow. “Moreau. When I was alive in the Helles and the Third Prime therein, my fellows called me Moreau.”

“Can’t say I’ve heard of you,” Spite commented.

“Nor have I heard of your mistress,” Moreau shrugged. “But I’ve fulfilled my terms and now, you shall fulfill yours.” He made a gesture and the wires of Void restraining Spite dissolved. “I hope we won’t have to go through a pointless drama of you going back on your word and trying to kill me.”

“As you pointed out, the time isn’t quite right,” Spite replied reasonably, massaging each wrist in turn and extending her senses slightly into the Void to check if there was any damage. “How do you intend to do this?”

“With great care, and especially great care that you are not damaged by it,” Moreau replied. “Damage will severely impede my capacity to utilize my examination, as I shall require a fully-intact specimen in perfect living order to observe its native operation. I cannot recreate the predatory economy of movement that I achieved with Grimfeathers if I cannot minutely examine the reactive firing of your sinews in free motion, for example, and this examination would be impeded if said sinews are.”

“That you don’t intend to damage me comes as a relief,” Spite noted. She looked beyond Moreau to the still-trembling griffin. “May I make a request?”

“Of course I’ll use that one for the improvements my examination suggests,” Moreau replied as he spread his six hands, threads of Void gathering in each. “She is most convenient, being in close proximity to me, and your concern for her pain incentivizes you to contribute your own insights to the end result. Now, do not struggle: it’s necessary for me to conduct the examination in a medium where I can freely observe all angles as need demands.”

Spite nodded to him as she felt herself hoisted delicately into the air and suspended as if she was floating in water. Curiously, she moved slightly and felt herself slowly rotate in that direction in the frictionless field of Moreau’s magic. “…wow.”

“It took me thirteen thousand, seven-hundred, fifty-eight years to develop this spell matrix,” Moreau said proudly. “It permitted me to develop my most sophisticated and powerful creations, the greatest of which killed me; I was so proud of it as I breathed my last. But the past is past and now is now and it is time, Einspithiana, that my intellect and your exquisite shell work together to play…” He paused and spread all six arms gleefully, “…a god.”

Author's Note

Geeze... it's been almost 4 months since my last update? x.x Dreadfully sorry, people; I'll try to do better next time. Getting this on paper, as it were, has been a bear of a task because I couldn't decide just how to introduce 'Master' to the audience. Plus, as I was going, I had sudden and irresistible desires to deepen a couple antagonist side characters slightly, for my own amusement.

So do you like it? Comment below, let me know!

Trixie: Quarantine

“And you say that you found the banner nailed to the door when you arrived?” Princess Celestia inquired.

“Yes, Princess,” Trixie replied with an instinctive incline of her head towards the solar monarch. Upon seeing the strange and ancient-feeling banner on the door of Carousel Boutique and feeling the concentrated Void radiating from inside, she’d immediately headed towards where she’d last seen the princess, Berry Punch in tow.

To her surprise, Celestia was still in Ponyville, wearing a very grave expression as she conversed in low tones with an unusually solidly-built white unicorn in a uniform that indicated that he was much higher-ranked than ordinary Royal Guards; based on the decorations, Trixie guessed that he was the Captain of the Guard, or at least somepony of similar rank. Apparently, Trixie’s arrival was a signal to end their conversation because the unicorn had given her a polite nod before turning away and trotting in the direction of several guards. Celestia had listened to Trixie’s explanation, her expression showing real concern, before closing her eyes and lighting her horn, reaching out with magical senses that Trixie suspected could encompass the entire small town.

“This is… very worrisome,” the princess said after a moment, her eyes opening and her horn dimming. “Four Royal Guard disappear with the two ponies they’re escorting, my captain of the guard reports many more incidents like this from as far away as Stalliongrad, and now you bring me news that in the short time since the colt fell ill, the creature that poisoned the carrots did something to the Boutique and yet another, about which we know nothing, nailed a magic-soaked banner to the front door.”

“So it is magical,” Trixie confirmed, feeling slightly proud of herself for having noticed something different about the cloth. “It also struck me as very… old.”

“It did?” Celestia tilted her head, giving Trixie an expectant and interested look. “How does it do that?”

The truth was, Trixie wasn’t quite sure what about the tattered banner felt so old to her. It was worn, frayed, and faded but none of those things made it quite ancient even though she was as sure of it as she’d been of anything. “I… I’m not sure,” she admitted. “It’s faded and worn but it’s also… it feels like…”

“…it’s seen thousands of year and expects to see thousands more?” Celestia filled in with a smile.

“Well… yes, but I don’t think it’s…”

“I don’t think it’s intelligent either,” the solar diarch responded. “That you could feel the weight of its magic and intuited that the weight indicated immense age tells me that my daughter was right, and that some of her rubbed off on you. Granted, she isn’t as willing to trust her feelings and intuition, but intuition would be second nature to a showmare.”

Trixie blushed very lightly. “Thank you, Princess.”

“You’re welcome,” Celestia said kindly. “I wish that the rest of what I must say would be so pleasant. It’s becoming quite clear that whatever Carrot Top saw meddling with her fields has extended its reach all across Equestria. Now, more than ever, Equestria needs her princess to be a visible and consoling presence, especially far from Canterlot… and Ponyville is quite close.”

Trixie felt her heart sink. “You’re leaving.”

“I am.” Celestia smiled. “But I’ve not forgotten that my daughters came to you to keep watch while the Elements are gone. I’ll have my captain of the guard stay in Ponyville with a contingent of Royal Guards, and I’ve already arranged for other help to come to you. I have no intention of abandoning you, Trixie.”

“Other help, Your Majesty?” Berry Punch asked. “Beyond the Royal Guard?”

Celestia dipped her head regally in affirmation. “The Guard are absolutely dedicated and zealously brave, but Captain Armor is one of the very rare unicorns among their number… and I could not ask them or you to confront this Evil without the benefit of powerful magical aid.”

“What about whoever put the banner on the door?” Trixie suggested.

“Whatever they mean by nailing a banner to the door of the Boutique, I can’t blindly trust that they have good intentions,” Celestia sighed. “The situation is just too hazardous to simply believe that this other is a servant of the right side, and wishes to help us.”

“I hope they mean well then,” Trixie sighed. “This problem with the crops is already… what the word Pinkie Pie uses? A doozy?”

“Yes,” Berry agreed. “But cheer up, Trixie: unlike a year ago, you’ve got all of Ponyville on your side.

Trixie smiled a little. “Better yet, I have Macintosh on my side.”

“And the entire Apple family,” Berry agreed with an answering smile. “I doubt you are, but don’t underestimate how important it is to have Ponyville’s founding family behind you.”

“If nothing else, they can keep up the town’s spirits with those melt-in-your-mouth flapjacks,” Trixie licked her lips in memory of the delicious pancakes. “So, Princess Celestia, what do you suggest we do…?” Turning, she abruptly realized that in the short moment she’d been focused on Berry, Princess Celestia had quietly disappeared.

“I think the Princess believes you have the situation in hoof,” Berry offered.

“I wish I could be that confident,” Trixie sighed. “Now the question is, what do we do now?”

“Go looking for the creature that put up the flag,” the earth pony suggested.

“I don’t know,” Trixie frowned. “At least one of the creatures at work is so strong and malicious that it’s hurting ponies on the other side of Equestria. If whatever’s involved with it, even just to fight it, is anywhere as strong…”

“…we’ll be trotting into a battle of titans,” Berry finished. “But what else can we do? Cleanse Carrot’s fields and hope for the best?”

“Ya could try talking to the captain of the guard.” Both mares jumped a little as the white unicorn trotted up. His voice was far younger than Trixie would have expected, and with a strong hint of the accent deployed by those annoying younger ponies that liked to call everyone ‘dude’, a term that didn’t seem to mean anything (which, Trixie supposed, was the entire point). He also had a streak of electric blue in his otherwise plain blue mane that reminded Trixie vividly of Twilight Sparkle’s streaks of different colors.

“Hello Captain Armor,” Trixie said politely. “We were just deciding on a course of action.”

“I’d be glad to help with that, Miss Lulamoon,” he offered. “The Royal Guard, at least those of us that’re here, are at your service. If you want to start looking for the creature that’s doing all this evil, it’d be nice. We do enough standing around and being useless to fill a dozen lifetimes; it’s been a while since there was an enemy to fight that we could fight.”

Trixie detected the slightest trace of bitterness in the last comment. “The Guardian?”

“Yes.” The sheer amount of anger and frustration packed into that single word pretty much said everything there was to say. “First we miss a cultist sneaking into the Princess’ very chambers to…” He suddenly swallowed. “…m… murder Her Majesty’s beloved personal student. Then we follow the Princess along like automatons when the nightmare seizes her mind, then enforce her increasingly mad rulings without hesitation, then are completely useless when the time comes to actually confront the enemy.”

“I’m sorry,” Trixie said sincerely, reaching a hoof up to pat the stallion on the shoulder.

“Thanks.” He sighed heavily. “It’s been a hard six months, trying to get over all that, keeping the Guard together, keeping their morale up. Twiley coming back helped a lot, especially since somepony finally noticed the obvious.”

“That she was Celestia’s foal?” Berry grinned.

“Yup,” Armor agreed. “Saw it coming from a mile away, although part of me didn’t want to believe that my little sister wasn’t actually…”

“Twilight Sparkle has a brother?” Trixie interrupted. “I thought her only living family was her sister, Dawn.”

Armor grimaced a little. “Yeah, it’s… been quite a few years since I got to really see Twiley as, yanno, just big brother and little sister. Caught glances of her in the corridors, heard snatches of the Princess reading her ‘Friendship Reports’ aloud and laughing at some of the odd things that’ve happened to her and her friends, stuff like that.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t mention you.” Berry said skeptically.

He shrugged. “Twiley doesn’t do very good with stress, and missing your big bro is stressful. I think she worked to put me out of her mind to make the waiting easier. And of course, I couldn’t go to her because of work, and I kept getting promoted and kept getting busier…”

“I know what that’s like,” Trixie said, thinking of her family and especially her little sister in Canterlot. “So, Captain Armor…”

“Shining, please,” he smiled. “And not to interrupt, but you’re a friend of Twiley’s, right?”

“Yes,” Trxie beamed proudly. “I am Twilight Sparkle’s friend.”

Shining Armor’s smile got even brighter. “I’ve got one hay of a little sister, don’t I? In fact, both of the mares in my life are wonderful ponies.” He gestured suggestively in the general direction of the Boutique with a hoof and started in the direction, flanked by Berry and Trixie. He glanced back at the unicorn as he went. “I’m sure you can relate, Miss Lulamoon. Having a wonderful pony in your life.”

“I can,” Trixie confirmed happily. “So who’s the other mare in your life?”

“My fiancé, Cadence,” Shining told them. “The most beautiful mare I’ve ever met, extremely warm and kind, loves to be around other ponies and make friends with them, and she and Twiley were like two peas in a pod when Cadence foalsat her.”

“So you fell in love with the foalsitter, huh?” Berry grinned.

“Hey, we waited until after Twilight got into Celestia’s School.” But Shining grinned back. “Besides, it’s great having a marefriend that your parents are already crazy about before she becomes your marefriend. Wish Mom and Dad were still around but at least Twiley’s mom can come.”

“She’s not your mom?”

“Well, I’d sorta like to think so, yanno? But it seems like something I should ask about before I start to call her ‘Mom’.” Shining smiled a little. “It’d be great if she said yes, although it’d make things really awkward. What would all the stuffy nobles say if Celestia’s adopted son was the Captain of the Guard?”

“Lots of things, none of them very good,” Trixie said wryly; she remembered the prickly nature of the nobility far too well from her shows in Canterlot and Manehattan. “But they’re all brag, no bite; trust me, I know the type uncomfortably well.”

“Yeah, I’ll bet,” Shining chuckled. “I can’t imagine how you do it, interacting with the high society types all the time. I just gotta be good furniture.”

“You feed their egos and project yours,” Trixie shrugged. “More than that is a few minor details. The accent, the attitude towards servants and the commoners, the angle of the head and the curl of the lip, and most importantly of all, the right kind of distinctiveness.” She sighed heavily. “It became… far too easy to act like a noblemare and show off for the discerning crowd. I’m not sure what might have happened if I hadn’t hit rock bottom in Ponyville, then been embraced by an earnestly good mare.”

“Like I said, hay of a little sister,” Shining said fondly. “So, tell me what you can about the creature we’re trying to catch.”

“Well, it appears to be a large strange bird with a pony-sized body and…”

“No, miss Lulamoon,” the captain of the guard interrupted. “I meant, tell me about it. Appearance is useful later, habits and tendencies are useful now.”

“It seems to really like disease,” Berry commented. “Infected a carrot field strongly enough to make a pony physically ill to step on the ground, from what Trixie says.”

“That’s… Void, I think,” Trixie corrected her. “Some kind of magic that’s poisonous to living things. Based on how Spite…”

“Excuse me, Spite?” Shining Armor stopped and looked askance at her. “Who’s this ‘Spite’? And how can magic itself be poisonous? I thought it was just… energy.”

“I wish I knew,” Trixie sighed. “The Elements trust Spite but I don’t know much about her. And I don’t know much about this Void except that walking on ground that’s been tainted by it makes you extremely ill. Well, that, and the fact that the light from a unicorn horn can make it dissolve like water under a hot sun.”

“So it makes you violently sick, but is so fragile that simple magic dissolves it?” Shining frowned. “That’s… I dunno, sounds like something out of Twiley’s books, the really old ones that you have to be a total bookworm to read.”

“Speaking of books, didn’t we send Spike to the library to collect as many books on plant…?” Trixie trailed off as Berry’s expression turned slightly strange, looking passed her and over her shoulder. “What?”

“I... uhh… think he found all those books,” the winemaker said, pointing.

“What do you mean?” But when Trixie turned around, she found that she didn’t need Berry to answer anymore. Walking their way was a stack of books taller than Princess Celestia with a pair of stubby dragon legs sticking out from the bottom. What was most astonishing was that Spike was walking normally under the crushing weight and as he reached them, he peered around the side.

“Hi Trixie,” he said, grinning. “I got the books you needed. Oh, hey Shiny. Gimmie a sec, just gotta put these down.”

“Um… thanks Spike but I don’t think we need books on plant…”

“Well, yeah,” he interrupted as he carefully put the towering pile down. “That’s why I brought a bunch on magical diseases, studies on permanent disease-like magical tainting, a couple field journals from Clover the Clever when she was journeying in the dragon lands and encountered…” He trailed off as the three ponies treated him to dumbfounded looks and he sighed. “Seriously? You’re surprised that the dragon Twilight Sparkle calls her ‘number one assistant’ since he was hatched, who lives with her in a library picked up a few things from her?”

“No,” Trixie replied, her cheeks coloring as she had sort of been taken aback. “I’m just wondering how much she’ll go nuts when she finds out you put her books on the ground.”

There was a pregnant pause as Spike blinked and looked at the pile sitting on the grass. After a moment of contemplation, he shrugged. “If you don’t figure this out, ponies die. Exigent circumstances, some things more important than books, etcetera.”

Trixie snorted at this. “Fine, but you get to tell Twilight.” She picked up one of the books at random with her magic and cracked it open; it turned out to be the one about permanent disease-like magical tainting (which she could tell only because it was titled “Disease-Resembling Magical Corruption in Living Tissues”). “How does the Golden Oaks Library even have books like these?”

“Twi sends bi-weekly requests to other libraries, both in Equestria and other places,” Spike said, plopping himself down and opening one of the frail-looking journals with the casual delicacy of the well-practiced. “Always returns them relatively quickly, so I guess the librarians are pretty happy to help her.”

“I guess it pays to be Celestia’s protégé and her daughter and a librarian and a Bearer of an Element of Harmony,” Trixie smiled a little as she used her horn to flip a page, frowning as she tried to make sense of the extremely jargon-dense writing. “I don’t know how much this is going to help, Spike. I’m not Twilight, I don’t have has background in technical magical study. I do more… improvision.”

“I could tell you what it says,” the dragon offered. From anyone other than Spike or Twilight, the offer would have sounded condescending; somehow, both made it sound entirely sincere, enough so that Trixie floated the book over to him without a second thought.

“I know you’ve been helpin’ Twiley out your entire life, Spike, but how the hay do you have a knowledge base like hers?” Shining asked him as he returned the book he’d been looking at to the stack. “I mean, she’s great shakes as a researcher—the absolute best—but she’s never been great at being able to explain the really technical stuff to ponies that aren’t colleagues.”

“Ask Twi,” Spike shrugged as he put the large volume down and began paging through it. “If she can understand it, I can understand it. The entire ‘Guardian’ thing interrupted her from trying to figure out why, and she’s been too busy to get back to it. I’m pretty glad, though… I’d die if I had to spend all day every day cooped up in a library with your sis if I didn’t understand what she was on about.”

“I can’t see why that’d be so bad,” Berry commented with a wry look. “It’d put you at the level of everypony else in Ponyville, her friends included.”

“Her friends don’t share a room with an obsessive-compulsive unicorn who occasionally forgets what the word ‘sleep’ means,” Spike retorted dryly. “OK, here’s something useful.” He cleared his throat. “‘When commingled with certain inert magically-adherent bases, magic can be distilled into a physical and liquid form which can be then infused with a particular effect that constitutes an emergent property of the inert substance and the magic combined into it. There are no records of this being used for beneficial purposes, and it is most common to infuse the amalgamated liquid with the properties of a disease immune to the ordinary measures of containment, mitigation, and cure typically utilized for…’”

“Um… can you summarize it?” Trixie asked.

“Yeah, sorry.” He gave her an apologetic grin. “Big deal is, the disease stuff is magic combined with something else and the usual ways you fight disease, like quarantine and medicines, don’t help. Yanno, assuming that this ‘Pen Belle’ that wrote the book is right.”

“Great,” Berry sighed. “OK, does it say anything about the magic stuff being able to infect a place?”

Spike looked over at her, frowning. “A place? Like, Carrot Top’s fields?

“Well, them but a… building, say.”

“A build…” Spike stopped and his face went blank; having had plenty of experience with Twilight, Trixie recognized the distinct look of gears turning in somepony’s head and sure enough, after a full minute the young dragon sighed. “Boutique?”

“Sorry to say,” Trixie patted him on the shoulder. “Probably means more to you than other buildings, because of who lives and works there.”

The implicit mention of Rarity brought the expected coltish grin. “Yeah. So’s there anything we can do?”

“Considering how much of the ‘Void’ is leaking out, I don’t think we can do much,” Trixie told him. “Horn light seems to be able to burn it away a little but the closer you get to the Boutique, the less it works.” She frowned as something occurred to her. “It makes me wonder how that banner got there.”

“Banner?”

“Come on, I’ll show you,” Trixie replied. “You too, Captain.”

“I’m good with being called ‘Shiny’, Trixie,” Shining told her as he used his horn to help Spike pile the books back up. “Hey, you need any help with those, Spike?”

“Naw, I’ve got ‘em,” the little dragon assured him, stooping and hoisting the stack easily into the air. “Though I should probably get these back to the library before…”

A piercing shriek from ahead of them interrupted Spike. Trixie was surprised to find that, without any prompting, she was already galloping towards the sound without so much as a “what was that?” Almost immediately, she ran straight into a herd of ponies that seemed to have much the same idea as she did: investigate the clear sound of fear and alarm. Trixie didn’t even hesitate, forming a tapering barrier in front of her and using it like wedge through wood, shoving ponies aside as she went with Shining and Berry following in her wake.

The sight that greeted her as she pushed the last ponies aside was both alarming and bizarre. Well within the radius of the Void leaking from the Boutique were five creatures that Trixie momentarily mistook for diamond dogs, but these were uniformly taller than the canines, their muzzles narrower and limbs more proportional to their size. They were also dressed in clothes fully as intricate and well-crafted as anything Trixie had ever seen Rarity make. The clothing, however, didn’t draw her attention nearly as much as the fact that the one nearest her was even then lifting a metal-studded wooden club above its head and in the path of that club was a frantic-looking Sweetie Belle, sparks shooting from her horn in droves as she attempted to empower a spell.

Trixie didn’t even need to look at Shining; without communication, the same thought apparently went through both of their minds because the club was wrapped in alternating layers of blue and pink telekinetic magic and ripped out of the creature’s hands. The reaction was eerily uniform: as one, all five creatures lifted their heads and looked straight at Trixie and Shining Armor.

“Daswir nikt notwen,” one of them said in a tone of voice that was irritated-sounding.

Trixie blinked and looked at Shining Armor who seemed just as taken-aback by the calm reaction, the fact that the creatures didn’t seem to notice the crowd at all, and the fact that Sweetie Belle looked more puzzled than relieved.

“Wir wurdeen nidis unshuldi verletzi,” he continued. “Das kleinema batoomm helbeim lernen. Ich wür niktsi geschulag heer.”

“I… don’t understand…” Trixie confessed, far too confused by the very foreign language to dedicate much time to wondering how the five creatures and Sweetie were standing in the midst of the Void without ill effect.

“Das hubscponn verssnicht unseer prasche brutter,” another remarked to the first, smiling. “Wald, erhallen lhreflock ruuk hiern und uversezen.”

The one standing furthest to the rear of the party heaved a sigh and stepped forward. “Hallen sielhe hossen un,” she retorted to the female before turning to look at Trixie. “Our apologies, little pony,” she said with an accent that seemed stuck between Trottingham and Germane. “We’re still working on a bit of magic to smooth out the…”

“You’re the translator?” Shining interrupted her.

“I’ve been made such, yes.”

“Good. Then tell your friend with the club that he’s lucky we don’t give it back to him as hard as we can,” the captain growled. “And you five are under arrest.”

“Arrest.” The translator stared at him in genuine astonishment and, Trixie noted with trepidation, the disbelieving tone of a lion that’s just been challenged to a fight by a mouse.

“Yes arrest,” Shining repeated. “You’ve disturbed the peace, vandalized an establishment, kidnapped at least one filly and publicly threatened her…”

“No they didn’t!” Sweetie Belle protested.

This visibly brought Shining up short. “They… didn’t?”

“Nah, they’re… nice… folks…” Applebloom blinked at the circle of ponies standing around and staring at her as she and Scootaloo emerged from behind the broad frame of one of the creatures standing near the rear. “Oh, uh, hi ya’ll.”

There was a long and pregnant pause while the Cutie Mark Crusaders looked at all the staring ponies, the translator looked amused, Shining looked stunned, and the four other creatures stared back stoically. Trixie looked around and sighed. “Everypony, I think that if the fillies aren’t afraid of these… people, there’s nothing to worry about.”

There was another long and pregnant pause. “Miss Lulamoon, you do know who those three fillies are, right?” a voice from the crowd pointed out.

“I know Applebloom is practically my sister in law,” Trixie retorted. “Besides, wouldn’t someone who wants to hurt us be a little more angry about having their weapon taken away forcibly? And react with something other than disbelief when threatened with arrest? And wouldn’t fillies as normally heedless as the Crusaders react a little differently to a person threatening them with a weapon being disarmed?”

“We mean you ponies no ill,” the translator interjected. “Nor have we done any harm to these innocents, nor will we.”

Shining visibly hesitated then trotted out and turned to the crowd. “And if persuasion doesn’t move you, the captain of Celestia’s Royal Guard commands you to disperse. Please, allow myself and Miss Lulamoon to handle this.”

The intervention of Shining Armor seemed to make the difference; after looking at one another and muttering a little, the crowd began to thin and drift away. When he was satisfied that they were going to do as they were told, Shining turned on the translator. “You’d better have one bucking good explanation for this.”

“Actually, cap’n sir, Ah think we owe ya an explanation first,” Applebloom offered, her ears laying down timidly. “We invited ‘em ta town, after all.”

Trixie turned to face the bow-clad filly fully. “You… what?”

Scootaloo looked at her abruptly speechless-rendered friend and patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t worry, Bloom,” she assured her friend. “It’s cool, I’ve totally got this.”

“Oh! Uh… thanks a heap then,” Applebloom smiled with visible relief as Scootaloo turned to Trixie.

“Well, see, it was right after that thing happened with that colt and we thought…”

<><><

“…and we can try to get our cutie marks in rescuing!” Scootaloo declared enthusiastically to the other two Crusaders as she pushed herself along in her trademark scooter, her friends trotting alongside.

“Didn’t we already try that once?” Applebloom asked doubtfully. “An’ we ended up getting’ told off fer harrassin’ ponies an’…”

“Well, this’ll be totally different!” Scootaloo interrupted before Applebloom could get too far into a description of their previous cutie mark crusading mishaps. “This time, we know who need rescuing!”

“Scoots, Princess Celestia is looking for them,” Sweetie pointed out. “Do you really think we can find them better than Princess Celestia?”

“Well, no, but we can still help,” Scootaloo insisted. “Besides, most of the looking is being done by the Royal Guard, not Princess Celestia. Betcha a few fillies that’ve lived on the edge of the Everfree all our lives can do at least as good as a bunch of guards from Canterlot.”

Her two friends looked at one another. “Well… sure, why the hay not?” Applebloom said with a grin after a moment. “Put ‘em in.”

Scootaloo pulled her scooter to a stop and turned so that all three fillies could put their hooves in to the center. “Cutie Mark Crusader Rescuers! Yay!” they declared.

“I vote we start at the poison joke fields and move in towards Zecora’s hut,” Scootaloo said as she resumed cruising on her scooter. “Zecora still is cool as ever, Bloom?”

“Ayep,” the farmfilly asserted as they veered onto the path leading towards the Everfree. “Having me help ‘er out with some of ‘er potions an’ the like, makin’ an effort ta do less confusin’ rhymin’, stuff like that. Wish she’d let us borrow some of her masks for the clubhouse.”

Sweetie Belle gave a shudder. “Bloom, I think Zecora’s pretty neat too but those masks are creepy.”

“Yeah, but ain’t that the point?” Applebloom gave her friends a sly look. “Bet Snooty Spoon an’ Diamond Tiara ain’t gonna go near the clubhouse with them masks hung outside. Scare th’ horseapples right outta ‘em.”

Scootaloo twisted around on her scooter and offered the bow-clad filly a hoof-bump. “Way to think, Bloom,” she grinned. “Speakin’ of those two, am I the only one who’s getting a bit bored with being bullied by them? I don’t mean tired or anything but… yanno, bored.”

“Every heroic club needs their archenemies,” Sweetie Belle shrugged. “Why not archenemies who’re all talk and no walk?”

“Cuz they’re stupid archenemies to have,” Scootaloo groused. “You’d think after this long, they’d try something other than sneering.”

“I’m glad they haven’t,” Sweetie grimaced. “They already hurt enough with mean words, and they’d be much worse if they were hurting with mean actions.”

“Ayup,” Applebloom agreed. “‘Course, might do them fancy fillies a bit o’ good if bein’ all snooty and mean bucked ‘em in the face now and again.”

It said something about the trio of fillies that they didn’t even pause in their conversation about their tormentors to take note of the gloomy shade of the Everfree Forest closing in around them. Increasingly used to recklessly wandering into the forest in search of their special talents, its ominous atmosphere had ceased to occasion more than a glance from any of them.

Even so, silence fell on the three friends as they skirted the edge of the Poison Joke field and wound deeper into the forest along a path that had become well-trod, although more by zebra than Equestrian hooves. Part of the reason the Everfree had ceased to be quite so frightening to the fillies was that there was always at least one safe place in the Forest: a circular hut built into a tree that always seemed to radiate warmth, life, and an aura of welcoming.

Except for this time.

“Y’all, hold up a second,” Applebloom said as they drew near to the hut. “Ya smell that?”

Scootaloo stopped and sniffed. “Unless ya mean that funny smell from the Poison Joke… nope. Why?”

Sweetie got it, visibly tensing. “Doesn’t Zecora’s hut usually smell of… well, whatever she brews there?”

“That’d be mah point,” Applebloom nodded.

“Well, maybe she’s just gone for a bit, nothing to worry about,” Scootaloo asserted with as much bravado as she could fit into the sentences. “C’mon, she’s never minded when we poke our heads in to see if she’s around.”

“Mostly cuz she’s given up trying ta stop us,” Bloom pointed out wryly as the three crept cautiously towards the darkened hut. The sight of the door yawning open stopped them again and as one, they took a step backwards.

“Bloom I hope you can tell us that Zecora’s sometimes absentminded about her door…” Sweetie Belle said in a small voice.

“Eenope,” Bloom gulped. “Ah ain’t ever known Zecora to head off and leave her door open.”

The three looked at one another for several long moments before Sweetie Belle stomped her hoof in the dirt. “Fillies, this seems like a really good time to go get a grown-up. There’s not many things out here that would break into Zecora’s hut, not after she established her territory with the creatures here, and all of them are way outside what we can handle.”

“Ah second that motion,” Applebloom said immediately.

“Me three,” Scootaloo agreed unhesitatingly.

It was, of course, that precise moment that the growls came from the bushes, behind and in front of them, coinciding with the sounds of things moving towards them.

“Well, ponyfeathers,” Applebloom said.

“Horseapples,” Scootaloo agreed as the rustling bushes gave way to the slinking form of the things making the rustling.

The creature was about as tall as Big Mac and had a vaguely pony shape with what almost looked like a mane and tail, and its four legs. But it was covered from head to toe in and odd black shell like an insect with scything claws protruding from its joints, its feet, several points of its back, and under its jaw. A faint luminous blue smoke seemed to leak from its glowing blue eyes and it bared pointed teeth in a menacing canine growl as it crouched low, waiting for them to make a move and give it an excuse to pounce.

Scootaloo noticed that Sweetie Belle tensed, but in an odd way, like she was waiting for the creature to pounce so she could react to it, her horn starting to glimmer faintly with gathered magic. Scootaloo didn’t have time to try to figure out what her friend was doing because the lone creature was joined by others, first by two on its flanks and then more spreading out behind them; Scootaloo risked a quick look back and counted four more sets of glowing eyes.

“N…n… nice doggies…” Applebloom said lowly. “We ain’t… we ain’t fixin’ to hurt ya…”

“Bloom, I think we should be a little more worried about them hurting us,” Sweetie hissed.

“Can’t blame a gal fer tryin’,” the farm filly hissed back. “Besides, Ah don’t hear any ideas from you.”

“Running like hay seems pretty good right now,” Sweetie huffed, her eyes jumping from one creature to the next warily. “Of course we could always simply wait and…”

“Ssh!” Applebloom interrupted.

“Excuse me?” Sweetie asked with an amazingly good imitation of her older sister’s air of offended dignity.

“Just hush,” Applebloom said. “Am Ah the only one who hears that?”

“Hears what?” Scootaloo asked lowly, watching as the creatures started shifting and looking around as if they too had heard something they couldn’t identify. After a long moment of mutual silence, she could barely hear it: the sound of brush being crushed underfoot with a faint undertone of rapidly-clinking metal.

The creatures began to turn towards the sound and brace themselves to pounce on whatever was approaching, at which point several things all happened at once. The creature nearest to the underbrush abruptly jerked back as a metal spike abruptly appeared protruding from its back at such an angle that it was clear that it’d struck in its chest and gone all the way through.

The first creature they saw collapsed on its side, yelping and snarling as a chain attached to a pair of heavy metal balls wrapped itself several times around its legs; at the same time, its other companion collapsed in place as it was a puppet with cut strings, an axe with a head as big as its own buried nearly to the shaft precisely where head met neck.

And then she saw it.

It didn’t stand very tall, maybe a head taller than Big Mac, perhaps even slightly taller than Princess Celestia, but it stood upright on its hind feet like a diamond dog… if the crude and poorly-spoken creatures dressed in long flowing robes with hoods and carried hatchets, one of which it had clearly just thrown to kill one of the creatures. Scootaloo had a brief impression of fine clothing under the long robe as the thing strode out of the underbrush, stooping smoothly to grab the hatchet and wretch it free without visible effort. It then smoothly twirled the two weapons before turning to face them fully. The only thing visible under the hood were two brightly-glowing eyes shining white with enough power that Scootaloo could dimly see a long lupine muzzle.

“Feil sichsi gut, unshuuldi?” It asked with a female voice, the tone one of very clear concern.

“Uh…” She couldn’t make any sense of the question, having never heard anything like the language it spoke before. “Huh?”

“Ichba, binseil wol,” the creature replied. “Veresteh nikt se?”

“Siel kön unsererache verseteh nikt, seistar,” another voice, male this time, said from behind them. Scootaloo turned to find that without making a sound, four other creatures had appeared behind them and were standing between them and what she had a disquieting feeling were four other bodies. “Bat danken sieldem Weber, sielsind nikt verlez.”

“Danken Weber,” the female agreed, reaching a hand that was still gripping an axe up and drawing back her hood. The face was vaguely like that of a timber wolf, canine but more slender and expressive. Although her eyes kept glowing in that strange way, she was clearly smiling and looked relieved.

“Who… who’re y’all?” Applebloom stuttered out after a surprised moment.

“Aid,” another female voice said in an odd accent, one of the creatures stepping out of the group of four and sweeping her hood back off her face. Her muzzle was narrower still and her face had bright orange fur with areas of white and unlike her companions, her eyes were normal and seemed full of warmth. “We were sent here to render you aid, little one. I’m sorry if we frightened you, and I’m sorry that you cannot understand what my companions say to you.”

“Y’all seem ta speak just fine,” Applebloom noted. “And what are ya anyway?”

“I have a special talent with very intricate magic, such as a spell that allows me to speak and understand a language I’ve never heard before,” she replied with a slight bow. “And I am a creature called a ‘kitsune’, and my companions are a mix of jeikitsu and jei. We’re allies of Einspithiana, and…”

“The dragon that came here with Twilight Sparkle?” Sweetie asked in such a calm voice that Scootaloo couldn’t help but give her a surprised look. The white filly was watching the kitsune with a focused expression that Scoots couldn’t remember having ever seen on her face before, a cool and analytical regard that was very slightly chilling.

“Wald öffnen ein bittire,” the male said in an exasperated tone.

“Only with their permission, my lord,” the translator replied chidingly. “Little ones, will you permit me to use magic on you so you can understand our language?”

“Well, that all depends,” Sweetie said coolly, again causing Scootaloo’s skin to prickle very slightly. “Is the magic dangerous?”

“I’ve never met a creature that it could harm, and I’ve come across hundreds of different creatures,” she replied.

“Then certainly,” Sweetie smiled.

“Well, if it ain’t gonna hurt, Ah don’t mind,” Applebloom said.

“It’s cool,” Scootaloo agreed. “Lay it on us.”

“With pleasure.” The translator extended a hand and moved some fingers slightly in what was apparently a magical pattern, because a light glowing mist flowed out of her hand and split into six sparkling plumes, each drifting over and looking like it flowed into their ears with a slightly tickling feel.

“Is it done, Forheest?” Now she could understand, the female’s voice in front of them turned out to be very young-sounding with the same odd accent that ‘Forheest’ had.

“It is done, Lady Elena,” Forheest replied, smiling.

“Good.” As the three fillies turned back towards her, Elena walked over and knelt to put her eyes at their level, placing her weapons on the ground. For having a face slightly like a timber wolf and having killed right in front of them, her smile made her seem completely unthreatening. “Are you alright, children? No harm done?”

“Jus a bit scared ma’am,” Applebloom told her. “What are those things?”

“Animals,” the male said before Elena could answer. “Animals that would have hurt you if we’d not intervened.”

Elena sighed. “Yes, I suppose,” she said, standing again and retrieving her weapons. “What were you doing walking alone in this forest, young ones?”

“Visitin’ our friend, Zecora,” Applebloom replied, gesturing towards the darkened hut with a hoof. “Y’all seen her? She’s ‘bout yay high, a zebra, likes ta wear her mane all funny, rhymes all the time.”

“We haven’t,” Elena told them. “But if she’d been attacked, we’d have certainly known of it.”

“If your friend is an adult horse, she probably had the good sense to stay away from danger,” the male said wryly as he stepped around them, joined by his three companions, to stand next to Elena. With all of them standing in front, Scootaloo realized that they were all carrying some kind of weapon—except Forheest, who apparently had magic. “May we be introduced to you, little ones?”

“We ain’t that young,” Applebloom groused. “But sure. Ah’m Applebloom.”

“Scootaloo.”

“Sweetie Belle.”

“I am Ersari,” the male said, tapping his chest. “This is my sister, Elena, and the two accompanying us are our closest and most trusted servants. This is Forheest Sadow…”

“…but most call me ‘Forest Shadow’ or just ‘Forest’,” the kitsune interjected with a smile. “I’m also a servant of Lord Ersari but a… different sort.”

“You’re a lord?” Sweetie Belle looked at him. “A lord of what?”

“Of a vast fortress-estate near the Goddenheimheer Falls, south of Tempesthaven,” Ersari smirked. “But that wouldn’t mean a thing to you. Forest persists in calling me ‘lord’, but I have no noble status in the land of Equestria, so you needn’t use it.”

“Great,” Scootaloo said brightly. “So where’re ya goin’? It’s gotta be somewhere near here if you were close enough to stop by and help.”

“We’re looking for one of the prominent settlements of this land,” Elena replied. “A village called… Ponyville, I believe. Such a strange name, like calling one of our villages Jeiville or Kitsuneville, but distinct.”

“Ya ain’t far from it,” Applebloom said. “Just a few minutes back the way we came, actually. If ya’ll would like, ya could follows us back.”

<><><

“…and so we ended up in front of the Boutique,” Scootaloo finished. “See? They didn’t do anything to us.”

“And the… club?” Trixie asked, gesturing at the weapon that Shining still kept suspended in his magic without any noticeable strain.

“What I was attempting to teach her is a private matter between myself and the child.” Trixie jumped a little as the cultured mix of Germane and Trottingham accent came from the male, whom Scootaloo had indicated was Ersari. Trixie hadn’t noticed any spells being cast, raising the question of how she could suddenly understand what he was saying. “But she was in no danger.”

“So… how’re you able to stand so close to the Boutique with the Void energy leaking out of it?” She asked next, mentally filing the matter away for a more private discussion.

He blinked. “Ah, so you’re aware of what it is.”

“A little hard not to be aware when I’m getting violently ill from being touched by it,” the showmare retorted wryly. “So how’re you doing that? How’re the fillies unharmed?”

“Radiant void energy has a disease-like effect in proportion to your personal magical prowess,” Elena replied calmly. “These fillies are yet young and their abilities too undeveloped to give them much more than a slight lack of energy, and a little bit of aid from us can deflect that. You are brimming over with power, so you become violently ill. It might cripple a pony of truly immense power, such as your Princesses.”

“So it’s a weapon that increases in power the more powerful its target is?” Shining asked.

“You surmise correctly, Captain,” Elena confirmed. “But since we’re here and you’ve found us, we need to have a grave discussion with either Princess or the member of the royal family that lives here, a unicorn named… mmm…”

“…Twilight Sparkle?” Trixie supplied.

“Yes,” she nodded. “Do you know where we might find her?”

“Far in the east,” Trixie told her. “She and several of the bearers of the Elements of Harmony went east to follow the trail of something called ‘Lashaal’ and left me in charge.”

“And you are…?”

“The Great and Powerful Trixie,” Trixie announced with her most winning showmare grin.

The five of them stared at her. “A performer?” One of the unnamed servants said. “Twilight Sparkle gave responsibility to a Weaver-damned performer?”

“A performer with such magical strength that the resonant Void attacks her violently,” Ersari retorted coolly. “When there is no war, the finest and most cunning of mages returns to their stage; why would it be different in this place?”

“My lord, I sincerely doubt that she’s a…”

“That doesn’t matter, and keep your tongue between your teeth,” Elena interrupted harshly before turning back to Trixie, looking quite embarrassed. “I beg your pardon for my servant’s loose tongue, milady Trixie. We certainly expected and hoped to be able to consult with Twilight Sparkle, but if she entrusted you in this, we can trust your ability as well.”

“Thanks,” Trixie gave her a grateful smile. “So… um…”

“You owe us a bucking good explanation for all of this,” Shining interjected.

“We do, and it will be forthcoming,” Elena assured him. “But first, I think it best to send these young ones home and I think we could find a more… appropriate setting for our discussion.”

“How about the library?” Spike suggested, causing Trixie to start a little from having forgotten that he’d been standing there with his stack of tomes the entire time.

“A library?” Forest beamed. “That would be a perfect place to discuss this! Shelves full of the written word would lend our consultations an appropriate spirit of truth-seeking, and such can be very important in matters such as these.”

“My servant is correct,” Ersari said. “As is my sister. Little ones, I’m certain that your parents are concerned for you. You should go home and relieve their worries.”

“Aww!” The three fillies responded simultaneously.

“We ain’t that young, that ya need ta send us off while all the grown-ups talk,” Applebloom added.

“You’re still young enough to be largely innocent of the knowledge of the worst things in life, Applebloom,” Elena replied, looking between all three. “No good can come of burdening you with the knowledge we need to share with Trixie and the Captain, children. Either you will attempt to help and endanger yourselves because you don’t understand what’s happening, or the knowledge will haunt and wound you in a thousand tiny ways. In either case, we would feel responsible and the harming of the innocent, even accidentally, is a very grave sin.”

“Sin?”

Elena appeared momentarily off-guard. “Yes, err… wrongdoing.”

The Crusaders looked at one another. “Well… OK,” Scootaloo said, appearing to speak for the trio. “We wouldn’t want ya to sin or anything.”

The creature (a jei? Jeikitsu? Trixie wasn’t sure) smiled warmly. “Thank you, girls. I appreciate your thoughtfulness.”

“Consider it a fair exchange for saving our lives,” Sweetie informed her in the spitting image of her sister’s affected-nobility mannerisms.

The five strangers chuckled at this as the three Crusaders turned and started off. Applebloom stopped briefly and looked up at Trixie. “Should Ah tell Granny ta wait supper on ya?”

“No, Bloom, I think I might be a while,” Trixie replied, smiling. “Please tell Macintosh not to worry.”

Applebloom giggled. “If ya wanted a coltfriend that don’t love ya and worry about ya, Trixie, ya shouldn’ta gone for an Apple.”

Trixie’s smile became broader. “Well, tell him to try not to worry too much. Our guests don’t seem to wish us harm.”

“We don’t,” Forest asserted. “You are no enemy of ours, Trixie Lulamoon, and neither is the captain despite his previous statement that he wishes to arrest us.”

“Honestly, that option is still open,” Shinning Armor growled. “You’re not from anywhere in Equestria or even this world and you go about armed and armored. As Captain of the Royal Guard, I should restrain you until Princess Celestia can decide what to do.”

“But you won’t,” Ersari stated bluntly.

“No,” Shining sighed. “You haven’t technically broken any laws and I suspect you know what’s happening here.”

“We do,” the lupine replied. “And if you’ll lead us to the library, we can discuss it. And, if you would, I’d like my weapon back.”

Shining eyed him before sighing and floating the weapon back into his grasp. “Right this way!” Spike said cheerfully, starting down the road to the library, tottering slightly under his literary load. After looking at one another a moment, Shining, Trixie, and the visitors followed the baby dragon, ignoring the stares of the many ponies that caught sight of them.

“You were playing them, weren’t you?” Berry Punch asked after a minute. “Telling them you just happened to be near and that you needed help getting to Ponyville.”

“Sadly, the minor deception was needed,” Elena admitted. “How’d you know?”

“I’m a pretty good winemaker,” the earth mare replied. “Enough so that I get businessponies coming to offer me a market for my wines. Most of them are honest, but I’ve gotten played enough by a silver-tongued scam artist to pick up on it pretty well.”

“So you’re the ones that put that banner on the door of the Boutique?” Trixie asked them.

“The Quarantine Flag, yes,” Elena confirmed. “While you were gathered to that poor child that had fallen to the wickedness of the atermors…”

“Atermors?” Shining interrupted.

“That’s the name that they use for themselves,” Forest replied. “It roughly means ‘black death’, although they’re also called ‘plagues’ and ‘black spots’. They are a wicked and terrible Evil, the very blackest and worst of the Evils that can be found in the Void. They are drawn by the energy of life and so…”

“…they can be deceived and drawn into a trap if we can find a structure or place with such a powerful concentration of creative energies that they mistake it for the energy of life,” Ersari said, picking up the explanation. “That shop radiates creative energy like a sun and the atermor we were following rushed upon it only to be trapped when we pinned the Flag to the door and closed it.”

“A flag did that?” Shining asked doubtfully.

“Well, it’d make sense, Shiny,” Spike said from ahead. “Objects collect magic from events all the time. Twi thinks that the Elements of Harmony got the way they are because they spent so much time around stuff like Loyalty and Magic and other things. I bet this Flag’s been used in so many quarantines that it stops the atermor from leaving cuz it’s like a living disease.”

Elena gave the dragon a surprised look. “That is… very insightful, drakeling. Who was your mentor?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Spike replied proudly. “I’ve been her live-in research assistant ever since I was hatched, and I live with her in the library.”

“I’d heard that her intellect was exceptional,” Elena smiled. “I’m pleased that she is as good a mentor as she is a scholar. But while your insight is truly remarkable, it’s… not quite accurate. There’s quite a story behind the Flag but suffice it to say, it harms and repels atermors because they’re atermors, not because of anything else.”

“So like a… specialized magical weapon against them?” He asked.

“The Flag operates on a level much deeper than that of a mere weapon,” she replied solemnly. “But there’s little need to explain; you need only know that the atermor we trapped in that Boutique is helpless to escape or even wreck the shop in a fit of pique.”

“That’s why it’s radiating Void energy, isn’t it?” Trixie asked. “Because you shut one of those things inside.” She paused and swallowed. “They’re… quite strong, aren’t they?”

“They are.” Ersari nodded. “And the taint they spread is strong as well, practically incurable and has been known to require a full-scale culling to save the many at the cost of the few.”

“You’re not gonna perform a culling here,” Shining said, his tone more of a command than a question.

“If we must, we must and you’re too weak to oppose us in it,” Ersari replied, firmly but without any particular heat. “A culling will kill hundreds, the taint tens of thousands. The mathematics are horrifying and brutal, but…”

“Enough, brother,” Elena interrupted him. “Tormenting them with a possibility is pointless and cruel.” She looked at Shining. “It is an option, Captain, but by the time it becomes necessary, the situation will be so terrible that you might even be the one to ask it of us. It’s that much of a last resort.”

“But why is it an option?” Shining demanded. “It’s just an illness, and you’re trying to tell me that one of the ways to deal with it is to kill everypony who’s sick?”

“It’s not just an illness,” Ersari and, to her own surprise, Trixie said at the same time. With a small smile, the canine creature ceded the floor to the showmare with a nod and a gesture.

She turned to look at Shining. “When I was trying to purge the taint off some carrots, I could feel the spell and it felt… like a transformation spell, not a disease. It felt like the spell that Twilight uses to gives a pony temporary wings but… malevolent.”

“Yes, it’s a form of corruption manipulated and woven with and by the Void to spread as if it was an illness, but impervious to non-magical means of containment,” Ersari said. “Except, of course, for the method of killing those corrupted and burning the bodies. Even fire that hasn’t been infused with magic will destroy the corruption, which makes it a grimly effective last resort.”

“How often have you resorted to this last resort?” Shining asked, his voice a little more subdued than before.

“Not since before I was born, and I’m hundreds of years old,” Elena replied. “In our last confrontation with atermors, we had to use fire against corrupted land but the atermors were never able to afflict the people. I say again, Captain: it’s a rare thing and there’re a great many possibilities that come into play long before a culling is resorted to.”

Just then, they rounded the last set of buildings before the town square where the distinct shape of the Golden Oak Library could be seen across from the town hall. Parked in front of the library was a royal chariot with two Royal Guards who looked… wrong somehow. Trixie wasn’t sure why she had that impression; they were dressed the same with the same coloration and impassive expressions as any other of the Guard. But there was a certain life and energy about them that didn’t seem to fit the humorless and lifeless ponies that made up Celestia’s personal soldiers. Their reaction to seeing the group just confirmed this for Trixie: the cool, indifferent regard of the ordinary Guard was replaced by expressions of wary surprise as their eyes fell on the guests and subtle happiness at seeing Shining.

Shining’s reaction to them was the exact same, although not nearly so subdued. “Good day, sirs!” He exclaimed, breaking away from the group and trotting over to the pair.

“Captain Armor,” the two replied simultaneously, and Trixie was taken aback when she realized that despite an identical appearance, one of the two was a mare.

“Oh, hang the Captain bit! Is she…?”

“Of course she is, Shining,” the mare replied with a very not-Royal-Guard chuckle. “We would not leave her side any more than we’d permit her to come to harm.”

With that, Shining Armor’s horn flared and the door swung open hard, the Captain of the Royal Guard disappearing through it at a change of pace; after looking at each other, Berry and Trixie followed. When they got into the library, they found Shining hugging a pink-coated mare tightly, nuzzling at her and being nuzzled in turn.

“I’m glad to see you too, Shiny,” the mare said in a beautifully pleasant voice, a long mane of canary yellow, a rich fuchsia, and a deep violet spilling over his shoulders as they held one another. “It’s been far too long.”

“Yeah… a whole month…” the stallion sighed happily.

The mare laughed softly and let him go, touching her lips to his in a light kiss. “Which is far too long,” she said fondly.

Shining beamed at her before turning to a taken-aback Trixie and Berry. “Trixie Lulamoon, Berry Punch, I’d like you to meet my fiancé: Mi Amore Cadenza.”

She laughed again, with a little more vigor, then turned towards them fully. Kind violet eyes looked out from a slim and beautiful face adorned with a warm smile that seemed to fit there naturally. She didn’t have the crown and regalia that Princess Celestia went around with but like Celestia, she didn’t really need it: from a slim, tapering horn to a pair of expansive wings folded against her sides, she projected a regal loveliness that proclaimed her royalty far better than any adornments could.

“I prefer Cadance,” she said with a smile. “It’s a pleasure to meet you both.”

“The honor is all ours, your…”

“I prefer Cadance,” she repeated, slightly more firmly but with the same warm smile. “This business of ‘your majesty’ and ‘princess’ is for when I’m not in a library with my fiancé and some company.”

“Hey guys, what’s with the guards outside?” Spike asked as he came toddling in, swaying under his stack of books. “I thought Princess Celestia already left.”

Cadance grinned and lit her horn, effortlessly lifting the pile of books out of Spike’s hands and beaming at him. “You must be Spike.”

“And you must be Shiny’s fiancé,” the baby dragon responded without missing a beat. “Wow.”

The pink alicorn blushed very slightly. “Yes, I’m Shiny’s fiancé,” she confirmed, giving him a playful look. “I thought I was the only one allowed to call you ‘Shiny’, love.”

He coughed and shifted from hoof to hoof bashfully. “Um… sorry?”

“Don’t think ‘sorry’ will save you, mister.” But she gave him a wink before turning to Trixie. “So you’re the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

“Mare of Mystery, Enchantment, and Awe-Inspiring Magical Mysticism,” Trixie confirmed with a smile to match Cadance’s, feeling very at-ease around this princess, far more than she could remember feeling around Celestia even when the solar diarch was being exceptionally warm.

“Yes, I saw the wagon.” Cadance chuckled. “I love your shows, when I can sneak away and watch them. That trick you do with the rope and the audience plant is always funny; you have a real gift for precise and showy magic.”

The mention of the rope trick made Trixie shift uncomfortably, remembering just how she’d come up with it and feeling a renewed rush of gratitude towards Applejack for being so forgiving that she helped Trixie come up with a version that was more comic than mean. “Thank you,” she replied simply. “I don’t mean to be rude, Cadance, but...”

“…why am I here?” Cadance smiled still but there was a slight edge to it. “Maybe I just missed my beloved Shining Armor and felt a need to spend time with him.”

“And maybe it’s a total coincidence that after Princess Celestia promises help beyond the Royal Guard, an alicorn with a regal presence and an exotic name shows up at the town library,” Berry commented wryly. “But the timing is almost too perfect to believe.”

Cadance dropped the smile and gave Berry a shrewd look. “Well-spotted,” she said after a moment before acknowledging the mare’s observation with a slight bow of her head. “Yes, Aunt Celestia sent for me since she needed to be elsewhere and the affliction seems to have started here.”

“Aunt Celestia?” Trixie and Berry both gaped. “You’re family?”

“Adopted, the details don’t matter at the moment,” Cadance replied shortly, albeit still somehow pleasantly. “Have there been any more developments?”

“We… well, three fillies that live in Ponyville, came across a group of beings from…” Trixie paused, abruptly realizing that the five canines hadn’t actually said where they were from. “Well, we don’t know that either, actually…”

“Five creatures of some kind trapped one of the things that did this in the Carousel Boutique in town and sealed it in with something they call ‘The Quarantine Flag’,” Shining Armor said. “They just recently revealed themselves, told us that the things are called ‘atermors’, and offered to help us deal with them. We were bringing them back to the library here to discuss how.”

“Well, why are they not in here?” Cadance asked with a real smile. “Ask them in.”

“Cady…”

Cadance kissed him on the forehead. “Love, you know I’m as gentle and loving with you as any mare would be with their stallion but Aunt Celestia and Aunt Luna are very nice ponies too… and it took nearly eight hundred years after Aunt Luna was banished before anyone felt brave enough to challenge Equestria to a fight.”

Shining smiled and nuzzled at her.

“Good point,” said a familiar voice in that odd Germane-and-Trottingham mix as Ersari ducked under the slightly short-for-him door, followed by his entourage. “And we have no intention of breaking that record, your highness.”

“I’m happy to hear that,” Cadance replied cheerfully. “So, please come in and make yourselves comfortable. Spike, is it?”

“Yessum.”

“Does Twilight keep any teas on hoof in case of distinguished guests?”

Spike snorted. “Princess, do you know Twilight?”

Cadance laughed softly. “Actually, I used to foalsit her, and I know her very well. Something simple then, perhaps a chamomile, if it’s not too much trouble?”

“Sure thing,” Spike said cheerfully. “Hey Trixie, Berry, I’ve got a couple kettles if you want something else.”

“Chamomile is fine,” Trixie assured him.

“Same for me,” Berry added. “Thanks Spike.”

“Don’t mention it,” the little dragon replied as he disappeared in the direction of the small kitchen. “It’ll be ready in a few.”

Cadance looked after him with a warm smile before turning her attention back to the visitors. “Now if you please, tell us all about these… atermors.”

Author's Note

Whoo! Got this one out faster than normal because I had it started. I think you folks can expect the next chapter (with more Nightmare Moon than ever before!) out sooner than normal as well because it's already got a nice head start.

Just FYI (and I might delete this message later), I'm making a minor change to the last "Twilight" chapter because my version of Queen Chrysalis is regal and beautiful and I want to make that extra clear, just because. Just an extra paragraph of description, nothing major.

As always, people, PLEASE comment and criticize constructively. I've already had the badassness of a chapter upgraded by user feedback and the more chapters that happens to, the better it is for me and all of you.

Twilight: On A Rail

“But you… I thought…” Twilight shook her head in disbelief at the black alicorn who was watching her through wide draconic eyes. “…we all thought you were dead. We… we added you to the memorial to those who died.” She was honestly not sure what to feel or think. The visage of Nightmare Moon was that of the wicked mare who vowed to bring night eternal, the evil spirit that haunted foals on Nightmare Night, threatening to eat them if they didn’t leave her gifts of candy. This was the villain of a thousand years, the living representation of Luna gone mad with jealousy, loneliness, and heartache. The Elements had exorcised her like a demon from Luna and thought they’d been rid of her forever… and were relieved.

But it was also the face of the changed mare that had schemed to bring down the Guardian and save Celestia from her own nightmarish self. Hers was one of the first faces Twilight had seen when Trixie had restored her to life, and the fearless general of their desperate plan to disrupt the Guardian’s evil plot and force him to take direct action. And this was the face that, with tears of pain and regret running down the cheeks, had sorrowed at the lost opportunity to be a sister to Luna and Celestia and bid them all farewell. Just as much as she was Equestria’s devil, Nightmare Moon was its hero and Twilight was having trouble deciding how she could possibly wrap her mind around the duality.

Nightmare blinked and smiled a little, reminding Twilight vividly of the way her aunt smiled when she had been frightened of the reaction she might get and was starting to realize that her fears were groundless. “You actually… I was missed? You memorialized me?”

The sight of that smile, the manifest sincerity of Nightmare’s surprise, the real happiness that flickered in her eyes at seeing Twilight, and remembering that the Void dragon had complained of a ‘petulant brat’ that would tear holes in him the way Elli had if the changelings hurt her, settled the question of how she should feel about seeing the black alicorn: she smiled in return. “We did.”

Nightmare’s reaction to this was wholly unexpected: with a few long-legged steps, she crossed the ground between them and Twilight abruptly found herself enfolded in incredibly soft wings, forelegs wrapped around her neck lightly, and a muzzle running gently against hers. The touch, the scent of the black mare was so strangely familiar that Twilight found herself nuzzling back before she remembered that she wasn’t being hugged by Luna; by that time, Nightmare had let her go and taken a step back.

“I am sorry, Twilight,” she said with a shy smile. “I am just… I am very happy that you are safe. Tharalax is a dangerous and fickle beast; even his word, given under pain of annihilation, would mean nothing if the whim seized him.”

“So I gather,” Twilight replied, thinking of how the Void dragon had flown into a rage at the mere mention of Spite’s name. “And… I actually appreciate that. It was a very…” She considered what word to use. “…sincere embrace. I hope it doesn’t hurt you if we’re… cautious? We’ve met two different Nightmare Moons in the last few years and we want to be sure we’re talking to the good one that bid us a tearful farewell six months ago.”

Chrysalis snorted. “All that we’ve told you, all the good she’s done, doesn’t satisfy you?”

Nightmare shook her head. “Chrysalis, I have done wrong to these ponies, and especially to Luna. They are right to ask, and I do not begrudge them their concerns.” She turned to Twilight and her expression was free of anger or offense, just tinged with a touch of sadness. “Although it does hurt to hear family doubt me, or at least a pony I regard as family.”

She leaned down very slightly so her eyes were exactly level with Twilight’s, those turquoise dragon eyes full of the clear and earnest sincerity that normally shone from Applejack’s. “I am still the pony that bid you and Celestia a tearful farewell, Twilight, and I know that you will come to see that. In the meantime…” She smiled and turned her gaze to the still-bowing Maredusa. “Maredusa, I understand you’ve prepared supper for us.”

“Yes, Empresss…”

“I’m not an empress, Maredusa,” the alicorn interrupted her, her tone that of a pony repeating herself for the hundredth time. “Not anymore. Perhaps a thousand years ago I might have still seen myself that way but now… now I’m just Nightmare Moon.”

Maredusa smiled. “Yess, Nightmare. And yess, I have prepared a ssupper for you and all of Thryssa’ss guard.”

“Then let us eat.” Nightmare glanced at Chrysalis. “Chrysalis, I would like their restraints removed, if you will allow it.”

“I will.” Chrysalis fixed them with a stern look. “But only on their oath of courtesy. I will not have my people killed because I showed Celestia’s daughters and their friends a kindness.”

“Ye have it from us, yer Highness,” Elli said instantly. “So long as we are under yer care and your rightful prisoners, we shall harm none of yours ‘less ye should harm one of ours.”

“Aye,” Delphine agreed. “So long as we are under your care and your rightful prisoners, we shall harm none of yours unless ye should harm one of ours.”

“Unless you try to hurt us in some way, Queen Chrysalis, I don’t see any reason why we should become violent towards you or yours,” Twilight said. “Thus far, despite the threats Tharalax made to me, your daughters have been courteous and friendly. Thryssa has told me that you don’t intend to harm me, and that we’ll leave your care in the same condition we entered it. I will not attempt escape or harm anyone that doesn’t try to harm me first.”

“Ditto,” Dawn grinned. “I won’t run away or kick flank, yadda, yadda, yadda, promise and cross my heart and the like.”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye,” Pinkamena said with a seriousness that bellied the nonsensical sound of her promise.

“Ah ain’t gonna throw th’ first kick, yer Highness, and Ah ain’t leavin’ without my friends,” Applejack said. “So ya’ll can consider me oathbound like Twi.”

“A lady does not strike the hoof that frees her,” Rarity replied firmly. “Besides, how can I possibly come up with fantastic new dress designs with this ghastly inhibiter? I think… black will be very in, darling, in two to three seasons and I need to prepare.”

Chrysalis laughed at Rarity’s comment. “There’s a first time for everything, it seems; not even in our most ancient history, before ponies hated and feared us, were we ever the inspiration for clothing designs.” She gave a nod and the changeling soldiers trotted over and began helping them out of the restraints. “Your flattering words are appreciated, assassin, but you hardly need to flatter to enter the good graces of me or my people. What you have done already is more valuable than kind words could ever be.”

“Princess Thryssa said something similar,” Twilight said, lighting her horn to check that the inhibiter hadn’t done anything to her magical flow. “What’d Rarity do that you’re so grateful for?”

“She slew a murderer,” Chrysalis replied, showing her fangs. “A hunter of our kind, a mass murderer who would cut down our foals in their cribs and murder their parents when they discovered the flayed corpse. Whether by his assassins or by his own hoof, he was our only and most terrible enemy, and your friend slew him. Although unknowingly, she has done more for the changelings than any pony save Luna and Nightmare.”

Rarity looked at Chrysalis with an expression more appropriate to somepony trapped by a hungry predator than one being warmly thanked. “How could you know that?” She near-whispered. “I… I was so careful…”

“It’s been nearly a century since there weren’t changelings in disguise honeycombed through the entirety of Equestria,” Chrysalis chuckled. “Imitating ponies is very simple and Celestia has had such faith for so long in her decree that she makes no attempt to develop even the most rudimentary measures to see through our guises, even when my people hide in her very court. We do not harm anypony by this, for we desire nothing more than accurate intelligence. When it became apparent that the assassins were dangerous, we replaced several of them with spies.”

“But how’d you…”

Thryssa smiled a little. “Rarity, there are several of my personal guard whose abilities exceed your own, and you were not adjudged the most dangerous one in your group.”

This broke the haunted look and a flicker of offended pride swept over Rarity’s features. “I wasn’t?”

“You’re neither the child of a goddess, nor the Drake sisters,” Thryssa shrugged. “All of our spies warned us of the seemingly limitless ability of Twilight Sparkle and Tharalax warned us of your bodyguards, although he was loathe to admit that they were very dangerous.”

“I suppose that does explain why it was so easy to... um…”

“Slaughter the soldiers that came to capture you?” Thryssa finished. “Please don’t feel any guilt, Rarity; you thought you were defending your life and friends, and that justifies practically anything. But the fact of the matter is that you were subdued in time whereas Twilight Sparkle and the Drake sisters chose to submit instead of being defeated. Well, them and Pinkie but she’s completely harmless.”

Pinkamena grinned. “Element of Laughter, remember? Being threatening and menacing and scary doesn’t make people laugh and have fun.”

“A few dozen changeling soldiers trying to tackle you and ending up in a disgruntled pile, however, is very funny,” Tetti grinned back. “I guess that’s why you can do it.”

“Like I said, Element of Laughter.” The pink party pony dialed her grin down to ‘friendly smile’ and looked towards Chrysalis. “May I ask something, Queen Chrysalis?”

“You may, although I insist that we go to supper first,” Chrysalis replied, turning with Nightmare trailing her and her daughters to either side. “Thryssa’s personal guard exerted themselves to the utmost to capture you without harming you, and they deserve a good meal before I attempt to satisfy your curiousity.”

“Sure thing!” Pinkie beamed. “I could use some food too! Do you have cupcakes?”

<><><

For being a creature that only gained nourishment from eating crystals--including gems—Maredusa had a surprisingly good hoof when it came to making pony and, it would appear, changeling fare; her Number One Assistant abruptly came to mind and Twilight felt a pang of longing for the highly able baby dragon, a baby only in the sense that he was younger than a century. Any pony who’d seen him attending to the library, helping Twilight with a magical experiment, or proving to be a startlingly good sounding board for theories had no illusion that Spike’s small stature concealed a very able mind, and Twilight had no doubt that by the time her friend had left babyhood he’d be more of a colleague than a mere assistant.

Although she’d been out in the way of Appleloosa, Twilight had never had an apple and prickly pear sandwich between lightly roasted paddles of cactus, and it was delicious, sweet and very moist to make up for the arid climate. Maredusa’s daughter, Mara Belle, turned out to have arrived just after they did and mother and daughter shared an overjoyed embrace before Mara came over to meet them. Her coat and lower serpent scales were very similar to her mother’s, perhaps more blue than violet, but she’d pulled her mane back into a ponytail and it was a brilliant orange with streaks of red while her mother’s was a plain (although luxurious and attractive) black. There was also strong hints of a pegasus’ fine-boned features in her face, which given the intensity of Maredusa’s loathing of the pegasus ‘hero’ Rarity had mentioned, brought up all sorts of questions that Twilight decided would be unwise to pursue.

Where Maredusa had a distinctive Canterlot accent, Mara had hints of Manehattan in hers and this seemed to create an instant kinship between her and Rarity: soon, the mares were neglecting their respective meals and chatting animatedly about dresses, fashion, and all the things Twilight would have expected from a gaggle of gossiping high-society ponies at the Grand Galloping Gala, instead of a gorgon and a fashionista in the mythological Maredusa’s underground palace. Smiling at the ease the two very different-looking mares showed with each other, Twilight looked across the table where the three royals and Nightmare were lounging comfortably, Maredusa preferring lounging to sitting for obvious reasons.

After they were settled with Pinkie Pie sitting at her left, she gave the changeling queen a very composed and slightly curious look. “I mean no disrespect, your Highness, but myths speak of a shape-shifting race that feeds off the love of ponies, killing them with heartbreak or the gradual consumption of their very souls.”

“Ah, so we’ve been reduced to myths, have we?” Chrysalis chuckled. “Well, the myth is somewhat wrong and somewhat right. We don’t only feed on pony love and love isn’t the only thing we feed on. For example, the mild trust and love between friends or the deep love of family for one another. Not near as fulfilling and powerful as mother-love or the love between mates, but highly nourishing nonetheless.” She grinned a little at the blankly surprised look from Pinkamena at her forthrightness. “You act as if you’re surprised that I’d be so casual about this.”

Pinkamena sat with this a moment. “I am,” she admitted. “It seems like a fairly unusual thing to just come right out and say, that you eat love.”

“To be more specific, Miss Pie, we feed off the ambient positive energy exuded by the flow of love between individuals,” Tetti explained. “For example, there is strong love between us and our mother, and our mother and us. The connection generates a sort of energy that we can feed off of.”

“There is the low-level love of friends for one another among the other ponies and yourself,” Thryssa said, “as well as the familial love between your two griffin companions. The soldiers who were escorting you enjoyed a fine meal simply by being in your general proximity, especially when you were resolving your issues with Rarity.” She smiled. “Right now, there is the faintest flicker of a budding friendship, or at least a pleasure in one another’s company, between Rarity and Mara Belle which is a form of love. Six tables down and two over, a mated couple who’ve been apart for several months are cuddling while they eat the magnificent fare Maredusa has set out.”

“We tend to stay in large groups like this for just this reason,” Tetti added. “While just one casual friendship is a drop in a bucket, hundreds of them interspaced with the love of mates or of very close friends is a veritable lake of the positive energy from which the entire group can sip at will. As strange and sinister as ‘we eat love’ may sound, it truly is a motivation to remain peaceable and create close and warm friendships with ‘prey’ because the more of these relationships there are, the more vast and durable the supply of love is.”

“We require ordinary nourishment, of course,” Chrysalis said. “A changeling without food and water would die just as surely as a pony would, thus why we’re discussing this over a nourishing and delicious meal. But our nature, with the ease of our shapeshifting and how our chitinous shells are both as strong as iron plate yet as soft and supple as calamine leather, requires that we have a constant source of love energy. We must nourish the magical part of our nature with love energy just as we nourish the physical part with ordinary food.”

Twilight stared in utter fascination. “That’s… incredible!” She exclaimed enthusiastically. “I can’t even imagine how that would work and I’ve certainly never read anything about this phenomenon in any of my books.”

Tetti laughed. “Milady, not even we record all of this in books, and knowledge of it is literally a matter of survival for our race. It’s an instinctive knowledge, passed down from parent to child both with a certain degree of genetic memory and by verbal tradition.”

“Then why would y’all get exiled?” Applejack asked from Twilight’s right and directly across from the armored Thryssa, an arrangement Twilight was sure was anything but coincidence. “Sounds like a bunch o’ ponies who live ta encourage friendship an’ love for their own survival would be just what Equestria needs. Or, hay, any place in the world would prolly love ta have a bunch o’ folks like that.”

“Your attitude is admirable and speaks well of you, Applejack,” Nightmare said with a smile. “But you forget that you are not an ordinary pony. None of the Bearers are, which is why they are Bearers, which is why you can use the Elements of Harmony the way you do. Your experiences, with the diamond dogs, with Steven Magnet, with the zebra shamaness Zecora, with the buffalo outside of Appleloosa, have accustomed you to the unusual and diminished your prejudices. You do not fear unusual things and have come to see that some of those unusual things are not a threat, and some of them are quite attractive.”

Her smile faded. “But consider the typical pony. They have lived in the same social circles, the same situation, often the same town and home for all their lives. The only truly strange thing they ever see are ravening monsters. The only reason the typical pony might not take one look at me and run screaming is that they recognize my appearance from that memorial Twilight spoke of… and the only thing about me that does not look very pony are my eyes.”

“Ah. So ponies didn’t treat y’all right an’ some of ya didn’t take too kindly to it?”

Chrysalis sighed. “It’s… much worse than that. You see, although we feed passively, there is a way for a changeling to use their natural magic to directly transform life energy into love energy and consume it; it kills very swiftly and any creature being ‘induced’ as it’s called is helpless to stop it. That is where the tales of changelings eating pony souls comes from: a combination of certain rogues using induction against ponies under the reasoning that if they can’t have respect they’ll settle for fear, and several of the minor changeling queens ignoring their subjects’ evil in retaliation for the mistreatment ponies had heaped on them.”

“It was a spiral of building fear and hate on both sides that needed to be stopped,” Thryssa said quietly. “As I told you before, we asked the Princesses to intervene long before the problem became serious but while Luna understood our plight and wished alter the laws to protect both pony and changeling, Celestia vehemently opposed changing laws for anything less than a full-blown disaster.”

“And in return, the queens gave her the disaster,” Pinkamena surmised. “They reasoned that if there was a full-blown disaster, Celestia would be forced to act. But her act was exiling the changelings and banishing them to the eastern lands instead of changing the laws to protect both her ponies and the changelings.”

“And I almost feel guilty to admit that I bear her no ill will for the decision,” Chrysalis sighed. “I did before I assumed the crown but now, being responsible for every changeling in the way that Celestia and Luna are responsible for every pony, I admit that I would take extreme measures to save my people if there was a threat among them.”

“As would any good ruler,” Nightmare nodded. “Just the same as a mother would do anything to shelter her children if danger threatened.”

“So the queens… allowed this ‘induction’ to take place?”

“I think they encouraged it, perssonally,” Maredusa commented. “Their attitude sseemed to be ‘if they see uss ass monsters, let uss be monsterss.’ My exile wass for entirely different reasonss: where the changelingss threatened all poniess, I threatened jusst one pony but she wass important enough to exile me when I got jusstice.”

“It wasn’t justice, Mother,” Mara Belle said without looking her way, her serpentine hiss almost nonexistent. “You took revenge and threw it in the face of your enemy’s influential family. What you did was proper and she deserved it, but it was not justice.”

“The one who desstroyed me wass desstroyed,” Maredusa shrugged. “Whatever you call it, it wass only jusst that the desstroyer be desstroyed.”

“It was,” Mara agreed seriously before her expression became more cheery. “I can’t wait for this exile to end, Mother… to think that we might once again enter the Court of the Dual Thrones, resplendent and beautiful, and received with the warmth of the Sun and the affectionate embrace of the Moon… why, it causes me to be positively aflutter!”

“You would have to be properly attired, of course,” Rarity added with the same shine in her eyes she’d had when admiring Maredusa. “Something violet to flatter your mane, perhaps with a few… mmm… yes, an emerald green highlight on a low collar with a few rhinestones in strategic places. I’d use diamonds but it seems so gauche to have a pony wear their food, even when that food is gemstones.”

“A being,” Mara corrected her with a small laugh. “Yes, Miz Rarity, that would be a mild faux pas. Speaking of faux pas, tell me again about that garish abomination you attempted for the Young Fliers Competition.”

Rarity made a tragic swooning motion. “Oh, Mara, please do not speak of it! I’m ever so embarrassed at myself!” At which point, in an appropriately dramatic way, Rarity launched into a detailed description of the bizarre paint-up she’d done of herself with Mara making appropriately-timed noises of pity.

Twilight laughed and looked back at Chrysalis. “Well Queen Chrysalis, as much as you’re wonderfully understanding about the matter, I still wish to apologize on behalf of my mother. I’m sure that she’d find some way to express her regrets if she was here. Equestria would have been better for your people’s presence, I think, and especially Luna as both your daughters and Maredusa have indicated that she maintained a warm friendship with many non-ponies. Perhaps the sure knowledge that she was appreciated would have changed everything; we’ll never know.”

“I, for one, am grateful that Luna stumbled; I’d have never become the mare I am without having spent over a thousand years with a more intimate look into her mind and soul than even her sister can manage,” Nightmare commented, taking a large bite of fresh apple and darting a forked tongue over her lips to sweep the resulting dribble of juice from her lips. “Were I not so much older than she, I’d regard her as a big sister.”

“Older than her?” Twilight looked curiously at the black alicorn. “You mean you’re not a manifestation of her…”

“…insecurities, jealousies, sorrows, emotional pain, loneliness, resentment, anger, and despair?” Nightmare finished. “I am that as well, but the very fact that I can stand here with my own physical form, eating and drinking as any other pony, demonstrates that I am not merely a piece of Luna that broke away and learned how to think on its own.”

“Do you mind if I ask what you are then?”

“Besides an alicorn?”

“Besides an alicorn,” Twilight confirmed.

“That is… a difficult explanation,” Nightmare admitted. “One that is not really appropriate to a public setting.” She looked over at Chrysalis. “Not that I am ashamed or wish to hide anything of import from my faithful allies…”

“I admit that I would prefer to hear more about you,” the changeling queen admitted. “There is no question in my mind but that you’re as faithful an ally, and as steadfast a friend, as you appear to be. But only two years hence, you were a deeply feared villain threatening Night Eternal; six months hence, you were the schemer that helped to bring down the monstrous Guardian and were reported dead and deeply mourned. Now, you are alive and warm and do not smell or taste of being a magical construct.”

“We don’t doubt you, Empress,” Tetti said. “You’ve done everything you’ve promised and with a dedication to peace quite unlike the legends of the villain that seized Princess Luna and drove her to rebellion.”

Nightmare chuckled. “Seize Luna? That is as absurd as ‘changelings eat pony souls’. No pony or monster or thing of the Void could take Luna against her will, nor her sister, nor for that matter a changeling queen.” She paused thoughtfully. “Your Majesty, Twilight, may I beg your indulgence? I will gladly tell my tale, but I think the best setting would be the royal chambers at the capital where we can more easily gather all those who deserve to know: the queen and her daughters, Twilight and Dawn, and their friends and bodyguards.”

Chrysalis smiled broadly. “I merely await your convenience, milady Empress.”

Nightmare sighed deeply. “I am not your empress, Queen Chrysalis.”

The queen fixed her with a dim look. “Of course you’re not. But I’ll continue to call you ‘Empress’ until you stop addressing me by royal titles. I’d ask the same of either Diarch if they had spent these last few months…”

“Few months?” Twilight repeated, gaping at Chrysalis and then Nightmare. “But… we thought… I mean, Spite was certain…”

Nightmare looked at her sharply. “Spite? What do you know of Spite?”

“She appeared a few days ago looking for someone named Lashaal,” Twilight replied. “She caught up with her outside Ponyville, but Lashaal sent something called a klesae after her and it badly injured Rainbow Dash, whom we’d sent to warn Lashaal because we thought she was a wandering unicorn named Lily Shell.”

Nightmare slumped visibly. “Oh buck…”

“You did say that there was a real risk of her attracting the wrong kind of attention,” Chrysalis said sympathetically, patting the mare on the back.

“It is not that at all,” Nightmare closed her eyes and sighed deeply. “Please tell me she lived.”

“Don’t worry, she’s alive,” Twilight assured her, smiling despite herself at the black alicorn’s genuine concern for Rainbow. “Alive enough to accompany Luna, Fluttershy, and Spite herself northwards to track down Lashaal.”

“Lashaal went north, did she…” Nightmare gave Chrysalis a significant look.

Chrysalis grinned toothily, displaying a pair of delicate fangs that for some reason seemed more pretty than threatening. “You did also say she was irrationally single-minded.”

A trace of a smile flickered at the edges of Nightmare’s muzzle. “I did at that, and it seems I was right. The intelligent thing to do would have been to come back for instructions and another focus; fortunately, she did not. If Tharalax’ counterpart in the north was expecting practical help from Lashaal, he will not get it.”

“Big grouchy and shadowy has a buddy in the Provinces?” Dawn frowned. “And we have no way to get word to the four going that way, at least not before they find out themselves.”

“Fear naught, Dawn,” Nightmare assured her. “I spent over a thousand years in that head, brushing up against that soul, watching what Luna can do. And if the wrath of a warrior-goddess is somehow insufficient, Einspithiana will be more than their match.”

“Ah thought her name couldn’t possibly be jus’ ‘Spite’,” Applejack grinned. “That sounds much more like the name of a dragon.”

Nightmare smiled. “Yes, and that is no accident. That malicious thing Tharalax is one kind of Void dragon; Einspithiana is another kind entirely.”

<><><

“Wow,” Dawn commented with a little laugh in her voice as she stretched out on the bench. “I mean, what else could you say to all this? I know we’re here for a really serious reason and all, and it’s a big bat-over-the-head to see Nightmare Moon back in the flesh and giving out ecstatic hugs, but c’mon… when we started out, did we ever imagine that when we went looking for where that creepy-thin Lashaal started out, we’d find Maredusa’s underground palace and a whole kingdom of love-eating insect-ponies? And then end up riding a bird the size of a bucking city to the insect-ponies’ capital?”

“I wouldn’t say a city,” Twilight replied as she glanced out over the edge of the construct, just a bit larger than Applejack’s barn, strapped to the back of said bird. “Seventy lengths one way, two hundred in total wingspan. Immense, larger than any bird I’ve ever seen, but not the size of a city.”

She heard Dawn sigh in exasperation as she trotted over to the front end of the two-story passenger divan to look forward. Emerging from Maredusa’s grotto to find a bird’s head about twice her size looking curiously at her rated as one of the more heart-stopping experiences of her life. The gargantuan bird had then turned and, bowing to Chrysalis, said, his Equestrian heavily distorted by an undertone that sounded all the world like a purring sound, “This one greets the queen of changelings and the mistress of these lands and inquires after her brood.”

“The brood of this one are healthy, wise, and beautiful, and she inquires after the brood of that roc which fishes the deep shores and rules the rocks therein,” Chrysalis had replied, bowing in turn.

The roc had smiled broadly at Chrysalis’ reply. “The brood of this one are healthy, wise, and beautiful. You honor me, Queen Chrysalis, by greeting me in the way of my own, and I am grateful that you have always done so. Where may I convey you?”

The roc (who politely refused to give his name) had come prepared with the astonishingly large structure on his back, secured with chains that had links as thick as Twilight’s leg—which was actually quite small-looking in proportion to the awesome size of the bird carrying it. The inclusion of benches, tables, even a few beds made it clear that he’d commissioned others to build the carrying structure for him specifically for carrying large numbers of pony-sized passengers; Twilight estimated that well over a fifty could fit very comfortably inside. As it was, their party and the two Drake sisters had been given one floor of the structure and the badly wounded the other, with several changeling doctors and nurses tending to them.

As they were preparing to board, Nightmare had approached. “Twilight, may I speak with you a moment?”

“Sure,” Twilight had smiled. “I’ll gather the…”

“I would prefer to speak to you alone,” Nightmare had interrupted, paused, then dipped her ears very slightly. “With your permission, of course.”

Twilight looked askance at her. “Why alone?”

“Because you have good judgment, and can best decide what of what I will tell you is important and necessary to pass along, and what should be kept to yourself,” Nightmare replied evenly. “There is a great deal of truth that I owe you, that I owe your friends and Celestia, and I will convey it. But for now, I need to warn you.”

“Tharalax?” Twilight guessed.

“Do I have your discretion?”

Twilight hesitated a moment, then nodded.

Nightmare dipped her head slightly. “Yes, Tharalax. As you may guess from my fear that he had harmed you despite being under threat of annihilation, I have very little control over what he does. His master pretends that he sent Tharalax to serve me, but he serves only his master; I can only influence him with threats and punishment, and even those cannot always work.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “You’re afraid he’ll attack us again.”

“I am,” the black alicorn confirmed. “He surely meant to revel in your pain when he sent Thryssa and her personal guard to subdue you by force, and just as surely raged when he realized that Thryssa had no intention of dragging you broken and bleeding to her mother’s throne.” She smirked. “He and his master understand their supposed allies very poorly.”

The smirk was somehow a little comforting, and Twilight mirrored it. “And you do?”

“Naturally,” Nightmare replied. “Luna knew Queen Amaryss, the changeling queen a thousand years ago, and so I knew her as well. Her great-great-great-great-great-granddaughter may be more visionary than Amaryss and wears her mantle with a comfort and ease that Amaryss would envy, but the changelings are the same ponies they have always been.”

Twilight nodded. “So what should we do about Tharalax when he attacks?”

Nightmare quirked a brow, which seemed somehow approving. “When?”

“Well, if you can’t control him and he’s angry that he didn’t have his fun, and he possesses the same ability to teleport massive distances at whim Spite does, what is there to stop him?” Twilight met the turquoise dragon-like eyes of the taller mare. “So when Tharalax attacks, what can we do?”

“You can fight,” Nightmare replied. “And now we come to the second purpose of me wishing to speak to you alone: I wish to offer you certain knowledge I have that will give you an advantage over Tharalax.”

Twilight looked warily at her. “Such as…?”

“Spellwork, of course.” Nightmare smiled. “You are the Bearer of Magic.” The smile faded. “But also a more intricate understanding of what Tharalax is and for that, the magic needed to give you that knowledge is not as… harmless as the teaching of spells. Magically imprinting spells into your mind requires naught but a little magical energy; giving you knowledge, however, requires an equal exchange of the same.”

“What kind of knowledge?”

“It would depend entirely on what is foremost in your thoughts at the time of the spell.” Nightmare shrugged. “It is highly unpredictable magic, except in what it will permit me to give you.”

Twilight considered the black alicorn, weighing her offer carefully. Some part of her mind informed her that agreeing to be alone with Nightmare was foolhardy and was screaming at her that even thinking about this offer was madness. The majority of her mind, the analytical and rational majority, ignored the neurotic side of her and pointed out that everything that Nightmare had done since Twilight had been returned to life was consistent with a truly changed pony; that she came implicitly offering only as much help as Twilight felt comfortable with just cemented this impression. The rational part of her salivated at the chance for knowledge, but just as frankly fretted that if the spell worked as Nightmare described, some very private things could be given to the pony who was still largely a stranger to her.

“Just the spell imprints then,” Nightmare remarked, startling her out of her contemplations.

“Huh?”

“I could see which way your thoughts were going,” the alicorn smiled a little. “And I was going to apologize for suggesting the knowledge transfer; it was rude and presumptuous of me to suggest magic that would reveal your private thoughts to me. But fear naught, Twilight: my spellwork and knowledge combined with your technical excellence will empower you to overwhelm the beast if he dares to show his face.”

“It’s alright,” Twilight assured her with a little smile of her own. “Your suggestion had… merit, objectively speaking. But you are still a virtual stranger to me, even if you have turned over a new leaf and… um…”

“…you are reluctant to have a stranger sifting through your thoughts,” Nightmare finished. “Of course, that ought to have occurred to me before I even asked the question. So, you have business elsewhere and I will not keep you from it any longer. If you will lean forward?”

Twilight leaned forward and Nightmare lit her horn, leaning forward to touch hers to Twilight’s. What followed was a very odd feeling, as if she could feel liquid flowing into her brain although the sensation made no logical sense; she was well aware that the brain couldn’t feel physical sensation and suddenly, the next part of the imprint hit and Twilight felt herself stagger, even as she mentally chided herself for not preparing for the entirely-predictable effect. She felt herself caught by magic that touched her with surprising softness and gentleness and then Nightmare nosing at her with an expression of concern.

“Are you alright, Twilight?” She asked. “I did not… hurt you did I?”

“No,” Twilight steadied herself. “It’s alright, it wasn’t your fault. I should have braced myself for the second stage of an imprinting, after Mom used to do it sometimes when I was unable to grasp something another way.”

“Oh, good.” The black alicorn looked so genuinely relieved that Twilight couldn’t stop herself from smiling broadly at her.

“Thank you,” she said with an earnestness and sincerity that somewhat surprised her. Heh… who ever thought I’d end up sincerely thanking Nightmare Moon for anything? “Was there anything else?”

“Just wishes of good luck and a safe journey.” Nightmare Moon smiled and nosed her lightly before trotting back where Chrysalis had been standing, looking faintly interested and not a little bemused.

Nightmare, Chrysalis, and the two princesses had then bid them a fond farewell and a safe journey as the roc had swept into the air with a grace so smooth and perfect that Twilight wouldn’t have known they’d taken off if she hadn’t been watching through a window.

“She’s certainly right, darling,” Rarity added, beaming from ear to ear. “Such exquisite workmanship! Such creative gem cuts! And what a delightfully refined young mare! Why, I dare say she’d fit right into the upper echelons in Manehattan.”

“Except for the snake part,” Dawn said with a grin.

“Well, yes,” the fashionista admitted. “But that’s part of the exotic appeal! And think of the gorgeous decorative train I could add to a dress for those coils of hers! Why, my dressmaker heart is positively aflutter at the possibilities, darling.”

“I’d like ta know how she’s all square with the fashion world,” Applejack commented. “Ah mean, she’s pretty distinctive-lookin’ an’ as much as Ah hate to admit it, Nightmare’s right: most ponies ain’t very good about seein’ passed little things and findin’ the wonderful pony underneath.”

“Yeah, and she’s got one hay of a good Manehattan accent for someone who’s lived off in the desert her entire life,” Dawn added thoughtfully. “Yanno, her mom seems pretty fond of the changelings. I mean, yeah, they paid her for passage but she sure went out of her way to feed them and shelter them, lots more than a chest of sweets are worth. Maybe…”

“…they used some of their magic to let Mara Belle live in Manehattan for a while and enjoy being accepted into pony society?” Twilight nodded thoughtfully. “I don’t know. It’s hard to credit the idea but at the same time, I’ve never seen a pony race with natural transformation magic. And unless they’re engaging in a very intricate charade…”

“…an they ain’t,” Applejack supplied confidently.

“…that sort of kindness would be second nature for them, especially under the reign of Queen Chrysalis,” Twilight finished.

“Sure makes ya think,” Applejack frowned. “If’n they were anything like this way back when, things must of gotten pretty bad for the Princess to banish ‘em.”

“I wouldn't be so sure about that,” Dawn grimaced. “Mum is the absolute best but the nightmare that got in her head didn't have to dig very hard to find Nightmare Flare. She’s not always been the warm, sweet, adoring Princess all of Equestria loves to pieces, as hard as that is to hear. Like Princess Tetti said, losing Aunt Luna beat her down pretty hard and I’ll bet real bits that it made her rethink who she was and how she did things.”

“Everypony has a bad pony inside them,” Pinkamena commented quietly. “And the better a pony is outside, the stronger the bad pony is inside.”

“That may have been what it once was, Pinkie Pie, but no longer,” Delphine’s pleasantly lilting voice said from where she and her sister were lounging. “Such is the will of the Weaver, that the old balance within need no longer torment th’ good. Though clearly your Princess is bound to the cold wickedness of the Weaver that came before, I dare lay my head as wager that the good o’ yourselves is very much greater than your inner evil.”

Twilight turned to look curiously at the griffiness. “The… Weaver that came before?”

“Aye,” she replied with a nod. “There’s a legend that before th’ current Weaver arose to take upon herself the duties of weaving fates, there was a different Weaver who was a cold, objective creature. Heartless, unmerciful, and obsessed with controlling all things, he fulfilled the duty but all suffered by it, the opposite of the Weaver’s purpose. And so the mysterious Force that made the gods themselves stripped his office from him and gave it to a young mortal named Morgana Fata who still had the idealism of youth and most importantly, a heart.”

“It’s merely a myth, as far as anyone knows,” Serafine added. “At least th’ part about some all-powerful Force that made gods an’ replaced the first Weaver. Morgana ‘erself has said that she knew this first Weaver, an’ th’ scars of his meddling are still found places. One of those places, it’s thought, is in th’ balance Pinkie ‘ere named.”

“The point o’ the myth, Lady Sparkle, is that Light and Dark are needed in equal measure,” Delphine concluded. “The old Weaver represented the utter purity of th’ Light, logic and knowledge and truth untethered from morality, compassion, and the judgment of a good heart. Ta be entirely honest with you, Lady Sparkle, some part of me feared that when we found you we would find someone in the mold of that old Weaver: brilliant lover of knowledge without an ounce of basic goodness.”

“I was heading that way, once,” Twilight admitted. “But then my mentor kicked me out of the library and told me to make friends. And so I met the girls and…” She grinned a little despite herself. “…well, I can’t imagine going back to the uncaring little bookworm in a library, not anymore. That, and Mom wouldn’t let me.”

“The love of friends is powerful indeed,” Delphine smiled. “I would be nothing an’ nowhere without good friends and better family.”

“Surely that’s not true, darling,” Rarity gave the griffiness one of her most winning high-society smiles. “You seem a very accomplished… um…”

“Inquisitor,” Delphine supplied.

The answer visibly caught Rarity off guard. “Inquisitor?”

“Yes,” she smiled proudly. “One of the youngest inducted into the Imperial Order of the Ratnisbonian Inquisition.”

“Yanno, ya mentioned ‘em before when you were tellin’ the story of that invasion,” Applejack said. “Ya got some ‘splainin’ to do after dodgin’ and weavin’ earlier.”

“I’m not the least bit obligated to explain my Order to strangers,” Delphine retorted coolly. “But ye demand it of me, and… that is fair enough, since ye must trust I and my sister with your lives.”

The still-cloaked leoavian stretched before folding her wings and settling onto the bench she and Serafine were seated on. “My order was commissioned to bring all of those that worshiped gods other than th’ Weaver to tribunal, to determine whether they worshiped peacefully and rightly, or whether they were mad an’ bloodthirsty. We were literally those that inquired, and by the grace of the Weaver and the craft of learned and skilled mages, we were sent into the wastes with magical aids that we could not be deceived an’ would be protected while we were about on the Emperor’s errand. Now I myself was not inducted until the First Inquisition was done an’ the Eternal Inquisition was declared, just in time for the Blood Plain. Since that time, it has been the duty of I and my fellows to rove all of Tirror, shining th’ Light of truth over all the land and rendering justice where justice is denied.”

“Sounds hard,” Dawn commented. “So what, you wander around solving the Case of the Missing Banana?”

Delphine fixed her with an uncharacteristic gimlet eye. “More like, the Case of the Missin’ Hand That Took The Missin’ Banana.” She gave Dawn a small grin. “Justice is harsh in Ratnisbon, darl.”

“So I gather,” Dawn commented dryly. “OK, more seriously: are you some kind of circuit judges or something then?”

“More like investigators, really,” Delphine smiled. “For example, early in my service, I was roving through a village near the westernmost mountains…”

While her friends watched and listened to the griffiness with a mix of politeness—Applejack—and genuine interest in what she was saying—Pinkie Pie—Twilight trotted over to the edge of the carrying structure and looked out over it. The sky was cloudless, as skies over deserts always seemed to be, and the sun was even then just barely peeking above the western edge of the horizon and drifting slowly down. Huh. I guess Mom’s taking it slow tonight, she thought as she looked out over the featureless landscape. Where the area around Appleloosa was a scrubland with cacti and sagebrush and other arid plants, these eastern lands seemed utterly barren and almost depressingly stark.

As the sun disappeared, Twilight turned her attention to the rising moon and especially the constellations. As the princess of the night and moon, Luna could arrange the constellations however she pleased and before they’d parted ways, it naturally occurred to both that the stars would be an excellent way for the princess to communicate important things to her niece. As the stars became visible, she expected the beautiful and elaborate—Luna’s intense pride in her sky allowed her to do no less—star-picture of a bell hanging at two hundred twenty-five degrees from the risen moon. What was surprising was the flowing line of a lash right below the moon. Instead of flowing normally, in a graceful up-down-up-under, the last half of the line was entwined with itself. The lash was an indication that they’d cornered Lashaal but Twilight’s instincts told her that the entwined appearance of the lash meant that something unexpected had happened.

Huh, that wasn’t one of the agreed-on symbols. Twilight furrowed her brow at the lash, trying to put together what it could mean. The bell meant that all was well—Twilight suspected her aunt chose it because she wanted the chance to make one with her stars—but an entwined lash? Entwined… joined… things woven together… they found Lashaal but they… joined with her? Allied? No, that’d be absurd… why would they ally with her after she attacked Rainbow and nearly killed her? There must be something… She frowned hard and then remembered an extra detail. Oh! Luna said she'd also infuse a message in magical currents around the constellations, she remembered. So if I just concentrate on my mage-sight I should...

“A half-bit for your thoughts, Lady Sparkle?” Twilight jumped a little as the purr-infused Equestrian rumbled up from below her hooves, the roc carrying them tilting his head so he could look up at her with a single fiercely predatory eye.

“Nothing,” she replied. “Just… looking at the stars.”

“You mean, your aunt’s stars,” he corrected, his tone conveying a smile. “And reading her messages in them.”

“Messages?” Twilight repeated, unable to keep the strained nervous quaver out of her voice.

The roc chuckled. “I would never betray either you or the Night Princess, Lady Sparkle, or the trust of Queen Chrysalis, so you don’t need to pretend.”

“But if you see it…”

“Are your enemies rocs?” He interrupted. “Do they live here, under your mother’s sun and your aunt’s moon? Do they care for the stars, having a history with them?”

“Are they even half as smart as you or Auntie Luna?” Dawn’s voice added as she joined Twilight. “I mean, c’mon sis… you’re mum’s foal but you’re a chip off Auntie Luna’s block. Tharalax is a complete dolt; he didn’t even have a clue about how his own allies would treat you, threatening you with being beaten senseless and dragged off in chains when you ended up without a scratch and having a dinner party with Maredusa, the queen of ‘bout half of Equestria, and bucking Nightmare Moon. Ya really think he’s sharp enough to figure out what the buck a bell and a whip mean?”

“Lash,” Twilight corrected her without thinking. “It’s… um… a lash.”

“Well, then that explains who it’s meant to talk about.” Dawn pointed a hoof up. “So why’s it all twisted on that end?”

“I was trying to figure that out, actually,” Twilight said. “The most straightforward explanation is that they formed an alliance with her but that’d be absurd.”

“Well, why?” Dawn asked. “She’s gotta be reporting to something worse than she is, right? What if she, I dunno, chickened out and decided it’d be easier to betray the whatever rather than help them?”

“Nightmare did say that her using the klesae deprived the one in the north of an asset,” Twilight nodded thoughtfully. “Maybe whoever it is became angry, threatened her, maybe even hurt her…”

“…so she runs into Spite and Auntie Luna and a really pissed-off Dash and thinks, hey, she’s already a loser so why not double-cross someone?” Dawn frowned. “Things have gotta be pretty bucking bad if they’re getting cozy with someone who thrashed Dashie but good.”

“Well, that’s just it.” Twilight pointed to the bell. “Luna and I agreed to use that picture for ‘all is well’. So things can’t be bad.” She grimaced. “I’m missing something…”

“…and I hate missing something,” Dawn finished with a small grin. “I feel your pain, Twi, literally. She might have gotten the Applejack thing wrong but Mum has a pretty good read on your neurotic.”

“Neuroses,” Twilight corrected her. “And I’m not neurotic!”

“Tell that to a pony who doesn’t share your neurotic,” Dawn grinned wider. “Cept unlike you, I’ve got a great escape valve: propositioning AJ.”

“You realize that since we’re up in the air, she could always hog-tie you and hang you over the edge, right?”

“She doesn’t have rope.”

“Sugarcube, Ah always have rope,” Applejack said casually, causing both Twilight and Dawn to jump slightly. “An’ you’d best listen to Twi… Ah do a mean hog-tie, if you recall day two of work.”

“Yeah, I do,” Dawn retorted sourly. “I swear, next time I get some fire, I’m feeding that hat into it.”

“Aw, is Twi’s lil sis still sore about bein’ strung up in a tree for mouthin’ off?” Applejack grinned.

“No, I’m sore about you letting those crazy fillies try to rescue me!”

Applejack actually looked a little ashamed of herself. “Well… ‘least the roofin’ tar came out eventually. Ah still don’t have the slightest notion of how roofin’ tar could be involved in tryin’ to get a mare outta a tree, but those three operate on less logic than Pinkie does.”

“That’s metaphysically impossible,” Twilight informed her friend. “Nopony can operate with less logic than Pinkie.”

“It’s not so much a lack of logic as… special logic,” Pinkamena informed them from where she was standing on the platform that jutted out above the roc’s head. For some reason, the roc didn’t appear to have the same reaction anyone else who’d been exposed to Pinkie’s impossible antics; Twilight suspected that he might not have noticed. “The special logic appears to be thus: if it can amuse others, it’s possible. If not, I have to follow the normal rules.”

Twilight smiled at this. “I didn’t mean…”

“I know,” Pinkie beamed in her trademark physically impossible way. “So’re we having a pow-wow about the bell and lash constellations?”

“Has everyone noticed?” Twilight sighed in exasperation.

“Well, sugarcube, Luna bein’ yer kin sorta gives your friends extra motivation ta care about her night,” Applejack said, patting Twilight on the shoulder. “Didn’t know that funny one was a lash, though… woulda thought a whip mahself.”

Twilight found herself smiling again. “They’re messages from Luna,” she said. “She says that things are going well and that they found Lashaal. Dawn and I were speculating on why Luna chose to twist the end of the lash, though.”

“Easy-peasy!” Pinkie exclaimed. “It’s totally obvious what it means!”

There was a long silence while the other three ponies waited to find out what this obvious meaning might be. “So what’s it mean, Pinkster?” Dawn finally asked.

“It’s wavy,” she said. “Look, if you read the stars this way…” She gestured with her hoof, pointing out the stars in the sequence, “…it’s all zig-zaggy.”

As one, Dawn and Twilight tilted their heads and looked at the stars. “You know, I…”

“…think she’s right,” Twilight finished. “But let’s say it’s supposed to be a lash with a wavering end… what’s it mean?”

“Mebbe… they ain’t decided what she’s about,” Applejack offered. “They think she ain’t as bad as they thought, but they dun yet trust ‘er. So they’re, yanno, waverin’ on the matter.”

Dawn and Twilight looked at one another and Dawn shrugged. “It’s as good as anything,” she said. “Either way ya go, somethin’s up with the bucker that got Dashie.”

“Dawn, language,” Twilight admonished wearily, even as she nodded. “You’re right, though. I just wish we had better information! She sent the ‘all is well’ but…”

“Twi, Luna ain’t hurt, Dash ain’t hurt, Flutters ain’t hurt, an’ breaking her face didn’t do much to Spite so she prolly ain’t hurt,” Applejack interrupted soothingly. “So long as they all ain’t hurt, ya don’t need to worry, OK?”

“Besides, you’ve got much better things to worry about,” Pinkie said. “Like, why stars are disappearing over there.”

“Stars…”

“…disappearin’?” Both Dawn and Applejack turned to see what Pinkie was pointing at and, with a bracing intake of breath, Twilight followed suit a moment later. At first, it wasn’t easy to see what Pinkamena was talking about but with Nightmare’s warning in mind, Twilight called up a spell she’d learned some time ago that the book had called ‘mage-sight’ but functioned more like a combination of binoculars and the very basic magical overlay that let her see the flow and shape of magic in operation. She’d used it several times before, mainly to watch Rainbow Dash showing off, so the magic should have been familiar.

It wasn’t.

Instead, the sensation of the magic felt… odd. Not odd in a bad way, but odd in a familiar unfamiliarity way. Instead of an old spell she’d used many times, it felt like a spell she’d once used and had forgotten, but was just now remembering. It was, the analytical part of her mind informed her, as if the spell had been added to, and she mentally kicked herself for never asking Nightmare precisely what spells she’d given her. One of them, based on the odd feeling of an old and familiar spell, was an altered form of her mage-sight spell and with a slight grimace and another mental kick, she fed her magic into the pattern and let it form.

Everything immediately jumped into sharp clarity and the dim light of the stars became the diffuse gentle light of the sun shining through clouds. Without the cloak of darkness, the oncoming Void dragon stood out like a sore hoof, and Twilight immediately appreciated just how significant an advantage Nightmare had given her. If only I’d taken both… no, mustn’t think that way, need to act now and be annoyed at yourself later, she scolded herself as she exhaled a breath she hadn’t been aware of holding and lit her horn in preparation.

“Ah still don’t see nothin’,” Applejack said in frustration. “Whatcha think… you see anythin’ Dawn or Twi?”

“I think Twilight can see it,” Dawn said, looking askance at her. “And… is planning to fight it.”

“Tharalax,” Twilight said simply, eyes narrowing as she tapped into her bombardment spell somewhat relieved to find that it hadn’t been touched. It was costly, even for a unicorn with her reserves, but she knew that with the sheer volume she could throw with it, the immense Void dragon would find it hard to evade. And what if it’s not him?

She killed the spell as the thought wormed its way into her consciousness and her eyes narrowed again. The only time he got his claws dirty was before Elli and Delphine showed up, that reasonable voice pointed out. After Elli stabbed him, he immediately switched to using pawns. He’s stupid and arrogant, but he has to know she’s still here.

Doubt was apparently all it took; the onrushing visage of the Void dragon melted into the random patterns of magic that indicated an illusion at the precise instant that the ‘floor’ beneath her hooves heaved, tossing all four of the ponies off their feet as the roc gave a strangled squawk, swiftly turning into a ragged choking rattle.

“Aw, hay, he’s attackin’ our ride!” Applejack exclaimed as the floor began to shake with the frighteningly familiar rhythm of convulsions.

Twilight chewed her lip lightly, hesitating. I haven’t even done Dash’s “basics” she thought to herself, even as she stepped towards the platform over the roc’s head. Then again, “the basics” with Dash are pretty much everypony else’s advanced second year of flight school…

“Sis you’re not going to try to fly while you fight him,” Dawn stated bluntly. “Cuz that’d be totally irrational, what with your still-basic skills, and we’ve already fed a magical pony to a monster in the last six months… and you’re not listening to me, are you?”

“I won’t be alone,” Twilight assured her as she stepped onto the platform and felt her gut clench at how far away the ground looked. “That is, if you make sure the Drakes are following me. They’re the only other people with wings on this ride, except for the injured changelings.”

Before Dawn could remonstrate with her any further, Twilight snapped her wings open in the precise motion she’d been practicing at every opportunity with her stunt-flying friend, and sprung off the edge into the oblivion below. Like each time jumping off a cloud with a watchful Rainbow Dash monitoring her from the next cloud over, there was a momentary sensation of freefall; like when she’d finally been able to do it right consistently—a feat requiring just the right set of the wings and just the right arc in the jump—the aerodynamics of her wings and the aural magic that came with the pegasus part of being an alicorn caught her a split-second later, and she gave her wings a flap as she banked to face the Void dragon, her horn glowing anew with the bombardment spell and Nightmare’s mage-sight spell running at full power.

At first, what she was seeing made no rational sense. She could see Tharalax, but his form was almost transparent and appeared to be imposed over the convulsing roc. It was like he was… made of mist and shadow, she finished in her mind with a grimace. The Void dragon seemed entirely occupied with his prey, and was thus none the wiser until one of the ping pong ball sized spheres of magic impacted the edge of the misty outline. Tharalax roared in pain and the mist abruptly coalesced into his head and his fierce amber eyes, teeth bared in a snarl.

“You,” he growled. “Putting an end to you and your little companions is trying my patience, bastard. First the mewling Templar, then that arrogant parasite have stood in my way, but now… now they can do nothing.”

“Yer scorched hide would tend ta disagree, boyo,” Elli said as she launched herself over the side of the shaking platform, with Delphine right behind her. “An’ so would me sword, which is ever so eager ta…”

“Elli,” Delphine interrupted, pointing behind Tharalax’ head.

Elli followed her pointing claw and recoiled, turning away as Tharalax laughed smugly.

“Oh dear… I appear to have troubled your delicate constitution, Templar,” he jeered. “I thought you were supposed to be an army unto yourself, Elizabeth Drake.”

Elli turned back and glared, although her expression was faintly ill. “I don’t need an army ta deal with a two-bit second-stringer. C’mon, Evil… let’s see how ye face up ta a little mortal like me.”

“I think not,” he grinned widely, a malevolent chuckle underlying his words. “I have already won. Behold all that is left of your brave transport.”

As his form behind his head began to dissolve, Twilight’s breath caught in her throat. Previously concealed by the confused blending of the Void dragon’s form with the roc was that where literally a minute ago there was a massive, intelligent, speaking bird, there was now a convulsing mass of exposed organs and shedding feathers as very familiar black luminous energy rapidly dissolved its flesh away. Even in its death throes, the roc was clearly trying to remain aloft but as Tharalax dissipated up to his head, a loud crack signaled one of the dying bird’s wings snapping.

Suddenly, a disconnected dragon’s tail was there, propping the platform up and Tharalax’s grinning face and burning amber eyes floated closer. “From Tharalax, with love,” he sneered. “And now… fall, little ponies…” The tail and the rest of his head exploded into puffs of shadow and mist with one last hissed word.

“Fall!”

Author's Note

It's been a long haul to make this, and those of you who remain... thanks for staying. Next chapter has more Luna than ever before, if that makes you feel better. ^_^ As always, ask questions, make suggestions, point out typos, thankee.

Luna: Another Empty Room

“If you could have anything, Princess Luna, what would that anything be?”
“We would…”
“Stop.” Despite the sharpness, there was gentleness in her voice. “There is just us here, Luna. Speak as yourself, not as a royal. Own your goal and embrace it.”
“I would be the ruler on the throne. I’d be elevated and loved by the common pony. My night would be as great as my sister’s day. This would my kingdom as well as hers.” She paused. “I’d right her wrongs, embrace the justice she wouldn’t… I…”
“...you would be a greater ruler than she.” There was a touch of approval in the tone. “You dream of a crown and believe you’ll use it well.”
“Well, a tiara…”
“I can do this for you. We can do this for you, Luna.”
“And your price?”
“Merely living space in your mind and soul, Princess. I have no flesh of my own, and so must borrow yours if I am to help you do this.”
“And who are you?” As much as was possible, Luna tried to convey eyes narrowed in suspicion. “Who are you that you promise me a crown and a throne, the crown and throne of my sister?”
“I am Nachtmiri Mein. I am Darkness and Power and more ancient than you can imagine.” Somehow, the silky voice in her mind conveyed a genuine smile, without the malice that the statement might imply. “But I am also known as the nightmare Moon.”

Princess Luna flared her wings in agitation as she watched Spite vanish into her unique brand of teleportation, knowing precisely where the dragoness was going. “Spite!” She called through the gap. “Spite!” With a frustrated exhalation, she hit the stonework with a hoof. “Of course. Of course she’d just fly off and take care of things impulsively…”

Sort of like a certain pony we both know, Selune? Luna sighed but with a little smile at the ghost of a voice in the back of her mind, a voice she always made like that of Nacht when she was talking to herself, even using the nightmare’s pet name for her in her mind’s ear. Of course, Nacht wasn’t there. Not anymore, Luna thought with a little pang of sadness before she turned to the stonework, which was radiating magic like a signal flare.

A quick sweep over it with her horn confirmed what had seemed obvious the moment Spite had vanished through the narrowed opening: it was a portal of some kind, tied to a completely different location, likely the lair of Master or some manner of trap for anyone that tried to follow the hive creatures, and Luna suspected that Spite had been well aware of it when she’d gone in. It’d fit; the dragoness had made reference to specializing in assassination instead of all-out battle, and if she was sure that she could escape if she needed to, the chance to see their enemy personally was one that couldn’t be passed up. Because if he could be seen, he could be struck and if he could be struck, he could be killed.

With the doorway apparently a dead end, Luna turned to look back the way they’d come. Without anything chasing them or being chased, it was clear that what had seemed to be featureless, straight corridors were actually riddled with as many doorways as sections of blank wall. Curious, she peered into one of the rooms—and immediately recoiled, stumbling backwards so hard that she fell on her flanks.

The room was a charnel house. Months old to be sure—the corpses she caught a glimpse of before recoiling were mostly bone from decay—but the room was full of dead griffins. Swallowing, she forced herself back onto her hooves and looked in again. The corpses had been stacked with a disturbing order to them: front and back legs tied at the joints, wings tucked down by wire against the frame, head shoved down in line with the body, and stacked in an almost perfectly square manner of six across and five high. The order reminded Luna of someone storing resources and an atavistic shudder passed through her.

You knew that ‘Master’ loves to experiment on living things, Selune, Nacht’s voice pointed out. Are you truly surprised that he’d use living things as resources, like a bucket of apples or a bundle of hay?

No, she admitted to herself. It doesn’t make it any easier to see, though.

We’ve seen worse, her mental voice said, the sound of it rich and languid like the voice of the nightmare Moon. We both have. But we’ve never been helpless before monsters like this, have we?

“No,” Luna said aloud as she looked at the stacked bodies. “We haven’t.” She sighed heavily and shook her head. “Heh… it’s been six months since it was ‘we’ instead of ‘me’… who would have thought that I, Luna, the Princess of the Night, of the Moon, of War, would miss her imaginary friend?”

“Uh, imaginary friend Yer Highness?”

Luna had turned and pressed one of her construct blades against the throat of Rainbow Dash before her mind had even connected the slightly raspy feminine voice to the rainbow-maned pegasus that bore it. When it had, she banished the construct and sagged. “Don’t startle me like that, Rainbow Dash!”

For being mostly a civilian, Rainbow had reacted oddly like a soldier—or somepony with the reflexes to fly at unprecedented speed without losing control Luna reminded herself with an internal smirk—to the threat, starting to duck under the blade and present it with her head and face instead of the vulnerable arteries in her neck before Luna had dissipated the blade. “Uh, yeah, kinda figured that out,” she replied after a moment of eyeing Luna warily. “What’s got you so hair-trigger… um… Yer Majesty?”

“You need not address me with titles, Rainbow,” Luna replied with a smile. “The Elements have more than earned the right to speak to me as a friend.”

“Kay then, Luna… what’s got you so hair-trigger?”

“It’s… best that you not see,” Luna grimaced.

“Is it worse than my best friend since forever turned into that thing?”

Luna sighed and gave a small nod of acknowledgement, stepping aside to let Rainbow look. Rainbow stepped around her and looked over the contents of the room for a long moment before very grave magenta eyes locked on Luna’s.

After a moment of them looking at one another, Rainbow grimaced a little. “Yeah, this ain’t good.” She looked back at the room. “This ‘Master’ bucker… he’s been doing this a while.”

“More than a mere week,” Luna agreed. “I’m disturbed that an enemy could have been attacking the griffins all this time, seizing their cities and experimenting upon them, and we knew nothing of it.”

“Eh, it’s not that hard to buy,” Rainbow shrugged. “About the only griffins who get out of the Provinces do flight camp and then go home. Oh, and Eggie but, yanno, consul-ing is his job.”

"They have always been very reluctant to ask for aid when they need it," Luna nodded. "Even with dragons murdering their kind in droves a thousand years ago, they refused to ask our help, even as a neutral mediator. And now..."

"...it's come back to bite 'em in their plots," Rainbow huffed, a sound that was almost as dragon as it was pony although the mare didn't seem to notice. “Except for one thing though: how the hay’d this go unnoticed? I mean, they’re all isolated and proud and everything but ponies come back and forth pretty regularly. How’d this ‘Master’...?”

“...hide it,” Luna nodded. “It’s a good question, Rainbow, but for one thing: the griffins closed the border with Equestia during the affair of the Guardian and just reopened it very recently. They claimed it was because they wanted to protect the Provinces from what was happening in Equestria but now, I have to wonder.”

“Huh.” Rainbow turned this over in her mind. “Pretty good trick. Bet the first thing he did was set up those creepy tentacle-face things to make sure nobody bothered him.”

“And then either coerced cooperation or simply replaced the griffin leadership with his puppets, puppets with unnoticible alterations like those with Consul Halia.” Luna sighed. “We are woefully behind the times, Rainbow Dash, and that bothers me deeply. The threat of this ‘Master’ is months old.”

“So why not Equestria?”

“Hmm?”

“OK, so I’m this ‘Master’ bucker, right? Closed off the border, made sure the consul couldn’t spill the beans, pretty much a matter of time before all the griffins are my playthings. No one knows it’s going on.” She looked very directly at Luna. “So why not go and start doing the same thing in Equestria? Why not snatch up little backwaters and move up the food chain before we know what’s up?”

Luna considered this. She’s right… Equestria was prostrate, weakened by the Guardian. I and Tia were trying to rebuild, the Elements were putting themselves back together, the Royal Guard and Wonderbolts were in recovery. So why not Equestria?

“Another player,” she said aloud. “This ‘Master’ is obeying someone who told him to take care of the griffins but leave Equestria alone.” She paused to follow the train of logic a step further. “Which means that Equestria was someone else’s job.”

“And what about where that creepy unicorn was coming from?” Rainbow asked. “Yanno, the place we sent Twi and Pinkie and the rest?”

“It’s called the Barrens and it’s…” ...where Tia banished the sand drakes, rocs, Maredusa, and… Luna suddenly felt her heart constrict. ...the changelings. “...oh no…” she breathed.

Rainbow swallowed. “Um… ‘oh no’? Like, the ‘oh no, we’re bucked’ kind of ‘oh no’?”

Instead of answering, Luna turned away, her mind racing. Ametys couldn’t still be alive… not even their queens can live for a thousand years no matter how well-loved. So perhaps a daughter… maybe a granddaughter or great-granddaughter… assuming the monarchy is still intact… assuming the Royal House lives…

“Yer Majesty? Hey, Luna?”

...assuming their race didn’t die in that empty waste, didn’t become changed by it, isn’t still holding a grudge over the exile, and would actually resist a stranger coming to them and offering them a way back to their rightful home…

Magenta eyes were suddenly an inch away from hers, framed by an unruly rainbow mane. “What. The buck. Is wrong?” Rainbow demanded.

“I think I know why Lashaal was coming from the Barrens,” Luna said heavily, “and why these invaders would be interested in it.”

“Maredusa?”

“No.” Luna turned away from Rainbow and her intense gaze. “Rainbow, I fear that I and my sister have not always been as good and wise as we are now. Many… mistakes have happened in the past, some of them regrettable but harmless, some of them regrettable and serious, some of them quite foolish indeed.”

“Like Maredusa?”

“No, Maredusa’s sentence was just,” Luna said. “Others however…” She trailed off with a sigh. “I don’t think this is the time or place, Rainbow. You got directions here from Lashaal, correct?”

“Yeah, so?”

“So she strikes me as the kind of… whatever she is to eavesdrop and while I will speak of past mistakes to you, I don’t want her hearing them.”

Rainbow looked pensive for a moment before nodding. “OK, makes senses. Don’t suppose it makes much difference to point out that I left her behind?”

“I think she can portal the way Spite can; it’s the only way she could have traveled fast enough to have earned the trust of the griffins before we arrived,” Luna replied. “And since she knew where to point you…”

“...she knows where to ‘port,” Rainbow finished. “Kay, I’ll drop it but one last question: this bad thing… something that’s gonna bite us in the plot immediately?”

“No,” Luna said. “If this bad thing is indeed bad, the signs of it ‘biting us in the plot’, as you put it, would be impossible not to notice.”

“And what signs will those be, yer Majesty?” Lashaal’s voice asked from what appeared to be empty air. “That ye do not wish me to hear ye speak of this ist… interesting but strange.”

“Don’t play stupid, Lashaal,” Luna frowned in the direction the voice came from. “You know why I’d be wary of giving you anything of use or interest. Spite may not have told me much about you, but she was hunting you for a reason, and I fear that reason was very good.”

“Of course it was very good: she had been told to,” Lashaal replied calmly. “She ist a creature of duty, and obligation, and predation, and I am the prey she was given.” She paused a beat. “It ist still very interesting and strange that ye wish for me to remain ignorant of these ‘signs’ that there ist great danger.”

“If there was danger to you, Lashaal, I’ve no doubt you’d know it and be fleeing it.” Luna sighed. “I suppose there’s no harm in this, however. But this will be an exchange: you shall tell me of this structure and how you knew of it, and I shall tell you what signs to watch for.”

“A bargain.” Lashaal’s voice practically burst with honest pleasure. “Yes, a bargain would be wonderful. And I agree to yours: knowledge for knowledge. What do you wish of me?”

“So this place’s a lab, huh?” Rainbow asked as they walked with Lashaal, knowing that the pretended pony was there only because her hoofsteps were audible. Lashaal had stubbornly refused to drop the concealment spell, and Luna hadn’t pressed it since now that she knew the mare was there, she could sense the magic of her spell and thus her. “Sure don’t look like Twi’s lab.”

“Twilight Sparkle maintains a laboratory?” Lashaal asked curiously.

“Yeah, full of blinkin’ lights and books and other egghead stuff,” the prismatic pegasus asserted.

The false unicorn grunted thoughtfully before continuing down the dusty corridor they were walking through. “So machines, but no experiments? No test subjects?”

“Experiments with potions, I guess.” Rainbow’s eyes narrowed and she looked hard at the direction of Lashaal. “Whatcha mean, test subjects?”

“Those griffin abominations,” Luna said before Lashaal could. “What they, or I guess he, did to Gilda. The giant cloud of creatures. The tentacled things under the sand.”

“Those aren’t test subjects, those are successes,” Lashaal corrected her calmly. “The test subjects are the raw material that goes into the successes. He would hardly be called ‘Master’ if he had not mastered his art.”

Luna could barely stop her stomach twisting slightly at the utterly calm matter-of-fact tone that Lashaal adopted. These living things, these people, are just objects to her, she realized.
And again, Selune, how does any of this surprise you? Her inner voice chided with a touch of sadness. Don’t you remember how I was initially?

The reminder made her shiver involuntarily; to say that Nacht was cold-blooded when their partnership had first gone into effect was understating things quite a bit. Numbers mattered to her, victory mattered to her, strategy and tactics and success all mattered to her… but ponies didn’t. It’d caused considerable ranchor between them, and proved without question that for all her ancient power, Nacht was still a guest and had only as much autonomy as Luna consciously allowed.

“So he became known as ‘Master’ because he’s a heedless butcher who pulls wings off butterflies and calls it ‘experiments’,” she commented dryly.

“To each their own,” Lashaal voice seemed to shrug. “Thus far, ye have asked only this place’s purpose, hardly the price of what I would ask of ye.”

“Then tell us what is contained here,” Luna told her. “What experiments are housed, and what is their purpose?”

“This is where the weapons are made,” Lashaal said. “The sand-worms, the behemoth beast of a thousand pieces, the pale imitation of his greatest masterpiece, a…”

“The big swarm-thing?” Rainbow interrupted.

“Yes,” Lashaal confirmed. “It is a… lesser success. Far greater is the melding of griffins with the Void, weaving the airless and cold material of the nothingness to a living thing without killing it. It’s really quite the accomplishment, you see…”

Luna decided to tune out the sudden excited babbling of their companion and let her own magical senses reach out to the area around them with much less focus than she’d used when examining the portal door. She flinched slightly as the buzz of powerful runic magic assaulted her from all sides, before she gritted her teeth and forced herself to endure the surge for the moment until her subconcious began to turn the noise into something coherent that she could make sense of.

Nearest spell to me is… a preservation spell, not at all unusual. She said to herself as she walked, being able to walk and seem to follow conversation while deep in thought a well-practiced ability. And of course there’s the spel that creates a portal, layed on top of one that backlashes against magical attack. Ahead is a backlash combined with a trigger that uses balefire against a magical source. Various imprisonment runs, meant to ground out and confine magic, and…

Abruptly, her mind ground to a halt and on pure instinct, her magical senses narrowed to something ahead and to her right, overlaying a blank wall. No… She was barely aware of pushing Rainbow and Lashaal aside and putting her hoof up against the wall. No… no, no, no…

“Hey, Luna! What’s up?” Rainbow asked, poking a shoulder.

Luna ignored her and turned towards Lashaal, stepping towards her and looming over the place where her senses said the unicorn was. “What is that?” she demanded, pointing at the blank wall.

Lashaal went silent a moment, and Luna could practically hear the gears of her mind turning as she decided precisely how to answer. “A… blank wall, yer…”

“Do not lie to me, Lashaal,” Luna growled. “Layered misdirection, disregard, concealment, camouflage, and imitation spells tied at their apex by a force spell to stabilize. I’d know that runic signature anywhere, but I’ve only seen this combination in one place.”

“What place might that be, Princess Luna?” Lashaal asked, the innocence in her tone too strong to be sincere.

“Twi’s room.” The two of them looked over at the pegasus at the whispered realization.

“Doesn’t she live in a…?”

Rainbow ignored Lashaal and looked at Luna, dumbfounded. “It’s like Twi’s room, isn’t it? The one in the castle.”

“Yes,” Luna confirmed, channeling magic through her horn, beginning to build the magical structure for a dispel around the silvery ethereal light. “In fact, it’s exactly the same spell. Duplicated very precisely. Which means I know exactly how to take it apart.”

Complex runic magic like the spell hiding the room was distinct for how long-lasting it was--but also how incredibly fragile when you knew how to unravel it. The dispel barely needed to touch it before it disintegrated in several crackling pops, revealing a door… which was as fastidiously duplicated as the spell hiding the room. She heard a sound of surprise from Rainbow and knew that the mare had recognized it just as surely as she had.

She frowned at the door. “This cannot be possible. How can a room that I know is at the castle be here as well? I think you owe me an…” She stopped as she abruptly felt concealment spell and Lashaal’s magical presence vanish. “Ponyfeathers!”

“She run off?”

“I believe so…” Luna’s brow furrowed. “Right after I dispelled the concealment, actually…”

There was a pregnant pause. “Ya thinkin’ what I’m thinkin’?”

“That she seemed more worried about getting away than getting her answers?” Luna shook her head. “Yes. But why…?” She focused her magical senses on the door and the room beyond and felt nothing. No magical traps, no containment spells, no magical presence… nothing.

Luna took a breath and let it out. I know there’s a reason Lashaal left right then. To make me uncertain about opening the door? To stay clear when whatever’s in the room jumps me? For that matter, how the hay did ‘Master’ perfectly duplicate an enchantment he could not possibly have seen in operation?
You’re still assuming you know how long ‘Master’ has been working, her mental voice pointed out to her. He could well have been around before the Guardian ever showed its hand, quietly waiting until all was in place.

The thought chilled her, but she put it aside; there were more immediate matters on hoof. “I don’t feel any magical danger from inside,” she told her companion. “That said, keep your eyes open and as alert as you can.”

“Gotcha, Luna,” Rainbow nodded, crouching into a more ready position as Luna reached out with her magic and gripped the handle on the door.

A quick movement down, a pull, and the interior of the room was revealed: it was the exact same. Hoofmade bookshelves, a crb, little dresses, the dolls of herself and her sister, even the wrinkles in the bedding of the crib… it was the empty room, duplicated as if from a photograph.

“What… what is this…?” Luna nearly whispered, stepping over the threshold, stuck between awe at the exactness of the detail, and abject horror that ‘Master’ had somehow obtained enough intelligence to made a fine examination of an extremely restricted room, including a series of concealment magicks that she’d broken before entering the room. “A perfect replica… why?”

“Better question: how the hay’d this ‘Master’ get a look at the place?” Rainbow said. “I mean, I don’t got Twi’s head for magic but I’m pretty sure ya can’t just wish for it and it happens. Gotta be some kinda spell, right?”

“Yes,” Luna agreed, stepping over to the crib and gently levitating the doll made to look like her. “A manner of spell I can’t even imagine. It would have to be incredibly powerful but impossibly subtle, strong enough for Master to examine everything as if he was there while staying completely concealed for I and my sister. I can’t… I mean, I don’t mean to boast but Tia and I are… well…”

“Like some sorta goddesses, right?” Rainbow filled in.

“Well, yes, that would be fair,” Luna nodded, exchanging the doll for the one of Celestia, marveling at how exact the duplication of the original was. “I don’t think I’m any kind of deity, mind you.” She put the doll down and looked around the room, noting how it was totally clean but for a small decorated mirror hanging above a small changing table. Curious, she approached the mirror and looked more closely at it.

It’d had sandpaper applied to the reflective surface.

Narrowing her eyes at the deliberate deviation from the otherwise exact duplication, Luna looked down at the finished surface of the changing table, which she remembered being able to faintly reflect the face of a pony leaned over it… which was also sandpapered.

“What’s wrong with that mirror?” Rainbow asked, stepping into the room with Luna.

“Rainbow… check the toy box over there,” Luna answered, gesturing to the small hoof-carved box. “Do any of the toys look like they had sandpaper applied to them?”

“Lemme check.” There was the sound of rummaging and the clank of wooden and metal toys being pulled out and dropped on the carpeted floor. “Just a toy mirror and the button eyes of a doll,” she reported.

Someone went through and destroyed all the reflective surfaces systematically. Luna realized as she took a step back. “Rainbow Dash, we need to leave. This room…”

“...is a prison, precious,” a familiar voice came from the doorway. “Looks like you dweebs stumbled into something you’re not supposed ta.”

Luna gritted her teeth and channeled magic into her horn as she turned to look at the Void-shaped corruption of Gilda Grimfeathers. The creature was standing there but curiously, her eyes were averted from Luna’s and her head turned slightly away, but the corner of her muzzle made it clear she was smirking. “Thou survived Our chastisement,” she noted.

“Gilly-girl’s got a head full of how to be fast,” Grimfeathers shrugged. “Useful little minx, sort of annoying when she’s thinkin’ that yelling will make me listen, fun to keep around because I never need to look to find someone to torment. Speakin’ of torment… yo, smilin’ filth, how do ya like the playthings?”

Luna blinked and looked at Rainbow before frowning at Grimfeathers. “Excuse me?”

“Ain’t talkin’ to ya, Nightmare, or you Dashie.” Grimfeathers’ smirk faded a little. “Hey! I said how do ya like the playthings, you smilin’ piece of shit?”

There was silence and Grimfeathers lost the smirk completely. “Oh, you’d better not be fucking with me, smiles. You’re not as high on the totem pole as you think you are, so I can totally ream your ass and get a treat for it ta boot. Answer me.”

“Grim, ain’t no one here but two ponies who’re about to kick your furry plot into next century,” Rainbow growled as she advanced on the mutate.

Grimfeathers went strangely still for a moment before finally raising her head and looking at them, her expression stuck between confused and very slightly worried. “Zambet, you will speak, and speak that they can hear as well. You know that you must obey.”

“Yanno what? I don’t care who Zambet is.” Rainbow snorted as she stepped in on Grimfeathers. “Pucker up, bucker.”

“Oh please, you think your…” Grimfeathers was cut off mid-scoff by Rainbow planting a haymaker right in the center of her face, and it was immediately apparent that Rainbow wasn’t just a supremely talented pegasus anymore, because the blow threw Grimfeathers head over tail into the wall behind her.

Grimfeathers had a split second to look utterly shocked before a burst of Rainbow’s signature speed drove another hoof into her, enough that Luna could hear something snap, and Rainbow followed it with one of the downward wing-strokes she’d used when she’d been fighting the mutated griffons in the air. Another blow, another wet snap, another sweep and a blow to follow it.

“ENOUGH!” Luna’s view of what exactly Grimfeathers did was blocked by the enraged pegasus beating her but suddenly, Rainbow sailed passed her and smashed into the changing table, demolishing it. Grimfeather came to her feet, eyes glowing red and grimacing as she held a visibly broken arm.

“I swear if I didn’t have bigger fish to fry, I’d fuck you up good ‘Dashie’,” she snarled, wincing as she sat on her haunches and began to carefully maneuver the snapped limb straight. “I’m impressed as hell with the entire flipped switch but your timing blows.”

The contrast between the sneering, taunting, sadistic mutate they’d met in the desert and the snarling but restrained one straightening her broken arm at the entrance to the room was a stark one, and Luna eyed her as she leaned down to check on the unconscious Rainbow Dash. “What, no malicious taunting, Grimfeathers?” she snorted as she noted the unnatural angle of the pegasi’s wings.

“Bigger fish ta fry,” Grimfeathers responded. “Like, size of a fucking whale bigger fish to fry. I ain’t hearin’ anyone but us three, and that ain’t good.”

“Zambet?”

“Oooh, give the pony a gold star,” Grimfeather growled sharply as she apparently set the bone of her arm. “I ain’t kiddin’ about this bein’ a prison, precious, and I notice that this prison ain’t got a prisoner no more, and that’s more kinds of bad than you can imagine.”

Luna enfolded Rainbow in a field of magic and carefully levitated her to examine her wings. As she feared, the high-velocity impact with the changing table had snapped both. Snapped them cleanly, but they were clearly broken. “You’re scared out of your mind, aren’t you?”

There was a somewhat startled silence at this before Grimfeathers snorted. “How’d ya guess?”

“You’re a wicked beast allied with this ‘Master’,” Luna said, straightening the wings and levitating pieces of the changing table to her view so she could select ones that would work well for splints. “You have what any minion of Master would do anything for: an enemy you cannot hope to even lay claws on distracted and with her back to you. A foe you have a beef with, I believe the term is, because she hurt you last you met. And yet you stand there and heal yourself. Only abject fear explains this.”

There was another long pause from behind, long enough that Luna had begun securing the splints with strips ripped from the crib bedding, before Grimfeathers spoke in a subdued and very serious tone. “Luna, ya ain’t got a clue what Master caged in this place. Dun know where he picked the thing up… didn’t even know they existed before he got one. Stuff of horror stories, even among evils.” She paused. “And that ain’t the worst thing, ain’t even in the top ten. Worst thing is, Master is way too good at makin’ monsters worse.”

“Why this room, though?” Luna asked, finishing one wing and starting on the next. “Why duplicate the room of a foal, right down to the intricate stitching on her dolls and the concealment spells on her door?”

“Zambet already has power an’ sadism,” the mutate said. “Master stuck it here to get smarts, and give it a scent. Somethin’ about the...”

Luna froze mid-wrap and turned to stare at Grimfeathers, not bothering to keep the horrified look off her face. “Whose scent?” she managed.

“Whoever lived here, I guess,” the hybrid shrugged. “Bet the slimy little coward who got her lips attached to yer plot knew though. Stupid as fuck and a sniveling little rat, but she had a fast tongue. Shoulda ripped it out…”

Luna took a breath and forced herself to finish the wrapping. “So Lashaal knew what was in here and said nothing.”

“Prolly thought Smiley’d eat ya and she could get a pat on the head for bein’ a good dog.” Grimfeathers frowned. “Really, sorta surprised it didn’t. Yeah, it can’t get in yer head without a mirror or somethin’ that reflects yer entire face, but it has a special love for beating down the strong to make itself feel superior… and the two of ya are damn strong.” She rubbed her formerly-broken leg for illustration.

“How sophisticated is this prison?” Luna asked as she tied off the last of the splints. “I noticed no wards or runic magic when I entered. Nor did I sense any before I did.”

Grimfeathers shrugged as she walked over to Luna’s side, moving with no difficulty as if she’d never been injured by Rainbow. “Ask a magic dweeb, I’m just big mean muscle.”

“I happen to be, as you say, a ‘magic dweeb’,” Luna smirked a little before grimacing. “I guess it doesn't matter how it got out… how do we find it?”

“Hell if I know.” Grimfeathered grimaced. “Gotta have special kinda sight ta see it when it’s not in someone’s head. In fact, pretty much how Master grabbed it: baited it with a minon then dragged it out kickin’ in screamin’. Best way ta do it, but ya prolly don’t wanna pay the price, right?”

“Not if it’s Twi,” Rainbow said from where Luna had leaned her against the crib, her eyes still closed. “Just barely got ‘er back.”

Grimfeathers frowned. “Twi?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Luna clarified. “My…”

“Wait, wait, wait… this room belonged to Twilight Sparkle?” The altered griffin gaped at her. “Like, the fucking ringleader of th’ Elements? Master sent Smiley after that Twilight Sparkle?”

“It seems more accurate to say that Lashaal sent it after my niece,” Luna said dryly. “Master appears to have caged it in anticipation of the chance to use it.”

“Ugh,” Grimfeathers rubbed her temples with her claws. “Witless cunt prolly had no idea what Master had in mind, prolly didn’t care. First the klesae, now Zambet… it’s like she thinks she can grab the prize herself.”

“The Game?”

“Yeah, the fucking Game.” Grimfeathered growled. “Dash?”

Rainbow glared at her in response.

“Ya hate me,” she said bluntly. “Good for you, yer supposed to. But I’m gonna do something really, really stupid here and give ya an assist. Unlike the little webweaver bitch, I’ll tell ya straight: I ain’t yer friend, I’m a mean cunt, and we’re playin’ allies ‘till we have Smiley back in a cage and then all bets are off. Ya got me?”

Rainbow eyed her without saying anything for a minute before smirking. “Gilda must be yellin’ pretty loud… ya sounded just like her right there.”

Grimfeathers gave her a sour look, but Luna caught a brief and fleeting gleam of pride in the hard gold eyes. ”Heh, dream on Dashie,” she scoffed. “Gilda ain’t in control, I am.”

“Yeah, which is why ya sounded just like the griffin that ain’t in control, right?” Rainbow rolled to her feet and looked back at the splints. “Hey Luna, why’re my wings tied up?”

“They broke when Grimfeathers threw you off of her,” Luna replied. “My facility with healing spells is not quite what my sister’s is, so I had to immobilize the injury.”

“Ya musta set ‘em pretty good, cuz they don’t feel broken,” Rainbow wiggled one of the splints.

“That’s the point,” Luna said wryly before looking at Grimfeathers. “So you’ll assist us. What sort of assistance can you give?”

“I’m higher on the totem pole, so if I order it ta talk, it has ta stop ‘n’ reply,” Grimfeathers responded. “And Master brags like a champ, an’ I’ve been around him long enough ta hear it all.”

“So you’re offering us knowledge of Master and this Zambet.”

“‘Bout the size of it, yeah.”

“Which is largely what Lashaal did.” Luna narrowed her eyes at Grimfeathers. “Once burned, twice wary.”

Grimfeathers seemed unmoved. “Be wary, see if I care,” she shrugged. “Lashaal lies and plays with truth; that’s her schtick. I’m a big, strong, thug with a mean streak; that’s my schtick. I ain’t much ta a goddess, Princess, but I ain’t got a reason ta be scared of anyone or anythin’ else. Lashaal needs lies cuz anyone can squish her and she knows it; I don’t cuz they can’t.”

“Dunno… I lit ya up pretty good, and I was too mad to be fighting smart,” Rainbow pointed out.

Grimfeathers rolled her eyes. “Cuz ya got a hand from Ein, ya dweeb. Not even the earth ponies got the hittin’ power to beat me down, normally.”

Both of them blinked at her. “Ein?”

“Yeah, Einspithiana.” She looked between them. “Ya… didn’t know her given name?”

“She just told us to call her ‘Spite’.” Luna gave her a thoughtful look. “You use a diminutive for her.”

“A diminu-what?”

“Shortened name, like ‘Twi’,” Rainbow said before Luna could. Then she gave Grimfeathers a thoughtful look that was practically a mirror of Luna’s. “...which we all use cuz Twilight is our friend...”

Grimfeathers looked abruptly uncomfortable. “Uh, yeah, no sale,” she said a little too quickly, turning around. “C’mon, burnin’ daylight, Smiley gettin’ ta play while we’re sittin’ around, chop chop.”

“What would you prefer that we call you?” Luna asked as she followed the hybrid out, Rainbow flanking her and moving slowly to avoid jostling her wings too much.

Grimfeathers glanced at Luna with an odd expression. “What do you mean, what do I want ya to call me?”

“Oster and Esper told us that you’re called ‘Grimfeathers’ for mockery,” Luna said. “So long as you are doing us no ill, I see no reason to mock you.”

“Grymmilnia,” Grimfeathers said after a pause. “Wasn’t a big leap ta call me ‘Grimfeathers’ instead.”

“Clearly.” Luna sighed. “So where would this Zambet go?”

“Mirrors,” Rainbow said. “Master ruined all the reflections and Zambet likes getting in heads, yeah? So wherever there’s mirrors.”

“Ya catch on quick, Dashie,” Grymmilnia chuckled. “Yeah, wherever there’s a mirror, off Smiley goes. Part of why Master set up here: sunlight burns the little shit and the nearest mirror’s way the hell off one way.”

Luna grimaced as she did a quick check of her mental clock. “Does it fear the night at all?”

“Naw, it loves the…” Grymmilnia dropped her head. “Lemme guess… ‘bout time for moonlight?”

“I fear so,” Luna admitted. “I do apologize but this duty isn’t up for debate. I could no more refuse to carry it out than I could saw off my horn. If it helps, though….the chastisement I attempted to inflict on you is but a tickle compared with the strength I have under the light of my moon.”

“Heh… so 12 hours of super-Luna, huh?” the nightmare laughed, genuinely laughed. “Damn shame it ain’t gonna snag us a Smiley, but I’m sorta stoked. Ya need ta see sky for it?”

“Yes.” She actually didn’t--it helped but wasn’t required--but however crudely honest Grymmilnia seemed, she couldn’t trust the nightmare with what she had planned. Before setting out, she had Twilight had worked out a way to pass messages: Luna with constellations and magic weaves that could only be seen with mage-sight, Twilight by using a simple (for her) harmonic spell to project messages from a mirror she was carrying to a… polished gemstone.

“Grymmilnia, how large of a reflective surface does Zambet need?”

“Big enough that ya can see yer whole face in the reflection clearly,” she replied. “Just thought ya might be carryin’ somethin’ Smiley can use, huh?”

“As I seem to be responsible for it getting loose...”

“Ya ain’t,” Grymmilnia interrupted. “Zambet is dangerous, an’ ya don’t put dangerous in glass boxes. I ain’t a rune magic genius but I know the prison is pretty fucking stable an’ robust. Ya need a key ta crack the locks, an’ lil miss webweaver prolly had it somehow. Anyway, here’s a hole for ya.”

“Thank you.” Luna stepped passed the nightmare, looked up, and furrowed her brow.

The sun is… still high. She noted. It should be well on its way to the west by now. Perhaps something is restraining Tia…? With a tiny mental shrug, Luna lit her horn and reached out to the massive celestial body, delicately running her power over its aura as she prepared to ease it on its way. Moving the sun was a more complicated process than moving the moon, as the aura of the sun was constantly waxing and waning, flowing and fluctuating, rippling with searing heat and untapped power, and to properly grasp and guide it required being able to first suppress it. Tia knew each tremble like the back of her hoof and could compensate without a thought; for Luna, it required much more concentration.

Except this time.

This time, the sun was very tame, it fluctuations barely ripples, as if all that writhing and roiling power was being drawn off of it. Nudging it along its appointed route was almost too easy, and Luna frowned as she guided the fiery orb. It feels… wrong somehow. It’s as if the fire is being channeled. But what could Tia be doing with this much power? She didn’t even draw it like this when she was in the grasp of her nightmare self, not even when we were crushing the Guardian.

With a mental effort, she shoved aside the gnawing sense that something had gone very, very wrong and pushed the sun slowly and carefully over the western horizon. The actual work done, she let herself smile a little as she reached for her moon, finding it in its appointed place, drifting quietly and placidly in the darkness beyond the east. There was a time that her moon was an object of duty, connected to her but remote. Being sent there for a thousand years changed everything in that regard, and now the connection was intimate and instrictive, and guiding her moon through the sky empowered her instead of requiring any sort of effort.

“Geeze, she’s really inta this moon-movin’ thing…” Grymmilnia commented in a hushed voice.

“Eh, I fly, Lashaal lies, she moves the moon,” Rainbow replied. “It’s her schtick.”

“Hey, I like what I do but she looks like she’s gettin’ some.”

Luna almost lost her grasp at the comment and a snort from Rainbow as the pegasus struggled not to snicker. She looked over at the nightmare, who gave her a cheeky grin, before she smiled and went back to moving her moon. You always have visibly enjoyed your job, Selune, her mental voice said with a tone of familiar fondness. Anyone who cares to see it can, and Grymmilnia clearly does.

After a minute of movement, her moon finally came into view, large, silvery, and radiant with cool and subtle energy. Luna closed her eyes and sighed happily as the caressing power washed over her like a cool breeze in hot summer, washing away worry and cares and making her feel alive to a degree she never attained during daylight.

“Princess Luna?” Luna opened her eyes and looked down upon Grymmilnia. “Hate ta break up the special moment and all, but we’ve sorta got a Zambet ta hunt.”

“Of course, forgive me,” Luna smiled at her before raising her eyes to the night sky. letting them drift closed. A constellation of the bell so that Twilight knows we’re well, she said to herself, plucking stars from the firmament and nudging them into place. And the symbol of the lash, as we agreed, but wavering so she’ll be wary. But now for the magic weave… hmm…

Warn her specifically of Zambet, Selune, that inner voice suggested. For it hunts Twilight now, and it was but six months ago that she was returned to us.

Luna mentally gave her inner voice a curt nod and wove the magic as the voice suggested. “It is done,” she said to Rainbow and Grymmilinia, opening her eyes and looking down at them. “You know this creature’s habits, Grymmilnia?”

“‘Bout as well as anyone.”

“Then lead the way; it’s been a long time since I last put down a monster.”

Author's Note

It's been a long haul, and I wish to sincerely apologize to the lot of you. Trying to put this together has been very difficult because I had to go from this being an OC to a canon character, and that required me to jump rails with my train of thought. Fortunately, I've long had a plan on hold for the next chapter so it may well be an easier time. If any one of you has actually stuck with me over the wait, thanks.

As always, comments are welcome and desired. :)

Trixie: Cauterization

“I am Lord Ersari Bloodwynd, master of the Stormthorn Hold and especially the keep that watches over it,” Ersari told them gravely before taking a sip of the camomile tea Spike had brought him. “In this place, however, I am no greater or lesser than any subject of the princess-goddesses Luna and Celestia.”

Cadence chuckled lightly as she levitated her own cup and sipped it. “My aunts aren’t goddesses Lord Bloodwynd,” she said. “They don’t see themselves as such, and neither do their little ponies. For myself, I am Mi Amore Cadenza, princess of Equestria by adoption. This is my fiance Shining Armor, captain of the Royal Guard.”

“A pleasure, m’lord,” Shining added politely, his formal words contrasting oddly with his unusual manner of speech.

“It is shared, Captain, despite your odd fixation on arresting us.” Ersari gave him a brief and toothy grin. “And these are the adjutant, Forheest Sadow, and my sister Elena Bloodwynd. With I and my sister come our squires who, by tradition, disavow names before others.”

“In the name of the Dual Thrones, I welcome you to our lands,” Cadence took another sip. “Now, speak of these creatures to me, these atermors. What are they?”

“A… race, I suppose you could call them, that thrives on plague and disease,” Ersari answered. “They go about in robes and long beak-like masks in a deliberate mockery of plague doctors, those foolishly courageous mortal doctors who try to help those dying from a plague spread in the air itself. Their principal weapon is a sickness we’ve come to call the Black Death, an incurable plague that seeps into the land and is carried through the most basic of foods. It’s infused with Void, which is why it reacts violently to Light.”

“So they attack by poisoning land and food with an incurable disease, one that can only be defeated by Light.”

“Or Dark,” Elena interjected. “Both spectrums of living magic are equally destructive to it.”

“Dark magic like… that wielded by Aunt Luna?” Cadence asked.

“If what we’re told of her is correct, yes.”

“Mmm.” Cadence tapped her chin thoughtfully with a hoof. “So these atermors attack by poisoning land and food with an incurable disease that can only be defeated by the living spectrum of magic.” She waited for Ersari to nod in affirmation before continuing. “Do they have an objective outside merely causing pain and terror?”

“Always,” Ersari said. “But knowing that they have an objective doesn’t mean that we know what it is. In past conflicts, they rarely if ever ventured into mortal realms on their own, but were called and bound to the will of some master or the other. They have always been shock troops, breaking the will of a people so that other creatures can more easily harm them, and their plague can hollow entire armies in hours. Few mortals have the wit to recognize a terrible and virulent illness and take measure to cauterize the wound.”

“‘Cauterize the wound’,” Trixie repeated, remembering his comments to Shining from earlier. “You mean fire.”

“Fire is best…”

“...but there are other ways,” Elena interrupted. “Infected food can be cleansed with Light or Dark, and the substance of the plague itself can be contained with certain runic spells.”

“Substance of the plague? You mean that energy infecting the ground where the food is grown?” Trixie said.

“Yes, but also the energy…” Elena sighed. “...the energy that flows from the boils and cuts in the skin, and is vomited by the afflicted. The atermor know the selfless love of the bereaved parent, and exploit it.”

Trixie felt her stomach lurch. “So that mother cradling her suffering colt…”

“...was likely afflicted by the plague,” Ersari finished quietly. “I am sorry, milady Lulamoon.”

“Likely?” Trixie started a little at how close the pleasant voice of Princess Cadence was and started again when she felt a blanket of sympathetic warmth settle on her back.

“Well, yes and…”

“Please, Lord Bloodwynd, permit me.” Forheest said. “Your Highness, the one consistent characteristic of Void is that it’s a wild and untamed forced. It exists to kill and destroy, and destruction is always more… undisciplined than creation. There is only one Evil younger than a hundred thousand mortal years able to cause the Void to assume the form he desires, and the maker of the plague is barely ten. The emperors of the atermors, who are the only one strong enough to make their plague have an… abundance of misfortune. It is why it is merely ‘likely’ that the mother was afflicted when she cradled her child.”

“That is… coldly comforting,” Cadence sighed.

“It’s the only comfort there is, I’m afraid.”

“Then we’ll have to make our own comfort Miss Sadow,” Shining said, joining his fiance near Trixie. “How do we fight them?”

“Vigilance,” Elena replied. “They can kill if directly confronted but they fight best in ambush, from the shadows, where they cannot be struck before they strike.”

“I suggested to Princess Celestia that we make lanterns for the…” Trixie trailed off as the five visitors exchanged looks. “What?”

“It’s… nothing, milady Lulamoon,” Ersari assured her. “It’s just…” he took in a breath and let it out. “Your solution is… uncanny.”

“The Weaver moves in mysterious ways, brother,” Elena smiled at Trixie. “What my brother means is that it’s an amazing coincidence that you would think of inscribing lanterns with magic to fight these monsters, for the atermors were very recently taught to fear such a weapon.”

Cadence smiled a little. “So we get into their heads. Defeat them with their fear of this object.”

“It won’t be quite that simple,” Elena said, her smile disappearing. “Though the appearance of the lanterns will cause them fear at first, innocent and untrained civilians will carry them amongst a population that is good and solid but not bred to war.”

“Yes.” The one word from Cadence radiated so much bitterness and regret that Trixie turned abruptly to look at her, and her peripheral vision informed her that she wasn’t the only one… although curiously, Shining Armor merely deflated instead of looking surprised by the tone the alicorn used.

“You seem… upset, Your Highness,” Elena observed. “Is it something I…?”

Cadence blew out a frustrated breath. “No, you said nothing amiss Lady Elena,” she said. “Your observation just brings to mind more than usual the tragedies of our history. Most especially was the fact that we only recently had our great field general and warrior returned to use from a long exile, and while she may be well able, she has no army.”

“Princess Luna, Your Highness?” Berry Punch asked.

“Yes, my Aunt Luna,” Cadence nodded. “After her exile, it was centuries before any enemy felt brave enough to trifle with Equestria. Aunt Luna understood that you defeat enemies in their mind before you defeat them in battle, a lesson we’ve forgotten but these atermors appear to know very well.” She smiled a little, but with a distinct bitterness. “Ironically, Equestria’s foes never realized that Aunt Luna was only half of their defeats; at least as important as a brilliant general is a brilliant army and Equestria doesn’t have them anymore.”

“Have them?” Trixie repeated.

“Have… one, I mean,” Cadence corrected herself. Trixie blinked and looked a little harder at the princess. Long experience with being a showpony and being around other showponies, plenty of them only technically honest, had gradually taught her many visible cues when somepony had stumbled into saying the truth when they didn’t mean to… and when she corrected herself, Cadence had broadcasted many of them: the too-quick speech, the slight shift of the eyes, the small tremble in the throat of an involuntary swallow before trying to cover the mistake, and the momentary break in eye contact before her conscious mind remembered that she needed to maintain it to sell the quick fix.

She meant the first thing, she realized. She meant that the brilliant army Equestria doesn’t have anymore is a specific group of ponies, not a thing. Looking across the way, she noticed a tiny twitch in Forheest Sadow’s expression and realized that the kitsune had seen it too. I wonder…

“I mean no ill, Your Highness, but you merely prove milady’s point,” Forheest said. “Where the mortals that taught the atermors the fear of enchanted lanterns were an order specifically made to combat Eviils and demons, the ponies of Equestria are not.”

“Would it change anything?” Trixie asked, surmising that Sadow had chosen either to let the correction slide or was waiting for her moment. “I mean, whether they’re scared of the lanterns or not, would it make them less effective?”

“Naturally not,” Elena smiled. “Attacking their courage would certainly be wonderful but all the boldness they might have would do nothing against radiant Light and they would be forced to flee a confrontation. It would be even better if masses of such lanterns could be struck and hung in vigil over the farmlands, although that’s only a short-term solution.”

“The Light magic would stop the fields from growing right?” As a mass, everyone’s gazes shifted to the small violet and green dragon with an ancient tome propped against a low table, just barely taller than the furniture.

“That is correct, young familiar,” Elena nodded.

Spike gave her a level look. “Uh, lady? I’m a dragon. I don’t even know what a familiar is.”

Elena blinked. “I… am… um…” she looked harder at him. “Are you mocking me, familiar?”

“What do ya mean, mocking you?” Spike returned the harder look. “What the hay is a familiar?”

“Milady, it’s possible that familiaris magi works differently here,” Forheest said. “It may well be that familiarity does not involve contract or magical binding.” She looked at Spike. “Sincerest apologies, young drake. In our experience, certain magi of extraordinary power will bind an intelligent creature to them to assist their magic and studies. The creature will live with them and the binding permits the creature to comprehend and share the magi’s knowledge. Twilight Sparkle is said to be of extraordinary power, you are clearly very intelligent, you appear to act as her assistant, and your comprehension and knowledge is far in excess of a typical creature of your apparent age. Can you see why we might mistake you for a familiar?”

Spike frowned but he nodded after a moment. “Yeah, I get it,” he said. “Hatching me was her entrance exam for the magical school she attended, so I’ve been around her my entire life.”

“Spike is older than he appears, milady,” Cadence added. “At any rate, the fields cannot be constantly guarded with lanterns. Would farmponies regularly walking their fields have the same effect?”

“No, it’ll be harmless enough.” Elena frowned. “I wish we could quarantine Ponyville so we’d have a secure base free of the taint and machinations of the atermors, but we’d need very specialized tools that are simply not available.”

“Speaking of quarantine, you said that that tattered piece of cloth, the Quarantine Flag, had special powers to deal with these creatures,” Cadence said.

“Yes,” Ersari nodded. “It’s immensely powerful and as such, must be used with immense care. It’s magic creates an unbreakable quarantine of an area, a quarantine that knows no difference between a ‘clean’ innocent and the diseased, and trying to cross that threshold is… not pretty.”

“A weapon of desperation then?”

“Quarantines are themselves acts of desperation, Your Highness,” the jeikitsu (if Trixie remembered correctly) said. “It is the final resort before culling, the last chance to defeat a plague before you purify with fire. You sacrifice an area, a village, a town, a city to save a nation or even a world.”

“Then a weapon of last resort rather than an ordinary one.” Cadence blew out a frustrated breath. “With respect, Lord Ersari, what I’m hearing you say is that we must sit around on our hooves, make a few lanterns, and hope for the best. That is not acceptable. You imply that other mortals have fought these atermors to great effect; why must we be passive and helpless?”

Ersari sighed. “Because, with respect Princess, your peoeple have chosen to be passive and helpless,” he growled. “The mortals that have combated these things have militias, armies, organizations specifically trained to take orders and adhere to military discipline. Your people have this ‘Royal Guard’, soldiers to guard your palaces. Certainly, they are valiant but how many guard are needed for a palace? How many for a single capital city?” He looked at Shining Armor. “How many could you muster, Captain Armor, to post in each settlement of your nation?”

Shining Armor grimaced. “Enough to post a half-dozen in each, if we reduced the Guard posted in the capital to bare bones,” he replied reluctantly.

“Six soldier are more than sufficient… if every one of them are hardened veterans, trained in magic, fully informed of the danger and capable of fighting it.” Ersari leaned slightly forward towards Cadence. “I doubt that describes the entirety of your Royal Guard, Princess. I’m sorry to be rude to you when you’ve been gracious with me, but telling pretty lies does you no good.”

Cadence looked steadily at him, her face a neutral mask, before she rose to her hooves. “You are right to be honest with me, Lord Ersari,” she said flatly. “But the power to protect Equestria is not only in the Royal Guard. Tell me: what would you recommend to a leader of a nation that did have these militias, armies, trained soldiers, mystical orders, or whatever else you find lacking in us?”

“I see no reason…”

“Humor me,” Cadence interrupted, her gaze and voice turning icy.

Elena touched her brother’s shoulder lightly and looked evenly at Cadence. “We would say to such a leader to set patrols about the perimeter of a place they wish to protect,” she said. “As you have lanterns, make the patrol of three with one carrying the lit lantern at all times. Each hundred paces should have one patrol, and have two per field. Each patrol needs to see the moving light of the other’s lanterns always, or assume the worst without question. Any who travel must be escorted by one group per two in the party and one per wagon. The…”

“Wait a sec,” Shining Armor looked hard at her. “You’re practically tellin’ us we need a small army for a village. With respect, milady, we don’t keep our palace that tightly-patrolled.”

Elena frowned at him before looking slightly sheepish. “Well, the most successful did have a militia system that ninety percent of the population belonged to, so there was a fairly comfortable number to work with.” She considered this. “For a village like Ponyville, eighteen or so for the town, another eighteen for the considerable farms, would be enough.”

“Thank you Lady Bloodwynd.” Cadence smiled at her and settled back on her haunches. “Trixie?”

“Yes Princess?” Trixie took a couple of steps forward so she could look Cadence in the eye.

“Did my aunt Celestia mention the specific runes she’d use on the lanterns?”

Trixie thought back. I may not be gifted with runcraft but runes of sunlight, longevity, and illumination are among the easiest to inscribe, she remembered Celestia saying, and conveyed this to Cadence.

“Sunlight, longevity, and illumination,” Cadence repeated with a nod. “I can make such inscriptions. They would need to be renewed frequently but I learned enough to scribe them. At the very least, we can begin to distribute these lanterns, slow these atermors if not frighten them with the appearance of a weapon they know well. Spike?”

The thunk of a heavy stack of books dropped on top of the low table Spike had been reading at made Trixie jump. “An Exploration into Runic Magicks,” he said, holding up a heavy book with a single hand and putting it down. “Starswirl the Bearded’s ‘Notes on Symbolic Energy Inscription’.” Another book picked up and set down. “Starswirl the Magnificent’s compiled laboratory notes.” The last one was a very aged and delicate-looking volume bound by running string through holes in the paper. “Anything else?”

Cadence grinned and leaned over to peck the little dragon on the top of the head. “You spend too much time around Twilight,” she said affectionately. “Now then… Berry Punch, is it?”

“Your Highness?” Barry responded.

“The ponies that’ll need these lanterns are your peers,” the Princess of Love told her. “Ponies always listen more readily to their peers than a Princess they’ve never met before. Tell them whatever you need or want to; if Trixie trusts you, I do.”

“Princess Celestia trusts her too,” Trixie pointed out.

“Which only proves my point.” Cadence looked at Ersari. “I’ll make the lanterns with the help of the writings Spike gathered for me. Berry Punch will help distribute them and organize citizen patrols. You’ll coordinate whatever efforts you plan to undertake with Shining and the Guards he brought with him.”

Ersari’s eyes narrowed. “Excuse me?”

Cadence gave him a level look. “You’re no greater or lesser than any subject of my aunts. You said that, correct?”

“I did, but…”

“Then obey their representative, just like any other subject of theirs would,” Cadence said. “Coordinate your efforts with the only effective military here. I’m not trained to war; my fiance is and you are, so you will work together.”

“And… I, Princess?” Trxie asked.

“I remember that this library has a spare bed,” Cadence replied. “You’ve been through several taxing experiences today and I want you rested as much as possible in case you’re needed. I give you my word that if you’re needed, I’ll awaken you.”

Being reminded of ‘taxing experience’ brought the image of a young colt laying in a pool of his own vomit, his crying mother cradling him, to Trixie’s mind and she shivered involuntarily. “I… doubt I’ll be able to get any sleep Princess,” she said.

“Nonsense.” Cadence stood. “I’m not a magical prodigy but I can manage a dreamless sleep spell for a pony that needs it. If it helps to think of it as a royal command, I’m happy to oblige. Or I could simply put you to sleep right here and carry you to bed.”

Trixie stood too and finished off her cup of tea. “Trixie can show herself to bed, thank you very much,” she said, going to an air of offended dignity. “...as soon as Spike shows her where the bed is, that is.”

“Basement,” Spike said, turning and walking that way. “C’mon.”

The bed in the basement turned out to be fairly simple--barely more than a mattress with bedclothes--but Trixie was used to being comfortable sleeping in bed just barely large enough in a showmare’s wagon and as she climbed into it, it turned out that this one was much softer than it appeared.

“You’ve had a good day of doing good, Trixie,” Cadence said with a warm smile as she lit her horn. “Rest well.”

It turned out that while nothing compared with Granny’s apple flapjacks, spending years feeding a scholarly unicorn who would go days without eating if she was allowed to had made Spike a good cook, and the vegetable omelets he made stuck with Trixie well into the afternoon. She’d woken up to find Shining and Cadence curled up against one of the bookshelves, completely dead to the world, and had taken the opportunity to slip out (passed Cadence’s guards, who both gave her a smile and a wave) and walk back to Sweet Apple Acres. Big Mac greeted her with an enthusiastic hug--which would look like a little smile and a simple hug to anyone who didn’t know him--and she joined him in the orchards to help with the daily inspection, pruning, and caring for the trees. As they worked, she’d explained things to her stoic coltfriend.

“Summat’s goin’ ‘round infectin’ farms with this?” He’d asked as Trixie gently bent a bough down for him to inspect the growing fruit.

“Yes,” she said. “I don’t think it’s even tried to infect Sweet Apple Acres, though.”

Big Mac considered this, nodding for her to let the bough go. “Eenope, dun look like it.”

“Can you think of why?”

There was a long pause as they inspected two more trees before Big Mac looked at her. “Ah expect cuz it don’t work ‘gainst trees,” he offered. “Ah know Golden an’ she ain’t a slouch ‘bout inspectin’ ‘er fields an’ produce.”

Trixie frowned as she bent another bough down for him. “That seems like a strangely simple weakness for a disease that’s supposed to be terrible and incurable.”

“Bein’ evil don’t make ‘em smart,” Big Mac shrugged.

“True…” Trixie sighed and shook her head. “I can’t help but think it’s something else. Something I’m missing…”

Big Mac gave one of her ears a little affectionate nip. “Ah’m sure you’ll figger it out,” he rumbled. “So… tell me ‘bout this Princess ya met.”

From there, the conversation had moved on to Shining Armor (“If’n he’s Miz Twilight’s brother, Ah reckon he’s a good sort” had been Big Mac’s opinion) and then settled on the morning and afternoon chores. One thing Trixie had had to get used to dating Big Mac was that right after family came the farm, and Big Mac honestly enjoyed working on the farm. It had taken about a week but Trixie came to the conclusion that if she wanted to be with Big Macintosh, she had to go where he was--and that was out in the orchards, working. It hadn’t taken her long to realize that she actually enjoyed it. The orchard was always pleasantly cool or a good cover from the rain as needed, and the work was actually relatively easy when you could use your horn to grasp things instead of your teeth. And, of course, there was always Dawn: all the smarts of Twilight with the foul language and attitude of a low-rent tail-lifter in Neigh Orleans. Dawn epitomized ‘work smarter, not harder’, and made sure that everypony knew her way was smarter; Trixie saw too much of her former self in Twilight’s twin to like her very much, although she couldn’t help but laugh at the pink earth pony’s interaction with Applejack at times.

“I hope it doesn’t offend you that I say, this work suits you Trixie Lulamoon,” a feminine voice with a very, very light vibrato said from just above Trixie, interrupting her train of thought. Trixie looked up to find one of the Royal Guards that had been standing outside the library perched in a tree, holding a battered-looking lantern in her mouth.

“It doesn’t,” Trixie replied. “Have you come to deliver a lantern to Sweet Apple Acres then?”

“I have,” the mare replied, hopping down from the tree and landing with a sinuous, liquid grace that seemed more feline than equine. “But also, Cadence calls for you and I am to guide you to her.”

“Anythin’ dangerous?” Big Mac rumbled as he leaned down to accept the lantern.

The Guard eyed him. “‘Big’ Macintosh Apple?”

“Eeyup.”

“Of course it’s a dangerous matter,” she replied. “Why else would the Princess summon the mare Twilight Sparkle commissioned to keep watch over Ponyville?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said before putting the lantern down and giving Trixie a nuzzle. “Ya keep safe, Trixie, and dun ferget ta ask for help.”

Trixie smiled, feeling her cheeks warm pleasantly at the affection, and tuirned her head enough to give him a quick kiss. “I will, and I won’t forget,” she promised before turning to the Guard and nodding. “Lead on.”

“Gladly, Lady Lulamoon,” she said with a smile before folding her wings and trotting through the orchards in the direction of the road to Ponyville.

Trixie let them travel out of earshot of Big Mac before she trotted slightly faster to catch up to and walk beside the Guard. “What kind of danger?”

“Our otherworldly help has been drawn away from Ponyville,” the mare said. “They pursue several of these atermors and their victims, now enslaved to their will and mere monsters for their use. Their hunt will succeed; their hunt is obviously a way to strip Ponyville of its most potent defense for a purpose. Against whatever comes, we can muster but five ponies trained to any manner of combat--and you are one of these five.”

Shining Armor, Princess Cadence, the two Guards… and me, Trixie realized with a shiver. “Have you had Spike send a letter to Princess Celestia?”

“We hardly needed to tell him.” The Guard smiled fondly. “Twilight Sparkle has made a peer of him, and he is younger than she. Ah, I remember the day he was born, the day Twiley passed her examination… such an adorable foal, bouncing in circles around her parents in a state of uncomplicated joy. Such a tragedy that they turned out to be rotten but now, Twilight has the family she was always meant for, the one she most deserves, and all is right.”

Trixie looked askance at the mare. “You knew Twilight Sparkle as a foal?”

The Guard laughed. “Knew her? I and my companion have watched over Cadence since she was herself a foal. All the time she was foalsitting Twilight, we were always near and got to know her as well as Cadence did. Your newfound friend is a wonderful pony, Trixie, and I hope you live long enough to enjoy it to the fullest.”

“I hope I do too.” Trixie glanced at the other mare. “You two seem… different than the other Royal Guards.”

“We are,” the Guard replied, hopping the fence with the same liquid grace she’d shown landing before. “The Royal Guard’s purpose is to protect all of Equestria, but our duty is only to Cadence. We are to never leave her, nor allow her to come to harm, nor allow harm to befall her beloved Shining Armor so long as it’s within our power.”

“So like… bodyguards?”

“Just so.” The Guard paused. “Krysa… my name is Krysa and my mate is Anori.”

“Your ‘mate’?”

Krysa grinned. “You don’t serve alongside someone for your entire life without feeling something for them, and we do. It’s not strictly… permitted, but there are advantages to Cadence being the fiance of the Captain of the Royal Guard. At any rate, are you able to use teleportation? We are yet a ways off and I’m wary of remaining on an isolated road while there are these atermors about.”

“Yes.” Trixie stepped closer to Krysa and closed her eyes, envisioning her arrival point and wrapping threads of magic around the Royal Guard so she’d be brought along. Twilight could picture her destination, form a conduit, and complete the teleportation in a single flurry of actions; Trixie knew she had to be much more methodical to do it right. After binding Krysa to her magical aura, she then send a tenuous string of energy to the point she pictured and then, for lack of a better word, ‘pulled’ herself and the other mare along it with a single effort of will. The pins-and-needles sensation hit her about the time her hooves hit cobblestone, and she opened her eyes to see that she was directly in front of the library, just as she’d intended.

“Very good,” Krysa smiled, tapping Trixie on the barrel with one of her wings. “Now, Cadence ought to be…”

“You retrieved her. Good.” Trixie turned to see Cadence rounding the library with a grim expression. “I’m sorry to call you here, Trixie, but I needed you on hoof. Krysa told you about what happened?”

“Lord Ersari and his companions went off hunting atermors?”

“Yes.” Cadence grimaced now. “They left before I or Shining awoke; we only know their purpose and destination because Anori stopped and questioned them. It’s clear that they were baited, and took the bait, and now whoever or whatever dangled that bait has Ponyville all to themselves.”

“I thought they said…”

“I’m sure they’re right,” Cadence said. “But ambush predators will attack from ambush or if they have the advantage of numbers. Based on the way Ersari and his kin described the creatures, these atermors, they could well…” She trailed off and looked around. “Krysa…”

“I sense it too, Cadence,” the Royal Guard said.

“What? What do you sense?” Trixie asked, looking around. “What’s the matter?”

“Ever since we arrived, there has been a very, very subtle undercurrent of magick in the air,” Krysa replied, taking a step towards Cadence. “It just vanished.”

“A subtle…” Trixie stopped; there was only one thing she could think of that had been at work ever since the princess arrived. “The Quarantine Flag. The one pinning one of the atermors in the Carousel Boutique.”

Cadence opened her mouth to reply when the world dimmed. It wasn’t like the dimming of a fit of unconsciousness or the shadow of a passing cloud but like everything had been… dimmed, diminished, reduced, as if something had turned down a lamp. The warmth of the sun was slightly less, the shadows slightly deeper, the wind calmer and every sound muffled. Trixie shivered slightly as a feeling of abrupt tiredness settled into her limbs and began to drag her eyelids down… and suddenly, she was alert again and the world was back to normal--and tinged with a pinkish hue.

“You alright?” Shining Armor asked, his horn lit and a barrier dome arching above them.

“I… think so…” Trixie took a few breaths in and out. “What was that?”

“The reason the atermors wanted our otherworldly help elsewhere,” Cadence said grimly. “Shining, can you tell where it’s coming from?”

Shining Armor squinted thoughtfully as Krysa and Anori joined them under the influence of the protective spell. “Center of town,” he finally said. “It’s strongest that way.”

“Then we’ll go to the center.” Cadence glanced down at Trixie. “Do you have any spells that would be especially potent? Anything infused with this ‘light’?”

“Twilight showed me a few,” Trixie said. “Not very strong ones but… Light appears to burn them like fire just from shining brightly. I don’t think the strength matters.”

“Good.” Cadence treated her to a brief smile before setting her face towards the center of town. “Krysa, Anori, circle around to see if you can cull them. Do whatever you must to destroy this enemy and save pony lives.”

“As you wish, Cadence,” Krysa replied with a low bow, nodding to her mate as the two broke off and disappeared into an alley between buildings; Trixie could have sworn she saw barriers blinking into place around them just as they vanished but before she could be sure, they were out of sight and Cadence was already continuing on.

“I wish that Ersari had been more straightforward with us,” the pink alicorn sighed as they made for the center of town. “Told us the specific abilities of these atermors, their numbers, their methods. An attack of this scale is far more blatant than his account led us to believe them capable of, or inclined towards. He also implied that these atermors couldn’t approach his magic cloth, yet its magical presence is gone. Either his foe is mysterious to him, or he was dishonest with us; neither is good.”

“I don’t think he lied to us,” Shining said. “Not out of malice, at least. He sees us as civilians to be kept out of the way, so he did what the Royal Guard does: told us white lies, subtly encouraged us to stay out of the way, and was blunt to the point of rude.”

“I’m not used to being condescended to,” Cadence huffed. “I find it unpleasant.”

“I don’t think anypony dares condescend to you Cady,” Shining leaned over and kissed her. “At least, not until this bunch.”

Cadence smiled and returned the kiss with a little extra nuzzle as the town hall came into view, and Trixie just barely avoided tripping as Berry Punch, who’d apparently been laying prone from the same effect that had almost knocked Trixie out, raised her head as the influence of Shining Armor’s barrier washed over her.

“Oh Celestia, that was horrible!” she exclaimed as she tossed her head, trying to get her feet under her.

“What was, Berry?” Cadence asked, turning towards the earth pony.

“It was just like Carrot described: giant bird with skeletal wings.” Berry shuddered. “Appeared in the center of town and… everything went dim all of the sudden. Was so tired… could barely move, barely keep my eyes open. Then more of them showed up. They looked like they came out of the shadows or something.”

“What are they doing, Berry?” Cadence asked lowly, with a touch of urgency.

“I… don’t know.” Berry admitted as she finally managed to find her feet. “They just seemed to be standing around. They didn’t say anything… they… they’re just standing there.”

Cadence’s eyes narrowed, going slightly out of focus. “Yes… but why?” There was silence for a moment. “Shining, Trixie, there’s probably many ponies lying unconscious. We need to gather them up and get them behind a barrier before we try to confront these atermors.”

“And give them time to do whatever they wish?” Shining asked.

“Yes.” Cadence glanced to her left. “I’ll collect who I can this way. Please save those that lie in the other direction, and we’ll meet at the town hall. Berry Punch, if you would please accompany me?”

Berry looked confused. “I… yes of course, if you want my company.”

“Thank you.” Cadence treated her to a brief flash of a gentle smile before turning and disappearing among the buildings to the left. Shining Armor didn’t even hesitate, immediately veering off to the right at a chance of pace, forcing Trixie to trot to keep up with him. It barely took a moment to find the next pony, a grey pegasus dressed in a mailmare’s uniform who had somehow managed to keep her bag of deliveries secure as she’d been forced to land by the sophoric force. She looked up with a somewhat unfocused expression as the barrier fell over her, an effect magnified by her lazy eye.

“Why am I laying on the ground?” she asked, blinking, both eyes focusing even as one wandered in a random direction.

“You got knocked out, Ditzy,” Trxie told her, looking her in the good eye.

“But I was so sure I…” The mailmare sighed and got her feet under her. “I just don’t know what went wrong, and now I’m late with deliveries and…”

“Miss Doo, everypony is in danger,” Shining Armor interrupted. “Before you were brought down, did you see where other ponies were?”

Ditzy looked at him a moment before her expression cleared completely and she gave him a quick nod. “Yes.”

“Can you lead us then? We need to find them quickly.”

“Yes,” Ditzy replied again, turning, visibly orienting herself, then trotting off, forcing both Trixie and Shining to trot after her. Despite the defect in her eye, the pegasus was the town mailmare for a reason and in only a few minutes, there were nearly two dozen ponies huddled under the protection of Shining Armor’s pinkish barrier and the town hall looming ahead of them looking strangely menacing without the lights in the windows that shown even in the full daylight.

The atermors were making no attempt to conceal themselves and seemed to pay no attention to the collection of ponies standing in plain view next to the hall. As Carrot Top had described, they strongly resembled giant awkwardly-built birds with skeletal wings projecting from their shoulders and bone-white masks that looked all the world like beaks. Even the long and heavy cloaks they wore over their shoulders had the rough and “fuzzy” look of feathers, and their gait was a slightly swaying hopping motion. The only immediate difference between a bird and the atermors was that the Void creatures had skeletal hands to match their wings.

“What are those?” Somepony asked in a whisper.

“Monsters,” Trixie said. “Like hydras and manticores and ursa minors but smaller.” She looked at Shining. “What now, Captain?”

“Attack and keep them from doing whatever they intend to do,” Shining replied with a resigned expression. “...if we had about twenty Royal Guards, that is. And some of them were unicorns with distance training.”

“Distance training… like the bombardment spell Twilight taught me?” Trixie asked.

Shining Armor gave her an odd look. “Bombardment spell?”

“Yes.” Trixie gave him a gleaming showmare’s smile. “The Great and Powerful Trixie has been empowered by the teaching of the great Archmage Twilight Sparkle with the secret of bombarding her foes with torrents of magical spheres of force.”

Shining stared at her a moment before he grinned widely. “That third-person thing is sort of absurd, you know.”

“The teeming masses of ponies who come to see me perform love it,” Trixie said with a touch of smugness, lighting her horn in preparation. “Shall I demonstrate?”

“Teeming masses?” Shining dropped the grin. “Nevermind, I know what ya mean. Please do, Miss Lulamoon.”

Trixie turned and looked at the mass of atermors, some of which were looking at her, all of which seemed to be ignoring the presence of the ponies near the town hall, and willed a dozen spheres of glowing magic into existence around her.

Breathe, she reminded herself. Pick a point. See the spheres going there; see them striking. Release the magic to go where you see it going. Even as she said it in her mind, the mantra seemed a little silly and pseudo-mysticism but extremely effective: the spheres zipped at the mass of atermors, zipped through the atermors, and exploded against the ground. Even as they went, Trixie willed more into existence and sent them to either side of where the first had gone, and the next batch after the first.

The first strike had caused the entire mass to turn and nearly three dozen pairs of eyes invisible in the holes of their mask fell on her, even as at least a dozen crumbled, their robes fading, masks shattering in midair, and wings visibly disintegrating. Another dozen collapsed from the second wave, and the third was more display than anything as the atermors finally seemed to register that they were being attacked and scattered from the focus of her spell.

It was at approximately this point that Krysa and Anori appeared from opposite sides of the square and there was a moment in which scattering atermors and the pair of odd Royal Guards seemed to stare at each other in mutual blank surprise before the atermors raised their skeletal hands and the two Guards rushed them. The fluid, liquid grace that Kyra had shown earlier in the orchard seemed to be typical for both as they kicked off, thrust their wings to give themselves speed, and did a midair flip so that their back hooves smashed into the masks of the atermors with a double-hoof buck that would make and Apple proud.

The masks shattered, and the disintegration of the atermors mirrored that produced by the bombardment, and the two Guards were already on to the next one in line. Here, the two differed: Anori treated his to another double-hoof buck but Krysa struck with her front hooves, vaulted over the atermor’s head, and delivered her buck to the back of its head.

Even Shining was staring at the display. “Their Guard is different,” he breathed.

Their Guard? Trixie would have asked but just before she would have, an atermor seemed to flow out of the ground in the middle of where the other atermors had been standing and in one of its hands was clutched a large sphere of yellowish crystal. It held the sphere up above its head, and it glowed brightly… and then turned totally black.

“Kazim utari klesae telar!” A hollow-sounding voice, like someone inhaling through a large cylinder cried even as the atermor threw the blackened sphere at the ground at its feet. It may well have impacted and shattered; Trixie wasn’t sure and even later wouldn’t remember but where there had once been a mass of churned-up soil and fragments of the shattered atermors, an immense shadowy being seemed to flow into existence from the air itself. It towered above, at least three times the height of the town hall, and had assumed the vague shape of a minotaur with eyes that were glowing yellow tears in the fabric of its face. Somehow, its mouth was darker than dark, blacker than anything Trixie had seen or could even imagine, and staring at the shadow, she could feel its ravenous hunger as a physical sensation, pulling lightly at her skin.

Then Shining’s shield became even brighter and more solid, and the sensation of hunger tugging at her went away. She glanced to the side and could see a bead of sweat forming at his brow as he held his barrier against the hungering presence that the atermor had called into being. Trixie immediately channeled magic into her horn and then fed it outwards, forming a half-dome to supplement Shining’s and his barrier dimed ever so slightly in response as the reinforcement lessened the strain on him.

Outside the barrier, Krysa and Anori floored and crushed the last of the atermors they’d been fighting and both stopped to glance up at the creature, looked at one another, and disappeared back into the buildings; Trixie hoped they had decided to get Cadence instead of trying to fight the shadow.

“What… is this?” Shining asked through gritted teeth. “It’s swallowing magic as fast as I can feed it into my barrier!”

“I think it’s a klesae!” Trixie replied as she began to see the tug of the magic consumption on her own barrier. “Spite described them… they’re demon shadows, beasts of hunger from the Void. I think Light will burn it but… I can’t… drop my barrier without seriously weakening yours!”

“Let me handle that,” Shining asserted. “Just… make it stop.”

Just as he spoke, the sensation vanished. The dimness disappeared, the sun shone again, and Trixie could hear the humming of magic in Shining’s barrier in the sudden and absolute stillness. And in that moment of perfect stillness, the Princes of the Sun flared into being between them and the klesae.

For as long as she’d known of her, the image of Celestia was that of a maternal, sweet-natured, kindly diarch full of wisdom and gentleness. Even when angered or stressed, she never seemed to raise her voice or show her temper beyond small indications in her expression that only those who knew her well could read.

This wasn’t that Celestia.

This Celestia stood taller than she had before and her white coat was radiant with light and power. A rainbow pastel mane had become flowing fire, sputtering and surging as it raged while remaining the same general shape as the princess’ silky locks, a condition replicated with her long tail. Even her broad wings shone with scorching light and smoldered with fire, the heat radiating from Celestia making them seem to waver in the false liquidity of superheated air. Rage flowed off of the sun princess in a tidal wave of heat, nearly taking Trixie’s legs out from under her as the first surge of fiery wrath before she threw more energy into her barrier.

“ART THOU SAFE, TRIXIE LULAMOON?” A voice of howling flame, barely recognizable as female much less that of Celestia, asked.

“Y...yes… Your Majesty…” Trixie panted. “But…”

“THEN IT IS WELL,” Celestia said, still not turning around, her attention fixed on the yawning specter of the klesae. “THOU HATH BEEN A GOOD FRIEND TO OUR DAUGHTER AND A LOYAL AND DETERMINED STEWARD OF PONYVILLE IN HER ABSENCE. WE ARE PLEASED BY THY FAITHFULNESS, BUT NOW THINE PRINCESS SHALL DO AS SHE OUGHT.”

Trixie jumped a little at the sound of shattering glass as a surge of rage-heat vaporized a window of the town hall and caused it to fall out. The formerly verdant green grass around the edges of the square was now a scorched mat, the ground under it baked and already cracking, the cobblestones shattering as Celestia stalked towards her adversary, and the water of the nearby fountain (which had miraculously survived Trixie’s bombardment spell), boiling away in a cloud of steam as the enraged guardian of the sun approached it. It was, as Trixie realized with a feeling of dread, as if the sun itself had been pulled from the sky and was made to walk around.

As Celestia approached, two atermors appeared; a quick glance, just a glance from Celestia caused one and then the other to be reduced to ash instantaneously. The klesae watched her approach with the curious perplexity of an animal that was being approached by a creature it’d never seen before and wasn’t sure what to make of.

“AND WHAT MANNER OF FELL BEAST ARE THOU?” Celestia demanded of it. “ART THOU BROTHER TO THE ONE THAT DARED HARM THE VALIANT RAINBOW DASH, MAYHAP?”

The klesae responded by looking at her before its maw gaped open again and it seemed to draw in breath. Celestia’s reaction to this was immediate: the glow of her coat became blinding and her mane flared to include whites and blues. Immediately, the facades of the three nearest buildings were scorched black and ominous smoke began to drift up from the roof of the town hall, accompanied by the foul smell of tar as the shingles began to melt.

“THOU THINKETH US JUST ANOTHER PLAYTHING FOR THY HUNGER, ANIMAL?” The princess howled. “WE ARE IMMORTAL! WE ARE ETERNAL! WE ARE ENDLESS FIRE AND HOTTEST RAGE! BEFORE OUR MIGHT, THOU ARE BUT AN INSECT! AND THOU THINKETH TO STRIKE OUT AT US? BEHOLD THE FOLLY OF THY PRESUMPTION!”

Fire flowed up out of Celestia, swirling itself into a smooth sphere of pure destruction roiling with reds, oranges, and yellows. With a minute gesture of her head, Celestia sent it slamming into the center of the vast shadow. Fiery wrath and the metaphorical fist of a goddess struck it.

It did nothing.

Trixie didn’t need to see Celestia’s face to read absolute shock in her stance as her attack did nothing at all; the klesae didn’t even show signs of noticing that it’d been struck. The moment stretched for several moments, the kleseae staring dumbly, Celestia gaping at its indifference, before her stance tensed and Trixie could no longer look even vaguely in her direction as the glow of her coat became intense enough to sear her vision. But even with the light in her peripheral vision, she could see smoke and flame pouring out of the windows of the town hall as Celestia’s latest surge of apocalyptic fury finally set it on fire.

“P… Princess!” She cried, trying to make herself heard above the howl of fire. “The town! You’re… you’re setting it on fire!”

If it was even possible for Celestia to hear her plea through the conflagration, she gave no sign of it. “HOW? HOW DOTH OUR WRATH NOT TOUCH THEE?” She cried. “HOW…? NO, NO IT DOENS’T MATTER HOW. THOU AND THY MASTERS HATH SICKENED OUR LITTLE PONIES! THOU HATH MUTILATED THEM, TWISTED THEM, DESTROYED FAMILIES, STRUCK YOUNG AND OLD WITH PLAGUE! EVERY SOB, EVERY CRY, EVERY WAIL OF DESPAIR WOUNDS OUR HEART AND WE WILL NOT PERMIT THOU TO CONTINUE! BURN! BURN, YOU ABOMINATIONS! WE BID THEE BURN!”

The heat surged again and Trixie cried out as she felt her coat scorch and the skin blister even through the combination of her shield and Shining’s. She took a step back, throwing even more magic into it even as she felt the numbing edge of imminent magical exhaustion sweep over her. “Run!” She cried, hoping the ponies behind her could hear. “Can’t..”

“No.” The voice was soft, almost too soft to be heard over the roar of wind and flame, and yet Trixie could hear Cadence perfectly even as the familiar silky softness of the alicorn’s wing rested on her barrel and the heat vanished into a pleasant cool. Trixie sagged with relief and doused her horn as she sank to the ground, chest heaving from pain and the creeping exhaustion.

“P...Princess…” she panted. “Your… aunt… she’s…”

“I know.” Cadence’s voice was gentle and soothing, radiating calm as the alicorn knelt beside her. “All of Equestria has seen their gentle princess in the depths of despair, impotent despair where there was no enemy to strike down and no way to heal the wound. Now, you are seeing the wrath of a loving goddess who feels every agony visited on her subjects, her nation-sized family, as a spear in her heart--and has an enemy.”

“But…”

“Ssh, ssh…” Cadence touched Trixie’s mane with a hoof, quelling her protests. “The sun is pure fire and wrath, and yet its living anchor is soft and kind. It warms the world, brightens the day, and makes everything beautiful and healthy and green--but only so long as its living anchor is the princess all of Equestria loves and even worships. You are witness to one of only three times that the rage of Celestia was greater than her compassion.. the only witness that isn’t family.”

“The only…?” Trixie looked behind her… and saw nopony there. “But I thought…”

“I know.” Cadence smiled warmly. “You did all you could… and now I must as well.”

“You can…?”

“I can… end this.” Cadence stood again, but there was pain in her expression. “I… that power is mine, to… stop her before she does something she’ll loathe herself for in her need to strike down her foe. To do so is… wrong, wrong in ways you cannot hope to comprehend. But the sun is nothing but fire and wrath and at this moment, so is its anchor. To forestall would be the greater evil…” She looked down at Trixie with a strained smile, her eyes glimmering with forming tears “...and how could I refuse after such valor from a mere showmare?”

“What… what are you talking about?”

“Blinded by the light of her anger, you will not see… and I hope that you never find out.” Trixie watched threads of sickly greenish magic flow slowly around the spiral of Cadence’s horn. “Rest for this moment, Trixie, for you will shortly be needed anew.”

Cadence took a visible breath and her horn lit with her normal pink magic, the odd tendrils of green there but having no noticeable effect. She then stepped into the pure whiteness and was gone--but the cool of her shield remained. Trixie rested her head on the ground, wincing as her blistered skin made contact with the still-cool cobblestones trying to stop panting and let her font renew as much as it could.

As she lay there, she again mentally thanked Twilight; the drills over the last six months had been irritating but after so much practice recovering from extreme magical exertion, the fundamentals were second nature and the numbing of her mind receded immediately, replacing by the comforting white noise of reserves that hadn’t been strained. The combination of meditation and renewal exercise caused her to nearly miss the sudden absence of blinding light in her peripheral vision and as she stood again, she closed her eyes, bracing herself, and turned to look.

The town square was in shambles. The town hall was still aflame but the very moment the heat went away, pegasi had swooped in with clouds and were dousing the fire. Windows were melted out of their frames, awnings were ashes, carts had been vaporized, and everything was twisted and distorted by the holocaust that the wrath of Celestia had brought to bear on the klesae. Now, the Princess of the Sun was crumpled on the shattered cobblestones, her sides heaving, her eyes wide and unseeing, Cadence kneeling beside her aunt and cradling her with the wet trails of tears on her cheek.

Above them loomed the klesae, incredibly looking no worse for wear but noticeably, there was no cold hunger tugging at Trixie despite there being no barrier between her and it. It was immediately clear to her what Cadence had meant that she’d be needed again: Celestia was clearly stunned into incoherence and Cadence was clearly protecting her while she recovered from whatever she’d done; given the naked pain in her expression as she’d prepared to do it, Trixie decided that she very much did not want to know what it was.

The klesae looked dumbly down at the pair of alicorns and there was a hollow sound of rushing wind as it tied to feed, sounding all the world like someone taking a deep breath but the tingling feeling of its hunger attested to what it actually was. Why isn’t the feeling strong anymore? She asked herself but shrugged it off; it wasn’t important for the moment. Instead, she channeled some energy through her horn and a single sphere of light popped into existence.

The sphere aroused exactly the reaction from the klesae that she’d expected from it witnessing Celestia’s fiery wrath: it visibly recoiled from the light and drifted back and away from Trixie with a serpentine hiss of loathing. Enboldened, Trixie fed more magic into the sphere and made it both brighter and larger, taking another step forward.

The klesae hissed again and its blacker-than-black jaws gaped open, clearly intending to deter her with the disconcerting sensation of it gnawing at her. Trixie simply flung the sphere at the large and inviting target; the hollow howl of agony staggered her as the shadow recoiled and began batting at the hole torn clear through it… which had begun to widen, burning away like the edges of a piece of paper with a match held to it.

And then it stopped, and the burning away stopped as well. The klesae narrowed its eyes and looked squarely at Trixie, the dumb-animal expression replaced by a focused regard that settled on her like wet canvas, nearly making her knees buckle from the weight. The intense pressure was relieved for a moment, and then it intensified, driving Trixie to her knees.

“Ahh, there we go,” a hollow voice said with an unmistakable tone of satisfaction, an atermor stepping around the klesae, walking on the four-toed feet of a vulture in bird-like bobbing motions. “I had wondered what manner of pony was to blame for alerting these kine before they’d fully ripened, and now I get to see her.”

“Didn’t alert them,” Trixie said through gritted teeth. “Sick before I… said anything… better make a better… disease next time.”

The klesae tilted his head. “Mmm… you have a point, little pony… incubation was not what we’d hoped.” He took another step forward and leaned down. “But don’t be shy, little kine… who, after all, bid the Sun Princess come? It wasn't the calf’s mother, nor the other kine. Like good little herd animals, they stood transfixed and dumb, ready for the slaughter. But you… you, little… Lightcaster,” for a moment, the voice descended into a snarl before resuming its breathless quality. “You scorched the corruption and then called the Sun Princess and now I am very cross with you.”

Trixie struggled to push herself to her feet, feeling slow progress against the suffocating weight. “So what?” she asked, forcing herself to wear a sneer as she looked up at the atermor. “Whatcha… gonna do… about it?”

“Yes, what am I to do with a kine who fights back?” He asked, making a show of tapping the chin of his mask with a bony finger “Ah, yes…” It turned its face upwards towards the klesae and from the folds of its robes, drew a short black rod. “Klesae, rend it.”

the klesae’s regard grew heavier, forcing Trixie back to the ground as the shadow stretched out an indistinct paw, the edges very sharp and menacing. Trixie gritted her teeth and forced magic into her horn. She felt the familiar flow and the subtle sense of building pressure behind the appendage and the sense of it rushing to fill the shape designed for it by the spell… until the atermor’s foot impacted with her blistered chest and the spell was washed away in a wave of white-hot pain.

“Naughty, naughty…” he sneered. “No fair using magic, little kine. Just lay there, and embrace your helplessness.”

“Are you forgetting something, monster?” Trixie forced her eyes open to look to where Cadence had stood up beside the still-comatose Celestia.

Even though the mask was fixed, Trixie had the sense of the atermor’s eyes narrowing before he turned. “What are you doing here?”

“Protecting my people, atermor,” Cadence growled, her horn starting to glow pink. “Send the beast back to where it came from. Now.”

“Protecting your people?” The atermor swept his hand in a vague gesture at Ponyville. “These pathetic kine? They are not yours, little spawn, but ours. Our playthings, our herd to harvest, our…”

Cadence’s spell vaporized the hand holding the black rod along with a large piece of the robe near the extremity, causing the rod to fall to the broken cobblestones and bounce out of Trixie’s peripheral view. Immediately, the blanket of the intense regard vanished and Trixie pushed herself to her feet as the atermor stared at Cadence.

“They are mine,” she hissed. “Mine to treasure, mine to love, mine to protect. And now, atermor, you are mine as well, do strike down as I wish.” She looked around the atermor to Trixie. “Magi Lulamoon, if you would dispose of this… trash.”

“This… this little kine,” the atermor laughed hollowly. “A little trickster, wearing the uniform of the huckster, plying the empty-headed masses for trinkets, contributing nothing… nothing…”

Trixie’s cutie mark did not, as even friends had speculated, appear because of some cute magical performance or the other. Or, rather, it had but it was much less the performance than how she’d turned a stumbling half-baked effort into a big success. It was the school talent show, and she’d gotten a favorite grandfather to teach her a few tricks, spells, and cantrips. She’d practiced hard to get the spells right and managed to do several successfully before the night of the show. But a spiteful little filly in her class had decided to do the same thing and show Trixie up by doing her tricks and spells so that when Trixie’s turn came, she had nothing new. She’d done all the cantrips picture-perfect and some of the nicer children had clapped a little, but most were bored: they’d seen it all before. In despair, willing to do anything, Trixie had reached for a firework spell that had been the hardest to learn and that she’d decided not to try because she’d only managed to do it right once, just before she’d stopped trying.

It’d gone perfectly.

When she’d reached for it, it was like a spell she’d practiced her entire life, as familiar and easy as breathing, and she’d been able to do it right the first time… and then again, and again until the teacher stopped her from setting something on fire. And that was when the cutie mark appeared, a magician’s hat and wand that represented her ability to use spells like a sleight-of-hoof artist, instantly and by instinct. Henceforth, the actual limit on what she could do with her magic was her font (which was on the low side for a unicorn whose talent was magic-related) and what she could learn to do correctly, for once she’d done it correctly, she could always do it again. It wasn’t so much the part about forming the spheres of light for the bombardment, but directing them and sustaining the barrage.

As the hole big enough for her to step through in the atermor attested, this applied to failures as well--such as her panicked attempt to make a shield at Spite’s bidding. The flechette nearly knocked her off her feet with the surge of exhaustion, but it did precisely as the Void dragoness had said: it’d ripped a gigantic hole in the ranting atermor, a gigantic hole which began to lick at his body like burning flame.

“...you’ll… pay for that, Princess…” he wheezed as the magical effect started eating up towards his head. “You cannot escape me. Run, while you can, for… no matter where you go… I will find you… and this little... kine... too...”

The now-empty mask fell to the ground and ricocheted over to rest against Cadence’s hoof. She gave it a disgusted look and as she stepped over to Trixie, made sure to crush it underhoof.

“How are you, Trixie?” She asked gently, nosing into Trixie’s mane.

“I’m… OK,” Trixie said, looking passed Cadence. “P...princess! It’s…”

“It’s gone,” Cadence replied, looking at where the klesae had been a moment before. “I suspect that it was being held and controlled by that black rod the atermor was holding.” She looked around the devastated square. “A battle won, Trixie Lulamoon, but such a cost. You wounded, my aunt comatose, Ponyville scorched, and I’ve a terrible feeling that the atermor that spoke to us was a mere proxy for a much more powerful one.”

“And yet we won, Cadence,” Krysa said as she and Anori trotted up. “And we’ve seen no dead or afflicted. Whatever they meant to do, they were foiled in it.”

“And in that entire time, our supposed ‘help’ remained somewhere else,” Anori rumbled. “Surely they would be able to notice the holocaust in this town, no matter the distance; the entire sky announced the Sun Princess’s wrath.”

Cadence smiled a little and briefly brushed each of her guards with a wing. “Where’s Shiny?”

“Your fiance has secured the civilians at and around the library,” Krysa said. “He’s place his strongest barrier and is sustaining it without trouble. Short of another asasult on this scale, the innocent are beyond their reach… which begs an important question.”

“What do we do now?” Cadence nodded and looked down at Trixie. “Beyond the town square, how is the town?”

“Fully intact,” Anori said. “The buildings here trapped the destructive heat in the square.”

“Then we need to get Trixie and Aunt Celestia to the local clinic and summon a healer,” Cadence said, enfolding Trixie in her magic, the touch of her power warming and incredibly soothing. “Along with whomever else was hurt. Tell Shiny that we’ll be there soon and when we are…”

She looked around again and sighed. “...we’ll think of something. This is far from over.”

Author's Note

Hey, I promised that when I'd pushed my way through my logjam, I'd be able to push out the next chapter faster. Thanks for being patient with me, guys.

As always, comments are needed and welcomed and encouraged!

Twilight: Scarabi Station

For a few moments, the carrying rig appeared to defy gravity and remain floating in midair. Then another wet crack announced the snapping of the other wing and the platform, still harnessed to the corpse of the roc, simply dropped out of the sky. At the same moment, Twilight got a glimpse of a dragon’s tail, semi-transparent in her sustained mage-sight, swinging towards her. She had barely turned when the appendage slammed into her, throwing her through the air like a cannonball. Suddenly panicked, she fought to arrest her roll and return to a stable glide before Tharalax decided to grab her while her defenses were essentially nonexistent.

Her uncontrolled tumble came to a dead halt as Elli caught her with an outstretched arm, used her momentum to wheel around, and set her flying towards the falling platform in a single motion. “Ye take care o’ th’ platform, darl!” she heard the griffin call after her. “We’ll make sure Tharalax can’t interfere!”

Twilight flapped her wings a few times to stabilize her flight and then aimed down towards the platform, which was starting to tip in its fall, lightning her horn and struggling to find composure against the all-too-familiar tide of rising panic that she knew would paralyze her if she let it.

Calm down, she told herself. Yeah, the platform is falling and it’s starting to tumble and your sister and your friends are going to die if you… NO! It won’t help them… thinking of how… no, no, no, need to focus… focus on stopping the tumble… focus on slowing the fall… focus…

Some small part of her sighed in relief as the panic began to recede and the comforting embrace of remote calm rose to take its place. Time appeared to slow down, although Twilight knew that she was only perceiving time as moving slower because her well-trained mind was running faster, and her mage-sight let her see the entire situation as if in clear day.

Her friends were all in the process of moving towards the back, trying to provide a counterweight to the falling leading edge. Futile, her mind told her. And the most rational response to the situation. She swept in closer as she fed power into her horn, her mind now running through hundreds of diagrams she’d seen of flying machines, each one appearing superimposed over the platform, running the gamut from fixed wings to the strange pedal-powered contraption Pinkie had rigged up once to follow Rainbow Dash and Gilda Grimfeathers around. Broad, very long to either side, shallow upward arc, she decided as she sent the magic forth.

Complex constructs using pure magic were an art form in and of themselves, and every unicorn had their own special way of putting them together. Twilight’s was to build them from the inside out and so, the first thing that appeared was the beams of the frame. Metal joiners popped into place, and the pieces of wood they were meant to join, all secured with nails the screws and adhesives that they would be if the wings were real. Panels appeared, thin wooden sheathing bent over the frame with dozens of broadhead nails securing them… and the results were both immediate and dramatic: the platform rushed even faster towards the ground.

W..what? Panic threatened her again but Twilight beat it down and the problem immediately became clear: like any fixed-wing craft, pointing it downwards as the platform was caused it to travel in the direction it was pointing. In a controlled manner, but no less quickly and fatally for all that control. What was needed was control surfaces… or some kind of counterweight to push the “tail” down so the “nose” would move up and subsequently halt the downwards flight.

Twilight fed magic into her horn again, keeping a careful “eye” on her font despite knowing that even these massive and complex constructs were as teacups from the ocean of her magical reserves…

And then she stopped.

Her mage-sight had only registered the wounded changelings spread through the structure as the wavy dots that represented ponies with horn-magic who were at rest and not using it. Some were slightly brighter--Rarity was noticeably so, given her gift for exquisitely fine manipulation in service of her dressmaking--but most were dim. The talent that was now blazing like a miniature sun, however, had been totally invisible until it exploded into being and Twilight watched in amazement as an intricate tail section was formed onto the back.

It was clear that unlike Twilight, this talent was an artist of some kind, because the elements formed as if somepony was doing a sketch and then painting it in, the outline of the construct appearing as glowing lines and then filling in with a skin, trim tabs, elevators, and a rudder. The changeling’s magic then flowed to Twilight’s construct, and flaps, slats, spoilers, and ailerons were “painted” onto the wings in quick, deft, precise motions.

With the pieces in place, the movable parts suddenly moved, all the elevation elements tilting upwards to shove the rear down and bring the nose up. As Twilight watched, the front came up and the fall was converted into forward motion. She could see that the invisible “pilot” was still bringing the platform down, but now it was a thing of control, a precise glide to let it strike the ground flat instead of at full speed and rolling destructively.

Flaps and spoilers moved and the platform slowed just as it was close to striking the ground… and then it was down in a spray of sand and a mass tumbling of the ponies on board. Twilight dismissed her constructs and trusting the Drake sisters to do as they said, she flapped closer to the downed platform and set her wings for a landing.

Naturally, she came in slightly too fast and too low and went tumbling head-over-tail through the oddly soft-feeling sand, coming to rest on her back and feeling slightly disgruntled. Oh sure… I can build wings onto a brick and make it fly but I still can’t land… she grumbled to herself as she rolled to her feet and folded her wings.

“That was awesome, sis!” Twilight looked up just in time for her bright pink sister to wrap hooves around her in an enthusiastic embrace.

Twilight smiled and returned her twin’s embrace. “I try,” she said. “I wish I could claim all the credit but I wasn’t the one flying it.”

“We could sorta tell, sugarcube,” Applejack said with a grin. “Question is, who we got ta give thanks to?”

“I couldn’t tell,” Twilight admitted as she next accepted an embrace from Pinkie next, silent but no less enthusiastic. “It was one of the changelings on the upper decks but at that distance, with mage-sight, I could only tell that she’s unusually talented.”

“Tail?” Pinkie guessed.

“Yes,” Twilight nodded. “And all the movable parts on the wings.”

“Pretty neat, sis,” Dawn grinned. “Pulled all the blueprints outta yer head in seconds. Yeah, I’d sorta like to kill you for that ten seconds we were falling faster, but I forgive you on account of us being not-dead.”

“Thanks,” Twilight said as dryly as she could. “How’d the wounded weather the landing?”

“Not much you can do to cracked skulls and being run through to make them worse,” a changeling mare commented as she appeared over the rise of a dune, visibly favoring her left side. “We’ll be fine, Princess Sparkle, but none of us are suited for a long desert journey.”

“Not seein’ how we’re gonna get ta civilization without a long walk,” Applejack said.

“We send up a flare and await aid,” she said as if this was obvious. “It should take no more than a day, and we’re both well-provisioned and have very robust shelter.”

“A flare?” Twilight looked at her. “We’re in the middle of a desert. The flare would have to be visible at an extremely great distance…”

“Four kilometers, actually,” the mare interrupted. “It’s about that distance to the nearest outpost.” She smiled a little. “Come now, did you honestly think our route took us through a desolate waste where we’d have no hope of rescue if something went wrong?”

“I think we were a bit more occupied with ‘holy buck that’s a giant bird’ than wondering about how you laid out the route,” Dawn said.

“Fair enough.” She bowed to them. “I need to return to the top of the carrying structure to direct the flare. If you need anything of us, don’t hesitate.”

“We won’t,” Twilight gave her a little smile in return. “I’m glad you’re all OK.”

“We were in excellent hooves, Princess,” the changeling said warmly before disappearing behind the dune again.

“So where’d Elli an’ Delphine go?” Applejack squinted into the dark. “Thought they were stickin’ with you.”

“Fighting Tharalax,” Twilight replied, glancing back in the direction she’d flown but not seriously expecting to see the griffin sisters. “If past history is any indication, they have nothing to fear from him. And unfortunately, even if I thought they needed my help, I’m not that good of a flier and don’t know where they are relative to us.”

“Great,” Dawn sighed. “Someone sent the two of ‘em to help us and they’re off doing whatever wherever. Oh well… ‘least now we can just kick back, take a load off, and hang with the bug-ponies. Should be a great time.”

Twilight just shook her head and looked up at the sky, locating the two constellations Luna had built. “I’m fairly sure I wouldn’t be able to build wings for a falling box if I had Tharalax batting me out of the sky for his amusement,” she said. “So wherever they are, they’re helping us by being there. Now give me a moment… I need to concentrate on the constellations.”

“Um… didn’t we already have this discussion?” Applejack ask, standing beside her and looking up at the twisted lash and the bell.

“The constellations are only part of the messages,” Twilight told her, focusing her sight on the space around the formations of stars, looking for the slight ripple in their wake that would indicate that Luna had wrapped a magic-scribed message around one; if she’d been unable to form constellations, the message would have been written around a lone polaris star, its magical intensity and brightness obscuring the spell from even focused observation--unless you knew what to look for.

Twilight found the ripple around a polaris star being used as the tip of the lash constellation and concentrated on it, sending a small ‘hook’ of magic to unfold the spell Luna had used. In keeping with her aunt’s affection for art, the sand around her faded into the inky, star-speckled blackness of the night sky, a complex illusion but one that’d be simple for somepony who used it as her canvas every night since time immemorial. Within this illusion, one of Luna herself appeared, and the expression on her face was troubled.

“Twilight, I hope that you’re well,” she said in a voice echoing with the effects of it being created of magic rather than a natural voice. “We have found Lashaal but made the error of allowing her to bargain for a stay of execution. She fulfilled her end, but then betrayed us when Spite left on her own to assassinate the Evil responsible for the efforts against the Provinces, called simply ‘Master’. She has released some manner of beast called a ‘Zambet’ that has been conditioned to hunt specifically for you. I, in turn, am hunting it and hope to slay it before it can travel east.”

The illusion paused for a moment, closed its eyes and took a breath. “Twilight, by now you will have met the changelings. I wish I had some justification to offer but there is none. When you receive this message, if they have treated you well, tell them everything. They will help you, as is their way.” The illusion opened its eyes again and its expression grew warmer. “Be safe, Twilight, and your friends as well.”

The illusion evaporated, and Twilight found herself in the middle of a circle of ponies who were all watching her. Or, she realized a split-second later, watching the illusion convey Luna’s message. When it had dissipated, her friends and sister all stared at her a moment before Applejack’s expression became faintly ill.

“Ah invited her into mah house,” she said. “Fed ‘er, gave ‘er a place ta sleep, was right neighborly to her. Let er near Applebloom. An’ she goes an’ thrashes Rainbow but good an’ now, she’s set some monster on yer tail. An’... an’... Ah didn’t notice a thing wrong with ‘er! Ah’m supposed ta be attuned to Honesty, and Ah couldn’t pick up on one mysterious mare lyin’ through her teeth.”

Twilight moved to give the stricken-looking farmpony a hug but Dawn beat her to it; noticeably, Applejack didn’t pull away slightly the way she usually did when Dawn got close. “Oh, don’t be silly AJ,” she said as she hugged her. “Your element is Honesty, not Omniscience. As long as she picked her words carefully and avoided saying anything outright false, nothing stood out.”

Dawn let Applejack go and stepped back to stand near Twilight. “And… we don’t really know what creatures like her are all about. We know what Spite is and how she works but she’s just one kind… maybe Lashaal can… I don’t know confuse the Element. It’s not like you spent all your time hanging around with your five Element-bearer friends and running at full power. Could be that the Elements are only as strong as the pony without all the rest of them nearby, attuned, and pointed at something.”

“We don’t know much about how they help, or even if they help on an individual basis,” Twilight added, seizing the opening Dawn had provided. “Applejack, you’re just one pony. A wonderful pony, my friend, a great farmer, but still just one pony. Lashaal fooled everyone who met her; she even strung Luna and Spite along when they didn’t execute her immediately.” She gave Applejack a grin. “Don’t tell me you think you’re more perceptive than Luna.”

Applejack smirked just a little. “Ah… suppose not,” she said and sighed. “Ah just feel responsible, yanno?”

“We know, darling,” Rarity said, patting Applejack on the shoulder. “I undertook the… work I won’t speak of because I felt responsible for my friends. It doesn’t have to make sense, except to you.”

“Aw, thanks Rarity,” Applejack gave her a grateful hug.

“Don’t mention it, dear,” Rarity said kindly. “But even though you did nothing wrong, there’s still this ‘Zambet’ after Twilight.” She looked at Dawn and Twilight. “Any chance one of your books mentioned such a thing?”

Twilight shook her head. “It may be in some of the more exotic and rare books I have at the Golden Oaks or brought with me in the train car but I’ve never seen a creature called a ‘Zambet’ in any texts.”

“Do you remember any mention of a creature associated with smiles?” Pinkamena asked. “It’s what the name means… ‘smile’.”

“No offense, Pinkster, but how the hay do ya know that?”

Pinkie giggled in a characteristic Pinkie way. “Element of Laughter, remember? Smiles are sorta my reason to be.” The smile evaporated almost instantly. “So I hope you don’t mind if I’m a little offended here. Smiles aren’t for hurting, they’re for helping, and the thing that wants to hurt my friend is called ‘smile’.”

“Thanks, Pinkie,” Twilight smiled at her. “But no, I don’t remember anything about creatures having to do with smiles either. Maybe we can ask Queen Chrysalis if her people maintain an archives or a library… if they’ve been here a long time, they might have most of the exotic volumes I have, plus some I don’t.”

“Or ask Nightmare Moon,” Dawn said. “We know she ain’t quite Luna, which means she’s someone else and that someone else might know things none of the rest of us do.”

“Speakin’ of Chrysalis an’ Nightmare, didn’t that changeling say somethin’ about sending up a flare?” Applejack looked up at the night. “Ah mean, aren’t flares usually… Ah dunno… real bright an’ such?”

“We’re assuming it’s magical,” Twilight pointed out. “They might have had to unearth it from the…”

She was interrupted by a throaty whoosh from the direction of the downed structure and she could see a small object like a fireworks rocket zipping upwards. Remembering what flares (and fireworks) usually did when they reached their apex, she averted her eyes just before the entire landscape lit up like noon, bathed in searing white light that would be hard to miss from any distance. Her eyes averted, she noticed something strange: she appeared to be casting two shadows, one from in front of her where the flare was burning… and one from behind.

“Gee, didn’t know there were two changelings shooting off flares,” Dawn commented as she stepped to a side and studied her shadow. “The other light is about fifteen degrees to your left and…”

“...seventy-eight degrees upwards,” Twilight finished with a nod, having to smother a grin. She adored her friends, were amazed by what they could do that she couldn’t, but it was nice to be around a pony like her. “And holding steady, which means…”

“...someone’s hovering in midair while they’re holding it,” Dawn concluded. “Hey Drakes… that you two?”

“Faith, but the two of you are quick on th’ uptake,” Delphine said with a laugh. “Sharp as tacks, these Sparkles.”

“Aye,” Elli agreed. “Now would ye douse th’ bloomin’ lamp? Makin’ it a wee be hard ta see.”.

“Beggin’ pardon, sister.” And just like that, the light behind them disappeared even as the flare was beginning to slowly drift back to earth, sputtering out as it went. Twilight turned to find the two griffins just alighting, Delphine in the middle of tucking an aged-looking lantern under her cloak as she did. “There’s a good lass! We knew ye could do it, Princess.”

“Cool lantern,” Dawn responded before Twilight could thank Delphine. “That’s what was making the other really bright light, huh?”

“One of the magical tools of me order,” Delphine said. “Each Inquisitor receives a lantern an’ a misericord to mark who they are. Tis traditional, at least in Ratnisbon, for an Inquisitor ta light his lamp when he carries out his duties, and ta douse it only when the truth has been found and th’ Emperor’s justice dispensed. This far afield, with none ta minister to, it is a weapon against th’ Void, perhaps one of th’ most potent of all.”

“Sure left ol’ Tharalax scorched an’ cryin’ like a whipped child,” Elli chuckled. “Th’ evil ol’ screw ‘as been well-punished for his latest evil an’ when ‘e feels ‘is backbone get a mite harder, we’ll put th’ beast down good an’ proper.”

“I’m not sure you’ll get the chance, Ladies,” the changeling mare from before remarked as she walked over, still favoring her left side. “The Empress will certainly want his head far more than you ever could. Tharalax struck her niece, endangered Bearers of the Elements, would have gotten her other niece killed, and killed many wounded changelings besides… and that doesn’t count the faithful roc he murdered. He must know that Empress Moon will kill him and make a trophy of his ethereal head to illustrate the consequences of betraying her.”

“Ah’ve been wondering ‘bout that,” Applejack said. “Why do ya call her ‘Empress’ anyhow? If anythin’, she’d be a Princess cuz Luna is.”

“When she was first presented to us, in the company of Tharalax, he called her ‘Empress’ although he clearly didn’t want to,” the mare said. “So we took to calling her ‘Empress’ as well, to spite him, and then later out of respect.”

“He certainly doesn't treat her like his empress,” Twilight said. “In fact, Nightmare told me that she had no power to control him short of threatening him. She feared that something just like this would happen.”

“And so with the consent of Queen Chrysalis, she put the posts on alert and arranged for rescue to be on hoof if it was needed,” the changeling said. “Other measures were taken for your safety as well, including the exhaustive provisioning of the carrier and sending military doctors along with the wounded. I doubt she knew that you’d be bringing bodyguards with you, but that changes little.”

“Oh, she didn’t bring us, darl,” Elli smiled. “We were bid ta come by another, and that other ain’t known ta anyone ‘ere. We were bid ta follow Twilight Sparkle an’ ‘er companoins, and that where she went, we would go also. We are not ta ta leave ‘er, or allow ‘er ta come ta harm.”

“A pleasure.” The mare bowed. “If I may invite you to the makeshift shelter, ladies, there will soon be pads and blankets for sleep laid out and rations to slake hunger and thirst if you ate too lightly in the company of Maredusa. Rescue ought to come to us by noon tomorrow or sooner, and a much more reliable way of reaching Scarabi put into effect. This was the best way to transport masses quickly, but it’s clear that we underestimated Tharalax’ fixation.” She grimaced. “Or perhaps this was always his mission but it was concealed from us until he thought it too late.”

“But why now?” Dawn asked. “I mean, he’s sorta supposed to be Nightmare’s thug on a sorta-leash, right? So why not just play along until we get to this Scarabi place and do his thing when everyone thinks they’re safe?”

The mare shook her head. “Tharalax is strong, cruel, and cunning… but not particularly clever,” she said. “In the first place, it wouldn’t occur to him to be subtle. In the second place, he’s been barred from our city and Nightmare devised a runic wall of sorts that ensures he cannot enter. As to why now… well, let us just say that the outposts are very well-hidden and unless he took great care, he’d have no way to know that this isn’t a stretch of desolate waste with no help in reach.”

“Cunnin’ is right,” Elli sighed. “Killin’ the roc keepin’ th’ platform aloft was cruel an’ effective. If not for ye an’ yer facility with magical constructs, Princess, he would have killed many, includin’ th’ only ones who kin bear an’ use th’ Elements.”

“It wasn’t just me,” Twilight admitted. “I think Queen Chrysalis sent a magi of great skill concealed among the wounded. I only did the constructs of the wings; she built a tail section, control surfaces, and actually landed the platform.” Something occurred to her. “Sort of strange that she’d know how to do that since the only flying contraption we’ve seen among her people is this platform carried by a giant bird.”

The changeling mare laughed. “Princess, we’re changelings. For all you know, all the ponies who fly your Equestrian machines are changelings in a guise.”

“Point,” Twilight conceded. “But if that’s the case, why doesn’t anyone notice? I know I’m unusual with how good I am with magic but being able to feel a latent spell is almost universal among unicorns.”

“It’s not a spell,” she replied. “Our guises aren’t just illusions, they’re full transformations. If I was to use your shape as a guise, I’d be an alicorn, not just look like one. My magical reserves wouldn’t be any greater than what I have, but the physical differences between you and I would be miniscule.”

“You mean you could replace anypony?” Pinkie gasped with a look of impossibly wide-eyed (and thus probably extremely exaggerated) fear.

The mare gave her a level look. “You read too many ghost stories.” She shook her head with a derisive snort as she turned and started back over the dune towards the structure. “I can have whatever body I can imagine. Why settle for someone else’s?”

“Any body?” Rarity repeated.

“Uh-oh…” Dawn muttered.

“Darling, did you say you can have any body you can imagine?” Rarity asked as she trotted up to walk beside the mare.

The changeling looked at her. “If you get within a hundred meters of me with a dress, I’m not responsible for your pain and suffering.”

Rarity affected a wounded look. “I said nothing about dresses.”

This got her a level look. “You’re a fashionista and a dressmaker. Your designs have been seen on some very important ponies. A single pony who could model any design you might dream up would be worth their weight in pink diamonds. I might be a rube but I can add and subtract, Rarity.”

Rather than being chastised, Rarity’s attentioned sharpened visibly. “Pink diamonds?”

“Yes, an exquisitely rare type with miniscule amounts of chromium that give it a very slight pinkness,” the mare confirmed. “The only veins I know of run through the mountain into which Scarabi is built. By far the most difficult gem to cut because the chromium gives it extremely intricate and complex fracture points, but it’s well worth the effort.”

“You’re a gemcutter then?”

The mare smiled a little. “Among other things. At any rate, Rarity, no dresses please.”

Rarity was silent for several steps. “Hats?”

She stopped and looked at her oddly. “Hats?”

“Hats are an integral part of the cultured fashionista’s arsenal, darling,” Rarity gave her a winning smile.

The mare considered this and as they stepped into the still-intact carrier, she smiled more. “Hats would be acceptable, assuming I’m ever in the Carousel Boutique again.”

The mare was several steps ahead before it registered and Rarity rushed after her. “Again? What do you mean again?”

The changeling’s reply was lost as she and Rarity disappeared up the stairs and Twilight decided to find a bench and lay down. She was amazed to see how intact the structure was, not even showing signs of cracking or other strain from impacting with the sand. Of course, that was probably because the ground was sand but the durability was still very impressive. Just as the changeling had said, pads and blankets were being spread out around the structure by several uninjured changelings wearing the universal symbol for medical pony, a red cross. She watched her friends disperse themselves throughout, taking bedding and helping the changelings to lay it out.

“And ‘ow are yer reserves, Princess?” Twilight startled a little as one of the healers seemed to appear out of nowhere beside her. She turned her head to look at the mare, whose turquoise mane was cut short and streaked with red and was wearing a custom-fitted white coat.

“Quite fine,” she assured her. “Nurse…?”

“Doctor, actually,” the mare corrected her with a tired smile, speaking with a strong Trottingham accent. “Doctor Ratchet Limb. So reserves are good… any other physical complaints?”

“Had that dragon smack me with his tail, but I don’t feel sore,” Twilight told her. “So… Ratchet Limb?”

“Talent for prosthetic limbs,” the doctor supplied as she lightly prodded Twilight into rolling onto her side, carefully prodding and checking her. “The Royal College of Sciences and Engineering in Trotsford has published some truly inspired work on the subject in the last ten years. When my year rotation comes due, I’ll be able to continue my work with a unicorn colleague. The work is exciting beyond easy description, and you may roll back on your belly if you like.”

Twilight did so. “I take it that changelings wandering around Equestria must be pretty common then.”

Ratchet nodded with a little smile. “Extremely so. To keep the guise requires no effort, and Equestria has enough ambient love to nourish a thousand times more of us than are alive today. More than one changeling has lived most of their life in Equestria.” Her smile dropped, replaced with a slightly sad expression. “Although those that do cannot take a mate or a lover, except of their own gender.”

“Why…” the answer came to her even as she asked and she nodded. “Ah, of course. A changeling parent give birth to a changeling foal and the charade would be over.”

“There are ways around it,” Rachet said as she gestured for Twilight to roll over and expose her other side. “A skilled enough parent can guise-lock their child until they’re old enough to control the guise consciously. But that’s no way to raise a foal, always afraid that if she forgets, she’ll be mistreated.”

“You wish you could take that step with your colleague?” Twilight guessed as she rolled.

“Handsome, intelligent, very considerate of me, and is assured of a university position and the generous compensation that comes with it.” Ratchet sighed. “A good stallion that would be a good husband. But if I can’t be his wife in every sense, if I can’t have a family with him, why burden him with the knowledge that his colleague and possible marefriend isn’t what she appears?”

“I see.” No wonder Luna made sure to express her regret about what she and Celestia did. “I wish there was something I could do. Maybe I could talk to Mother…?”

Ratchet stopped her examination and looked curiously at her. “You’re the daughter of one of the Sisters?”

“Yes,” Twilight smiled as she tended to, whether on the surface or not, when Celestia was brought up.

“Luna’s?”

She sighed. “Why does everypony who doesn’t know assume that? No, my mother is Celestia.”

“You have her talent, her intellect, her coloration, and her affinity for the night,” Ratchet pointed out. “So Celestia… mmm… well, it couldn’t hurt. You’re kind to offer, Princess Sparkle.”

“Just call me Twilight,” Twilight said, wincing as Ratchet pressed lightly against her barrel.

“Of course.” Ratchet very gently pressed the spot again and then moved down slightly and pressed again, drawing another wince. “Well, a line of bruised ribs for certain. Do you have any objection to me using magic to accelerate the healing?”

Twilight gave her an odd look. “Is there a reason I would?”

“Not a rational one, but I try to be considerate regardless.” Ratchet lit her horn and Twilight felt it press against the bruised area… and the discomfort rapidly faded into a pleasantly warm sensation that spread over her side before slowly fading into the slightly cool desert night. Behind the warm sensation came the absence of pain and Twilight gave Ratchet a grateful look.

“Thanks,” she said. “So how’re your other patients? I know we asked that other wounded mare but…”

Ratchet looked oddly at her. “Wounded mare?”

Twilight looked oddly back. “Yes, the one that Rarity was talking to as she walked up the stairs.”

“The only mare that’s ambulatory…” Ratchet sighed and rolled her eyes. “Lemme guess… seemed to know everything about everything, but you can’t describe her to me?”

Twilight blinked. “Of course I can! She was favoring her left side, was a mare… um..” she trailed off as she tried to concentrate on the image she had in her mind, only for it to… slip somehow. “...how’d you know?”

Ratchet smirked. “Let’s just say I know her style. It’s just like her to sneak aboard and take a ride without anyone noticing. Or maybe the only ones who didn’t know were everyone else on the platform; Queen Chrysalis asking one of her daughters to secretly help an honored guest is just like her.”

“So she’s…”

“Princess Lepinora bar Chrysalis,” came a voice with an odd accent that seemed to literally come from an inch away from Twilight’s ear. She jumped and jerked her head around to find no one there. A moment later, a girlish giggle came from just above her on the structure and a changeling with the anisoptic wings seemingly unique to the royal family seemed to flow over the edge and buzzed her wings at the last possible second, touching down in the sand beside Twilight with a feline grace.

It was clear that Lepinora was related to Tettidora and Thryssa; something about the sharp lines of her face and the very slightly almond shape of her eyes reminded Twilight heavily of the other two sisters and even somewhat of Chrysalis herself. Beyond that, however, Lepinora looked like no other changeling Twilight had ever seen before. Her mane was cut both long around her face and short over her forehead and around the back of her head. The two unusually long segments were woven with jeweled pins so that it appeared that gems were flowing down the sides of her face. Not only was it cut strangely, but it was streaked with uneven hints of bleached white, the ordinary turquoise, and a shocking array of colors that made Rainbow Dash’s mane look colorless.

The odd mane momentarily distracted Twilight from something else: Lepinora’s face looked disjointed somehow. As the princess turned slightly so she could vault the rail, Twilight realized what it was that her mind had interpreted as disjointed: literally every visible inch of her body was carved with a dizzying array of looping lines, circles, and symbols. She’d seen a pony with full-body tattooing of course; one could hardly grow up in an extremely cosmopolitan city like Canterlot and not experience a heavy variety of ponies, but Lepinora had taken it to an extreme, right down to her eyelids, the entire surface of her ears, and even her teeth and tongue as Twilight realized when she grinned and opened her mouth to speak.

“A pleasure to meet you, Princess Twilight Andromeda Sparkle,” she almost-purred in that odd accent, something between Saddle Arabian and Germane. “Child of Princess Celestia du Solaris, niece to Princess Luna du Selune, sister to Royal Guard Captain Shining Armor, bereft of her adopted parents and claimed by her true parent.” The princess bowed deeply. “You are richly welcome to us, Twilight, and your sister and friends as well.”

“Hello Princess,” Ratchet sighed. “Overly dramatic, as usual.”

“Hello Nurse Ratchet,” Lepinora responded with a grin. “Stick in your plot, as usual.”

Ratchet gave her a sour look before looking at Twilight. “Is there anything else I may do for you, Princess?”

“Just see to your patients Doctor,” Twilight smiled. “I’m sure the Princess has something she wants to speak to me about.”

“When doesn’t she?” Ratchet sighed as she turned and went up the stairs. With the medical pony gone, Twilight turned back to Lepinora to find her achieving Pinkie Pie levels of personal space invasion.

“Ratchet can be forgiven for mistaking you for Luna’s foal,” she said casually, as if the end of her muzzle wasn’t only a hair’s breadth away from Twilight’s. “You have the presence of the warrior-scholar about you, that hint of constant calculation, that flicker of a million tiny equations always being formulated, always being solved.” She pulled back to a more polite distance and looked slightly up at Twilight. “I’ve long wanted to meet the apple of Celestia’s eye, the prize and ornament of her court, but the closest I’ve ever been was attendance at the Grand Galloping Gala before you were detailed to Ponyville.”

“I thought you told Rarity you don’t wear dresses,” Twilight said.

“I don’t.” She smiled a little. “Although if my sisters ever blackmailed me to into it, I’d certainly go to Rarity for the garment. That way, when Rarity becomes the name in fashion, I can say that I wore her work when she was just a humble dressmaker in a small town.”

“I’m sure she’ll appreciate having a princess say so,” Twilight smiled.

“I’m sure she already has,” Lepinora’s smile got brighter. “But no, I wasn’t wearing a dress at the Gala. I was doing a favor for a Wonderbolt, covering her for the public appearance while she was recovering from a hangover I had absolutely nothing to do with.”

“So you do replace ponies.” Twilight deadpanned.

“She asked me to and she was the best drinking buddy I’d had for ages.” The princess shrugged. “Friends cover each other’s plots and besides all that, you can’t have too many markers to call in when you’re someplace you’re not supposed to be.”

“She knew you were a changeling?”

“No, but she knew I was a friend.” Lepi tapped a hoof on the decking under her. “And I was, and I still am. A lot of my work is markers, deception, and maneuvering for maximum advantage against ponies who are not my enemy and will never be my enemy but doing a favor for Misty was a pleasure. It was an intelligence coup as well, but it’s good to have a friend to celebrate our return with.”

“Do you… mind if I ask how you plan to do that?” Twilight gave Lepi a nervous smile. “I mean, I hope you don’t take it as suspicion but your exile wasn’t… um… amicable and it sounded like things were ugly… um… back then.”

Lepinora frowned. “I’m told it was extremely ugly, yes.” She tapped her hoof again on the decking. “I think Tetti and Mother should tell you of this. The strategy is theirs and you deserve to hear it from them.”

Twilight wrinkled her brow at the odd phrasing. “I deserve to hear it from them? You make it sound like I won’t like it.”

“It’s nothing like that, I assure you.” Lepinora said. “What I meant is that in our way of thinking, you’re the heir to the Equestrian throne. The affairs of the nation are as much your business as they are the business of your mother and aunt. So you deserve to be told our intentions, as a gesture of respect for your rank and your birthright. I swear to you, we intend no harm or ill… that hatchet was buried centuries ago.” She sighed a little. “Even if the heir to our throne doesn’t quite see it.”

“Yeah, sorta got that ‘chip on my shoulder’ vibe off her,” Dawn commented as she trotted over to Twilight with two rolls of bedding arranged on her back. “And may I say, you look like you could have a promising career walking some streets?”

“My marefriend likes the tats,” Lepi grinned. “Says she thinks they make me look alluring and all bad-filly.”

“Sounds like she has good taste.” Dawn grinned back. “So, big sis is heir to the throne, massive chip on her shoulder, and so… what? Do you think she’s gonna throw a monkey wrench in this great plan?”

“Thryssa would never do that,” Lepi said instantly. “She’s displeased that the plan doesn’t allow her to inflict some kind of humiliation or pain on Princess Celestia, but she knows there’s higher stakes than mother’s approval. She’s in the position she’s in because Mother knows she can swallow her resentment and do her best. Letting go of an injustice a thousand years old--and only an injustice in the sense that it was slightly disproportionate--would just let her enjoy the triumph more than she will.”

“You lot sound real confident in this plan of yours,” Dawn noted.

“At this point, we have every reason to be,” Lepi beamed. “The one crucial pony has been brought into the scheme, the one crucial element is in place, and even Celestia is looking forward to it even though she doesn’t actually know what it is yet. Well, she knows what it is but she doesn’t know all of what it means.”

Twilight and Dawn stared at her. “You could have just said it’s none of our business,” Twilight said.

“Why deflect a question when I can use it to confuse others?” The changeling princess winked at them. “Rescue should be arriving by morning so you two grab some shut-eye. Don’t worry about Tharalax… he knows better than to try to come down here after us.”

“Why?” Twilight took one of the bedrolls from Dawn’s back and laid it out on the deck.

“Oh, let’s just say that there’s a reason we fly over the sand or go under it instead of trying to travel on it.” Lepi grinned, lighting her horn and assuming the disguise of the entirely ordinary-looking mare, favoring her left side. “Sleep well.”

A stiff breeze swept over the railing and caused the page Twilight had been reading from to slip her magical grasp, followed by a dozen more. The alicorn sighed and patiently turned back to the page before slipping a bookmark into the volume and standing up to look out over the desert underneath.

It had felt like she’d just shut her eyes when she’d been awoken by the fierce brightness of day as well as the commotion of the changelings starting to awaken, tend to their needs, and pack up. Curious at how they appeared to be getting ready to move, she’d glanced over the edge of the grounded platform and gaped wide-eyed at what appeared to be a ship resting on a sand dune beside the platform with what appeared to be a set of small sails jutting up from the deck and a half-dozen propellers at the bow, midship, and stern with an extra two on booms in the back. It was very large, moreover, about the height of a 2-story house with a large captain’s cabin sticking up in the front. It was painted a cherry red with the name “Red Mambo” stenciled in black on either side.

Somewhat more ominously, ports had been cut into the sides and the brass muzzles of cannons protruded; Twilight calculated their weight at about two stone each based on muzzle size which made it a carronade configuration. A shorter-range arrangement for close quarters and emphatically not, she realized, for bombarding settlements or fortifications.

It transpired that the Red Mambo was a vehicle called an “airship” that used a magic-laced stone to give it levitation and steam boilers to drive its many engines. It was well-armored, well-protected, and crewed by the changeling equivalent of the Royal Guard, the veterans and gifted among the monarchy’s armies. This, of course, had invited the obvious question and of course it came from Applejack.

“An’ why didn’t y’all pack us aboard this thing instead of gettin’ someone killed an’ scaring the apples outta the rest of us?” She asked the Throne Guard who appeared to be in charge--Lepinora had done nothing to correct this impression, and neither Twilight nor Dawn had felt comfortable mentioning it--a mare who’d identified herself as “Masquerade”.

“Orders,” she’d replied with a shrug. “Carrying you via roc as far as possible and having an airship on standby in case something went wrong were my instructions, and I simply obeyed. Feel free to take it up with somepony in authority when you reach Scarabi, but we need to leave as soon as possible. Kindly enter now, and chastise me later.”

Twillight could tell that Applejack wasn’t pleased with the non-answer, but the farmpony had yielded to the urgency of the moment and helped load up the airship. It turned out that most of the changelings were staying behind; of those traveling with them, only Doctor Ratchet and the disguised Lepinora had accompanied them.

“This airship travels much faster than the one being brought to take the rest of them,” Lepinora had said when Twilight asked her. “Since Tharalax is quite clearly targeting you, we need to get you behind Scarabi’s walls as soon as we can. No more bear-baiting, no more drawing him out, just a run to the capital. The wounded will be plenty safe, I promise.”

It turned out that the captain’s cabin contained a small library and between that and the fact that it was now more an issue of passing the time, Twilight had happily selected one that looked interesting (“On the Flora and Fauna of the Changeling Barrens”) and found a place near a railing to read. Until the breeze had flipped a few of the pages, she’d been engrossed with the book; now, as she looked over the railing, she found herself engrossed with what could only be the changeling capital of Scarabi.

The entire city had been built out of a black, dull stone which made the walls and gates look somehow menacing, despite the colorful banners flapping gently in the wind and immense tapestries hanging from the crenulations, each adorned with the cutie marks of Celestia, Luna, and an inversion of Luna’s mark that Twilight supposed was a reference to Nightmare Moon. The cutie marks were arranged in an inverted triangle with Celestia’s at the bottom--not surprising since the changelings seemed to hold their exile against her specifically--and above the triangle was a kite shield with a green crystal heart in the center and a spear and sword crossing just below center, all set against a vibrant sky-blue background.

The walls were unusually tall with towers jutting slightly out over the battlements so that archers could fire on enemies that were staying close to the walls to avoid the defenses. The gates looked particularly ponderous, protected by a trio of portcullises that were offset from one another to appear to be a solid wall of metal; only as the airship got closer was Twilight able to see their true nature. But the walls and the city coming into view beyond them weren’t the most striking thing about Scarabi; that honor belonged to the palace.

The palace actually floated above the city, a delicately-carved piece of art in gleaming obsidian with soaring rooftops, pointed arches with stained glass windows under them, and the dome and telescope of an actual observatory towards the easternmost edge of the levitated structure.

“Tetti’s observatory,” Lepinora commented as she joined Twilight at the railing, still in her ‘injured mare’ guise. “It’s not strictly hers--the foundations were put in place a couple generations ago--but she owns it now and oversaw the installation of a superior telescope. Took her forever to gather the parts but only Trotsford and Celestia’s School have comparable ones.”

“How long has she had the superior telescope?”

“About five years.” Lepi grinned at Twilight’s suddenly wide-eyed expression. “You want to know whether Tetti studied the ‘Mare in the Moon’. The answer is that yes, she studied the shape and concluded that it was an unnatural occurrence, and that it was a protective seal of extremely high complexity and power. She also noticed that the four stars positioned forty-five degrees off each compass point were moving into the disruption position at an extremely regular pace. She theorized that they had been set in place so that they would reach their positions precisely one thousand years after the seal was put in place, and that the release point was within the next four years.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “Protective seal?”

“Yup.” Lepi shrugged. “I’m not a magical scholar, so I can just repeat what Tetti said to me without entirely understanding it. What I know for certain is that she called the entire thing of Luna coming back a few years before it happened, though we didn’t really know why she was there until Nightmare told us about the event. I mean, we got our hooves on the storybook about the ‘Mare in the Moon’ but it was clearly fictionalized.”

“Clearly…?”

“Yes,” Lepi nodded as the airship approached one of the palace towers that had a long platform extending from it to act as a mooring point. “Luna was never jealous of her sister. Why would she be? She had ample overt power of her own but unlike Celestia, her power could be subtle and gentle as well. Celestia herself was a gentle creature even a thousand years ago, but the sun is all fire and rage, and there’s nothing gentle or subtle about it.”

Twilight eyed her. “How are you so sure of this?”

“Logicked it out mostly,” Lepi said, giving a wave to the guards standing on the platform as they caught ropes from the crew and helping to guide the airship in. “It was within weeks of us leaving that the knock-down drag-out fighting between her and Celestia started. Ponies don’t go from satisfied to blind jealousy in a month, especially a pony with Luna’s level head. Jealousy is an absurd explanation, clearly invented for the story.” She shrugged as the airship was pulled gently closer to the mooring. “Or maybe Celestia’s broken heart led her to grasp for any explanation she could find. All I know is, the story is a mix of fiction with the facts.”

Twilight absorbed this for a moment, watching the changelings tie the Red Mambo to the moorings and extend a gangway for them to exit. “So a month after your…” She trailed off as her mind took the next logical step. Within a month of the exile Luna, who the changelings admire as their defender in the court, was fighting Celestia for control, she realized. “She rebelled over your exile.”

“That’d be the logical conclusion,” Lepi nodded. “But we still don’t know for sure because Nightmare has yet to tell us. Now that Dawn and yourself are here, I’m certain she will. After, of course, we find our honored guests accommodations.”

“Hang th’ accommodations,” Applejack declared as she appeared from belowdecks with the rest of the girls trailing her (even Pinkie, to Twilight’s momentary surprise). “Ah’m plumb eager ta hear how Luna got mixed up with Nightmare cuz it ain’t like the Elements plucked her outta thin air an’ Nightmare herself said she didn’t force anything on her, an’ she was tellin’ the truth.”

“The accommodations are on the way to the throne room,” Lepinora said, walking out onto the gangplank and over to the tower. “Feel free to bring the book with you if you’d like, Princess Sparkle.”

Twilight smiled as she tucked the book into her saddlebags and followed the disguised princess. “Thank you. It’s a very interesting volume; your lands have much more variety than I’d have thought.”

“We were pretty surprised by it too, when we started to establish ourselves,” Lepi told her, using a quick touch of magic to pull open a hatch leading to a staircase. “The Barrens have the appearance of an arid waste, yet the soil has proven very good for citrus and cacti grow like weeds and there’s quite the variety of things living in them, besides ourselves of course.”

“Must get sorta boring eatin’ just cacti an’ citrus,” Applejack said as they entered the tower.

Lepi chuckled. “Well, yes. Fortunately, within a hundred years of exile, our traders were hard at work buying Equestrian produce. Sort of hard to enforce an exile when the ponies you exiled can look like any pony they want to, and Celestia was more than a little distracted from us by heartache.”

“So the exile was…”

“...never all that effective.” Lepinora nodded. “Anyway, I wish to officially welcome you to the Obsidian Palace.” She trotted several paces ahead and turned to them, bowing as the flicking green flames that signaled the changeling transformation magic swept over her, revealing the exotic markings and attractive slimness of her true shape. “I apologize for concealing it to this point, but I am Princess Lepinora das Chrysalis, Queen Chrysails’ youngest daughter.”

There was no response from the other mares, and Twilight turned to see that they were all looking a little uncomfortable. “We… sort of know, Your Highness,” Rarity finally said. “It’s not a very large structure and we… overheard you, Twilight, Dawn, and Doctor Limb.”

Lepi eyed her and gave them a rueful smile. “Well, I suppose that’s what I get for being careless, isn’t it? Still, this entire production was designed to deceive Tharalax, and deceive him it did. Not only did he not know I was there, not only did he fail to kill you five, not only has he signed his own death warrant, your bodyguards thrashed the horseapples out of him.” She looked passed them. “Speaking of the Drake sisters, where are they?”

“They left,” Pinkie said. “Did that funny teleport thingy that Spite does, and said they were going back to watch the changelings that were left behind.”

“They must have determined that their charges were safe and that there was a strong chance Tharalax would try to circle back.” Lepi grinned toothily. “I’d love to see him try. Idiot’s under the impression that we left the changelings back at the wreck undefended.”

“Something lives on the sand that you’re not really eager to mess with?” Dawn guessed.

“We call them the sand drakes,” Lepi confirmed as she resumed walking them towards their accommodations. “Their nature isn’t really clear--they appear to be made of sand although we know they’re not--but we know they’re highly intelligent, highly territory, highly dangerous, and very good neighbors.”

“Sapient?”

“Yes, although they’ve worked very hard to hide it, even harder to conceal the fact that they can speak Equish fluently.” Lepi stopped before a door and gestured to it and then the other three rooms around it. “These are four of the palace guest rooms. We furnished them so that married couples could stay comfortably, which means that single mares should be even more comfortable. I assume that you and your sister would be alright sharing the room, Princess Twilight?”

“Of course,” Twilight smiled a little at Dawn. “I see no problem with it.”

“Yeah, it’s not like her neurotic is contagious,” Dawn grinned back cheekily.

“Technically, you were assembled from Mother’s memories of me, which would include what you call my ‘neurotic’,” Twilight pointed out.

“Well, yeah, but I focus it on much more sophisticated and valuable things. For example...”

“Ah still have mah rope Dawn,” Applejack said flatly.

“Apples! I was going to say apples,” Dawn said, giving Applejack an innocent look. “Anyway, I’m fine sharing with big twin sis.”

“That’s good,” Lepi grinned at her. “Anyway, I’ll give you all time to settle in and maybe…”

“Would you mind escorting us to meet Nightmare now?” Twilight interrupted.

“I wouldn’t mind, but Nightmare Moon hasn’t arrived yet,” Lepi replied. “Neither has my mother or my sisters, although I believe Thryssa won’t be able to join us in the throne room.”

“But ya said…”

“What I said was that we’d talk to Nightmare after I found you accommodations, and that the accommodations are on the way,” the princess said. “At no point did I say whether Nightmare was even available to be spoken to immediately, although at that point, I believed she was. I’ve been informed differently since.”

Twilight looked at Dawn, who looked right back at her before giving Lepinora a quirked brow. “Unless you’re telepathic. I don’t remember anyone talking to you during our walk down here.” her sister said.

“I’m not telepathic,” Lepinora said. “I just have other ways to have information conveyed to me without it being audible or visible to someone unfamiliar with the system.” She gestured back towards a blank wall they’d just passed. “For example, I have the Throne Guard hang a different banner for each member of my family or of the court that’s present in the palace so that I can always know immediately who’s available without needing to be told. As you can see, the wall is blank which means that not even certain important nobility are here at this time.”

Twilight glanced at Applejack, got a nod, then looked at Lepi. “Do you know when she’ll arrive?”

“I don’t, but I will shortly.” Lepi smiled at them. “Until then, relax and enjoy your accommodations. If you’re hungry, any of the guards will happily direct you to the kitchens, or the palace library, or anywhere you wish to go. If the fancy strikes you, I see no reason that you couldn’t visit the city itself, although I doubt Nightmare will be gone long enough for you to properly enjoy it.”

“Thank you, Princess Lepinora,” Rarity said. “For being so hospitable and for the kind comments about my work.”

“I know my own, Lady Rarity. We artistes thrive on praise, our very food and drink.” Lepi bowed to them. “A pleasure to have met you all.”

Twilight made sure to give the princess a bow in return before nosing the door to the room open. Having lived in the palace at Canterlot, seeing that the guest room was lavish and beautifully decorated came as no great surprise. What was a surprise was realizing just how familiar-feeling the room was, and it took Twilight a moment to pin down exactly why: the room was an amalgamation of her room at her adoptive parents’ home, her room at the castle, and her room at the Golden Oaks library. Her bed from the castle had the small basket Spike still liked to sleep in at its foot, and the headboard was clearly from the bed she slept in at her parents’. The nightstand was from the library, the lights around the perimeter from the castle, as was the carpet, and as Twilight looked around she spotted several more elements.

“This… is enormously creepy sis,” Dawn commented. “I mean… sheesh. It’s clear that whoever did all this decorating spend lots of time in all three rooms. If I see a crib with Luna and Celestia dolls in a corner, I’m outta here.”

“Yes,” Twilight agreed. “I think it’s pretty clear what they were trying to do, set up a room that would be familiar and comfortable, but I don’t think they realized that it’d come off as a little creepy that they’ve been watching me that closely.”

“It does appear to be what they do, darling,” Rarity said as she stepped into the room through the still-open door. “For me, they imitated my creation room and my current room. I actually find it quite flattering that they made such an effort to make us welcome, right down to creating guest rooms we’d feel comfortable in.”

“Still creepy as hay, Rares,” Dawn said. “I mean, they’ve been watching us. Like, since Twilight was five. I feel like someone’s been stalking me.”

There was a long silence after this, Twilight fighting to stop herself from smirking at her twin, Rarity just arching an elegant brow, before Dawn finally facehoofed. “Shut up,” she grumbled. “It’s not the same thing.”

“Ah think it is,” Applejack said, giving Dawn a little grin. “Mite odd seein’ the room I’ve been in since Ah was a foal recreated here but… sorta homey too.”

“I sorta feel sorry for them,” Pinkamena said from one of the bookshelves. “They had to try to combine my foalhood room with my adulthood room.” She paused thoughtfully. “Graninite chic with an explosion of party. I don’t know how it could possibly work, but it sort of does.”

Twilight glanced around at them. “How…?”

“How did they already look over their rooms and get over here so quickly?” Dawn patted her on the shoulder. “Your neurotic sometimes leads you to lose track of time, sis.”

“I have a practiced eye,” Rarity supplied before Twilight could reply.

“Ah know mah room cold,” Applejack said.

“I’m me,” Pinkamena said.

Dawn sighed. “Ya just had to blow the joke, didn’t you?”

“Only because it’s you, darling,” Rarity said brightly. “Anyway, it’s been several hours since breakfast and I’m starting to feel a little peckish. And I’m ever so curious to discover the unique taste treats that come of this exotic place, aren’t you?”

“Eeyup,” Applejack agreed. “Ya’ll fancy a quick kitchen run?”

“I could stand some more of that prickly pear,” Dawn grinned. “C’mon big twin sis… let’s get you properly stuffed for storytime with Nightmare Moon.”

Twilight looked longingly at the bookshelf but nodded. “OK. It has been a while since breakfast.”

“I always knew that Tharalax would stick the knife in our backs,” Nightmare sighed as she picked up her teacup and sipped delicately from it. “I just didn’t expect him to seize such obvious bait.”

“Beggin’ yer pardon, Miz Empress, but Ah sort of object to being your ‘bait’ without bein’ asked or told,” Applejack said, fixing Nightmare with a gimlet eye over the rim of her cider mug.

“I was not the origin of the plan, Applejack,” Nightmare retorted a little sharply. “I have never asked that Chrysalis’ people obey my wishes, nor would I want such a weight. “All this was the design of Princess Lepinora, including her concealing herself among the wounded. I required of her many redundant plans to ensure your safety, one of which was equipping Twilight with certain of my magicks.”

The Throne Guard escort--led by the same Masquerade who’d been aboard the airship--hadn’t arrived for some time after Lepi had left them, and Twilight had enjoyed both the light snack of lemon-baked nogales paddles that the chef had happily whipped up for her and the others, and lounging on the bed with the book she’d borrowed from the Red Mambo. The walk from their rooms to the throne room had made it abundantly clear that despite a strong resemblance to the Royal Guard, the changeling Throne Guard was very animate and friendly, more than one giving them a quick wave of greeting as they’d passed.

The throne room itself, guarded by Throne Guards in more ornate armor and the distinct anisopteric wings of changeling royalty, was vast and open, roofed with glass that caused the now-setting sun to bathe everything in a rich rainbow of fiery color. The dais at the end of the room was much larger than the one that Celestia and Luna shared, having six thrones to represent Chrysalis, her husband, and her four daughters, each with their cutie marks engraved on the back of the throne. The only one of the four daughter thrones was occupied by Tettidora, and the throne beside her (which Twilight guessed was the throne of the one princess she hadn’t met yet) draped in a violet cloth with Nightmare resting in the seat.

The Equestrian mares had all been brought to their seats and drinks set before them; as with the rooms, the changelings had clearly studied them carefully because while Twilight, and Rarity were poured a very delicious apple peel tea, Applejack and Dawn had been given mugs of Sweet Apple Acres cider, and Pinkie a pitcher of some kind of party punch.

“I regret that I didn't take your offer of knowledge,” Twilight admitted after a sip of her own. “Seeing what Tharalax did to that poor roc…”

“The Void is brimming over with monsters Twilight,” the black alicorn said sadly. “I fear that Tharalax is by far the least dangerous kind, the kind that is so blatant and sadistic that he can be easily outsmarted. Nonetheless,” her draconic turquoise eyes briefly glowed “I will kill him and take my time about it. He struck out at my family and my allies knowing the price of such insolence, and now he will be an example.”

“Yes, the Void.” Twilight took another sip. “Spite gave us a very basic idea of it.”

“I’ll certainly tell you more, as the Void is part and parcel of my own tale.” Nightmare finished off her tea with a large swallow and put the cup aside. “I’m certain that you’ve heard me referred to as ‘Empress’ outside of Queen Chrysalis pointedly trying to nudge me into addressing her more as a friend than a colleague.”

“Yeah, Lepi told us it’s what Tharalax called ya and then the changelings called ya the same to annoy him.” Dawn nodded.

“He doesn’t call me that by choice, but because the number who know me by my given name are extraordinarily few. The title by which I’m known by almost all of creation is the Dread Empress of Nightmares, the most ancient and powerful nightmare living.” Nightmare said. “My race is a cousin race to the void dragons such as Einspithiana and Tharalax but while we are draconic in the Void, we are formless outside of it.”

Applejack coughed and gestured at her. “Um… ya look pretty formed ta me, yer Empress-ness.”

“And you seem much more akin to Spite than Tharalax,” Twilight added.

“I am,” Nightmare nodded. “I knew Einspithiana in her relative youth and did what I could to mentor her. I had written her off as too stubborn to hear wisdom of experience, before she proved that she had been listening. But that’s her story; I promised that I’d tell you mine.”

Author's Note

Guess what the next chapter is gonna be? Bet you'll never figure it out! ;)

Dread Empress of Nightmares

Author's Note

So, here's the story in a story that I promised! :) If there's any more of the story you want to hear, any questions you'd want answered, anything that doesn't make sense, COMMENT. But above all, enjoy.

Dread Empress of Nightmares

“To the knowledge of any living thing, whether the gods, the angels, the daemons, or the beasts of the Great Void, there has always been a Void. It is the ocean that all the worlds drift in, the space between the delicate spheres where the Light and the Dark hold sway and go about the eternal process of creating where there was nothing before. Following the making of the various worlds, the Void itself came to be populated as the first Reaper divided the spirits immersed in creative Darkness from those immersed in destructive Darkness. To this day, the line between the two Darknesses can be very blurry and this is reflected in the respective tongues: the tongue of the Void is voyspak which is a distant dialect of the tongue of the Helles, dayrspak.

“I am so ancient that I literally do not know how ancient I am; hundreds of thousands of years have flowed past me like a torrent for such a span of time that I’m not sure when it all started. What I know for certain is that I can be as ancient as I am because some tidbit of my mortal existence, whatever that existence was, led me to be very patient and always remember the most important rule of all: a vessel unscarred is a nightmare hidden.

“You see, the primary difference between void dragons and nightmares is that a void dragon has an innate sense of what their form is: when they go to a mortal realm, they can gather the material of the Void and shape it into a semblance of their individual form. Nightmares have no concept of a form of their own, functioning like water in that we take the shape of the vessel we pour ourselves into. The typical way this is done is that a nightmare will attach themselves to a mortal vessel in a very subtle and harmless way and probe at their defenses until a chink is found, and then exploit that weakness to overshadow the will of the vessel and seize full control of the form.”

“Isn’t that pretty… noticeable?” Dawn asked.

“You’d be surprised how very little mortals notice sometimes.” Nightmare smirked a little. “But yes, that’s well-spotted Dawn: the battle of wills can be very violent and destructive. Young nightmares will usually be so forceful that they destroy the other mind entirely and are left in a warm shell about which they know nothing; from there, it’s merely a matter of time before they’re driven out by a magi or the vessel is slain.

“Even when a nightmare forcibly overshadows and suppresses the original will, even the most broken and weakened mortal will throw themselves against their bindings as terror drives them into a blind panic. If the nightmare does not destroy the enemy will, then they’ll be slowly shredded by the effort of trying to crush their vessel without hollowing them out. Expulsion or destruction is always a matter of time.”

“But you were still a part of Luna a thousand years later,” Twilight said. “Enough that when the exile ended, we met you and not her.”

“You actually met the both of us but I’ll get to that. It transpires that there’s actually an alternative to the ordinary way that nightmares gain a vessel, although one that is so rarely used that only a few ngihtmares are even aware of the method, and all of them are quite old. A nightmare can gain a vessel by force--or by persuasion. I attempted the method of force exactly one time.” Nightmare shuddered visibly. “Most nightmares quickly grow accustomed to the feeling of occupying a vessel that feels like it’s been scoured of life, every thing that made it real blasted away. Cold, clammy, insects crawling along your bones, biting and gnawing deep inside you, the constant feeling of razors dancing over the stolen flesh in tiny pricks of phantom pain… there’s just no words for it.

“The price of consent is different. It’s difficult, requiring both incredible skill and a willingness to make an equitable exchange, and to actually deliver on each and every promise you make, and everything you offer. It requires painstaking intellectual work and a willingness to walk away from the table, rhetorically speaking. The occupation needs to be a partnership, a symbiosis rather than parasitic. Few nightmares bother, happy to live a brief life of high risk and sadistic pleasure instead of taking the long view.” This time, the black alicorn smiled nostalgically. “You might say that I succeeded once and was hooked. The bargain was very simple and the partnership was fairly short but I felt alive, and that is invaluable to someone who has no life of her own.

“And that is the real secret to my longevity and power among my own: I persuade, cajole, and strike bargains but never lay a claw on the vessel. I can’t begin to number the mortals who’ve cheated me, taken what I offer and then reneged, and sneered when I simply left instead of punishing them. My pride has never been worth endangering myself and let us just say that the ones who renege don’t tend to be the…” Nightmare paused thoughtfully “crispest crackers in the box. So they swiftly get their just deserts without the helpful input of the pleasant voice in their head.”

Twilight swallowed. “Luna… volunteered to…?”

“Consented,” Nightmare corrected her. “For a specific purpose, as part of a very strictly-defined agreement. I told you before that it is not and has never been within my power to overwhelm Luna in a contest of wills; to that I add, there was never a need, and I never wanted to. All that said, my motives weren’t altruistic and in fact, my motivations were really quite petty. It was a very long while ago, near the beginning of this world’s creation. A black minister called Rejnu had determined that such a young and Light-bathed world would be a desirable prize, but she was certain that the guardian couldn’t be defeated fairly. So she twisted a spirit of order, counterpart to another god-like spirit called ‘Discord’, into a puppet that she sardonically called ‘the Guardian’. Using this puppet and keeping his strings hidden, she used him as a mouthpiece to invite the strongest nightmares in the Void, promising many things. Excluding the Dread Empress would have been unthinkable, but she expected I’d treat the request as beneath me.

“Rejnu was a fool that assumed that her limited viewpoint was shared by everyone. I understood her object and understood that it was her speaking through the Guardian, and determined to spoil her plans out of sheer petty malice. Accepting her invitation rocked her back on her heels but I’d called her bluff and she had no way to retract her offer, and befitting my station, I was permitted to choose which of the vessels Rejnu I’d work with. In the still very young Luna, I saw precisely the sort of vessel I like best: a driven, intelligent, powerful being who was both able to play the part of an ally and had the will to require such equivalence from me. The youngest nightmares seized and broke the Seasons one by one and one by one, the vessels then bound such that the nightmare was made the ascendent personality and the original was always the slave. As befitting the plan, each vessel was killed by those that hadn’t been seized yet and restoring the bodies to life allowed Rejnu to make the binding unbreakable and with that, she had four hidden cards to play when the Game began in earnest.

“Rejnu planned that Luna would be the fifth taken and broken and made into a pawn, but I’m a nightmare with an overabundance of time and I chose to spoil her scheme by using as much of it as I wanted. She was enraged with me but by that time, I had made examples of many powerful Void spawn that had tried to harm or hinder me, so she could only seethe as I watched and waited and learned. Finally, after a very long time, a crisis was precipitated by the changeling Matris Queen Malyss and the three other queens in the then-septarchy that agreed with her. I suspected and still suspect that Malyss was acting as an extension of Rejnu’s will because of all the innumerable defenses that Equestria had against her designs, the changelings were one of the strongest. An entire race of loyal shapeshifters with a very long military tradition and a royalty with alicorn-like power could not be permitted, and I suspect that the deeply racist Malyss was Rejnu’s tool.

“With my disposition to watch and learn, I gained a sense of the direction things were moving very early, and I saw that the coming tragedy would be my best chance to offer a bargain to Luna. Even introducing myself to her was a very serious risk, for she was at the apex of her power and combat ability as the field general of Equestria, but I made certain to approach her in her dream-realm by duplicating her appearance and altering it somewhat. She recognized me for what I was and was suspicious, so I struck a bargain with her: I would be permitted to shadow her as I wished, and would in turn do no harm and obey her commands promptly. Thus when the news of the building troubles reached her, I was there to offer sympathy and advice. When Celestia began to speak of solving the ‘problem’ with an exile, I was there to offer support. And when the true Matris Queen, Malyss’ older sister Amaryss, confronted Celestia over her exile decision, I was there.to make the offer I’d been waiting millenia for: I would be her ally and advisor if she chose to challenge her sister for the throne. The choice was always hers, and I had no part in her deciding that the only way to make things right was to be the one who made all the decisions.

“From the beginning, we agreed that the affair needed to be stage-managed to give Celestia every reason to think that her poor, innocent, hero-worshipping little sister had indulged just a little too much in her grief and resentment, and had fallen to some dark power or another. We even decided to use a more familiar version of my given name as the title of this pretend power. The stage-management came off perfectly, and the story of the wicked Nightmare Moon trying to bring about Eternal Night was born. As much as it’s reduced to a single temper tantrum by a sister who just didn’t get enough love, it was a very long struggle, chiefly because we’d magically imprisoned Luna’s half of the Elements in the Void where Celestia couldn’t touch them. While it’s generally thought that Celestia is vastly greater in power than Luna, Luna wielded her power like a surgeon in every confrontation between the Sisters and more than held her own. But two goddesses trying to break one another tends to shatter cities and before it got to that point, they agreed that direct confrontation was no longer acceptable lest innocent ponies be killed. From there on, it was a battle of proxies and I think Celestia was honestly floored by how many ponies flocked to Luna’s banner.

“As long as I’ve lived, I have rarely directly experienced war because my vessels didn’t tend to be soldiers or generals. Nor have they been passionately engaged in some cause or the other because zeal tends to get in the way of a good agreement. Placing Luna on the throne of Equestria was both a war and a cause, and I found myself actually believing in it. It was not long before my connection to Luna wasn’t a contract as much as it was a partnership of equals… and by the end, almost of sisters. I did much more for the cause than I had agreed to, and was happy to do it. I had an eternity of debts I could collect and the most significant debt I was owed was by a being called Vorka, although he tended to prefer the nickname ‘Moreau’ for some reason. Chillingly sanguine about committing any number of atrocities in pursuit of his obsessions, but he had an utterly unique gift for using the inherently destructive energies of the Void to create, and I had him devise a means to sew ordinary ponies with scraps of Luna’s own affinity for the night.

“Luna was already a great general; Vorka’s work provided her with a great army. But for all of the warring, there was very little death because there was no appetite for it. Fighting for Luna is one thing; killing for Luna is another thing entirely. Those who loved her and supported her didn’t do it out of hatred for others, but a conviction that she would be a more just and good ruler than the princess that had expelled an entire race of ponies into what was thought a desolate wasteland. This required deadly violence, especially towards the end as it dawned on Celestia that Luna was aiming for a monarchy instead of primacy in the diarchy, but Luna preferred a more gentle revolution and I supported her fully. Not that was didn’t have some glorious arguments--I fondly recall one that ended with her challenging me to a duel using bananas, because dreams aren’t supposed to make sense--but I existed to be her ally, her advisor, her confidante, her assistant, and…” Nightmare chewed her lip uncomfortably “I think she started to see me as the big sister she wished she had.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “So Luna… won?”

“That would have been the eventual result, I believe,” Nightmare said. “But we ran out of time. You recall what I said, that a nightmare suppressing a vessel damaged them? The damage goes in both directions although it’s very subtle and can be recovered from on the part of the vessel. I had never spent more than a couple of months in a partnership so I had no idea that the mere presence of a nightmare in a vessel was harmful, even if there was complete accord. After well over a year, it was clear that the damage was considerable, far more than even an immortal demigoddess could recover from without some sort of aid. It was a very… bad day when I had to tell Luna that I had discovered this and that it could well mean that all of our work was for naught. As you can well imagine, she was furious with me; fortunately for me, she reigned in her temper and listened to my explanation--and believed me. But a solution was needed, and the only one we could think of was the Elements of Harmony, so another bit of theater would be needed.”

“Ya mean Luna can visit her moon on her own?” Pinkie asked.

“Well, she can, but it would have been a very great…”

“So why fight Celestia for the throne?” The pink party pony interrupted, her mane gone flat to indicate that she was being as earnest and serious as she could; based on how Nightmare straightened visibly, Twilight knew she wasn’t the only one grasping the significance. “She had ponies that loved her right? Ponies that wanted her to have a throne and a crown, right? And if she can just stand upon it without harm, she can extend this to others, right?

“You want to know why she fought instead of just leaving.”

Pinkamena bowed her head. “I do, if you’d be willing,”

“I’m why,” Nightmare said. “One of the many, many gifts and powers I’ve acquired over millennia has been anticipating the future through patterns in the past and present. It’s a form of prophetic prediction, although it’d probably be more fair to say that it’s highly advanced pattern recognition and anticipation. In our planning for the revolution, Luna leaned very hard towards the idea of leaving her sister to do whatever suited her, and making a kingdom for herself and those who supported her elsewhere. In the first place, this would have displaced my own plans beyond the possibility of repair but far more importantly, I foresaw tragedy coming of it and told Luna so. I gave her such specific detail of what I saw happening that it turned her from her desire to leave and made her determine to be victorious so that my prediction couldn’t come to pass.”

“What did you tell her that was so convincing?” Pinkamena asked. “Luna doesn’t seem like the sort of pony who’d prefer bloodshed to walking away from the conflict.”

“I told her that I foresaw her drawing upon her military mindset and ability in creating her new government,” Nightmare said. “I felt that she’d gather the best ponies she could and place them in charge of things with her pursuing the big picture. I saw that she’d give special emphasis to the sciences and mathematics, such that her imperius respublica would be a shining beacon of technological progress. I saw a prosperous and great empire under the benevolent moon princess teeming with creativity and industry.”

“Sounds mighty…”

“I also told her that I saw her reverting to drumhead justice out of necessity, and because that’s what she knows best,” Nightmare continued, cutting across Applejack. “Regimentation and summary justice are the hallmarks of a military existence and would be what a field general knew best, but create a grisly and terrible civilian government. An imperial republic, ruled by a good princess with the instincts of a field general, regimenting the entirety for efficiency and effectiveness, justice fair but brutal and utterly amoral--that is what I saw in the distant future of a government built from scratch by Luna, instead of an established one being ruled by her. Luna is a very self-aware pony, and she recognized enough of my prediction in the mirror that she took it very seriously and dismissed any further notion of leaving Equestria.”

“So ya shaded it ta make it more convincing.”

Nightmare frowned but nodded, slightly reluctantly. “I… suppose I did. But my take on my predictions only slightly influenced her; it was the content that made the decision. I am gifted in manipulation but especially with highly intelligent allies, I can’t invent truth or half-truth or I lose any trust they might have had in me.”

“Eeyup.” Applejack agreed. “So y’all realized that ya needed ta get Luna to the moon with the Elements…”

“Yes. So we retrieved the missing three Elements and ensured that Celestia would discover them. A confrontation was arranged between a ‘maddened’ Luna wearing the shape I used to represent myself in the dreamscape and Celestia, and the results were precisely as the story said: Celestia focused the Elements on her sister and activated them. With the near-sapience that extremely magical artifacts acquire over time, the Elements determined what the damage was and that only Luna’s connection with the moon would be sufficient to repair her. Because the Elements are not sapient, they are a very crude instrument and made no distinction between the spirit they were trying to help, and the spirit connected to her by her consent.”

“So you were sent to the moon along with her.” Twilight’s eyes widened slightly. “The massive protective rune?”

“Yes,” Nightmare smiled. “Once we were deposited there, we pooled our resources to set up a massive runic construct to focus the moon’s inherent magic on Luna and put four stars in place on a predictable decay so that they’d act as a sort of… alarm clock for when I calculated that Luna would be fully restored and the focused power would be enough to break the Elemental hold. On the moon, in direct contact with her place of maximum power, my presence did Luna no harm and so over a thousand years, Luna existed in her own waking dream and I with her.”

“Bet that was hard,” Pinkie said. “No one to talk to, no parties, just a bunch of rocks and stuff.”

Nightmare laughed. “Oh, Pinkie, do you really think that we spent more than a moment on that dull rock tapping our hooves together? We couldn’t leave the moon, but Luna experienced the sojourn as a long dream and I was a being so old as to be practically ageless, with all the accumulated memories and experiences to go with it.”

“So… massive vacay?”

“Massive vacay,” Nightmare confirmed. “Being a tourist in my own memories was distinctly odd, but reliving all the best times with Luna made the thousand years fly by at unbelievable speed. We’d often touch back on the real world and to our delight, the night-touched ponies that were part of Luna’s forces had departed Equestria under Celestia’s protection and found their way to the nascent Scarabi. The changelings had found this mountain and were a prospering nation-state in their own right, and the septarchy had been consolidated down to a single queen descending from the great and noble Amaryss.” She gave Rarity an apologetic look. “I regret to admit that an order of assassins forming in my name was… not quite so pleasant to me. I always appreciated the sentiment, and with Luna’s permission gave the assassins limited conditional support, but I’ve never been comfortable with bloodshed. I accept it as a cost of attaining certain goals and I’m hardly uncomfortable with it, but ponies killing in my name was an unpleasant development, especially since not a single assassin knew who I was or anything about me. The assassins venerated a fiction, and ascribed things to that fiction that were… creative but false.”

“So all those times I prayed to the Nightmare Moon for success…?”

“...you received no aid,” Nightmare nodded. “As demonstrated by the fact that you were successful, you didn’t need it in the first place, but while I was somehow aware of being prayed to--and believe you me, it’s very strange to hear voices in your head asking for your help to kill someone--I rarely did anything. For the most part, I couldn’t, but I also had no inclination because my primary charge was the well-being of my sister.”

“So you stuck around because you liked her, not because you had no choice?” Dawn asked.

“That is correct.” Nightmare shrugged. “The Elements are immensely powerful but forcing any being of the Void to remain in a mortal place is a complex magical task. Forcing us out is quite simple, and there are so many effective ways to accomplish it that I couldn’t even begin to describe them all, but forcibly anchoring us here is something that the Elements could only do if specifically directed--and Celestia didn’t realize that I was an individual until after the defeat of the Guardian. Nor could any of you have known and I’m not sure what you could have done if you had, seeing as how you had no comprehension of what I was.”

“What of the gauntlet you forced them to run upon your return?” All of them, including Nightmare, turned as Chrysalis spoke for the first time since Nightmare had begun her story. “I understand that you forced them to endure physical danger and other trials. If you meant no harm, why do that? Why attack six ponies who did nothing to you and weren’t even aware of what the Elements would do?”

“More theater,” Nightmare replied. “Long before the four stars sent Luna back, I’d determined that Celestia was a very changed mare and I convinced Luna that while she had not won the rebellion, the Equestria we were going back to would be the more just place she’d fought for. The problem was that Celestia remained convinced that she was in the grip of dark powers that were making a monster of the sister she loved, and Luna couldn’t resume her place until she had been saved from the wicked Nightmare. Celestia was looking for her sister’s salvation, so we gave her Luna’s salvation. With my vast experience and Luna’s intimate understanding of the Elements, we knew where they were and roughly what they’d do. We actually planned for Celestia to be the one who showed up to the fight; neither of us ever imagined that a young magi, a gifted assassin, and four other extraordinary mares would venture into the Everfree after the Elements.”

“So ya didn’t see us comin’.” Applejack eyed her. “Yet ya seemed to have it all laid out right from the get-go.”

“Luna is a frontline field general; I’m the most ancient of all nightmares and rely entirely on my ability to form complex plans on the fly to gain my vessels. Between us, we improvised very well.” Nightmare grinned. “At the risk of sounding like a braggart, it was one of the more complicated situations I’ve ever encountered. The obstacles had to be dangerous, but not so much that they’d kill or maim. The Bearers each had to overcome an obstacle that would require them to manifest their individual virtue, without that obstacle being too obvious. Finally, we had to ensure that you succeeded, without in any tipping our hand, all the while standing by to intervene if anything went amiss. The one thing we didn’t anticipate was that the Elements wouldn’t separate me from Luna, but instead trap me in an isolated corner of her spirit in a dormant state. My theory, purely a theory, is that the Elements were tightly-focused enough to make a distinction but treated me as a mental disorder to be suppressed and bound rather than a parasite to be excised. So I remained until Rejnu arranged for Luna to be smothered in Void energy, reversing the work of the Elements and making me akin to the vessel’s owner and Luna akin to a nightmare feeding off of me, although she was made dormant the way I had been.”

“And from there, you plotted Rejnu’s downfall.” Rarity smiled. “I’m afraid you’ve gone quite native, darling.”

“Of all the places to ‘go native’, this is one of the best.” Nightmare grimaced slightly. “But I wasn’t plotting her downfall; I knew perfectly well that there was no need. I was plotting the exposure and destruction of her largest pawn, trusting that Archangel Aon would take care of Rejnu. Einspithiana may have already informed you of this, but the fall of the Guardian was partly because Aon executed Rejnu for her deceptions. With the death of the black minister at the heart of the macinations and the destruction of the Guardian, any sort of magical meddling with I and Luna was dissolved and I decided that my sojourn in Equestria had lasted as long as I had any right to respect. I feared that to stay with Luna would mean that she would be fated to be confined to the moon again, and over my long time in her presence, I came to love her like a sister… and so I let her go.”

“And yet here you are.” Tettidora commented. “More work of this Vorka you spoke of?”

“Vorka creates his playthings by cutting, and stitching, and forming things that are already alive into the shapes he wishes; making something from nothing is beyond him.” Nightmare took in a breath. “Part of the agreement that comes with my having an actual flesh-and-blood form, a distinct manifestation of myself that’s unique to me, is that I do not speak of my benefactor. They wish to remain unseen in this contest, even by their allies, and required this small price from me. I am still as much a nightmare as I ever was, but I no longer need to deal for a vessel, for this one is and always will be mine. I don’t believe my benefactor would undo this if I broke my word but after so long honoring my agreements to the letter, I’m not sure I’m capable of it anymore.”

“So the fact that you strongly resemble Luna isn’t a coincidence.”

“No, it’s not.” Nightmare spread one of her wings and ran a hoof over her plumage with a smile. “Luna is really a very beautiful mare, although even more lovely within. I’ll freely admit that the chance to share a form I found so attractive was certainly one motivation for my choice. My benefactor seemed to have anticipated it and also had some notion of how I appeared in that dream-realm, because they had already created it in full by the time they sought me out and offered the gift with the condition I mentioned.”

“Do you know why?” Tetti asked.

“So I could spoil this Evil’s plan the way I spoiled Rejnu’s,” Nightmare grinned toothily. “I dare say that with the entirety of the Barrens united under the changelings, our five guests secured against any further wickedness on Tharalax’ part, and a watch put on the Evil’s works in Equestria proper, we are well on our way to being prepared for what’s coming.”

“What about the Griffin Provinces?” Twilight said.

Nightmare’s brow furrowed. “There’s an agent of the Evil there and Lashaal is on her way but to our knowledge, that agent has laid low and done nothing. We suspect…”

“The Provinces are completely bucked, Nightmare,” Dawn interrupted. “We got some sorta illusion-message from Luna attached to a star somehow and she said that they’ve arrived but Spite went off to put down this agent of the Evil. Can’t imagine she’d skip straight to ‘kill it’ unless it’s really bad up there. Luna said the Evil calls himself ‘Master’ and was keeping somethin’ called a ‘zambet’...”

“Vorka,” Nightmare snarled with a flare of her irises..

Dawn and Twilight looked at one another. “You got that just from what he calls himself?”

“And what he was keeping,” Nightmare worked her jaw. “Zambets are unfathomably few and incredibly dangerous even to other creatures of the Void. I’ll bet it was his payment, the rarest of all possible beasts to experiment on and use for his playthings.” She paused. “Wait, did you say he was keeping this zambet?”

“Lashaal let it out of its cage,” Pinkamena said quietly. “Luna said that it’s been conditioned to hunt Twilight specifically, and she’s trying to hunt and kill it before it escapes the Provinces.”

A dead silence greeted Pinkie’s announcement, Nightmare’s expression frozen between rage and horror, Tettidora frowning, and Chrysalis looking angry, her wings twitching in agitation.

“It’s bad, isn’t it?” Twilight said quietly.

“Zambets are like klesaes except sapient, sadistic, and vastly more deadly,” Nightmare said, just as quietly. “Their name means ‘smile’ because they appear in the fever-dreams they induce in their victim as a reflection in a mirror but with an impossibly large and sharp-toothed smile, and once they’ve latched on, they force the victim’s face into a matching smile, utterly mutilating it. They love to cackle and taunt with the victim’s own voice, and the fever-dreams they induce are unending nightmares designed to destroy all hope so they can feed on the despair and shred the soul. With a strong enough victim, they can spread the nightmare outside the body and pull others into it; zambet desolation typically spreads to swallow entire cities before a strong enough power intervenes and brings divine wrath upon the animal. By then, however, there are rarely more than a few survivors out of tens or even hundreds of thousands.”

“So a weapon of mass destruction,” Chrysalis said. “Capture a zambet, turn it loose in a place, and it will wipe out your enemies by the legions.”

“Fortunately, the Void beings cunning enough to reach that conclusion are too arrogant to stoop to such crude methods, and the ones vicious enough aren’t that cunning,” Nightmare said. “More fortuitously, the zambet are the only remaining beasts of the Void with the power to murder millions for each one of their kind that falls. But that doesn’t change anything now… this one is here, and I know that Luna wouldn’t inform us of its target unless she knew it of a surety.”

“What’s needed to slay them?” Tetti asked.

“Considerable amounts of Light-infused magic,” Nightmare replied. “Certain artifacts scribed and infused for that express purpose. Clothed in flesh as I am, I can touch the creation side of Darkness and even if I can’t entirely destroy it, I can inflict grievous hemorrhaging wounds on it. But zambets are ambush predators, relying on never being seen before they strike so the problem to address isn’t so much slaying it as finding it.”

“So long as they are here, that won’t be an issue,” Chrysalis said. “Due to Nightmare’s runic barrier, I can extend my magical awareness of my center of power beyond the gates slightly, and Void beings have a very distinctive magical ‘scent’. Not as much you, Nightmare, but certainly Tharalax.”

“Tharalax is a void dragon; he couldn’t hide himself even if he wanted to, and few void dragons fear any mortal. The zambet will be immensely more subtle.” Nightmare smiled slightly. “Fortunately, a zambet has the same limitations on leaping through the Void as anything else: it must know where it wants to go and know it in very, very exact detail. I sincerely doubt that even as being as ingenious as Vorka could have devised a way for the zambet to know where Twilight is at all times, and in enough detail to step through the Void to attack her.”

“Still, I would like to assign a Throne Guard to each room. They cannot extend their sense as far but within the space they guard, they are specifically trained to build a web of the most subtle magic to act as tripwires for anything attempting to enter without their knowledge.” Chrysalis gave a curt nod in the direction of one of the doors, presumably to an Honor Guard, and turned her eyes back to the discussion. “Other measures can be devised if necessary.”

“I suppose it’s all we can do at this time,” Nightmare nodded. “I don’t doubt my sister for a moment, and I’m certain her hunt will bear fruit. However, I’ve long since given up on merely hoping for the best.”

“After the exile, I don’t think I or any of my predecessors have ever contented ourselves with mere hope.” Chrysalis stretched a little. “Now, if there’s nothing else of your story, my friend…?”

“There are always more details, but I’ve said what I wish to say for now.” Nightmare smiled warmly and gave Chrysalis a bow of her head.

“Good.” Chrysalis turned to the five of them. “I know that Lepinora alluded to a great plan we have for our reunion with Equestria, and I know that she would have promised you details as soon as you could get them directly from I and Tettidora. Given the circumstances, I think it’s best that we discuss a plan going forward for the defense of…”

“I’m afraid I need to interrupt any discussion on that topic, Mother,” Lepinora said from behind them. “Word has just come by relay from Ponyville about the situation with the suspected atermors.”

“A… atermors?” Twilight swallowed.

“Yes, I’ll explain in a moment.” Lepinora looked and sounded very grave. “The plague is completely out of control, exploding in every major Equestrian city almost simultaneously, and it’s an expertly-engineered plague, far outside what Nightmare led us to expect the atermors are capable of.”

“Vorka.” Nightmare sighed this time. “Of course the master of this entire affair would require much more of him than managing the affairs of the Provinces arm of the plan.”

“I can’t speak to that,” Lepi said. “But it’s already moving to its final infection stage within a day of the initial explosions. For reasons unknown, their efforts are centering in Ponyville and at last report, the town was under attack by the plague-spawn of the atermors.”

Luna: Smile

“What manner of creature are you, Nacht?”
In the dreamscape, the black-coated alicorn with intense dragon eyes of aquamarine that Nachtmiri Mein used to represent herself looked at Luna. There was the barest hint of sadness and anger in her expression, and given how tightly she controlled shows of emotion, even the barest hints leaking through spoke volumes. “A monster, Selune,” she replied in a voice that was silky and pleasant, especially here where she could sound however she wished. “My kind are nightmares, and thus monsters. We are Evils, and thus monsters. But you know you have naught to fear from me.”
“So you have said, and proven.” Luna couldn’t help herself, smiling a little at Nachtmiri’s nickname for her. “Your kind cannot be that severe of monsters if you can so comfortably work with me.”
“Time, more than I can ever comprehend, has made me more gentle than the others but you are correct: nightmares are among the least vicious of Evils.” Nact smiled back, exposing gleaming carnivorous teeth that always seemed strangely unthreatening despite their visible sharpness. “Being among mortals, even as predators of them, has tempered our wickedness. Need breeds an empathy with the prey, however miniscule, and malice vanishes.”
“The least vicious.” Luna paused to consider this. Having seen Nacht at work, putting down the more unruly Everfree animals with brief but extreme brutality, that Nacht was among the least vicious was chilling. “What are the most then?”
Nacht closed her eyes and took a breath, a shudder of revulsion rippling over her lean form. “Beings of such depth and breadth and power that not even I speak of them. Cunning, sapient, sadistic, murdering by the thousands for pleasure. Living diseases, thinking weapons, utter abominations, formed from the blackest of souls.”
“Poetic but unspecific,” Luna noted.
“It is not something that will help you my friend,” the nightmare said, opening her eyes and once again meeting Luna’s with her slightly glowing irises. “And you are well aware of the important matters before us.”
“Dreams are without time and they pass as quickly or as slowly as I wish,” Luna countered. “Why not step away from business and enlighten your ally?”
“Selune, at the level I exist, mere knowledge is power.” Nacht sighed. “And it’s a power that can be felt to a degree, and it’s in the nature of the most vicious and wicked to seek out mortals who have this knowledge, the better to gorge themselves on the fear and pain of a being that knows them and knows their legend. I could draw the worst of them to you, and I will not.”
“Do not you draw them?”
Nacht snorted. “Let us just say that the creatures I will not speak of do not want to join their fellows among my trophies.”
“I could easily start a collection of my own.” Luna grinned.
Nacht eyed her before grinning back. “Selune, you are easily my favorite vessel in millenia. Tell you what: when the campaign is finished and you are crowned, we shall begin your collection. But for now, let us discuss our next step in winning you that crown.”

“You spoke of knowing this zambet’s habits,” Luna said to Grymmilnia. “So where would it go first?”

“The way the stories go, lookin’ for munchies,” the nightmare said promptly. “Loves fear and pain, an’ loves it from things that scream real loud if it can find ‘em. Just cuz it has ta head after Sparkle doesn’t mean it ain’t gonna have its fun.”

“Flutters?” Dash gulped.

“Too pathetic,” Grymmilnia said. “One little push an’ she’d snap. Barely a taste ta the smilin’ shit. I mean, maybe it gets somethin’ more fun outta the other two and stays, but Smiles ain’t gotten old bein’ stupid.”

“You know, she’s gotten less scaredy-cat since Gilda last knew her,” Rainbow said with a touch of annoyance.

Grymmilnia rolled her eyes. “Dash, it’d break you in two seconds flat and yer made of fucking steel inside. She ain’t wired for this shit; she ain’t ever gonna be. And you should be happy ‘bout it cuz Smiles ain’t gonna grab a mortal that’s so fragile she ain’t gonna be fun an’ tasty. Bein’ made of glass an’ tears is a defense against a zambet, as bucked as that sounds.”

“They don’t seek out the weak first then?” Luna asked.

“Naw, they pick out the strongest one they can get and have fun,” the nightmare growled. “Can’t even tell ya how many projects got bucked by that. Fucking blessing that they’re abominations, so they get the special attention of a predator that does the same thing they do.”

“What, somethin’ eats ‘em?”

“Naw, kills ‘em an’ makes sure everyone gets ta see it done.” She shuddered. “Relentless buckers, scarily good at it.”

“Singleminded, and a little fanatic,” Luna nodded. “Spite alluded to them in passing. Said she wished she could have called upon their expertise when she saved Rainbow’s life but feared that they’d react violently in some way.”

Grymmilnia snorted. “What a load of horseshit.”

Luna blinked. “What?”

“I said it like I mean it: it’s horseshit, Princess. Ein lives with ‘em; they ain’t any more nuts than anyone else. Fixated, yea. A bit dumb about some stuff, yeah But getting violent cuz their friend of a buck-jillion years rung ‘em up and asked for a solid? Not even Evils that hate ‘em would buy that.”

“So what yer telling us is, she lied her plot off.” Dash smirked. “Sure.”

The altered griffiness smirked at her before looking at Luna. “So, you an’ Nachtmiri… buds, yeah? Friends?”

“We… were,” Luna admitted, purposefully avoiding looking at Rainbow, certain that the next time they had time in private, she’d be explaining much more than the changelings.

“She ever lay out for ya how knowledge works? How it’s power? How it can be felt?”

Luna sighed and nodded. “So knowing the truth would have been dangerous to us?”

“Hell if I know,” Grymilnnia shrugged. “If she gives a shit and she thinks so… yeah, lyin’ a bit woulda made sense. For all I know, I could be bucking ya over by tellin’ ya, but I ain’t no friend of theirs so… prolly not.”

“So what yer saying is… freaks like you can feel it when someone knows something?”

“Hey, give the girl some credit… she can understand Equiish.” Grym smirked at Dash before looking back to Luna.

“So how could us knowing about these hunters or whatever cause a problem?” Rainbow asked before Grym could say anything to Luna.

The mutate opened her muzzle to reply, stopped, and furrowed her brow thoughtfully.

“It would have revealed where she was,” Luna offered. “Only one person could tell us the true nature of these predators; anyone else would tell us something like she did. Perhaps she didn’t want anyone who’s listening to know where she was until it was impossible to conceal it anymore.”

“Makes sense to me,” Grymmilnia nodded. “Sorta tracks with how I hear Ein is. But anyway, back to zambet basics: can get directly into yer head from a reflection of yer face, or just does a snatch ‘n’ grab when it’s all dark out. Don’t give a fuck that everyone knows they’re there and makes sure ya never forget ‘em even if you can kick ‘em out. Big ol’ scars goin’ from mouth ta ears, cuz yanno, smile.”

“Sadistic.”

“By a mile and then some,” Grym agreed. “It’s what they do. Or at least what they’re reputed to do.”

Luna eyed the mutate. “I’m noticing that you’re saying things like that a lot. Reputed, how the stories go, what you hear about someone. How much do you actually know about this creature?”

“More than all but, like, a dozen or so in the entire Void,” Grym replied a bit defensively. “Which… um… ain’t much ta brag about. Zambets are kinda like myths, yanno? I mean, we all know they exist but they keep clear of everyone cuz we’re not prey. What I can tell ya is what everyone agrees on, but I ain’t got direct experience. Talkin’ to it, yeah, but it stays invisible.”

“And who might be among that dozen or so that actually knows about zambets?”

“The top dogs mainly,” Grym answered. “Most of ‘em cuz zambets ain’t good about leaving well enough alone. Actually why there’s not lots of ‘em: they stomp all over the territory of somethin’ bigger and meaner an’ that bigger and meaner stomps them.”

“Like Nacht,” Luna said. “She… once mentioned collecting many trophies.”

“Um, question Luna,” Dash said.

Certain she knew what it’d be, Luna gave the pegasus a nod.

“Why pretend Nightmare ain’t always been awesome and noble?” Rainbow asked. “For that matter, what’s with the ponypies that’re in that book of legends? I mean, she doesn’t seem like the most sweet-natured and kind sorta pony but just about everything everypony knew was a bunch of horseapples.”

Luna blinked. Huh… thought she’d be more surprised. But then she dismissed the thought with a mental wave of her hoof; of course Dash would guess that the Nachtmiri Mein she’d met during the affair of the Guardian was how Nacht had always been. “It was her contingency,” she replied as the exit to the complex came into view ahead of them. “If our plans had failed, she wanted to be certain I’d be seen as the victim and be accepted home as the poor, innocent little sister who’d made a tragic mistake. From her contingency came the foal’s tale, the mythology around Nightmare Moon, and my own dear sister’s continuing belief that Nightmare is an apparition my power gave rise to, rather than the ancient being of incredible power she is.”

“Bet she loved you,” Grym chuckled. “Ain’t just a cooperative vessel, but one happy ta collaborate with her.”

“It was more like, she collaborated with me,” Luna said. “I had a particular goal and she offered to assist me.” She paused. “And yes, I think she did love me like a sister, at least towards the end of our partnership.”

“Yeah, sorta got that from her ‘I wish we could have been sisters’ goodbye.” Rainbow sighed. “Totally uncool that we couldn’t keep her around… bet all these Evils buckers would be steering way clear if we had five princesses.”

“Six actually,” Luna corrected her. “While I was… away, Tia adopted a little alicorn foal named Cadence so she’s technically a princess as well. Sweet girl, specializes in the magic of love, but she’s been studying in Bitaly for several years so not many ponies know of her.” She smiled. “Actually foalsat Twilight for most of her growing-up years, and the two were like sisters before Cadence graduated from my sister’s magic academy and went abroad.”

“Alicorn foal?” Grym repeated. “Uh, ain’t ya all like either magically ascended or alicorns by blood?”

Luna shrugged. “Tia only knows that Cadence was born with the mix of earth, pegasus, and unicorn magic that all alicorns share. She was being cared for by a unicorn couple who’d fostered her but neither they nor the orphanage knew where she’d come from. The couple was grateful to commit her to my sister’s care because they weren’t sure how to raise an alicorn, although Tia assures me that they were doing their absolute best. Tragically, both died during a prairie fire--they lived in the Appleloosa area--so Cadence has essentially been Tia’s for her entire life.”

“How come we haven’t ever heard of her?” Rainbow asked.

“I’m actually surprised Twilight hasn’t mentioned her to you… as I said, they were like sisters.” Luna reached the entrance to the laboratory and looked out over the arid dunes of the Griffin Provinces. With her moon still drifting towards its apex on its nightly dance, eerie shadows from plant and dune alike stretched before them. The bare sand glowed softly with silvery light, bright and clear enough that Luna had no need of her ordinary night vision.

“Sorta a shame we don’t have lots of sand near Ponyville, Luna.” Rainbow said in an awed voice. “This is awesome.”

“Yeah, great visual effects.” Grymmilnia looked out over the dunes pensively. “Ain’t gonna help us track down Smiles, though, and ain’t gonna let us see it when we find it.”

Luna looked at her. “You referred to needing some manner of special sight to actually see this zambet?”

“Yeah.”

“What manner of sight, specifically?”

Grym shrugged. “I dunno. Somethin’ only those freaky hunters have. They call it a ‘second sight’ and the legend is that they can actually see yer soul an’ figure out how much Dark an’ Light an’ Void magic ya got floatin’ around inside ya. Dunno how it works but never heard of anything that can hide from it.”

“So they can see the flow of magic within a living thing…” Luna mused.

“Bucked if I know, Princess,” Grym shrugged again. “I’m a thug, not an egghead.”

“All I require is that you be informative.” Luna took a deep breath and closed her eyes, beginning to systematically shut out her surroundings--Grymmilnia, Rainbow, the laboratory, the sand, a low pulsating hiss ahead of her, the cool breeze of an arid land at night, the scent of rare desert blooms, and other sensory distractions--and focus only on the wafting flow of magical connection between herself and her moon. Even when her moon was hidden during the day, the flow of power was still a steady river but rising to its apex during her night, that river became a raging torrent and one Luna could easily direct. At this moment, she wished that power to sink into her eyes and infuse them with an unnatural clarity that showed her not only the sight of the arid plains but what was under, over, behind and beside that sight.

The dunes pulsated with thrumming power, red like blood and burning like fire. Her night was a sea of black silk through which fierce embers rippled and surged, and her moon was a sphere of utterly flawless silver over which living color writhed and pulsed. Bracing herself for the oddness that often accompanied directing the ‘Deep Sight’ over another person, Luna turned her gaze on her two companions.

Rainbow appeared to the Sight as a dragon but a creature of speed and agility rather than of raw brute power. Scales so fine as to seem like sparkling skin clad a lithe, sinuous predator of lethal grace and amethyst eyes fierce with focus and a determination that shone from her expression. Her mane was as flowing flame in rainbow hues although her wings didn’t match the rest of her at all, appearing to be made of gleaming obsidian rather than living flesh and Luna could see pulsating black stitches securing them to Rainbow’s body, large and rough but nonetheless solid. Luna wasn’t the least bit surprised to see that Loyalty clad Rainbow’s form like ancient armor, plates of glowing ruby covering her as if made to fit none other.

Grymmilnia took her breath away. It wasn’t that the hybrid creature Master had made was breathtakingly beautiful--although considerable attention had been given to the aesthetics of the creation--but it was instantly apparent that the tortured monstrous chobbath Grym had thrown against them when they first met her was the product of Master’s sadism rather than his effort. The forms of griffin and Void dragon had been melded artfully, each feature melting into the next, each form looking totally natural and organic. The stitching, what Luna took as a visual metaphor for the act of splicing, was miniscule, tight, professional, almost impossible to see. The only dissonance was in the eyes: the right eye, clearly representing Grymmilnia moved and blinked noticeably out of synch with a very griffin left eye. Gilda Grimfeathers’ eye held a look of helplessness, but there was no despair or surrender, but boiling rage at being a captive within Grymmilnia’s melded form. Luna felt herself smile a little; the prospect of being able to tell Rainbow that her friend was very much within the mutated griffin and was not broken by any stretch of the imagination cheered her slightly.

“Seein’ anything, yer Majesty?” Grymmilnia asked.

“Quite a bit, but none of it putting us on the trail of this zambet,” Luna said with a light sigh. “It’s vexing to have no trace of my…” She stopped as a sound she’d heard before changed, the pulsating hiss ever so slightly louder than it had been moments before, when she’d shut it out.

“...my prey,” she continued after a moment, studiously keeping her head still and ears forward so that the source of the hiss wouldn’t suspect she’d heard it. “Even under the deep sight, which I believe to be the same manner of vision the hunters you speak of use.”

“Well, it ain’t supposed ta be a trackin’ thing so… guess ya can’t really expect much different. So whatcha gonna do now?”

“I say we go find Flutters,” Rainbow said. “I know, I know, she’s too weak to make it interested but I don’t feel like just hopin’ you’re right.”

“I agree,” Luna said, noting the increase in volume of the hissing as if whatever was making it had gotten closer. “Now that we know this… beast is out there, we should ensure Kindness’ safety.”

Grym blinked. “Ya mean Fluttershy, right?”

“They’re synonymous,” Luna said.

“So ya brought two of the Elements north with ya along with Ein.” Grym smirked. “Super, now we know where Smiley’s goin’.”

Rainbow looked sharply at her. “Thought ya said…”

“Well, I didn’t know she was carryin’ one of the Elements, now did I?” Grym’s smirk became a grimace. “That kinda raw power is like tyin’ a steak ta a pony an’ throwin’ ‘em at sharks. Takin’ down one of the Elements, eatin’ the Bearer, would be a big deal ta the smilin’ shit. Worse, if it eats it, it’ll have it and I don’t wanna know what Smiley’d do with that kinda juice.”

“Hopefully, we shan’t need to find out,” Luna said. “The light of my moon illuminates all things and shortly, it will illuminate my prey.”

While Grymmilina had been explaining that bearing an Element would likely draw the zambet to Fluttershy, Luna had been mentally keeping track of the pulsating hiss and heard its direction shift downwards even as an oily, repulsive magical radiance oozed passed her, brushing against the heels of her rear hooves. This meant that the creature, which Luna was certain was this zambet, had now drawn close enough and she visualized the exact position and angle that her shadow-blade would need to be in for a first strike. The next action took place at the speed of thought and well-honed instinct, the product of thousands of hours pressing body and mind into the service of a single terrible blow to start a fight: the blade jumped into existence, just as Luna twisted around towards where she heard the sound, just as the blade whipped forward, just as an unnaturally sharp edge parted sand--and then equally unnatural flesh.

Luna wasn’t sure how the creature that came boiling out of the sand had evaded her deep sight but whatever concealment it had before seemed to have been dissipated when it was struck. It seemed to have no set form, black and oily and flowing over the sand like watery tar as it tried to create distance between her and itself. Luna leapt after it, materializing her second blade and slashing down across the creature and drawing a bubbling line across it before the wounded flesh sank into the creature’s liquid mass.

Although it had no features, Luna had a sense that the mass had turned to look at her and a breath later, the liquid mass was gone and in its place was a unicorn, a shockingly familiar one. If the zambet had attempted to imitate Twilight as an alicorn, the deception might have surprised Luna long enough for one of the creature’s thread-thin appendages to strike her; as it was, Luna flared her wings and threw herself out of its grasp before it could as the error registered in her mind.

The zambet narrowed its eyes as she reacted and the pretense vanished: ordinary amethyst eyes became glowing violet holes in a head suddenly made narrower, sharper, and stretched into a predatory and impossible grin. “Skin” clung to bone starkly and tentacles with smaller appendages slinking off of them flowed out of the thing’s back. It sidestepped left, watching Luna intently, the tiny threads of Void energy snaking forward again. Luna watched the zambet back, looking directly at the glowing holes that were its eyes, before she casually gathered energy from her moon and sent it towards the oncoming threads in a subtle wave of magic.

The attack may have been subtle but the results were anything but: the zambet’s pulsating hiss of a voice spiked sharply and it recoiled as the threads of Void energy vaporized with an ominous sizzle. Luna gave the grinning creature a small malicious smile of her own as she gathered more power and sent it at the beast in the same kind of subtle wave. It backpedaled and then leapt above the wave, the tentacles on its back twitching and writhing and seeming to serve the same function as wings. To Luna’s surprise, it actually charged at her, rictus grin opening into a mouth filled with a double-row of sharp teeth and the pulsating hiss turning into something that sounded disturbingly like a death rattle. With deft, long-practiced motions, she released her sword constructs and wove what Nacht had liked to call her “kill wires”, ropes of deadly razor energy that let her cut and grasp as necessary. With unconscious ease, she sent the constructs whipping at the oncoming zambet, neatly severing its tentacles and causing it to tumble face-first into the sand.

This is the terrifying and fearsome zambet? Luna snorted as she strolled towards the fallen creature, struggling to its feet and spitting out sand. A simple beast easily toyed with? Her eyes narrowed. Something is wrong.

And just like that, between one blink and the next, she was looking into glowing holes in a skeletal head and the oily repulsive presence was caressing over her face and coiling around her head to keep it still.

“Impressive,” the zambet said in a voice that could easily have been mistaken for Twilight’s, but for the death-rattle noise in between each spoken word. “Disbelief in mere minutes, and more than that certain disbelief. Such rapidity that the delusion had not even the time to form or even to settle into the mind, and what a delusion I would have made it.”

Luna tried to pull away from the menacingly sharp teeth but found that the zambet had somehow immobilized her head. In fact, as she thought about it, she realized she couldn’t feel anything below her neck, and her eyes darted downwards involuntarily.

“Amazing the useful things you learn from crazed former primes with scientific fixations,” the zambet remarked idly. “Especially in the science of anatomy and related disciplines. But at this moment, I care far less about how your body is put together. Let’s see how this beautiful, powerful, delectable mind is formed.”

“...’delectable’?” Luna repeated.

With its face largely frozen into the impossible sharp grin, it was hard to discern expressions but the zambet seemed amused at this. “That I find minds delicious is what you pick out of that,” it remarked. “What a strange predilection, to derive that from a series of remarks, and have no fear for what it entails.” It paused and the glowing holes narrowed. “No fear, in fact, is abnormal. Abnormal to an extreme, an inexplicable extreme, a possibly hazardous extreme, a dangerously inexplicable extreme, dangerous for its inexplicability rather than extremity. Why would this one have no fear for its mind, which is its soul, for there is no soul when there is no mind? Yet you are not fearful.”

Inexplicably, Luna could feel the zambet’s touch sinking into her mind as a physical sensation, a light chill that seemed to setting in behind her eyes even though her logical mind knew that it wasn’t possible. The zambet tilted its head back and forth, its gaze drifting away from Luna’s eyes and darting about as if reading something that she couldn’t see. “You were… a vessel,” it said in a very strange tone. “But who?”

Luna stayed silent until her head was tilted upwards and the zambet stared into her eyes. “Who entwined with you? Speak its name.”

“Nachtmiri Mein,” Luna replied promptly, and to her own great surprise. How did…?

“Fine manipulation of the various motor neurons to vibrate the vocal cords and move the mouth, lips, and tongue in proper coordination to produce sounds,” the zambet said to her unasked question. “Memory is mere electrical impulse and I was vigorously educated in the intricacies thereof through the most unpleasant of means. But the name you speak has no meaning to me, clearly a chosen name rather than a true one. So we must probe deeper…”

She didn’t feel any additional sensation but as if the zambet had flipped some sort of switch, she was in a dark space with no ground but a sea of stars in every direction. My dreamscape… but… why would this creature wish to see…? She pushed her curiosity aside and tried to move out of her native realm… but found that she couldn’t. There was a strong sensation of a barrier in her thoughts, a presence pressing in on her mind from all sides but lightly, almost cradling. Having exercised the light touch often enough for a pony mind to help relieve them of their nightmares and given them rest, Luna readily recognized that whatever else this zambet creature was, it was highly skilled in the craft of mind magic.

Deciding that there was no point to pushing against the influence, at least not while the zambet could concentrate solely on keeping its hold, Luna resolved to wait until the creature’s attention was drawn elsewhere before trying to break its grip, and relaxed, mildly curious as to what the zambet was trying to accomplish by taking her to her own realm.

“Selune?” came a pleasant, melodious voice, husky and almost purring the words. It was a voice Luna knew all too well, along with the affectionate nickname Nacht had bestowed upon her. She felt herself turning her head and looking upon the tall and graceful visage Nacht always preferred in their face-to-face conversations.

“We have told thee to call us Luna,” she replied to the nightmare listlessly. “And thou agreed to leave us be, save when we call upon thee or give thee explicit leave before.”

“I am an amoral creature, Selune, but there are certain things that are the right things, and being present right now is a right thing,” Nacht said gently. “You are in pain and the only one of your kind that lives cannot help you.”

Luna felt herself looking steadily at Nacht before looking away. A memory then, she realized, and one that I remember all too well. “Tia cast them out,” she said. “All of them, to the last. Worse, she was so dedicated to it that she descended into utter recklessness. Amaryss is a shy soul and absolutely overflowing with goodwill but she is the Maternis Queen, very nearly as powerful as I or Tia. If her despair or anger was greater... “

“I know that you are sincere about your fears, Selune, but that is not why you are in pain,” Nacht observed, her presence within the dream-realm drawing near. “If you doubted that my word binds me unbreakably, you would never permit me even this. Speak your pain to me; it will only ever be between us.”

Also between you and one who can see into your past, ‘Selune’, the not-Twilight voice of the zambet said in her mental ear as the memory seemed to move through molasses. This visage, it is Nachtmiri Mein?

Silence, Luna responded instantly. You wish to learn about Nacht? Keep your tongue behind your teeth and watch.

Oh a spicy one, the zambet smirked as the memory returned to its former state.

“...all looked at one another and then began to follow her out,” memory-Luna told Nacht, who had come closer and was tentatively draping a consoling wing over her. “Tia actually had to ask them why! They’ve been the Royal Guard for centuries, and Tia had no idea why they’d leave their posts when she banished all changelings. The only one who cared turned as he was leaving and said ‘I need to tell my children that we have to leave the home that’s been in my family for four generations’.”

Nacht was silent at this for a long moment. “That hurt you.”

Dream-Luna turned and looked at her fiercely. “It would hurt anyone. Even… well, whatever manner of creature you are.”

Nacht looked steadily at her a moment, then away. “Your pain is mine, Selune, so long as I have your leave to be in your presence.” She turned and gave Luna another steady look. “What would you do about this pain then? Pain is a prod to action in anything that lives; I am not alive in the way you are, but even I know this.”

Memory-Luna started to reply and then stopped, suddenly uncertain. “I… am unsure.”

“I cannot blame you deeply for that, not when your wounds still bleed.” Nacht edged closer, her soft wing now a blanket over Luna’s barrel. “To help you, I’ll ask it this way then: If you could have anything, Princess Luna, what would it be?”

And so the bait is set and dangled, the zambet chuckled. She is ancient indeed; her presentation is flawless. This is where she solicits your terms so she might offer you her own.

It’s how a bargain is struck, Luna snorted. What of it?

A bargain, you say... the zambet trailed off thoughtfully. Are you quite certain?

She offered something and asked for something, Luna said. What else would it be?”

But why that word specifically? There are so many synonyms: deal, contract, negotiation… why the word ‘bargain’?

If Luna could have stared at the creature, she would. You’re wasting my time asking about her choice of…

Her choice, you say. Luna had the feeling that she’d somehow revealed something far more important than she could fully appreciate based on the tone of the beast’s ‘voice’. Mmm… well, let us continue on then.

While she and the zambet had conversed, the memory had become hazy and indistinct, possibly because the zambet couldn’t focus on both it and sparring with her. When it went silent, the memory came back into focus with Nacht leaned down to her so their eyes met, her expression serious and yet gentle.

“I can do this for you Luna,” she was saying. “We can do this for you.”

Luna held that dragon-eyed gaze for a moment before shifting her eyes away from the intensity in those turquoise irises. “And your price?”

“Mere living space in your mind and soul, Princess,” Nacht replied diffidently, as if this was a minor thing to ask. “I have no flesh of my own, and so must borrow yours to help you do this.”

Luna’s gaze went back to Nacht’s and she felt her eyes widen momentarily before narrowing again suspiciously. “Who are you that you promise me a crown and a throne, the crown and throne of my sister?”

“I am Nachtmiri Mein..”

And so I see my opponent in this. The memory stopped moving, and the visage of the zambet faded into it, circling the form Nacht used to represent herself in the dreamscape, looking over her curiously. But who are you, interloper?

I should think that’s obvious, Luna snorted. She just said who she is.

She said what she is called, the name she has taken for your benefit, the zambet corrected her, somehow managing to capture the slightly peevish scholarly air Twilight occasionally affected with eerie precision despite the ever-present death rattle. I must know who she is.

You must know? Luna looked steadily at the zambet flitting around dream-Nacht’s still form, thinking. Nacht left some manner of mark on me, didn't she? Something that stops you from pushing deeper.

Does it matter? The zambet’s grin changed subtly, enough to suggest a smirk. Whether I can invade your mind fully or not, you are still trapped in a box of my devising and can do naught but what I would have you do, and can see naught but what I would have you see. So long as I flit through your memories, the strongest warrior in all the Provinces is helpless and can neither aid the griffins nor shift her power against other threats in other places.

The zambet strolled over and the glowing holes filled Luna’s vision. Have you considered, Princess Luna, that Celestia’s whelp was to be my box of sweets, a reward for work well-done? That Vorka had a deeper plan for his.. the zambet chuckled ...pet zambet? That you were meant to raise your moon and then seek for me with vigor, sacrificing caution for speed? Yes, I should like to press deeper and yes, I find it highly disagreeable to consort and spar with a mortal and yes, I am as trapped in this cycle as you. But unlike you, there is no need for me to break free and be about my business.

My only matter of urgency was to stop you from harming my niece Luna informed the zambet with her own smirk. So long as you are in my memories, wasting away the time, you can do nothing to her.

The zambet’s eyes narrowed marginally. Yes, that is true. However, just because you have stopped me from harming this Twilight Sparkle does not mean you can stop me from getting my meal.

You mean to torment me by talking at me then?

Oh no, nothing like that. The zambet’s grin widened. You are ancient, Princess Luna, and a long life has a great deal of painful memory. Shall we?

Shall we idle away your time traveling through hardships that I have met, overcome, and survived? Shall you remind me of the troubles I’ve seen, and lived through, and have been made better by? Luna found herself smiling a little. Yes, let’s.

The zambet gave her a look of curiosity before visibly shrugging, seeming to accept this, and fading out of view. With its fading, the scene shifted abruptly and Luna found herself standing beside and behind Celestia, herself in her memory feeling ill at ease. It wasn’t hard to figure out what memories the zambet had chosen to start with; she’d as much as told it about the memory mere minutes ago. And in that moment, Luna realized something about the zambet: while Nacht had always conveyed the sense of understanding mortals and what it was like to be mortal, while Grymmilnia showed all the affectations of being alive and being able to convincingly imitate a mortal, the zambet might feed on mortals but didn’t understand them. That it selected a very old memory, an ancient wound that time and distance had healed, instead of a much newer pain that might still be raw pretty much proved it.

No matter how healed it was, though, Luna still felt a pang of sadness as the Royal Guard drew the doors to the throne room open and bowed deeply as Maternis Queen Amaryss walked through. It had been over a thousand years since she’d last seen a changeling but in their natural shapes, they were impossible to mistake for anything else. While all of them had a somewhat exotic look because of their chitinous coats, insect wings, and unusual horn shapes, Amaryss was unusually striking. Long violet hair streaked liberally with aquamarine, the double set of delicate dragonfly wings inherited through the royal line, and a slim carriage with a stature just barely shorter than Celestia’s made her stand out even among very attractive mares of her race.

And she could have easily stood in for Fluttershy, a shy and soft-spoken mare with the same habit of partly hiding her face behind her long mane when she grew nervous. There was no chance of such a thing this time, however: the Amaryss striding up the violet-trimmed golden carpet that led to the thrones walked with a purpose, green-streaked amethyst eyes visibly smoldering with power.

“What is this that I hear of an exile, Celestia?” She demanded before either sister could formally greet and acknowledge her; memory-Luna and Luna herself both gave a small shiver at the dangerous tightness of her lightly vibrato voice.

“We did not grant Thee permission to speak as Our equal, Maternis Queen, nor did We grant thee audience” Celestia replied, the same dangerous tightness in her tone with an undertone of boiling fury.

“I need no such thing, Princess,” Amaryss snarled. “Thou and thy sister are even the rulers of my people, but have neither traditional nor proper cause to demand obsequiousness of me. Answer me, Celestia.”

“Thou art aware of the crimes which thy people hath committed against Our people?”

Amaryss eyes narrowed very slightly and the smoldering brightened slightly. “I am aware of the evils the other races have committed against mine, Celestia. I am also aware of the evils my race has committed against the others. But I am most certainly aware that the criminals are but a handful and that most are innocent. What is this I hear of exile?”

“We have decided that it must be done Queen Amaryss,” Celestia told her “Thou and thy kind shall leave Equestria and travel to the lands beyond the eastern Everfree.”

Amaryss gaped at her. “You… you would banish my kind to the badlands? To an empty, waterless, arid waste?”

Luna felt her memory-self recoil and stare at Celestia, and within herself, she shook her head in dismay. Oh, Tia… she sighed.

Celestia ignored the look from her sister, her eyes remaining fixed on Amaryss. “There is no other place not traversed by others, nor claimed by them. And Our royal surveyors have told Us that there are places of refuge to be found.”

Amaryss stared at her a moment longer before her expression became hard. “What you require is unjust beyond anything I’ve ever heard. Exiling us to the east is just the same as killing us. And for what, Celestia? Because my race has done evil by the others? Because the others have done evil by us?”

“We believe there will be no peace for Our little ponies until there is a separation,” Celestia said.

Amaryss looked at her for a moment before looking right into Luna’s eyes. “And you, Princess Luna, diarch of Equestria? Is this your wish as well?”

Memory-Luna stepped back a half-step, surprised at being addressed directly, before clearing her throat. “We stand with our sister in this.”

Amaryss looked steadily at her long enough for memory-Luna and Luna herself to feel uncomfortable before a brief look of pity passed over the changeling queen’s features before she looked back at Celestia. “Thy and thy sister are ever our princesses, Celestia. My people will do as you will and when a time comes when Equestria is endangered and her most devoted servant are lost to her, you will weep bitterly for what you might have kept and chose to throw away.”

Amaryss bowed deeply and elegantly before turning and beginning to walk back to the doors; without hesitation, the Royal Guard fell into line behind her, two trotting up beside her and having the queen’s delicate wings lay gently on their backs.

“Guard, there is no need to escort Queen Amaryss,” Celestia said.

Memory-Luna took a sharp breath inwards as the Guard and Queen both turned back to her. The Guards made no attempt to hide aghast expressions before one of the ones that had been standing beside the thrones took a step towards her. “Your Majesty, we’re not escorting our queen, we’re leaving with her. Your orders are that all changelings leave your lands, and we will obey our princess’ orders.” He took a breath inwards and turned away again, voice heavy with sadness. “I need to tell my children that we have to leave the home that’s been in my family for four generations.”

Amaryss patted him on the shoulder before looking back at Celestia. “I trust that you have no issue with my people taking their families?” she asked in a tone of voice that made it very clear that it would be dangerous to say ‘no’.

“No need for peace would justify destroying families, Amaryss,” Celestia replied in an affronted tone.

“Good.” Amaryss turned and disappeared with the Royal Guard through the door, an aura of greenish magic pulling them shut behind her.

This… does not hurt you, the zambet remarked in a puzzled voice.

It did at the time. Luna mentally smirked at the zambet. You consume mortal minds, or so you say, and yet you don’t understand that the pain of memory fades with time and distance?

Once again, the memory grew still and the zambet’s form flowed into being in front of her. The degree of your good fortune is beyond your capacity to understand, it said sourly. Of all the nightmares that had to seduce you, it had to be one that was sentimental and churlishly thorough. You…

Precisely what the zambet meant to say about her was lost because abruptly, she was back in the real world with the feeling of the creature sinking its tentacles into her mind starkly absent. As was the violet holes burning into hers, and Luna blinked as she looked around. The zambet lay stunned on the arid sand, limbs and tentacles switching spasmodically with Rainbow fluidly flipping over in midair to charge back into the fray.

The wings that had been broken barely an hour prior were fully healed and more than that, no longer awkwardly straddled the line between the delicate wings of a pegasus and the leathery sails of a dragon. Just before Rainbow pivoted in midair and smashed the zambet’s face with a double-hoof haymaker, Luna clearly saw a pair of full dragon wings of rich cyan to match their owner.

The zambet stumbled away from the blow, braced itself, then sent its tentacles rocketing at the pegasus. Rainbow twisted, tucking her wings in to dodge the blows, then swept one of them across the zambet’s face as a prelude to a back hoof buck. The zambet stumbled back again then six more of the tentacles shot forth out of its assumed form and zipped towards Rainbow…

...only for the zambet to be grabbed by the back of the head, its smaller skull fitting comfortably into the palm of one of Grymmilnia’s forepaws, and wrenched backwards and away from Rainbow. “Can ya hear me now, ya smilin’ shit?” she growled at it before throwing it to a side.

The zambet hit the sand, rolled once, then regained its feet. Immediately, six tentacles turned into twelve and the creature charged Rainbow again, tentacles zipping towards her from twelve different directions… then splitting again to cut off any escape. Dash stiffened her other wing and took a cross step to sweep the wing in a full circle around her to bat aside the oncoming extremities.

The zambet made contact with practically all of the tentacles at once. There was a flash of ruby red and the tentacles vaporized into oily mist and ash, accompanied by the zambet howling with surprise and pain. Before it could recover, Grymmilnia had bull-rushed it and thrown it off its feet; moments later, Dash tackled it over and began pummeling it with forehooves, each one causing a flash of magical fire as the Element of Loyalty, as much a part of Rainbow Dash as her wings, lashed out at the Void predator.

The zambet screeched and writhed under the assault, trying to lash out at Dash with more tentacles and having them vaporized by Loyalty for its trouble. Luna even saw some of the tentacles try to strike out at Grymmilnia, but they slid around the nightmare-infused griffin as if she was covered by an invisible barrier of glass. After a minute, the zambet stopped struggling and a moment later, came apart like a balloon bursting and its essence flowed into the ground like water.

Luna quickly reached for her deep sight and saw that the creature was indeed fleeing, the writhing blackness in the ground fading into the distance but traveling further downwards and then back towards the crumbling structure that was Master’s laboratory. “Are you certain that it’s a prisoner, Grymmilinia?” she asked, keeping her eyes and her sight fixed on the zambet’s location.

“The room ya broke into was its cage so… yeah, pretty sure,” Grymmilnia said. “Or, ta be lots more precise, Master called the room its cage. Coulda been lyin’ ta me, dumpin’ a load a shit on me for fun. Ain’t outta his wheelhouse ta toy with minions by throwing around all sortsa stories that ain’t even slightly true. Still, that room means somethin’ to it or it wouldn’t hang there.”

“Indeed…” Luna released the magical lens of the deep sight and turned to look at Rainbow. “Your wings appear to have healed well.”

“Yeah.” Out of the fight, the cyan pegasus seemed suddenly shy, folding her wings against her nervously. “I know I shoulda kept the splints on just to be sure and all but the thing grabbed you and Grym here was freaking out so I was like ‘buck this’ and just sorta… yanno, went for it. Didn’t even realize the splints broke off til they were off and now I’ve got… um, these.” She unfurled a wing and brought it forward. “It’s, like, really really cool and all but I sorta thought that whatever Spite did was over.”

“You and me both Rainbow,” Luna said as she walked over, still feeling a little unsteady on her hooves, and looking closer at the wing. It was the color of Dash’s coat and in the moonlight, she could see that it actually was coated in the same light fur as its owner with streaks of slightly darker fur that made it appear that the dragon wing was covered in feathers. The upper tip had the same hooked spur of bone that dragon wings had and the very strong bone crest common to both dragon and griffin. “I suppose that what Gilda taught you about fighting will be even more applicable now that your wings are more like hers.”

This brought a grin to Rainbow’s face. “Yeah, that zambet thing never saw it comin’. Seemed pretty fixed on trying to do whatever it was trying to do so I was like, pow” Rainbow mimed a punch with her front hoof “and it flew way the hay off. Couldn’t even touch me.”

“Speaking of such,” Luna looked at Grymmilnia. “Its tentacles slid around you as if you were shielded from them somehow. With Rainbow the Element of Loyalty struck out at the creature and destroyed it substance but with you, it attempted to touch you but couldn’t.”

“One of the bennies of Master doin’ his needlework,” Grym grinned. “He was all like ‘I shall not permit some uncouth creature of the Void to damage my masterful work’ and came up with whatever the hell he did.” She stretched. “OK, zambet thrashed, niece all good, Dashie’s got new wings. I’m out.”

Luna quirked a brow at her. “Just like that?”

Grymmilinia shrugged. “Said I’d do this. I did it. Said I’d work with ya to make this happen. I did. Said we were white-flag till it was over. We are. Do any more, and I ain’t keeping ta what I said I’d do. Hate ta make this end all unpleasant-like when I’ve been straight with ya.”

Luna eyed her and then chuckled. “I’ll bet you and Nacht would get along wonderfully if you ever met her. She was very fastidious about fulfilling agreements too, although she was quite happy to do more than she’d said if she felt the need.”

Grymmilnia grinned widely as she turned to walk back towards the structure. “When the only empress you’ve ever known is as larger-than-life as Nachtmiri Mein, and the only empress you’ve ever known is absurdly good at gaining power, gaining vessels, and surviving without so much as a singed strand of mane, you learn to emulate--or you die,” she said as she walked, abruptly speaking in a voice bearing more than a hint of cultured refinement, a voice Luna suspected to be much more natural to her than the imitation of Gilda Grimfeathers. “Even a bad egg learns some things if she doesn’t want to get her head mounted on some jei’s mantle, and the first rule of getting old and strong is: do what you say you’ll do. There’s one serious downside though.”

“You start listening when the prisoner in your head yells long enough,” Luna said.

Grym snorted as she reached the entrance and turned so that only her left eye was showing, a very noticeably griffin left eye. “Yes,” she said, a tone of deep disgust in her voice. “And you find that they start to make sense, and you begin to lose your grip and shortly, you find yourself helping the frail mortals instead of crushing them underfoot.” She turned away again and started walking. “And worst of all, you’re actually pleased with yourself. Pathetic.”

For a moment, Rainbow actually looked like she was going to go after the mutate but Luna caught her eye and shook her head. “I think she really means it, Rainbow,” she said as the pegasus settled back on her hooves. “A curious creature… screaming at me one minute, prepared to murder your friend another minute, all cocksure and nasty yet another minute, and then she’s helpful… only to call it all off and go back to her first mode.” She looked at Dash. “How much time has passed?”

Rainbow looked at her oddly. “Um… it grabbed ya only a few seconds before we gave it a beat-down. Why?”

“It was several minutes for me,” Luna told her. “At first it pretended that I’d caught it out and fought it, but I disbelieved its illusion and it gave up all pretense. It first badly wished to know who Nacht was and tried to find out through my memories of her, then lost its temper and attempted to torment me with one of my memories, and that is when you struck it.”

“OK, so who is she?”

Luna shrugged. “Other than a creature of the same type that Grymmilinia is, I do not know. I gather that she is ancient beyond comprehension, but otherwise only know that from the moment she revealed herself to me, she was a good of ally, of friend, and even of sister as I’ve ever had. Ruthless and coldly pragmatic, but always genuinely kind to me. It was very unpleasant having to pretend otherwise, quietly going along with the myth of a faithful ally as the evil and corrupting monster that made me into the villain of a child’s story, but I could never muster a better argument than Nacht about it.”

“So what’d she help ya do?” Rainbow nodded towards the structure and Luna gave her a quick nod of agreement, that it seemed like a good place to shelter for the moment despite the zambet’s presence. “I mean, if she’s powerful like Grym there, and yer already really powerful, what’d you need her for?”

Luna smiled wryly. “Would you believe, to turn the diarchy into a monarchy with me as the only princess?”

Rainbow blinked and stopped to look at her. “Seriously? You were trying to kick your sister off the throne totally?”

“Tia has not always been the mare you and modern Equestrians know,” Luna told her, taking a few steps inward and waiting for Rainbow to follow before continuing. “It was a different time, Rainbow, a harder, and more violent, and more difficult time, and Tia was extremely well-adapted to what the times required of her. Neither of us are flawless, Rainbow Dash, as much as we like to keep up that appearance. We have both stumbled but her role was far harder than mine, and the times she stumbled were far more momentous. One of Tia’s most serious stumbles was how she dealt with the changelings.”

“Changelings?” Rainbow blinked. “Like, shapeshifters that drag ponies off into the night and steal the love of their family? Suck all the life and love out of ponies? Those changelings?”

Luna couldn’t help but laugh at that. “Yes, those were certainly some of the more entertaining stories about them. Entertaining for how silly they were; less so for how seriously they were taken.” She sighed. “They are no more wicked than any other ponies, but have an unusual appearance and unusual powers and the unusual frightens ordinary ponies. There had always been unease around them and the changelings tended to be tolerant of it. but their tolerance was a product of wise and good leadership and when the Maternis Queen, the head of the ruling council of the changelings, turned out to be a hateful and intolerant racist…”

“Got bad, huh?”

“It grew terrible,” Luna said quietly. “There was no side of it that was more evil than the other; no one’s hooves were clean. Granted, the ponies doing evil to one another were a small part of each people, but that small part caused fear and stirred hate far out of proportion to their numbers. Tia saw our little ponies hurting terribly, and she resolved to act no matter what, deciding that exiling the entirely of the changeling race was the only solution.”

“So she was… wrong?”

“She was right,” Luna said. “Her decision was just given the circumstances under which she made it.”

Rainbow eyed her. “But didn’t you just call it one of her most serious errors?”

“Tia’s error wasn’t her original decision,” Luna said. “Her error was remaining devoted to her decision after the circumstances changed and the original solution was no longer just. What changed was who the Maternis Queen was. The racist was actually the younger sister of the rightful queen, but Amaryss suffered from social anxiety so crippling that she was unable to act publicly and so used her sister Malyss…”

Rainbow smirked. “Wait, did you say her sister’s name was ‘malice’?”

Luna grinned slightly in return. “Yes. Technically, the proper pronunciation is ‘mall-ees’ not ‘mal-iss’ but after she showed what sort of pony she was, no one used the correct pronunciation. Anyway, Amaryss used her younger sister as her mouthpiece and like most, was blind to the wickedness in the sister she loved. When it became too obvious to ignore, she put her sister in chains and decreed that those changelings who’d done wrongly would be subjected to whatever punishment a court saw fit to inflict. Tia chose to continue the course she’d decided on and…”

“..exiled ‘em all?”

“Yes.” Luna shook her head. “It was a terrible injustice and terribly foolish as well. The changelings were the majority of the Royal Guard and the Equestrian armies. Their queens tended to be very powerful and the Maternis Queen an even match for Tia or I. In a single gesture, we lost our Guard, our armies, the only ponies in Equestria who could possibly run our government if needs be. Nacht was always of the opinion that the events that culminated in the exile was a clever scheme by the Guardian, and it’s difficult to dispute her.”

“Huh.” Rainbow mulled this over as they reached a tee in the halls, one branch going back where they came from, the other looking as if it went deeper. “OK, they ain’t soul-eating parasites. So why’d ponies not like ‘em?”

“They look unusual,” Luna said, veering down the branch they hadn’t seen before. “Their horns have unusual shapes, their wings are insectoid, they have carapaces instead of ordinary coats, and the carapaces are pitted and irregular. They also have…”

“Wait… horns, wings, and natural armor?” Rainbow gaped. “They’re all like you?”

Luna grinned. “Not quite, but close enough. Most changelings have only the most basic use of their horn magic but along with their other gifts, it’s more than enough. But in addition to their appearance, there is the fact that they can be anypony they wish, and this too caused ponies to be nervous around them. But the thing that made others most nervous was that changelings require love to remain healthy.”

“They need love…?”

“More specifically, the subtle energy that comes of positive emotion, which they can eat,” Luna clarified. “It is entirely harmless; in my entire life, I’ve never heard of a single case where a pony was harmed by a changeling eating of their love. And yet the very concept of the strange insect-ponies eating their love frightened the other races.”

“I’ll bet.” Dash looked ahead of them as the passage began to widen and plain walls began to be replaced with more elaborate and ornate masonry, and the tiles became patterned and colored. “Yanno, I don’t think we ever asked anyone what the hay this place is supposed to be. I mean, did ‘Master’ build it or did he just take it over or somethin’?”

“I’m beginning to think he may have taken it over,” Luna said. “I can’t see him bothering with frills like masonry and tiling. I’d almost suspect this is some sort of official structure or a temple or something of that nature. In fact…”

“‘Allo?” Luna and Rainbow both jumped a little at the female voice. “Is anyone ‘ere?”

Dash looked back at Luna, her brow furrowed, before looking back down the hall. “Yeah?”

“Well, about bloody time!” There was the sound of hoofsteps, joined quickly by the sounds of metal-shod hoofsteps. Exchanging a look with Rainbow, Luna started channeling through her horn to raise a barrier as the pegasus retreated to stand beside her. The hoofsteps grew closer and closer until their owners rounded the bend. It took a quick moment of startled recognition before Luna ground her teeth and manifested her blades. “Lashaal.”

The aforenamed mare stopped abruptly upon seeing Luna, sapphire blue eyes widening and her jaw dropping. “An’ whot th’ bloody ‘ell is this?” she demanded. “Whotcha doin’ this far north, Princess?”

The very not Lashaal accent made Luna lower her blades, looking hard at her. “What are you playing at?”

“Playing at?” The mare looked hard at her. “Are you taking the piss? I just arrived with my escort after a lengthy trek from th’ coast. I’m not ‘playing at’ anything.”

Luna dismissed the blades. “Escort?”

“Shore ‘nuff.” The mare smiled in a way that Luna had never seen from the false unicorn. “C’mon around ya lot… time ta say ‘ello to the Night Eternal.” She stepped closer to look up at Luna. “I have ta say, Princess… smashing to see you in the flesh. An’ an equal joy to meet Loyalty’s bearer as well. Thought I’d just about made my entire life encounterin’ Kindness at the city but two of the bearers and the Princess of the Night and Moon as well? Top honors, right up to the top.”

Luna was prevented from returning the astonishingly earnest greeting by the appearance of five unicorns in Royal Guard armor. Or, at least, Luna mistook it for Royal Guard armor until she realized that the ponies in the armor were staring at her with undisguised awe, a lapse of discipline she’d never seen in the actual Royal Guard.

“A-ten-shun!” The stallion voice brought the astonished soldiers instantly to attention as a tall and somewhat lanky stallion, bearing the epaulets of a colonel, came around the corner. He bowed briefly in Luna’s direction before turning to the soldiers. “Present arms.” he commanded, and in perfect coordination, all five gripped the pommels of swords they had sheathed at their shoulder and drew them, bringing the polished sabers to attention.

“Render honors!” The colonel drew his own blade, a slightly longer weapon with an elaborate handle and planted the tip on the tile. The other five imitated his gesture precisely and as one, all six bowed deeply and went down on one knee. “Your Majesty, an honor and pleasure,” he finished with his head still bowed deeply.

Noticeably, during the brief ceremony, the mare hadn’t moved at all, not even to lower her head. After a moment, she bowed her head to Luna briefly. “Your Majesty, an honor and pleasure,” she said before raising her head, turning slightly to face Rainbow Dash, and bowing again. “Milady Rainbow Dash, also an honor and pleasure.”

Luna couldn’t help but stare at the mare. I can’t remember any of our subjects being this formal, she thought as she looked the mare, a spitting image of Lashaal, over. In fact, a perfect copy of Lashaal. She stopped and took the thought one step further. Or the other way around. “Miss,” she said, suspecting she knew the answer, “who are you?”

The mare raised her head and gave Luna a pleasant smile. “Lily Shell, your Majesty.” She glanced to one side and then the other. “And if I might ask, wot is this place… an’ why’re you ‘ere?”

Author's Note

Hello gents and ladies, and welcome to the newest chapter! Same rules as always: if you see something, say something, and comment to your heart's content. I really like comments. :)

Tune in next time.

Trixie: Pandemic

“Cadence, I’m afraid there’s no sign of our ‘allies’ anywhere nearby,” Anori reported with a bow.

Princess Cadence sighed and slumped a little in the seat opposite Trixie’s. “I suppose them seeing Tartarus descending on Ponyville and flying to our assistance was too much to hope for.” She shook her head. “What purpose could it possibly serve for them to come here, offer assistance, claim to be well-versed in how to fight these things, and then disappear when the atermors actually attack?”

“I don’t think we can rule out them being in league with the creatures,” Krysa said. “We only have their word that they have done anything beyond what we’ve directly observed them doing.”

Trixie shook her head. “I believe them,” she said. “I’m not Twilight but their scrap of cloth was certainly doing what they claimed.”

“I believe them as well, “ Cadence said before either of her guards could argue. “I do not believe they had common cause with our enemies. If they had, they had many rich opportunities to show it, many perfect times to drive the knife into our backs, none more perfect than Aunt Celestia completely comatose.”

At the mention of Princess Celestia’s state, they all looked towards the room where the unconscious monarch was resting. They’d brought her in shortly after checking in with Shining, who was being very ably assisted by Ditzy Doo and Berry Punch in keeping the townsponies calm and comfortable while fires were put out and buildings inspected for soundness. Nurse Redheart had almost instantly diagnosed the princess as being in shock, a shock so severe that it would have seriously endangered a less supernaturally hardy pony. As it was, Redheart recommended that she be allowed to rest under medical supervision until she had regained cognizance.

“I fear our enemy achieved something much better than removing Celestia, Your Majesty,” Krysa said, reaching out to pat Cadence’s shoulder. “They made you do it.”

Cadence nodded. “I did what I needed to do,” she said quietly. “I hated it, hated myself for it, but I needed to do it.” She raised her eyes to Trixie, and Trixie automatically looked away at how much pain was in her eyes, and the note of pleading in her voice. “I needed to,” she repeated.

Trixie took in a breath and forced herself to meet Cadence’s eyes. “You needed to,” she agreed. “I don't think she was aware of anything around her, except the klesae. I think she would have burned all of Ponyville if you hadn’t… whatever you did.”

“I’m certain she would have, and weeped for it later.” Cadence got to her hooves. “Now, we must entrust her to the expert care of Redheart and her staff, and consult with Shining about the defense of Ponyville. Slaying so many of them could have deterred them but if they were willing to risk themselves when we were assured that they prefer the shadows, I doubt losses will dampen their resolve.”

“As you will, Your Highness.” Anori and Krysa got to their hooves as well and followed Cadence down the halls of the clinic and out the double doors, Trixie walking along behind the trio. As they stepped outside, Trixie tried to hold her breath against the smell of burning tar mixed with the scents of ozone from the storm clouds the pegasi had gathered and scorched wood. The outer part of the town, where the clinic was, had escaped the holocaust in the center but thick clouds of black soot-ridden smoke had plastered them with streaks of black.

“There’s quite a bit of rebuilding to do,” Cadence said in a subdued voice. “And yet if what I heard my aunt say in her rage was true, Ponyville got off light… only two of its population sickened.”

“We’ve been fortunate, Your Majesty,” Trixie said. “Carrot Top recognized a serious problem immediately so we could cut the sickness off at its source quickly. We didn’t know the full story, but we purified the infected food before it could turn into pandemic. I’m sure that’s why the atermors attacked here: this is the only place it didn’t work.”

“Yes, fortunate, but also benefitting from the fact that my favorite little filly in the entire world has been living here,” Cadence smiled a little. “It’s why Carrot Top would seek you out, why you of all ponies were left in charge, why Spike has been such a big help: my cousin by adoption.”

Silence fell among them as they entered the town proper, the scorched skeletons of formerly cheerful buildings surrounding them on all sides. The silence where it was normally very lively and noisy was mildly disturbing and Trixie felt herself shiver involuntarily as they passed through and went on to the library. Because the prevailing winds were blowing the smoke the other direction, the library had a strangely pristine appearance.

What it also had was a pony Trixie was certain she’d never seen before leaning casually against the tree to a side of the door. He was the most remarkably unremarkable pony Trixie had ever seen, average in every possible respect: average weight, height, mane length, color, size, everything. He continued to calmly chew a twig as they approached, keeping his eyes on all of them but focusing especially on Cadence. “Your Majesty,” he said with an incline of his head as they reached the door.

Cadence looked steadily at him. “It is a foul day which falls,” she said to him in a very deliberate tone, as if reciting something from memory.

“And yet fair is the one that dawns,” he replied in the exact same tone before a deeply troubled expression replaced the casual. “I never thought I’d see the day when a town of Celestia’s domain was scorched by its gentle diarch’s wrath. I also heard her howls of soul-deep agony at the evil done to the subjects she loves, and all of this changes everything.”

“I agree.” Cadence smiled a little. “Would you like to come inside? Spike has jasmine tea.”

“I would love to, but I can’t.” He smiled back slightly. “I have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep. You’re the first one I needed to contact, the first on a very long list, and my message is this: all of us stand ready to defend Equestria. You need only ask.”

“I ask.” Cadence inclined her head to him and he returned the gesture. “I fear that you’re needed far more in the major cities than here, however.”

“We are,” he acknowledged. “But once I’ve seen to that, we are at your service and that of Celestia as well.” He reached up a hoof and laid it on Cadence’s shoulder. “Take heart, Princess. Against you and these good ponies the atermors are nothing, no matter what creatures they call or what tricks they use.”

“I wish I could be as confident as you,” Cadence laid her hoof on his shoulder in turn. “I’m just about to speak to my fiance about seeing to the defenses here. The atermors seem unusually interested in Ponyville, enough to attack full-on without regard for loss, and I’m told they never do that. I don’t suppose you know why?”

“Communications have been… uncertain since the crisis erupted,” he said hesitantly. “I can only offer my opinion, and that is that they’re trying to break the most effective resistance immediately before you learn too much about them. Clearly you know something, or you couldn’t have slain so many and destroyed their beast.” He removed his hoof from Cadence’s shoulder and looked up at the low position of the sun. “You have my best wishes in this, Princess, and good fortune to you.”

Somehow, that the stallion was a unicorn had entirely escaped Trixie’s attention, so the flash of teleportation made her jump a little; the uncharacteristic thunderclap of what she guessed was an unusually powerful teleportation spell made her jump a lot. She stared for a moment where the pony had been before looking at the princess. “Um… who the hay was that?”

“A messenger,” Cadence replied, honestly Trixie thought. “I have no idea of his name or even more specifically who he is.” She opened the library door with her magic and walked through the doorway. “All I know is that he’s attached to some ponies who plan to help us, and that he was using an illusionary spell to hide his true features.”

“I thought he looked odd.” Trixie followed the princess inside, her two bodyguards turning and taking up position on either side of the library door behind them. The interior of the library was awash in ponies, surprisingly calm ponies given the day’s events, but it was still easy enough to spot Shining Armor. He was in the middle of conversing with Big Macintosh, who seemed to tower over him desipite his own impressive physical presence, when Cadence nimbly leaned around the tall farmpony and kissed her fiance.

Trixie was vaguely aware of her saying something else to Shining and him replying, but she found herself being embraced by her own big stallion and pressed herself into his comforting presence. “Hi Mac,” she mumbled as she returned the embrace.

“Trixie,” he rumbled, nuzzling the top of her head. “Ya okay?”

“I think I will be,” she said. “The last time I’ve seen anything like it was the fight with the Guardian and his puppets. It’s the last time I felt so… small, so dwarfed by what was going on around me, so helpless to do anything.”

“Way Ah hear it ya did plenty,” he told her. “Killed a whole heap o’ them. Did your part. Ah’m awful proud of ya, Trixie… Miz Twilight chose right.”

Trixie felt her cheeks get warm. “I’m just glad I could help. I think the rest of the town will be doing the important part, erasing all the scars of the battle.” She pressed in closer to him. “Princess Cadence thinks this is just the beginning, that they’ll try again. I’m not sure I’m strong enough to throw the kind of barrages that could truly deter them, or make strong barriers or…”

Big Mac silenced her by kissing her lightly. “Ya worry too much.”

“I’m not certain one can worry too much, Big Macintosh,” Cadence said, turning away from a resigned-looking Shining Armor. “There will be problems ahead of us, serious ones. If my aunt’s anguished cries were correct, the atermors could potentially make their own army of their twisted victims and if they bring that army here, I’m not sure I can hold the line by myself. Even with Shining’s help, even with my bodyguards, even with Trixie and all the ponies of Ponyville, quantity has a quality all its own and we don’t have quantity.”

“An’ so whatcha planning?” Big Mac asked, turning to the Princess and laying a foreleg over Trixie’s shoulders as he did, his tone no less steady than it normally was.

“I will go elsewhere to gather reinforcements and aid,” Cadence said. “I know where to turn for help but it is some distance away. I can get there quickly and return just as quickly, but there’s no telling what the state of things are at my destination.”

Trixie swallowed, her heart sinking. “You’re going to leave us?”

Cadence took in a breath and let it out, nodding. “I must.”

“But… without you…”

“Without me you’ll be in great danger,” Cadence finished. “Believe me, I know that. But what do we get from me staying here? We buy a little time, wait for the end with everypony feeling better just because I’m here? For this phase of the plan that the overarching evil forces have for our world, we’ve reach an endgame. They’ve removed Celestia; whether it was through their own efforts or by forcing me to restrain my aunt, the result is the same. The other two of my family are far beyond our reach to call home and upon for aid. The Elements are secure with their Bearers, but those Bearers are scattered and beyond our reach as well. The limited number of Royal Guard will remain in the cities to maintain whatever quarantine they can muster.”

“And besides that, we’re not an army,” Shining added. “Plenty of military training but by design, there are only enough of us to secure a single city or critical buildings in many cities.” He grimaced and pawed at the ground. “It seems silly now but the Guardian was the first danger to Equestria in history that the Princesses couldn’t overthrow by themselves, and he appeared only six months ago. The Royal Guard has never needed to be an army.”

“What about Lord Ersari and his…?”

“Whatever they mean to do, they clearly mean to do it in their own time and in their own way,” Cadence said. “It may well be that they’ve devised a great design to save us all and are waiting for the right moment to use it. But we can’t sit about and hope that some mysterious people we know nothing about will swoop in and rescue us. We must be proactive, and that means that I leave for a time.”

“But I and my mate will stay,” Krysa said. “We may not be royalty of Equestria but we can, and we will, help you in this.” She nodded in the direction of Shining Armor. “And needless to say, Shiny isn’t the captain of the Royal Guard because of his good looks.”

“And even with your well-trained gift for reading a crowd, Trixie, you have many more assets here than you realize.” The pink princess stepped closer and lay a wing over Trixie’s shoulders, giving her a kindly smile. “The Apples are a strong family with deep roots in this town, and I dare say that even their elderly matriarch won’t take an attack on her home lying down.”

“Eenope,” Big Mac agreed.

“The weather pegasi assigned to Ponyville have been flying with Rainbow Dash ever since she joined. She’s tested them; I believe they’re as ready as any others to assist.” Cadence used her other wing to sweep broadly over the assembled townponies. “A town that managed to gather all six of the Element Bearers into a single place simply by existing will never be just another quiet village in a corner of the kingdom. This room is full of talent; your task will be to use it well and not give in to despair.”

Trixie found herself leaning slightly against the comforting presence of the alicorn before she caught herself and nodded once. “Do you have any idea how quickly you’ll return?”

“It’ll depend on the state of mobilization,” Cadence replied, stepping away from Trixie and lighting her horn. A piece of chalk that Trixie had seen Twilight use when she needed to create a safe space for magical experimentation floated over and Cadence began drawing the basic elements of a runic containment circle. “The aid I plan to call on is directed by ponies with amazing foresight, but an attack by enemies they’ve never heard of before is hard to foresee.”

“And these ponies need you to ask them before they do anything?”

“More like they need me to tell them how they can help,” Cadence finished the basic circle and then drew a wider one and began to scribe the magical symbols that would attune the circle to the kind of magic being used. “They’re stuck observing at a distance and are aware that things look very different up close, so they need my help to be as useful as possible.”

Trixie watched as Cadence finished the second circle and its symbols and then to her surprise, drew a third and began to scribe it. “Princess, where are you going?”

“A great distance,” Cadence replied, looking over the second circle. “Technically the spell I’m using only needs the two circles but the magi who devised it told me that doubling the containment elements was always the safer route, and we’re in a library full of ponies. That, and I’m not the technician that Twilight or the other magi is and I want to be sure.”

“A great distance… like Bitaly?

Cadence paused to think. “A bit further than that, I think, but not by much.” The third scribed, she began to draw a fourth. “I don’t think I’ve seen the distance formally measured and because of this particular spell, I’ve never had to travel it. There are times that being born into a rather excessive font is convenient instead of merely being useful.”

Trixie would have continued questioning Cadence, unable to shake the feeling that something wasn’t adding up, when a rather dapper-looking earth pony wearing a starched collar and green tie derailed her train of thought by clearing his throat pointedly. “I beg your pardon, Princess, but we’ve finished checking the remaining buildings for structural soundness,” he said in a handsome accent straight from Trotsford. “If you’ve a moment…?”

“I don’t,” Cadence replied, starting to draw in the fourth circle’s runes. “And even if I did, the affairs of the town are to be directed to Trixie Lulamoon, and it is to her that you’ll make your report Doctor.”

The doctor turned to Trixie and looked her up and down with an expression of distaste. “You’re having me report to a charlatan?” he asked in a tone as disdainful as his expression.

“If that’s how you prefer to think of her, yes.” The princess finished drawing the runes and looked levelly at the pony. “But whatever you call her or however you think of her, you will report to her. Now I have somewhere important to go and no time for this. Trixie?”

“Yes Princess?”

“Doctor Whooves led the effort to assess the structural soundness of the buildings still standing around the town square,” she said, gesturing to the affronted-looking doctor. “Receive his report and do your best. My cousin-by-adoption chose you for a reason and it’s not only because of your magical gifts. Now, this is going to look horribly unsettling but it’s only the spell maker’s puckish sense of humor in operation.”

Cadence lit her horn and leaned down, touching it to the outermost circle. The entire circle glowed pink and then the glowing flowed inward to the third and then to the second. The moment it touched the innermost circle, greenish flames leapt from the chalk line and rose to the height of Cadence’s chest. The princess gave a little exasperated sigh before smiling a little and unhesitatingly stepping passed the three outermost circles and directly into the sputtering green flame. The flames responded by going instantly from a low circle to a blazing inferno but Trixie felt no heat at all from them and based on how Cadence didn’t miss a step,it was clear that they were harmless. The moment Cadence was fully inside the innermost circle, the flames flared brightly, enough that Trixie had to avert her gaze a moment, before puffing out. The chalk circles remained behind but the spell had clearly worked, as the princess had vanished.

Trixie took in a deep breath and let it out. I guess now we just wait and hope the atermors don’t return before she does, she thought. I hope that whatever or whoever she’s going to get help from is powerful enough to just leave us. But she knew she couldn’t voice any doubts. In a way, this was going to be like a performance and everypony who’d ever been on a stage knew that you never let the audience know that anything's wrong. Everything is always part of the plan, especially when it wasn’t. “So Doctor… Whooves, was it?”

“Yes,” the doctor replied with a sigh. “Doctor Time Turner Whooves, PHD, Trotsford.”

Trixie turned to look him over curiously. “Maybe it’s the tie and collar, but I don’t remember seeing you before.”

“I wouldn’t be surprised, I’ve only come to Ponyville of late to visit my fiance. But the Princess instructed me to deliver my report on the structural soundness of the town square buildings to you. So if you’ll step over to the table…”

“Just a moment.” Trixie turned to look around for a certain purple and green baby dragon. “Spike?”

“Yeah?” Trixie jumped a little as Spike seemed to appear out of thin air right next to her.

“Could you translate any technical things for me?” Trixie gave her best sheepish smile. “I’m a showpony and I’m guessing that Doctor Whooves is an engineer.”

“Yeah.” Spike turned to look up at Whooves. “Bachelor of Applied Sciences, Master of Applied Sciences in Metallurgical Engineering, PHD in Applied Sonics, eight years ago?”

Time Turner looked taken aback but after a moment smiled. “Why, yes, that’s correct. I was aware that Twilight Sparkle keeps very up-to-date on the sciences but still surprised she would take notice of a somewhat… esoteric field.”

Spike grinned. “Twi’s weird. She pays more attention to obscure fields than really well-known ones. Anyway, I’m here if you need me Trixie.”

“Right.” Trixie looked at the doctor. “So, what do you have to report?”

“Despite quite a bit of exterior and facade damage, the buildings ringing the town square are sound,” Whooves said. “Equestrian design, especially in smaller towns, puts a lot of emphasis on colorful and aesthetically-pleasing facades so there’s a great deal of material between the exterior and the load-bearing walls. It helped that the local weather team was attentive and avoided doing any serious water damage. My personal advice is that the load-bearing beams be replaced as soon as practical, but the structures should be safe for ponies to enter to get some things if they want.” He paused and sighed. “With a single exception.”

“The town hall?”

“Actually, despite the drama of the windows melting out of their frames and the shingles catching fire, the town hall is the soundest structure of all,” the doctor said. “Extremely heavy single-cut stone walls and roof supports laced with kilned crossbeams. Practically impervious to fire and water damage. No, the one structure is Sugarcube Corner. It’s round shape prevented the exterior heat and water from compromising its integrity but the heat carbonized a great deal of sugar and this in turn ignited and burned hot and long. I’m afraid the interior was gutted and some of the support beams badly warped. My own opinion is that it’s unsafe to enter without bracing the suspicious sections with engineered elements.”

Trixie gave Time Turner a nod. “Thank you, Doctor. How hard would it be to get some engineered elements?”

“Impossible,” Whooves said. “I have enough engineering training to assess structural soundness but building temporary supports to make it safe would require a trained structural engineer, and the closest one I know of is in Canterlot.”

“Ah know a bit,” Big Mac rumbled. “Ain’t refined much, but Ah’ve had ta brace up barns an outbuildings before. Smart pony from Canterlot could prolly do it real neat an’ tidy but get some beams, some nails… could make somethin’ work for the Cakes.”

Doctor Whooves looked at Macintosh for a moment before nodding. “I suppose it’s not building roof trusses,” he said before looking at Trixie again. “Is there anything else you want, Miss Lulamoon?”

Trixie was about to shake her head to him but a thought stopped her. Princess Cadence and Twilight Sparkle both wanted me in charge. “Actually, Doctor, do you have enough engineering to point Big Mac at where the supports would do the most good?”

Whooves looked taken aback. “I… suppose.”

“Then go with Big Mac, gather whoever else he wants to have help, and do the pointing-out,” she said. “After that…” she paused a moment, thinking. “If we’re going to keep everypony here, it’d help to have extra space so after Sugarcube Corner, come back here and see what you can do.”

“I’ll… do that,” Time Turner turned away, still looking a little stunned as if the last thing in the world he’d expected was to be given instructions. Big Mac stepped over to Trixie, kissed her on the forehead, and then followed Whooves away. Trixie noticed that several stallions fell in behind him without a word or even a gesture from the solid farmpony, and even a few of the older colts.

Trixie then turned towards Shining Armor, who was looking as surprised as Time Turner but with a grin that broadcasted approval. “Captain Armor, I doubt we can do a whole lot about lots of creatures coming to attack Ponyville but is there anything we could do that might delay them or make it harder for them to get in?”

“Entrenchments.” Both Trixie and Shining Armor looked towards Spike.

“Entrenchments,” he repeated. “Make trenches and pile up walls of dirt between them. The idea is to slow them down and delay them until Princess Cadence gets back, right? And maybe delay them even longer until her friends get here, right?” Both of them nodded to him. “Well, earthworks get you the most effect from the least amount of time and work.”

“Spike’s right,” Shining said. “Equestrian armies back in the day used to do it all the time: find a nice place to camp for the night and then spend an hour digging. I was gonna suggest some wood and stone, maybe draw stores from the farms around Ponyville, but it’d take a long time to lay them out, even longer to build, and we don’t have any idea when the atermors will come back.”

“Exactly. Spike, you probably have books that explain everything I need to know about earthworks but never thought to ask, right?” He nodded. “Then go with Captain Armor, scoop up any ponies you need, and see what can be done. Maybe even collect some lanterns because with all the digging, nothing’s going to be growing there anyway.”

“Sure thing,” he responded. “OK Shiny, where do you want the first line?”

“Between here and the Everfree, of course.” Shining Armor looked at the townponies still standing around. “OK, anypony who knows anything about using a shovel, c’mon. We want to at least make some trenches before night.”

“We’ll get some lanterns,” a striped-mane pegasus in the crowd said before Trixie could ask. “If you have to stop, it won’t be because it’s dark.”

“Thank you miss…” Trixie paused a moment to run through her memory “...Blossomforth.”

“It’s part of the job,” she shrugged although Trixie detected the slightest hint of a smile before she went out the door followed by the rest of the ponies wearing the lapel pins marking them as the local weather team.

“Captain Armor, will you need anypony to keep an eye out for them?” Both Trixie and Shining turned to see Ditzy Doo adjusting her mailmare cap, one of her golden eyes fixed in their direction.

“Um…” Shining looked somewhat uncomfortable. “I… don’t know if I can ask that of you, Miss Doo.”

“You aren’t,” Ditzy informed him matter-of-factly. “So do you need anypony keeping an eye out for them?”

“I…” Shining looked helplessly at Trixie.

“I think Shining is uncomfortable asking somepony with your eye condition to go flying over the Everfree looking for monsters,” Trixie said, keeping her face straight and knowing by now exactly what was coming.

Or she thought she did. When Trixie had stumbled all over herself trying to find a polite way to ask the mailmare about her strabismus, Derpy had sighed and fixed both eyes on her in an expression of exasperation. This time, however, Derpy smiled a little. “I’m not the town mailmare because somepony had pity on me Captain,” she said. “I don’t get lost, ever, and I always know where I’m going. So do you need somepony to keep an eye out for these atermor things or not?”

“I… yes, I could use that,” Shining said. “Thank you Miss Doo.”

“Glad to help,” Dtizy beamed at him pleasantly and followed the weather team through the open door. The moment her tail disappeared outside, Shining turned and looked at Trixie.

“Perfect sense of direction?”

“I’ve seen her navigate storms so severe that she couldn’t see more than an inch in front of her nose,” Trixie said. “I’ve never been clear on why she wasn’t recruited into the weather team.”

“They probably saw the same thing I did and came to the same conclusion,” Shining looked after the pegasus. “It’s not an unfair conclusion, even though it’s wrong. Anyway, good luck to you Miss Lulamoon; of all the times somepony could have handed you responsibility, this is probably the worst sort of timing.”

“Yes it is,” Trixie sighed as she watched the Captain of the Royal Guard and Spike walk out the door to start laying out fortifications. I can’t imagine why Twilight thought I was the right pony for this, she thought as she found a spot to lay out of the way of the ponies that remained in the library. Even without the atermors, I could just barely manage my own life before Macintosh came into it, and she stuck me with an entire town. And now there’s an infection loose, evil creatures attacking, Princess Celestia comatose, Princess Cadence gone, an army probably coming to kill us, Twilight and her friends out of reach, and the people who said they’d help are nowhere to be seen. She lay her head down and watched the remaining adults corral the younger ponies and occupy them with books; notably, the adults made sure they were between the children and both doors and windows at all times.

At least it can’t get much worse than this.

“I spotted them coming through the Everfree from the south,” Ditzy was saying as she tapped her hoof on the southern edge of a crude map of Ponyville. “I had no idea how many there are but based on the mass I saw, I’d say twenty to each of our ones.”

The evening had gone by with very little drama to it and the morning came with Trixie waking up laying against the solid build of Big Mac who was still sleeping the sleep of the honestly exhausted when a floor-shaking kerthump announced the return of Princess Cadence looking more at peace than Trixie had seen her be in the short time she’d known the pink alicorn. An attempt to ask her how things had gone were cut short when she immediately disappeared in a more conventional teleport, presumably to find Shining.

It was shortly afterwards, just as Trixie had concluded that Cadence would be out in the field and not returning anytime soon, that Ditzy had entered with Spike, Cadence, and Shining in tow.

“How fast were they coming, Ditzy?” Cadence asked “And how far were they when you broke off to return?”

“About as fast as a pony at full gallop,” Ditzy said. “And they were just passing west of the old castle when I came back.” She tapped her hoof against her chin thoughtfully. “Speaking of that, they were giving the castle a wide berth. Like, a very wide berth, like they were afraid of it. But it looked as abandoned as ever.”

“Maybe there was a touch of Nightmare Moon around it still?” Trixie suggested. “If she’s not the same pony as Luna, they might know her and be afraid enough of the magic she left behind to stay far away from it.”

“I’m sure the atermors are terrified of Nightmare Moon but their creations are mindless,” Cadence said confidently. “They would have no idea who Nightmare is and wouldn’t know to fear her.”

“It doesn’t really matter why they avoided the castle,” Shining looked down at the map. “They’re coming here, coming fast, and we just have some earthworks. I’m… not really sure how to handle this. Evacuate the town to Cloudsdale or some other pegasus refuge that they can’t reach? Fortify the library and hope for the best? I’m just not sure.”

“Help is coming,” Cadence assured him with a pat on the shoulder. “I wasn’t aware of just how well prepared my allies were, or how thoroughly they’d considered how to get help to any part of Equestria very quickly. At this point, help isn’t days away but hours.”

“But what army can deal with twenty-to-one odds?” Shining shook his head. “It doesn’t really matter. At the rate Miss Doo was describing, they’ll be here long before any help and unless we can somehow hold thousands of… whatever they are for hours, your allies can only retaliate not save.”

“What about that Quarantine Flag thing?” The four of them looked at Spike. “They said it can quarantine an area, right? Make sure nothing gets in or out?”

“But we don’t know how to use it,” Trixie pointed out. “I just saw it nailed to a door, not how they made it work. And you may need to do something completely different to quarantine instead of just trap an atermor.”

He shrugged. “It’s a flag; put it on a flagpole. It’s not like it’s going to make us worse off, right?”

“You have a point.” Trixie looked at Ditzy. “Last I saw it, it was nailed to the door of the Carousel Boutique. Would you mind to go, see if it’s still there, and find a way to put it on the pole on top of town hall?”

Ditzy looked dubious. “It’s not dangerous, is it? I’d have to hold it in my mouth after all.”

“I’m not Twilight Sparkle so my sense of it was sort of vague.” Trixie looked at Cadence. “What about you Princess?”

“It’s harmless if you’re not an atermor,” Krysa said, causing Trixie to start a little. It was all too easy to forget that the two bodyguards were constantly on hoof, hovering protectively near Cadence even when she was pressed gently against Shining as she was at the moment. Mentally settling herself, she turned to look at the Royal Guard to find that she had the Quarantine Flag hanging by one of its many frayed threads from the corner of her mouth.

“Kryssa…” Cadence said with a note of chiding.

“Sorry Cadence.” Kryssa put the flag down. “But it’s inert at the moment. I think it needs some kind of anchor to work properly. Or contact with an atermor, but Princess Celestia vaporized all of the ones in town.”

“I think Spike’s right,” Ditzy said, leaning down to take one of the threads between her front teeth. “Putting it up can’t hurt and maybe it’ll cause the atermors to get scared or hesitate. While I’m there, I could see how much closer the…” she stopped a moment, thinking “...diseased are.”

“That would be appreciated Miss Doo,” Cadence smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“No need to thank me Princess, I’m glad to to it.” Ditzy gave Cadence a quick bow, repeating the gesture to Trixie to her surprise, and opened the door, only to just barely avoid colliding with Blossomforth.

“‘Scuse me Ditz.” Blossom deftly sidestepped the mailmare and gave Princess Cadence a bow. “We have all the lanterns gathered and hung Your Majesty,” she said. “They’re looking a bit dim, though.”

“But weren’t we going to move the lanterns to the earthworks yesterday?” Trixie asked.

“My fault,” Shining said. “It took us a while to get some stands up and by the time we had them, we had the weather team return them to the farms to protect them during the night. Although I’m sorta surprised they’re already fading.”

Cadence grimaced. “Even with all of Spike’s help, I’m not a runic transcriptionist,” she said. “Mine are very crude compared to even Aunt Celestia’s, and she’s the first to admit that she has no great ability with rune work. I’ll see what I can do with them but I’m afraid they’ll never quite be what Aunt Luna or even Twilight could make of them.”

“Why not ask the pony who made your teleportation spell?” Trixie said. “I’m sure if she can make a long-range teleportation spell, she can put runes on a lamp like the ones we need.”

Cadence smiled a little at that. “I’d dearly love to but especially now, she’s unavailable. Not because she wouldn’t come if I called, but because she would come if I called, neglecting things that are much more important to help me. I can’t ask her to do that.”

“More important than saving a town full of ponies?”

“Her responsibilities are on the scale of entire nations Trixie,” Cadence leaned over to give her a light nosing. “A town is important but on the scale of nations, it’s of minor importance at best. Besides, she’ll be working to expedite the reinforcements, or so she told me when I visited.”

“Um, this is great and all but is there anything else you’d like the weather team to be taking care of, Your Majesty?” Blossom said with a hint of impatience.

Cadence nodded to Trixie who turned to look at the pegasus. “I’m sure it’ll make it much harder on them if they have to slog through torrential rains and lightning,” she said. “Try to find some. If there’s none around, is there any severe weather you can make?”

“We could try to make some twisters,” Blossom said, furrowing her brow thoughtfully. “It’d be hard to get the right wind velocities without a pegasus who can sonic rainboom or the right focus without a proper anchor--you wouldn’t believe how good Fluttershy is at keeping a steady wingbeat--but it’d be worth trying. Princess, I don’t suppose you or your guards have any familiarity…?”

“I’m told that I’m as regular as a metronome,” Cadence smiled, her eyes twinkling. “But I think my bodyguards would be…” She stopped, her eyes on the door, and Trixie followed her gaze. Standing in the doorway, having apparently entered through the door that Blossom had left open behind her, was the vulpine Forheest Sadow.

The creature looked different than she had the last time Trixie had seen her, mostly in that she was now wearing silvery form-fitting armor instead of her robes, and was leaning lightly on a staff that was longer than she was tall. There was also something harder and more violent in her features than the placid and pleasant expression she’d always maintained before.

“Who brought the flame to this place?” she asked, any trace of the refined accent she’d used before completely gone. Instead there was a monotone deadness in her voice, and she spoke lowly.

“I’ve a much better question,” Cadence replied, stepping away from Shining with her own featured turning hard. “Where were you when the atermors came to Ponyville? Where were you when they pulled one of those klesae beasts from the Void to set upon my people? Your master…”

“You have never met my master Princess,” Forheest interrupted. “Lord Bloodwynd is a treasured ally of the lord to whom I owe fealty, but I am not his servant.” She took in a breath. “But you are right, I failed you, I and the honorable lord and lady that came with me. But I must know this, Princess: who brought the flame to Ponyville?”

“My aunt,” Cadence said. “She was all but mad with pain and grief at what the atermors have done to her people and she burned like her sun.”

“I see.” Sadow looked at Trixie. “I saw the earthworks as I came, and the faintly flickering lanterns, and the Quarantine Flag flying. I am given to understand that the flying ponies of Equestria can mold the weather, and I expect you will do that as well.” Her eyes flickered to Blossomforth before back to Trixie. “Your decisions in this are correct, and it speaks well of your mind that you made them. But I do not see a fool in you; you know that your defense will be drowned in the tide of the Twisted whipped on by their sadistic masters.”

“It only needs to hold until help comes,” Trixie said. “Princess Cadence says she’s called on help from somewhere else. But speaking of the weather, could you get working on that Blossomforth? I think Anori and Krysa will want to linger a bit longer but I’m sure Princess Cadence will release them in time to help.”

“Sure.” Blossomforth bowed briefly to Cadence and stepped around Forheest to leave the library.

When Blossom had left, Sadow turned an odd look on Cadence. “Did you not say that Equestria no longer had the ponies that were her stalwart soldiers in ages past?”

“I don’t recall saying that.”

“You tried not to, but you did regardless.” Sadow tapped her chin with a finger. “I had expected that we might need to preserve you for a time, but after was meant to be a desperate struggle indeed. Additional help changes things entirely; now I can fully commit to this battle instead of husbanding my aid until the crucial moment.”

Shining and Cadence looked at one another and each exchanged wary and confused glances with Trixie. “What do you mean, ‘husbanding your aid’?” Shining asked. “Isn’t there just the five of you come to help us?”

Sadow broke into a broad grin. “Lord Bloodwynd called me ‘the adjutant’, Shining Armor,” she said. “Didn’t you wonder what I was the adjutant of?”

“I think we were more focused on you being here to aid us rather than the specific titles you have,” Cadence said. “So you’re the adjutant of something, implicitly some kind of army or unit of an army. I don’t suppose it occurred to you to call upon your soldiers and leave them to shield Ponyville while you ran off chasing will-o-the-wisps?”

Forheest blinked a few times before turning to look at Anori with an expression of distinct annoyance. “We left you with a fairly specific message about our intent. Did you manage to forget it, Guard?”

“I told them what you told me,” Anori retorted. “You told me that you were going off to chase some atermors around the Everfree.”

“No, we told you that we were going to track the path of some atermors to see what routes they were traveling to get to Ponyville.” Forheest sighed. “We wanted to set tripwires and ambushes for them, perhaps cut down a goodly number. It turned out that where they weren’t going was more important than where they were, and it is that matter that kept us away from Ponyville during the confrontation with the atermors and their pet. I’m still unclear how atermors could possess a kazim stone much less use one, but it matters more that the klesae was driven off and the stone smashed to let it out.”

“The old Castle of the Two Sisters?”

“Hrm?” Forheest looked at Trixie.

“You said where they weren’t going was more important than where they were,” Trixie said. “Was where they weren’t going the old castle in the Everfree?”

“Actually, yes.” The kitsune tilted her head curiously. “You’re aware of it?”

“Yes.”

“And you didn’t call on the thestrals there for aid?”

“Um, thestrals?” Trixie looked at Cadence and Shining before looking back to Forheest. “What’s a thestral?”

“A magical hybrid of dragon and pony,” Cadence said. “When Aunt Celestia was consumed by Nightmare Flare, she transformed at least some of the Wonderbolts into imitations of thestrals. Very pale I should add, because thestrals are distinct for being extraordinarily light on their feet and lithe, whereas Aunt Celestia’s creations were brute enforcers.” She looked at Forheest. “I’d thought the hybridization magic would have faded when she was banished with Luna.”

“The work was done by a hand of such consummate skill that the change was both wholly beneficial and completely permenant.” Forheest frowned. “So they were being entirely accurate when they claimed that their settlement was unknown to the ponies of Equestria. Unfortunate, but at least we located them and conveyed the danger to them. We suspect that the atermors can feel the magic that still lingers about their race and kept their army out of immediate reach because they didn’t know what sort of magic they were dealing with.”

“How’d we not know about them?” Shining frowned heavily. “An entire race of ponies we never even knew existed living so close to Canterlot and we knew nothing about it? More importantly, how the hay’d they stay out of sight when Twiley and her friends went to the castle to get the Elements of Harmony? If there’s any kind of magic around them, why wouldn’t the bearer of Element of Magic notice it? All the time I knew her growing up, Twilight was always very sensitive to nearby magic, part of her abilities with it I guess.”

“A mystery for a later time,” Sadow said. “What matters is that they exist and are eager to aid you. With the other armies gathered to us, we should be able to hold the line until either Lord or Lady Bloodwynd can call upon the full power of the Quarantine Flag to seal Ponyville off from further attack.”

“You can’t?”

“The Flag is the tool of the jeikitsu,” Forheest said solemnly. “They found it, they molded it, and endowed it with its purpose. It will do the bidding of anyone but it will only show its greatest power when called upon by a warrior of mingled kitsune and jei blood.”

“Well OK.” Shining nodded. “Well, I can call upon all the ponies of Ponyville with even a lick of fighting ability. How soon can your soldier be in place, Forheest?”

“As I said at our first meeting, you may call me ‘Forest Shadow’ although my name more accurately translates to ‘shadow within the forest’.” She smiled. “As to when my soldiers will be in place, they are already in place. A small detachment went back to retrieve superior defensive weapons but their strongest power is already in the field, waiting for the deadliest moment to strike.”

“They plan to hit them in the flank when they make for our earthworks,” Shining said.

“Just so.” Forest stepped over to the crude map table. “The battle plan is that the Twisted will rush upon your works to slaughter the defenders. When they’ve emerged enough from the Everfree, my soldiers will rake their lines and and with their cavalry, will charge the flank. The rest will sweep into the earthworks and use them as a secure firing position to inflict mass casualties while the melee part holds them in place. Meanwhile, the thestrals will cut their extended lines and force most of them to turn and fight, and then will commence mass hit-and-run tactics. The Bloodwynds and their retainers will be with the thestrals so they can do what the jei have always done best: cripple the forces of the Evils by slaughtering their leadership.”

“Your plan is to kill everything you can.” Shining looked up at Forest.

“It is, before they do unto us what we would do unto them.”

“There is no possible way to save the thousands of victims of their plague?”

“They are called ‘Evils’ for a reason, Shining Armor.” Forest leaned across the table to lay a hand on the unicorn’s shoulder. “It slakes their lust for suffering to force mortals to cut down their own friends, neighbors, and families. It is among the many purposes of the plagues.”

“Twilight wouldn’t accept that there’s such thing as an unbreakable spell,” Spike said. “Nightmare Moon proved that even the most powerful magical things we know of, the Elements of Harmony, can’t make an unbreakable spell.”

“Nightmare Moon is an extremely unusual case but…” Forest shrugged. “Equestria is the most magically-infused place I’ve yet seen,” she said. “I doubt it’ll do you any good little dragon, but handing the atermors even more humiliation and defeat would be richly welcome. Do what you may; it’s inevitable that there will be more crippling wounds than outright death, and you will shortly have many subjects to experiment on.”

“I thought you said…”

“Much of what happens after a culling is walking among legions of crippled fallen and putting them out of their misery,” Forest interrupted Shining. “It isn’t often that the slaughter is in the heat of battle.”

“Will you be commanding your soldiers personally?” Cadence asked before Shining could say anything more.

“They have their own commanders,” Forest said. “Many of them hardened veterans of wars fought before I was even born. They already understand the stakes, the odds, and what I desire of them; to interfere more would cripple rather than help. What of you, Princess? Will you command your reinforcements?”

Cadence gave her a smile. “As with yours, they have their own commanders and my interference would do no good. I wish I could be sure of how they’ll approach, but several options were discussed and each would have them coming from a completely different direction: from the direction of Trottingham, from the Friendship Express station in Ponyville, even from the air. They’ll be wearing armor with my cutie mark on it to distinguish themselves.”

“Can you give me any idea of what form they’ll take?”

“Whichever one suits their needs at the moment, I imagine.” Cadence shrugged. “I’m the Princess of Love, Forest Shadow. I represent that particular force, the way Aunt Luna represents the moon and Aunt Celesia the sun. I’m far from helpless but a deep understanding of military matters isn’t part of my training or learning.”

“Fair enough.” Forest frowned. “Well, we can’t put this off any longer. At the rate I last heard of them, the Twisted will arrive in mere minutes and everyone will be needed. Yourself, the Captain of the Royal Guard,” she looked at Trixie. “And you, Trixie Lulamoon. Whether you can fight or not, your place is with this town and its ponies, and with that stoic and handsome stallion that dotes on you.”

Trixie found it surprisingly easy to look up at the kitsune and meet her eyes without flinching at the intensity. After that klesae, after the sight of that poor colt and his mother, after seeing Princess Celestia go mad with rage and grief, after watching Princess Cadence forced to step in and save Ponyville from her, after being murdered by the Guardian and being brought back, an onrushing doom isn’t even going to be in the top five worst things I’ve seen in the past year. She squared her shoulders and reached a hoof up to rest on the cap Rarity had sewn for her, and then the matching cape. “Then that’s where I’ll be.”

Author's Note

Ladies and gentlemen, here it is at long last. I'm not sure how long you've waited or if it was with anticipation, but I hope you enjoy. As always, comments are welcome and eagerly encouraged.

Break Upon Like Water

Trixie prided herself on being a fairly cosmopolitan pony. Her wandering had taken her wagon all over Equestria, and had occasionally crossed over the borders into the Provinces. For a unified nation under a diarchy, Equestria contained so many cultures, so many styles of building and laying out cities, that it was sometimes difficult to see how it was ultimately all the same place. The history, too, led to memorials, museums, monuments, and even some ruins of old castles around Neighpon, Bitaly, and Trottingham. None of that had prepared Trixie for the earthworks that Shining and the ponies of Ponyville had dug in less than twenty-four hours.

It wasn’t so much that it surprised her--astonishing endurance was just as much part of earth ponies as wings were pegasi and horns were unicorns--but a previously flat kilometer now obstructed by an earthen wall and a trench behind and in front would bring any pony up short. Spaced atop the wall, which was several times Trixie’s height, was poles from which dimly flickering lanterns hung. Pieces of the cobblestone path that was previously there had been worked into the wall, providing steps to get on top of it and a narrow hardened top so ponies could walk back and forth as needed.

The earthworks were already occupied by various ponies from around town--Trixie recognized Carrot Top and Berry Punch and traded smiles and waves with both--with the tall forms of Shining Armor and Big Mac standing together and looking towards the Everfree.

“Ditzy mentioned seeing them massing at the edge when she flew over,” Shining said as Trixie drew within hearing range.

“Eeyup.”

“I wonder why they’re waiting.”

“Dunno.”

Shining smirked a little. “Prefer action to talk?”

“Eeyup.” Big Mac twisted his head to either side, his joints audibly popping. “Dun like being bait.”

“Those without an army of their own get to help those that do,” Shining sighed. “I don’t like it either but if there’s as many as Ditzy estimated based on what she saw, we can’t possibly fight them. Forest Shadow’s soldiers can, these thestrals sound like they can, and the reinforcements my Cady has called in can.”

“Do ya know much ‘bout them?”

He shook his head. “Only what Cady has told me, and it’s not much.” He looked out towards the direction Forest said her soldiers would be coming from. “I wish I knew more of these thestrals and the soldiers that Forest Shadow plans to use. She spoke of using them to ‘rake’ the Twisted and then some of them entrenching in ‘firing positions’. I’ve never heard of such tactics, at least not with infantry. Usually raking and securing safe firing positions are cannon tactics and they don’t move all that fast even with well-drilled pegasus pullers. And I’d like to know more of these thestrals as well. Cady talked about them being sort of like those dragon-pegasus mixes Nightmare Flare made, but also said Flare’s were crude imitations of a much more capable race of pony. Being kept in the dark is…” he paused to find the word “...disconcerting.”

“I’d like to know something much more important Captain Armor,” Trixie said as she easily vaulted the trench behind the wall and started up the stairs. “Let’s say that Forest Shadow’s soldiers aren’t fast enough. What is the plan for your militia?”

Shining heaved a sigh and rested his hoof on his forehead. “Hope,” he said. “These creatures aren’t like bucking timberwolves or driving off manticores. From how the Cutie Mark Crusaders described what they saw, these Twisted are predators and Ditzy Doo assures me that they’re extremely numerous.” He turned to meet her eyes with ones full of very real fear. “I don’t know what to do, Trixie. I feel like I’m lining innocent ponies up to die, hoping against hope that complete strangers will save them. I’ve never had to fight monsters before, only criminals and professionals.”

“Have a little faith, my love.” Trixie turned her head slightly as she reached the top of the wall, seeing Cadence standing there with her wings tucked against her sides, wearing a peaceful smile. “You’re not facing this alone, none of the ponies of Ponyville are. Aunt Luna may be away and Aunt Celestia disabled but there is still a princess watching over them, prepared to defend them against their enemies and comfort them in the face of this darkness.”

“That and the weather team is prepared to drop a twister on them,” Trixie pointed out. “As terrible as the atermors are, I don’t think they can do much about weather.”

“I fear that you’re being a little too optimistic,” Cadence chuckled. “Kryssa and Anori are two of the most loyal, dedicated, and able guards I know but weather-making is a skill that takes years to really master, and mastery is what is needed to build violent weather and then control it. And yet things are in such flux that even a drizzle could harm the atermors’ efforts.”

“Hope they get it moving fast then,” Carrot top called from the far end of the wall. “Creepy bird-thing straight ahead of us and bunch of things coming out of the Everfree behind it.”

“Oh little pony princess!” The grinding, hollow sound of an atermor’s voice floated over their dirt wall and Trixie turned to see that the atermor itself had approached close, well within the arc of where she could concentrate a barrage of the spheres of Light. The sight made her immediately begin gathering her concentration, feeling the comfortingly hum of magical reserves back at full strength from the strain of the previous day.. Spread out behind it was a mass of roiling blackened mockeries of ponies, covered in chitin plates with apparently random assemblages of horns, claws, and teeth. “Oh little pink princess, come greet your subjects.”

Cadence’s sigh of annoyance was audible even as far away as the princess was standing, and Trixie heard her walking up the steps, her hooves clinking in rhythm as she climbed. Pausing to kiss Shining lightly, she nosed her way in between Trixie and Forest, peering out over the crude battlement. “I see them,” she said evenly. “And I see their tormentor.”

“And I see a fake, a false princess pretending to…”

The moment Cadence had stepped up to answer the taunting of the atermor, Trixie had been holding the barrage in readiness for use the moment the princess was done; one of the foul things strolling casually up to point-blank range was far too juicy an opening to let go. So the moment Cadence turned slightly so her eyes met Trixie’s and gave a minute nod, Trixie let the cascade fly. She hadn’t meant to aim it quite so narrowly, but the sight of the atermor’s form being shredded into scraps of mask and cloth was oddly cathartic after the events of the last few days.

The sudden destruction of the atermor seemed to momentarily stun the mass of Twisted before there was a faint gibbering howl from far behind the mass and any sense of confusion seemed to vanish instantly. The howl was repeated as if it was a signal, leapfrogging up the mass until it reached the ones nearest the earthworks and the hoard immediately surged forward.

Trixie didn’t have time to say or do anything, whether to call up more orbs of Light magic or make her flechette ready, because there was a crackling explosive roar far off to the right and half of the Twisted collapsed as if a giant scythe had swept through them. Entirely forgetting that the other half had survived the attack, Trixie turned to face the direction that the roaring sound had come from.

A cloud of whitish smoke was rising from the tall grass off to the east of the earthworks and from the smoke and tall blades a hoard of… something burst forth, coming at a run. Trixie wasn’t quite sure what she was seeing, other than the fact that they were all just a little bit taller than Spike, had the wiry build of a diamond dog, and were all wearing dark grey uniforms and brown packs that seemed far too large for something so small to move. Of more immediate importance, each one was carrying what appeared to be a long pole made of metal and wood tucked against them as they came running for the earthworks.

Beyond the ones heading for the works were others and these were dressed in dull grey armor with small circles of metal clutched in one hand and long wickedly curved blades in the other. Weaving among them, coming on at a full leaping gallop were more metal-covered soldiers carrying long spears and riding what, from what Trixie could see as they charged, were timberwolves standing taller at the shoulder than even Princess Celestia.

There was no further opportunity to study the soldiers charging the Twisted, because a shout of warning brought Trixie’s head back around in time to see that the survivors of the raking attack were just reaching the earthen walls and the first were already gathering their feet under them to leap the almost-sheer surface. As it had been with Spite and then the atermor in Ponyville, Trixie poured magic into the hemisphere of the flechette just as the first one launched itself--and was torn to pieces by the torrent of magical darts. The ones leaping upon Cadence had impacted a barrier with a wet crunch and fallen limply to the ground where the earth ponies on the wall (and Captain Armor as well) knocked their attackers back off with well-timed bucks.

“Might not what to take your eyes away Miss Lulamoon,” Shining Armor said wryly. “Although our unfortunate foes are mere moments away from having much more important things to think about than us.”

Trixie gave him a quick nod as she fed some of her reserves into her horn, looking for where it would be best to direct a barrage. The flow of Twisted had diverted away from trying to charge the earthworks, however, and were in a full-blown melee with what were clearly Forest Shadow’s soldiers. It was difficult to distinguish between the dull grey of the soldiers and the vibrant black of the Twisted but she had no trouble at all picking out the giant mounts of the soldiers. They looked oddly like the way the CMC had described the unfortunates that the atermors’ plague had mutated, lean and wolflike but covered in some kind of chitin and sporting long wicked claws and whiplike tails sheathed in more of the chitin. The mounts were reaping a terrible harvest and yet the sheer weight of hundreds pressing in on them was making it an equal contest.

“Trixie Lulamoon.” Trixie jumped a bit at a nasally piping voice practically inches from her ear and turned to its source. This turned out to be a green-skinned creature almost exactly her height with a muzzle-less face, slightly bulbous yellow eyes, and a prominent hooked nose. He was wearing a well-fitted uniform of rough trousers and a three-button coat with an odd circular cap from which waves of greasy white mane cascaded. His hands were like Spike’s, but with an extra finger and covered by a pair of heavy leather gloves. Belted around his waist was a curved sword of some kind and what looked like a small club, a handle angling away from a metal shaft with a cylindrical bulge near the handle and a thin metal loop at the junction.

“Yes?” She responded, making no attempt to hide the fact that she was looking the odd creature over.

“Colonel Kipper, 15th division, 3rd Corp,” he said, his serious and businesslike bearing dramatically at odds with the small stature (at least relative to Forest Shadow) and piping voice. “Could you please direct me to Adjutant Sadow?”

“I’m here, Colonel.” Both Trixie and Kipper turned at once to see Forest Shadow standing at the base of the rough stairs leading up to the wall, smiling. “Your timing is impeccable.”

“The atermors lined up all pretty and asked very insistently to be shot,” he replied, giving the kitsune a salute. “My bully boys could hardly miss if they tried. Is there any word on whether the thestral contingent has struck their rear in the Everfree?”

“None yet.” Shadow gave him a grim half-smirk. “Although I guess we’ll know soon enough. Until then, you know your business. The artillery reserve is coming up from the rally point on the road to Canterlot but there was an entanglement and we have siege pieces mixed in with the field pieces.”

“Siege pieces? Field pieces?” Both Sadow and Kipper turned to look at Shining Armor. “You have cannons?”

“Yes,” the colonel said. “Although it sounds like they’re entangled and…”

“How?” Shining interrupted. “Where are you bringing them from? For that matter, who the buck are you? What are you?”

“Gremlins, Royal Guard Captain sir,” Kipper said, straightening slightly. “And the rest will keep until we’re not shielding you against an onslaught of atermors.” He turned to Sadow. “If you’d be willing, Adjutant, would you please tell the captain in charge of my reserve to untangle his mess and get me the ordnance rifles double-quick?”

“Anything I can do to assist,” Shadow gave him a quick bow.

“If you’re willing to do anything Forheest, taking the field yourself would be helpful.” He crossed his arms and frowned at her. “Our enemy is coming through a mass of flowers and leaves, and I have a kitsune planted on her arse in the back of the lines. I should like to quickly crush this branch before wheeling to receive the other.”

“Hold on.” Trixie looked hard at the major. “Other?”

“Yes.” He uncrossed his arms and turned to point in the direction from which he and his soldiers had come. “Scouts on extreme picket duty sent word of a larger force on its way to the east just before we engaged the Twisted. They further report that the force has reversed its direction and will arrive around dawn tomorrow, so we must destroy the force before us.” He looked pointedly at Forest. “For that, we will need to use all of our advantages.”

She sighed but nodded. “I shall deliver the reprimand and then return to do what I might.” There was no apparent gesture, no gathering of magic; between one blink and the next, Forest simply disappeared with a sharp whoosh of air rushing in to fill the void occupied a moment before by the kitsune.

“I recognize this isn’t an opportune time, Colonel, but my fiance’s questions are both relevant and important,” Cadence sad. “You simply cannot know Ponyville and its surrounds the way we do, and I infer that having your artillery at hand is very important.”

Kipper frowned but nodded. “My mistake,” he said. “I apologize, Royal Guard Captain Armor. Our rally point is sixteen kilometers along the road to the city called Canterlot. The reserve will be force-marching on Ponyville as soon as its captain reorganizes it.”

“I could bring the cannons here immediately,” Cadence said. “Teleportation magic is a fairly basic discipline and I’ve the reserves to cover in seconds what may take hours to march. How many of these ‘ordnance rifles’ are there?”

Kipper answered but Trixie had already turned away and tuned him out, letting Princess Cadence and Shining Armor discuss details with him. From where she was standing on the earthen wall, Trixie could see a great many of the ponies that the plague had mutated laying on the ground, either dead or dying, but the soldiers seemed as numerous as they were when they’d charged forward. And yet it seemed like the line hadn’t moved at all, the flow of creatures arriving from the Everfree never seeming to end.

“Horrible innit?” Big Mac said, leaning down to kiss her cheek.

“Yes,” Trixie sighed, smiling very slightly despite herself at the kiss before turning to return it. “Strangers fighting to save us, by killing as many victims of these atermors as possible. It’s hard to know whether to cheer them on or avert your eyes.”

“Cheer,” Mac said instantly. “Folks comes from further than we can think just ta do right by us. ‘Least we can do is a bit o’ cheerin’.”

“I’m not sure how you can Big Mac,” Carrot Top said from somewhere off to Big Mac’s left. “Every single one of those… Twisted are ponies.”

Trixie looked around her coltfriend to where the carrot farmer stood, looking faintly ill as she stared out at the fight. “You know?”

“Berry told me,” Carrot said faintly.

Of course she did, Trixie sighed. If Berry hadn’t decided that everypony should know so they understood exactly who was coming to kill them, Trixie would have been surprised. Still, she had to say “She shouldn’t have.”

“Why?” Carrot turned to look at her. “So we’ll just think the atermors gathered an army of monsters to kill us?”

“Eeyup,” Big Mac said. “Ponyville’s got good folks. Good folks try ta help sick ponies. Woulda got ‘em killed cuz there ain’t any fixin’ this. Still might.”

“How do we…?”

“Because we trusted our allies, Carrot Top.” Shining Armor started up the steps to the wall. “And now it’s because we can’t think that. Otherwise the tragedy of hundreds, of thousands, of tens of thousands of victims dying while we watch would destroy us long before they actually cut our throats.”

“But…”

“This is war, Carrot.” Shining slumped a little, barely giving the distant fight a glance. “This is battle. According to one of Twiley’s books, the last pony to see this sort of thing died hundreds of years ago--at least until the Guardian came.” He patted her shoulder with a hoof. “I know what it’s like, what you’re feeling. I felt it six months ago; all the Royal Guard did. Helpless, ill, frightened, desperate to do something to stop the bloodflow, realizing that you can do nothing.” His tone became unconsciously bitter. “Realizing that the ones doing the fighting are so much stronger than you that all you can do is watch, wait, and try to hold yourself together. Realizing that for all you know and all you can do, it doesn’t mean anything and doesn’t change anything.”

Trixie forced herself to stop looking at the stunned-looking Carrot and turned herself back to the battlefield… and then stopped. Where there had been fairly clear skies above the Everfree when she’s turned to look at Carrot, now there was a faint grey column extending from some dark clouds and disappearing below the horizon. Moreover, the column appeared to be moving and after a moment of baffled incomprehension, Trixie felt a spark of hope.

“Maybe not Shining,” she said, gesturing with a hoof. “I think that’s the weather team’s twister.”

“Really?” He narrowed his eyes and stared at it, watching as it loomed larger and larger. “You know, I think you’re…”

“You lot can control weather?” A piping voice demanded from below.

Trixie blinked, having forgotten about the gremlins who’d dashed for the trench in front of the earthen wall, before peering over and down at them. Now that they weren’t approaching at a run, she could see that what she’d taken for a pole made out of metal and wood was a long metal rod bound to some wood with bands of metal and some kind of decorative metalwork at one end. Each one was also carrying a curved sword strapped to one hip and a large pouch on a strap that ran across their chests.

“Pegasus ponies can,” she told them. “And I’m sure Forest Shadow said that you’d be firing at the Twisted while the other soldiers cut into them.”

“Atermors are directing them to use the cavalry as a shield,” the gremlin that had called up to her said. “Can’t fire without a target. But that doesn’t matter cuz that storm is barreling right for the cut in the line.”

“Cut in the…?” Trixie swallowed, remembering. “Oh no.”

“Oh no,” Shining agreed. “Worse, I don’t think we have a messenger who can get to the cut before the storm is close enough for them to see it on their own.”

“Write-off then,” the gremlin said. “Can’t help them. Hope they’re good.”

“They’ve been through the wringer keeping up with a pony named Rainbow Dash,” Trixie said to him. “The most skilled flier not on the Wonderbolts.”

“Then we don’t need to help them.” The gremlin turned his face towards the battle. “Impasse. Impasse is bad when you’re outnumbered, worse when you’re trying to disengage. Fatigue sets it, weapons break, bleeding has time to take effect, and numbers begin to mean more and more. And if the superior numbers have no more pressing business, they can drive a dagger into your back as you retreat” He turned back. “Royal Guard Captain Shining Armor, they must be broken quickly so the cavalry can disengage before that storm arrives. Will your militia follow?”

“I wouldn’t call them militia,” Shining hedged. “They’re… townponies trying to help.”

The gremlin sighed deeply. “Then sending them to battle is as good as murdering them,” he said. “Keep them out of our way and for Weaver’s sake, keep them from trying to be heroes.” The gremlin turned his attention to the soldiers. “Alright boys, fix bayonets. Wide flank to the left and back in. Aimed fire, no volleys.”

Almost simultaneously, the soldiers planted the ends of their weapons in the dirt, withdrew what appeared to be a very long sharp blade with a ring on the end from a pouch on their right hip, slipped it over the far end of the weapon, and gave it a firm twist. As one, they brought the weapons up so one end was tucked in the crook of an elbow and the other end cradled in an open hand, and then exited the trench at a jog, heading outwards and around towards the opposite side of the Twisted from where the cavalry was fighting.

“Awful sorry Captain,” Big Mac rumbled after a moment of them watching the soldiers exit and move towards the fight.

“For what?” Shining said in a subdued voice. “Not being hardened soldiers in a nation protected by two near-deities and the Elements of Harmony?” He sighed and shook his head. “You’re all here, standing on the wall and ready to help. Nopony could ask anything more of you than that.”

“We’re still sorry Captain Armor,” Carrot Top said. “A chance to actually do something, unlike what happened with Nightmare Flare, and you’re stuck here holding the hooves of civilians.”

Shining Armor smiled a little and shook his head again. “I just have to remember that my oath of duty calls upon me to serve the ponies of Equestria, not fight their enemies. Holding the hooves of civilians while soldiers fight is exactly what I signed up for, so you have nothing to feel sorry about.”

“Just by getting the buildings in better condition and throwing up earthworks, you’ve acquitted yourselves well,” Princess Cadence said, stepping up beside her fiance and giving him a quick nuzzle. “I’ll be able to get the ordnance rifles here but I’m told that they can’t be transported until the soldier Colonel Kipper left in charge reorganizes them. In the meantime, I think we should try throwing up some more of these earthworks in the way of the other group of Twisted coming from the east.”

“I was thinking the same,” Trixie said, watching the snaking column of gremlins break into a jog as they started looping back towards the fight. “Other than watching, we can’t do anything here. If the fight turns against them, we can’t help. If the fight goes in their favor, they won’t need us. But the way we can help, I think, is make more of these earthworks facing east.”

The few times she’d been in severe weather, Trixie remembered the sky getting dark, and the wind turning cold and stiff. There was usually a peal of thunder and once or twice some flashes of lightning. Universally, however, the storm was announced by a drizzle quickly turning into rain and then a downpour. So when they finished laying out where they’d dig and had broken ground with nary a drop of water to be seen, Trixie stopped and stared confusedly at the placid sky above.

“No storm,” Big Mac observed.

“I was thinking the same thing,” Trixie said. “I’m not eager to be blown around and soaked to the bone but…”

“...you were counting on the storm.” Cadence nodded. “Do you think it could have been a wild storm that the weather team was trying to harness or disperse? It’d explain why it was barreling at the cut in the line instead of where it could do the most good.”

“That... “ Trixie sighed. “That could be. I wish Ditzy was still here.” She glanced around. “Where is she anyhow?”

“Last I saw her, she was flying a high circuit around the edge of Ponyville,” Carrot Top siad. “I’m sure if she sees anything, she’ll come and tell us.” She paused. “Well, at least if she sees something she thinks we don’t already know about.”

“That must mean she got the flag put up.” Trixie turned to see if she could spot the flag, finding that her view was blocked by nearby buildings. “I guess the flag doing something on its own was too much to hope for.”

“It was worth a shot,” Spike said from between the pages of a book almost as large as he was that he was somehow holding above the ground. “Hey Shining?”

“Yeah?”

“I don’t think we’re gonna get much out of a wall and trench,” he said, resting the book on the ground lightly and flipping several pages. “I know we laid them out but I think we’re better off trying to slow them down than block them. C’mon over and look at this.”

Trixie peered over the baby dragon’s shoulder as Shining ambled over, dropping the shovel he’d been using with his horn magic as he went. The page Spike had flipped to was mostly text in a series of characters that looked nothing like Equiish. but also a series of diagrams showing the dimensions of a setup and crudely illustrating pits with forward-facing wooden spikes and deep irregular holes lightly covered over with grass.

Shining took up position beside her, eyes visibly skipping over the text to the diagrams. “So, pit traps to break up the charge?”

“Yup.” Spike gestured to a particularly dense passage. “‘We found the timber wolves loved spikes of wood no more than any creature of flesh, and that with their attention on an easy meal, failed to see the holds beneath their feet. The pack came; the few that survived the field of pits were easy prey and then we destroyed their pack-mates. Such defenses should cause the ponies much sorrow, no matter the cleverness of their warrior princess.’”

There was a long silence while Trixie and Shining stared at Spike, who didn’t seem to notice for the first few seconds. After several moments, he turned to look over his shoulder at them. “Yeah, I can read canni. Stop staring at me like that.”

“Sorry.” Trixie gave him a pearly smile. “I was just thinking that it may have annoyed you when our visitors said it, but they could have a point about the familiar thing.”

“I’ll bet you read canni cuz Twiley reads canni,” Shining said.

“Eh.” Spike shrugged, turning back to the book. “Whatever. Important thing is, it should be faster to make these kinds of defenses and they’ll work better. Too bad those gremlin guys are fighting right now… I’ll bet they could do a lot with some shovels instead of little cannons.”

“Is that what those are?” Trixie said.

“Long metal tube, stabilized with a wood frame, used in volleys.” Spike shrugged again. “Seems like the cannon diagrams I’ve seen.”

“Seems like descriptions of the cannons I’ve seen,” Shining added. “Although all the cannons I’ve seen have fuses and torch holes, and I’m not sure how that’d work with a cannon you carry on your shoulder. Maybe the gremlins will let us keep one, let Twiley look at it.”

“Percussion caps.” The three of them turned to look behind and above and were greeted by a mare that Trixie mistook for Krysa for a split second. The lean shape was the same, along with the very light purr to her voice and the predatory focus. But after the split second, she saw the grey-violet coloration, the black armor, and most distinctly, the reptilian pupils and broad dragon-like wings, and Cadence’s brief description of a thestral came back to her.

The thestral showed her teeth to them, exposing delicately pointed canines and incisors, before settling to the ground and tucking her wings against her body. “I’m told that the shoulder cannons use small things called ‘percussion caps’ and a piece of the weapon called a ‘hammer’ to touch off the powder.”

“You’re a… thestral?” Shining stared unabashedly at her.

“You’re a unicorn,” she said dryly. “So’s the one in the fancy cap and cape. And there’s a dragon holding a book. I’m a mare, she’s a mare, you’re a stallion, and the dragon’s male. I’m the alpha female, you’re an officious twat, and the stage magician smiles like a pro. I’m pretty sure the dragon is a nerd. Any other obvious things you want to get off your chest?”

Shining’s cheeks grew a bit pink, at her condescending tone. “Excuse me,” he said with a frown. “Who are you?”

“Keen Edge,” the thestral responded, eyes narrowing. “Who the hell are you?”

“Shining Armor, Captain of the Royal Guard.”

“Impressive job Captain,” Keen snorted. “Just goes to show that soft ponies from nice safe cities don’t mean pies when the chips are down. Can’t believe ol’ Sunbutt…”

She trailed over as Princess Cadence’s familiar multicolored mane filled Trixie’s peripheral vision, and she could have sworn the thestral got a little pale. “I believe you were saying something about my adoptive aunt, Keen Edge?” Cadence asked in a tone of exaggerated sweetness. “And about my fiance?”

Keen Edge swallowed audibly and bowed hurriedly. “P.. princess,” she said. “I’m sorry, I got carried…”

“Save it,” Cadence growled a little. “There’s no time for us to go the rounds about your temper and your big mouth, Keen. What’s the status of the cut in their line of advance?”

“Last I saw, their cohesion was shattered,” Keen said in a more even and subdued voice, not meeting Cadence’s eyes. “Lord and Lady Bloodwynd are chopping off the heads of their leadership--literally, for the most part--as quickly as atermors appear. I was confident enough to leave Darkwing in charge and bring a hoof-picked force here to shore up the defenses.”

“Did you happen to bring any of your staff?”

Keen smirked a little. “They’re my ‘staff’ now?”

“Betas, thetas, epsilons, gammas.” Cadence waved a hoof. “I don’t care what you call them, did you bring them with you?”

The smirk became a grin. “Darkwing’s a lot of brave and smart but he couldn’t manage his way out of a paper sack. Couldn’t leave him to keep the fight going without Match and Brass.”

Cadence smiled a little. “She’s ‘Match’ now?”

Keen apparently decided that the lighter tone was a signal that she could look up and she promptly did. “Matchstick, actually.” She looked over at Shining Armor. “Sorry for being a jerk Captain Armor.”

“It’s… fine.” He looked at Cadence. “How do you know my fiance?”

“Let’s call her a friend of a friend of a friend and leave it there for now.” Keen forestalled any further questions by stepping around Shining and peering at Spike’s book. “Quick fortifications?”

“Yup.” Spike turned to look at her. “How long have you been in the Everfree?”

“State secret.”

“Whose?”

She bared her teeth at him. “Mine.”

Spike stared at her a moment longer before shrugging and turning back to his book. “What do you think?”

“I beat things up,” she said. “You want to talk to Brass Coupling about this sorta stuff. Came out of the womb with a wrench in her mouth and a toolbox clutched in her hooves.”

“I think Twilight came out with a book and a reading light sometimes,” Spike grinned toothily at her. “So, what state?”

“A state that’s done right by me and mine for centuries.” The bared teeth were upgraded to a glare. “Drop it. You’re gonna be all grown up before me and Sunbutt’s little kingdom are square, and I ain’t gonna blab state secrets till we’re square.”

Spike was noticeable smaller than Keen but Trixie had to give him credit: he either had an incredible poker face or he really was as unimpressed with the threat as he looked. “So this state that did right by you… one of those secrets?”

“For now.”

“Why Princess Cadence knows you and you know her… another secret?”

Her eyes narrowed. “What the hay are you…?”

“Awful hard to know you’ve got a temper and a big mouth if she doesn’t know you.” He looked passed Keen at Cadence. “The thestrals are the ponies you called for help.”

“No, not specifically.” She smiled. “But well-spotted.” She took a step closed to Spike, brushing passed Trixie lightly so she could lean down and look him in the eye. “That said, please stop asking. The time to discuss all of these things--who the ponies are, who the thestrals are, how I know Keen Edge and her colony--will come and I’ll explain it all when that time comes. For now, please just help Shiny lay out fortifications and answer Keen’s questions.”

Spike nodded immediately and looked at Keen. “Okay, so, is there anything that we can try to throw up that’ll help you guys?”

“A brothel.”

Spike didn’t even blink. “Two stories or three?”

Keen eyed his total deadpan expression before she grinned. “You’re my kind of nerd. Whatcha called?”

“Spike. And I’m just the nerd’s assistant.”

“Right-hoof dragon, huh?” She glanced at Cadence. “Well, pies. Now I gotta keep this place safe, at least until the queen nerd shows up.”

Cadence chuckled. “Just because of Spike.”

“Well, him and the mare in uniform up high.” Keen gestured vaguely upwards. “How she spots things with a screwed-up eye, I have no idea but I like her. Blunt like a sledgehammer, and I’m all about that.”

“I’m glad you’re fully behind the effort.” Cadence stepped back so she could kiss Shining’s cheek. “So, here’s your boss Keen. Whatever he says, treat it like I say it.”

Keen’s grin dropped. “You’re bucking me.”

“Only with Shiny’s permission.” Cadence’s pleasant expression evaporated as well. “I mean it sincerely. We’re getting help from the gremlin soldiers but for all the ponies, Captain of the Royal Guard Shining Armor is in command.” She nodded to Trixie. “As is Trixie Lulamoon here. It so happens that the queen nerd acts as the unofficial guardian of Ponyville, and she asked Trixie to work on her behalf. So until further notice, you listen to her and you listen to Shiny.”

Keen growled but nodded. “OK, fine, I listen to the tin soldier and the stage magician. Anything else?”

“Be an alpha female, not a child.” Cadence nuzzled Shining. “There’s a good reason you got the job.”

Keen glared at Cadence before hissing something under her breath and looking at Shining Armor. “OK tin can, give it to me straight.”

Shining returned Cadence’s nuzzle as Trixie looked Keen over. “Sorry to interrupt, Captain Armor, but why hasn’t the storm we saw arrived?”

“Storm?” Keen furrowed her brow. “Oh, you must mean the monsoon cloud. We redirected it towards the deep Everfree on our way in. Would have loved to use it to drown some critters but it was completely out of control and it’s sorta dumb to mess with something that wild. Best to let it dump out and break up on its own.”

“Did you see any pegasi around it?”

“Not around it, no. The Ponyville region weather team were the ones who spotted it and warned us about it.” Her eyes flicked to Cadence. “Them, and a couple of pegasi in Royal Guard armor.”

Cadence sighed. “They’re talented guards but I feared they wouldn’t be up to weather-shaping without any experience.”

“And here I was thinking that flying ponies could do the weather thing without trying.” She looked at Shining. “OK, what’s next?”

He looked her over. “You’re like pegasi, right?”

Keen gave him a very level look and spread her wings. “You did catch that we don’t do the feathers thing, right?” Shining just gave her a dim look and she sighed. “OK, fine, yeah we do the pegasus thing. Why?”

“I’m thinking it’d help a lot if not all of the Twisted that are on their way here arrive,” he said. “Could you make that happen?”

She snorted. “Could we make that happen? It’s sorta what we do, tin can, and these Twisted are pretty aimless without atermors pulling their strings.”

“Then you know my orders,” he said with a smile he clearly didn’t mean. “Get to it.”

She gave him a mocking salute. “Aye-aye Royal Guard Captain Tin Can, sir.” She swept her wings downward and leapt into the air, rapidly gaining altitude. When she reached the level of some nearby low-hanging clouds, her shrinking shape was joined by at least a dozen others and they assumed a v-shaped flying formation as they rocketed towards the east.

Shining watched them go before looking at Cadence. “So how do you know her, Cady?”

“She was being flippant but accurate,” she said. “I know her through a friend among the ponies I called on, who knows her through a friend of hers. This is the first time I’ve actually met her, though.”

“Ah.” He looked towards where Big Mac and Berry Punch were just finishing one of the spiked pits and covering it over. “I hope those ponies show up soon. Having a nearly completely undefended flank when all our help is locked into a fight makes me nervous.”

“I know.” She walked to his side and leaned lightly against him, draping a wing over his back like a vast feathery blanket. “For all the magic ponies have, no one is ever where they want to be exactly when they want to be there. They may yet be hours away when minutes count. But they will come and…”

“They’re here!” Everyone turned to see Keen and her flight come barreling out of the forest, deftly dodging branches and brush as they came.

Cadence and Shining both lit their horns and a sphere of pinking magic popped up between the oncoming thestrals and the forest. “What do you mean, they’re here?” Cadence demanded.

Keen backflapped to a stop just a length short of Cadence and touched down. “Bucking gremlins didn’t bother to note how fast they buckers were coming,” she snarled. “And I’ll bet anything they went all-out when the gremlins checkmated the first bunch. They’re a minute behind us, maybe two.”

Trixie felt her heart constrict. And we don’t even have earthworks up! We won’t be able to get to the gremlins in time to warn them! “H… how many?”

“Can’t say,” Keen said. “At least as many as there are coming the other way, probably a lot more. Atermors driving them just like before, but I’ll bet they’ll be smart enough to stay out of easy reach this time.”

“Then we need to get the townponies out of here,” Cadence said, her voice distant, realization slowly creeping into it. “They must be shielded until my reinforcements can arrive to aid us.” She turned to Shining. “Shining, I need you to do this. I need you to shield and protect the civilians. I know you can sustain shields for a very long time. it’s your special talent after all. And as you said to Carrot, your duty is to the common pony, and that is who you must protect now.”

Shining kissed her, looking into her eyes. “What about you?”

Cadence kissed back and ran her cheek against his. “I am a princess of Equestria my love,” she said gently. “We don’t know why the atermors are so fixated on Ponyville but their intentions for Equestria are surely poisonous, so they cannot be permitted to drive us out. Even fleeing and letting them have their way isn’t an option. To protect Equestria, I must stand my ground here.”

Shining sighed and nodded. “I suppose you must then.” He stepped around her. “Alight ponies, we need to round everypony up and get them back to the library. It’s easier to sustain a shield over a single location than throwing up a large shield over a larger area. Keen, have one of your hoof-picked ponies inform Ditzy Doo so she can alert anypony she can find, which will probably be most of the town.”

Keen looked over the other thestrals with her and gestured to one with a dark grey coat and lavender mane, who nodded sharply and swept off into the clouds promptly. The alpha female then looked at Shining. “The rest of us are gonna hang with the Princess here, tin can. Hope ya don’t got a problem with that.”

“You wouldn’t be much use gathering ponies anyway,” he shrugged. “You could easily be mistaken for some creature of the atermors.”

She bared her fangs at that but with a glance at Princess Cadence, turned away without comment and walked to the fore, her party spreading out to either direction in a vague wedge shape in front of Cadence. Seemingly satisfied with this response from Keen, Shining looked at Trixie. “Miss Lulamoon, I think you should come with…”

“If you don’t mind love, I’d like to have her here,” Cadence said. “I’ll need her and I feel that if she was left out of this, she would eventually resent us for keeping her from fulfilling a promise to Twilight.”

Trixie swallowed hard at that. “Princess, I’m not that much of a…”

Cadence raised a hoof to her, smiling. “With my aid, Trixie, your limited abilities will be more than enough to give the atermors pause. And while I can’t be absolutely certain my abilities will destroy and hinder them, there is no doubt at all that your spells of Light will.” She looked at Shining. “The minutes are almost up, love. Hurry.”

Shining gave her a hesitant look, the tension in his legs practically screaming his reluctance, but he took in a breath and looked at the gathered ponies. “All of you come with me,” he called in a tone of ironclad command. “Drop what you’re doing, come now!”

There was no hesitation whatsoever in the ponies working on the improvised defenses. Big Mac stopped just long enough to kiss her on the tip of her horn, whisper “be careful” and his solid frame was already disappearing beyond the edge of the town with Carrot, Berry, and all the other ponies. Cadence watched them go, drew a deep breath, and let it out as she turned to face the woods. “Don’t be afraid Trixie,” she said. “Remain alert for the atermors and destroy them, and we will win through.”

Trixie swallowed hard again and found herself unconsciously stepping closer to the reassuring presence of the pink alicorn. “I’m not Twilight Sparkle,” she said as she saw a rustle pass through the trees and brush before them with no wind to explain it. “I… I can’t just drown them in magical power like she can, like you can.”

“Trixie, I’m the Princess of Love.” Cadence lay a wing over her. “And the fundamental nature of love is that it can be shared.” And without any further gesture on her part, without her lighting her horn or doing anything else that Trixie could see, a surge of electric feeling made her stumble, a surge of magical energy that pulsated as a phantom sensation right beneath her horn.

She took a moment to steady herself and tentatively shaped the surging energy into the spheres of the bombardment spell. Even at full strength, forming the spheres had always been a minor exertion; this time they materialized as if summoned by her merely wishing for them to appear. Growing bolder, she tried to manifest more at once and as before, they appeared instantly without any real effort. This… this must be what it’s like to be Twilight! she marveled to herself.
Any further thoughts were quickly silenced as the forest stirred again and a line of frighteningly familiar black forms emerged, extending so far from side to side that Trixie had to turn her head to take them all in. Behind the first line came another, and then another, all walking at an unhurried pace in nearly perfect unison. Rank after rank marched out from the thick forest and stopped just outside easy reach of the wedge of thestrals headed by Keen until there were tidy ranks going all the way back to the edge of the brush. With the Twisted standing so near and unmoving, Trixie could now see an additional detail that the Cutie Mark Crusaders hadn’t mentioned, likely because they hadn’t noticed.

The eyes of the victims of the atermors’ plague were empty of thought or life. There wasn’t even the awareness of a wild animal, but a terrifying mindless blankness. She had the sudden impression, and wasn’t sure what gave it to her, that the Twisted couldn’t actually see her--or anyone. They appeared to be little more than puppets on the strings of their malevolent masters, and Trixie abruptly understood why their allies didn’t hesitate to slaughter them: the afflicted ponies seemed no different than dead bodies walking around.

“If you tried, atermor, I’m certain you could be much more obvious,” Cadence said loudly. “Perhaps you’d like to try this dance face-to-face, like your brother.”

“I fear I must decline, little spawn.” Trixie stiffened slightly and noticed a moment of tension in the wing draped over her at the atermor voice that replied, echoing directionlessly from the woods. That voice… that tone… “I’ve already had my fill with you, and your little trickster kine. You cost us a valuable kazim stone, you and that white cow with the sun on her flanks, and the small one wearing the clothes of a huckster.”

Cadence paused a moment. “A puppet.”

“Astute. I have many, but you have just that frail flesh to protect you.” The atermor that had confronted them in the town square holding a black rod, the one that Trixie thought she’d destroyed with a blast of her flechette, chuckled breathlessly. “Flesh that I will now rend, at the claws of the people you claim as your own, who are now mine.”

At the last syllable of “mine”, several things seemed to happen at the same time. The Twisted leapt at the thestrals, the thestrals snapped their wings open and charged at the nearest Twisted, Trixie released the spheres of light she’d been gathering in the general direction that the atermor’s voice seemed to come from, and Cadence’s horn flared with blinding radiance, staggering Trixie.

When her vision cleared an instant later, the thestrals were all airborne and the entire force of Twisted were collapsed in place like puppets with cut strings. Trixie could see more emerging to replace them, coming with yelps and runs, but she couldn’t help but stare at the rows of still forms stretched out in front of them. Cadence lightly tapping her barrel with a wing brought her back to herself and she willed another barrage of spheres into existence.

As she released this fusillade of Light spheres into the forest, the thestrals swooped in on the running Twisted, flipping around in midair and putting the full force of momentum into their back hooves, bowling their targets off their feet. Once grounded, the forms of dragon-winged pegasi seemed to blur into a flow of constant deadly motion. Wicked chitinous blades passed around and over them. Moving to try to tackle them resulted in a stunning blow beneath their jaw and a pivot on a single hoof brought the front two into the temple with bone-breaking force. Some blows were dodged, others turned from a deep evisceration to a minute gash, and yet others were almost gently grasped and directed into another Twisted. Although Twixie could see plenty of power in the dragon-ponies, it was all grace and fluid motion, never staying still long enough to be overwhelmed, always moving from one step to the next as if it was a deadly dance instead of a fight.

“An entire race of ponies designed for war,” Cadence commented in a tone of quiet awe, “and they do it with grace.” She glanced to Trixie even as her magic appeared to lash out of its own accord and bat aside a Twisted that had tried to sneak up on them from a side. “Is the link working?”

“If you mean how I can do magic without calling on my own reserves, I think it’s working,” Trixie said, throwing another spread of spheres at the woods, catching one of the spheres in mid-flight and causing it to impact in a knot of the insectoid ponies, throwing them in all directions from the explosive shock. “You’re sharing your own font with me?”

Cadence smiled, looking at her even as her magic continued to lash out and throw any Twisted drawing near to them aside without apparent attention from the princess. “It’s part and parcel of how my special talent works, Miss Lulamoon. Love is a very nice thing but doesn’t mean much unless you can share it freely. By the same token, I can ‘subsidize’ your own power with my vast font so that you can do more with the tools you have. I and Shiny have been considering giving it a try with his special talent for shields, seeing what kind of beating his most powerful barrier can take with me bearing the magical cost instead of him. Perhaps even ‘tune’ the barrier to obstruct only certain enemies. But that is in the future; at present, I wonder why this taunting atermor isn’t simply crushing us with numbers as he threatened.”

“In my shows, I like to use big flashy magic to entertain my audience so I can do something extra special when they looking in the wrong direction,” Trixie offered.

“A distraction.” Cadence nodded. “But from what?”

“Flanking the gremlins, attacking the cannons the gremlins are bringing from the direction of Canterlot, going after the clinic where Princess Celestia is resting…” Trixie grimaced. “I’m pretty sure they don’t need to be creative to do harm.”

“All too true.” Cadence turned her gaze to the sky and some large clouds drifting lazily by from the east. “Dammit, where are they?”

Trixie’s brow furrowed as she followed the line of Cadence’s attention. “Princess, why are you looking at the sky? Are they flying here or something?”

“I already told you, I don’t know how they plan to arrive,” Cadence said. “Yes, flying here is one possible way to approach Ponyville but…”

Trixie waited for a moment for Cadence to continue and when she didn’t, looked back at the princess, feeling a wind stir her mane as she did. A wind moving east. She didn’t have the chance to look back at the clouds moving against the wind before there was an ear-shattering roar from above, followed by a staggering cacophony of many more roars, and the edge of the forest exploded. Trixie stumbled from surprise and the way the ground itself seemed to heave from the explosions, just regaining her stability when there was another roar and yet more of the forest exploding. This time, she was only saved from falling on her face by Cadence stepping forward and catching her with a hoof.

“Well as I live and breathe…” the princess said before the roaring destroyed another line of the forest and with the princess to stabilize her, Trixie finally got turned around and looked upwards at the source.

Where there had been a large cloud drifting lazily along, there was now a ship sailing through the air as if it was water. Along the hull were engines with a half-dozen large propellers at the bow, midship, and stern with an extra two on booms in the back. It was very large, moreover, about the height of a 2-story house with a large captain’s cabin sticking up in the front. Sails, probably more decorative than practical, jutted up from the deck and were spread out beyond the sides of the vessel as well. What drew Trixie’s attention most, though, were the source of the sound: two rows of ports cut into the side of the ship with cannons jutting out, cannons that were jumping back into their holes as they belched forth a curtain of fire only only to be shoved back out a minute later to do it again. The ship appeared to be made of blackened iron and as Trixie looked harder at it, she could swear she saw the guttural flame of runescript covering the hull as well.

“What… is that?” She breathed.

“That, Trixie Lulamoon, is the Black Mambo,” Cadence replied in a voice that was struggling not to be a laugh. “More importantly, it’s my reinforcements arriving as I said they would.”

“A single flying ship?” But even as she said it, she could see small shapes launching themselves from the deck of the vessel by the dozen, shapes as black as the vessel that were diving towards the ground and the ever-larger mass of Twisted flooding out of the forest, even as the Mambo’s cannons fell silent. They came on faster than Trixie could get a good look at but for a brief second, she had the impression of black-coated ponies with crooked horns before a brilliant green flame swept over that form and from it emerged what could easily be mistaken for a duplicate of a Twisted pony, but clad in gleaming bronze armor and very pony eyes glinting with intelligence as they launched themselves at the victims of the atermors’ plague.

There was no grace or lithe, liquid movement in the new arrivals but sheer brute power accompanied by faint flickering auras of viridian magic around their limbs as they struck. Twisted were not merely cut but run through and thrown at their fellows, not merely bruised or a limb broken, but chests caved in and bones shattered as Cadence’s reinforcements brutalized their way through the masses with careless abandon. Trixie felt her stomach lurch as she watched, the knowledge that the ponies being ground underhoof were effectively already dead doing nothing to lessen the impact.

It took her a full minute of watching the brutality for her mind to pick up on the movement at the outer edge of the masses: the Twisted were actually backing away. Some were even fleeing and the panic appeared to be contagious as it blazed its way inwards, leading more and more Twisted to turn and start running. Notably, the reinforcements made no attempt to stop them, nor did they make any movement towards pursuit. It was only those Twisted that continued to attack that received the crushing response and the crowd began to melt faster than the thestrals and reinforcements could disable them.

At some point, and Trixie didn’t see when that point was, the ponies fighting for them simply stopped and watched as the Twisted scattered, fleeing back into the ruins of the forest and as the last disappeared, the armored creatures turned and the flare of greenish flame swept over them again, and Trixie found herself almost eye-to-eye with several dozen ponies unlike any she’d ever seen.

They were solidly built and each one encased in what appeared to be the chitin of insects, an impression strengthened by wings that looked like those of a housefly. Their legs appeared pitted and irregular, and their horns were jagged-looking. And yet the ponies standing before her had manes and tails of various patterns and colors, eyes that were friendly, and despite the sheer number, she could see a myriad of very individual cutie marks on their flanks.

There was a long moment of hesitation as if they weren’t quite sure what to do or say next and then as one, every single one of the strange-looking poneis dropped to their front knees and bowed deeply in the direction of Cadence.

Cadence smiled and bowed to them in return. “Welcome to Equestria my friends,” she said warmly. “Thank you for your timely intervention, and your unhesitating zeal in the protection of Ponyville.”

“Um, y… you’re welcome Princess!” Trixie blinked and saw the same surprised expression on Cadence’s face out of the corner of her eye, as she became aware of the sound of clanking hoofsteps approaching. She could also make out what looked all the world like a bright red cap bobbing above the sea of blank as the hat’s owner wove his way through the reinforcements. The ponies shifted and parted ways as the hat-wearer got closer and with a movement simultaneous enough to be silently coordinated, the last two stepped aside to reveal a unicorn stallion standing among them. His face was a creamy brown color with a light off-white end of his muzzle and what Trixie could see of his mane was strangely long and flowing, and a rather attractive off-white like the tip of his muzzle. There was a subtle smile to the stallion’s face, a cheerful brightness to his chocolate-brown eyes and somehow, the presence of a vivid scarlet cape draped over his polished red armor that covered him from hoof to just under his jaw didn’t look at all silly. Somehow, the symbol of a heart with a curved sword driven through it and the words "Tantalus" on the breastplate of the armor didn't look silly either.

And yet, despite a very light blush and a coltish nervousness and cheer about him, Trixie had a very strong feeling that this was a stallion who could be very dangerous if someone gave him reason to be. Perhaps it was the weathering of his youthful features, perhaps the subtle flicker of military watchfulness behind those warm eyes, or perhaps it was that he was dressed in full and very obviously exquisitely-made armor in the midst of a hoard of ponies that had quite literally crushed their enemies, but something about the stallion suggested a hardened soldier shifting about under the extremely pleasant mien that he projected.

“Hi!” He enthused with a broad smile. “Um, I mean, good afternoon Princess! I’m General Sugary Market the er, commander of this unit. So sorry we were late, the wind was really hard to deal with over the Everfree, that’s for certain. But um, we’re here now and it looks like we’re in good time and you look unhurt so, that’s got to be good.” He hoofed at the ground in a slightly bashful way. “Ah, I’m really stammering aren’t I?” He took a deep breath, let it out, then bowed to her. “Well, what I mean to say is… Princess, First Tantalus Brigade reporting for duty!”

Author's Note

Here y'all go, then, another chapter and one where I get to do lots and lots of prose-ing about fighting. I enjoyed thoroughly.

The character of Sugary Market is copyright the FimFiction user Mr. Market who in addition to owning this character is the God-Emperor of the Mighty Turtle Army. Also, he owns the Final Fantasy style airship Black Mambo although my description of it will vary from his own in certain respects.

Because of a close resemblance in character traits, I'll say that the thestrals Keen Edge (Razor Back), Matchstick (Purse Cutter), and Brass Coupling (Bronze Gasket) are copyright the FimFiction user Obsidian Pony although I've altered names and certain physical characteristics. They're not so much direct copies as heavily influence and inspired by, so I thought it would be fair to make the attribution.

Stay tuned for a peek into the events that preceded a unicorn with an airship showing up with a brigade of changelings called the First Tantalus Brigade.

Twilight: End of the Line

Silence filled the throne room at Lepinora’s announcement. “Ponyville is under attack,” Twilight repeated. “But… who? Why?”

“Atermors, Princess Sparkle,” Lepi said. “Specifically, the mutated spawn of the magical plague they use as a weapon. Apparently, this ‘Vorka’ has altered the plague so it’s more virulent and powerful, which is why the plague-spawn could already be present in high enough numbers to attack.”

“With respect to your agents, Lepinora, I can’t see how that’s possible,” Nightmare said. “No matter how quickly they gathered Twisted, even the Emperor of All Maladies lacks the precise control of magical flow to mass-teleport such creatures by the hundreds of thousands. They would have to haste-infused and run the distance, and such things take time.”

“With respect, Empress, wouldn’t the involvement of this ‘Vorka’ change things considerably?” Tetti inquired as she got up from her throne. “He can alter a magical plague considerably. Wouldn’t it be fairly simple to engineer a magical means of mass-teleportation that works through rune-craft? I myself have devised such constructs and they’re very simple to operate.”

“The only consistent truth of Vorka is that he cannot be trusted,” Nightmare said. “He throws monkey wrenches in anything he’s commissioned to do unless closely watched or highly motivated. This truth isn’t easy to learn because he’s very cunning about how he sabotages to inflate his own ego; only I and a few others fully understand his treacherous tendencies. When he was creating night-infused soldiers for Luna, he had both an exquisitely intricate challenge before him and a nightmare glaring malevolently over his shoulder constantly, and he created a race that was a significant alteration while keeping the basic universal fertility among the other pony races, a task that I understand to be extremely difficult.”

“Well yeah, it’d be difficult as hay,” Dawn said. “Just maintaining…”

“So how does him being treacherous scum amount to his involvement making little difference?” Lepi asked.

“Any rune-based shortcuts he’d have made would rebound horribly upon whomever tried to use them, his version of teaching inferior creatures not to rely on shortcuts,” Nightmare said. “And it’s possible that he booby-trapped the plague itself somehow, because a magical disease that mutates and twists its victims into tortured husks is something he could do in his sleep while hogtied to the front of an express train.”

Twilight heard Rarity gasp behind her and there was another long silence. “Tortured husks?” she said quietly, more calmly than she felt. “This sickness… it twists ponies into tortured husks?”

“Sadly, yes.” Nightmare came off the covered throne she’d been using. “Or at least that’s what Vorka would want them to believe. Exactly what Vorka’s plague does is something that only Vorka knows. Tricking a superior like Canceros into using a flawed plague would be like catnip to him, and if I know anything about him at all, he is fundamentally incapable of resisting the urge to flaunt his intellect and cunning. He’s far too old and cautious to be destroyed by his ego.” Reaching Twilight, she leaned down and met her eyes. “But he can be anticipated by it, and the atermors have no idea what awaits them at your home, Twilight.”

Twilight swallowed a little, unsettled by Nightmare’s closeness but unsure about why; her actions about the Guardian and ever since she met them in Maredusa’s cavern had made it clear that there was nothing to fear from the self-proclaimed Dread Empress. Burying the question in the back of her mind to be considered later, she took in a breath and looked into the turquoise draconic eyes. “Who do you mean? I have confidence in Trixie to watch over Ponyville in my stead, but she can’t possibly stop an attack by herself.”

“Admittedly, we can’t state as a fact that Celestia called on him to help Trixie Lulamoon protect Ponyville, but it would perfectly reflect the Sun Princess’ tendencies,” Lepi said as Nightmare backed away, yielding the floor to the tattooed mare. “Calling out the Royal Guard would be one of her first initiatives, and your adoptive brother is their captain.”

Twilight’s eyes went wide. “Shiny?”

“I’m sure he is, but we tend to call him Shining Armor,” Lepi smirked at her. “Pounds to pudding, the atermors are currently bouncing off of one of his village-sized shields. Or unexpected resistance has temporarily deterred them; the situation is potentially very fluid.”

“Fluid?” Applejack repeated.

“Meaning, the situation is changing so quickly and unpredictably that we can’t be sure what’s happening right now and what is likely to happen soon,” Lepi said. “My report is that an attack is in progress, but that report is old enough and vague enough that it could mean one of numerous things.”

“So first it was a for-sure thing that some spawn or the other were attacking, an’ now it ain’t so for-sure?” Applejack gave Lepinora a deadpan look. “Got some swampland ta sell us next?”

Lepi’s brow furrowed. “What do you mean?”

“Ah think you’re tryin’ ta sell us a load of…”

“It’s a metaphor Lepi,” Tettidora interrupted. “An oblique reference to a con artist selling something that’s actually worthless. Another variation refers to selling a bridge, in which case it’s the con artist selling something they do not own and thus cannot sell. Simply put, she’s caling you a liar.”

“Colorful.” Lepi shrugged. “Yes, there is an important point I’m not covering, but it’s something that requires a… delicate approach.”

“Something you’re afraid will send my big sis into a nervous breakdown.” Everyone turned to Dawn who was giving Lepi a cocked-head furrowed-brow frown. “This big plan of yours has something that’ll hit Twi hard enough that you’re sure she’s gonna freak.”

Twilight frowned at her twin. “Huh?”

“They’ve been juggling this plan thing for a bit now, and the math just came into focus.” Dawn gave her an apologetic look. “Don’t feel bad, sis, you’ve been distracted with some big stuff where my only distraction has been a lot of nice firm plot.” She looked at the changelings and Nightmare. “I’m right, aren’t I?”

“You are our guests, and two of you are Celestia’s own daughters,” Queen Chrysalis said evenly. “And matters of emotion are vastly more significant when positive emotion is as important to your health as food and drink. Distressing a guest is at best a faux pas, at worst a severe breach of courtesy and hospitality.” She sighed and came off her throne to stand next to Nightmare, sweeping her gaze over all of them. With the queen standing closer, Twilight could see the tiny signs of worry in her expression. “None of us believed we’d enjoy your company before reunion, so your arrival in Scarabi has caught us woefully unprepared to handle an issue we believed would be resolved by the time of our first meeting.”

Twilight swallowed hard. They’re treating this like having to tell me Mother or Luna died suddenly. But that can’t be, because that’s not an issue that’ll resolve itself in a certain time frame. “What issue is that, Queen Chrysalis?”

Barely had the question been asked when a surge of magical outflow nearly knocked her off her feet. She stumbled at the surge of magic, as strong and hard-hitting as if it was a solid intangible wall of force, before another surge caused her to fall to her knees. She could see that the surge was affecting Chrysalis and Nightmare the same way, both visibly staggering as they turned to face the direction of concentration, just a few meters in front of the raised dais. Looking in the direction of the thrones, she caught the expression on Tettidora’s face: the pigtailed changeling was looking shocked, but in the way of someone who knew exactly what was happening.

With a crackling sound, a circle of greenish magic flashed into existence. Another crack brought a circle of intricate runes, followed by another circle. The pattern of circle-rune-circle repeated until there were four containment circles and then a pillar of green flame exploded out of the center and surged towards the ceiling, noticeably doing no damage to the stained glass high above. Out of the pillar of green fire, Twilight could vaguely make out a winged pony stumbling a few steps and then falling forward, coughing noisily.

Another crackle and the circles and flame flashed out of existence, revealing a pink-coated mare with a tail Twilight knew well, a cutie mark as familiar to her as her own, and a melodious femininity to the wheezing coughing that she hadn’t heard in years, but remembered as if it was yesterday.

“Blast… you… Tettidora...” Princess Mi Amore Cadenza, the mare that Twilight knew as Cadence, the pony she regarded as the best foalsitter in the history of Equestria, managed through her fit of coughing. “That… was… not… stable… and safe!”

“S… sorry…” Tetti managed, actually turning pale.

Cadence coughed a few more times before clearing her throat and getting to her feet, her back still to Twilight. “Well, you ought to…” she paused and her head tilted. “I’m a little upset with you Tetti but you look like you’re about to keel over on the spot. What’s wrong?”

“T... T…” Tetti managed to gesture weakly with a hoof towards Twilight and Cadence turned around.

Time seemed to stop as Twilight met the pair of soft violet eyes that had always looked into hers when she’d scraped a knee, gotten a bad grade, was lonely for her parents, or when her foalsitter had given her a warm hug on general principle and saw the stunned expression on Cadence’s face. “T… Twilight…?”

“C… Cadence?” Twilight said, feeling as stunned as the other alicorn looked.

“Twilight!” She abruptly found herself being crushed against Cadence in a joyous embrace. “Dear Aunt Tia, I’ve missed you!”

Twilight returned the embrace, inhaling the familiar scent of the minty shampoo Cadence had used on her mane for as long as she could remember, smiling broadly despite the questions frantically pounding on her consciousness, demanding to know how her old foalsitter was here and why she knew Tettidora well enough to use the diminutive of her name. She ignored her inquisitive nature for the moment, because the closest thing she’d ever had to a big sister was hugging her and it’d been years, and it was like nothing had really changed in all that time.

“I’ve missed you too,” she choked out as Cadence let her go. “What are you doing here?”

“Getting help for Ponyville from the most reliable of all sources, the one thing you can always count on when things seem bleak.” Cadence sighed and stepped in to hug her again, this time more gently. “I don’t know what to say right now, Twilight. This is the moment I’ve dreaded for years and had hoped I wouldn’t have to deal with, or at least that I could deal with in under pleasant circumstances and ease you into it. You’re like a little sister to me, just like Aunt Tia was like a mother to me for most of my life, and… you deserve much more than what I can give you right now. A long explanation, lots of hugs, your favorite ice cream… something.”

Twilight pulled away from her and stared. “What are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about a fear of hurting and disappointing you as severe as your fear of disappointing Auntie Celestia,” Cadence said. “You, Aunt Luna, and Aunt Celestia are just as much family to me as my actual family is and this was a conversation I wanted to have much later and under much different circumstances.” She gestured at the changeling royals and Nightmare. “Not in a throne room with Tetti and Lepi and…”

“...Mother?” Twilight only managed to turn partway around at the single word from Pinkie when she felt a leg drape over her shoulders and Pinkie’s quietly compassionate self was standing beside her, looking at Cadence.

Cadence sagged. “That obvious?”

“I have three sisters,” Pinkie said simply. “And I’m the second-oldest.”

Cadence blinked, evidently surprised out of her nervousness and hesitance. “How did you…?”

“She’s Pinkie,” Dawn said, walking up to stand on Twilight’s other side. “Even Twilight’s given up trying to figure it out.”

“I have three sisters,” Pinkie said. “I recognize a sister talking to her sister. It’s not really mysterious or difficult to understand.” There was a pause. “Twilight?”

Twilight swallowed and shakily turned away from Cadence to look at a pair of the most compassionate blue eyes she’d ever seen. Pinkamena met her eyes for several moments before giving her a hug.

“She’s like family to you, and now this.” She turned around to look at Cadence. “Why?”

“She wasn’t given a choice.” Queen Chrysalis slipped off her throne and walked over to stand beside Cadence. “If anyone in this room is to blame for this situation and for your pain, Twilight Sparkle, it would be me. As much as my daughter has been old enough to make her own decisions for many years, that you and all of Equestria knows her as Mi Amore Cadenza is entirely my doing.”

Twilight barely heard her. Her logical mind was taking in the data and processing it and tapping on the back of her mind for attention, but the rhetorical tapping was nothing against the roaring truth: Cadence, the mare who raised her as much as her adoptive family had, the mare who’d dried tears, helped her with homework, celebrated her acceptance to Celestia’s school, played with her, read with her, hugged her, healed her, loved her, came up with that silly and playful way they greeted one another with her, had been pretending the entire time. Whoever the mare in front of her was, she wasn’t her Cadence; her Cadence, her heart screamed to her, would have never misled her.

“Twilight.” Her voice. It was Cadence’s voice, the right tone, the right pitch, the right timbre, the right cadence, but it simply couldn’t be her voice because this mare talking to her, putting one hoof on her shoulder, gently lifting her head, looking at her with the same combination of steady firmness and affection the way Cadence did. Because Cadence would have never deceived her like this mare had.

“Twilight, I know that look,” not-Cadence said. “Right now you can barely hear me because your panic and hurt is screaming for attention. Your mind is running in circles, inventing a dilemma to resolve, fixating on it, and trying to resolve it when it simply can’t be resolved.”

“Y… yes…” Twilight managed.

Cadence hugged her. “Then I have just the thing.” She let her go and turned. “Tetti, please come with us. Everyone else, I need to speak with Twilight on my own, with Tetti’s help. Please”

“Sorry sugarcube, but that ain’t gonna happen.” Twilight heard the solid hoofsteps of her farmpony friend as Applejack came up and stood next to Dawn.

“We’re her friends,” Rarity added, coming up on Pinkie’s side. “Our friend is traumatized and to be perfectly blunt, darling, I’m not sure being alone with the one who traumatized her is best.”

Cadence looked between them and then smiled broadly. “Friends indeed. But I wish to speak with her alone because making peace with another pony isn’t a done by committee or group effort. I need my younger sister with me because I don’t speak genius, and she does.”

Twilight looked at the pink-coated alicorn, cataloguing her movements, the subtle twitches of her expression, how she held herself and spoke, and compared it to her memories of her foalsitter. My Cadence would have never deceived me like this and yet… She gave her head a shake, trying to push back against the tide of emotion. Being hurt and angry won’t help. Data will. Information will. “Girls, it’s alright,” she said. “It’s great that you’re watching out for me but… she’s right. And if she’s here to get help for Ponyville…” She shuddered, grit her teeth, pushed on. “We’re on a time table. Cad… um, whoever you are, lets get to it.”

Twilight let ‘Cadence’ close the door behind them before she turned around and thrust her face up to a scant few inches from the slightly taller mare. “Who are you?”

“My birth name is Chidinida,” ‘Cadence’ said. “But until six years ago, I had no idea that my name wasn’t Cadence. I thought my only family was my two aunts, that the closest thing I’d ever have to a little sister was you. It was more than a little strange to find out that I had a complete family, a father, a mother, three sisters, and that the title I received by virtue of being adopted by Aunt Tia was always my title by birth among a race of ponies I never even knew existed.”

“How can you possibly not know that you’re a… a…” Twilight gestured roughly towards Tettidora “...completely different race of pony that eats love?”

“It’s called a ‘guise lock’,” Tetti said. “A last resort, normally, for a changeling parent living under a guise to make sure their foal remains in the appearance of a pony until they can learn how to form and control the guise voluntarily. It’s very, very difficult magic, the kind that maybe six or seven changelings in our entire race can perform safely. Did you by chance meet a doctor named Ratchet Limb on board the carrying rig?”

Twilight thought back and nodded. “And she mentioned something called a ‘guise lock’ in passing.”

“She’s one of the few. Mother and I are two others, which is how no one, not even Chidi herself, knew she was anything other than a pink alicorn with a pretty mane and a compulsively warm personality.” Tetti smiled at Cadence. “In retrospect, that her cutie mark ended up being the Crystal Heart surprised exactly no one.”

“The Crystal…?”

“A historical artifact of extraordinary power associated with love magic,” Tetti said. “I’ll be glad to share my research sometime, but the Heart is beyond reach and thus has no bearing on anything that’s going on right now. The point is that loving and being loved has always come natural to Chidi, as you can attest to, so there was never any real danger to her in the plan Mother devised.”

“Before we go any further about that, though, you know why I wanted to take you someplace quiet with just us, and a pony very much like you in her love for books and empirical fact.” Chidinida reached out and put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder. “I know you’re hurt by not being told. I know you feel deceived, and like I’m suddenly a stranger to you. But remember what fear is. Fear is…”

“...the mind-slayer,” Twilight finished almost automatically. “Pain is the thought-killer. Hatred is the intellect-destroyer.”

“Yes.” Chidi smiled. “Remember that phrase you found in an old philosophy book? The irredeemable…”

“The irreducible fact of actual reality.” She had to fight not to smile. She’d always liked Cadence as a foalsitter but an almost adult pony sitting on a couch with her the entire night actually taking her seriously when she started to babble about intellectual things far beyond her ability to really understand made her adore Cadence. Cadence had later given her a beautiful new copy of the book the phrase was pulled from, “Conjectures and Refutations” when she was accepted into Celestia’s School. She’s eagerly devoured it and read it over and over again; it wasn’t until later that she appreciated the subtle message her foalsitter had intended, in the aftermath of a very severe nervous breakdown: nothing chased away bad thoughts like good thoughts, and the good thoughts that helped her the most were a good, thorough, application of fact and reasoning to a problem.

First fact: Chidinida’s mannerisms are identical to Cadence’s mannerisms. Second fact: her cutie mark is the same. Third fact: subtle details of biology and environment means that scent is as individual as blood vessels in the eye. Fourth fact: in every measurable way, Chidinida and Cadence are identical. First derivation: Chidinida is Cadence, or at least the only Cadence I’ve ever known.

She could feel the pain and panic swirling in her thoughts quieting like a physical sensation, and this encouraged her to push onwards.

Fifth fact: Lepinora logically stated that there’s no compelling reason for a changeling who can assume any shape they wish to copy the shape of another pony. Sixth fact: Lepinora admitted to breaking this maxim purely as a favor to a friend. Seventh fact: Doctor Ratchet Limb spontaneously mentioned this spell called a guise lock. Eighth fact: both Tettidora and Doctor Limb said or implied that the spell is used for foals. Second derivation: there is a plausible possibility that a foal could grow up without being aware of anything but their guise.

She raised her head from her pose of thinking and looked steadily at Cadence. “What do you look like under your guise?”

Cadence smiled faintly. “I thought you’d ask that, although I hoped you wouldn’t. I’m afraid you’ll be somewhat disappointed.” She bowed her head and tendrils of the brilliant viridian energy that appeared to signify changeling magic gathered around her horn, were held for a moment, and then released as a gentle cascade of green flame that swept down over her features, “burning” away the guise as it went. When it was through, Chidinida raised her head again with an identical smile. “See what I mean?”

Twilight could. Her pink coat had been replaced with the waxy black sheen of a changelings’s supple chitin, the magenta streak in her mane had become a rich green-blue, and her wings had the softly furred appearance of moth wings, but there was otherwise no difference. Her height was the same, her build, her face, her muzzle, her legs, everything was exactly the same as her alicorn guise. Even her violet eyes lacked the slight vertical elongation of a changeling’s pupils and as she smiled, she lacked the small fangs that all other changelings had. “I…”

“It turned out that if you keep a changeling under a guise-lock for over twenty years, especially a changeling with a strong sense of purpose and inherent comfort in her own skin, they become the guise,” Tetti said. “It’s been literally hundreds of years since it last happened, so none of us had any idea of the spell’s singular drawback.”

Chidi laughed softly. “It depends on how you see things Tetti,” she said, notably without the light vibrato. “I may appear deformed in relation to other changelings but I have to work really hard to be disappointed that the only thing that’s changed about the pony in the mirror is her coat and mane. I don’t even really notice the wings; I’ve never been all that much of a flier.”

“You’re not deformed, Chidi, you’re a freak,” Tetti informed her, but with a grin.

“Of course I am,” she said cheerfully. “The first changeling princess to live in Equestria for her entire life since Queen… um… Pupa, I think.” She turned to Twilight. “I promise you, Twilight, I’m not playing some elaborate trick on you, switching to a different guise so I still look like the Cadence you grew up with. I am, and will always be, that Cadence even if my family calls me ‘Chidinida’.”

Twilight took in a breath as the roar of fears and hurt faded entirely. One and the same. She couldn’t explain why but something, whether some innate sense of magic or just the sheer impossibility that one pony could copy anything this perfectly, made her believe it: this ‘guise lock’ magic was so comprehensive that instead of Chidinida being also Cadence, Cadence was also Chidinida. She forced herself not to smile and instead assumed what she hoped was a stern and serious look; based on how Tetti and Cadence were trying not to giggle, her success was limited. “There’s only way one to prove it.”

Cadence looked oddly at her before understanding dawned, and she smiled broadly. “I was afraid you’d forgotten or outgrown it.”

“Nope.” Twilight stepped forward and faced her old foalsitter, still in the form of Chidinida, and started the just-for-us-two thing Cadence had come up with for them.

“Sunshine, sunshine, ladybugs awake! Clap your hooves and give a little shake.” And then they were hugging each other tightly and Twilight discovered another thing she was certain differed from other changelings: Chidinida was soft. It wasn’t just the pleasant softness of a pony’s coat but wool wrapped in cotton wrapped in silk stuffed with clouds for good measure. She found herself unconsciously pressing into that feeling of impossible softness and Cadence giggling as she did.

“One of those odd paradoxes that come from being a race that consumes a kind of magic in our daily diet,” she said as she let Twilight go. “Chitin as supple and soft as chamois leather, and as strong as iron plate. Love is part of my special talent so the duality is a bit more… pronounced.”
Twilight looked curiously at her. “So it’s like wearing armor all the time?”

Cadence considered this. “Well, not quite…”

“Um, sis? I know this is really, really important to you but unless I miss my guess, you didn't decide to use my experimental teleport runewell on the off chance Twilight was here and you could hang out.” Tetti said. “I think it had something to do with evil creatures coming to kill innocent ponies, and how you were against that happening.”

Cadence frowned at her but sighed and nodded. “I’m a little bit more than mildly opposed to evil creatures killing innocent ponies Tetti,” she said mildly. “But yes, that’s why I risked that unstable…”

“I swear I had the amplitude flux contained!”

Cadence grimaced. “...unstable magical experiment of yours. The situation is about as bad as it could possibly be. We had allies of a sort show up claiming to be there to aid us, and then they disappeared into the Everfree just prior to an open attack by the atermors themselves. The atermors used a large-scale spell that induced extreme drowsiness and then summoned some kind of towering shadow-beast into the town square.”

“A klesae?” Twilight said, remembering Spite’s description of the creature that had attacked Rainbow Dash.

“One of the word components to their summoning sounded vaguely like that, so it probably was.” She closed her eyes and a pained looked came over her features. “Shiny was holding a shield against the shadow when Aunt Celestia arrived.”

The expression and the dead tone of Cadence’s voice made Twilight’s stomach twist. “Is she… OK?”

“She will be,” Cadence said. “But right now she’s catatonic, in a state of profound shock although Redheart assures me she shows no signs of being in any danger. With her disabled, Aunt Luna gone, and the Elements of Harmony scattered between here and wherever Loyalty and Kindness went, there’s exactly one pony in all of Equestria with enough sheer magical strength to deter the atermors--and the last they saw, I was in Ponyville.”

“What happened to her, Chidi?” Tetti asked, her eyes going wide. “She’s Celestia, the embodiment of the sun and all of its fierce destructive power! How could the atermors even touch her?”

“They didn’t.” Cadence looked up. “She was the embodiment of the sun and all of its fierce destructive power. She was also crushed with despair over her helplessness, in terrible emotional pain over what was happening to her little ponies, and then a letter arrived from Spike telling her where her enemy could be found. She burned white-hot like her sun and her wrath made no distinction between atermor, klesae, buildings… or ponies. She could not hear Trixie pleading for her to stop and so…”

“...you did the only thing you could.” Tetti sank to the floor, ending up sitting on her rear and looking stunned. “How’d you get close enough?”

Cadence gave her a sad half-smile. “I’m the Princess of Love. I’ve lived in Equestria my entire life drowning in love energy, and quite a bit of it was directed at me personally. Until a few years ago, all that energy did nothing but accumulate and when the moment arrived, I had an ocean ready to drown a campfire.”

Twilight pulled away from Cadence, staring at her. “You hurt... my mother?”

Cadence visibly wilted underneath her horrified gaze. “I had no choice,” she said in a suddenly small voice. “She’d lost herself in her pain and rage. Ponyville was burning, Shining’s shield was failing, the fire of her fury was starting to inflict burns through two barriers, and she couldn’t hear us trying to snap her out of it. If Shining’s shield had cracked under the barrage, she… she would have…” Her voice got so small Twilight had to strain to hear her. “...she would have killed over a dozen ponies he was sheltering. I… I had to do something or she would have never been able to forgive herself. I only had one option, the most desperate and terrible weapon a changeling has.”

...although we feed passively, there is a way for a changeling to use their natural magic to directly transform life energy into love energy and consume it; it kills very swiftly and any creature being ‘induced’ as it’s called is helpless to stop it. Unbidden, the memory of Queen Chrysalis’ explanation in Maredusa’s home came back to her. “Inducement?”

“Induction, but yes.” Tetti grimaced. “Fortunately, Mother’s explanation was incomplete. With extremely fine control, it can be used to disable instead of kill. Induces enough of a shock to send an ordinary pony into a near-coma state but an alicorn like Celestia would be less endangered.”

Twilight acknowledged her with barely a nod, still focused on the wilted Cadence. “So you… hurt her.”

Cadence swallowed hard, but nodded. “I did. The situation was like when you had a panic-surge when earning entry into Aunt Celestia’s school, and Aunt Celestia gently suppressed you. But the Princess of the Sun is orders of magnitude stronger than a filly panic-surging the roof off a classroom, so a touch on the shoulder had to be orders of magnitude stronger to snap her out of it.”

The mention of her panic-surge, even though it was nearly twenty years ago, made her shudder. Immersed in magic, flailing around, reaching out for somepony to grab onto, recoiling as they were turned into potted plants or fled, all-powerful and completely helpless. The feeling of horror at Cadence saying that she had to hurt Mother turned into a feeling of echoed horror, a sort of sympathetic shadow as her imagination treated her to a taste of what it must have been like for any pony to watch Celestia surging wildly with pain and rage. She felt herself echoing Tetti’s gesture and falling back onto her flanks as the sheer enormity of what her old foalsitter had done sank in: she had watched a pony strong enough to vaporize all of Ponyville with barely a thought completely lose control, and had walked straight into the inferno.

“I understand,” she said after several moments. “You said that she’ll be OK?”

“Nurse Redheart believed so,” Cadence replied, inflating a little. “But the tragic moment with Aunt Tia is only a small part of the danger at hand. I know I said I would explain everything to you, about Mother’s plan, about why I lived guise-locked for so long, about when we all hoped would happen before I explained everything to you, but Tetti is right: evil things hang over Ponyville and I didn’t come all this way to visit family. Would you be upset with me if I deferred once again?”

“No,” Twilight emphasized it with a shake of her head. “I think we should go back to the throne room so the girls can hear about this.” She got up and threw her hooves around her foalsitter. “Thanks for this. I’ve missed you, Cady.”

“No more than I’ve missed you Twiley,” Cadence said, hugging her close.

During the short walk from the room they’d spoken in to the throne room, Twilight had calculated the rough odds of a group hug, stunned surprise, or some combination of the two when they entered; finding the girls so spellbound by a story from Lepinora (complete with almost comically dramatic gestures while the changeling princess hovered in midair) that it took them a minute to notice her entering came as something of a surprise. That Pinkie was the first to notice and stop just short of knocking her off her feet with enthusiasm came as no surprise at all and moments later, she found herself surrounded by her friends who were all staring at the extremely alicorn-like form of Princess Chidinida with open surprise.

“Whelp, saw this one coming from a hundred miles away,” Dawn commented after about a minute of this. “I didn’t think she’d be a mutant but I dig the wings.”

Twilight heard the light thwap of her sister being lightly smacked on the head. “Don’t be rude, Dawn!” Rarity admonished in her best scandalized-lady voice. “I think the difference is simply marvelous. Not that there’s anything untoward about…”

“Rarity, you don’t need to make caveats,” Lepi said with a smirk. “We get it, ya like how my big sis looks like some freak combination of changeling and alicorn but you’re not casting aspirations. I think she looks pretty cool too. Moving along?”

Rarity coughed delicately and Twilight knew her well enough to easily imagine the light blush without having to look. “Yes, well… an honor to meet you, Your Majesty.”

Chidinida gave Rarity a very Cadence-like level look. “You get to call me ‘Your Majesty’ or some variation once. After that, I’m either ‘Chidi’ or ‘Cady’ or if you want to be really formal, ‘Cadence’.” She looked passed them to her family with a smile. “Only my birth family calls me ‘Chidinida’. Speaking of my birth family, where is Father?”

“Attending council,” Queen Chrysalis said. “I’d planned to join him but then I received word that Thryssa’s interception of Princess Sparkle and her party was successful and he assured me that he could deal with the routine business while I saw to matters at home.” She gave a fond sigh. “Auron is such a dear. I wish you could stay the eve so he could join us for dinner but I take it you came on an urgent errand, Chidi.”

“Yes Mother,” Cadence said as she walked over to the previously-covered throne that Nightmare had occupied, now vacated and uncovered, revealing her cutie mark carved into its head with exquisite detail. “Lepi’s probably already told you that Ponyville is being attacked.”

“I recieved reports to that effect,” Lepi said. “With no agents in place in Ponyville itself, I had to draw conclusions using fragmented information. My conclusion was clearly wrong if you felt safe leaving Ponyville to bring word personally.”

“Yes and no.” Twilight saw Cadence’s gaze sweep over to her and her friends. “You’re wrong that Ponyville is being attacked at this exact moment, but right that it was attacked just yesterday and we’re expecting another attack by tomorrow at the latest. I had Doctor Whooves doing a…”

“Oh, Time Turner?” Pinkie piped up. “He’s back from Trotsford?”

“I think he would have arrived just a couple days before Carrot Top brought the matter of her plagued carrot crops to Trixie’s attention…”

“Plagued carrot crops?” Applejack’s tone and expression were suddenly alarmed. “Whatcha mean?”

“The main way the atermors’ plague spreads at first is magically tainting cropland and infesting the produce with the sickness,” Nightmare said. “The secondary spread comes from blood and vomit touching the caregivers, and then finally by bites and scratches from those twisted by the plague’s transformative properties. I take it that this Carrot Top grows a considerable amount of carrots?”

“Sugar… Ah mean, Empress…”

“Nightmare, please.” Nightmare smiled faintly. “Although I’m not offended to be referred to as ‘sugarcube’.”

“Nightmare, Carrot Top’s ta carrots what the Apple family is ta apples,” Applejack said. “Just the Ponyville farm supplies a quarter o’ Equestria’s carrots. If they got somethin’ inta her ground…”

“...the tainted crop would have made it to at least a quarter of their plates in short order.” Chrysalis shook her head. “And so we have the explosion, especially if they did as Nightmare has conveyed to us before and tainted as much variety of crop as they could. It’s apparently their way, to infest as much ground as possible as quickly as possible.” She paused and furrowed her brow. “Although wouldn’t they have tainted Sweet Apple Acres as well?”

“I imagine it was too much of a risk,” Tetti said. “Apples are a crop that requires regular care and constant inspection of the trees as the fruit gets ripe enough; root vegetables are hardier and require less care. The plague is laced with Void energy and shrivels crops slightly, enough that the tainted fruit would have been noticed and destroyed before it was distributed if an apple but not necessarily if a carrot.”

“And as I hear it, they were recently chastised by taking too many risks, their efforts halted by their intended victims catching them in the act, burning the tainted crops, and throwing the atermors that didn’t flee into the bonfires.” Nightmare tapped her chin with her hoof. “At least this Carrot Top noticed something amiss and had Trixie look into it. So what followed?”

As Twilight listened with steadily mounting disbelief, Cadence detailed what happened to the first colt victim, the ‘Quarantine Flag’ nailed to the door of the Carousel Boutique (drawing an aghast exclamation from Rarity), the Cutie Mark Crusaders encountering examples of the ‘Twisted’ in the Everfree and then the four strangers from elsewhere. She mentioned being summoned by letter with Shining Armor, conveyed what Lord Bloodwynd and his cohorts said about the plague and atermors, and the entire encounter with the atermors and their klesae in the middle of Ponyville, ending with her meeting the disguised changeling agent at the Golden Oaks library and teleporting to the palace through Tettidora’s long-range transport spell.

“So my agents are showing some initiative of their own,” Lepi commented when Cadence had finished. “Good. By this time tomorrow, critical infrastructure should be well on its way to secured and we’ll have regulars in place bracing the Royal Guard.”

“I’m happy to report that we should be in better position than even that.” Twilight reflexively gave Princess Thryssa a bow, followed by her friends, as the tall and well-armored princess strode past them. “Hello little sister.”

“Hi Thrys,” Cadence smiled and exchanged a light sisterly nosing with her elder sister before Thryssa took her throne to the right of what was presumably King Auron’s throne.

“As I was saying,” Thryssa continued, “we should be in even better position than simply securing infrastructure and bracing the Royal Guard. “The sand drakes that are bringing the wounded to the Hospitaler Refuge were able to cut a half day off the run by a quick jaunt east to one of Maredusa’s tunnels, so we can start movement immediately.”

“Um, excuse me?” Twilight raised her hoof. “Infrastructure secured? Regulars bracing the Royal Guard? Start movement?” Her brow furrowed. “Are you moving an army into Equestria?”

The five royals and Nightmare looked at each other before four of them looked at Queen Chrysalis. The changeling queen took a breath and stood. “Princess, we have no hostile….”

“Your Majesty, you’ve already settled that question.” Twilight interrupted her. “Moreover, Luna ensured that a message would get to me, and one of the things she said was that you would help us. What I mean is, how will you send an army to Equestria? I’ve only see the Red Mambo and the carrying structure was not nearly enough to transport any kind of army I’ve ever seen.”

Chrysalis smiled and looked to Lepi. “Lepinora, if you’d illustrate while Thryssa explains?”

“Sure.” Lepi got off her throne, lighting her horn as she did, and Twilight immediately recognized the visual style of her construction from her work on the out-of-control carrying rig. In the empty space between where they were standing and the dias with the thrones, Lepi’s magic drew a deft outline and then lines started to flow in. A mountain rose on the right side of the map and shining white Canterlot flowed out of it, rendered in photographic detail. Ponyville, Apploosa, Baltimare, Stalliongrad, Manehattan, and the network of roads, rivers, forests, fields, and other terrain rose from the flat surface and with them came a thick line delineating Equestria’s borders, right down to the unusual hook in the northeast that partly curled around the borders of the Provinces.

By this point, Twilight could tell that her friends were not so much seeing exactly what Lepi was drawing, as they were seeing the changeling princess recreate a highly detailed map from memory, without any sort of measuring tools, and throw in exquisite details with an unconscious casualness. The Everfree Forest unfolded with the ruins of the castle in the center. The city-mesas of the Griffin Provinces rose out of their arid surroundings like pillars of civilization. The twisting and towering mountains of the Dragon Lands flowed from Lepinora’s “brush” and after them, the dunes of the Eastern Barrens with the majestic black walls and palace of Scarabi standing sentinel over it all.

“That Tharalax would betray us was always a given,” Thryssa said. “The net of outposts stretched across the Barrens, and Lepinora and Ratchet Limb secretly accompanying the carrier, were just the most direct measures we took in preparation for the inevitability that we would have to commit armies to defending Equestria instead of just some soldiers and spies. The first, and most important, element arrived just after we took you into Mardusa’s tunnels.” She reached out over the map and pointed at a place in the Everfree where the silvery line of the Friendship Express ended, and from Lepi’s magic, the shape of another airship flowed into being. It had the basic appearance of the Red Mambo but there was something about its design and shape that immediately struck Twilight as different than the airship they’d traveled in.

The vague feeling solidified when Lepinora increased the scale, showing blackened armor plating, fully-enclosed cowlings with distinctly different air intakes, and rounded edges that stood out against the flowing angles of the changeling airship. Most distinctively, there was a flag flying from the top mast of the ship with a pink taffy candy against a creamy beige background.

“I feel like I owe you a small apology Princess Sparkle,” Lepi said. “I strongly implied that our understanding of flying machines was based on Equestrian designs. That is true so far as it goes, but incomplete. This ship is the Black Mambo and is the basis for the Red Mambo that you sailed to Scarabi on, and it is neither Equestrian nor from any place in our entire world.”

“The same is true of its owner, although you wouldn’t know it to look at him.” Thryssa smiled fondly. “But anyway, this is the first element of our initiative to shield Equestria from whatever these various Evils are planning. It’s a highly capable warship with the long guns required to fight at great distances, but as with any war machine, it’s the ponies that matter and not the machine itself. On board is the First Tantalus, a hoof-picked unit combining the regular army with the two Guards and led by my executive officer, Sugary Market.”

Twilight stared at the finely-rendered image of the Black Mambo for several seconds, even unconsciously moving around the construct to see it from another angle. “So you have a warship hovering over the terminus of the Friendship Express,” she said. “I’m pretty sure that’s going to be noticed eventually, even though most pegasi don’t fly over the Everfree.”

“The atermors took care of that issue for us, both in keeping the local pegasi close to home and seeing to removing Princess Celestia from the fight,” Thryssa said. “There will be no real obstacle to the Black Mambo sailing to Ponyville and providing aerial support while the First Tantalus protects Ponyville proper.”

“What about the other cities?” Cadence asked.

“The teleportation spell that Tetti used you as a guinea pig for--I’m sure she’s very, very sorry--can be easily scaled up and used to move soldiers from Scarabi directly to rally points near the major cities. A scale test just two weeks ago demonstrated that it can safely move a hundred at once if a fifth circle is added, and each hundred will have at least a dozen trained in how to duplicate and power it.” Thryssa nodded to Lepi and small markings of five radiating circles appeared within easy walking distance of each major city. “We estimate that three hundred per hot spot will be enough and that leaves a very considerable reserve of militia.”

“Three hundred?” Twilight gaped at her. “To protect cities that span acres and have populations of tens of thousands?”

Thryssa looked up from the map with an expression so venomous that Twilight found herself taking a step back. “Equestria is fortunate that my mother is a better pony than I am, and that I am a dutiful daughter,” she practically snarled. “The three races cast us into the cold, Princess, and if I had my will Equestria would weep blood for Celestia’s lack of vision. You do not seem to grasp the kind of sacrifice we’re willing to make for you, Twilight Sparkle. Three hundred is not enough for victory, but enough to die where they stand to…”

“Hogwash.” Lepi didn’t speak particularly loudly but her interruption made Thryssa stop immediately and look over at her youngest sister in visible surprise.

“Thryssa, I’m an artiste so I love the drama just as much as the next overwrought actress,” Lepinora continued, “but you’re being absurd sis. The butcher bill from getting cracked in the skulls, run through, claws sliced off, and beat to hell by magic isn’t even going to hit the double digits. You know, and I know, and everypony in this room knows that if trying to subdue most of the Elements plus a couple of bodyguards doesn’t end in a mass grave, controlling city streets ain’t gonna either.”

“Not even the double digits?” Rarity repeated. “But… all those… and the blood on my blade…”

“Ask Tetti,” Thryssa said, smirking a little at Rarity’s confusion. “But I hear the hardest part of inventing that guise was making it so that the normal ways to kill don’t work right.” She took in a breath and sighed. “I apologize, Princess Sparkle. Sending soldiers into harm’s way when I have grave doubts about hazarding ourselves for Equestria is… well, it doesn’t bring out the best in me. We already sacrificed lives to maintain a charade of cooperation with Tharalax, not that it slowed down his rush to betray us even slightly; endangering more for the nation that cast us out is an unpleasant prospect.”

“I’m sure that sending soldiers into danger is always unpleasant,” Twilight pointed out.

“This is much more so.” Thryssa looked down at the map again. “I have no dislike for our sister races of pony, just the nation we’re risking ourselves for. Celestia was explicitly warned that being so cavalier with Equestria’s warrior caste would result in just this situation, and yet we’re pulling her marble-white plot out of the fire anyway. And yet at the end of all this if all returns to the way it was, our queen will be a mere servant to the Sisters instead of their equal.” She looked back at her mother who gave her a look of stern disapproval, evoking a slight chastised canting of her ears before she turned back to Twilight. “But this is not the time or place for my issues and I apologize for getting distracted by them.”

“It’s fine,” Twilight assured her. “I’m sorry for being incredulous about your force disposition. It just… it surprised me. I counted well over a hundred soldiers that came to restrain us so roughly triple the number to protect a city as to abduct a few ponies--us bearing the Elements notwithstanding--came as a bit of a shock.”

“The two tasks are nothing alike,” Thryssa said. “Killing or disabling you would have been simple but we could not harm you and expect goodwill afterwards. Those twisted by this plague can only be killed, and that is much easier to do. Moreover, my intelligence indicates that the atermors have no tactical vision, and Chidi’s account bears this out: they broadcast their intent and location like a brass festival, and stayed to fight after it became clear that they’d lost. Whatever my gloomy opinions on the casualties they can inflict might be, they will follow the line of most expectation into the greatest possible resistance. Their route may be so predictable that we need not harm them at all, and keep them in place until they can be cured..”

“Lord Bloodwynd assured us that it’s incurable,” Chidi said.

“I’m sure Ersari believes that,” Nightmare said from where she was lounging in Auron’s throne. “The jei and jeikitsu have both been actively hunting atermors for millennia and have seen all they can do. But they don’t know Vorka and his tendency to spoil plans for his own amusement. I won’t say that they are wrong, merely that they might be wrong.”

“We can only hope so,” Thryssa said. “My soldiers have a great deal of endurance b ut unless some other solution is devised, there may come a point where the only thing we can do to halt the spread will be to consider lethal action. ”

“It cannot come to that, Thryssa,” Chrysalis said. “I will not have my people killing the sick and innocent especially when we hope to be seen as their lost brethren come back to save them..”

“Cut the head off the snake.” All heads turned towards Rarity. “Puppetmasters that are dead don’t pull their puppets’ strings,” she continued, her tone as casual as if she was discussing a dress with a client. “It’s how we were instructed to deal with magi who could summon things: ignore the puppets, cut the head off the master.”

“Kryssa and Anori were able to kill them by smashing their masks,” Chidi offered. “Or at least, they seemed to be killed when the masks were smashed.”

“That would be because they were proxies,” Nightmare said. “Granted, even using their proxies to show up in person is reckless for them, and very strange, but at least their had the sense to use constructs instead of be literally there. Be aware, Princess Thryssa, that if you attempt to cut the head off the snake, you have to track down the actual snake instead of killing scraps of Void.”

“You and I can discuss that later,” Thryssa said. “Specifically, a method that can be used to track them.” She turned back to the map construct and gestured with her hoof towards Scarabi, Lepi constructing a model of the Red Mambo to float above it. “As your party is aware, Princess Sparkle, we have a second airship at our disposal that’s been modeled on the Black Mambo. It’s been modeled primarily around speed rather than engaging other airships at range although a you can well imagine, such a capability is moot unless enemy military airships exist--and none do.”

“She’s a mighty fine ship,” Applejack said. “Looked pretty new.”

“It just underwent complete trials three months ago so yes, it’s quite new.” She stepped back from the table and looked towards her mother, who slipped off her throne and took her eldest daughter’s place.

“Princess Sparkle, I regret that your welcome to our kingdom was not all we wished it to be,” she said. “I far more deeply regret the lives lost and the crippling injuries inflicted on loyal changelings--my people--during an attempt to forcibly abduct ponies who are not and will never be our enemies, all of them Elements of Harmony, two of them the children of Princess Celestia herself. The futility of pretending cooperation to a beast like Tharalax and his master makes it ache all the deeper; the price of shielding our true home through cunning schemes designed by our most faithful ally,” she nodded towards Nightmare, “is grievous and will get worse. And so we must save who we can and to that end, I wish to ask your help.”

“Sure thing, yer Highness,” Dawn said cheerfully. “What can we do ya for?”

Chrysalis looked genuinely taken aback by the instant response and Twilight saw her gaze flit between the rest of them. Based on her smile, Twilight was sure that the rest of the girls were giving her the same nod Twilight was, and the physical sensation of gratitude spilling from the changeling queen simply confirmed the happy response.

“I admit what I wish to ask of you is… partly personal,” she said. “I would ask you to travel north in the Red Mambo to the Dragon Lands and check that all is well with our… with my sister, Thalia. She’s our ambassador to the dragons and the last message she had delivered worries me a great deal.”

“For reasons beyond that she’s family?” Twilight said.

Chrysalis grinned a little. “That’s actually quite low on my list of concerns. After I watched Thalia have a full-scale shouting argument with a dragon over a diplomatic matter and watched her back down a creature twenty times her size, most of my fears for her safety were quieted, although I’ll always worry about her relish for picking fights.” She smiled fondly before the smile melted again. “What has me deeply concerned is her missive about the situation in the north. She reports that the apparent strategy of the Evils involves a single being, an individual she described as a child that’s not a child. She didn’t clarify what she meant, and with her tendency to regale with me unnecessary detail about everything, that worries me.”

“I’m surprised there’s anything a single evil can do about dragons,” Dawn said. “I mean, Spike’s not much in the muscle department but he’s a smart little bucker and ya gotta work hard to do even minor cosmetic stuff to him. What the hell can just one of these Evil things do to a whole nation of dragons?”

“I’m afraid you’ve only met idiots like Tharalax or weaklings like Lashaal, and heard me speak of others,” Nightmare said. “Any Evil with the skill to pull off a child that’s not a child, using a mrotal that fragile as an anchor or vessel, is old and dangerous. Taking on dragons isn’t a feat for the weak or stupid, so it’s certain that whoever’s orchestrating this entire chess game wouldn’t have entrusted it to another Tharalax.”

“You’ll be accompanied by some of the Throne Guard, and I will speak with Maredusa to see if she’s willing to shadow you,” Thryssa said. “This will be in addition to Aunt Thalia’s guards and my aunt herself. I hope it goes without saying that there’s no obligation on your parts to…”

“Yeah, yeah, no onus, whatever,” Dawn said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “Clearly you don’t know what this lot does in their spare time. Wandering face-first into every problem that comes our way is how we take a break from boring old rationality.”

Twilight heard Rarity treat Dawn to another light smack on the back of the head as she gave Queen Chrysalis and the other royals a smile. “We recognize there’s no onus on us to help you, Queen Chrysalis, but my sister’s right: heading off danger is what we do and have ever since we thought we were saving Equestria from a mad moon goddess. We’d be glad to check up on your sister, especially because it sounds like a good bet that if we make some progress in the Lands, it’ll be a setback for these Evils as a whole.” She looked over at Chidinida, who had resumed what Twilight was sure was the form more natural to her than her changeling shape. “As much as we fear for Ponyville… it’s clearly in good hooves. Both in Trixie’s, and in Cadence’s.”

Cadence beamed at her. “Thank you, Twilight.”

“Yes, Princess Sparkle, thank you.” Chrysalis smiled and inclined her head to her. “I understand that the Red Mambo needs to be refitted and fully inspected before it can make the jaunt north, so please accept our hospitality and the free run of Scarabi during your time here. I’d also be honored if you would join my family and our other guests for dinner this evening.”

“We’d be delighted,” Twilight smiled.

Author's Note

Stallions, gentlemares, and the real-life humans that like reading fiction about them, I present to you the next chapter. As always, comments are appreciated and enthusiastically encouraged and I hope this was worth the wait for you.

A Night of Royalty and Remembrance

“I believe you’ll find the protocols of a formal dinner at the court of Queen Chrysalis to be much simpler than those you’re used to,” the noblemare explained to them as they weaved through the steadily-filling dining hall, aiming for several open seats. “You are obligated to stand respectfully only when the Royal Family enters, which generally occurs after the main course is complete. You shall only be obligated to address nobility by title if they request it, and it’s considered a very grave faux pas to castigate someone for failing to do so if you fail to ask it of them. As the guests of honor, your obligation to honor requests or commands extends only to the Royal Family or the Throne or Honor Guard. Feel free to speak to or interact with any guest you wish, and although I hardly think it needs to be stated, good manners and being considerate are expected of all attendees at these dinners, including the Royal Family.” She swept them all with a very warm smile. “And you are expected to enjoy yourselves and have a pleasant evening. Formal dinners are as much a celebration of community and the bonds of friendship and family as they are a celebration of a particular occasion.”

“Thank you, Marquess du Dune,” Rarity said to her with a very practiced bow.

The noblemare laughed. “Callista, please. I use the title only for the benefit of the exceptionally stuffy and protocol-fixated. Would you object if I were to sit with you to dine?”

“Go for it,” Dawn said before Twiilight could. “Plenty of seats and you’ve been a pal.”

“Thank you.” After the meeting with Queen Chrysalis, her daughters, and Nightmare, they’d been taken back to their rooms where awaited tasteful formal wear for each of them, which in keeping with the unsettling level of spying the changelings had done on each of them, fit perfectly and were based heavily on the dresses Rarity had designed for them for the Grand Galloping Gala, which meant they also looked very good on them. When it was time to go to dinner, the Honor Guard stationed at their doors informed them and escorted them there.

The banquet hall turned out to be a room whose size and elegance put the throne room to shame, and by the time they arrived, contained large numbers of changelings that seemed far too simply-dressed to be invited guests--except that they were. They appeared to be common changeling families but when asked if they were there to set up the hall for the dinner, the Honor Guard had looked thoroughly confused by the question. “They’re invited guests,” one finally said after they’d exchanged several looks. “Why else would they be here?”

“We’re used to guests at formal functions being members of the nobility and other ponies of particular wealth or fame,” Twilight had said, feeling mildly uncomfortable at how consternated the Guards looked. “We… didn’t intend to be offensive…”

“Unfamiliarity is not offensive, Princess Sparkle,” the same Honor Guard replied with a reassuring smile. “But in the court of Queen Chrysalis, any citizen may attend the formal dinner, so long as there’s room in the hall. Inviting a pony to dinner is, after all, always a compliment and being asked into their Queen’s home to eat a meal with her and her family causes them to feel that their ruler cares about them, and they love her for it.”

“And although love is power among changelings, being loved by her people is a point of great pride for the queen.” They’d turned to find the source of the refined Canterlot accent, a changeling mare dressed in an odd combination of simple canvas apron and expertly-fitted gown, smiling at them. “I’m certain you’ve other duties you need to see to, Guard, so I shall take the responsibility of our guests.”

“Thank you Marquess du Dune.” The Honor Guard each gave them a smile and a small bow and had dispersed among the crowd, leaving them with the noblemare. She’d introduced herself as Callista du Dune and asked if there were any questions they might have for her. The high society conscious Rarity had promptly asked about the proper protocol for the dinner, which led to them sitting at the largest banquet table she’d ever seen with a stunning array of changelings spread out in every direction, a mass of perfectly ordinary non-noble ponies with the rare visible noble sprinkled among them.

In most any other circumstance, Twilight would be paying close attention to the conversation as Callista pointed out individual ponies and chatted animatedly about who they were and what they did, but she was far too busy enjoying the appetizer (a sweet broth with finely-chopped herbs) and trying to wrap her mind around the paradox of what she was seeing. Namely, that every changeling she could see had the same black chitin with the same waxy sheen and the same dominance of aquamarine in their manes--and yet not a single one looked the same.

She’d seen it, of course, among Queen Chrysalis’ four daughters who varied in appearance so dramatically that the family resemblance was hard to spot, but the seeming uniformity of the changeling soldiers that had intercepted them had led her to imagine that the changelings were relatively uniform in appearance outside of the royal family, an impression that she could tell was a dramatic illustration of the folly of forming conclusions without complete data. The soldiers had clearly wanted to appear to be duplicates of one another for some reason, but everywhere she looked there was a distinct variation in body type, the patterns of pits and grooves in their chitin, how they styled their manes, eye color, wing size and shape, and every other imaginable minor variation.

“Surprised?” Twilight jumped a little at the refined feminine voice just to her left and she turned to look at their noble companion as she poured herself a glass of water.

“I…” She wasn’t sure she wanted to admit that she was surprised that the changelings weren’t a race of duplicates but the mare appeared to read her mind because she chuckled and smiled knowingly.

“As with all things in life, Princess Sparkle, the ponies who are so thin-skinned and sensitive that an innocent mistake will occasion verbal abuse aren’t worth knowing,” she said pleasantly. “I can hardly empathize with your astonishment in this matter, being a changeling myself and wholly acquainted with my own race, but I can sympathize with you.”

“I’m still getting used to the fact that there has always been a fourth race of ponies out there who have wings like a pegasus, are tough like earth ponies, use magic like unicorns, eat love as part of a complete and nutritious diet, and can completely change their shape, including their anatomy if Princess Thryssa’s implication is accurate,” Twilight said. “And I top of that, I find out that the foalsitter I adored and treat like a big sister has three actual sisters and is a princess in a kingdom I didn’t know existed made up of a pony race I didn’t know existed, and is being advised by a mare who I thought was a sapient construct representing a fragment of Luna’s personality.”

Callista chuckled lightly and swirled the water in her cup before taking a sip. “There is more out there than any of us could have ever imagined,” she said. “All of it truth and every bit stranger than any fiction imaginable. There was a time, a short one I’ll add, that the mere notion of Celestia’s children sharing a table with their lost people was a pleasant fiction--and yet here you are.”

“Yup, here we am,” Dawn grinned. “I’m guessing posh accent equals nobility, right?”

“Posh accent equals finishing schools worth barely a quarter of the bits Grandmother paid.” The mare sighed. “But it does so happen that I’m a scion of a particularly prominent and titled family, which is why I’m regarded as nobility.” She took another sip from her cup and turned to Twilight. “Ordinarily, I’m a cafe owner and the entirely of my family are farmers.”

“Yeah?” Applejack polished off the appetizer. “Whatcha grow?”

“Lemons,” Callista replied in a voice almost identical in tone to the one whenever Applejack mentioned her family’s namesake crop, as if she was announcing that they grew diamonds on their trees instead of fruit. “The arid environs are amazing for citrus. You’d hardly know it from the immense dunes in every direction, but where soil can be found, it’s quite rich and productive.”

“Lemons,” Applejack repeated as changeling servers circulated to pick up their empty appetizer bowls. “Ah dunno, sugarcube… seems like a sorta odd fruit ta toss all your apples in a single bucket with.”

“And that is why we enjoy virtually no competition,” Callista said cheerfully. “There’s a considerable market in candies, pastries, extremely fine cuisine, and pies and the only other place good for lemons is the arid lands around Appleoosa and Dodge Junction. The first is dominated by apple-growing, the second is dominated by cherries, and the armed barrier we maintain between ourselves and Equestria proper has the entirely unintended side effect of protecting our near-monopoly.”

“Which ends if y’all ever get back inta the Princess’ good graces,” Applejack pointed out.

Callista shrugged. “You don’t win a marathon by laying around reading books or buck apple trees like an expert without doing a lot of kicking. Competition will be invigorating. Speaking of invigorating, I see that the main course and salad are being served.”

Plates came floating over their shoulders just then, an extremely shallow bowl for the salad and a generously-sized oval plate for the main course. The salad was bright and cheery, decorated with thinly-sliced fruit and vegetable skins arranged in starbursts. The main course was framed by apples and nogales paddle slices so green as to look like they were glowing, but the delicately-sliced slab of pinkish white in the center, with each cut outlined with a carrot peel, was a mystery to her.

Twilight noticed Rarity discretely leaning closer to the whitish slab and sniff quietly. “Marquess, may I ask what this is?” she asked Callista.

“Skate I believe,” Callista said, leaning in and taking in the scent loudly and with relish. “Perhaps even whale skate. I hear it has an extremely luxurious flavor, and is a very rare delicacy this deep in the Barrens.” She smiled. “I’m sure this is the prize catch one of the roc families presented to Queen Chrysalis as a gift.”

“Fish?”

“Unless the chefs are so good that they can disguise roller skates as a piece of meat, yes.”

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it,” Pinkie said with a grin. “You just need the right brand of roller skates.”

Callista eyed her. “You must be the Element of Laughter.”

“No, I’m Pinkie Pie. The Element of Laughter is in Canterlot.”

The changeling looked confused. “...but you’re right here, in Scarabi, unless you’re capable of extraordinarily detailed illusions.”

“Well, yeah, but the Element is in Canterlot, in a vault.” Pinkie tapped her chin. “At least I think it is. Princess Celestia said it was and she seems like the trustworthy type, but then there was that entire Nightmare Flare thing…”

Callista blinked a few times. “Are you talking about the bit of jewelry?”

“Hold on a second.” Twilight ate one of the apple slices adorning the fish, pausing to enjoy the mingled flavor of sweet apple and oddly tangy fish before continuing. “You realize that the Elements are objects and not ponies, right?”

“The legend of the Elements is that they are whatever they need to be, and whatever will make them most effective.” Callista took a generous bite of fish and closed her eyes, savoring it. “Mmm… never thought flesh could be so tasty. Must be the key lime marinade.”

“...she’s right.” Rarity said, sounding happily surprised. “It tastes more like savory pie than fish. I realize this discussion interests you darling, but you really must sample it.”

Twilight hesitated and then nodded, scooping up a bite of the fish (that actually did seem to have consistency more like pie filling than fish) and sampling it. It was, as Rarity had declared, slightly sweet with a citrus tang, and really did remind her more of pie than the flaky texture of good fish. “It is really good,” she said, swallowing and taking another bite. “What do you mean, the legend of the Elements, Marquess?”

“There’s a great deal of myth and legend surrounding the Elements of Harmony,” Callista said in between taking generous bites of her fish and salad. “I got it more in the form of bedtime stories, along with dramatic tales about the beautiful warrior-goddess and her courageous soldiers defending Equestria from all comers under the flowing banners of the moon and the sun. We have the same pageants about Hearth’s Warming Eve, the story of Nightmare Moon, thrilling myths about Starswirl the Bearded and his protege Clover the Clever, but I gather that Equestria doesn’t have our stories about the impossible and glorious Elements of Harmony, nor our passed-down stories of fighting alongside the Princess of the Moon and Night to keep the pony subjects of the Dual Thrones safe and happy.”

“And what makes ‘em impossible?” Applejack asked.

“Oh, I know, I know!” Pinkie grinned. “I can fit in a bucket of sponges!”

“You…?” Callista shook her head. “No, you’re Laughter, of course you can. Anything that’s funny, you can do, or at least the myth claims. Perhaps it’s not as much of a myth as I thought.”

“Nope,” Pinkie said with a grin.

“I’m pleased to hear that.” Callista grinned back at her. “But it’s not only the blatant impossibility that follows Laughter around. Legend is that they’re aware, or at least have the capacity to change their form and where they reside. They have been in the jewelry, but Princesses Tettidora and Chiti have speculated that their magical nature has become entwined with their bearers, leaving the jewelry as mere symbols and focus points. According to legend, this has happened in the past.”

“Princess… Chiti?”

“Technically her title would be ‘Countess’ due to being Queen Chrysalis’ second-youngest sister, but no one uses it.”

“Oh.” Twilight fowned. “So your legend states that the Elements can… entwine with their bearers?”

“Yes.” Callista finished her main course plate, which was almost instantly picked up and taken away by a circulating server. “It’s said that certain ponies are unusually well-suited for their Element, and this leads to the Element adopting them as a vessel, so to speak. As with all matters of highly complex magic, though, you shall have to inquire of the Monarchy’s distinguished minds to find out details. All I know personally is that you wield Magic and your friend wields Laughter with such unconscious ease that you’re both unaware of wielding them at all.”

“An’ how can ya know that, ‘zactly?” Applejack eyed her. “We ain’t ever met you and even if y’all do completely change shape, there ain’t been ponies around when we had ta use the Elements.”

“Princess Lepinora runs a very intricate and efficient spy network,” Callista said casually. “And the Dune family is on excellent terms with the royal family, so such important information is shared in confidence.”

“So the tattooed fillyfooler with an artistic streak is the spymaster.” Dawn took a moment to chew contemplatively on a lemon slice from the salad. “Hide in plain sight, huh?”

“Naturally.” Callista glanced over her shoulder towards the large doors leading into the banquet area. “I think the Royal Family is just about to enter. It’ll be good to see Crown Prince Auron again… he throws himself so hard into the council that Empress Moon convened that he’s been sadly scarce these last few months.”

Twilight blinked at Callista calling him ‘crown prince’ but was prevented from asking by the doors swinging open and the entire room standing as the Royal Family entered. Queen Chrysalis entered first, wearing the robe and adornments she’d worn when they first met her in Maredusa’s grotto, with the addition of several rich jeweled combs woven into her long mane and shoes like those that Celestia and Luna wore on formal occasions, except made of jade polished so smooth that it gleamed in the banquet hall’s lights. At her side, walking even with her, was a handsome stallion wearing a visibly heavy silver crown, an exquisitely-cut heart-shaped ruby in the crown’s peak with four emeralds in the smaller peaks of the adornment, and ornamental parade armor of a burnished white metal Twilight had never seen before and gold filigree. Over the armor he wore a black tabard bearing a dragon eye above two downward-angled hammers with their handles crossed, very likely his cutie mark.

Each of the four princesses entered flanking their parents, each wearing finery fit for royalty. Twilight could hear a wave of awed and excited-sounding murmurs sweep through the crowd at Cadence wearing her familiar alicorn shape, and she felt herself smile at seeing her foalsitter walking alongside her very changeling family looking natural and comfortable in the shape that she’d worn her entire life. Thryssa was unaccompanied as was Tettidora, but alongside Lepinora (who was so well-adorned that her extravagant body art seemed to be intended as a part of the outfit instead of the constant presence it actually was) walked a very slightly taller mare with the characteristic dragonfly wings of royalty but seemed to be as austere and elegant as Lepinora was gaudy.

“Wonder who the beauty is,” Dawn said sotto voce. “I’d think it was that marefriend she mentioned, Cryssa, but… can’t imagine a marefriend entering with the rest of the family.”

“Cryssa is considerably more than Lepinora’s marefriend,” Callista said quietly as the royals took their seats at the head of the banquet hall. “They’ve been monogamous and devoted to one another for going on a decade now.”

“Friends, subjects, and honored guests of our home, we welcome you!” Queen Chrysalis declared as her family took their seats around her. “It is always a joy to see a hall full of my people, eating, making merry, and being happy in the company of their fellows, and under my roof as well. This is a truly monumental and special occasion, my friends. We are here today to see the end of the beginning and celebrate its passage as we are drawn one step closer to the destiny that has lain before our people for a thousand years: to be welcome again in the home we were compelled to leave.”

She gestured to Cadence. “My second-eldest, my Chidinida, called Mi Amore Cadenza by the Equestrian court, and to the Equestrians who love her, Cadence. The agent of the Great Plan, although unaware of it most of her life, who through being a gentle and warm pony and making herself easy to love, is now betrothed to the Captain of the Royal Guard and the lately-known adopted son of Princess Celestia. With this the most ancient and ironclad means of building alliances, the Hive Throne of Amaryss and the Dual Thrones of Equestria will once again be the warmest of friends and with the marriage, no changeling shall ever again be compelled to use the guise to live among, and love, and make families with our sister races. Never again shall the guise lock be required for a changeling to have a family with another of the races. Never again will Equestria be deprived of us, or we of them. With this traditional joining of two royal houses by marriage, there will never again be a need to post a guard on the border, and the Friendship Express will no longer be stopped by a terminus.”

Twilight gaped. Cadence and Shiny are… getting married? But… how… I didn’t even know they were dating! But a moment later, she chided herself. But it’s been forever since you bothered to send him a letter or look her up when you were visiting Canterlot. Why should they involve you in their plans or inform you? It’s not as if you’ve been working hard to be in their lives.

“...and Magic are here with us today, as our deeply honored guests.” Twilight’s attention snapped back to Chrysalis’ speech just as the room erupted into applause and Marquess du Dune’s hoof was firmly but gently pushing her forward to follow her friends and Dawn to the front of the room, just in front of the table that the royal family occupied. She turned around to see a sea of black ponies gazing at the front of the room with a mix of awe that was directed at their Equestrian visitors, and reverence directed at the Queen herself.

“But more than being the Element of Magic, Twilight Sparkle is a princess, and her sister Dawn as well,” Chrysalis continued, remaining focused on her audience rather than events virtually at her feet. “The daughters of the very Princess Celestia who moves the sun in its eternal dance. In no other time in the history of the last thousand years has there been circumstances like there, where we could welcome and embrace the thing most precious to Celestia. Although we hadn’t planned it, the appearance of the Elements in this very castle gives us hope and much cause for rejoicing. So too do we have great cause to rejoice in what has always given ponies joy: friendship. And because we have made one friend, all the disparate exiles now gather in council with us, as our equals and our friends. Though no doubt many of you have met her as she’s walked the city, reveling in the life of Scarabi, formally honoring her as a friend and ally has been too long in coming.”

“You are far kinder than I’ve any right to expect as always, Queen Chrysalis.” The sound of Nightmare’s smooth, grand voice from behind made Twilight glance over her shoulder towards its sound, which led to her turning around more openly. Nightmare was arrayed in a robe very much like Chrysalis’, but made of a beautiful material that she strongly suspected was fine silk with delicate threads of silver interwoven to cause it to glimmer in the light, all in violets and blues and trimmed with gorgeous embroidery. Her flowing mane was heavily decorated with jeweled combs, iridescent feathers, and brilliantly-colored beads.

“There’s no such thing,” Chrysalis said with a broad smile before looking back at the crowd, which Twilight observed looked taken-aback at Nightmare’s appearance. “My people, behold the mare who drove the forming of a council, who has been a stalwart ally of the Hive Throne these several months, and who is memorialized just as surely as Celestia and Luna in the tales of our childhoods. The Dread Empress of Nightmares, known by her own as Nachtmiri Mein, but to all others as Nightmare Moon.”

If anything, the applause at Chrysalis’ introduction of Nightmare was more enthusiastic than the reception of the Elements, and Twilight’s mind went back to the banners decorating the city walls of Scarabi with Nightmare and Luna positioned symbolically above Celestia. They must have a very different feeling about her than we do, she thought as the excited cacophony and the rumbling of applause blended into a wall of oddly energizing and pleasant noise. Very likely, they always have; I can’t imagine they fell absolutely in love with her in this short of time if she was the dread and terrible specter of their foalhood stories. I wonder what their stories of her are…

“I appreciate your kind reception,” Nightmare said to the room as the applause died down. “I’ve been slowly acquainting myself with your legends concerning myself, and Luna’s attempt to depose her sister in the interest of making a more just Equestria. Many of the legends are true, many myth, and many are fanciful but there is one truth that is important above all else: it was the expulsion of an entire people who had done no collective wrong that set Luna on her path. That you leap so eagerly to aid Equestria more than justifies her faith in you, and your hospitality towards her niece and her friends does your race credit. You have forged a grand city full of life and love and wonders, an oasis against the dead sand around you. I wish only that I was not here alone, that Luna was standing at the right hoof of your queen as a guest as well, for I think the reunion would be a joyous one; Luna has never forgotten those who loyally served Equestria by her side.”

“Which explains why in all the time since her return, she has not bothered to look in on us once.” The room went completely silent all at once at the creaking female voice with the light but distinct accent of Stalliongrad, the loudness and clarity indicating that she was magically augmenting her voice. The changelings between the royal family’s table and the source of the voice scrambled a little as they moved out of the line of fire, revealing an older-looking changeling noblemare adorned in so much finery as to appear more gaudy than Lepinora.

“Baroness du Luc.” Nightmare’s tone, warm and happy moments before was abruptly frigid.

“Don’t you take that tone with me ‘Empress’,” du Luc said. “For all the love between yourself and royalty, you are still a guest. And however the question angers you, it is meritorious: if Princess Luna remembers us, if she cares about us, if she is fond of us, where is she? Why do we have a doppelganger of a princess instead of the princess herself?”

“Because Luna isn’t omniscient, you overstuffed twit,” Lepi said, her tone as casual as Nightmare’s was icy.

“Excuse me?”

“Sure, you’re excused.” Twilight glanced over her shoulder to see that Lepi was giving the baroness a mocking smirk. “And you’re a twit.”

“I shall explain this to you slowly, Baroness, that you will be able to understand.” Nightmare spoke before du Luc could register another word of sputtering outrage, although her gaze wandered the assemblage around the banquet table as she did. “The princess whom I regard as a virtual sister is afraid to come looking for you, afraid that she will find out that her dearest hope, that you survived and thrived, is for naught and that she will find a sad pile of bones instead of the people she loved. She is afraid that if you remain, that you will despise her for doing nothing to stop Celestia, and that she and Equestria are dead to you, and that you are lost to her as surely as if your race had died in exile. And she is deeply ashamed that when she disputed Celestia’s claim to the throne, she failed to invite the stalwart defenders of Equestria. You have had a thousand years to make your peace with how you were treated; for Luna, it has been only a few as to her, her sojourn on the moon lasted moments instead of centuries. The loss still cuts her, although knowing her as I do, she no doubt conceals her pain. But more than that, she is a princess with a kingdom under a grave threat, and she has gone to the Griffin Provinces to see to affairs there and possibly discover her enemy, so she can smite him into the bedrock. Make no mistake and do not doubt it Baroness: Princess Luna remembers, and she cares, and when she learns that she is loved here and that your people thrive, she will come.”

“And when she does, what then?” Du Luc seemed to fuss with one of the jeweled bracelets on her leg.

“She’ll be welcomed warmly as a guest, Baroness,” Queen Chrysalis said in a tone that seemed oddly respectful for how provocative the baroness was being. “What else would you have?”

The baroness stopped fussing and despite her being nearly at the opposite end of the long banquet table, Twilight could see the shrewd look on the gaudy noblemare’s face. “I would expect nothing less than the hospitality of your home for the princess who has always been most beloved of our people, Your Highness. But the visit of one of the Sisters here raises an important question that has not been asked since Queen Amaryss, and has needed to be asked since you spoke of your visionary plan: what shall the queen of the changelings be to the princesses of the sun and moon? Another subject, the way that our beloved Amaryss was, to be ordered about and treated as an inferior? We have traveled that road, Your Majesty, and traveling it again leaves a foul taste.”

“The disposition of the Hive Throne vis a vis the Dual Thrones shall be settled between my wife and the princesses themselves.” Crown Prince Auron’s voice proved to have a much more resonant vibrato than the typical changeling voice, deeper and with the very deliberate way that he spoke, regal as well. “Ably assisted by Princess Tettidora and, it is our hope, Princesses Twilight and Dawn Sparkle.”

“And none of the noble families?”

Auron chuckled. “Baroness du Luc, how can the queen of the changelings be seen as the peer of the princesses who shall have no noble assistance, if she has the noble families of the changelings trailing her to advise? We should like to partake of the wise advice your family and the Dune family have given us over these ten centuries in this matter, but you understand why that cannot be.”

“Whether it can be or not, it must be.” The baroness swept her gaze over the other ponies at the table. “We have made a glorious place for ourselves, but it was only necessary because Queen Amaryss was at the beck and call of a condescending alicorn, sitting on a throne, fixated on the glorious Equestria she had nothing to do with. A figurehead, nothing more, and yet at her word we were cast into a waterless waste. And what could Amaryss do short of attacking a pony who was wrong but not evil? Nothing at all, just like any maidservant in the castle.”

Twilight furrowed her brow, trying to figure out where the noblemare was going with her entire line of commentary. She could see quite a few of the guests watching the baroness and several more nodding in agreement but if du Luc had a point, she still hadn’t worked herself around to it.

“Is there a point you wish to make, Baroness du Luc?” Chrysalis asked, her tone mildly annoyed.

“Just this, Your Highness: we know what being mere servants of the Dual Thrones leads to. Your people need to know that Celestia can request, but our Queen is not required to obey.” Any showiness or drama that the baroness had displayed moments ago was entirely gone now, and her gaze was focused on Chrysalis. “Even my family, who does not approve of intermingling again with the races that cast us out, supports you in this plan to restore communion with Equestria. But we will be servants by desire, wish, and choice, not by royal obligation. We embrace our own queen out of desire, out of our own wishes, and by our own choice; why should the princesses of Equestria who have not ruled us and shown us no love or benevolence, be elevated above our queen? And why should we be made to watch our queen bow before those princesses?”

“They are our…”

“The disposition of the Hive Throne vis a vis the Dual Thrones shall be settled between my wife and the princesses themselves,” Crown Prince Auron said calmly, one of his hooves resting gently on his wife’s leg as he looked steadily at the complaining noblemare. “But we can assure you and our people: Celestia’s choices have consequences, just as any other pony’s do. It is the position of the Hive Throne that determining those consequences is a matter for careful consideration and significant consultation with the wise and the knowledgeable.”

“So little said with so many words,” du Luc scoffed.

Auron shook his head. “Camri, disrupting a pleasant time with our subjects and with very well-loved guests is exceptionally ill-mannered. Crossing verbal blades with you is always an interesting and stimulating diversion, but this is a time for friends and for family. Please respect this.”

“I will let this lie if you will say it, Crown Prince.” The baroness frowned. “Say that the time of our queen subservient to the Dual Thrones is gone, and will not return. Say that our queen will not be a mere servant to the whims of a sun princess whom none can restrain or account for. Say that our queen will be their equal at the…”

“She will.” Twilight swallowed as dozens of heads swung in her direction, making her momentarily regret her outburst, but she took a breath, centered herself, and pushed on. “I don’t know the history of what happened, Baroness du Luc, but as a practical matter making a servant of an established monarch representing an entire pony race could never justify the cost in time to work out the specifics.”

“Basically it’s too bucking hard,” Dawn chimed in. “Besides, what’s Mom going to do with her if it works out? Send her back here and have her manage things as an independent noble on the longest leash in the history of ever. If Mom’s gonna have to work with yer queen like she would the leader of any other independent nation, she’s not stupid, she’s gonna skip all the middle junk and go straight to treating you sorts like your own nation. Which ya really are. So… don’t get yer mane in a knot, Luc; it’ll be all good.”

Du Luc stared at the two of them for several moments, looking like she was unsure whether to be annoyed at the interruption or pleased at the answer. She settled on a bemused half-smile and then bowed her head slightly in their direction. “It appears I have my answer then,” she said, “and the one I’d hoped to hear, the one that every one of your people hoped to hear, Your Highness.”

“I would have preferred that you trusted me, Camri, to be strong for my people and be the queen they want me to be,” Chrysalis said.

“Your Majesty, I have a wicked tongue,” du Luc said as she returned to sitting. “If I had the slightest doubt, I’d have said so. But there are times that something important needs to be said, not merely believed.”

“Hail to our queen!” A voice out of the crowd cheered.

The assent was almost deafening, followed by the enthusiastic stomping of applause. Twilight could see Baroness du Luc looking very pleased with herself before she turned away to converse with someone, quite likely another noble. Dawn grinned at her and raised a hoof. “I request the highest of fives.”

“The… what?”

“Bump hooves, sis. Yanno, like Dashie and ‘Jack do when they do something awesome.”

“Um, OK.” Twilight tentatively raised her hoof as well and Dawn placed hers against it with a grin before looking over her shoulder at Nightmare. “Lemme guess.. troublemaker?”

“Whenever she can,” Nightmare said, although her tone wasn’t as frigid as it was when she was speaking to du Luc directly. “In royal council, she takes the place of the person in the room raising doubts and asking the uncomfortable questions. Arrogant, aggravating, but indispensible. I have no patience for her and no wish to have anything to do with her but I recognize her vital function in my ally’s court.”

“Nightmare, you of all ponies should appreciate the value of theater,” Chrysalis smiled.

“I spent too much time entwined with Luna to appreciate it half as much as your race does Chrysalis.” Nightmare smiled back faintly. “But I suppose it’s not so different than making an uproar in the east and striking in the west. Still, she and her family are distasteful to me. Blame it on going mentally numb from the chattering idiocy of self-important nobles prattling on about matters they were worse than ignorant on. On the other hoof, there have always been nobles like du Dune…”

“You flatter us Empress Mein,” Callista said. “We’re just a long line of good parents teaching their children to be good ponies, no different than the Apples or any other extended familial line.”

“Exactly.” Nightmare treated her to a look of warmth before looking back to Twilight. “I hate to ruin a very comfortable and delicious dinner by bringing up something more business-like, but I think you and I need to revisit the discussion we had just before you left Maredusa’s Everfree grotto.”

Twilight nodded, ignoring the curious looks from her friends and sister. “I was thinking the same thing. Right now?”

“No, enjoy the rest of the meal and the evening with your friends.” Nightmare smiled slightly before turning and engaging Crown Prince Auron in conversation.

“Y’all think we’re free ta head back to our seats?” Applejack said after a lengthy pause.

“Most certainly,” Callista said, gesturing them back to the table. “That was well-done Dawn. You seized the moment and gave Baroness du Luc exactly what she was looking for, and without the royal family having to debase themselves by answering a public challenge from the nobility.”

“So all of that was… staged?”

“Of course darling,” Rarity said as she seated herself. “Most official court interactions are. Very little unexpected happens at this level. All the actors are given their roles, everyone plays that role, and everyone knows what the other person will say and what they’re trying to do by saying it.” She smirked. “Reminds me of the fashion conventions I’ve been to.”

“Camri du Luc occupies the highest noble position in the court,” Callista said. “Caustic, petty, mean, stubborn, and egotistical, but so perceptive you’d think she could read minds and almost fanatically loyal to the throne. All that was about reassuring the common changeling that when Queen Chrysalis stands before the Dual Thrones, it will be as their ally and equal. I myself have never doubted that our queen will refuse even Luna subservience, nor has the baroness, nor most of the nobility. That’s why she challenged the royalty openly: she wanted everyone to hear the queen or the crown prince confirm that your mother burned the bridge of total subservience when she exiled our race.”

“Don’t think I’ll ever get that,” Dawn said. “You guys are neat sorts and throw awesome parties.”

“Needs more balloons,” Pinkie countered. “At least one gallon hot sauce, cake, and tons more party games.”

“Pinkster, I don’t think party games are kosher for a formal dinner,” Dawn deadpanned. “It’s still a party to me though: good looking mares, handsome stallions, excellent food, and cool people hanging around. If booze is incoming, it’ll make the entire thing perfect.”

“Du Luc are known for very good dessert wines and the palace keeps a healthy stock for special occasions,” Callista said. “They might be a little rich if you’re not used to them.”

Dawn grinned. “Bring it on, sister.”

“You know, Dawn, I’m pretty sure there’s a reason they serve it in tiny cups,” Twilight sighed as she stumbled a little under the weight of the pink earth pony draped over her.

“Yer not th’ boss of me,” Dawn burbled, hiccuping.

“It’s a dreadful shame darling, because someone clearly needs to be,” Rarity sniffed. “It was a delicious dessert wine, easily five thousand bits a bottle, and you ruin the experience by downing half the bottle.”

“Pink -hic- took care of a whole one,” Dawn grumbled. “Totally not fair. What ish she made outta? Where she put it all?”

“Extradimensional space,” Pinkamena replied brightly. “And I’m made out of impossible, because it turns out that I am the Element of Laughter. I also have the Element of Laughter. And I’m feeling rather calm and mellow right now because that was delicious wine and I just don’t have any funny to add to a drunk Twilight in bright pink.”

“If you weren’t three, -hic- I’d totally kick your plot,” Dawn informed her. “Im not Twi, she’s boring.”

“When you wake up tomorrow, you’ll wish you were boring too,” Twilight said, turning her head to smile at Dawn. “Hopefully, you’ve learned something.”

“Yup.” Dawn hiccuped. “Next time, passing out drunk. Aaaan… uh… steal an extra bottle to kill th’ hangover.”

“The court alchemist makes a simple concoction that helps hangovers,” the honor guard standing at the door to the room she shared with Dawn said to Twilight, looking sympathetic.

“Thanks, but my sister needs to learn a valuable life lesson,” Twilight said, walking passed the guard towards the creepily accurate duplicate of the bed she slept in while living at Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns, right down to an exact duplicate of the position, color, pattern, and even stitching of a makeshift patch on one of the pillows. She floated Dawn off her back in a bubble of magic and set her on the bed. “Don’t move.”

“Yer not th’... aw, buck, whom I foolin’? Seeing quintuple now…” Dawn scooted up and lay her head on the patch. “...holy buck, this is a comfy bed. Didja seriously have this for yer room sis?”

Twilight chuckled. “No. I’m glad to see our hosts deviated a little from the real thing.”

“You can blame the creepy level of duplication on Princess Lepinora, Princess Sparkle,” the honor guard said, leaning slightly into the room. “She’s a little too fond of working practical jokes into…”

“Excuse me.” Another of the honor guard nudged the first aside, looking at Twilight with a very worried expression. “Princess Twilight, would you please come with me to Lady Rarity’s room?”

Twilight blinked. “What could possibly have happened in ten seconds?”

“I…” she chewed her lower lip a little. “You… had best come see this for yourself. You remember the gratitude our queen expressed to Lady Rarity when she first met her, thanking her for a service rendered, one that she didn’t specify?”

“Something Rarity wouldn’t tell us about, and we respected her…” Twilght paused. “This is related?”

“Come see.” The guard turned and trotted out of view, and with a moment of confused hesitation Twilight followed her. Rarity’s room was two down from hers, between Pinkie’s and Applejack’s, and she caught sight of the tip of the farmpony’s straw-colored tail as she walked up to Rarity’s door and looked in.

Rarity was sitting on her flanks just a few lengths into the room, staring off into space with a exquisitely-arranged pile of what appeared to be roses but made with dark jade in place of the stems and light jade petals so exquisitely carved that they appeared lush with life. Pinkamena was sitting beside her, foreleg draped over her shoulder and occasionally moving to gently pat it. She turned her head just enough to see Twilight in her peripheral vision and she lightly jerked her head to the other side of the stunned white pony before returning to gently patting Rarity’s shoulder. Applejack was standing off to a side, hat in hoof, not saying anything, but her expression was a mirror of the worry in the honor guard’s face.

“She jus’ walked inside, picked one o’ them up, and then jus’ dropped it an’ went like this,” she said softly as Twilight took up the position Pinkie had gestured to at Rarity’s side.

Now that she wasn’t looking passed the stricken Rarity, she could see that a small white tag had been tied around each of the artificial flowers. Curious, she glanced at Rarity and flinched at the haunted look in her friend’s sapphire blue eyes, before tentatively picking up the flower directly in front of her and pulling the tag around so she could read it. They took my sister, it read. Thank you, Miss Jade.

Twilight swallowed, suddenly getting a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach before picking up another of the flowers. They took my mommy, this one said. They took my son, said the next. She traded one flower for the next, the bad feeling growing into a feeling of horror and a terrible suspicion as the litany of gratitude named off one relative after another, and another, and another, each one thanking ‘Miss Jade’. She was on the twentieth flower without making any apparent dent in the artfully-piled array, before pale blue magic wrapped around her own and stopped her from bringing the flower close enough to read.

“Monsters,” Rarity said in a quavering voice, tears gathering in her eyes. “All of them. I… I had… I had no idea it was this… so… so many innocent ponies…”

Twilight gave the flower a little extra tug and Rarity let it go, hanging her head and moving it back and forth in horrified disbelief as Pinkie and Applejack both took a flower than read it. Applejack looked faintly ill but after a brief flicker of revulsion, Pinkamena’s expression became contemplative.

“The ones that ‘took’ ponies,” she said after several moments. “Queen Chrysalis mentioned them, just after we met her. Called them assassins, said you killed their boss.”

“Not jus’ their boss, was it?” Applejack said.

“I… I couldn’t…” Rarity said, the tears slipping down her cheeks. “I couldn’t let them. They would have shaped Equestria to… to what they wanted it to be. Princess Celestia was just recovering. Princess Luna had been out of the fight. Everything was chaos, no one had a firm grasp on anything anymore. The… right slit throats and…” She swallowed and looked down. “I had no idea it was so much worse.”

“Couldn’t have told Mother or Luna?” Twilight said as gently as she could.

Rarity shook her head. “They were prepared for an alicorn. How to… sabotage their magic, trap them, kill them, like I did with… whichever one it was. Winter, I think. Royal Guard aren’t… they’re police, not honed soldiers. There were rumors, just stories, that there was someone else but no one knew anything more than vague tales. But they didn’t prepare to be…”

“...betrayed.” Twilight turned at the new voice and saw a changeling soldier, her pink and blue-green mane well-coifed and slightly curled, eyes of light green, her armor looking to be made of cured hide instead of metal. She was wearing the harness and straps for a saddlebag but the only thing hanging from it was a long wooden box. The soldier’s eyes flicked in the direction of Twilight before returning to Rarity. “They gave no thought to a sister turning her blade against them. Why would they? Indoctrination is so very complete after all, burning away so much of who a pony was before.”

Rarity’s posture became a bit more stiff as she slowly turned her head to look back at the soldier. The tears were still wet on her cheeks but the haunted look was gone, replaced with the hard, analytic regard inherent to a trained assassin. “Who are you?”

“Sugar Bell,” the soldier said with cool unconcern. “Princess Lepinora’s intended solution to the problem of the assassins. I would resent you for striking first, if not for the fact that not even Lepinora anticipated that an Equestrian, even a pony so exceptional that she was worthy of becoming an Element of Harmony, would do something so selfless. Reckless and suicidal, but so utterly, utterly selfless.”

Rarity turned around completely and got to her feet. “You were there.”

“I wouldn’t have been able to report back to the princess otherwise,” Sugar said.

“But I…”

“...killed all the ones that would not voluntarily lay down their blades.” Sugar nodded. “I neither laid down my weapon nor, as you can tell, died. Don’t feel bad, you had no idea it was me you were looking at.”

“I assumed that,” Rarity said. “Would you mind to…?”

“Show you the guise I was using?” Sugar smiled a little. “I will, but kindly do not be offended. I didn’t realize that I was imitating a particular pony until I saw her.” Her horn lit and the appearance of green flame ‘burning away’ her form swept over her. She lost some stature, her long horn becoming shorter and stubby, her green-blue becoming violet and her coat turning white. A shocked silence pervaded the room as a perfect copy of Sweetie Belle looked slightly up at them, although the utter composure of her features was uncharacteristic of the Sweetie Twilight knew.

“It’s funny that no one ever calls me Sugar, incidentally,” she said in Sweetie’s voice. “I’ve never been able to find out why, but everyone I know calls me ‘Sweet’. Little did I imagine that not only is there a unicorn filly named Sweetie Belle, not only I do style my mane like hers, not only is she a white-coated unicorn with a violet and pink mane like my preferred guise, but she has a farmer friend she calls ‘Bloom’ that likes to wear a bow in her hair, and vigorously active friend with a violet mane and an orange coat. And she happens to be your little sister.”

Rarity gaped at her. “You were disguised as… Sweetie…” A look of dawning realization came over her face. “I thought my mind was playing tricks on me, that I’d just lost track of Sweetie in the melee.”

“Hold on, Rares,” Applejack said. “Y’all brought yer little sister ta take care of these assassins?”

“Who else could I have asked?” Rarity retorted coolly. “I couldn’t involve you; they’d have seen you coming and known immediately what I intended. Sweetie was the perfect pretext; it’s traditional to keep the craft in the family and to do the initial training and arming before bringing them to the chapter house to be inducted.”

“Surprised the hay out of me,” Sugar said. “Playing my part, and in walks the Element of Generosity and a young clone of my favored guise. It wasn’t hard to guess what you were up to although to be fair, I had a direct line to the pony you and all the other assassins had been praying to for the last thousand years. Listened a lot better than she probably let on--the topic seems to make her extremely uncomfortable--so I had a good idea about what the direction of your intentions were.”

Rarity gave her a brief nod before turning again to the pile of artificial flowers. “I don’t mean to be rude, Sugar Bell, but why are you here?”

“Three reasons,” Sugar said. “The first was that I heard crying and was concerned. The second was that I wanted to add my own thanks to all the thanks piled in front of you.”

“You lost…?”

“No,” Sugar said. “But Bloom’s family lost an uncle before she was born and a second cousin when she was eight. What I wish to thank you for is sacrificing so much to give numerous innocent ponies the justice they deserved. Empress Mein tells me that you did not take contracts and that you are as peaceful a pony as any other; one of two of the soldiers who were within earshot of you reconciling with your friends tell me that you felt unable to tell even ponies who would understand and still care about you. You paid a price, and paid it without complaint, and I just want to say thank you for that.”

Rarity was silent for a moment. “What was the third thing?”

“Delivering a gift.” Sugar unstrapped the box from her side and laid it down behind Rarity. “The flowers are a gesture of gratitude from every changeling who lost someone they loved to the assassin’ hunts. This is a gesture of gratitude from Nightmare Moon for removing a blight on the honor of her adopted sister.”

Rarity half-turned towards her. “What is it?”

“Replacements for the weapons the soldiers destroyed when they captured you,” Sugar said. “She packed them as I watched; I’ve never seen craftsmanship even approaching this level, and Scarabi’s foundry master is an exceptionally gifted craftsman.”

“I see.” Rarity turned back and picked up one of the flowers. “I appreciate the thought but…”

“Lady Belle, telling me you’d rather not accept Nightmare Moon’s gift to you is completely pointless,” Sugar said. “I’m not picking up the package and slinking back to the empress with it, and I can’t speak for her motives or her thinking beyond what she said to me. So go find her and castigate her for the gift. If there are no further issues, I have some things to attend to and will bid you ladies good evening.”

“Wait,” Rarity said. Sugar turned towards her arching a brow. “What would you have done, if I hadn’t… taken action?”

“I’d have killed them all, Lady Rarity.” Sugar returned to her natural changeling shape with a wave of emerald flame. “After all the lives they’d destroyed, the Princess didn’t want to take any chances.”

“I see.” Rarity exchanged flowers again. “Thank you, darling, you may go.”

“By your leave.” Sugar bowed in Rarity’s direction before repeating the respectful gesture in the direction of each of them, bowing more deeply to Twilight, before turning and walking from the room.

“So now you know,” Rarity said.

“We… sorta kinda knew already Rarity,” Applejack said. “Didn’t quite want ta know but we ain’t yer friends for nothin’. Ain’t… wasn’t hard ta put together after the Queen thanked ya fer settlin’ accounts with an enemy of her people.”

“And you don’t think… erk!” The question was cut off by Pinkamena giving Rarity a hug that knocked the wind out of her, and then holding it.

“Don’t be silly Rarity,” she said. “You’re our bestest best friend!” She let the white unicorn go and swept a hoof over the arrangement of artificial flowers. “And six hundred fifty-one ponies who needed Jade to know that she’s a good pony, and they’re grateful, and that she gave them something they couldn’t get from anypony else, and she did the right thing, and they wanted her to have something so she didn’t forget, can’t be wrong can they?”

“Rarity, we can’t pretend not to be shocked,” Twilight said, laying a hoof on her friend’s shoulder. “Shocked that you had to kill ponies, shocked that you couldn’t come to us, and shocked that there were ponies in Equestria who murdered other ponies and other people. But… we understand. We don’t think any less of you.” She stepped close enough to hug Rarity lightly. “Want help moving the flowers?”

Rarity smiled a little as she returned the hug. “No. After six hundred fifty-one ponies each sent a personal thank-you, I feel like I should read them all myself.” She looked over them all, her eyes going from Pinkie to Applejack and back to Twilight. “Thank you. For being here for me. For not pressing me about the past. But you girls get some sleep now; I’ve got a lot of reading to do.”

Nightmare found her just barely after breakfast the next morning, giving them all a pleasant smile as she took one of the empty seats at the table. “Good morning, all of you.”

“Empress Mein! What a… pleasant surprise!” Rarity said, looking suddenly quite nervous.

“Less pleasant than a surprise Rartiy?” Nightmare grinned toothily. “Sugar Bell said you received the gift. Are the replacement pieces to your liking? I had to guess at your measurements and the exact dimensions of your original equipment but I can have them adjusted.”

“Oh, no, no they’re… I’m sure they’re just perfect.”

Nightmare’s grin faded. “You have not actually opened the box.”

“Well, I… no, I confess I haven’t.” Rarity sighed. “With all due respect, Empress Mein, I’m… I was happy to leave the assassins behind. I have no desire to take up my blades again. I never took a contract for a reason, spent most of my life disowned for a reason…”

“...and now you can use your skills to fight for a reason,” Nightmare said calmly. “You did it when you cut off the head of the snake. You did it when the Guardian’s puppets were slaughtering ponies. You did it when your friends were attacked. You have proven that no matter how you wish to leave your gifts behind, the need for them will never go away, nor will the opportunity to use them well.” She leaned down to Rarity and gave her a smile. “It is in the spirit of me helping you to be more of what you already are that I ask you to accept the gift.”

Rarity met Nightmare’s eyes squarely for several moments before smiling back and nodding. “In that case, thank you Nightmare.”

“I am pleased that you are pleased Rarity.” Nightmare looked to Twilight. “Now if none of you have any objections, I have something I need to discuss with Twilight before I see the five of you off.”

“Don’t suppose it’s something egghead?” Dawn said, her voice just loud enough to be audible, making her wince.

Nightmare eyed her. “Why are you speaking so softly Dawn?”

“Severe dehydration headache.”

“Got drunk off your plot, did you?” The fangy grin returned.

“No. I got gloriously drunk off my plot. Dessert wine is too good. Pinkie drank more, isn’t affected. Totally not fair.”

“If one of the side effects of the Element was not protection from excess, she would likely be more miserable than you.” Nightmare chuckled. “But I am afraid that the subject of conversation with your sister will not be ‘egghead stuff’.”

“Oh, kay. Back to miserable then.” Dawn resumed holding her head in her hooves on the floor.

“So when’ll y’all get back?”

“Before the Red Mambo is ready to depart, which ought to be no more than an hour.” Nightmare put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulder “If you need either of us, simply get directions to Tettidora’s observatory. I plan to lock the door behind us so that the public knows the observatory is temporarily closed, but you need only knock and I will unlock it immediately.”

“Cool!” Pinkie declared. “So what should we do in the meantime?”

“Scarabi is a very cosmopolitan city.” Nightmare said. “I am sure you will be able to find anything you need to cause trouble.”

“Or make a party.”

“Same thing, different word. Not all trouble-making is bad.” Nightmare winked at her.

Pinkie’s eyes went wide. “Ooooooh….”

Applejack eyed Pinkie and then gave Nightmare a level look. “Don’t think ya can keep us occupied for extra time by unleashin’ Pinkie.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it Applejack.” Nightmare replied pleasantly. “I am just moving the possible disaster from the palace where I am a guest, to a city full of ordinary ponies who will appreciate the one-pony source of everlasting positive emotional radiance.”

Applejack gave her a thoroughly unimpressed look. “Betcha got a bridge ta sell me too..”

“No, just a distraction. While you were not watching her closely enough, Pinkie has escaped.”

“She…” Twilight looked just as Applejack turned, to find an empty space where Pinkie had been a mere moment ago. “...horseapples.”

“The magical construct that lets ponies move between Scarabi and the palace is down the hall and at the first double doors on the left.” Nightmare smiled. “Do enjoy yourselves. I recall that Pinkie Pie has a special talent for spreading joy.”

“An’ chaos,” Applejack pointed out as she started in the direction that Nightmare had indicated.

“Chaos gets an undeservedly bad reputation. What are the most wonderful events in life but pure chaos?” Nightmare turned and used her hoof to gently guide Twilight along.

Twilight looked back over her shoulder to see Rarity and Applejack trotting for where Nightmare had said a magical construct was and Dawn still laying there holding her head. “I think we should help…”

“In case you did not notice, she has been downing an unhealthy level of drink,” Nightmare said with a note of amusement. “She will be fine, and learn a valuable lesson about moderation. I have half again her body mass, drank only two glasses, and still felt a bit of punishment for excess. Which is a very pleasurable experience… you cannot hurt unless you are alive.”

“So you… enjoy having a body of your own?” Twilight sighed. “No, that’s a really silly question, of course you do.”

“Of course I do. Now brace yourself, Twilight, for I intend to expedite our journey.” The flash of sensation was the same as when Spite had voidwalked them to Canterlot, a twitch of cold and unpleasant displacement, and they were at a large stone door that blended nearly perfectly with the stone surrounding it.

“I feel that I need to apologize to you, Twilight.” Nightmare said as she opened the door and led Twilight inside.

“It was my decision to just get spells from you,” Twilight said, watching the taller mare walk around the room lighting the various lamps with her horn. With each lamp that caught fire, shedding subtle greenish light, more of the observatory was revealed to Twilight. It was carpeted, the various cushions and furniture generously padded and wood pieces made of beautifully-carved cherry wood. Off to a side, several machines ticked along cheerfully, doing some kind of idle calculation based on an inch of paper creeping out of one of the meters to pool on the floor every so often. The centerpiece of the room, however, was a high-power telescope to rival the one she’d used in Canterlot during her time in Celestia’s School. The fixtures of the scope gleamed in the soft light, showing off the care that was regularly applied to the equipment.

“You offered more,” Twilight continued after pausing to fully appreciate the room they were in, feeling strangely at home in the space dedicated to the pursuit of science and learning.

“I failed to impress upon you how important the comprehension of the danger might be,” Nightmare replied after a moment of looking at a candelabra that appeared to be made entirely of crystal, lighting each of the candles one by one. “I was too timid, too worried about appearing too domineering and overbearing, and so failed to equip you with the tools you’d need. Fortunate that the Drake sisters intervened and drove Tharalax away.”

“They seemed familiar with him.”

“Doubtful that they know of him specifically, but it is clear from Princess Lepinora’s account that they knew enough to threaten him.” Nightmare looked over her shoulder at Twilight. “As you should have. A pony with your gift for magic and fully entwined with the Element of Magic itself should be able to break a simpleton like Tharalax with no particular effort.”

“Marquess du Dune alluded to that too,” Twilight said. “Talked about how we are the Elements instead of bearing the Elements.”

Nightmare smiled a little. “Callista is correct. But that is a matter for a different time. You six are so fully entwined with the Elements that the only kind of instruction that will better you would take time that we do not enjoy at this moment.”

Twilight hesitated, wanting to push it, but Nightmare’s reply had a subtle shading of finality to it. Instead she asked, “So you’re going to insist on the knowledge transfer this time?”

“I can only strongly urge it on you Twilight,” Nightmare said. “It is not my place to insist that any mortal share their mind with me, most of all a mortal who is related to the vessel I regard as a sister.”

“But this sharing would make me better able to repel Tharalax and deal with whatever’s among the dragons?”

“It would.”

“And as much as it might be uncomfortable, it won’t harm me?”

“I cannot promise absolutely no possible chance of it being harmful.” Nightmare looked solemn. “I also cannot promise that it will not have effects that I cannot foresee. In hundreds of thousands of years making use of it, even I cannot compel the spell to do only what I intend and nothing else.”

Twilight felt herself pale a little. “Effects like what?”

“The knowledge will change you,” Nightmare said. “All knowledge does but the mind is not only knowledge. It is opinion, passion, hatred and love, and the wounds of experience. I believe that I can separate you from those wounds but my ability to keep you separated from my many passions and loves is much less certain.”

Twilight took in a breath and then met Nightmare’s eyes, eyes that were simultaneously eerie for their reptilian pupils and comforting for the genuine concern. “I’ll take the chance.”

“Then lie down here.” Nightmare gestured to a pair of large cushions on the floor, both easily large enough for her and certainly enough for Twilight. Twilight walked over and laid on the nearest cushion, finding it to be extremely comfortable and feeling like the covering was some kind of silk blend. Nightmare took a cushion of her own and looked down at Twilight. “Try to think of the most mundane and harmless things you can,” she advised. “Things that are not particularly personal or sensitive. The merging can only bring out active thoughts, not all knowledge at once.”

Twilight gave her a nod, closing her eyes and trying to concentrate on the driest history book she could remember. And lo, it wast in the thirty-second year and the fifth month where moon was found to be in a most efficacious position for the germination of seed corn and in a square orientated three degrees off north, the field was laid out… “I think I’ve got it,” she murmured.

Just like that, she was standing in a vast black emptiness stretching as far as she could see in every direction… and yet when she looked down, she could see her hooves as if she was standing in complete daylight. Her vision was filled with a silvery clawed hand that slipped under her chin and turned her head to a side, revealing a silver dragon that reminded her very strongly of Spite: lithe, graceful, hornless, a mane cascading attractively around her face, and with the brilliant teal eyes of Nightmare looking out from an elegant, patrician brow.

“Your discipline is impressive,” Nightmare said with a small smile. “Now, although we work at the speed of thinking, time is passing. The knowledge I would that you should have would be best conveyed by you questioning and I answering.”

Twilight furrowed her brow in confusion. “Question and answer? Wouldn’t it be more efficient to just… imprint it, like the spells?”

Nightmare shook her head. “Any mind, especially a mind coupled to a significant intellect, has many unconscious defenses against intrusion, one of the numerous reasons why forcing my will on Luna would have been an absurd thing to do, and doomed to fail. Certainly I could exert my entire will and burn the knowledge into your mind like a branding iron, but the likelihood of injuring it beyond repair is so high as to be a certainty. No, the question-and-answer method is the quickest and the most certain to give you what you want to know and nothing you do not.”

Twilight accepted this with a nod. “What allowed Tharalax to slowly kill the roc by touching him?”

“On any mortal plane, most beings of the Void use its energy to form shells into which they pour themselves,” Nightmare said. “The energies of the Light and the Dark are the energies of life; the energy of the Void is the energy of anti-life. It poisons and dissolves any mortal thing that is alive, and can be used as a tool of sadism the way that Tharalax used it against the roc.”

“So there was nothing I could have done.”

“Other that instantly spot a decoy when still getting used to an unfamiliar spell, likely not.” Nightmare lightly patted her on the shoulder. “I am sorry, Twilight.”

“I’m just glad I couldn’t really see what he was doing to the roc,” Twilight admitted, finding the touch, to the degree that she actually was being touched, oddly pleasant and comforting. “Why is there such a difference between you and Tharalax, and between the two of you and Lashaal? She was treacherous and yet not overtly sadistic or cruel, Tharalax seems to revel in hurting things, and you’re...” She paused. “I don’t know what you are, other than very ordinary.”

“Different strengths.” Nightmare moved over and lounged directly in front of Twilight, now twice as large as she’d been a moment ago. “The power of a webweaver like Lashaal is her lies and the skillful use of those lies. Tharalax is an unsubtle thug, raw power and arrogance indulging in every hedonistic whim, very much like most dragons, Void and otherwise. I am a manipulator, the most skilled of my kind. I can make anything seem true without saying a single thing that is false. I have made mortals of every possible kind, ranging from brilliant to imbecile, fanatic to egalitarian, violent to peaceful, satisfied and not, believe that they simply cannot achieve their fondest dream without me whispering in their ear. I keep every bargain I make, and never make a bargain that does not advantage me.” She smiled nostalgically. “Although many of the times I have taken advantage of mortals, my gain was intangible and cost them nothing.”

“Oh?” Twilight found that the broad belly of the dragon before her looked like it’d be comfortable to rest against and just as quickly as she had the thought, found herself laying against Nightmare’s belly, wondering why things seemed vaguely fuzzy all of a sudden.

“An appreciation for company, for instance,” Nightmare smiled and idly traced a looping shape in the nothingness of the mindscape. “Being a nightmare is a lonesome existence and one becomes so accustomed to it, you prefer the solitude. But I have come to appreciate, even crave, companionship and enjoy the distinct advantage that my appetite for company never needs to be restrained by propriety. Luna just made the desire stronger--she is very comfortable with other ponies, and the night is the realm of passion and romance. But she is a pony of duty, of self-denial, and of self-mastery which causes me to respect her all the more. I think it is fair to say that our exchange was very equitable.”

“Oh, that’s… good.” Twilight frowned. “Nacht, does it seem… um… fuzzy to you?”

Nightmare blinked and looked curiously down at her. “Excuse me?”

“Things feel… fuzzy.” Twilight said. “I don’t know how to describe it other than that.”

“No, no, the other thing.” Her expression looked uncertain. “Did you call me…?”

“Nacht?” Twilight blinked. “I… suppose I did. Why, isn’t Nachtmiri Mein your name?”

“Yes, that is true.” Nightmare seemed to relax. “I suppose sharing a mindscape would break down inhibitions. After all, we are equals here. Now, as an addendum to what I said of Void magic, there are certain counteracting agents.”

“Counteracting agents?”

“Magic,” Nightmare said, resuming her tracing of loops and whorls in the nothingness she lay on. “Most mortal magic is woven through with either Light or Dark and so can weakly harm those of the Void. Using pure Light or Dark will do devastating harm to things of the Void, Light scorching the substance of the Void like fire, Dark corroding it the way that Void corrodes life. I cannot imagine how Celestia failed to utterly obliterate the atermors and their pets with enough fire to scorch everything around her. Perhaps her pain and rage pushed her to simply destroy and robbed her of the focus to bathe them in the Light of her anger.”

“I… guess so.” Twilight looked around herself. “Nacht…”

“A side effect,” Nightmare said. “Part of this process is that the boundaries between those participating become transitory. It’s not quite a union, more like a mind… combination? No, a…”

“...mind meld?”

“Mind meld, yes.” She looked around. “It appears stable, but it is best not to rely on all remaining well for long.”

“Right.” Twilight gave her a single nod. “Do you have any idea what Chrysalis’ sister was describing?”

“Something ancient and powerful,” Nightmare said. “Beyond that, I can only speculate. The most likely possibility is that it is another of my race, one of the few that also shares a vessel by contract and persuasion. If so, confronting him if he chooses to lash out will be on the order of trying to duel one of Chrysalis’ daughters when away from Scarabi. That he has done nothing overt indicates that he is either reluctant to risk that Thalia could overpower him, or does not see her presence as a threat. Given what I know of Chrysalis’ sisters, I would wager the first.”

“How would we…?”

“Force a nightmare to leave a vessel without harming the vessel?” Nightmare sighed. “I do not know of any way. Driving my kind out is not difficult; not killing the vessel is beyond the power of any mortal method, save perhaps the Elements of Harmony and you only have four of the set. Granted, you have two of the strongest--Magic and Honesty---but the third is Loyalty and she is far beyond your reach.”

“Then we can’t save the vessel.”

“You could always try talking to him,” Nightmare said with a distinctly wry tone. “I would think that talking would be your first thought, not your last.”

“The only ‘Void’ things we’ve met so far demanded something more along the lines of being magically hammered into paste than being talked to,” Twilight pointed out.

“Fair point.” Nightmare examined the mindscape and her expression became concerned. “I think it is best that we rely on my conventional methods now, Twilight. The degree of melding seems to be increasing and I should not wish to confess to Luna that I harmed her niece, however inadvertently.”

“Oh.” Twilight stood. “So how do we…?

She had not completed the question when she was once again laying on a cushion in the observatory and feeling quite comfortable. After a moment of regained awareness, she realized that at least part of that comfortable feeling was the feeling of a soft warm cheek against hers and softly feathered wings laying over her, almost cradling her against the larger mare’s body. She swallowed a little and pulled away, and Nightmare withdrew with a look of searching concern. “No ill effects? The meld has been known to cause disorientation and momentary panic when it ends, especially if there was any degree of bleedthrough.”

“No, I’m… fine,” Twilight replied, working her jaw a little from a suddenly dry mouth. Why did it feel so… pleasant being held against her? “Um, conventional methods then?”

“If you have any lingering concerns or things you need,” Nightmare said as she stood. “However, I think we ought to discuss it as we return to your friends lest we delay you overmuch.”

Twilight nodded and watched Nightmare step ahead of her to unlock and open the door, appreciating the sheen of ebony-black coat and the muscles rippling… she swallowed again and shook her head. What’s wrong with me? She followed Nightmare out the door, passing a pair of guards that she’d somehow missed when they entered, and walked at the alicorn’s side as they descended the comfortably broad staircase from the tower the observatory was no doubt set in. “So you said there might be changes, and you referred to a degree of bleedthrough…?”

“There always will be minute traces of it,” Nightmare said. “A stray thought here, an odd moment there, inexplicable deja vu, that sort of thing. Even more noticeable bleedthrough will not be harmful necessarily especially as I took special precautions to separate you from the darker of my life experiences. Some can certainly be embarrassing--more than one time, I and Luna exchanged fragments of more passionate experiences with others--but I do not foresee any harm befalling you from any loves, passions, or whimsy of mine.”

“Emotional changes?”

Nightmare turned to look oddly at her. “Rarely, but they are known to happen. Why?”

“Well, it was just that the embrace in case I’d suffered any odd effects was... more… um,” Twilight felt her cheeks beginning to burn. “pleasant that it was before when you… greeted me in Maredusa’s grotto…”

Nightmare looked at her for another moment before smirking slightly. “Perhaps you have a slight attraction to your aunt, who seems to be about your age, and is very friendly with you and quite pretty?”

Twilight thought her face would go up in flames. “No! And what does that have to do with anything?”

“My body is based strongly on Luna’s,” Nightmare said, turning back to look straight ahead but with that same tiny smirk on her face. “The scent and feel of my coat, height, pattern of coloration, cutie mark, mane style, the shape of my face and even of my eyes all strongly resemble Luna. Some part of you wishes she wasn’t family.” The smirk disappeared and she pursed her lips. “Although I cannot imagine why I am certain that is true.”

“Stray thoughts?” Twilight suggested, keeping her eyes on the cobblestone under her hooves.

“Perhaps.” Nightmare snorted. “You are very much like her, Twilight. I cannot know Luna’s mind about a pony she did not know of while we were in full collaboration, but I know her tastes in partners, and I believe the attraction is mutual. As is, of course, the determination to never let the attraction be anything more than a warm familial bond between aunt and niece.”

Twilight looked up at Nightmare, still blushing fiercely, and discovering that Nightmare wasn’t smirking. “If you know that, why bring it up?”

“Because you brought it up,” Nightmare said. “Because you look cuter when you are blushing. Because I missed casual conversations with a very attractive and intelligent mare. Because building a relationship with you, whatever manner of relationship it will be, is a pleasant diversion from serious matters. Because it has been months and I am still discovering new pleasures I can experience with a vessel that is uniquely mine.” She shrugged. “Pick one, any one is as valid as any other one.”

“Very attractive?”

“And intelligent, yes.” Nightmare smiled at her. “There is a reason that you are mistaken for the foal of Luna instead of Celestia. In many features of personality, ability, and appearance you are similar to her in the way that a daughter resembles her mother. Of course there is no question that you are Celestia’s--the anguish that made her vulnerable to the nightmare was the type that only a true mother is capable of feeling--but you are particularly blessed with the things that I see as beautiful in Luna, and thus in you.”

Twilight returned the smile, feeling her blush cooling but still pleasantly warm on her cheeks. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome,” Nightmare replied warmly. “Now, one last thing related to the task at hand: if you need aid, you have a spell that can convey the need and now the knowledge of which it is and how it can be used. I am, of course, gifted in manipulation and persuasion above all, but my fellow Evils are very well-mannered around me for a very good reason.” She leaned down and Twilight felt her very lightly kiss her forehead. “Good luck, Twilight.”

Author's Note

Sorry this took a minor eternity. Also, sorry it's so damn long but I just couldn't find a place to break it. Questions, comments, concerns, criticism, cursing... anything you want, stick it below and let me know. A chapter of Luna and her branch of this mess, coming soon to a Game of Worlds story near you.

Luna: First Faint Whisper

Luna let out an irritated sigh and gave Lily Shell a curt nod in response to her introducing herself. “Of course there’s a real Lily Shell,” she sighed. “Of course Lashaal would copy a pony instead of inventing one.”

“‘ere now, wot’s this about some frumpy bint runnin’ ‘round th’ Provinces using my name?” Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Back ‘ome ya could get hit in the head till yer teeth all fall out for poachin’ a name that ain’t yours.”

“Who the hay are ya anyway?” Rainbow asked. “Ya talk like you’re from the dock ends of Trottingham but the entire ‘present arms’ thing and an escort don’t look like some scouser from that way.”

Lily eyed Rainbow. “‘ow the hay is some Cloudsdayle pegasus wise to Trottingham?”

“I get around,” Rainbow shrugged. “So who the hay are you?”

“Important.” Lily grinned widely at her. “You can tell cuz I have muscle following me around. I’m a real important pony, Milady Dash, or so everyone tells me.” She looked around. “So, this place, what is it?”

“You traveled for this distance over an arid plain without any idea of where you were going?” Luna frowned. “For that matter, how did you travel this distance? We were intercepted by chobbaths when we were flying in and they took a great deal of killing before they died. How did you travel this distance and to this place without being attacked?”

“The chobbaths are bouncers so ya don’t get into the club.” Lily walked in a complete circle, looking around her with interest. “Guess no one cared about ponies getting to this place. I mean, didn’t you come here without anything attacking ya?”

Luna thought back. “Come to think of it, we weren’t attacked. Nor was Rainbow, although being a noted flyer, she may simply be too fast on her own to be ambushed..”

“Hay yeah!” Rainbow grinned and struck a pose, flaring her wings out proudly. Lily Shell’s eyes went wide in utter shock, a reaction echoed immediately by her escort, and the reaction seemed to make Rainbow remember that her wings were not quite normal anymore, because she snapped them closed again, her cheeks burning red with embarrassment.

“Well buck me with sunfire…” Lily said. “Wot th’ bloody ‘ell did I just see?”

“Your Ladyship, I believe Lady Dash has…”

“Rhetorical question, ya nob.” Lily stepped closed to Rainbow. “Begging yer pardon Lady Dash but… would ya mind flarin’ ‘em up again?”

Rainbow swallowed and nodded, slowly opening her wings again to show off the patterns in the underwing scales and the sparkly sheen over fine scales overlaid by pony coat. Lily’s horn lit and faintly greenish magic covered the wing nearest her as she stepped closer and looked at the wing with a look of unabashed awe.

“Incredible,” she breathed. “Bloody amazing.”

“Could it be an effect of Loyalty, your Ladyship?”

“Naw, this ain’t Element work, put mah ‘ead on it.” She reached a hoof up and Rainbow pulled it out of her reach.

“OK, enough drooling over the wings, OK?” She folded her wings again unimpeded by the magic enfolding them, stepping away from Lly and closer to Luna. “Looking is creepy enough without touching.”

“Deepest apologies milady,” Lily said, bowing respectfully. “Lovely wings, can’t imagine ‘ow ya got ‘em. Woulda thought if th’ Master wanker ‘ad got hold of an Element, woulda heard somewot.”

Rainbow snorted. “As if that bucker could get his hands on me. Naw, totally different thing, maybe tell ya sometime. So who the hay are you?”

Lily narrowed her eyes at Rainbow. “I’m Lily Shell, I’m important, and I’m being guarded. All three of ‘em have to do with each other, Lady Dash.”

“Well, ‘scuse me for being a little twitchy about ponies who talk but don’t say a whole lot, and study me real close.” Rainbow narrowed her eyes back. “Just saw the running plot of another Lily Shell when she played stupid about a cage with a creepy monster bucker in it. So you getting all shifty makes me think you’re the one that needs loose teeth.”

“Lily, please understand that we have every reason to be deeply concerned about you,” Luna said, physically stepping in between Rainbow and Lily. “The last pony with your face pretended to help, and then disappeared when her advice was required. She unleashed the attack on Rainbow that led to the desperate measures that gave her those wings. And now you appear out of nowhere, claiming to be here with no knowledge of where here is, claiming to have met Fluttershy, and accompanied by well-armed ponies.” Luna looked hard at the unicorn. “And I know every pony of Equestria who has the name, or the wealth, or the clout to have an armed escort, and not a single one of them have visited the Provinces since the end of my exile. You are playing a game with us, Lily Shell, and the reason I have not harmed you is that you have given me no cause. That will change very quickly if you continue to deceive us.”

Lily looked at her evenly and then gave a little chuckle, which turned into a broad smile and a much heartier chuckle. “Equestria’s princess of the night, and its shield and guardian,” she said in a Trottingham accent more in line with Trotsford than the docks, vibrant with undisguised warmth. “I apologize, the deception is something of a habit rather than born of malice. I am Lily Shell; that is entirely true for there is no other pony by that name, save this pretender called Lashaal. But it is my favored guise and not my face or my true name.”

The unicorn bowed elegantly as she lit her horn, and from the tip cascaded a curtain of viridian fire that Luna knew instantly… from a thousand years ago. The fire swept down, turning a straight unicorn horn to an elegantly spiraling one, a white coat to ebony, and her mane to a teal rainbow that cascaded down her neck almost to her shoulders. The grooves and pits typical of changelings had been shaped into the pleasant and elaborate pattern that changeling royalty tended to prefer with the deceptively delicate-looking double pair of dragonfly wings vibrating against her barrel as the changeling raised her head to show her sapphire eyes streaked prettily with green.

“I am Duchess Kyra das Pupa, ambassador to the Griffon Provinces in the name of the Hive Throne and in the royal name of Chrysalis das Pupa, queen of all changelings.” She said with the very light vibrato undertone typical of her kind. “I again regret deceiving Your…”

She got no further as Luna stepped forward and swept the surprised mare into a close embrace. “All is forgiven!” she declared happily. “All this time that I have been returned, that I have seen no changelings in Equestria weighed on me. I feared for your people’s fate, sent to a place like the Eastern Wastes.”

Kyra returned the hug tentatively, and then with greater ease. “Celestia had ensured our safety long before, and I don’t believe she realized it,” she said as she parted from Luna and then bowed to her a second time. “When we arrived in the Wastes, we found a very friendly gorgon with her own intricate network of tunnels in the bedrock who happily gave us shelter while we laid the foundations of our capital.”

“A capital.” Luna shook her head, smiling. “Of course you’d build yourselves your own city. Modeled on Canterlot?”

“To us, Canterlot has always been the shining city from which we’ve been ruled and watched over,” Kyra said. “To have our own Canterlot was like being back home: a comfortable city, teeming with life and love, and a castle high above us watching over our lands.”

“Your lands are they?” Luna managed to tamp down her smile as she quirked an eyebrow at Kyra.

“As far as we’re concerned, Celestia gave us the Wastes to live in,” Kyra grinned. “If she wishes to dispute the matter, consider this the ambassador of the Hive Throne extending a formal invitation to Princesses Celestia, Luna, Twilight, and Dawn Sparkle to a banquet and a diplomatic summit to adjudicate any matters of territorial adjustment, with an eye towards reviving the warm relationship between the royalty of our respective nations.”

Luna felt a pang of sadness at that. Once Equestrians, and now it’s ‘respective nations’. “I suspected as much, but it still hurts to hear it said aloud.”

“I am sorry, Princess,” Kyra said sincerely. “We adore you and your sister and have often entertained a fantasy where we would return to Equestria, the prodigal children come home after a long sojourn from our rightful home, but things can never go back to exactly the way they were. Equestria is different, you are returned, Celestia has children, the heptachy is how a monarchy, and we have a capital city and an immense expanse of arid land and sand dunes to rule. Our nation is one of fantastical creatures, a coalition tied together by a shared bond of exile, and while it would be pleasant to call the Dual Thrones the seats of our rulers, no changeling queen can ever again be subject to the decrees of another ruler, no matter how we love her.”

“Why do you have holes in your legs?” Both Luna and Kyra started a little as Rainbow reminded them of her presence in her own inimitable fashion.

Kyra chuckled and turned her attention to the curious pegasus. “You’d have to ask my niece Tettidora,” she said. “She’s like your friend Twilight Sparkle: egghead, loves her books a little too much, a bit socially awkward and isolated, and a brilliant magical technician. From what I understand, our chitinous hides require thinning and holes to remain both light and comfortably flexible.”

“Chitinous… like a bug?”

Kyra nodded. “Yes, in fact. We’ve been called ‘bug-ponies’ and ‘lovebugs’ in our past, usually with friendly jest rather than malice.”

“Huh.” Rainbow trotted closer and peered at her. “Dunno, you don’t look at that freaky.”

“I appreciate that, Lady Dash,” Kyra said. “Regrettably, you aren’t a normal pony at all. Manticores, buffalo, zebras, dragons, even a brief contact with a nightmare, all part of a day’s work for the Elements of Harmony. Your threshold for ‘alien’ is freakishly high; the same place for ordinary ponies, like those that were frightened of us a long while ago, is quite low. I’ll bet that you barely even broke stride when you ran across a chobbath.”

Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, tentacles, big mouth, one eye, pretty standard stuff if ya live next to the Everfree. Freaky is that zambet bucker.”

“Zambet?” Kyra looked at Luna.

“A fear predator of some kind,” Luna said. “Apparently some kind of Void beast, like a chobbath but very clever, sapient, and extremely dangerous. I’m certain that I only escaped its attempts to probe my memories for pain because Nacht left some manner of mark upon me that it couldn’t defeat.”

“And then me and Grim beat the pies outta it,” Rinabow Dash grinned.

“A dangerous predator, but seemingly unable to cope with being physically assaulted,” Luna said. “Granted, I doubt any creature of the Void reacts well to an Element of Harmony, much less to being unable to harm those that are thrashing it.”

“Mmm.” Kyra looked around. “So this is the place that ‘Master’ is using for his laboratories?”

“So Lashaal claims, and what I see makes me believe that in this case she was telling the truth.”

“Good.” Kyra turned to her guards. “Pair off, and the colonel will be with me. Probe, but do not approach anything magical.” She looked over her shoulder at Luna. “Did you find any latent magic I need to be aware of, Princess?”

“I did, and what exactly are you doing?”

“Taking advantage of the fact that Master suffered a grievous defeat when his hive-mind monster was driven off,” Kyra said as the soldiers paired off and started moving off in different directions, the colonel joining her but standing silently at parade rest while the conversation happened. “I didn’t expect that this was his base of operations; that it is worries me. What kind of latent magic did you find, and where?”

“First, why does it worry you?”

“I beg your pardon, Princess, but I will tell you that in a moment; I need to know about latent magic now.”

“A narrow slit in a wall,” Luna said, looking steadily at Kyra. “Layered with a transportation spell, redirection, and spells that use magic-fueled fire to backlash against any attempt to trifle with it. Preservation spells for… specimens. Spells in every direction meant to ground out and confine magic. And there is a room that ‘Master’ used to confine the zambet, layered with all manner of spells to conceal it and to conceal that there was any magic there, and then to naturally direct attention away from itself. The exact magical concealment used on my niece’s birth room in Canterlot.”

“Thank you, Princess.” Kyra bowed to her and looked to the colonel. “Run the message to the others and return.”

“Yes, Duchess.” He bowed deeply and trotted off in the direction that one of the groups had gone in. Kyra watched him for a moment before turning back to Luna. “If you’re willing, Your Highness, I would like to see this room you speak of. As we walk, I’ll explain my concern about this being Master’s base of operations.”

“I agree.” Luna spared the changeling royal a slight smile. “If I may, before you speak of that, I’d like to know more of your sister, Queen Chrysalis.”

“Chryssy is a real winner,” Kyra said fondly. “She has looks, and brains, a vision, and the common pony adores her because she adores them. She’s the oldest one, of course, but she’s also the best one of the four of us at projecting the image of what an ideal queen is: beautiful, wise, glorious, infallible, and yet still approachable. The only one of those she is all the time is approachable, but feeling like you can just knock on your monarch’s door and have a casual chat does amazing things for their popularity. It’s a very good time to be a changeling, Princess Luna, because we have a queen who envisions a world where the Dual Thrones and the Hive Throne are allies, where the Friendship Express has a stop in Scarabi, and where Equestria has a proper army again so that if someone like ‘Master’ ever makes a play like this in your kingdom, we can shut him down hard.”

“Equestria was never more secure when she was at peace, and yet strong enough that no power dared to rouse her from her placid dreams,” Luna agreed. “I hope your sister’s plans come to fruition, Duchess; we have been bereft of your people for far too long.”

“And our people have been bereft of our fellow ponies.” Her pleasant expression fell. “The reason that Master’s decision worries me is what we know as The Archive.”

“The… Archive.”

“A magical construct the size of the palace at Canterlot,” Kyra said. “It has the appearance of classical Tribe-era temple architecture all rendered in obsidian. Mythology from the rocs and from some old tales that Maredusa remembers from her grandmother claims that has existed as long as the world of Equestria and that its builder was Order in his original form. Inside, it is a library. Lit from torches that have no fuel and never douse, without a speck of dust or sand, and there appears to be infinite space inside and endless shelves of books that are mostly within reach for an adult earth pony and well within reach for any unicorn or pegasus. The books have no titles but are filled with text in an ancient Equestrian dialect. My niece Tettidora and my sister Chiti are highly intellectual so they’re able to understand the writing, and they’ve said that the books are… well, everything.”

“What do you mean ‘everything’?”

“I mean literally everything, Princess.” Kyra looked grave. “Everything ever said, everything ever written down, everything ever known by any living creature ever. The construct appears to have been designed to transcribe all knowledge ever gained and place it within books. Moreover, experimentation has revealed that it always knows what you want to know and causes all books related to the desired knowledge to move directly in front of you within easy reach.”

Luna sagged back onto her plot. “Sola…”

“There’s more,” Kyra said. “Within the archive, you do not hunger, nor thirst, nor sicken, nor age, nor tire. It sustains you in perfect health, possibly forever. The only thing we believe it doesn’t sustain is the mind; madness will likely result if you remain there long enough with nothing but books.”

“So how does some broken-down thing in the Provinces have somethin’ to do with some big library somewhere else?” Rainbow eyed Kyra. “I mean, I ain’t seen a book anywhere in here and there’s dust everywhere.”

“We believe that the magic of the library, its apparent infinite space inside, means that it occasionally drifts in metaphysical space, attaching itself to other ancient structures. For example, a great hall with certain elements of Tribe-era architecture that the griffons borrowed from the early Equestrians.” Kyra gestured around herself for emphasis. “Which is why we wanted to know if you’d run across any latent magic, in case a suspicion that Tettidora communicated to me before we were cut off, is true.”

“That doorway, the one that’s too narrow for any normal living thing to enter, and is protected by backlash spells, could conceivably be a way to and from, modified by ‘Master’,” Luna said. “So your concern is that a powerful and hostile being that has strong inclinations towards experimentation and twisting flesh to his needs, has access to the largest repository of knowledge in the world.”

“More that due to the immensity of the Archive, he’d be impossible to track down and would have the luxury of effectively unlimited time to do whatever he wished,” Kyra said. “This ‘Master’ appears to be in no particular hurry, seizing cities at a languid pace as if it’s not his main priority or even important to him. He behaves like a being who has all the time in the world and intends to enjoy it fully. No place I know of would give him more of it than the Archive, thus my fear.”

“Well if this Archive place writes down anything anyone knows, ever, couldn’t he like, get one of the books and read about what we know the moment we know it or something?”

“I’m not certain that matters to him, Rainbow,” Luna said. “He has made no attempt to expel us from here, despite certainly knowing that his creation was chased off and that following something that distinctive wouldn’t be difficult.”

“Which adds to my concern that this place isn’t where he lairs.” As they came up on the still-open door, Kyra broke into a trot and stepped into the room. “Homey,” she commented. “And it looks perfectly comfortable for a mother to spend time with her child in. I take it that this ‘zambet’ can use reflections to its advantage?”

“Grymmilnia confirmed such.”

“Then I doubt it gains any special advantage from reflective surfaces.” Kyra looked over her shoulder with a light smirk. “My interactions with her, using a different guise entirely, makes me believe she’s Master’s mushroom: kept…”

“...in the dark and fed on horseapples.” Rainbow snorted. “Serves her right.”

“Yes.” Kyra nodded. “But also makes her perfect for spreading misinformation because she can tell lies without knowing that they’re lies.” She tapped several of the surfaces of the room with her horn. “And this was a… magical cage, you say?”

“So we were told,” Luna said. “You don’t feel anything either?”

“Not even the faint shells of runework.” Kyra frowned. “Lady Dash, you said, or at least implied, that you and Grymmilnia attacked it and drove it away?”

“Yup, kicked it’s plot up between its ears.”

“What was the form of its flight?”

“Uh, what?”

“The specific way that it ran away,” Kyra clarified. “Sprouted wings and ran, disappeared into thin air, what?”

“Well, it sorta popped like a balloon and went into the sand like it was made of black liquid or somethin’.” Rainbow made a motion with her hooves for emphasis. “Why?”

“If it can fit between grains of sand, why not minute gaps in the stonework?”

“It left before we even opened the door,” Luna said. “That’s why Lashaal fled instantly… she must have felt the lack of its presence in its supposed prison and decided to leave before she got caught in the crossfire. Leaving the question of what the entire purpose of all of that was. Why send it after me? Why tell Grymmilnia that its purpose was to attack Twilight? What could have been gained?”

“It compelled you to leave the structure, if only for a short time.” Kyra picked up the Luna and Celestia dolls from the crib, giving a small smile as she put them back and turned to face Luna. “Which means something changed between you leaving and you returning. Would you be willing to show me this narrow portal?”

Luna nodded, smiling back. “This is strongly reminding me of the old days,” she said. “When I was young and learning the military craft. An officer would always come through and conduct random inspections... “ She cast her mind back as Kyra followed her towards the narrow opening. “Sergeant Pommel, her name was, Violet Pommel. Extremely pleasant, extremely polite, projected command authority just by standing and smiling. She’d always direct us from place to place, asking about each item of interest as we went, and never revealed her thinking until after it was all over.”

Kyra blushed very slightly. “I apologize for my presumption, Princess.”

“No, I enjoy the reminder of an earlier, more innocent, and happier time Duchess.” Luna said with a dismissive wave of her hoof. “The narrowed opening is only a short distance this way.”

That the magic of the portal had dramatically altered was apparent to Luna long before it came into view; what she didn’t expect was to find the entirety of Kyra’s escort gathered there. As one, they bowed to her before planting their blades and stepping to either side of the corridor to reveal the portal beyond. What was immediately clear was that what had once been an opening deliberately narrowed enough that no pony could force themselves through had become an immense arched doorway leading into a room with very tidy shelves of books stacked as high and as far as the eye could see, illuminated by soft blue-white flames from dozens of torches. Kyra looked stunned at the sight.

“He expanded the opening,” she said. “That makes no sense. What purpose could there be to him making it easier for us to find him and follow him?”

“I don’t know but right now, I’m gettin’ sick of just asking questions we can’t answer.” Rainbow said. “Kyra, ya think the bucker’s in the doorway, right?”

“Well, through it, but yes.”

“Then c’mon and let’s play scouser. Ya up for it?”

“Oy, scousers ain’t thugs ya know,” Kyra retorted with a fangy grin. “Right respectable sorts, till ya buck with ‘em. Sorta like this ‘Master’ git. Gonna break ‘is face, swear on me mum.”

Rainbow grinned back. “C’mon, spill… you totally spent time on the dock end.”

“Ain’t just time, luv, got me this way o’ talkin’ all honest-like.” Kyra gave her a wink. “Tell ya all about it later, yeah? But time ta break some git faces.”

“I’d much prefer marching in after ‘Master’ properly rested and fed,” Luna said. “I’m certain you and your soldiers are ready, Duchess, but I and Rainbow have been active almost nonstop for going on a day now. I’m not particularly tired at the moment but I’ve been in far too many campaigns when the army that was fed and refreshed overcame steep odds, and others where the hungry and the weary broke before a greatly inferior foe. I’ve no doubt that a schemer who leaves such an inviting door is watching it closely and well-prepared for company.”

“I think it best to strike…”

“...while the iron is hot?” Luna shook her head. “Kyra, the zambet fled from us but is still very much in play and I suspect that its ego was wounded more than its body. ‘Master’ has numerous cities’ worth of the griffins he’s mutated, and it’s reasonable to assume that the chobbaths are not his only playthings.”

Kyra looked steadily at her for a few moments before she nodded once and turned to her escort. “Eight hour break,” she announced. “Set up in the antechamber and tell commissary to break out some cast iron.”

“Commissary?” Luna eyed her. “Just how big of an escort did you bring?”

“Initially only the standard two Honor Guard,” Kyra said, following her escort as they filed off to the right, traveling a corridor that Luna knew hadn’t been there before. “After the entire affair of the Guardian, Chryssy sent a full mixed unit north, ostensibly to staff the embassy but really to make offing me a lot more trouble than it’d be worth. Embassy got ridiculously well-supplied too, so even with the city seized and occupied, we’ve been left to our own devices; ‘Master’ seems willing to siege griffin cities but seems strangely reluctant to tangle with thirty changelings squatting in one of his conquests.”

“If yer from one of the cities ‘Master’ already grabbed, how’d ya meet Flutters?”

“The executive secretary to the ambassador of the Hive Throne, one Lily Shell, decided to pay a visit to one of the few free cities of the Provinces on behalf of the ambassador, who unfortunately couldn’t make it.” Kyra winked at Dash with a grin. “There, she learned that she had a twin sister and immediately left to inform the ambassador of this development, only to run into one of the most sweet-natured pegasi in the history of ever and learn that her dear friend Rainbow Dash, Princess Luna, and a mysterious dragon named ‘Spite’ had chased a hive-mind creature in this direction. So I gathered the troops and off we went.”

“So you knew we were here, and knew about Lily,” Luna said.

“Had to play it out until I was sure that I was talking to the actual ponies I was looking for,” Kyra shrugged. “Suffice it to say, I was satisfied that ‘Master’ had not in fact managed to create doppelgangers. Nuances of speech and mannerism can be faked with enough effort and access to the mind of the one you’re copying, but the emotion will always be mismatched and discordant.”

“I suppose that when you know that there’s at least one doppelganger in play, you have to assume others.”

“Certainly wiser than assuming the opposite.” They emerged into the entrance hall about the same time that the escort did, and Luna found herself pausing out of surprise at how thoroughly the changelings had transformed it just in the time since they’d come across them. Tenting had been set up all throughout, suspended using rope and hooks hammered into the walls. Tables and chairs were spread throughout, including a trio of long tables with benches to allow the changelings to take meals together as they preferred. Enchanted lights had been suspended from the high ceiling to cover the area in soft pleasant yellowish light. In the center of the entire thing was a mess area of astonishing size, tables and utensils and various cookery arranged around a central brick over. It was astonishing but also physically impossible, and Luna looked questioningly at Kyra.

“Living in a desert where there’s no forage at all, no water, nothing, forced us to develop considerable amounts of practical magic,” Kyra said. “Runecraft and magitech, primarily. The magical engineering that allows this is a crystalline construct that displaces large and immensely heavy things within itself while reducing them to nearly no weight. It’s heavy, so it can only be managed by a full unit, but with very low setup time and no need for everypony to carry standard gear, it offers a critical tactical advantage as well as a practical one.”

“An entire camp, assembled in minutes from a single central device,” Luna marveled. “Equestria has nothing like it!”

Kyra chuckled and led them passed the sentries, who smiled and waved as they passed them, then towards the mess area where about eight or nine changelings scuttled around preparing food. “Only for lack of need, Your Majesty,” she said. “Even with legitimate geniuses and polymaths among us, we’re still ponies like any other. Equestria has no need of magitech like ours because a pony could travel the entirety of Equestria for their entire lives with a full stomach and slaked thirst without a bit to their name or a single ration in their saddlebags.”

“Necessity is the mother of invention?”

“Or at least a dearly beloved aunt.” Kyra stopped in front of a large cast iron pot just as the changeling manning it dumped a bag of cut and trimmed celery in. “At any rate, there’s plenty of tentage and bedding, and ample food so make yourselves comfortable.”

Sleeping was by far Luna’s favorite part of the the night. Laying in a comfortable bed suitable for royalty, with the soft silver of her moon bathing her and a belly full of good food, casting herself out into the dreamscape to calm the dreams of ponies and battle their nightmares had become one of her greatest pleasures and the thing she missed the most in her long sojourn on the moon. She’d been surprised at how good a substitute a pad on the ground and a meal of rations with changelings had been for her normal nightly ritual, and she hadn’t realized how taxed her mind and body had been until she finally laid down to sleep. The dreamscape was, as always, lit softly and covered in stars with the phantoms of pony dreams drifting about in her vision, momentary glimpses of those dreams tied in with upsurges of emotion; it wouldn’t do to just wander around in an entirely mundane dream when somepony needed a soothing touch, after all. She’d quickly learned that the system had its shortcomings--the memory of stepping into the dream of one of her night guards and seeing herself still made her blush--but a momentary embarrassment was a small price to pay to help a particularly haunted pony through the issues that the nightmare represented.

But there was an additional benefit to the dreamscape that had served Luna well during the many ancient wars to protect Equestria and especially during her conflict with her sister: slipping into the dreams of others allowed her to know where in the actual world they were. That she had never brushed up against the dreams of the changelings was most of the reason she’d feared that they had died in exile. She felt, or at least hoped, that even if the creatures of the Void like ‘Master’ had no need for sleep, the griffons he’d captured and was experimenting on would sleep at some point.

It took her a few dreams to realize it but she noticed that the number of dreamers that made up the landscape seemed… diminished somehow. The constant soothing hum of fantastic figments of imagination being created and destroyed was so soft as to nearly not exist and as Luna projected her perceptions around her realm, she realized that the background feeling of millions of places to wander was dampened as well. In fact, it felt as if the sensation was being deadened like a limb falling asleep, like there was a presence beside herself interfering.

The dreamscape was her realm, riding almost entirely on her will, and so the mere notion of interference in her mind instantly brought the direction of the interference to her attention and she willed herself towards it. It being a realm of dreams, that the interference represented itself as a fantastical notion was no great surprise; a very familiar black alicorn standing beside a golden padlock with its key around her neck stopped Luna in her metaphysical tracks.

“Nacht?”

“Selune,” Nightmare said warmly. “Good dreams tonight, I hope.”

Luna gaped at the apparition. There was no question that the figure in front of her was actually Nachtmiri Mein; she’d been working alongside the bodiless entity for far too long to not know the feel of her mind. “You’re… here! In my… how are you here?”

“How does anyone get here, Selune?” Nacht smiled. “I am sleeping, of course. Dreaming, in fact, although I’m sure it does not surprise you that I learned a few things from you about your realm.”

“I don’t mean here here, I mean here. On this world, in Equestria, where I can touch your dreams. After that tearful goodbye, after all the regrets you expressed, regrets that I thought you meant, you’ve just… back here? Taking another vessel?”

“Yes and no.” Nacht tapped her chin with a hoof. “Yes, I am back on this world. No, I did not take another vessel. For the first time in my memory, I was approached by someone with an offer of a bargain: return to this world, offer it what help I could, protect the mortal I had come to think of as a sister, and I could have a vessel that is uniquely mine, that is me. An empty shell for me to fill, a form belonging to no one but me, a husk without a soul to contend or bargain with, created specifically for a nightmare to inhabit as she wished. He delivered his part of the arrangement, every promise kept, and so I keep my promises in return.”

Luna found herself unable to respond for several moments, silently staring at the visage of the entity that had acted almost like a second older sister to her a thousand years before, and then bid her tearful goodbyes just since months ago. “How… how long?”

“Four months.”

“Four months?” Luna gaped at her again. “Four months and I’ve not seen you in my dreamscape even once? Four months and you never visited?”

“I think a black alicorn striding up the street would be noticed,” Nacht said dryly.

Luna narrowed her eyes. “Don’t even play that game. Don’t pretend that if you felt like it, you couldn’t have just shown up in my room and given me a hug without anyone knowing you were there. I’ve seen you operate, Nacht; you’re as subtle as starlight on a cloudy night when you feel like it.”

“Shame, to be perfectly blunt,” Nacht said. “After those tearful goodbyes, after my yearning words to Celestia, after saying I would leave you entirely, returning here was perilously close to breaking my word. I hoped I could just do my work, fulfill the bargain, and never show my face. I hoped to merely pull strings and subtly manipulate the situation to your advantage. But the situation was far too complex for that, and my best opportunity to gain advantage was to reveal myself to one Chrysalis das Pupa, the queen of the changeling race.”

“I met her sister in the Provinces just now.” Luna frowned at Nacht. “Why is there a lock floating beside you, and why do you have the key?”

“I have the key because I created the lock.” Nacht’s horn lit and the key floated off her neck and hovered before Luna. “I created the lock because I feel protective of you in the way that Celestia does, and the way that any older sister would feel protective of a younger. A great and terrible plague races through Equestria, occasioned by sadistic monsters called atermors, a magical disease that warps and twists the body, and then enslaves it to the will of the atermors. My past experience with this plague is that those so afflicted are conscious of all that they do and are prisoners within themselves. They are locked in a perpetual nightmare; I wish to spare you that.”

“A plague.” Luna blinked, ignoring the mention of a perpetual nightmare for the moment. “It’s only been a couple days. How far could a plague have spread in just two days?”

“The atermors inflect crops with their plague,” Nacht said. “And they have clearly been at work prior to you becoming aware of the Game and certainly before Einspithiana arrived to act in the name of Amarra Drae’thul. There has been enough time for common food crops--carrots, alfalfa, cereal grains, many fruits--to have been plagued and then distributed because the sickness exploded everywhere almost at the same time.”

Luna slumped back onto her flanks. “How… how is Tia holding up?”

“She is… not well.” Nacht slipped the key around Luna’s neck and then walked over to sit beside her, folding a soft black wing around her. “She will recover, fear not, but for the moment…”

“What happened to her?”

“She found the largest concentration of atermors and brought down the full fire of her wrath and grief upon them,” Nacht said. “She drew fully upon her sun and burned so hot that she scorched the town square of Ponyville. It was too much for her, and she is now temporarily comatose.”

Luna narrowed her eyes at the nightmare. “You didn’t even try to sound truthful about what led to her being comatose.”

“Because the entire truth will divert you from more urgent matters,” Nacht said evenly. “The three relevant truths are that she was rendered comatose as a last resort, the one who rendered her comatose is emphatically not her enemy, and she will recover quickly, perhaps even by the dawn. Who rendered her comatose and how will not add any important facts to those three truths.”

Luna huffed in exasperation. “Nacht, stop trying to be Tia and just tell me the truth.”

Nacht looked at her for a moment before she bowed her head in acquiescence. “Your adoptive niece Cadence rendered her comatose,” she said.

“Cadence?” Luna blinked. “But she’s only slightly over thirty. How did an alicorn that young whose special talent is love…” Her train of thought came to a sudden halt. Young alicorn with a special talent for love. Young pony with wings, horn, and notable physical strength with a special talent for love. “Cadence is a changeling.”

Nacht smiled. “And not just any changeling, but the second-born daughter of Queen Chrysalis das Pupa. Royalty, and a direct descendent of Amaryss. Thus when your sister lost herself to grief and rage, she was mere meters away from a changeling royal with thirty years of accumulated love, a changeling royal she had no reason to think was anyone other than her dear alicorn niece. Cadence--Chidinida to her family--needed only to shield herself long enough to get within touching distance.”

“She used induction,” Luna said. “Mind-numbing agony seeming to come from everywhere at once. That’s how she shocked her out of what she was doing, and that’s why Tia is comatose.”

“It was the only way.”

“I know.” Luna sighed and leaned against Nacht as the nightmare stepped forward and laid a soft black wing over her. “I could feel that Tia had drawn so heavily on her sun that it became calm and docile, when it’s usually so fierce that only Tia can move it without straining herself. But that it was needed doesn’t make it any less painful to hear.”

“Nothing can.” Nacht slipped the key around Luna’s neck. “I want to spare you the pain, Selune, but this should be up to you. I have become so accustomed to playing big sister and mysterious wise advisor that I tend to forget that I have a great many peers as well.”

Luna touched the key and looked up at Nacht. “Do you believe there’s nothing I can do for them?”

“I would not dare to say anything is impossible for a determined mortal,” Nacht said with a nostalgic smile. “I have seen too many mortals do what should have been far beyond them to say that. But while the nightmares you fight against are products of imaginations, the ones the victims of the atermors know are the product of reality. I do not see a way to help, but to fight that reality.”

“Then fight it we shall,” Luna said, coming to her hooves. “When I awaken, I’ll leave Kyra to manage the affair of ‘Master’ and…”

“You must not,” Nacht said, standing as well. “Vorka, the one you call ‘Master’, is not a direct threat to a mortal of demi-diety power. But he can be far more dangerous than even the Zambet because he can strike from afar, or place himself far beyond the reach of his enemies by the time he strikes. He could have simply walked off into the Void with a giggle months after he completed an especially intricate plague for the atermors, and you would not know that his hand was in the suffering he inflicted until long after he was forever beyond your grasp.””

Luna looked hard at her before nodding. “You’re saying that if I don’t nip his menace in the bud immediately, he’ll have time to prepare mischief that won’t cause the damage to us for months.”

“I am saying many things,” Nacht said. “That is one of them, however. I am not fully aware of what Kyra is capable of; I have an intimate knowledge of your talents and abilities. I would prefer to agree with your opinion that it is best to delegate this task to Kyra and then return to Equestria or even meet up with me in Scarabi, but I cannot recommend that without knowing her better.”

“Isolating the efforts of these Evils in Equestria by resolving matters in the Provinces and the Wastes does seem like a good strategy,” Luna said. “But first, I need to see this living nightmare for myself.” She floated the key up to the lock and inserted it, braced herself, and then turned it. They key and lock dissolved into motes of golden light that flowed out of sight and the flood of minds and dreams that Luna had been looking for came into being… feeling entirely normal. She blinked and looked back at her nightmare companion. “Nacht, what are you playing at?”

Nacht looked back at her, her expression genuinely puzzled. “I am not ‘playing at’ anything,” she said. “When I manipulated this space to bar you from being tormented by the indelible nightmares, they were so significant that even I who has no great ability in your dreamscape could sense them clearly. It is as if they…”

“They what?”

Nacht stood there for several moments. “Selune, forgive the oddness and suddenness of this question, but can you recall having ever brushed up against the dreams of the changelings?”

“I’m certain I haven’t,” Luna replied, looking curiously at the black alicorn.

“Thestrals?”

“No.”

“Any particular difficulty with Ponyville?”

“Come to think of it, very slight difficulty.” Luna frowned. “Why are you asking?”

“Just one more,” Nacht said. “Can you touch the dreams of Einspithiana, or any of Vorka’s griffon captives?”

“No.”

“I believe I have a working theory then,” Nacht said. “Exquisitely high concentrations of magic. Scarabi houses a phenomenon where the palace literally floats above the city using some exotic property of the rock it is build atop of. The thestrals have always been around Scarabi and at last call, are based in the old Everfree castle, directly above the Tree of Harmony. Ponyville, of course, has the Elements, and Vorka has a strong tendency to wrap his shaping work in spells that obscure them from magical scrying and manipulation. I suspect the plague has the same effect, and that I can notice it because the Void energy that infuses it naturally resonates with me.”

Luna looked at her. “You came up with this just now?”

“Since I first came to know of you, Selune, I have wondered if there was any place or any person in the entire world that you could not reach within your dreamscape,” Nacht said. “Your sister’s sun falls upon anyone not obscured by shade or structure, but every saptient creature dreams. Yet you are not omniscient despite having the ability to slip into any mind and watch it while it is unguarded in dream. Thus, I have reasoned, there must be some circumstance that obscures a dreamer from you or places them beyond your dreamscape entirely. Until now, there has been no circumstance where I could say of a surety that you sought a dreamer and could not find them, despite the fact that I can hear them clearly.”

“Mmm.” Luna looked ahead of them at the starry and featureless landscape. “They are suffering?”

“I cannot be certain of that, but I wished to act as if they were,” Nacht said. “I can manipulate this plane to a small degree, Selune, but I can only be certain that I hear discordant sound and fury from those struck by the plague. Whether that sound and fury is distress, fear, or entirely ordinary is not something I have the knowledge to determine of a certainty.”

“Would you mind if I tried to listen through your ears?”

Nacht smiled. “I had hoped you would ask that. Naturally, I would not mind at all.”

“Why did you hope I’d ask?” Luna said as she turned to face her friend and leaned forward so that her horn would touch Nacht’s.

“Symmetry, Selune,” Nacht said as she leaned in as well and somehow gentle dragon eyes bored into Luna’s before the horns touched, and she could see her eyes looking back at her and the pulsating vibration of thousands of slumbering minds whispering their dreams and nightmare to her consciousness. Looking through Nacht’s eyes, she saw herself relax and smile as the very familiar sound filled her ears.

“It’s just the sound of my subjects’ normal dreams, Nacht,” she heard and saw herself say. “No terrors or nightmares that I can hear.”

“That is… a concern,” Nacht said, breaking the touch of their horns carefully and causing the consoling sound to disappear again. “Although not in the normal sense of it being worrying. I am concerned that the plague is not acting as it ought to act.”

“I see no reason to be concerned that my subjects aren’t being tortured,” Luna retorted a little more sharply than she’d intended.

“That they are well pleases me too Selune,” Nacht said. “But Vorka always has a reason, and I cannot help but wonder what he believes that he will gain by altering the atermors’ plague this way.”

“Why would they have him help in the first place?” Luna asked. “Wouldn’t they know that he likes to play games like this?”

“It is possible, but arrogance erases a lot of wisdom,” Nacht said. “Despite being badly chastised of late, the atermors have thousands of successes to fuel their image of themselves as living manifestations of plague, beyond mortal comprehension or grasp. Why they made the mistake is not nearly so important as the question of what Vorka’s changes do. Clearly it is not sadistic, yet I cannot believe that is the only thing he changed.”

“I shall persuade him to tell me,” Luna declared confidently.

Nacht laughed. “The question is not whether Vorka will tell you, but when he will stop. He loves to brag; there is a tale that he once created something so powerful that it all but destroyed him, and yet he found time to boast of his genius even while being torn asunder.” She looked upward at the starscape. “I regret that I must soon awaken, Selune. You may have just begun to rest, but I have been slumbering with a most exquisite dessert wine in my belly from a banquet Queen Chrysalis held.”

“In your honor?” Luna grinned.

“In the honor of Princesses Twilight and Dawn Sparkle,” Nacht said. “And their dear friends Rarity, Applejack, and Pinkamena.” She paused thoughtfully. “You have a very attractive niece, Selune.”

Luna looked sharply at her. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me,” Nacht said. “Moreover, you agree with me.” She smiled a little and tapped the side of her head. “I have enough tidbits of you in my mind to know your type, after all.”

Luna swallowed and felt her cheeks glow--it being a dreamscape, she was sure that her cheeks were very literally glowing--at Nacht’s words. “That’s… it’s not…”

“Of course it is true, and you are both being silly about it.” Nacht snorted. “I have known so many mortals over so many thousands of years, and I do not yet understand this familial taboo. Sometimes it is enforced, sometimes it is not, sometimes rutting a sibling is a tradition generations old, and there is no consistency to it. She is an adult, Selune, and will live as long as you. I see no reason why not to consider it.”

“It’s not going to happen,” Luna told her as firmly as she could. “And I’m not even going to think about…”

Nacht cleared her throat loudly. “Thestral medic.”

Luna felt the glow spread down her neck. “I… I’m not even going to…”

“That little pegasus who looked like she’d just gotten her cutie mark the day before.”

“I…”

“A scholarly archmagi who preferred a practical student cut.”

Luna sputtered for several seconds before sighing. “Dammit, Nacht, it’s not going to happen. Ever!”

“I am aware.” Nacht gave her a sharply toothy grin. “I know you, Selune, and what you will and will not do. I know about that crippling sense of propriety you royal types cling to like a drowning pony to driftwood.”

“So why bring it up?”

“Because in case you had not noticed, I bear a strong resemblance to you,” Nacht said. “And I admit to having inherited your tastes in consort. I thought it would be best that if there ever came to be anything more between myself and a very attractive archmagi alicorn with an amazing mind, it would not come at the expense of a pony that is practically family to me.”

Luna gaped at her. “You’ve had a body of your own for how long?”

“Long enough to enjoy the sensations of physical attraction,” Nacht replied with a renewed grin. “But I have been borrowing sensations for longer than I can remember. Since I have come to have a form of my own, I have been something of a hedonist, and the one pleasure I most wish to explore is the one hardest to obtain. She is mature enough to make this decision, should she choose to make it, and yet young enough to have little experience.”

“Twenty six.”

“Beg pardon?”

“Twilight is twenty-six,” Luna said. “And a shut-in most of that.”

“She went face-to-face with what she thought was a mad moon demoness without soiling herself from terror,” Nacht said. “As far as I am concerned, she could be sixteen and be mature enough to make this decision without help. Childhood ended for your niece when she was made Celestia's consul in Ponyville; getting through the obstacles we threw her in her way, and then having the courage to actually look us in the eye without snapping like a rotten twig was simply reiterating the point.”

Luna sighed and shook her head. “And you don’t think it’s even slightly inappropriate for a literally ageless…” she looked back at Nacht making an expression of manifest innocence “...no, of course you don’t.”

Nacht chuckled. “Selune, I think you are making too many leaps of logic. I am ageless, as you say, and so time has no importance for me. Years pass as seconds,centuries as minutes, and entire millennia as a week. I may think Twilight to be the ideal opportunity, but I am absolutely spoiled for time in which to wait for an opening; I have no intention of pressing even slightly for I see no purpose to it.”

“So again, why even bring this up?”

“To give you time to become accustomed to an otherwise disturbing idea,” Nahct said. “You know me better than any mortal, for you have known me for longer than any mortal. You have wandered the landscape of my experience during the thousand year dream, and you have more cause than any other pony to worry about my interest in your niece.”

Luna found herself nodding to the point. “That’s true. You’ve always been considerate of me and kind towards me, but I still remember you seriously suggesting that the best way to undermine Tia was to break her heart by killing her little ponies.”

Nacht snorted. “All I remember clearly about that incident was a very thorough psychic beating. A deserved one, as a point of fact. You have my vow on this, Selune: I will not deliberately hurt Twilight in any way.”

“You’ll let her be the one initiating any… relationship?”

Nacht considered this and then nodded. “I also vow that I will wait for Twilight to initiate a relationship if that is her wish.”

“And won’t push or manipulate her to initiate it?”

“I will not act or speak in a way that has as its object to induce Twilight to initiate a relationship.”

Luna frowned at the other alicorn. “Nacht…”

“I cannot promise you that nothing I say or do will have the effect of edging her towards feeling something for me,” Nacht said. “I can only promise that I will not deliberately do anything with the purpose of manipulating or pushing her towards a relationship.”

Luna frowned again for several moments before bowing her head. “I suppose I can’t ask for anything more than you leaving it up to her and not deliberately manipulating her feelings. Thank you for that.”

“I do it as much for myself as you or Twilight or Celestia, Selune,” Nacht smiled. “I will never be able to have a relationship worth a damn with anyone unless it is fully voluntary. If nothing else, my entire existence to this moment has proved that.”

“What now then?”

“What happens now is that I wake up and you continue to do the duty you enjoy so much.” Nacht smiled even more broadly. “We will see one another soon, Selune, fear naught.”

“The geography of the Archive is very unusual, Your Highness,” Kyra told her as they walked along the side corridor in the direction of the portal. “For one thing, it appears to be infinitely large and yet you can get from one side to the other in the time it takes to traverse the Royal Library in Canterlot.”

“So you’ve tried measuring its interior.”

“When we first discovered it, we were under the impression that it was an ordinary library of some kind,” Kyra said. “We thought it’d be important to make sure we could map out where the stacks were so we could index it. Only when nothing was ever in the same place, and yet whatever you wanted was right in front of you, did we realize that it was infinitely malleable.”

“So how’s all this gonna help us find the ‘Master’ bucker?” Rainbow asked as she took position next to Kyra.

“One of the little secrets of this Archive I haven’t mentioned yet.” Kyra gave her a grin as they stepped in front of the gaping opening that crossed hundreds of miles in a single step, the Archive just as sedate as it had been when they’d first seen how Vorka had changed it from an impossibly narrow barrier to a wide open archway. “Every library has a librarian, and this one knows me personally.”

Both Luna and Rainbow stopped suddenly, staring at her. “There’s someone who lives in the Archive?”

“No,” Kyra said. “He’s not alive, but he seems too full of life to be a spirit or a mere magical construct. Tettidora’s best guess is that he’s someone who lived so long in the Archive without going mad that the Archive imprinted on him and when he either left or died or went mad, the imprint remained. Whatever his exact nature, he’s very kindly and eager to help.”

“So a bouncer?”

“I don’t think he’s there to protect the Archive,” Kyra said, pausing between one step and the next to wait for them to continue following her. “I think he’s just a helpful phenomenon that represents the Archive’s magical ability to reorder itself to help a seeker find what they want. Why the Archive uses him, not even Tettidora has tried to speculate on.”

Luna frowned at the opening. “Duchess, don’t you think it’d be wiser to have your soldiers through first in case…”

“...in case he trapped the opening?” Kyra smirked and stepped across the threshold. “Don’t be absurd, he could have done no such thing. Magic on this side would be tangible, and the Archive suppresses rune magic so effectively it’s impossible to work there. But even if he had, I’d still go across.”

Rainbow grinned and trotted ahead of Luna and across the threshold after the changeling noble. “Ain’t gonna let any of ‘em take the hit for you?”

“That, and I’d survive it far better than they.” Kyra gave a curt nod and the soldiers that had been taking up the rear filed passed Luna and through the magical opening. “And on top of all of that, assigning another to endanger themselves for us has never been the way of the royal family.”

“Sounds like yer cut from the same cloth as the princesses,” Rainbow said as Luna stepped across the threshold, immediately feeling the air change from the arid warmth (and getting warmer from the rising sun, something that immensely cheered Luna when she’d reached out to do the work herself) of the crumbling structure in the Provinces, to a very pleasant coolness and the feeling of soft carpeting under her hooves.

Kyra beamed. “Why, thank you Lady Dash!” she said. “At any rate, it seems that our preparation was wise but ‘Master’ has no intention of bottlenecking us at his magical doorway.”

“Or he cannot.” Luna noticed everyone else turning their heads upwards at the same time she did as a familiarly odd voice came from above them, seeming from atop one of the nearest shelves. As if drawn by the motion of a couple dozen pairs of eyes turning towards her, an inky-black dragoness with a lithe form and feline grace wove her way down the shelf in a sinuous fashion and arrived on the floor with a clickity-clack of talons even through the soft carpeting.

Luna noted, with a touch of amusement, that Spite seemed slightly perturbed at the fact that by the time she got to the floor, every changeling soldier had somehow put themselves and their weapons between her and Kyra.

“I suppose I am not a very welcome sight then?” she asked with a slight nervous quaver in her voice.

“If it’s you, you’re quite welcome,” Luna said.

Spite relaxed marginally. “Tired of Lashaal’s playing, have you?”

“Among others.”

“Well, I know that I first met Celestia and you arrived after, whereupon I presented a letter to Your Majesties from my queen,” Spite said. “All of this after I learned that having your face broken by a bucking pony hurts. I am afraid that I do not have any other tidbits that would have been all that hard for a clever shapeshifter to observe.”

“True.” Luna nodded to Kyra, who gestured for her soldiers to stand down; Spite looked visibly relieved to have the sharp ends away from her, unusual-seeming for a dragon who could instantly repair any injury. “Where’ve you been for the last day and a half?”

“Oh, being trussed up by Moreau and used for mad experimentation,” the dragoness said with a small grin. “It was oddly pleasurable to watch a crazed but supremely gifted maker of things forge his griffin mutations. But I had quite a time in those few days, I can assure you.”

Author's Note

I said I would and I did: bringing Spite back into this and going to reveal what's been up with her for the last 1.5 days and 3 years. I'm sorry for that, really and truly. As always, comment below and let me know if you see anything or like anything or dislike anything--every comment helps.

Wheels Within Wheels

After his grandiose announcement about playing god, Moreau had lapsed into the muttering thoughtful silence of the researcher, having an animated conversation with himself under his breath about what he was seeing and what he planned to do with it. For the first hour or so, Spite attempted to keep track of both sides of the conversation--his occasional foray into ‘viability of breeding’ made her tense involuntarily each time--but eventually, the blather about ‘secondary mutation potential’ and ‘post-tertiary derivation of infusion’ faded into the background of her awareness as she attempted to assess her surroundings more thoroughly.

The floors were certainly stone but in the faint light that Moreau used, they gleamed with the dull waxy finish of polished tiles unmarred by the dust and sand that seemed to be around the structure that she and Luna had traversed as they pursued Moreau’s hive mind creation. They also appeared to be in a simple diamond pattern with the lighter stones creating the diamond shape and framed by darker stones.

With the Void bindings she’d been in before gone, she tentatively and carefully reached into herself to see if she could now touch it. The normally constant connection felt dimmed and indistinct, but neither Moreau’s frictionless field nor whatever other measures he’d taken was obscuring it entirely and with a small sigh of relief, she used it to slightly twist her form, enough that she could pierce the darkness outside the light with the washed-out and greyish ‘sight’ of looking through the nothingness of her native realm back into the mortal plane.

A library? She blinked several times and narrowed her eyes, pulling a little harder on the Void to try to make the image more clear. His lair is a library. What kind of bizarre creature is this ‘Moreau’?

“I am a scientist,” Moreau huffed as he flicked one of his wrists, causing Spite to rotate halfway to her left. “Where else would you imagine that I should established a laboratory? And no, I can’t read your mind, I’m reading the bovine expression of surprise on your face.”

Spite treated him to slightly narrowed eyes, getting a condescending smirk in response, before Moreau rotated her to a side and slightly forward, leaning in to examine the joint of her neck and shoulder. “You’ve been staring at different parts of me for hours,” she said as she lay, looking down at the tiled floor. “What is this meant to accomplish, rather than irritating me and giving you more opportunities to be smug?”

“Don’t burden me with your ignorance and I shan’t burden you with the full details of my contemplations on what I see,” he said. “Not every Evil is so limited that all they can see through the lens of the Void is indistinct shadows of a mortal plane.”

“Worked out how to imitate a jei’s second sight, have you?”

“I could not possibly care less about the state of your soul,” he said, rotating her belly-up. “Although this shell is remarkably intricate for a mere temporary abode of a Void dragon. Imitation all the way down to capillaries and individual fibers of muscle, correct placement of neuron fibers, even a very slight and plausible defect of the secondary right bronchial branch. This Mistress of yours has a curious degree of interest in your well-being.”

“It drives Trilychi out of his mind, trying to work out how she can be overflowing with goodwill, and still make examples of whomever tries to challenge her.” Spite smiled a little. “It’is pleasant to watch him try to work it out; so far as I am aware, it’s the only question he’s never been able to answer because he starts from a false premise: that ‘kind’ and ‘dangerous’ are mutually exclusive.”

“Overwhelming fitness permits small quirks of personality.” Moreau rotated her upright with her feet down. “One of the most vastly irritating truths in my work… if you make a creature so fit that it reigns supreme over all others, it begins to have ideas of its own, and becomes dreadfully difficult to control and guide.”

“You seem to have your puppets well in hand.”

He dismissed the observation with a wave of a hand. “Fodder for the claws of their fellows, mere pawns that are easily shackled and used. They can’t even accurately convey what they see, giving no warning that the pet Void dragon of the Sixth was coming to call. That you are in my chains is entirely your own will but you imagined that I didn’t foresee your play and use it to make my own.”

The partly-mutated griffin that Moreau had abandoned earlier when he’d used her pain to taunt Spite slid into view, shivering, half-conscious, clearly in pain, suspended in the wires of Void energy that Moreau had used on her. “I said that I would test what I learned on this one, and so I shall. What do you think, Einspithiana… do you think she’s adequate raw material?”

“A pointless question,” Spite said. “Either she is and you further twist her, or she’s not and you find another use for her. In either case, answering you is a waste of time.”

“Answering that question was, yes,” he agreed. “But your answer was useful nonetheless. Now then,” he continued, looking at the trapped griffiness. “You really ought to feel honored, Einspithiana… I have never permitted observation of my work in progress, even with that glorious bitch Nachtmiri Mein breathing down my neck by proxy. Her vessel then was a prime specimen of equine, prime breeding years, distinguished herself with a reverse genius loci connection to the lunar body of this world. Can’t imagine how Mein cajoled her into it.”

Spite blinked at him. “You’ve met Princess Luna? And she didn’t obliterate you on general principle?”

“So she was royalty.” Moreau paused, looking thoughtful. “Fascinating. I take it that this world’s queen has a similar connection to the sun?”

Spite narrowed her eyes at him. “You’re suddenly very chatty.”

“You are suddenly very useful.” Threads of Void snaked out of his hands and slithered up the veritable cables that held the griffin in place, becoming finer and finer as they went until Spite lost track. “Knowing the approximate characteristics of the challenge I need to overcome will shift the odds of success heavily in my favor.” His face stretched in a small tight-lipped smirk. “Or, more accurately, I will know how to stay ahead of the forces gathering to crush my employers.”

“You don’t seem to have good judgement about who you ally yourself with if you’re so certain they’ll be crushed,” Spite said.

Moreau snorted. “They are feebleminded, arrogant, and entirely unfit; of course they’ll be crushed. But you err in thinking they are anything more than marks to be bilked of the things they have that I want.” He turned his face back to the griffin and began making deft and curious gestures with his many hands, some of them reminding Spite of a person molding clay, othes of someone sewing cloth with needle and thread. Curious, she reached for her crude version of the jei ‘second sight’ and looked again at the griffin.

Several times, she’d been to the massive foundries that constituted the homes of the gremlins of the closest thing she had to an actual home world. Watching the clever machines of the diminutive artisans take ore by the hundred ton, shatter it, grind it, water it, sluice it, run the slurry through filters, pressurize it, and finally bake it into ‘flakes’ that could be smelted into molten metal for use had always struck her as the concept of genius, somehow converted into physicality and put into motion. Watching the movement of the Void energies as Moreau manipulated and guided them reminded her strongly of watching those immense and incomprehensible machines. Genius in motion, she said to herself, feeling vaguely uneasy at the sight. He is actually as cunning as he thinks he is, or at least as capable at his art as his ego suggests.

Void energy slipped into flesh, melting it as it normally did, but then then melded with it, turning flesh into some manner of twisted putty in the hands of the emaciated creature that called himself ‘Moreau’. A dozen exquisitely tiny ‘needles’ pulling gossamer thread spun of the essence of the Void sailed through the air at a casual motion and began stitching yet more forms into place the melding so fluid as to be invisible to her.

“Master?” Spite jumped a little and turned to look towards Grimfeathers with the magical effect over her eyes still running, finding herself looking admiringly over the amazingly tight workmanship of the alterations Moreau had made to the creature’s formerly griffin body. She’d seen the exterior, of course, but the intricate weaving of living flesh with killing Void was masterful.

“Chain the new subjects down at the left end,” he instructed, not even missing a beat.

“There are none.” Spite blinked and dissipated the spell to look harder at Grimfeathers, whose voice was now smooth, cultured, and had a strong touch of refinement rather than the casual and loose way she’d spoken in before leaving. ‘Ein here came in with another pony, an alicorn.”

“So? He has no concept of where to…” He stopped and turned his head to Grimfeathers. “Alicorn?”

“Term used for a pony that has unicorn magic and pegaus wings with the physical hardiness of what’re called ‘earth ponies’.”

He frowned as his hands kept moving and weaving with sharp and precise movements, as if proceeding without any conscious control. “Name?”

“Luna.”

Moreau stopped in place for several moments, his expression contemplative. “Gather everything in that case and move it deeper. Is that all?”

“The Smilin’ shit is missing from her cage.”

“‘Smiling shit’?” Both Grimfeathers and Moreau looked at her. “Terribly sorry,” she continued, making sure her tone reflected that she was anything but, “but did she just say that you’re caging a zambet?”

“I am a genius,” he scoffed. “Of course I devised a way to confine a zambet. It’s really not so difficult… obscure all the reflective surfaces, layer thousands of recurring preservation and concealment runescripts on the surrounding structure…”

“What could possibly possess you to bearbait a world-destroyer?”

Moreau smirked at her before turning back to Grimfeathers. “The zambet will be sorely weakened from slipping the bonds I placed on her. See to it.”

Grimfeathers gaped at him. “Have you spit yer bit?”

“Spit my…?”

“Have you succumbed to madness?” Grimfeathers amended, still looking utterly gobsmacked. “I can’t just slip this vessel to outmanuever her, and this form is mortal. You’re slathering me in meat sauce and throwing me to a shark!”

“Think of it as a pleasant intellectual diversion,” Moreau seemed to enjoy the mutated griffin’s distress. “Just do it.”

Grimfeathers snorted. “This is a fine work of art you house me in, but no vessel buys the risk you demand. It takes but…”

“Stop taxing me with your imbecile chatter, Grymmilnia.” He growled. “I am a master. I designed the vessel to account for all eventualities, including this one. Obey your agreements and retrieve my prize.”

“You are so fortunate that you’re important to this entire endeavor, vorka,” Grymmilnia growled back. “I’ll retrieve your little toy, scientist, but we will have words afterwards.”

Moreau smirked again and made a ‘run along’ gesture with one of his hands. The void-shaped griffin growled and turned, disappearing back into the darkness as he watched, before he turned back to his work.

“You cannot possibly have shielded that vessel from a zambet’s touch,” Spite said.

“Of course I could have, and I did,” he responded, using the wires of Void to move the griffin he was still working on higher into the air. “I admit to being somewhat irritated, however.”

“What, that your vaunted containment measures didn’t work?”

“No, that she didn’t wait until I told her the time was appropriate.” He shook his head. “To lose your hole card before you need to play it is… vastly irritating.”

“I admit that irritating is by far one of my lesser talents.” Spite cringed a little at the discordant sound of the vaguely feminine voice that drifted from the darkness, seeming to be just barely a step behind her. Still in the fictionless field, she couldn’t turn her head around very quickly and was in the middle of doing so when something she’d never seen before crossed her peripheral view and sautered over to a thoroughly nonplussed Moreau.

It looked like a burlap sack pulled and twisted and bent into the vague shape of a stalking cat, motes of violet and pink light flaring up randomly within the roiling construct, causing it to bulge slightly in the direction of the flare before settling back down and disappearing. Sulphurous smoke curled out from the inherent gaps in the rough ‘stitching’ and the simulated burlap itself and Spite found herself trying not to breathe through her nose as the oddly metallic smell hit her, accompanied by a tingling sensation in her mouth and nose. Moreau seemed entirely unaffected by the smoke as he turned and frowned down at the strange construct with an expression of exasperated annoyance.

“The time was appropriate, Vorka,” she hissed at him, the accent of her words tinged with some strange mix of a serpent-like hissing and cultured twang. In any other circumstance, Spite would find it intriguing and attractive; coming in a voice that she could best compare to snakeskin grinding against the strings of a violin, she couldn't help but try to block it out by covering her ears. “You lost control of the webweaver vermin. You know that nothing can be gained by this enterprise, but through that sniveling mortal’s creation, and it is now outside your direct hand. What do you propose to do to ameliorate this?”

“There is nothing to ameliorate,” Moreau said. “She is outside my direct hand, but she will act as if she was being instructed. She has no choice but to do as I bid, and go where I would have her go, and do what I would have her do while there.”

“You are not as brilliant as you think you are,” the zambet hissed. “This game is beyond you, the wagers too high, the risks too great, and yet you insist on throwing all the pot in on the gamble that your strings are everywhere and that with but a tug, you can direct a puppet to do your bidding unknowingly.”

“There is no roll of the dice in this,” he said. “Plaguing the griffons threatened our purpose. It might have drawn the gaze of Ambassador das Pupa, and Chrysalis might have moved early.”

The zambet snorted contemptuously. “Mere mortals.”

Moreau turned and looked at her, and Spite could see a thin eyebrow raised curiously. “Like the mere mortals that chastised you, I take it?”

The zambet’s shape rippled and pulsated as the creature growled. “You try my patience, scientist. Sore tempted am I to see what plan might be made if you were made my meal.”

“Tempted, but you’ll do no such thing,” Moreau said calmly as he turned back to his work and began manipulating energies again. “Everything is proceeding according to the ultimate design. Chrysalis will not move for some time yet. I have secured the first point of the lei and the Voice has secured another. The third is beyond their reach and knowledge, and your way is being prepared. As to the other two points, those are not my concern and I was not permitted to know enough to intelligently advise how they might be taken.”

“Why care about some mewling mortal wretch?” The zambet demanded.

“Because that mewling mortal wretch commands the adoring loyalty of a desert nation under arms,” Moreau said. There was a small lilt in his nasally voice that gave Spite the impression that the description was more meaningful than it sounded. Apparently, the zambet heard the same thing because the undulating motion of her shape stilled as she studied him.

“We are much better prepared this time,” she said, her tone much more subdued.

“You are too ancient to truly believe that one can prepare for something they barely understand.” Moreau’s voice became tinged with disgust. “Entrusting the observation and suppression of the changelings to a brute fool was a crippling error. There is but one bright spot to Tharalax, but it is one that may yet let us retrieve the mistake.”

“There is naught bright about void dragons,” the zambet snorted.

“I’m hurt.” Spite barely spoke the words when her vision was filled by a pair of glrowing violet holes in a virtually shapeless mass that pulsated with a foulness that she could feel hammering against her senses like a driving rain.

“You… captured the Handmaiden,” the zambet hissed, her smouldering eyes retreating as suddenly as they’d appeared, and the mass settled again to the floor in the shape of the burlap cat.

“She deliberately walked into the trap knowing what it was,” Moreau said. “She came by her free will, and lingers by mine. I’ve no illusions that I’ve confined her any more effectively than she wishes to be confined, and will fulfill her purpose at a time of her choosing.”

“So you have lit the fuse and cradle the bomb in your bosom.” The zambet hissed amusedly. “To what end?”

“Refining my work, naturally.” His hands stopped moving and the form of the no-longer-griffin melted bonelessly to the ground. Her breath rasped softly against the floor, but she seemed otherwise senseless. A mercy, Spite thought. I doubt he would have any reason to be gentle.

“By which you mean, creating something so strong that it can and will kill you.”

“Yes,” he said. “Now, matters must continue forward, and your part is yet to come. If Grymmilnia’s report is accurate, and she has never failed to report accurately, there is a meal wandering in search of you. No need to keep her waiting.”

The zambet’s burlap head split apart at the vague suggestion of a muzzle, a grin stretching almost halfway around her head. “I’ve never supped on a demigoddess before.”

“Then I look forward to the results of your attempt,” Moreau said. “You are supreme among predators, but she is unusually strong for a mortal. Take care; I shouldn’t want to have to replace you.”

The zambet snorted. “Replace me. What an absurd notion.” Her ‘tail’ twitched once and it was like watching a balloon burst: the Void energy woven around the zambet exploded into a mist and the overwhelmingly nauseating presence disappeared.

“She’s going to be very angry when she returns,” Moreau said a moment later.

“Zambet are reputedly of extremely uneven temperament,” Spite said. “I take it that it will be very angry because it’ll find Luna to be beyond its power.”

“No, feasting on the royalty will be child’s play for a zambet as ancient as her,” Moreau extended a thread of Void energy from a finger and caused the limp and senseless griffin mutate to rise into the air to his face level. “And the use of a generic genderless term is highly improper when you’re aware of a definite gender.”

Spite furrowed her brow at him. “Why do you care?”

“Science is all about very precise communication of information.” He lightly touched the griffin with a hand it she began to rotate slowly in midair. “Genetic genderless is precise when gender is not known or of no consequential meaning. It is imprecise when gender is known and of consequence. Your impropriety implies ignorance, or a puerile fiddling with semantics to deny fact.”

Spite gave him a very level look. “Zambets are one of the great unknowns of the Void. Do I need to elaborate?”

He considered the griffin, attaching another thread to rotate her in midair so he could look over her belly. “Ignorance then,” he said definitively. “Although you’re correct in an important respect: zambets are essentially unknown.”

She waited several moments for him to elaborate, but acknowledging that zambets were a great unknown seemed to be all he intended to say on the subject as he continued to examine the griffin mutate with a critical eye. “Is that all?” she finally asked.

“Educating your ignorance confers me no advantage and so wastes my time.” Moreau lowered the still-senseless mutate to the ground. “And so we come to the nadir of our interaction, Einspithiana. We have made a bargain and both sides have kept their word. I have no need of you any longer, and the time for my assassination is not yet. If feeding you to the zambet would have a point, it would be ideal, but she requires a whole body and whole mind, and you have neither.”

“And Amarra would run you through then set her on fire to warm her greatroom,” Spite pointed out.

Moreau smirked. “While I prefer that she reverse that order, neither result is desirable. But we find ourselves at an impasse, Handmaiden, for neither of us gain advantage by confrontation, and neither of us gain advantage by continuing the stalemate. You would be underfoot if released, and likely inclined towards silly heroics, such as rescuing this subject of my work.”

Spite looked at him for a moment. Whatever his grandiose announcements as the troubles he’s inflicted on the Provinces, he seems much more fixated on pet projects that mean very little than acting as the arm of whatever plan the Void is hatching. If only there was some way to bind and interrogate him! He clearly understands most of what’s going on, and shows a strange respect for the powers of a mortal, this ‘Queen Chrysalis’. Perhaps I can do more damage if I stay my hand than I would if I slew him. “I would give my oath to remain out of your way and neither assault you nor impede you.”

“And you would keep that oath,” he said. “Yet I see no reason that I’d want you unshackled and nearby, even if you’d decided to do me no injury. Just in the conversation between myself and the zambet, you’ve become very well-educated and releasing you would educate you further. Tell me, Einspithiana… what do I gain by educating your ignorance?”

“What do you gain by educating my ignorance?” Spite fixed him with a very level look. “Or was blathering on about important points of this grand design with me to listen sheer carelessness?”

Moreau smirked at her. “Oh, is that what you think. Tell me, Einspithiana… what have you learned that you’re certain that your allies don’t know, mmm? That Queen Chrysalis exists? I would be astonished if this Princess Luna had no idea. That I’ve a zambet? Grymmilnia has, by now, told Princess Luna this and Luna herself has met her. That this place is a library? I’ve left the front door open and would he highly disappointed if Luna couldn’t work out how to walk through it. That I regard my puppets as disposable? All who travel with you saw the suffering plaything I sent your way, and have certainly worked out that I care nothing for my experiments’ well-being. That I have contempt for my nominal allies? Even they realize this, for genius has no reason to pretend humility. Beyond this, all that you know is known by others or I have offered to them by implication.” He turned his head fully to her, grinning widely. “You are as ignorant as you started.”

Spite was about to bring up his casual mention of a mortal creation that needed to be secured and something seized by others, but she stopped. If he doesn’t think I noticed. why disabuse him of the notion? “Asking for your leave is more of a courtesy anyway, as you said to the zambet.”

He grinned widely at that. “So it is. Which makes me wonder what purpose there is to your even wasting my time by offering an agreement.”

“Gestures of good faith are how peaceful stalemates are built,” Spite said. “I’m sure you realize why I’ve decided that you’re more useful alive and doing whatever you want than dead.”

“I am a splinter in the the nether regions of your enemies.” His grin widened. “Then again, I’m…”

“FOUL AND DECEPTIVE BEYOND ANY MEAN BEAST IN ALL THE VOID!” The frictionless spell matrix keeping her floating in midair burst like a soap bubble in a hurricane as the snakeskin-upon-violin-strings voice of the zambet howled around her, but Spite was barely aware of it as physical waves of borderline-incoherent rage crashed against her, sending her tumbling head over tail.

“Deceptive, madame?” Spite looked up from the floor, seeing Moreau standing there calmly looking as if he hadn’t even been touched by the anger of the zambet given physical force. “Was there something I said…”

“YOU KNOW WELL THAT IT WAS NOT A THING YOU SAID, BUT WHAT YOU DID NOT,” the zambet roared back, her nauseating presence battering once again at Spite’s senses as she stalked into view range. So she took the form of Twilight to do her work, Spite noted, looking over the disturbingly precise facsimile of the bookish princess, although the burning violet eyes and impossibly high corners of the mouth ruined the illusion. “THE ROYAL, THIS PRINCESS YOU OFFERED TO ME AS PLEASURE AND MEAL, WAS IMPERVIOUS TO ME! YOU COULD NOT POSSIBLY HAVE BEEN IGNORANT OF THIS PERFIDY, VORKA! YOU WILL EXPLAIN THIS, OR I WILL HAVE YOU AS MY MEAL THIS VERY INSTANT!”

“You will do no such thing,” Moreau replied calmly, crossing all of his arms in a stance of amused unconcern. “In the first place, you cannot. In the second place, I bear no responsibility for this unfortunate eventuality, nor could a complete explanation of the matter have ameliorated your misfortune.”

The zambet laughed scornfully. “WERE YOU NOT SUCH AN INSUFFERABLY CUR, I WOULD BE AMUSED BY YOUR ARROGANCE. BEFORE ONE SUCH AS I, VORKA, YOU ARE BUT AN INSECT, AND YOU KNOW IT.”

“I know no such thing,” Moreau replied. “Feel free to take your meal, if you can; I won’t resist.”

The glowing eyes narrowed and the zambet’s head tilted. “NOT EVEN YOU ARE THAT MUCH A FOOL, TO THINK YOU HAVE A DEFENSE AGAINST ME.”

“I got yer number, precious, and I ain’t even the boss.” The zambet turned to look as Grymmilnia entered and with her regard shifted, Spite was able to push herself back to her feet and look as the griffin mutate flowed out of the shadows. “Hope there ain’t hard feelings.”

The zambet snorted at this. “You made no attempt to harm, just to distract,” she said, the roar dropping into a resonant rumble. “‘Hard feelings’ are too weighty a thing to waste on anything that does no injury. Your form’s rut toy, on the other hand… she did injury and I have a quarrel with her, however futile.”

“Good luck snackin’ on one of the Elements.” Grymmilnia’s eyes narrowed. “And I’ll thank you not to be crude. Though it is this form that desires her, the bond is far beyond mere sexual satiation.”

“Pointless perversion, nothing more.”

“No wonder the lot of you get crushed all the time: you’re narrow-minded.”

“An open mind is like a fortress with its gates unbarred and unguarded.” The zambet returned. “There is naught purpose to it but empty pleasure, a dead end of the eternal race to survive. It is an error, a malfunction of the flesh. That you think it any more is clear evidence that your sojourn has bent you more than it has bent the soul with which you are entwined.”

“The heart desires what it does, and that Gilda found Rainbow Dash to be a meet partner proves that, at the risk of feeding his substantial ego, that Vorka chose wisely in weaving me with this particular mortal,” Grymmilnia said. “Her judgement is clearly excellent, as her desire shows. You could do naught but be struck and wounded by her dear one, although Rainbow is still a crude instrument in her youth. Besides all that, you assume that this place’s laws conform to those with which you are most familiar. A foolish presumption, and fully as arrogant as anything spoken by the self-named ‘Master’.”

The zambet growled lowly but instead of retorting, turned back to Moreau, who was looking thoroughly amused. “Restrain the tongue of your plaything, Vorka. It wags too freely and tempts me to destroy it. Surely you don’t delude yourself into thinking that her defense is any real obstacle to me.”

“You might find that breaching it is far more difficult than you think.” Moreau sighed. “So, how much more time are you planning to wait before doing anything more than dribble idle threats at me?”

“Until it became clear why you were being so arrogant.” The zambet snorted. “A projection of yourself. Of course you’d be cowardly, taunting in the secure knowledge that you cannot be retaliated against.”

“It would be irrational to forswear basic laboratory precautions, such as physically segregating myself from my experiments,” Moreau said placidly. “Now with that matter disposed of, you appeared to have something other than eating me on your mind. Grymmilnia, you were instructed to see to the movement of the experiments out of the reach of the alicorn Luna, and it’s time that you obeyed.”

“Ya can’t bar the door?”

“Only from one end, and that’s the end with the least dangerous adversaries in wait. Obey, Grimfeathers.”

“Heh.” Grymmilnia grinned at him. “Sad that thrashin’ a zambet was the easier thing ya told me ta do today.” The zambet growled lowly, evoking a mocking smirk from Grymmilnia as she vanished into the shadows. The similicon of Twilight Sparkle then turned her attention to Moreau.

“She is insufferable, but has a point,” she said, her voice back to its disturbing snakeskin-on-strings vibrato. “What was to be gained from having her waylay me? Further, what was to be gained from serving me a meal you knew I could not consume?”

“Her mind could not be permitted to wander in directions I did not choose,” Moreau said. “You have focused her mind on you as the great danger in the shadows and while she thinks of the zambet stalking her niece and her people, she does not think of the entire scope of the game.”

“Again with this concern for the actions of mortals.” The zambet shook her head. “You are an enigma, Vorka, and an irritatingly inexplicable one at that.”

“Your experience of mortals is as narrow as your focus, and your mind,” Moreau retorted. “You go a great distance for that focus and narrowness, but it blinds you the same way it blinded Quazelzege, the same way it blinded Rejnu, and Rijii, and Phylaxis, and all the mighty Evils that have continued on as if no mewling mayfly of a creature could break them. And then they fell into the hands of mortals that did not fear them, and then ground them into dust. Whethey they were cleaved in two by the master they betrayed, their soul was burned from their husk by the Light, or the jeikitsu drove a meat hook into their back and took their head, they have all been broken by mortals. Some of them very strong mortals, some of them eternally living mortals, but all died because they could not see that as limited as mortals are, they are unfathomably dangerous when lightly watched. You are ancient, zambet; it would be a pity if you fell on this world due to your own small mind.”

“You seem to fear mortals.”

“I do no such thing,” he retorted. “But I keep a close eye on them and factor them in. This Luna must now become a factor in my calculations. Rainbow Dash and the other one entwined with a portion of the artifact, called Fluttershy, were already part of them.”

“I take it that my actions were part of your calculations as well?”

“I needed an guage of the danger from one with sufficient intellect to recognize a dangerous position and leave to wait for an advantage,” he said. “Now, what are your intentions?”

“Retrieve your error,” she said. “Collect the webweaver and make sure she doesn’t wander again. We can’t risk her being removed.”

“Just don’t try to snack on her puppet,” Moreau said, turning away from the zambet. “I realize that despair is sweetest to you…”

“I am ancient, Vorka,” she said. “She will be useful to us and when that use has passed, then will I sup. Her puppet’s despair has not yet reached full flower, and her pain is but a tickle to what she will endure. Her heart is not yet broken and tender, but it will be.” Her gaze turned to Spite. “And you cannot stop it, Handmaiden, for you know not what you attempt. In one blow, we will break all those that defend this world, and have its riches for our own.”

Moreau sighed and shook his head. “Boasting before doing is poor preparation for success.”

The zambet’s grin became wider and toothier. “What is true is not a boast. I shall return soon.” As she had before, the zambet disintegrated into black mist and dissipated into the darkness. Moreau snorted and shook his head again.

“And now you see why I have no special fear of you,” he said. “To kill, you must be able to touch and you cannot touch me.”

“It’s quite the projection,” Spite admitted, and it was: there was no detail to suggest that the floating entity was not solid. Its clothing ruffled and flowed from movement, it avoided physical obstacles as if it could touch them, and projected all the sensory input of being real when it got close. It had even shown that it could touch physical things and affect them as if it was real, its sullen kicking of the griffin earlier inflicting actual wounds. “Costly as well.”

“Not to one such as I.” Moreau smirked over his shoulder. “Now we part ways, Einspithiana. You have had an advantage in this encounter because zambets are fearful braggarts, but to know what Lashaal is for is beyond your understanding, and it always shall be. Do give my regards to the ambassador when you meet her; she has been the most singularly irritating burden that I was forced to leave well alone.”

Spite blinked. “You’re going, just like that?”

“What do I gain by lingering?” He gestured at the unconscious griffin mutate with his head. “You may keep it, by the by… I have enough raw muscle and will shortly make it all the stronger for what I’ve learned by the procedure.”

“You’re being… generous.”

“I am intensely practical,” he snorted. “I have no need of a prototype. What will I do with it, breed it and wait twenty years to have a useful soldier? It will just burden me for now and as such, it is far better to pile it with the rest of the waste and let you do with it what you will.”

Spite considered him. “So that’s it? No more bargains, no attempt to silence me?”

“Why waste the match to burn an empty book? There is even a chance that your information will mislead your allies for its incompleteness, and there is no better way to spread inadequate information than to permit the enthusiasm of a courier who’s convinced of its usefulness.” Moreau bowed in her direction, a small mocking smirk. “I hope never to be burdened with you again, Handmaiden, nor to burden you with myself.”

“And then he just booked it?” Rainbow crossed her forehooves and gave Spite a skeptical look.

“Pretty much,” Spite said as she tapped at the stone with a claw. “The moment he vanished, the artificial darkness he’d generated around his experiment area disappeared with him and pretty much showed this library how it looks. I dragged his prototype to what appeared to be the softest surface, a large circular area with a rug and let her rest; she seems traumatized enough that I dare not try to wake her.”

“I doubt she’d be able to help anyway,” Kyra said. “Meddling with the memory seems to be part and parcel of how ‘Master’ works and your story makes it sound like he’s both disinterested in current events and has planned quite thoroughly. The out-of-order and distorted timeline you describe sounds as if he discovered some way to meddle with the flow of time in and out of the Archive.”

“Badly,” Luna said. “The compression sounds like his control was poor so time had fits and starts, making things that happened several minutes to an hour apart from one another happen in less than a quarter-hour’s span.”

“Or maybe he had a motive for it,” Spite said. “It’s hard to say what he plans to do, because what he hopes to gain is unclear.”

“Perhaps it’s what he claims to want,” Kyra said. “If he’s as calculating as you say, it’s plausible that he’d reason that knowing what he wants won’t help you foil him. ‘Doing science’ and ‘stroking ego’ are such general objectives that it could mean anything.”

“Well, he’s helping these ‘Evil’ jerks do something and that zambet thing seems ta think that if they get Lashaal, they’ve got it nailed,” Rainbow said. “So… maybe we grab her first? Doesn’t seem like they can do anything if they don’t got the faker.”

“Wonderful idea,” Kyra said, “but for one small problem: where do we find her?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Dunno. She seemed to be able to carry off the ‘mysterious stranger here to help’ schtick once. Maybe she tries it again somewhere that also ain’t grabbed by ‘Master’, figuring he can’t get her there.”

“The zambet can,” Spite said. “It seems like she could do little to nothing to Luna and got a good solid thrashing at your hooves and at the hands of Grymilinia, but Luna was the vessel of Nachtmiri Mein, you’re an Element, and Moreau devised some kind of protection for Grymmilinia. I can’t imagine what he did--protecting against zambets normally requires the kind of immense power that only the most ancient of beings has--but I doubt he did it to Lashaal. When she is found, the zambet won’t hesitate a moment to simply consume a city to seize her prize.”

“Let’s assume she went to a city then,” Luna said. “Spite, you seem able to move large distances effortlessly. Can you bear all of us, and the changelings as well?”

“Things like size and weight impose no limitation,” Spite said. “but to be sure that I bring us to the city we visited safely, we’d have to arrive in midair where the likelihood of interference is small.”

“So, wings will be required,” Kyra grinned and extended the delicate-looking anisoptic wings from her barrel, followed by the changeling soldiers that had come with her. “I think we can arrange that.”

“Problem solved then,” Spite grinned back.

Author's Note

Mercy! I crave mercy!

Yeah, getting through this with all sort of big things going on in life is a slow process; I'm sorry folks. As always, I'd love to hear what people have to say, even if negative, and I'm always on the hunt for constructive criticism and suggestions. I hope it was worth the wait.

Trixie: Sunrise

“Sugary Market.” Cadence said, her face alight with warmth as she looked at the armored stallion. “You are most welcome.” She looked over all the strange-looking ponies and the thestrals as well. “You all are. I wish I was welcoming you in better times.”

“Yeah, um, speaking of those times, we kinda kicked a lot of plot here but this ain’t the main event,” Keen said. “Bet those gremlin sorts would be plenty happy if we hauled an airship over to do ‘em a solid.”

“Pfft, this?” Trixie turned her head sharply at the sound of Scootaloo’s voice, only to find herself looking at one of the unusual ponies who, as Trixie thought about it, looked like she was just barely old enough to be an adult. Her mane was violet and streaked heavily with orange, and trimmed in a ‘pixie’ cut, and her eyes were even the slightly off-violet of Scootaloo’s, and Trixie found herself staring at her.

“Miss Lulamoon, why are you staring at me?” Trixie blinked and shook her head.

“I’m sorry,” she said. “You look and sound almost exactly like a filly I know.”

“Haven’t been a ‘filly’ for a few years now.” The mare smirked a little. “Glad you Equestrian sorts got style, though. So anyway, ya don’t need to worry about the little guys in the gray uniforms. Spent the entire trip since we could see Ponyville watching them kick the pies out of Twisted and they were chasing them off just before we got ready to save your tails. Little guys got some big fight in them.”

“Yeah, big fight,” Keen agreed. “Lots more fight than these mindless victims that turned and ran like Cerberus was chasin’ them. Am I the only one who thinks that’s just a bit… yanno, weird?”

“Not as weird as they are,” one of the soldiers called from the direction of the heaped bodies.. “Major de Luc, you need to take a look at this.”

“Why the hay do I need to look at it?”

“Because I don’t get it, but you hang around Ratchet, so you might.”

Major de Luc turned around and started through the crowd of soldiers, who scrambled out of her way as she walked. “What’s there to get? They’re all dead.”

“Yeah, but I think they started that way.”

“And what the hay is that supposed to…” There was a pause of several seconds. “Princess, Miss Lulamoon, please come over here.”

The ranks of ponies parted ways, showing the major standing over a body, her horn alight and one of the dead victim’s limbs lifted limply into the air. Although she couldn’t see him passed Cadence’s greater stature, Trixie could also hear General Market clanking along beside the alicorn. Trixie tried not to look at the ruined bodies as she approached Major de Luc, concentrating on the form of the oddly Scootaloo-looking pony. When she was only a few steps short of the major, the young mare turned.

“Constructs,” she said. “Bucking constructs.”

“What do you mean ‘constructs’?” Cadence asked. “These poor things are the victims of…”

“...nothing,” the major practically spat. “These things were never alive, nor were they ever ponies. Hell, I’m not even sure their flesh is actually flesh.”

Trixie gaped at her. “But… but I saw some poor colt being turned into one of these things by the disease! It wasn’t complete--Princess Celestia stopped it--but it was changing him and the changes all look like, well, these.”

The major shrugged. “I can’t speak to that because I didn’t see it happen and couldn’t examine the colt. What I know is, what we just curb-stomped ain’t ponies and were never ponies. No wonder the jackanapes throwing them at Ponyville don’t care about us killing them by the hundreds: they have as many of them as they have materials to build them and magic to animate them, and I’m guessing they’re nowhere near running out of either one.”

“That’s a pretty bold proclamation, Major,” Market said.

“Yup, but I can back it up. Corpsman?” The pony nearest her floated a scalpel out of his saddlebag and Major de Luc promptly stabbed it into the leg she’d been holding and smoothly drew the blade through the skin and muscle.

Or what should have been skin and muscle. Trixie had gotten only a basic education in anatomy and physiology but it didn’t take much learning to know that there was something under the skin other than more skin going all the way down to ‘bones’ that were perfectly round and smooth. Speechless, Trixie watched as several of the other soldiers assumed the beasty form they’d used for combat and used claws and blade-like appendages to cut into other bodies. Many oozed a tarry sludge, all were missing any sign of internal organs or anything that resembled them, and Trixie’s feeling of relief that they hadn’t been forced to kill victims of a disease mingled with a rising feeling of dread. Misdirection, illusion, sleight of hoof. Keep the audience looking to the right while you work on the left. “We were meant to pay attention to them instead of something else,” she said.

“A distraction,” Cadence nodded. “But from what?”

“Can’t imagine anything, Princess,” the major said. “We’re days away from Scarabi and quite a distance from Canterlot, so distracting us from either is pointless. There’s a derelict castle in the Everfree…”

“...where we’re living,” Keen added.

“...that has no real value,” the major concluded.

“Actually, um, that’s not strictly true,” Market said. “Really, really large library and the princesses had no reason to take anything with them when they left, seeing as how no one’s gonna look for anything there. Even though, yanno, there’s a lot to find.”

Cadence gave him a very level look. “Are you serious?”

“Um, y...yeah, pretty serious.”

Cadence sighed. “And no one felt like sharing this?”

“Um, no?” Market gave her a wide and sheepish smile.

“Can’t be the castle,” Keen said. “Whole bunch of us there, yeah, but those scary buckers with the weird swords are holed up there too. I don’t think these types with the zillion constructs want to tangle with them, ‘specially since the pair spent the entire time goin’ from one to the next takin’ off their heads. Don’t know where you dug them up, Princess, but they’ve got a lot of power.”

“But we don’t know what they’re trying to do,” Trixie said. “They disappeared when Ponyville was attacked before Princess Celestia stopped it, they weren’t around the second time, and you can’t put on a show if everypony does their part on their timing instead of the show’s timing. I don’t think these… whatever are going to be stopped by us doing one thing, while Forheest Sadow does another thing, while her gremlins do yet another thing, and the two Bloodwynd--yes, I know--siblings do something else. Now we have… whoevever these…”

“Ponies,” Major de Luc supplied after a couple moments had passed.

Trixie gave her a level look. “I assumed that you’re ponies, I just don’t know what kind.”

“Changelings. Move it along.”

Trixie nodded at her. “Now we have changelings, a race of pony I’ve never even heard of, stepping in to do their thing, whatever that thing is.”

“We need everyone reading the same script,” Cadence said.

“You can’t have fireworks on cue unless everypony is working together and from the same book,” Trixie agreed. And I’m sure that Princess Cadence will stand by and smile until I direct everyone so... She turned and looked at Keen. “Miss Keen, please find Forheest Sadow--looks like a fox walking upright, hard to miss--and tell her to retrieve the two Bloodwynd siblings and meet us at the library. If Colonel Kipper is with her, tell him to come as well with whomever he needs. When you’re done, be there with whomever you need.”

Keen looked at her for a long moment before looking at Cadence, getting a stern look, and then sighing. “Gotcha, see ya at the library.”

Trixie turned to Market, catching sight of Keen sweeping into the air in her peripheral vision as she did. “General Market, I need you there as well. I’m not sure what we can do for your soldiers, what with the center of the town still smoldering, but do whatever you can and then be there.”

“Sure!” Market beamed at her then turned to the major. “You’re in charge Major,” he informed her before immediately starting back towards his airship, his step light and oddly carefree for the situation at hand. Major de Luc seemed to take this in stride, as if she expected it, and as Trixie turned away from her to look at Cadence, she could hear the youthful-looking mare issuing commands to the ponies around her in a calm and authoritative voice that still sounded like an eerily near-perfect duplicate of Scootaloo’s.

“Princess, who are these ponies?” she asked. “I mean, they’re your help from this Scarabi place, wherever that is, but who are they?”

“Changelings, as Major de Luc said,” Cadence said. “Another race of ponies, like the thestrals.”

Trixie frowned at the Princess and started walking towards the library. “And?”

“And what?”

Trixie sighed. “I’m a stage magician, Princess, the ‘answer the question without answering the question’ is just one of the methods in the misdirection toolbox. Who are they?”

Cadence started walking towards the library, going several steps with her. “Changelings, the fourth natural pony race. Thestrals were created during the time of Nightmare Moon; changelings have been as they are for as long as there have been unicorns, earth ponies, and pegasi. According to one of their scholars whom I’m very close to, their existence has always been expressed in the mythology of the other three races rather than our history. They have lived apart from Equestria for over a thousand years now, banished by Aunt Celestia just prior to the rise of Nightmare Moon for reasons I’ve never really asked about, although being natural shapeshifters has made that banishment more official than actual.”

“So that’s not an illusion?”

“No, a changeling actually alters their shape both internally and externally.” Cadence said. “In theory a changeling could take any form they wished, including that of a dragon, and have all the form’s characteristics. In practical terms, however, only the most talented can take a form substantially different from their own.”

“So they could look like alicorns of they wanted.”

“With virtually no effort,” Cadence nodded. “A straight horn and feathered wings are only a slight alteration from a spiraling or crooked horn and insectoid wings. They would gain nothing by the change, however, and lose everything.”

“An alicorn would draw more attention than their natural forms.”

“Yes, and the personal attention of the princesses.” Cadence chuckled a little. “I speak from personal experience on that. I’ve been told that Aunt Tia was pulling the door off of my adopted parents’ home within seconds of hearing about me. I was too young to remember, of course, but as you can well imagine I was news all over the world. A unicorn reaching a point of magical prowess that they can ascend to alicorn has happened--twice, as a matter of fact--and an alicorn has been born of an alicorn mother, but I was the first time one was just found.”

Trixie turned to look at Cadence. “Found where?”

Cadence shrugged as the library came into view. “Aunt Celestia never told me, and my adoptive parents died before I was old enough to be told by them. Where I come from is a mystery to the world, but I’ve always cared more about my future than my past.”

“I hope there’s a future to care about,” Trixie sighed. “I thought it was bad when I thought that sickened ponies being controlled by the atermors but this is worse. If they can just make armies at whim…”

“...they wouldn’t have withdrawn when General Market and the First Tantalus arrived,” Cadence finished with a small smile. “If you enjoy murder and have unlimited resources to do it, you don’t flee when more victims walk into your grasp. They gained nothing by leaving, unless they can’t afford the loss.”

“Or unless they did what they wanted to do and elected not to waste their time.” Without a sound or any indication of approach, Sadow was walking at Trixie’s side, her sea of tails flowing behind her as she went. “I heard the situation, Miss Lulamoon, and can attest to the accuracy of Major de Luc’s conclusions. But with respect to you, Princess, your conclusions cannot be correct. A supply of warm bodies to twist and use are finite; a supply of materials for constructs are not.”

“Then why did they withdraw?”

“General Market and his hoof-picked forces under his personal direction, and a warship that sails the air instead of the water, were an unknown factor,” Sadow said. “They were a threat, and so the atermors withdrew to learn before trying again.”

“Aunt Celestia appearing in Ponyville and annihilating them with a thought didn’t seem to give them pause.”

“They have seen wrathful gods, suffered that wrath, and accepted it as a paltry cost,” Sadow said. “Mortals who do not fear them and attack with brutal fury, they have seen but a handful of times and each time, they were chastised most severely. Even arrogant fools learn when thrashed repeatedly.”

“So they’ll be back,” Trixie said.

“Until so badly harmed they’re compelled to flee, yes.” Sadow frowned. “This fixation on a single town is strange nonetheless. There is nothing here they value and a true city like the nearby Canterlot would give them vastly more playthings. Have you any magical artifacts or places especially infused with magic, or of mystic significance?”

“The Elements of Harmony are in a vault in Canterlot,” Cadence said. “All components of Clover the Clever’s magitechnical devices are likewise secure under the palace, as are all the magically-infused runescripts devised by Starswirl the Bearded. The Crystal Heart is beyond the reach of anyone and if the so-called ‘Alicorn Amulet’ was in Ponyville, it would be impossible not to know. Places of mystic significance, though…” She gestured in the general direction of the Everfree Forest. “That entire forest, and the decaying castle in the middle. General Market mentioned that there could be a large magical storehouse in the castle as well as many volumes of knowledge, but it’s news to me and he just conveyed it a few minutes ago.”

Sadow nodded thoughtfully. “I’ll speak to Lord and Lady Bloodwynd and bring word…”

“Actually, I want them here,” Trixie said. “There’s too many actors on the stage following too many scripts. We need to know what’s going on, what everyone is planning to do, and how they plan to do it.”

“That is fair.” Sadow bowed. “I shall also summon Colonel Kipper and his staff. If Fortuna smiles on us, the captain of the artillery reserve has sorted things out and is back on the road.” She glanced at Cadence. “I recall that you said you’d teleport them here once it was sorted out?”

“I will.”

“Thank you.” Sadow smiled very slightly to her. “Forcing the gremlins to abandon a position by assault is always a challenging task; with their artillery reserve, it will become nearly impossible. I don’t know the atermors’ true purpose but preserving a refuge while we learn it is vital.”

“I just hope they stay away long enough for the gremlins to do whatever they need to do,” Trixie said.

“You shall have to speak to them about that, Lady Lulamoon.” Sadow bowed once again and once again simply disappeared into their air. Trixie looked where she’d been for a second before looking up at Cadence. “What are all the magical things you mentioned? Other than the Elements, I know what those are.”

“The legacies of some truly exceptional ponies,” Cadence said as they resumed their walk. “Powers that must only be touched in the most dire need, powers sealed beyond even my power to retrieve, and objects that I dearly hope the atermors don’t even know about and if they know, cannot steal.”

By the time General Market had secured his airship, Sadow had located the Bloodwynd siblings, and both the gremlins and thestrals had arrived from wherever they’d been when summoned, the sun was drifting towards the western horizon (moved by Princess Luna, Trixie supposed) and Spike had somehow devised a light supper in between disappearing out the door every couple minutes to look after Doctor Hooves’ renovations. Time Turner seemed no more pleased about her being in charge, and Cadence had been forced to give him a stern look once or twice more, but there was no denying that the stallion was useful. A library with a laboratory basement and a couple of bedrooms on the upper floor had been turned into a complex of small shelters for displaced townponies covered over and divided up with what appeared to be every last curtain, blanket, and sheet in Ponyville. With him affirming the soundness of most of the damaged buildings, ponies were able to get the small things they needed to be comfortable until the town had been repaired and the makeshift meeting space was nearly bare of anyone not directly involved.

Representing the changelings was General Market and Major de Luc, who seemed just barely old enough to be considered an adult yet somehow seemed a natural fit as the right hoof of a general. Sadow and the Bloodwynds were there, as was Keen Edge (who apologetically said she couldn’t pull her advisors away from their work). The thing that surprised Trixie was the germlin contingent. She’d met Colonel Kipper, and the germlin officer who’d been in the trenches turned out to be a major named ‘Nib’, but the other two members of their group barely resembled gremlins at all. The male bore a fastidiously-groomed beard, short clean hair, and a well-tailored suit under a broad robe, and he had the air of a scholar of some kind or perhaps a noble; the only thing that marked him as a gremlin was his greenish skin and the slight bulge of his yellow eyes. He was accompanied by a slender reptilian female no taller than a gremlin wearing the tastefully understated finery that Trixie’s experiences in Canterlot told her meant very, very old money that was highly concerned with keeping a dignified appearance and demeanor. The way she hovered near the other gremlin she arrived with gave Trixie the distinct impression of a trusted servant keeping a close eye on her lord’s health.

“Miss Lulamoon, you’ve met Major Nib,” Colonel Kipper said after everyone had settled into their places around the coffee table being pressed into service. “And Adjutant Sadow, and both Lord and Lady Bloodwynd. It is my honor, my signal and…”

“Don’t flower it up Colonel,” the well-dressed gremlin said, his voice having an accent very strongly reminiscent of Bitalty. He looked to Trixie. “Princess Cadenza, Madame Lulamoon, I am Leonid, oft called ‘Maestro’ by my kin.” He gestured to the servant standing beside him. “Kestra du Lanceli, my housekeeper, cook, advisor, bodyguard, steward, accountant, and about thirty other vital roles I can never quite remember.”

Kestra smiled and curtsied to them. “The honor is mine Princess, Madame,” her voice silky and almost purring with a very slight lisp.

Shining Armor looked between the well-dressed gremlin, his servant, and the two officers, and then back at Leonid. “And you’re on the Colonel’s staff?”

The other two gremlins looked aghast. “The Maestro? On my staff?” Kipper gasped. “He’s… he’s the Maestro!”

“The word means ‘master’, dear,” Cadence said before Shining could ask. “What my fiance means, Maestro Leonid, is that he wonders why a civilian and his servant are attending a meeting on military matters. With all due respect, sir.”

“With answering respect, Princess Cadence, Colonel Kipper wishes us here, and is certain that we will aid these deliberations,” Kestra said in a polite tone, Leonid not appearing to have even made a move to reply to the question. “If it pleases your highness, ought we to move directly to matters of greater import than whom the Colonel wishes at his side?”

Cadence looked curiously at her before glancing to Trixie. Trixie shrugged. “If Colonel Kipper considers them his advisors, why not? It’s not as if a dapper gremlin is an odder participant than a right-hand mare who looks like she’s barely older than the Crusaders.”

Cadence nodded her assent and looked around the table. “Trixie asked Sadow to gather you all so we can discuss a coordinated strategy. At the moment, we don’t know what the atermors want here and Adjutant Sadow can offer no definite insights. Lord and Lady Bloodwynd, can you offer any?”

“Only that they are the tool of someone else,” Elena said. “The atermors know when they’re defeated and have always been wise enough to slip the grasp of anyone who can destroy them before destruction happens. To win at Ponyville is not possible for them even if they threw all of Equestria against us here.”

“Winning isn’t their game,” Trixie said. “I know a sleight of hoof when I see it; I use them every day, nearly. We’re supposed to be watching Ponyville while they do something else that they don’t want anyone to notice. Or, I guess, whoever’s telling them what to do doesn’t want us to notice.”

“They desire the castle,” Ersari said. “There is magic there buried deep in its ruins, under the surface. It has been very carefully concealed; the tingling against the senese can only be felt when you stand practically atop it. It’s impossible to know what they could use such a thing for, for its magic is a brilliant white, and it is certain that approaching it would simply wipe them from existence by the hundred count.”

“So they want something they can’t even approach?” Keen eyed him. “That’s bucking stupid. Even if they could kick my colony out--not impossible at all, but it ain’t easy either--we could build a city from all the heads we take off of ‘em. Yeah, sure, losses ain’t a big deal to them but it’s a helluva pile of effort for something that’s they can’t do pies with.”

“Maybe their sponsor can.” Ersari said. “It matters little. They want it, they most certainly want it because they believe it valuable to some purpose of theirs, so they must not have it. I say that we dispense with Ponyville’s defense and defend the castle instead. There is no power the atermors can muster that can pierce the quarantine, and to lay it on Ponyville would take little effort.”

“Doesn’t a quarantine imply that whoever’s inside is trapped there?”

“Yes, and it is the case with the quarantine laid by the flag,” Ersari confirmed.

“And how long does it last?”

“Until the sickness is done.”

“And it can’t be lifted early.”

“No.”

Trixie shook her head. “I don’t know about trapping all of Ponyville inside a fishbowl until whatever point the spell decides that the sickness is over. Unless this magic lets ponies leave to gather food, and I’m sure it doesn’t, the town would starve if the magic decided that the sickness was still around.” She tapped her hoof on the floor. “Last resort.”

“As it was meant to be,” Elena nodded. “Yet we must have some solution to the problem of being forced to defend two points at once that are separated by thick and hostile wilderness. If not rendering the one invulnerable to attack, what?”

“Drop it on the castle,” de Luc said. “Get all the thestrals out, string up some tents and shelter for them, then lock down the castle. No one cares about getting into there ‘cept the atermors and we don’t want them in, and if there’s no one inside there’s no one who’ll want to be getting out.”

“The Quarantine Flag protects the living, not physical places,” Ersari said. “It would not shield an empty ruin, for there would be no one inside to keep well. It also cannot halt those that tunnel in the earth, and so the atermors could simply go beneath the castle if they realized their goal is there. And before you ask, the Flag must fly above the ground, for it is meant as a visible warning of danger as much as a barrier against sickness and those associated with sickness.”

“This magical weapon of yours sounds awful limited,” Major du Luc said. “And pretty specific.”

“It’s meant to be a weapon against a very specific foe, in very specific circumstances, and is extremely powerful,” Ersari said.

“When you make a magical weapon, you have three essential dimensions,” Leonid said. “Duration, flexibility, and power. To increase one, two must be sacrificed a little; to increase two, one must be sacrificed to a very great degree. The Flag can last nearly forever and is enormously powerful; its flexibility, therefore, is very limited. It is the same with your Elements of Harmony: they are extremely powerful, their effects can last a thousand years, they require very specific circumstances to be used, and the solutions that can be reached with them are inflexible and, on the scale of a thousand years, short-sighted.”

Cadence looked strangely at him. “That’s… oddly complete information from just reading about the times the Elements have been used.”

“Complete understanding of the artifact is key to replicating the artifact,” Leonid said. “Although there’s no way…” He paused, thinking visibly, then continued, “no way that wouldn’t offend the Reaper to duplicate the semi-autonomous nature of the constituent Elements so it would have to be a unitary artifact.” Another pause. “Kestra, I believe I…”

“Ready, sir.” Kestra had produced a pad of paper and a pencil a split-second ahead of Leonid saying her name and gave him a solicitous smile.

“Please, Leonid, this is emphatically not the time,” Forheest said. “The capabilities of the Elements have nothing to do with our situation because none of them are here.”

“My apologies, Forheest.” He nodded to Kestra, who put the writing materials away.

“So the Quarantine Flag is the last resort,” Trixie said. “What’s the first resort?”

“Fight until Princess Celestia wakes up,” Shining Armor said. “Even if she doesn’t deter them by merely existing, I’m sure she can destroy their hoards faster than they can possibly make more, and then start making ash piles of them. She did it with the ones in the town square just by looking at them.”

“I wish that was a realistic option, love,” Cadence sighed. “What I was forced to do to stop her could well have done very grave harm, despite Redheart’s optimism. If she wakes up, I can’t be sure she’ll be in any state to help.”

“That isn’t the problem though, is it Princess?”

Cadence looked at Major de Luc and shook her head. “You’re right, her state of health isn’t the problem. I’m afraid she’ll be far more concerned with being betrayed by her niece than slaughtering atermors and their constructs.”

Trixie swallowed. “So she’ll go back to…”

“No.” Cadence shook her head. “Not even in her blind rage would my aunt direct the flames of her wrath in the direction of a building full of her subjects. She was barely aware of anything but her foe before; things will be different this time. But the bottom line is, we cannot plan around my aunt being awake, being able, and being willing, not after what happened the last time.”

“So what do we do?” Trixie said with a frustrated huff. “We can’t resort to the last resort first, we can’t hope for Princess Celestia to save the day, all the truly powerful ponies--except you Princess Cadence--are off doing things too far away to get them back, we have no idea what the state of anywhere else in Equestria is, and we have all these soldiers sitting about and Twilight Sparkle put a showmare in charge.”

“She could not have known what you would face,” Cadence said gently, extending a wing and resting it on Trixie’s back. “And yet, she was sure that you would prevail. You are, after all, the Great and Powerful Trixie.”

Trixie gave the princess a weak chuckle. “Overblown titles are… kind of required when you’re putting on a show.” She sighed and looked down at the table, then over to Colonel Kipper. “Adjutant Sadow said that with your artillery reserve, driving you back would be nearly impossible.”

“That is true, Miss Lulamoon.”

“But you need time, I suppose.”

“That depends, Miss Lulamoon.” Kipper looked to Market. “Will you stand with us, General?”

“Of course!” Market beamed. “It’s why Thryssa told me to come here with First Tantalus. And my Black Mambo, of course.”

“We don’t need more than a few minutes, Miss Lulamoon,” Kipper reported. “Maestro, General, Majors, if you please?”

“Of course, Colonel,” Leonid said, nodding to Kestra as he turned to follow the other gremlin out. “Incidentally, did your artillery captain remember to pack the barrels in the 33-66 ratio?”

Colonel Kipper’s response was lost as they disappeared out the door with General Market clanking cheerfully after them. Major de Luc paused at the door and looked back at Trixie. “That filly you mentioned mistaking me for… does she live here?”

Trixie blinked at the odd question. “Um, yes, yes she does.”

“Good.” de Luc turned and stepped out of the library. “The fight is so much better when you have something--or someone--to fight for.”

Trixie stared after her for several seconds before turning back to the table. “Alright then.” She looked to the Bloodwynd siblings. “Can you take care of the castle with the help of Keen and her colony?”

“So long as the Adjutant is with us,” Ersari said. “She has quite the gift with plants, especially hostile ones.”

“So that’s why Colonel Kipper was annoyed with you,” Cadence said, looking at Sadow.

“He was right to be irritated,” Sadow said. “But at that time, I hadn’t learned about the flora of your world and especially the flora near this Everfree. It’s been centuries since I’ve had weapons like these to work with. The deep vines alone could break entire armies.”

Trixie exchanged a confused look with Cadence. “The deep vines?”

“Step outside,” Sadow said, striding towards the door, “I will show you.”

Trixie blinked and then followed the vulpine out, flanked by the rest of their little group. Sadow stood near a patch of open ground with her hand extended above it, her fingers moving about in tiny, precise motions as if tugging at invisible strings, her lips thinned by concentration. There was an aura of power about the kitsune that seemed to still the air around her, making things somehow softer and quieter. The stillness struck Trixie as being oddly familiar and in the time that the thought occurred to her, the silence suffusing the air around them was shattered by the sound of a door being shut behind them and the faint shadows of a setting sun became black and distinct from the brilliant light radiating from what Trixie was sure could only be one pony.

“Lord and Lady Bloodwynd, Adjutant Sadow, We would ask thee to leave us be with Our niece and her companions.” The enraged Celestia’s voice had been the roar of an inferno and made Trixie cringe; the quiet, calm gentleness of her now made Trixie shiver.

“Your Highness, we…”

“Please,” Celestia said, her quiet calm touched with the slightest hint of sadness.

“Your Majesty,” Ersari and Elena said, and somehow, Trixie could tell they’d disappeared.

“Your Majesty,” Forheest bowed and vanished as well.

Trixie could feel rather than see Celestia walk slowly beside her and then, she was before them. Although her coat glowed a blinding white, looking at her wasn’t uncomfortable. Her mane was still the beautiful pastel, flowing and flickering as if it were flame but not with the guttural fierceness of a raging fire, and from horn to hoof, she was clad in golden armor that seemed to mold itself to her rather than be worn. As when enraged, her eyes were pupiless and white, but amethyst smoke now flowed from the corners of her eyes with the steadiness of candle flames.

She and Cadence looked at one another for several moments before Cadence swallowed. “Auntie I…”

Celestia held up a quelling hoof and continued to look at her for several moments before the solar diarch look in a breath and let it out. “I was angry with you,” she said softly, the touch of sadness now more audible. “Angry at being deceived. Angry that the niece I love and brought into my home and raised like a daughter was pretending the entire time. Angry that the changelings would so blatantly breach the exile, and slip a spy into my home.”

“Aunt Tia…”

“Please, let me speak.” Celestia took another deep breath. “I had time to consider a great many things within my own mind while I was still in a state of shock from the light touch of induction you used to snap me out of my enraged state.” She paused and looked at Cadence with visible gratitude. “Thank you.”

“You’re… you’re welcome, Auntie.”

The blinding glow of her coat faded and the gold armor melted away into motes of sunlight, and Celestia’s amethyst irises once again looked gently out from her eyes. “You still call me that, even now.”

“I don’t know what else to call you,” Cadence said. “‘Auntie’ is the only name I’ve ever had for you. It’s the only thing I’ve ever called you, the only way I know how to address you. I’ve called you ‘Auntie’ since I could speak. I don’t know how to not call you ‘Auntie’.”

Celestia smiled a little before her expression became somewhat bleak again. “I was angry at you, but I gradually realized that I was being angry so I wouldn’t have to be ashamed.”

“Of…?”

“Not of you.” Celestia hung her head. “Of myself.”

The silence brought on by Celestia’s words stretched out nearly a full minute before the door opened again and Spike emerged, carrying a paring knife in one hand and balancing a plate of apple slices arrayed around a caramel dip on the other. “Hey Trixie, Cady, I made some apple…” He stopped as he saw Celestia standing there looking sad. “Hi Princess,” he said. “Feeling better?”

“I’m not comatose anymore,” Celestia said, “but I had a lot of time to think and my thoughts have not made me feel better.”

Spike considered this. “Would you like to come inside? I made some apple slices and dip.”

Celestia smiled at him. “Yes, that would be wonderful.” She looked at Cadence, Shining Armor, and Trixie in turn. “I feel… we should talk. Just the four of us and yes, that includes you Trixie.”

“Are you sure, Your Majesty?” Trixie asked tentatively. “This sounds like a… family problem.”

“Of course I’m sure, Trixie.” Celestia patted Trixie’s shoulder with a hoof. “I can’t confess to every one of my little ponies immediately, but every journey starts with a first step and you will be mine.”

“Confess?”

“Letting myself surrender to despair and become Nightmare Flare, and letting myself surrender to my pain and rage and endanger my subjects, are hardly the first time I’ve made mistakes, and they are nowhere near the last.” Celestia sighed. “Sending the changelings away was one of my mistakes, and it’s time that I admitted it aloud.”

“Auntie, before you begin this confession, or apology, or whatever you want to do, I think there’s something I need to say,” Cadence said as they all settled into the comfortable cushions Spike had arranged for them around the table.

“What is it, Cadence?” Celestia paused. “Unless you prefer a different…”?

“As far as I’m concerned, my birth name and given name are are equally correct,” Cadence said with a smile. “My birth name is Chidinida, but I have always been your Cadence, and always will be your Cadence, and I would… greatly like it if you called me by that name.” She took a breath and leaned across the table so she was looking directly into Celestia’s eyes. “Aunt Celestia, whatever you did a thousand years ago, whatever injuries you might have inflicted, whatever hurts came from it, the one thing my birth mother would want you to know is this: we do not hate you.”

Celestia looked back at Cadence, looking suddenly uncertain. “You… don’t?”

Cadence smiled and shook her head, returning to reclining beside the table. “Hating you personally has been a hatchet buried for centuries, especially when it became clear that the exile wasn’t meant to be enforced in any way.”

Celestia looked a little rueful. “I did mean for it to be somewhat more… vigorously but Luna at first contravened any attempt I made on her own authority, and then the affair of Nightmare Moon happened, and then… I suppose my heart just wasn’t in it.”

Cadence grinned. “The way Tetti tells it, we could sort of tell when a changeling on vacation walked all the way into your throne room in mixed company and no one paid any attention.”

Celestia blinked. “Really?”

Cadence shrugged. “Young and dumb changelings are just as dumb when they’re young as any other pony. And by the time it was done, there was only one living pony who knew what changelings look like from direct personal experience. The other ponies seemed to think it was a talented unicorn illusionist looking to create a ruckus.”

“And… how long ago was this?”

“About nine hundred years ago.”

Celestia eyed her and then sighed. “So in effect, a thousand-year exile lasted less than one hundred.” She smiled a little. “I can’t be too disappointed by that, I suppose. At least you were polite enough to maintain the fiction.”

“It wasn’t quite a fiction, but the person to explain that would have to be my birth mother.” Cadence leaned over to quickly kiss Shining’s cheek. “Ultimately, I’m not the one who made the plan, or am really executing the plan, or was even aware of the plan prior to a year ago. My role is to be the hook, the reason for you to listen to my birth mother when she speaks of tearing down the barriers between changelings and the other pony races. Beyond that role, I’m just a princess head over heels for a handsome Captain of the Royal Guard, and the adopted niece of a very warm and motherly ruler.”

Celestia smiled warmly to her, looking slightly off to the side at Shining. “You aren’t surprised by any of this.”

“It’s a funny story but… yeah, known for months.”

“And you said nothing.”

“She wasn’t a danger to you, the ponies of Equestria, any of the nobility, or Equestria as a whole,” Shining said, “and my fiance asked me to let her pick the time and place to tell you.”

“And of course you were happy to do it for her,” Celestia sighed. “A thousand years later, even with a memory like mine, I can’t imagine I must have been thinking to believe that permanent separation was the best solution. I remember that Amaryss told me I was being foolish and would regret it; Luna said the same thing, in a different way. I brushed both of them aside and now…” She glanced sadly in the rough direction where the changelings had arrived from. “They were both right, and I was wrong.”

“Your Majesty, I don’t understand,” Trixie said. “Are you saying that these ponies who came and helped us were… exiled? Why? And who’s Amaryss?”

“To my shame, Trixie, that is exactly what I’m saying,” Celestia said. “The why isn’t really important; with how earnestly my daughter and her companions work to create friendship and understanding in Equestria, the reasons for the exile would sound truly pathetic. I thought it was the right thing to do at the time; looking back, I can’t imagine how I could have ever believed that.”

“And… Amaryss?”

“Amaryss was the queen of the changelings a thousand years ago,” Celestia said. “Almost cripplingly shy in public, but a resolute ruler behind closed doors and in person. Her shyness led her to have her younger sister Malyss act as her proxy in public and in larger conferences that involved more ponies than the smaller council of her sister-queens.”

“There was more than one queen?” This time the question came from Cadence.

Celestia looked oddly at her. “You don’t know?”

“My visits home tend to involve 10 parts hugging to one part history,” Cadence said wryly. “Mother works hard to make up for lost time, or at least what she sees as lost time.”

Celestia smiled a little at this. “Yes, there were more than one queen. Seven total, in fact: the mother-queen and the six sister-queens. As I remember, the sister-queens represented the six houses of changeling nobility: Sylvi, Aquin, Ard, Closs…”

“..Dune and Luc,” Cadence finished. “I know the last two, never heard of the first four.”

“Something I shall have to ask your mother about.” Celestia took a moment to eat one of the slices of apple Spike had laid out. “As I was saying, Amaryss had severe social anxiety and used her younger sister as her proxy. One thing she was never aware of, blinded by her adoration for her little sister, was that Malyss was a… supremacist. I wouldn’t go as far as to call her a racist--her venom was focused on anyone not changeling, not specifically on other races--but she was a hateful creature with the added menace of being both extremely charismatic and extremely intelligent.”

“Malyss created hatred, suspicion, and eventually violence between changelings and the other races,” Cadence said quietly. “Something had to be done, and your decision was just, even if you regret it.”

“I know you mean well, Cadence, but there was no justice in rooting out a malign influence by punishing an entire race.” Celestia looked down at a second slice of apple. “And there was great injustice in rewarding Amaryss’ earnest attempts to uproot what Malyss had done, bringing her own beloved sister to me in chains even, by exiling her people. I did not fully realize the utter depth of my folly until I reflected upon it some time later.”

“Your folly in sending Equestria’s defenders away?”

“My folly in how I dealt with Amaryss,” Celestia nibbled the apple slice a moment. “She was a resolute ruler but far more than that, she was the mother-queen of the changelings, I and Luna’s peer in terms of raw magical prowess, and unlike either of us is by far the most lethal against a single foe. It was not my intention but I took a heartbroken pony who had come to her princess with proof of her selfless intention to make things right trailing her in chains, and I kicked her in the face. A lesser pony with the frighteningly lethal abilities of Amaryss would have killed me on the spot; I’m both fortunate and unfortunate that Amaryss was a great pony.”

“Unfortunate how, Aunt Tia?”

“A limited pony with limited insight would have killed me and been done,” Celestia said. “But wiser and greater ponies realize that there are worse things than death. After staring at me for several minutes, Amaryss told me that she would be obedient to my command because there would be a day when I would be desperate for the aid of her people and when that happened, my grief would be as ashes in my mouth and I would know that the wrong I had done the changelings had come full circle to wrong me in turn.” The princess smiled a little wistfully. “Amaryss was prone to being extremely dramatic but she was also exactly right.”

“Well, the changelings are here for you now, Aunt Tia,” Cadence smiled to her. “I can’t say that everything’s perfect but…”

“...it’s been too long since Equestia has had its sword and shield. I should have called you home after the first century, after no one was alive who’d ever met a changeling, and the prejudices would have gone to the grave with Malyss’ generation.”

“And that is why not everything is perfect.” Cadence’s smile became a little sad. “You never even looked. There is... a great deal of bitterness about that, even among my sisters who are fully supportive of Mother’s plans for a future with Equestria. For the common changeling, part of the story of the exile is that not only did the glorious and motherly Princess of the Sun cast them out, she didn’t care if they lived or died. Add to that our general veneration of Amaryss as a great queen, the queen of the Exile, the one that led and sheltered her people across a vast waste until they found a new home, and… well, we all have a long road to trot after this is all over.”

“Hey, speaking of this, is it just me or is it kind of quiet?” Spike said.

Everyone around the table paused and listened. “You’re right,” Shining said, rising from where he’d been lounging against his fiance. “I thought we were racing the clock to get ready for an attack but I don’t hear preparations, and I don’t hear any attack.”

“Maybe we have much more time than we thought?” Trixie suggested hopefully.

“Maybe you’re right,” Shining said as he trotted up the steps towards the second level of the library, disappearing into the small room Twilight used. A moment later, he was at the railing and looking down at them. “I see entrenchments but no sign of their artillery.”

“They haven’t indicated to me that it’s organized and ready to be brought by teleport,” Cadence said, “So I’m not surprised it hasn’t arrived yet.”

“Strange that they’d leave us to prepare,” Princess Celestia said pensively. “I’m not my field general sister with her innate grasp of tactics, but I know enough to know that once you have a oe by the throat, you squeeze until you must stop. Did any of our visitors indicate why they gave us this respite?”

“Forheest Sadow--the one that looks like a fox--said that they were surprised by the arrival of General Market in his airship with changeling soldiers, and pulled back to decide what to do,” Trixies said.

“General Market. General Sugary Market?”

“Yes.” Cadence looked curiously at her. “Do you know him?”

“Interviewed him once, when he arrived in Equestria. Exceedingly pleasant pony, part of a mercenary company called ‘Tantalus’ I’d never heard of, seemed more bent on exploring in that airship of his than anything else. It doesn’t surprise me that his meandering would take him across the Barrens and into the hooves of the changelings.” She smirked a little. “And now he’s a general; that must be quite the story. To the subject at hand, I awoke an hour ago and the changelings were already here, so they’re being remarkably generous with the time they’re giving us to prepare.”

“An hour is ‘remarkably generous’?” Trixie said.

“In military terms? When they can simply whistle up as many soldiers as they have materials and magic to spend?” Shining’s pensive look mirrored Celestia’s. “Absurdly so.”

“If the fox lady is right about the gremlins being nearly impossible to beat when they’re dug in with their artillery, the atermors could know it and be circling to look for a weakness,” Spike said.

“I am right.” The entire table looked up towards the landing that Shining had just left and found Sadow leaning on the bannister and looking down at them with a grim expression. “And was right about one other thing, but wrong as well. I am right about the gremlins being nearly impossible to dislodge when emplaced with artillery, and I was right about the atermors being fixated on a single target. I was wrong, however, about what target they were fixated on.”

Trixie swallowed. “The castle in the Everfree?”

“No.” The table looked to Celestia, who seemed slightly more pale than she had been a moment before. “What’s underneath the castle.”

“And what’s that, Your Highness?”

“The Tree of Harmony.” Celestia said. “They mean to destroy the Elements.”

Author's Note

I know, it's been forever since I posted a chapter, and I'm really sorry. But life happens. Work, familial obligations, going back to school, health issues... all kinds of things happen in life. But here you go, the next bit on this journey. As always, constructive criticism is both welcome and desired and I hope you all enjoy this chapter.

Twilight: Fair Wind

Author's Note

It's been a long wait, I know. Terribly sorry, life gets in the way of a lot of fun things these days. I hope it was worth the wait and as always, feedback and critique are appreciated. :)

Twilight: Fair Wind

The entire time she’d been spending with Nightmare, the rest of the girls had been searching the city of Scarabi for the errant pink party pony. Normally, following the happy chaos that radiated from Pinkie like a strobe light was fairly simple but Scarabi was at least as immense a city as Manehattan sans the towering buildings. On top of that, it was a city that seemed to overflow with just the kinds of places that Pinkie would go: shops with party favors, bakeries, confectioners, small parks nestled into intersections with playgrounds, and bright colorful decorations at every square, defiantly cheerful against the glossy black of the stone the city had been built from. The search was delayed for a short time when she ran into a wall of changelings all gathered around a central point that Twilight was sure must be Pinkie.

“What’s going on?” She asked one of the nearest chitinous ponies.

“Cookies,” the changeling replied without looking at her.

“...cookies?”

“Yes.” The changeling smiled. “Warm, soft, perfect ratio of chocolate to cookie, and baked with love.”

“Pink pony with darker pink mane, three-balloon cutie mark?”

The changeling finally looked at her, looking a little confused. “Yellow with pink and blue mane, sunburst cutie mark.”

Twilight blinked. “Pony?”

“I think so.” She looked towards the center of the gathering. “I’ve never met a changeling that can bake love into cookies, and certainly none that would call themselves ‘the cookie goddess.’”

“The cookie goddess.”

“I know, right?” The changeling shrugged. “Honestly, who cares if she’s a little addled? She seems to have an unlimited supply of cookies and they’re amazing, so I’m fine with a certain amount of delusion. Also, the kimono and little parasol are silly and cute, and it’s worth sticking around to see what happens next.”

Twilight considered this. “Understandable. Is there a quick way around the gathering? I’m looking for my friend, the pony I described.”

“Certainly. Just take the left street on this corner, go down three blocks, and cut back a block and you should be back on the path you were traveling.”

Twilight smiled at her. “Thank you.”

“Always glad to help a princess, Your Majesty,” she said as she turned her attention back to the gathering and Twilight backtracked to follow her directions around the mass and continue on with her search.

She caught up with her sister and friends about the same time that they discovered that Pinkie had bounced into an apothecary shop, one that seemed to be more full of fragrant enervating smoke than air. After a minute or two of trying to steel themselves to enter the smoky building, Twilight just built a bubble around herself to keep normal air in and ducked inside.
The interior seemed to have no lights at all, and no fixtures to provide any, but what it did have and in great abundance was jars. They filled the shelves, occupied all the counters, and were even hanging in well-secured bundles from the ceiling, each labeled in tiny and very precise-looking script of no less than a dozen lines. The only exception to the superabundance of glass jars was a large metal cylinder with slits cut into its upper half billowing smoke in a lazy stream and it was under the cylinder that Twilight found Pinkie, standing placidly and swaying gently, shifting her weight from one hoof to the other in what appeared to be a counterclockwise pattern with her straight mane moving gently in sync.

“You don’t need the shield, Twilight,” Pinkamena said, her voice somehow even more calm and peaceful than it normally was when she was being the calm side of Laughter. “It’s not smoke, it’s more like vapor. Extremely soothing, like all the scents and luxuries at the spa Rarity likes.”

Twilight looked warily at her. “Are you sure?”

“Cross my heart and hope to fly, stick a cupcake in my eye.”

She let the bubble blink out and the smoke rushed in around her to fill the pristine space. It felt pleasantly cool against her coat and like Pinkamena had said, it was vaporous instead of smoky and breathing it felt no different than breathing ordinary air. It felt soothing and pleasant, and Twilight found herself smiling as she scooted in closer to stand nearer to the source. “I wonder what kind of magic it is,” she said.

“Magitechnical.” The vapor and darkness inside the shop had effectively masked the approach of the changeling until he was virtually right next to Twilight, and she got the impression of an extremely unkempt mane done into all kinds of braids and knotwork before he stopped entirely and there was no more movement for her eye to catch. “A combination of thaturmargy and alchemy, the traditional practice of herbalism, and the sciences of botany and organic chemistry. Vaporized antidepressants diluted nearly to the point of placebo and then alchemically blended with certain reagents to provide an extremely mild and gradual adjustment of brain chemistry to enhance healthy mood and emotional state.”

Twilight turned from the dispenser and lit her horn, giving the disheveled-looking changeling a level look. “And you just have a dispenser running constantly and filling your shop with vaporized medicine?”

“That is where the thaturmagy comes in. The medical essentia is blended according to the degree of positive and negative emotional radiance and dispersed as required.” He smiled placidly at her look. “The reagents adjust mood by harmless associative olfactory and tactile methods most of the time and that, not the medical essentia, is what the vapor is unless the dispenser encounters an imbalance that needs treatment. One of my proudest achievements, which is why I keep it out in the shop constantly running.”

“Cool,” Pinkie said. “It’d look way cooler with some spotlights or something, though.”

“Some of the rarer and expensive ingredients I work with are denatured by sunlight,” he said. “Although there’s no indication that any other kind of light would have the same effect, better safe than sorry. I use a sight aid so I can work comfortably without turning the lights on.”

“Interesting.” Twilight looked to Pinkie. “We’re ready to go, Pinkie. Nice to meet you, Mister…?”

“Green Leaf, and it’s a pleasure to meet yourself and Miss Pie. If you’ll wait, however, I have some pharmaceutical supplies prepared for you.”

Twilight blinked. “You knew we were coming?”

“Princess Lepinora instructed me to prepare all of my most advanced alchemical aids yesterday and have it packed in a reinforced carrying case by what I would assume is your departure time.” He disappeared through the vague outline of a doorway, only visible because it was blacker than darkness, then returned carrying a sturdy riveted lockbox by its handle between his jaws. “I would have had it delivered but since the Element of Laughter came through my door, I can give the aids to you directly.”

Twilight looked at the case. “May I ask what aids?”

“Everything is clearly labeled and instructions as to usage and dosage are included.” He used his hoof to operate the latch and pulled it open, revealing a half dozen rows of stoppered black vials with many colors of lids and with neatly-inscribed labels wrapped around them. “The standard array of regeneratives and coagulants, smelling salts, purgatives, broad-spectrum antitoxins, and a few doses of some highly specialized formulas, one of which is my own invention, the other a multidisciplinary creation called ‘alchemical suspended animation’ which will be out of clinical trials in another six months or so, but which I happened to work on and thus have samples of.”

“In Equestria?”

“Trotsford, specifically.”

Twilight smiled a little as she latched the box and took it into her magic. “How seriously do the changelings take the exile? You’re the second one I’ve met who casually mentions living and working in Equestria.”

“Quite simply, we maintain the fiction of compliance while viewing the exile in the way that we choose: as a bone thrown to fearful ponies that Celestia meant from the start to be so porous as to barely exist at all. Armed with this highly convenient interpretation, we travel freely and often to Equestria while playing at upholding the Exile.” His placid expression become mildly sad as he started towards the door flanked by the two of them. “Although it’s difficult to ignore the fact that not only did Princess Celestia wish some of her little ponies cast out of the beautiful and abundant lands of their ancestors, she has never once sought to see if they still live. Though we have much hope for our queen’s plans, we still fear that either we will return to the embrace of the Dual Thrones and Queen Chrysalis will be just another servant, or that Celestia purposefully put us from her mind because she hoped never to see us again.”

“Like I told all the changelings at the dinner last night, Mother won’t make Queen Chrysalis her servant,” Twilight said, pausing to let her eyes adjust as the darkness of Green Leaf’s shop gave way to the brilliant desert sun. “And I can’t imagine my mother wanting to forget you completely. She’s not like that.”

“I know, I’ve seen her.” Green Leaf smiled. “The fear is completely without cause, I know. It’s just… we’re anxious. Being separated from other ponies is unnatural and painful; we were meant to mingle with the rest of you, being friends, family, lovers, colleagues, and fellow subjects of the Dual Thrones. There’s no way to get that back, but we can at least petition Celestia to let us go about openly in Equestria.”

“You don’t think that coming back will make you fellow subjects of Princesses Celestia and Luna?” Pinkamena looked intently at him. “If you live in Equestria, won’t you be…?”

“Immigrants.” He sighed. “Duchess de Luc acts the pompous windbag but understands to her core the true facts of the situation: the homeland of the changelings is the Barrens, and the capital city of the changelings is Scarabi. Learning to love Celestia again will be a challenge, at least as much of one as the other races learning to accept ponies that look the way we do, and she will forever be one of the warmly-regarded rulers of our former homeland instead of the royal that we bow to and serve.”

“An’ what’s all this ‘bout Princess Celestia?” Applejack said, doffing her hat politely as Green Leaf emerged with them. “Howdy, by the way.”

“Howdy,” he said, his voice instantly acquiring a faint echo of Applejack’s drawl. “Green Leaf, right pleasure ta meet ya Applejack. The conversation I was having with Princess Sparkle about her mother was…”

“Something I’ll tell you girls about after we’re underway,” Twilight cut in. “It was nice to meet you, Mister Green Leaf, and we appreciate the medicines.”

“It you intend to be formal enough to call me ‘mister’ it would be more appropriate to call me ‘doctor’.” He gave her a faint smirk before directing a bow to all four of them. “A pleasure to meet you as well Princess Sparkle, Princess Dawn, Miss Applejack, Miss Rarity, Miss Pinkamena. But I’m sure you need to be on your way. Make sure to read the labels carefully, especially with the pharmaceuticals sealed by violet and black lids.”

The Red Mambo had been visibly refitted since they’d been picked up by it at the crash site in the desert. The booms had been brought in closer to the hull and the propellers now fully enclosed in cylinders with armor plates riveted to them. The cannons protruding from the firing ports had armored mantlets wrapped around them, closing up the space around them. The prow had a wicked-looking ram protruding half again the ship’s length and the previously wooden deck had been plated over with waffle patterns cut into them to make them very easy to walk on.

“Is this the same ship we rode in on yesterday?” Dawn tapped at one of the armored railings with a hoof. “Because that was pretty bucking fast.”

“Ally called for all hooves on deck the moment she arrived and the passengers left,” Maredusa said, turning a page in a book she was reading without turning to them. The gorgon had been waiting when they arrived, lounging on her own coils on the bow while the changeling crew milled around her without taking any apparent notice of her. “They declined invitations to the royal dinner to make sure the Red Mambo was outfitted to keep you all safe. So the royal family came out to them in person and sserved them dinner as thanks.” She looked over her shoulder at Twilight and Dawn. “A lesson for any royal: there is no more loyal and zealous subjects than those that know you care about them and will make sspontaneous gestures of kindness like serving you dinner with their own hooves as thanks for even the smallest sacrifice.”

“I take it ‘Ally’ is the shipwright?”

“And foundry master, and master blacksmith, and credentialed engineer with minor in metallurgy,” Maredusa said. “Sspent almost all of his life in Sstalliongrad with an earth pony wife where he used the name ‘Alyosha’ although his proper name is ‘Cartwright.’ She passed away and he came home, leaving two adult daughters at university whom he visits and iss visited by often.”

“His wife didn’t pop out any bug daughters for him, huh?”

Maredusa gave Dawn a disapproving look over her shoulder before returning to looking at her book. “Neither are changelings, no. Very disappointing to him personally but he got over it quickly and has a literal wall of his home filled with every picture of them that exists. Creepy, but also endearing.”

“Do they know?”

“Of course they do, the moment they were old enough to recognize the implications of allowing their changeling lineage to be known.” Maredusa turned a page. “That’ll be ending soon. It should have ended nine hundred years ago but Amaryss’ heir was not ready, and Celestia was not yet suffering profoundly enough to make her a kinder pony, a gentler pony, a pony that was better. Nor was the next heir, nor Celsstia ready, nor the next, nor the next, and sso on for all this time. But the year that Chidinida came into the fulness of her power, Celestia bore a foal and discovered the most powerful and profound love in existence, and all wass ready.”

“Y’all about ta actually tell us ‘bout this plan o’ the queen’s that everyone’s been droppin’ hints about since we got picked up?”

Maredusa didn’t answer for a moment, turning another page of her book with thoughtful slowness, before she closed it and unwound herself so she could face them fully, folding the middle of the coils in front of her so she could lean on them and support her chin on her hooves, her eyes now roughly at Applejack’s eye level. “Pomp and ceremony iss fun in due time but you’re right, Applejack: the time is now. Gather ‘round the sserpent, little ponies for your bedtime sstory.”

“It’s the middle of the day.”

“Don’t make me sstart thinking of how good you’d look in granite, Dawn.” But the gorgon’s eyes twinkled a little. “You understand the basic principle: Chidinida guise-locked as an alicorn filly, Honor Guard pose as her birth parents, other changelings pose as her foster parents that die tragically in a house fire, Celestia adopts the ssweet-natured little thing as her niece because court politics prevent her from making Cadence her adoptive daughter.”

“I’d always wondered why Mother did that,” Twilight said.

Maredusa shrugged. “Nobles don’t like getting their hooves sstepped on, and the only ruler they’d ever known adopting a convenient orphan alicorn filly as her heir would have caused chaos because passing a throne through a bloodline is always very dangerous.”

“A monarchy veering uncontrollably between good monarchs, inept ones, and monstrous ones,” Twilight nodded. “Worse because as far as I know, alicorns are immortal so a monster could last for millennia.”

“Greed, pompousness, and condescension aside, most nobles are educated enough to appreciate the lessons of history,” Maredusa shifted herself so she was once again lounging comfortably on her coils. “So Celestia adopted Chidinida as her niece Cadence and brought her into her court as the only family of the princess that any pony in Equestria knew of. Queen Chrysalis predicted all of this and built her plan on it, creating a chain of ancient and powerful tradition that would one day bind the Dual Thrones to the Hive Throne, and the House of the Sun and Moon to the House of Amaryss.”

“So the Queen wanted to hitch her kid to another noble kid,” Dawn said. “And then pop the surprise on everyone after the deed was done.”

“That was the initial intention: any noble would do and plans were made concerning each marriageable scion, including Blue Blood.” She looked to Twilight. “Your little ssurge changed that.”

“How?”

“It was obvious to the changelings’ sspies in the court that you were not just a noble, but a royal. They guessed wrong about your mother--your disposition, coloration, intellect, and other things led them to believe you were Luna’s--but you were a royal, which meant that your brother wass close enough to be seen as the son of one of the Ssisters. It was perfect on many levels, the most important of which wass that Shining Armor would not be a political husband to Chidinida, but the love of her life, and she of hiss.”

“Political marriages are quite common in the nobility, Maredusa,” Rarity offered.

“A political marriage would have been insufficient to the needs of Chrysalis’ plan,” Maredusa said. “The bond needed to be impervious, ssomething only possible with genuine love. Their union would have to be a political hoofball for a time; any fracture would be fatal to all that Chrysalis hoped. And when the dust ssettles from this latest conflict, the marriage will be done, lavish gifts will flow, Pinkamena will have to be rolled out of the throne room from eating a wedding cake whole…”

“Naw, that’d take two wedding cakes.”

“...two wedding cakes whole,” Maredusa amended without hesitation, “everyone will be crying from joy, and then Equestria will once again have the proper number of pony races.” She sighed wistfully. “I can once again quarry soapstone from the beaches near Baltimare and have materials appropriate to my talent. Maybe with ssome work from a certain fashion mare, I can model again.”

“You were a model?” Rarity’s eyes brightened.

“You actually lived in Equestria?” Dawn asked before Maredusa could answer the fashionista.

The gorgon gave her a faintly offended look. “Of course I lived in Equestria,” she said. “Do not zebrass live there? Do not dragoness and griffons visit often? Are there not yaks, buffalo, hydras, manticores, and all other kinds of unimaginable things there? I fit right in, with hooves and a sslim equine carriage and exotic features of both body and sspeech. Ponies made statues of me and others of my kind. Painted paintings, and yes Miss Rarity, dressed me in exquisite things to advertise how flattering and alluring they were. Were it not for that empty-headed tail-lifter that allured me and then left me broken-hearted as sshe spread vicious and implausible lies, I would be there sstill.”

“There were others of your kind?”

“Likely sstill are.” Maredusa shrugged. “Being absurdly and irrationally ssolidary comes with the ssnake body and petrification. I’m ssomething of a freak, comfortable in crowds, cosmopolitan, quite proudly fixated on art. And I make sstone into art, not ponies.”

“And that dear Mara Belle is a true mare of society.”

“Yes, my daughter moves easily in those circles.” Maredusa smiled. “I don’t know how it is managed and don’t care. She’s happy and well-loved, at least according to the changelings, sso the details ssimply do not matter.”

“She has wonderfully delicate features,” Rarity smiled. “I’m sure they make her so popular that high society has decided that mentioning the coils is… impolite.”

Maredusa snorted. “I can almost believe that,” she said. “Now, if I may shift the subject sslightly, have any of you ever been among the dragons?”

“We observed a migration of them with my assistant, Spike,” Twilight offered.

“I don’t mean watching a few of their young bumble around on some yearly ritual, Princess Ssparkle,” Maredusa said. “I mean, have you ever been truly among them?”

“I’ve…”

“...studied some books and think you have a grasp on what’s going on,” Dawn finished.

Twilight gave her a short glare, her cheeks warming as she looked sheepishly at Maredusa. “What my sister said.”

“Then I will instruct you,” Maredusa said. “I had to learn the hard way about their culture. It was only after I turned a few to sstone--don’t look at me like that, I reversed it after I’d made my point--that I learned: you are only as much of a persson among dragons as you are sstrong. The sstrongest are the most respected and treated politely; the weakest barely exist to dragons, are ssometimess barely acknowledged as dragons at all.”

“Sorta explains how th’ bullies pushed Spike around.”

“I assume this dragon assistant of yours is ssmall, intelligent, and polite?” Maredusa waited for a confirming nod. “Then Lady Applejack is correct. However clever he is, and I imagine you’ve taught him well, he would be a non-person to dragons and thus perfectly acceptable to mistreat, even more so than if hiss personhood was respected.”

“Well, he’s still sorta small,” Applejack said. “Still, we ain’t that much bigger than ‘im. How’re we supposed ta get seen as people?”

“Do as Thalia did: pick fights early and often. After sshe put hoof to head a few times, she gained very high rank in the minds of dragons. She is able to represent her sister as ambassador because sshe displayed such strength that she has the right to demand the king’s ear and be listened to.”

“Might sorta be a problem,” Dawn said. “Twi here can do world-ending magic tricks, the Pinkster is impossible, and Applejack has a bone-breaking double-hoof buck, but I ain’t got nothing and whether she’s wearing the Jade or Rarity mask, our dressmaker isn’t gonna put hoof to head.”

“That iss one of the many reasons I was asked to accompany you,” Maredusa said. “You will be introduced among the dragons under my aegis, meaning that to mistreat you would be considered a challenge to my own standing, at which point I would have a right and duty to chastise the offender in proportion to their offense. You will also remain under Thalia’s aegis for the whole of your visit, which will deter any… missunderstanding.”

Twilight looked between her sister and Rarity. “Do the dragons only acknowledge physical strength?”

“For the mosst part, they do,” Maredusa said. “It’s a tradition at least as old as Equestria itself, although the understanding of strength is beginning to widen. Select few dragons will acknowledge strength of character, or strength of talent, or strength of intellect, and you must be wary among those that do.”

“Cuz they respect that kind of strength because they’ve got a bunch of it themselves.”

“Jusst so,” Maredusa agreed with a nod in Dawn’s direction. “Those without brute sstrength must develop their minds and intellect is far more dangerous than muscle.”

“You said we need to be wary around dragons who’re more brains and less brawn,” Twilight said. “Are you thinking of any ones in particular?”

“Yes in…”

A resounding kling-klang kling-klang cut Maredusa off and they all turned in the direction of the sound. The changeling that was gripping the bell cord in her mouth and ringing the brass bell next to the doorway from the lower hull, bearing the markings and badges on a lanyard around her neck that indicated she was the ship’s captain, gave it a few more good rings before spitting the loop out. Even as she turned to look at the source of the sound, Twilight was aware of changelings hurrying along the deck, her peripheral vision catching glimpses of black ponies taking up positions along the railing, starting to scale the mast to the crow’s nest, and generally rushing to their assigned tasks.

“Apologies for the interruption ladies, but we’re reached a point far enough from Scarabi that we can now implement the measures that will foil any pursuit,” the captain said. “We’ll be accelerating considerably, and a close ally of the Hive Throne has already begun to stir up a gale-force sandstorm in our wake. We need all civilians out of the way and that includes the lot of you..”

“These allies can just… make sandstorms?” Dawn looked hard at her. “And gale-force ones to boot? Who the hay can even do that?”

“That hardly matters, Princess.” The changeling gave her a stern look. “What matters is that we need you out of the way to perform our duties safely and quickly. Kindly don’t force me to make it an order, as that might be diplomatically complicated.”

“May I see…?”

“No, Princess Sparkle, you may not,” the changeling said. “Unless you’re familiar with forced-air turbines, oleum nigris, or mechanical runescription…?”

“Technically, I know of all three but I’m not familiar…” Twilight paused. “Did you say ‘oleum nigris’?”

“A moment.” The captain looked to the other mares. “Was I not clear? I need you to clear the deck immediately. As in, below decks, no more discussion, do it now.”

“Uh, cap’n…”

“NOW Princess Sparkle!” She bared her teeth. “I swear, if I have to tell Lady Maredusa to petrify you and carry you down, I’ll do it. If your sister has something to offer, she might be helpful. But I hardly need you standing about to converse with her.”

“But..” Maredusa turned and gave Dawn a hard look. “Fine, fine, I don’t need to be stoned, I’m going.”

“Good.” The captain turned back to Twilight. “Do you have knowledge of oleum nigris then?”

“Assuming you’re talking about what I think you are, I have a hobbyist’s knowledge,” Twilight said. “But I’m sure you can’t be talking about that. Purified black oil sells for a hundred bits a milliliter. It’s incredibly rare, only one highly impure deposit in all of Equestria.”

“It used to be a nuisance substance for us,” the captain said. “Stinking, corrosive sludge bubbling to the surface, turning water brackish and nearly toxic, ruining stretches of land. Now we have lots of a useful substance, but that’s neither here nor there. If rumor is true, your ‘hobbyist knowledge’ is more extensive than you think.”

“I do try to be thorough…”

“How volatile is it?”

“Not shock volatile,” Twilight said after a moment of thought. “Catches fire quickly and burns hot, but it’s not explosive except as a vapor.”

“That’s what i was afraid of,” the captain sighed. “You may go now.”

“Captain, I…”

“...cannot help any further, so I need you out of the way,” the captain said. “Please don’t make me snarl at both of you.”

Forced-air turbines, mechanical runescription, asking how volatile… “Actually, Captain, I think I can help further,” she said.

The captain turned slightly. “And how is that?”

“You mentioned sudden acceleration, and forced-air turbines, and mechanical runescription, and asked…”

“I know what I asked, stop wasting my…”

“You have turbines that vaporize refined black oil and ignite it to create forward movement, don’t you?”

The captain came up short and blinked at her, visibly taken-aback. “It so happens that we do.”

“And what you’re afraid of is that the vaporized black oil is very volatile?”

“Yes.”

“I’m pretty good with barriers. Not as good as my brother but…”

“You don’t need to finish.” The captain waved down a passing crew member. “Get Princess Sparkle a harness, secure her, and clear Number Six turbine.”

“Number six?”

“I wouldn’t be jumping at the chance to have the Element of Magic secure a turbine by herself if I had enough crew to take care of all of them to my satisfaction.” The captain smirked. “There are ten of them.”

It abruptly occurred to Twilight why the Red Mambo was considered the fast one of the two airships. “Well, then I’d better hurry.”

“An’ ya say they’re makin’ it go by…”

“Piping some sort of refinement of a substance chemists dub oleum nigris or ‘black oil’ into the turbines and setting fire to it,” Twilight confirmed as she relaxed on the bed.

Applejack digested this. “An’ ya say the stuff is real prone ta catchin’ fire an’ can explode?”

“‘Bout as far as chemists can figure,” Dawn said, relaxing next to her. “They don’t get very much to work with, they gotta boil enough out of tar to do basic experiments with, but last memory I have of Twi reading a paper on it, they’d nailed most of the details.”

“I’m pretty sure there haven’t been any academic papers since that one,” Twilight said. “I’ve been keeping my ears out.”

“So we’re zippin’ along like we’ve been shot outta Pinkie’s party cannon?”

“Naw,” Pinkie said. “Party cannon fires parties, not airships, remember?”

“Hard ta ferget.” Applejack looked back to Twilight. “Woulda thought it was lots more noisy.”

“Oh, it’s horrible when you’re standing next to one,” Twilight assured her, her ears involuntarily twitching from the memory of the deafening roar and her teeth chattering from the noise and vibration. “But I think the hull deadens it.”

“So’d anyone tell ya how long till we’re sailing with dragons?” Dawn asked.

“No, but I could see mountains rising in the distance and with our rate of speed, I don’t think it’ll be more than a half-hour,” Twilight said.

“Then we have time.” Rarity said brightly.
“For…?”

“For you to tell us what you said you’d tell us when we got underway,” she said. “The matter you were discussing with that changeling doctor…?”

“Doctor Green Leaf, yeah.” Twilight grimaced a little. “He was just reiterating that at the end of all this, the completion of Queen Chrysalis’ grand plan for reunion, the relationship between Equestria and the changelings will be one of allies, not subjects.”

“Still holdin’ a grudge, huh?”

“I don’t think it’s a grudge, the confrontational tone of the duchess’ exchange with the queen and crown prince notwithstanding.”

“Then what?”

“What it came down to was that this Amaryss wanted to make things right, offered her bad seed sis as a peace offering, and Mom kicked them out anyway,” Dawn said. “And I’ll bet the changelings look back on it and figure that if the changelings weren’t Mom’s subjects, if she had to dicker with them a bit instead of just handing in a decision, things could have been made right and no one would have needed to get the boot. ‘Bout sums it up, Twi?”

“Partly,” Twilight said. “But I think it goes deeper.” She looked between her friends. “They have stories of fighting Equestria’s enemies under Luna’s command. If it’s not just fantasy--and I’m pretty sure it’s more story than myth--the changelings were Equestria’s soldiers, like unicorns are magi and earth ponies do farming and pegasi weather management. Equestria hasn’t had an army for my entire life, and I don’t remember seeing mention of one in the last few hundred years.”

“So for what’s probably a thousand years, the armies of Equestria are sitting in a desert watching the enemies they defeated getting back up and hurting their fellow ponies with nothing but Princess Celestia’s diplomacy to shield everyone,” Pinkamena said quietly. “A thousand years of being absolutely sure that if Celestia hadn’t sent them away, they could have saved every one of those ponies. A thousand years of watching instead of helping, not because they wanted to, but because they obeyed. And just recently, watching us pull miracles out of our plots to save the world from the Guardian… and we still had to bury a lot of innocent ponies. That’s a lot of injury and a lot of insult to just take without deciding that something needs to change.”

“And if not for the Guardian, things would have already changed,” Twilight said. “If Shiny and Cady are speaking of marrying now, after six months of rebuilding, then they were probably set to announce their marriage just before everything went wrong.”

“Which means we wouldn’t be dealing with all this game stuff all split up and going in different directions, and hoping a few hundred Royal Guards can somehow manage stuff at home,” Dawn added. “There’s a ton of changelings, sis. I’d put even money that they could put ten thousand in the field and still have enough left for the essentials and a vast militia, and that’s just based on the numbers I saw when we were wandering around looking for pink party pony. Put it together with things like the Red Mambo and…”

“...they could have shut the Evilss down before they made progress.” They all turned to look as Maredusa wove sinuously through the doorway and then reared up, leaning back against the wall comfortably and looking down at them all with her head just short of bumping against the ceiling. “Your esstimate is low, by about tenfold.”

“I did say that there’s a ton of them.”

“You also ssaid that you’d wager that they could field an army of ten thousand with full reserves and auxiliaries.” Maredusa sighed. “Which is not entirely your fault, after Thryssa made such a fuss about deploying a few hundred to each major city to brace the Royal Guard. Habitss of a lifetime are difficult to break, and Thryssa is a cautious and calculating commander, nearly paranoid about tipping her hand to anypony, ssave her family.”

“Ain’t we supposed ta be friends now or somesuch?”

Maredusa gave Applejack a sheepish look. “Yes, but Thryssa does not sshift quickly and it will take time for her to appreciate the reality of Equestrians who are to be trusted and taken into confidence, not hidden from and deceived.” She shifted her look to Dawn. “The changelings are naturally a people under arms. Each has some magic like a unicorn, can fly some as the pegasus does, is naturally very hardy as earth ponies are, and they can alter their form effectively with fairly little training.”

“So Queen Chrysalis could turn all of ‘em into militia if she wanted.”

“If she needed,” Maredusa corrected. “No good ruler ssends the very young and the elderly into battle except in the most desperate circumstances. That ssaid, every changeling does a short term of service, so that they may be competent if desperate timess ever arrive.”

“Like the assassins making plans to overturn the Princesses and essentially rule Equestria?” Rarity said.

“No,” Maredusa said. “A gang of murderers preying on her people for their own pleasure and self-righteousness?” She shook her head. “Not even then. Chrysalis would have dealt with them personally insstead of calling her people to arms.”

“They would have killed her.” Rarity said.

“If so, it would have been the last thing they ever did.” Maredusa looked grave. “Killing Chrysalis would bring every changeling to their door to tear them apart, no matter who or what stood between them and the assassins. Lepi knew thiss, and convinced her mother to allow her to deal with the problem. Thuss, Sugar Bell.”

“One pony, about the age of my little sister, against all the assassins?”
“Closser to your own age, actually, and not really.” Maredusa said. “One well-trained changeling assassin, armed with every possible advantage Lepinora could create by calling in favorss, is a fair fight. Lepinora doesn’t believe in fair fights.”

“A sign that someone’s done something wrong,” Rarity agreed. “So there was more than just Sugar there.”

“Of course.”

Rarity thought a moment. “Several of the assassins were snatched and imitated.”

“I assume so.” The gorgon shrugged. “Naturally, Lepinora doesn’t tell me everything. I only know that sshe rigged the odds heavily in her agent’s favor.”

“Hang the entire thing about some changeling helping Rares take out assassins,” Dawn said. “I know there weren’t enough changelings in Scarabi to make an army of a hundred thousand even if Chrysalis started robbing cradles.”

“So more cities and towns,” Twilight said. “But how? The changelings don’t seem to fear for food, water, or anything else in Scarabi--and I have no idea how. Appleloosa and Dodge Junction rely on regular rain circulation from pegasus weather teams, but I haven’t seen a single cloud anywhere here. The Barrens, as the changelings call them, are, well, barren.”

“The Barrens contain an immense network of aquifers, fed from a single ssource they call the ‘White Sea’,” Maredusa said. “Too deep to water the Barrens, but not too deep for me to help them drive wells.”

“Why the White Sea?”

“Its bed is pure white,” she said. “Limestone shot through with veins of salt. Somehow, the aquifers it feeds have very pure and ssweet water.”

“Except for the ones befouled by black oil,” Twilight said, remembering the brief conversation with the captain.

“Yes,” Maredusa agreed. “What Equestria saw as an intriguing curiosity to be sstudied, the changelings saw as poison that caused sickness and death. Equestrian chemists determining its properties from their limited ssupply was the cause of much celebration, for we could dispose of it and purify many aquifers.”

“And then ya’ll learned it could be useful.”

“And valuable, if there’s ever a way developed to refine large amounts of it at once, instead of the complicated process they use to make it a fuel, wasting three quarterss of every liter.”

Twilight felt her eyes widen. “That bad?”

“It is a nuisance at best, a plague at worst.” The gorgon shrugged. “They’re too grateful that it can be cleaned up and put to a useful purpose to worry about efficiency.”

Twilight shook her head. “That’s…”

“...the price of disposal.” Twilight wasn’t sure how the captain had appeared next to Maredusa without them seeing the door open or hearing her hoofsteps as she entered, but the mare was looking directly at her. “We’ve crossed the borders of the dragon lands and are approaching the center of their territory, Princesses Sparkle, miladies.”

“Without being challenged immediately?” Maredusa frowned as she lowered herself to the captain’s level.

“We’re concerned as well,” the captain said. “I’ve made the batteries ready and opened the firing hatches but there’s nothing to fight. Our sand drake escort turned back at the termination of the desert so all we have is yourself, our passengers, and three dozen Throne Guard.”

“And Thalia.”

“We can’t assume that anymore,” the captain said heavily. “If the danger that she warned the queen of is anywhere near Empress Moon’s league, she may well be compromised.”

“What about the dragon Maredusa was about to warn us about when the you booted our plots down here?” Dusk said, before looking to Maredusa. “You were saying to be careful around him, so he might be the one to talk to about this mess.”

“She would be,” Maredusa said. “When we’ve landed, I know of a way to…”

“Cap’n, we’ve got that welcome we’ve been expecting, coming in fast,” a crewman interrupted, making everyone jump at the hollow sound of his voice coming from above their heads. “Hay of a lot more than usual.”

“At least there’s that.” The captain looked up towards a series of what appeared to be brass tubes running around the rim of the room and her horn glowed dimly. “Remember the greeting protocol: some good stiff beating is expected to establish relative value…”

“...but don’t do long-term damage,” the crewman finished. Now that Twilight was following the captain’s gaze, it seemed obvious that the tubes were some way of communicating with the entire ship; it seemed like the reply magic needed to be deliberately activated. “And then do all the discussion with the one in the front with extended wings.”

“Precisely.” The captain looked at them. “I’ll be on deck with our passengers in a moment so you won’t need to handle them for long.”

“If you ask Lady Maredusa for her sufferance, we won’t need to handle them at all.”

“Only easy day was yesterday. Get it done.”

“Yessir.” As the crewman acknowledges her order, the captain gave each a light bow in return. “You’ll be under the aegis of Lady Maredusa, but be cautious anyway.”

“So what’s he mean, that they wouldn’t need to handle the dragons if Maredusa leant a hoof?” Dawn asked, taking up position on Twilight’s flank as they exited the room and started up. Despite clearly being a military vessel, and having been refitted to be even stronger in a fight, the interiors of the Red Mambo seemed almost homey and comfortable. Woven mats over the deck plating that made it easy to walk on, filigree decorating the walls and fixtures, and soft steady light at all times that Twilight supposed was somehow related to the magical means that made the Mambo fly.

“Dragons are very strong,” the captain said. “In over a thousand years, they haven’t been able to make a respectable showing against Lady Maredusa once.”

“I can ssimply render their flesh to stone with no particular effort.” Maredusa shrugged, looking slightly sheepish. “And I swim through rock and soil like water. Even the strongest and most cunning have been forced into a fair fight with me, and that is always to their detriment. After a while they’ve… ssurrendered to reality.” She tapped her chin with a hoof thoughtfully. “On the other hoof, this would be the first time they’ll have ever met me sseparated from the earth. That changes things, or could.”

“Not exactly a pleasant thought when we’re about to go out and meet tons of ‘em,” Dawn said. “Hey Rares, yanno that neat stuff Nightmare gave ya as a gift?”

“These?” They all turned their heads to see Pinkie wearing Rarity’s Jade costume, including the weapons Nightmare had given her.

The captain blinked. “Where did…?”

“Thank you, darling,” Rarity smiled and lit her horn to slip the blades off of Pinkie’s legs and onto her own.

Pinkie grinned impossibly widely and cheerfully. “Anytime.”

“...but she didn’t have them…”

“If you hang around the Pinkster long enough, you get used to it,” Dawn said, patting the confused-looking changeling’s shoulder.

The captain shook her head and started up the stairs to the upper deck. “It’s person, don’t question it,” she sighed. “If I had a bit for every time I hear that...”

“Hear it a bunch?”

“Less and less the more I respond by smacking the person over the head with the nearest object.”

“Eeyuup, that’d do it.” Applejack took a step or two. “Cept smackin’ somepony don’t make it less true.”

“Saves my sanity.”

“Sugarcube, the world ain’t a sane place.”

“Don’t remind me.” They emerged to a very different sight than when they’d gone to the lower decks. The intense desert sun was now dimmed and muted by a thick bank of clouds hovering above the jagged mountains and rocks of the dragon lands, and the oppressive heat was replaced with a stiff, chilling breeze with a slight hint of sleet in it. Looking directly ahead of them, Twilight could see a fog bank hanging around the tallest visible peak, flashes of light within it hinting at a storm of some kind.

And then there were the dragons.

The majority of Twilight’s experience with dragons had been her Number One Assistant prior to taking a trip to see a dragon migration. Seeing that Spike was very small for his age had been shocking enough; watching the friend she’d grown up with being bullied, mocked, and kicked around had been a strain on her generally peaceful disposition, although she thought she’d hidden it well. The biggest takeaway for her had been that dragons were remarkably diverse in shape, size, and coloration, distinctive enough that she recognized several of them from the migration.

The oncoming hoard was already mostly landed as they reached the top, and several were muzzle-to-muzzle with changelings, both parties baring fangs and glaring at one another but despite the captain’s instructions, it didn’t look like it’d yet progressed to fighting. With the dragons occupied, though, Twilight had a moment to get a feeling that something was… off about them.

She took a step forward, furrowing her brow and looking harder at the one nearest her (she vaguely remembered him being called ‘Fizzle’) when all the dragons abruptly stopped glaring and fang-baring and stepped back from the changelings, the ones that had them open closing their wings as well, and all of them lowering their heads slightly in a strangely meek gesture.
Twilight exchanged confused looks with her twin at what some instinct told her was something that dragons just did not do, when the mass of them moved to either railing of the Mambo, revealing the smallest dragon Twilight had ever seen, outside of Spike.

More surprising than the dragon’s size and slenderness was that they were arrayed head to toe in polished golden armor and carrying, of all things, a tall sword with the tip resting on the deck plate. The dragon’s blue wings were spread wide and a long tail with a sharp-looking spade twitched back and forth behind them. Within the eye slits of the helmet, Twilight could see a pair of ruby-red eyes staring at her before looking back and forth over everyone else on the deck.

“OK, spill.” A female voice said from within the helmet, the pitch making her sound barely older than Spike. “What’s with the flying ship and all the cannons?”

“Your…”

“Not you,” the dragoness cut the captain off. She pointed at Twilight. “You.”

“It’s called the ‘Red Mambo’,” Twilight said. “Queen Chrysalis…”

“Don’t care what it’s called, don’t care who let you take it.” Twilight noted that one of her hands went from resting on the crossguard to the handle. “Why’re you flying a bunch of cannons into the Lands with a bunch of bugpony royal guards on it?”

“Queen Chrysalis wanted us to get here fast. The Red Mambo is fast.”

“And heavily armed. And has a bunch of soldiers on it.”

“And a gorgon who turns dragons to sstone when she becomes annoyed,” Maredusa said.

The dragon seemed to ignore her, her eyes remaining fixed on Twilight. “Well?”

“Apparently, keeping her guests safe is important to the queen,” Twilight said as calmly as she could.

“Yeah, well, I don’t like flying ships, cannons, and soldiers just flying around my skies.” A touch of a growl entered the dragon’s voice. “So how ‘bout you turn around and get lost.”

“Your skies?” Twilight furrowed her brow.

“Yeah, my skies.” The hand on the handle tightened. “Got a problem with that?”

“Naw, just thought that Torch was, like, a hundred times your size,” Dawn said. “And that these were his skies. Unless you’re Torch and have lost a few extra bits and got shrunk, which would sort of…”

“Shut. Up. Pinkie.” The dragoness snarled.

“But I didn’t say anything!” Pinkie said.

The dragoness’ eyes shifted in Pinkie’s direction. “What?”

“I’m Pinkie,” Pinkie grinned widely. “And you’re grumpy. I know just the thing for that.”

The dragoness stared at her for several seconds. “No, ya don’t,” she said in a shockingly subdued voice. “Pinkie, you said?”

“Yup!”

“You wanna help me out?”

“Yup!”

The dragoness pointed at Twilight. “Help your friend understand ‘get lost’. Then get out of the Lands, or we’re gonna kick you outta them.”

“Get us Ambassador Thalia and we’ll go,” the captain said.

“Thalia?” The dragoness looked steadily at the captain for several moments, before her gaze appeared to center on empty air. “Who are you?”

“Captain…”

“The ponies that aren’t black with a hard candy shell.”

“I’m Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight said. “My sister Dawn, and my friends Applejack, Rarity, and Pinkie Pie.”

“Celestia’s kids.”

“Yes.”

The silence stretched for several more moments before the dragoness snorted. “Diplomatic mission from Equestria through Scarabi. Thought I’d seen everything.” She looked to the dragons on either side. “Settle up. They’re comin’ with us.”

“The Little One will…”

In the span of the second it took for one of the dragons to start the sentence, the armored one had brought the blade up, switched to gripping it two-handed by the blade, and clocked him hard enough on the muzzle that Twilight could hear the wet crack of breaking bone as the dragon went sprawling, visibly stunned.

“Don’t care,” she said as she returned to planting the tip of her sword in the deck. “Settle up. They’re coming with us.”

“They’re under the aegis of Maredusa,” another of the dragons pointed out, the tone of the voice disturbingly monotone.

“Guess ya don’t settle up then, do ya?” The dragoness swept a pointed claw between the other dragons. “Now get lost while I take care of them.”

“She will be upset.”

“She’ll be upset?” The dragoness affected a tone of exaggerated worry. “Oh, how can I live if she’s upset? I don’t know what I could do if I broke her widdle heart!” This time, she cuffed the offender across the nose, hard enough that the dragon flinched back from her. “If she wants to be angry, let her. First one to start the music don’t get to finish it, so I’m all good with her starting something. Now get lost while I take care of them.”

Without bothering to watch her fellow dragons taking wing, the dragoness turned back to Twilight. “Hope ya don’t want a warm welcome, Twilight Sparkle, cuz there ain’t one. Don’t much like Equestrians up here but if Maredusa vouches for ya, I can deal.”

“I do,” the gorgon confirmed.

“Well fan-fucking-tastic.” She sighed and folded her wings. “Any other time, I’d be rolling out the silk and gold for visiting royalty. Now…”

“There’s something wrong with them,” Twilight said. “The rest of the dragons that were with you.”

“Sparkle, that’s the understatement of the century.” She folded her arms, keeping one hand on the pommel of her sword. “Tell ya all about it when we land. ‘Lia’ll fill in the gaps. But first… I think our little guest will be wanting to say hello to ya.”

Fluttershy: Apoptosis

Fluttershy smiled contentedly and snuggled into the broad lap of Angel as he ran a comb through her long mane. Nearby was a basket of carrots that never diminished, a quiet outdoor scene with all the happy animals she could think of and of course, a small flock of butterflies to represent her cutie mark. She both grateful and regretful when the pretty cloud drifted by: grateful that in her favorite dream, there was nothing scary that could hurt her or her little friends, regretful that a peaceful place where Angel-bunny was kind to her instead of a spoiled little lapine was just her favorite dream. The momentary crisis passed when she lost sight of the butterflies and collected a carrot to nibble, letting the peaceful dream wash over her again.

The swarm of butterflies wandered placidly through her vision, introducing the strange mix of happiness and regret again. And there was a knock at the door.

The brushing stopped as both the dream Angel and Fluttershy looked at the door to her cottage. Like the actual cottage, it was a whimsical and homey design built into a weeping willow with the thick umbrella of branches covering the durable and practical roof. In the dreamscape, it was also slightly blurred, a part of the background, something that was part of the dream and not. Even Luna, completely dominant over the substance of dreams, always entered by walking up the path and over the little bridge, never by the cottage.

There was another knock at the door. The cloud of butterflies grew and settled in a harmless mist of fluttering wings and and alert antennae, not menacing or agitated, merely interested. Fluttershy looked up to Angel and the giant rabbit gave her a helpless shrug, then returned to looking at the nonfunctional door to the blurry showpiece that was supposed to remain colorfully in the background.

There was a knock at the door, very slightly more insistent this time. The swarm of butterflies seemed a bit more reddish than they were before and they hovered a little closer to Fluttershy. “Hello?” she said.

The knock came again, and once again it seemed a little more insistent than it was at first. This time, the butterflies were much more distinctively red and the cloud moved a little closer around Fluttershy, almost protectively. Fluttershy looked up at the swarm in surprise. She had always supposed that the butterflies represented her cutie mark somehow, and that she subconsciously included them to remind herself that as much as she loved the peaceful, soothing dreams, they were her wishes and fantasies, not her reality. But there was something about the butterflies now that seemed… unlike her.

Well, unlike the her that she preferred; there was that other her that came out when she tried to learn how to be more assertive from Iron Will. That other her frightened her a little, or at least, she reflected, she used to. After the affair of the Guardian, she found herself being a little more open to her other her. Borrowing a few things sometimes, carefully borrowing a few things sometimes. The sense of being in control, for example, was what had made the other her so very, very comfortable before her friends brought her to her senses and made her realize what she was letting herself become. But having no control at all, having nothing but fear and helplessness before the terrible Guardian, having to rely on help from Nightmare Moon of all ponies, made her realize something:

Being Kind, being really truly Kind, needed something more than being quiet, and gentle, and helpful, and compassionate. Just like Pinkie stopped at times and helped brokenhearted ponies Laugh again and touch a little bit of joy after losing something or someone, Fluttershy knew that a Kindness being held back by helplessness and timidity would deprive an angrily-suffering pony of that little touch that would let them heal. With a little bit of peaceful time to think, she also realized something else: the herself that she was afraid of didn’t come from Iron Will’s slogans and self-help program, but because she went from timid to cruel instead of going from timid to confident.

So she sought him out again. And it turned out that the bombastic minotaur was comfortably wealthy for a pretty good reason.

And so looking at the red-tinted butterflies, Fluttershy started to wonder if she’d been wrong about what they represented all along. But that could wait; in the time she’d paused to think, the knocking had come again and was becoming a bit louder and more insistent. “It’s open,” she said as she walked over to it, noticing that it seemed to become more crudely-formed the closer she walked to it.

The flock around her had become blood-red and extremely agitated, pressing in closer to her and yet, she didn’t feel threatened. If anything, she felt confident that in her own dream, where her wishes and imagination were really what mattered, there was nothing to be timid about.

“It’s open,” she repeated even as more knocking thumped on the door. “Just take the knob in your teeth and pull it down.”

There was a long, long pause in the insistent sound, and then a knocking that seemed more like pounding than a proper, polite knock. Fluttershy sighed and leaned down to take the handle in her mouth and bite down, releasing the latch, and then she pulled it open.

“There! I don’t know why you couldn’t have…” She straightened up to see a grin in the black field. A wide grin, a very wide grin.

Too wide.

“Thank you.”

The sun stung her eyes as she fell out of her bed, screaming, folding her legs in close as she curled into the instinctive position of defense, making herself as small as possible, wrapping her body around the soft flesh of her undercarriage. The door left its hinges and rocketed across the room, shattering as a half dozen griffons poured in, razor talons and beaks bared, intensely predatory eyes looking for something to rend and tear.

“Lady Fluttershy, what’s wrong?” She could hear the words, even understand them, but the part of her brain that was hearing and understanding was washed away by the still-present feeling of overwhelming panic. She could feel her heart racing, her head becoming lighter, breathing hard and rapidly, shivering all over as she rocked back and forth on the ground, the thoughts bouncing around her head over and over again Coming to get me, coming to get me, coming to get me, comingtogetme, comingtogetme, comingtogetmecomingtogetmecomingtogetme…

Wingpony! Fluttershy shuddered as the soft mass hit her and hung on as she rocked in place. Miss wingpony! The rocking started to slow, the shivering calmed marginally. Miss wingpony, why afraid? She managed to hold a shaky, trembling breath, blinking a little. Comingtogetmecomingtogetmecoming… coming… not coming to get me. Safe. Safe. Griffons are right there, no one will hurt me. Little friend hugging me. Nothing… nothing to be afraid of. Just a dream. A nightmare, but still just a dream. Just… a dream.

Fluttershy shuddered and started to relax, forcing herself to uncurl and extend her legs, willing her heart to stop pounding, idly beginning to run a hoof over the fennec that had leapt on her during her panic attack. “Had a… bad dream,” she told the little creature, petting it lightly. “Saw something very scary.” She shivered again as the image of that horrific and impossible grin echoed through her memory. “I’ll… I’ll be fine.”

Oh. Good. The fennec gave her muzzle a lick and hopped off. Miss wingpony going to be fine.

Fluttershy let herself giggle. “Yes, miss wingpony is going to be fine.” She finally gathered herself enough to look over to the griffons. “I’m sorry for scaring everyone. Bad dream,”

“We’re just relieved that you’re well, Lady Fluttershy,” the griffon (Fluttershy remembered his name as ‘Esper’) said. “And we’ll… uh… fix the broken door.”

Fluttershy gave him her brightest and most reassuring smile. “As long as it’s not too much trouble.”

“No price is too high to keep one of the bearers of the Elements safe,” he said, nodding to his fellows who immediately started to leave. “Especially after your friends saved us.”

“I hope it wasn’t too hard to rebuild,” she said as she followed the griffon out onto the broad landing outside her room. “After they… um… had to use fire to burn the swarm.”

“It wasn’t too hard to rebuild,” he said as he reared up and put both claws on the railing around the landing, looking over the vast and colorful city, far more vast and colorful than Fluttershy had ever imagined a city in such an arid land could be. “A little work, some paint, good as new.”

Fluttershy turned to look curiously at the griffon. “Didn’t they set several stalls on fire, trying to corner it?”

“They set several stalls on fire, trying to corner it,” Esper agreed. “A little work, some paint. Good as new.”

The response made her blink. “O… oh. That’s nice.”

“Nice.” He looked off into space a few moments. “Set several stalls on fire, but no price is too high to keep one of the Elements safe.” He smiled to her. “Would you like to see where we rebuilt? I believe there’s a shop there with many little animals that the owner lets walk around. Animals seem to like you.”

The suggestion cleared away the touch of confusion immediately. “Oh! Oh yes, that would be very nice!”

Esper nodded, still smiling, and launched from the edge of the railing into the open city, Fluttershy following him a moment later. She’d never been the strongest flier--in fact, she’d been mediocre and content with that fact for the longest time. But being barely able to handle flying at all was nearly impossible with Rainbow Dash in Ponyville. She couldn’t put a hoof on it, but there was some… quality about her friend, some invisible force that hung on her and radiated from her, and whatever it was made Fluttershy want to fly, if only so she could watch Rainbow’s talents in the air from the air rather than the ground.

So she’d talked to her bird friends and quickly had as many suggestions as there were friends. It was almost counterintuitive that she, a pony who was intimidated by nearly everything, found herself being tutored by sharp-beaked raptors instead of more sweet and harmless songbirds. Learning to read the thermals and sail comfortably and easily on them fit her far more than flitting about like a butterfly or beating her wings like a hummingbird and she learned that flying could be very relaxing. And useful: the Ponyville weather team revealed to her that half the equation of building and controlling storms was a flyer who could ‘anchor’ the entire effort, providing a steady, unhurried rhythm to time their own movements against. She never completely understood what made her so useful to them--aerial theory, any kind of theory really, was something she preferred to let Twilight busy herself with--but even before Iron Will or the Guardian, anchoring the weather team made her feel more sure of herself and confident.

She could let her attention and mind drift to what she was like before, and what kind of flying she discovered that she enjoyed, because sailing the currents around the griffon settlement was unusually easy and intuitive. There was hardly anyone else in the air with them, and she could just follow Esper along the winding, generously-spaced paths to the pet shop he’d mentioned. As they banked into a slightly narrower street, Fluttershy looked right to see how the market stalls where Spite had unleashed fire to drive the swarm-beast into a panic. It was a relief to see that it all looked put back together again since yesterday: banners were flying, the wood of the stalls had been all replaced with new timber, and the market was bustling. “A little work, some paint, good as new,” she said quietly as they banked again and started downwards to the shop.

It proved to be pretty much the kind of shop she was used to: some animals roaming freely within, some resting contentedly in their pens, and a few insects that each had their own glass tanks with all the things they needed to be comfortable. Fluttershy couldn’t help but make a beeline for the tanks, having heard that the Provinces had very unique and colorful insects.

Her path took her by the one empty tank in the row and she glanced curiously at it as she passed, noticing that it was also dimmed despite the sunlight coming through the front windows.

...to you straight…

The sound of the voice, slightly accented, slightly hushed, with a lisp made her jump and look around wildly.

...city ist just for fun. I know she is…

The voice came again, slightly louder to her right, and Fluttershy whipped her head around, seeing only the empty glass tank. She started to turn her head to look in the other direction, when something about the tank caught her eye and she turned back to look at it. It was just as empty and dim as it was before and Fluttershy stared at it a moment, trying to figure out what it was about the empty container that had caught her eye. She leaned in closer to it.

...and use it. It can only be used on one of ye at a time so I do not know…

This time, the voice was coming from directly in front of her and the sheer strangeness was making her less fearful and more confused. She couldn’t remember having ever imagined seeing or hearing things that weren’t actually there. She took a step back, and everything immediately felt quieter, although the step back made the sunlight glint off the tank beside the empty one and Fluttershy squinted… and then leaned in, again getting the feeling of something being strange about the tank but unable to put her hoof on what.

...planning to go somewhere east, a large icy plain where they think something ist…

Another step back, and being forced to squint again, and Flutershy suddenly noticed what was strange: the tank wasn’t reflecting anything. When she moved, there wasn’t even a faint stirring of movement in front of her, no dim reflection, and the light that she could feel on her back simply did not touch the empty tank. Feeling her pounding heart finally settle a little, the spike of fear caused by being startled by the voice starting to fade, Fluttershy braced herself and took a much larger step closed to the tank.

“...why they want to seize these specific points,” the voice said, now as clear as if Fluttershy was face-to-face with the mare, “but there ist clearly a reason that my masters would sacrifice so much for them. I think that I am not meant to know, that they believed if I was to know, I would betray them. Now they are convinced that I do know and every city I shelter in will die.”

The voice was so forlorn that Fluttershy reached out with a hoof to lay it against the glass, as if its presence would somehow console whoever was speaking in the hushed and accented voice that seemed, improbably, to emanate from an empty insect tank.

She was in the bed she woke up in only a few minutes ago but nothing else was the same. She wasn’t screaming in terror from the nightmarish specter of a too-wide grin, she wasn’t falling out of her bed, there wasn’t several concerned griffons breaking down her door… and she couldn’t move. She could immediately tell it wasn’t fear paralysis--she was sure that she had enough personal experience with that to be Equestria’s foremost expert--but it wasn’t uncomfortable either. She could breathe with no trouble, swallow, twitch her ears, and blink her eyes but when she tried to speak or do any other kind of movement, it was like she was telling herself to move, but herself couldn’t hear her.

“Ye cannot actually hear me, can ye?” The same accented voice she’d been hearing said, out of her field of view. “So deep are ye that my voice cannot reach ye, and sheltering in this place, the very last place she would look, ist fruitless.” There was a subdued feminine snort. “Perhaps it ist better that way.”

Fluttershy heard hoofsteps move above her and she tried to roll her eyes upwards to see but her own bangs got in the way and what she could see seemed to become… dim, somehow, as if color and light was slowly leaking away. “I do so love the desert, Kindness. It ist stark, and barren, and with almost no life. Very much like home, it happens, but with far more color and light.”

Her hoof tingled and felt as if it was once again pressed lightly against something smooth and cool, and the drain of color and light continued. “Irony that I, who comes from a place of no light at all, nor Light, should see it fade in a strange place so much like the place from which I come…”

The glass was very slightly warm to the touch as she pressed her hoof against it, feeling like it had been warmed by the desert sun that it wasn’t reflecting. She blinked and pulled her hoof back, wondering why she would be reaching out and touching the tank like that. She’d been around enough of her little insect friends to know that they didn’t appreciate it when some random pony wandered up and pressed her hoof against their home. Still, the pink-winged butterflies with their bluish bodies didn’t seem agitated by the annoyance and continued to flutter around in a trio.

Fluttershy smiled a little at the fluttering insects, reminded of her own cutie mark, before looking to the left and watching a brilliantly-marked and surprisingly large scorpion neatly slice sections of most green off of some succulents growing in its cage with a dun-colored shrike, its beak long and hooked for puncturing the tough carapaces of large insects and arthropods--like scorpions--watching placidly from its perch atop the open aquarium. For some reason, she immediately thought of Rainbow Dash and idly wondered if aposemtism applied to ponies as well as she reached a hoof up and made a soft whistling noise to prompt the bird onto her hoof. Like Esper had suggested, she found the little open-roam shop relaxing, and the lingering effects of the nightmare faded even further back into the mists of memory.

She wasn’t sure out long she spent in the shop, conversing with the animals, basking in their quiet and curious presence, admiring exotic stick insects and beetle endemic to the plateaus of the Provinces, but it came to her suddenly that while she remembered following Esper to the shop, she didn’t remember seeing him land and come into the shop, or say a word to her after he suggesting coming. Patting a lanky bobtail cat on the head as she turned, she clopped out to the face of the shop--and stopped.

The street was empty.

The stalls she knew she passed just outside weren’t there, and there was no sign that they ever had been. The banners were gone, the foot traffic she was equally certain of seemed to have simply vanished, and there were just buildings lined up outside the pet shop with none of the adornments she distinctly remembered idly looking over as she followed the vanished Esper to the shop. She squeezed her eyes shut and then opened them again, blinking, and there was a pony walking up the street passed the shop, trotting along at a cheerful change of pace.

She was a unicorn, her coat such a light lavender it was very nearly pink, wearing her purple mane streaked with light turquoise long--and no cutie mark. No scars to indicate it was ever there, nothing about her fur to point to it being painted over, just no cutie mark at all.

The other mare didn’t seem to notice her or if she did, she gave no indication of it, going passed the shop and down the street as if she had a destination in mind. Looking back at the shop, teeming with animals that she was certain she’d enjoy spending hours more with, Fluttershy hesitated and then looked towards the shrinking profile of the blank flank mare, and started after her at a comfortable canter.

She caught up with the other mare at an intersection and slowed to look in all directions, feeling a little shiver go down her back at the eerie lack of anyone besides herself and the other, before she coughed politely and tapped the other mare on the shoulder. “Uh...e… excuse me?”

The pony jumped. There was a loud sound and Fluttershy was now looking at the sky, noticing that it was cloudless and yet, the sun wasn’t too harsh despite the Provinces being pretty arid.

“Sorry.” The face of the mare centered itself in her vision, looking down at her sheepishly. “You sort of came out of nowhere.”

Fluttershy blinked and rolled back to her feet, noticing that she’d been flung half a block back in the direction she’d come from, and gingerly checked for anything broken. “It’s OK,” she said in return. “But you didn’t hear me following you? The streets are sort of… empty.”

“Are they?” The mare looked from side to side. “Oh. I… really hadn’t noticed.”

Fluttershy eyed her. “Sort of a… big thing to miss.”

“I’ve got more important things to do than pay attention to crowds,” the mare said testily.

She left that hanging there for several moments. “More important things?” Fluttershy prompted her.

“Yes, much more important.”

There was another long silence. “Something private?”

‘No.”

Fluttershy sighed after the mare, once again, let the silence fill the air between them. “So what’re these ‘more important things’?”

The pony frowned. “I have no idea. I just know that they’re very, very important.”

“You… have no idea.”

“I just said that.”

“But you know it’s important.”

“Yes,” she said. “Vitally so. The kind of important that will save lives, lots and lots of lives.”

Fluttershy blinked at her. “So the very, very important things will save lives, lots and lots of lives, but you don’t know what they are?”

“Essentially.” The mare shrugged. “And I know that standing around telling you about them doesn’t help me get them done. So it was nice to meet you…?”

“Fluttershy.”

“....Fluttershy, but I have to go.” She frowned heavily. “I have to warn them. It’s under the ice, from what I can gather, asleep.”

She went several lengths before Fluttershy shook off her bewilderment and caught up to her. “Warn who? What’s under the ice?”

“Them,” the mare said. “And… I don’t know. It. I think it’s… extremely large? I can’t tell, I don’t remember. But it’s vital that I warn them about it.”

“I’m very sorry and I don’t mean to be unkind but… you’re not making any sense.”

The mare’s expression tightened in frustration. “Don’t you think I know that?” She snorted and one of her hooves struck with greater force. “I should know this, I know I know this, but I just can’t make it come out of my head. I know all of it, even the part I’m not supposed to know, but I just can’t remember what I know. I don’t even know how I know I’m not supposed to know something I know, but I know it anyway.”

Fluttershy lost a few steps on the mare, unsettled by her vehemence, and feeling her gut twisting a little in sympathy for her plight. “And on top of all of that, you don’t know who you are, do you?”

The other pony slowed as her ears lay down. “No, I don’t. Not for sure.”

“But you think you know?” Fluttershy said hopefully.

“Glamor,” the mare said. “Or shimmer, or something like that. I remember being told that my name reminded somepony of Princess Twilight Sparkle, that there’s some sort of word relationship, like synonyms or antonyms or something like that, between our names. But the closest I’m certain of is ‘Glamor’.”

“OK, OK, that’s a start.” Fluttershy gave the other pony her best encouraging smile. “Anything else?”

Glamor visibly thought a moment. “I don’t seem to have a cutie mark,” she said after a moment, “but that makes me happy. I think. I don’t feel sad, or frustrated, or like I endured a loss when I look at my blank flank. I feel… achievement, I think, like I… never wanted one?” Her eyebrows furrowed. “But that doesn't make sense, I’m sure that losing your cutie mark should be devastating and terrifying.”

“Maybe you… didn’t like your cutie mark?” Fluttershy suggested. “I’m sure that with so many ponies out there, somepony must be unhappy with theirs.”

“That could be,” Glamor said. “But how does it help?”

“I don’t know,” Fluttershy admitted. “Maybe if you just… said everything you can think of, about yourself?”

Glamor looked at her for a moment and shrugged. “Can’t do any harm, I guess, as long as we keep moving.” She resumed her previous rapid trot and Fluttershy had to canter briefly to catch up to her again.

“You’re very determined to warn this unknown ‘them’ about an unknown danger,” she noted. “So…?

“Alright,” Glamor said. “I’m pretty sure I’m from a medium-sized village in a very moderate part of Equestria--nowhere cold, nowhere desert, not a city. I think I currently live in a smaller village, in a desert.” She frowned. “No, in an… arid place. Like the Provinces, but not in the Provinces. I… had a friend. Or several. Or maybe they were village ponies and I’m a… mayor. I just remember a lot of happiness around me, but not being very happy.”

As Glamor continued to spill forth details--that she thought she had a friend that died tragically, then was certain she was alive, then questioned whether it was a she--Fluttershy noticed a trio of fluttering butterflies flitting about, drawing near them, blue--winged with dark pink bodies, nearly red. If Glamor noticed her divided attention, she gave no sign of it, continuing to relate details--that she liked birds called ‘kites’, then thought she liked building and flying kites as a hobby and was mistaken about the birds, and then veered back to being certain she was a fan of the birds--while the trio darted near to her horn, and then fluttered towards Fluttershy.

She smiled a little, finding the colors pleasantly familiar, and extended a wing towards the butterflies, inviting them to alight on the tip. They fluttered closer, circled the tip, and then moved over to hover just above her head. She smiled and paused, lifting a hoof this time as a second invitation. Once again, they fluttered closer, circled her hoof, but this time she felt the very light touch of…

...an oily and almost painfully cold mist brushing against her cheek as she looked up at the ceiling of the room. The bed felt like she one she’d woken up in before, and she vaguely recognized the details of the room from her peripheral vision, but she found moving strangely difficult, as if something was resisting her ever effort. Breathing was easy enough, and she could move her jaw and twitch her ears, but everything else felt like a chore.

“Where is it, webweaver?” Fluttershy felt her body involuntarily spasm and flinch away from the sound of the hissing, discordant, vibrato of the disturbingly silky and feminine voice that felt like it was nearly close enough to reach out and touch. “Where is the spell you offered as the price for your miserable existence?”

A phlegmy, wet cough, almost a choking sound, replied to the disquieting voice and a whispered rattle that was clearly somepony’s attempt at speech. Steeling herself, Fluttershy began to force her head to turn to the side, moving by minute degrees, plumes of black smoke intermixed liberally with sparks of violet coming into her peripheral vision as she struggled to look at the confrontation she was hearing.

“You. Do. Not. HAVE IT?” The sudden surge of primal rage crashed into Fluttershy like a physical force, making her body curl inward as if she’d been bucked in the stomach. On the up side, the movement made her roll on her side facing the confrontation; on the down side, she swiftly wished she hadn’t.

Trying to describe the thing that was crouched in the room almost close enough to lean forward and touch with her muzzle was beyond her; she had no words for the roiling chaos of forms that changed at a dizzying pace, no frame of reference for the shape revealed in split-seconds and flashes through the darting mist that seemed to tremble like a living thing even as it bent and contorted.

There was a pony in the thing’s grip.

It was only because she could see it with nauseating clarity that Fluttershy was sure that what she was seeing was in fact another pony. Everywhere she looked was a ruin of gouges, slashes, holes where flesh had been ripped away like with a spoon, pitting, and the disturbing appearance of some parts of the pony’s flesh melted and running like candle wax. Sluggish rivulets of blood and other viscera ran over the brief patches of skin and coat that had somehow remained intact and as she bobbed up and down in the grip of the mist, Fluttershy could see wisps of mane being shaken loose in threads of golden hair. The face had been left largely intact, but for a pair of deep surgically-neat cuts that went from the edges of the pony’s lips all the way up to her ears in curves that were clean and precise in a way incomprehensibly at odds with the gruesome tapestry that covered the rest of her.

The pony coughed, flecks of blood being expelled from her muzzle as she did. “If… you claim to… be surprised… I shall… laugh in your face,” she rattled, her voice weirdly steady and calm despite what were visibly agonizing wounds. “We are each… what we are.”

“What you are is a snack.” Fluttershy had a vague impression of something like a hoof tipped with fingers like Spike’s but far too long and thin to be natural, wave vaguely around the room. “But your shelter is a banquet. Did you hope that feeding me these mortal kine would stay my wrath? Did you imagine that making a gift of these… morsels would throw me from your scent? Do you delude yourself into thinking that you will withstand my delving the sixth time when you barely survived the fifth?”

“Even you… you, the progenitor… for whom all are named… cannot take what… I do not have.” The pony coughed weakly. “Delve. You will… find that I omit no… fact here. Then you will kill this husk… and be… just as bereft… as you were… before you came.”

“Oh small and piteous wretch… with all your schemes and weavings you are still as limited as when your torn remnants limped into the Void.” Fluttershy’s impression this time was of a hand gesturing at her. “The pieces of the artifact are not all of a kind. This one heals, restores, purifies. It does not lash out, nor shield, nor burn. I shall find what I desire in time but for now, I have a vessel from which to pour all that I need.”

The vaguely defined shape in the mist elongated, and the narrowed again, and as Fluttershy watched, resolved itself into a pony shape. “You are not an easy one to bind, Butterfly,” the still-concealed creature said, her voice now having naught but a whisper of the hissing and discordance. “That you awaken even dimly is a lesson.” She sighed. “It is strange to lack the impulse or need to destroy a foe, but there was never a reason to contemplate the measure until now.”

“Now… of all times, you… discover a conscience?”

“The Aspect radiates a subtle manipulation, but one that does no apparent harm,” the being informed the pony curtly. “It is subtle, and not potent enough to bend a will. That is immaterial now.” She learned forward and Fluttershy recoiled to see the face of Twilight Sparkle rendered in flowing, oily black substance, emerge from the fog, mouthed stretched into a toothy and impossibly wide grin, burning violet eyes radiating light from crumbling holes where her eyes should be. “It is time that you return to sleep, Butterfly; you are not nearly so useful awake.”

“..why…” Fluttershy was surprised that she could hear the whispered word, and furthermore, that she could feel herself moving her mouth to speak it.

“You can resist, and so long as you do the Aspect will strengthen your will and do as you would have it. When you sleep, you do not know what is, and so you do not resist.” She gestured behind her. “The Webweaver is within the shell and having no form, is most efficiently tormented by sensation. She who was born to the form does not know the damage inflicted, and never shall.” She gestured all around her. “I hunger, and they are my nourishment.”

Fluttershy stared at the entirely matter-of-fact way that the creature spoke, finding that it was disturbing how much the calm, collected, dispassionate recitation went with the distortion of Twilight’s face.

“You know this shape; it is close to you.”

Fluttershy hesitated, but she couldn’t think of a reason to deny it. The being must have been able to discern the slight movement of her head as a nod, because she repeated the motion, albeit with greater freedom.

“I will permit your speech. Tell me what this shape is.”

Permit my speech? Fluttershy looked at her for several moments before opening her mouth, finding it as easy as it had ever been. “Are you why…?”

“I permit your speech to answer my question,” the being said. “If you do not, I will restrict it again.”

“The shape is my friend, Twilight Sparkle.”

“The whelp of the sun-princess, family to the moon-princess.” The creature nodded. “I understand the whole matter now, all the twists and turns of the manipulation. You have been more useful in seven words than my ordinary meals are in thousands; this requires some consideration.”

“Why?”

The being somehow seemed amused. “Because I will it. Now, Butterfly, I would that you should return to your dreams. Do not resist; resistance results in pain, and is futile.”

A clawed hand emerged from the mist that seemed to hang around the shape of Twilight Sparkle and reached out to Fluttershy’s face. She recoiled impulsively from it, although her face didn’t move enough to make a difference, and the hand setted on her face, two razor tips resting above her eyes and moving down with a shockingly gentle motion. Fluttershy swallowed, and obediently closed her eyes, feeling the tips resting on her eyelids, and feeling as an abrupt surge of exhaustion encompassed her. The last sensation she felt as she slipped away was that…

...of the light breeze of the arid plains flowing over her face and her hoof, bringing the faint scent of flowers, a gentle perfume of star jasmine, and the very slightly acrid smell of unwashed mane from Glamor standing next to her and looking as if she had just finished saying something.

“...and you didn’t hear any of that, did you?” she said.

Fluttershy blinked at her, confused at why she was standing with her hoof extended into the air, and feeling her cheeks warm as she put her hoof down. “Um… no,” she admitted.

The other mare eyed her a moment before nodding. “You must have just come back then. Don’t worry about it, it’s probably best that you not remember.”

Fluttershy’s confusion deepened. “Come back from where?”

“Awareness,” Glamor said. “Wakefulness. It was like that for me several times before I caught on to what was happening. So did you bring anything back with you?”

Fluttershy stared at her. “You… sound like you know who you are.”

Glamor smiled, although it had a very bitter edge to it. “I remembered after the first dozen times. I think I prefer not knowing but there’s nothing for it now.”

“So you know who ‘them’ is, what the more important things are, what’s under the ice?”

“Vaguely, yes, and vaguely, in that order,” Glamor said. “There’s no real hurry; it’s not as if I’ll be able to deliver the warning no matter how fast I run.” She looked Fluttershy over with an analytic eye, an expression that Fluttershy had seen often on Twilight’s face. “You’re Kindness, aren’t you?”

Fluttershy just stared at her, trying to follow the abrupt shifts in conversation. First dozen times? She prefers not knowing? She can’t deliver the warning? And brought anything back from where? “I don’t understand.”

Glamor sighed. “I don’t know what I can do about that. If you’re not aware of being drawn back into reality and being put back under, just telling you isn’t going to help. If I told you that nothing you see is real, that I’m real but not really here, that you’re not actually here, would you believe any of it?”

“I… don’t really…”

“My point exactly.” Glamor slumped a little. “Another thing there’s no help for. But at least you can answer the question because I know you know who you are: you’re Kindness, are you not?”

“I bear the Element of Kindness, yes.”

“Whatever. Point is, I can’t deliver the warning but you can.”

“Why?”

“Whatever force is locking us in this dream has trouble keeping hold on either of us, but I’m pretty sure its hold on you is weaker, and you have help.” She gestured towards Fluttershy’s cutie mark. “I only caught it out of the corner of my eye but I think that one of the times you were pulled out, it was because those were involved.”

Fluttershy turned and looked at the trio of butterflies on her flank. “My… cutie mark?”

“It would make sense,” Glamor said. “Cutie marks reflect self-identity. Take them away, and you lose yourself.”

“Like you have?”

“Like I wish I could.” Glamor looked steadily at her. “Don’t ask, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, there are others outside the dream, outside the city, who need to know what I know. You can do that.”

“But…”

Glamor put a hoof on the end of her muzzle. “Think, Fluttershy. Try to remember butterflies. A dream, a memory, anything with butterflies.”

“I… remember there being butterflies inside a glass tank in the pet shop,” Fluttershy said.

“How many?”

“Um… three? I think?”

Glamor nodded. “What did they look like?”

“Pink wings with…”

“...blue bodies?”

“Yes, how’d you…?”

Glamor took the hoof on her muzzle and gently turned her head towards her flank. “You saw your cutie mark in a glass tank. Trapped.”

Fluttershy swallowed and nodded, feeling suddenly unsettled. “I… guess I did.”

“When else?”

“Um…” Fluttershy thought. “I… remember waking up from a nightmare.”

“Were there butterflies in it?”

“I… I think so.”

“What did they look like?”

“Like…” She closed her eyes, trying to picture them. “Like my cutie mark. But there were more of them. A flock of them. They… they started out pink. I mean, their wings did.”

“They changed color?”

“Their wings did.”

“How?”

“They got more red.”

“Why?”

“I… I don’t know. I think they were… upset?”

“At what?” Fluttershy could swear she heard a touch of satisfaction in Glamor’s voice.

“I... “ She stopped, thinking harder. “A… knock. At the door to my cottage.”

“A knock at the door?”

“From… inside of it.” Fluttershy frowned, her eyes still closed. “Which doesn’t make sense. My cottage doesn’t lock from the inside.”

“Forget that. What happened?”

“I…. remember saying that it was open.”

“To whoever was knocking?”

“Yes.”

“What did they do?”

“Knocked harder.”

“So in your dream, someone was inside your cottage, knocking on the door.”

“Yes.”

“You were outside.”

“Yes.”

“With a swarm of butterflies that started out colored like your cutie mark, but then their wings turned red when the knock happened.”

Fluttershy felt her heart beating faster. “Y… yes.”

“What did you do?”

“Told them how to open it.”

“What happened next?”

“They… knocked harder. The butterflies’ wings got more red. They came closer to me and they seemed upset.”

“What happened next?”

“I…” Suddenly she was there, in front of the door, pulling it open, chastising. “...I saw a grin…”

And just like that, it all came back. Waking up from the nightmare, terrified and flailing. The odd way the griffons spoke. The voice coming from the tank. Being in a room, paralyzed, hearing the voice more clearly as she said things that didn’t make sense. Suddenly being back in the pet shop with her cutie mark inside the tank. Meeting ‘Glamor’ and talking to her until three butterflies came to her. Waking up paralyzed, with that terrible voice, rolling to a side and seeing the horror of a pony being tortured and a thing in the mist.

A thing with an impossible grin.

She opened her eyes to see that Glamor was still looking steadily at her, but the city was different. The streets were full of oily black smoke, tendrils of it snaking up and down the streets and into the sky, entwining around the shapes of griffons like some terrible plant wrapping around a tree. The sky was wrong, the sun above muted and distorted as if seen through a dirty lens, and there was a horrible stillness around her.

“What… what’s happening?” Fluttershy managed to gasp out, looking around, her heart hammering with rising terror.

“You tell me,” Glamor said, gently.

“The… I saw something when I was awake,” Fluttershy said. “She looked… like my friend, Twilight Sparkle, but completely wrong. She looked like she was made of tar, and her eyes were glowing holes in her head, and she had a grin, impossibly wide. She had smoke all around her and… I… I think that smoke is… it’s everywhere. It’s around all the griffons, blotting out the sky.” She shook her head. “It’s another nightmare.”

“Nightmares end.” Glamor looked around her. “Reality does not, and I’m afraid that what you’re seeing is real.”

“How?” Fluttershy shrank before the obscured skies and trapped griffons filling the streets around her, instinctively drawing closer to the calm visage of Glamor. “How is anything this… terrible? How can it be capturing an entire city? What is she?”

“I do not know.” Glamor awkwardly reached out with a hoof and patted Fluttershy on the shoulder. “But if she could eat you, she would. If she didn’t fear you, she’d leave you be and mock you. You are Kindness, Fluttershy. A full sixth of an artifact that everyone once thought didn’t exist outside of foal’s tales. I don’t think you’re as helpless as you think you are. I don’t think you have as many things to be afraid of as you think you do.”

“B...but she said that Kindness can’t attack, or shield, or burn.”

“If she attacked you, she doesn’t understand the Elements all that well,” Glamor said. “There are stories, and I believe them, that Luna and Celestia both have the power to simply unmake cities if they wish it… and the Elements overshadowed Luna twice without rebounding on their users.”

“But it’s in a vault, in Canterlot,” Fluttershy pointed out, her fear ebbing slightly at Glamor’s unruffled demeanor.

“Is it?” Glamor patted her shoulder again as Fluttershy noticed a nearly-silent sound of fluttering wings. “Then why can’t she eat you, like everyone else? If all that power lies locked in a box somewhere, why does she care whether you slumber or not?”

“I don’t know.”

“Neither of us do, but we can deduce an answer: you are Kindness and Kindness is you. An object doesn’t carry the power of the Element, you do.”

The sound of wings grew louder and before Fluttershy could turn, a swarm of butterflies engulfed her sight, blocking out the nightmarish streets, the trapped griffons, and Glamor. “But it’s always needed the other five to do anything!” she protested to the wall, raising her voice slightly.

“I doubt you’ve ever tried,” Glamor replied, her voice at a normal conversational volume, her tone as if she couldn’t see the butterflies. “But remember: the dose makes the poison. And be sure to tell them that there is a great and terrible power under the ice in the east, and if Evil obtains it the results will be unimaginably terrible.”

The fluttering of wings almost deafened her, and the flurry of them obscured everything but the sea of red and blue. She felt as if the swarm was carrying her away, the world seeming to become fuzzy…

...and she was back in the room, on a very messy bed. She blinked and shook her head, the movements coming easily to her, and she rolled to her side.

She was there.

The oily smoky mist still cloaked her and she was still a crude imitation of Twilight, but there was something different about the being; it took a moment for Fluttershy to realize that the vague sense of wrongness, and a vague aura of discomfort and fear that seemed to hang over the creature the first time was simply… gone. She watched silently as Fluttershy scrambled off the bed and stood on her own hooves, the glowing holes that served as eyes sputtering like flames as she stared, and she seemed to be waiting for Fluttershy to speak, or otherwise act.

“What are you? She asked.

The being watched for several moments. “The beginning, and more ends than I can count,” she said, her voice silky and feminine without the slightest hint of the hissing vibrato that made it disturbing. “Those like me are oft called death, the destroyers of worlds. We were once named ‘zambet,’ which means ‘smile,’ and so I took the name for my own, for I alone have the right to carry it.”

“The pony called you the progenitor.”

“A folly of hers. I bear no offspring, so I am not a progenitor. Others are patterned after me, crude copies to vex until a more terrible being slays them.” Zambet inclined her head towards her. “You have slipped the chains fitted to you. All the better; you will be a useful herald to proclaim what followed when Zambet herself visited her wickedness on mayfly mortals.”

“I’m not going to let you.”

“Little Butterfly, who has deceived you into thinking you have a choice?” The being turned away from her and her shape began to dissolve into the mist. “Were the deviant one standing before me, I might contend with her. You? You are gentleness, Kindness, a mender, and to fight you is beneath me.”

“Deviant one?”

“The female one of many colors who favors females,” Zambet said. “Such wastage very nearly offends.”

Fluttershy blinked at her. “...what?”

Zambet stopped dissolving and turned back to face her. “You are not aware of this.”

“That she and Gilda had a crush on each other?”

“So the deviance truly is of the husk and not of Grymmilnia.” Despite the edge of her head having become indistinct and her expression frozen from what appeared to be the permanent impossibly wide grin, Zambet somehow appeared contemplative. “Fascinating. Useless, but fascinating. And by your question, you were clearly aware of the deviance… and yet it does not seem to trouble you.”

“It… should?”

“It ought. All things must create more of themselves; there is no other purpose to life. What deviates from this purpose must be pruned. Among that which is aware of its own awareness, this pruning is accomplished by shunning that which deviates; this is meant to be better than simply destroying it to make the things more pure and focus them on that singular purpose.” Zambet looked at her. “And yet you are unaware of that which all things ought know. Perhaps, if your equine kind exist after our success, the Maker can repair you of this fault.”

Fluttershy felt her cheeks color. “Rainbow Dash does not need to be pruned! There is nothing wrong with how she felt about Gilda!”

Zambet fixed her with a steady look. “Truth angers you.”

“It is not truth!”

The steady look continued for several moments. “It must be like this with those that adhere to one of the gods and are told that their icon’s nature is not as they believe it to be.” She turned away and began dissolving again. “I shall remember this advantage for the future. Thank you.”

Fluttershy looked hard at her, her cheeks warming. She was vaguely conscious of the flutter of wings nearby but she brushed it aside, focusing on the very collected Zambet. “It is not truth,” she repeated, a shade more quietly than before.

“The word ‘truth’ offends you then?” There was a touch of mockery in the tone this time. “Perhaps I should call it fact?”

“It is not…”

“Objective reality?”

“It…”

“Come now, Butterfly, what word ought I use for a thing that is absolutely true?” Zambet snorted haughtily. “And why ought I choose a word that soothes your fragile mortal sensibilities?”

“They are not sensibilities.” Fluttershy told her, surprising herself with how her offense was becoming somehow… remote to her. Like it was someone else’s anger, and she was just watching it from afar. “Rainbow Dash is not a deviant. Glida was not a deviant.”

“You are angry with me, aren’t you?” Zambet stared at her, and her immobile and partly-dissolved face radiated a contemptuous pity. “Little Butterfly, you do not seem to understand your situation.”

Suddenly, Fluttershy found herself muzzle-to-muzzle with a pony’s skull, scorched and blackened, amethyst light radiating from every orifice, eye sockets a conflagration of violet fire with a sputtering flame of blood-red serving as slit pupils. It felt like reality itself was twisting around the terrible visage, everything but Zambet’s face melting into the background, oozing and running like candle wax, and Fluttershy felt her legs go out from under her as a crippling vertigo hammered her to the ground.

“You soothe, Butterfly,” the discordent, silky voice hissed, the rumble of a stoked fire echoing behind the pronouncement. “You heal, you mend, you comfort. You are a faint, flickering candle of vain hope, sputtering in a hurricane, helpless to stay the roaring storm around you. A mayfly of fickle summer, rising to the dawn, breathing your last as the inevitable night yawns around you, devouring the light and life alike. However long this power in you preserves your insignificant breath, you shall never see a thousand worlds rise from the muck and be crushed to ash before the Void that laps always at their edges, endless, eternal, and implacable. You tremble with hate and anger at my sufferance; do not imagine that your will wrought the stay of the noose.”

Mist flowed over the skull and took the form of flesh being laid over it, forging a face that vaguely resembled that of Princess Celestia but sunken and narrowed with famine. The vertigo vanished and the world stopped melting and twisting, but Fluttershy remained sprawled on the ground, stunned at the sudden surge of anger and show of power. “You seek to hammer a nail with a looking-glass.” Zambet said in the silky, feminine voice she’d used before. “You cannot heal me to death, Butterfly; you can only shatter yourself. Begone, while I still permit it.”

Fluttershy remained on the ground, panting and staring up at the more patrician face Zambet had put on. The faint sound of fluttering wings came again and again, she put it aside. “Why?”

“Why not? I have siphoned what I wished from you. I have no fear of whatever power you might wield; even the Dread Empress, were she here at this very moment, has not the power to slay me but merely wound. You awake far too late to break the chain that drags you and yours to the appointed doom.” A fastidiously-groomed eyebrow that Fluttershy could have sworn wasn’t there a moment ago arced. “And there is not enough of you to flavor my meat. Save for ephemeral pleasure, there is no purpose to trifling further with you.”

Fluttershy pushed herself to her hooves. “But you’re going to consume everyone else in the city.”

Shoulders formed and shrugged. “The wolf cannot feast on the sweetmeats without tearing out the throat.”

Fluttershy watched as more of the mist formed into solid features. “You’re doing it now.”

Zambet dipped her head. “As you say.”

As before, the mingled fear and anger seemed remote. “I won’t let you.”

“You can no more stop me than the egg can break the rock. You cannot heal me to death, Butterfly.”

“I don’t want to kill you.” Fluttershy felt herself smile, not even sure why. “I don’t even want to hurt you; that’s not what Kindness is for.”

“And what is Kindness for, Butterfly?”

“Healing the throats you tore out.” Just saying the words made her feel lighter, and the room seemed a little brighter than it did a moment ago. “If you want to talk anymore, I won’t be long.”

Zambet’s features clouded. “They are mine.”

“They were.” Fluttershy continued to smile but the sensation was starting to feel… odd, like the smile was a mask she was wearing, and the peaceful certainty that she had no reason to be afraid of Zambet was a artful dress. “Now they’re mine. If the wolf could take a doe from the bear, she would.”

Zambet snorted. “You are no bear.”

“No.” Fluttershy recognized the voice as hers, and felt her mouth moving, but the water-harp resonance to the word was definitely not her... and neither was the person speaking. “I am the steady fire in the tower, to guide the wayward home. I am the inevitable rising of the sun after the deepest night. And as you say, I am a healer, a mender, and a comforter. And I am Fluttershy as well.”

"But at this moment, Zambet,” her voice said as the room became almost blindingly bright around her, outlining the starved lines of Zambet’s pony face even more starkly, “I am apoptosis. And you are not necessary.”

Author's Note

Welcome to the next chapter. Fortunately, I had a plan so this one didn't take another eight months or so to do. Even so, I apologize as always for the delays.

As always, feedback is welcomed and encouraged and I hope the few of you who're actually watching still like it. :)

Luna: Heralds

The latest object of Master’s experimentation proved to be a young female griffon with features that bore a striking resemblance to those of Grymmilnia. The melding of her flesh with the Void had turned her white plumage black, and the brown a mottled grey, but the twisting of her body didn’t seriously alter her otherwise, certainly not to the degree that Luna had seen in the other expendable griffon mutates. She was still clearly so extremely exhausted that she didn't even stir as Spite hoisted her on her back and carried her out of the Archive. After they exited and walked back to the makeshift camp, Kyra took charge. Most of the changelings who had been sent by her sister to be her guard would be coming with her, while a couple changelings wearing sashes with medical designations stayed behind with a quartet of soldiers to care for the griffoness until they judged her fit to travel, and then travel back to the embassy in one of the conquered cities. That Kyra seemed to feel that four soldiers were enough to keep medical ponies and their helpless patient safe struck Luna as a subtle but clear sign that a thousand years had done nothing to diminish the changelings’ natural capacity in a fight.

Watching the military efficiency with which the changelings broke camp and stowed their gear had given Luna a faint pang of longing for the days that seemed only a few years ago for her, but had in fact been over a thousand. It wasn’t that war was a pleasure; she had no longing for the bloodshed, despair, pain, and most of all the frustration that the well-being of Equestria forced her to drag thousands of ponies from home and family to die over a few square inches of land that would lose all importance by the following year. But for all of its horrors, war was best described as a week of drudgery for a few hours of frantic and lethal struggle, and it was the drudgery that she remembered with fondness. Being in the field, surrounded by her armies composed almost entirely of changelings, let her taste what it was like to be Tia. Her little ponies--and she sometimes let herself think of them that way, even though they were most directly the subjects of their queens--always seemed to perk up when she was around, always smiling, always happy to see her, insisting on bowing to her especially when she told them to stop for the millionth time. The love of the common pony was like a soft, warm blanket always close at hoof and even more than her time at court, where Tias’ smiling and welcoming visage was the center around which everything else revolved, Luna felt like she was really and truly a princess of Equestria when she was out in the field with the Black Legions.

Of course, thoughts of the past made her remember Tia feeling compelled to send Amaryss and her people away, and the absolutely shattered expression on the young, shy monarch’s face just before she walled her sadness off behind a royal mask… and that made her think of the duchess flying comfortably at her left hoof while Rainbow Dash drifted casually to her right.

“I imagine it’s far harder for you than it is for anyone else, Your Majesty,” Kyra said, keeping her eyes forward where Spite was making her preparations for the next blink forward.

Luna looked at her. “What’s that?”

“”Wrapping your mind around the end of my people being the loyal subjects of the Dual Thrones.” She looked at Luna, her expression compassionate. “Around the end of the time when we were practically your personal subjects, your soldiers, thousands of ponies who had eyes only for you and who weren’t just being respectful to you on their way to basking in Celestia’s maternal presence.”

“For me, it’s only been a decade or so,” Luna said. “I didn’t experience my sojourn on the moon as a period of waiting, but as a sort of grand adventure to places I could scarce imagine, escorted through the mists of perfect memory by Nacht.” Although there were times where it seemed just a bit too real to be a memory. I wouldn’t put it passed her, either. “So for me, there were a few years after you were sent away, and then an instant went by, and it has been a few years since my return. During that time, you must have laid dozens of queens to rest.”

“Ten,” Kyra said with a little smirk. “I can’t imagine you’d notice a century when you’ve lived for as long as you have, but our queens have always been long-lived before the heptarchy was consolidated and all of that renewing love came to center around a single queen instead of many.”

“So your sister is only the eleventh queen since Amaryss?”

“And first since Amaryss to make the end of the Exile her intended life’s work,” Kyra said. “We used to kind of tease her about it, how she was so fixated on the campaign stories in the archives, and put in the extra work on her preservation duties. Joked how she wanted to run away from home and become one of Celestia’s hoofmaidens.” She shrugged. “Mind you, it’s not like we thought she was wrong, just silly. When she took the crown, we still thought she had her head stuck in the clouds.”

“What changed?”

“Her actually going through with her plans around Chidi.” Kyra’s expression darkened a little. “It wasn’t a good change.”

“Thought ya called her ‘the best of us’ and were going on about how she was an awesome queen.”

“And I was being sincere, because Chryssy’s plans have all come up aces and with hindsight, I know all of how she rigged the game in her favor. We all do, all three of her sisters and her inner circle as well.” She sighed. “That was far from the case at first. When we heard that she’d guise-locked her second daughter, Chidinida, and sent her away to be adopted by Celestia as a foal, we were… horrified. And angry, very very angry. We thought her fixation had become an obsession, and she’d completely spit her bit. To us, she had endangered a child, her child, for some fantastical dream of reunion with Equestria.”

Her expression became sad. “I wouldn’t speak to her for years afterwards, came all the way to the Provinces as her ambassador so I didn’t have to look at her. Chiti and Thalia scattered to different corners of the world for the same reason; we abandoned our own sister out of anger and disgust, and refused to even listen to her. We paid for it, in the end; when Chidinida returned to Scarabi, a grown mare, beautiful and adored with a fiance that doted on her, we were in our own little holes and got to hear about it secondhoof. Chiti could have introduced herself afterwards since she holed up in the Royal Archives in Canterlot, but neither I nor Thalia have gotten to meet the niece we abandoned our sister over. Poetic justice, I suppose. in 30 years, checking up on her would have been simplicity itself; Chryssy has always been less than a day away by courier and asking after Chidi should have been our chief concern after our behavior towards our sister.”

“But you reconciled.”

“We begged her forgiveness,” Kyra said. “Which she gave immediately, and with lots of hugging. It was… good to have our big sister back. You never really feel how big of a hole someone fills in your life until they’re not filling it anymore. And nothing was quite the same without the kind of intimate communication with our queen that we’d have had if we hadn’t let ourselves get carried away. Chryssy needed all the major powers to be aware of her intent long before anything happened, lest they see that Equestria suddenly had an army again, and their panic make them act without calmly considering what would be best for their nation.”

“And the minor powers?”

“They deserve our sympathy, but if you already have no effect on the strategic picture, you can’t possibly have less than no effect.” Kyra shrugged. “The hippogriffs maintain diplomatic isolation, although they were pleasant and polite to our embassy. The yaks are… themselves. Saddle Arabia is a de facto province of Equestria and has been for centuries so to consult them would be to consult Equestria itself. Sirens wish to be left alone. There hasn’t been a Crystal Empire since before Amaryss’ birth. We largely ignored the Yeti except to draw the same old lines in the sand. And Zebrica… well, they’re large enough to matter but prefer not to, so it’s the same old same old.”

Luna shook her head. “I find it difficult to believe that in all the time that the changelings have been a distinct nation and in formal diplomatic communication with everyone, presumably conducting all the normal affairs of state, the Equestria ambassadors have never once noticed you. Never attended the same dinners. Never had an appointment where they’d be in the same room as the changeling representative. Were never even mentioned by a single ruler of a single nation, major or minor.”

“I can’t speak to the motivations of the dragons--that’s what Thalia is for--and Chryssy has never involved us three in the embassies to the minor powers--she depends on her daughters Lepinora and Tettidora for that--but the Provinces have always regarded us being a separate nation as a particularly delicious comeuppance for Equestria after all the historical conflicts they had with ponies. And since they could further twist the knife, in their own minds, by concealing us from you, they’ve always gone through a truly epic degree of effort to deny you the truth.”

Luna shook her head again, this time in disgust. “And all this time, Tia thought she’d successfully soothed old wounds and buried old wrongs on both sides. Now you tell me they’ve been rubbing their hands gleefully over the Exile.” She clenched her jaw. “After Tia has apologized personally, face-to-face, and offered to return some marginal lands as a gesture of goodwill and mutual peace. After she’s made the griffon ambassadors welcome and seen to their every whim as a gesture of friendship. After centuries of her cultivating cooperation and understanding in the distinctive maternal Tia way, they still cling to old hates and revel in schadenfreude at her expense?”

“I doubt they’re reveling in anything right now,” Kyra said quietly. “This Vorka does not seem a bloodthirsty maniac trying to bathe the Provinces in blood, but I feel the results are they same as if he was.”

“OK, so, question,” Rainbow interjected. “Spite was talking about how he spends hours doing his thing, right?”

“Yes?”

“So how does he take thousands of ‘em, and do the same thing. Wouldn’t it take, yanno, years?”

Luna and Kyra looked at each other. “And on top of that, how does he get all the muscle up here to do their thing? I mean, yeah, makes ‘em, but ta put a wall around the Provinces, wouldn’t he need to, like, bring thousands? An’ set it up so they all close the border at the exact same time, without even a single griffon going through?”

“We know he’s working with someone,” Kyra siad. “More than one someone, really, if you count Grymmilnia and the zambet. What’d Spite say, that ‘the Voice’ had secured a point of something called a ‘lei’?”

“And that he, Vorka, had secured another,” Luna nodded. “Vorka said that a third point was beyond their reach and knowledge, whatever that means, and that there were two other points being managed by someone else.”

“Five points like a… star?”

“If the point that Vorka secured is the Archive, it can’t be,” Kyra pointed out. “It shifts about at various times so unless he can somehow make it go where he wants it when he wants it--I cannot imagine how that would even be possible myself--it couldn’t be the point of a star-shaped network of points.”

“OK, I think I have an eye on the next horizon,” Spite announced, canting her wings slightly so she’d drop back in formation to be near the middle of the group. “Same as the first few times: three-count, brace, and we’ll be through.”

Luna nodded to her, mentally counting one-one thousand two-one thousand, three-one thousand and then braced herself for the disquieting feeling of utter emptiness and shocking cold that marked the split-second dip into what Spite had called ‘the Void.’ She gave herself a shake as they emerged again into the blazing sun of the Provinces and glanced at Spite.

“It seems to take you a great deal of preparation for such a brief leap forward,” she said.

“Pulling mortals through the Void one at a time is quite dangerous,” Spite said. “With a group of a good two dozen, I’m not taking chances of leaving someone behind because I didn’t allow a generous window.”

“Glad we ain’t spending more than a second there,” Rainbow said. “Place’s as cold as buck.”

“If you weren’t put there by the only power that can make you able to survive it, it’s far worse than just cold,” Spite said. “Although I’ll admit I was waiting to make out what the subject of conversation was.” She glanced to either side, looking at Kyra and then Luna. “I’d think that with a world as magical as this one, lei lines would be second nature to you.”

“We may have never heard them called such,” Kyra pointed out.

“Fair point. So what’s the local term for the metaphysical rivers of magic that connect points of confluence?”

“I’ve personally never heard of such a thing,” Kyra said. “Princess?”

“Hypothesis,” Luna said. “The circumstantial indications are overwhelming, but extraordinary magical theoreticians have been trying to test the hypothesis since Starswirl the Bearded. The confluences have been conclusively established since before even his time, but ‘mana torrents’ remain nearly impossible to prove. The most credible theory is that they’re so massive that they simply swallow any spell sent into one before it can be perceived down the line.”

“Well, clearly this ‘Voice’ knows what they are, knows that they are, and has gotten control of one, probably by squatting on a confluence.” Kyra frowned. “And there’s another confluence that ‘Master’ controls in the Provinces. Scarabi is clearly one such confluence--one that has Chryssy, a nation under arms, and Empress Moon protecting it--and I’m sure that Canterlot must be one too.”

“There’s one at our old castle,” Luna said.

“Yes, the Tree of Harmony.” Kyra smirked at her. “Yes, we know that it exists, what it’s for, and where it is.”

“Uh… tree of harmony?”

“Intensely magical tree that the Elements are tied to Rainbow,” Luna said. “So the Evils know they exist and want to control them. But why? I don’t know what the abilities of these Evils are but if the greatest magical technician in Equestrian history couldn’t devise a way to throw enough power at a torrent for it to carry, where are they going to get that kind of power?”

Spite shrugged as she pumped her wings, moving ahead to prepare herself for the next blink forward. “Maybe they’d use some kind of artifact from this world. I’m sure there’s one or two out there that could be used that way.”

“Well the Elements are out,” Kyra said, looking over at Rainbow. “If the baubles protect them from something Spite calls a world-destroyer, I’m sure the interlopers won’t be able to do anything with them.”

“The Crystal Heart is wherever the Empire was taken by the last emperor’s curse,” Luna said. “And the Golden Font has long been lost in such circumstances that I don’t believe the Evils could reach it. The artifacts associated with Starswirl the Bearded and Clover the Clever are locked beneath Canterlot. Granted, Master somehow infiltrated the palace for long enough to recreate Twilight’s hidden room with exactness, but wandering a corridor is a far cry from picking the lock of a runic vault within touching distance of the Royal Guard.”

“And the Alicorn…?”

Luna eyed her. “Your people seem to be aware of a lot of things Tia would prefer stay unknown.”

Kyra grinned, exposing her slightly elongated incisors. “We can look like any pony we wish, including a certain secret-keeping princess. Are you really all that surprised?”

Luna considered that. “I suppose not. But the Amulet will not be an issue. Tia has assured me that she sent it away from Equestria and that even she has no way to be sure where it’s gone. If Tia can’t find something she squirreled away, I don’t believe the Evils will fare any better.”

The changeling royal looked curiously at her. “Sent it away? Did she use that specific phrasing?”

“Yes, in fact.” Luna returned the curious look. “Why?”

“The particular phrase seems to imply that she gave it to somepony and that somepony left Equestria.” She gestured to Luna. “But you’re the only pony I can think of--outside of perhaps Twilight Sparkle--who she’d trust with something so dangerously powerful.”
“My sister has taken many students under her wing,” Luna said. “I’m sure that at least one came along in the last thousand years that she trusted with that particular burden. I can even make a good guess as to why.”

“Fearing the return of Nightmare Moon.” Kyra snorted. “An extremely silly thing to fear, in hindsight.”

“Nacht is a dangerous person,” Luna said. “Tia was completely correct to regard her with fear and caution.”

“But Celestia believed that you and you alone would return,” Kyra said. “She wasn’t afraid of Nachtmiri Mein because she didn’t know she existed.”

Luna frowned at her. “I think I want to stop this line of thought before it goes anywhere.”

“I don’t blame you. So, all the likely candidates to be used to power an attack along the torrents are out of their…”

“What about those ka… kaz… whatever the buck they’re called?” Rainbow said. “The round yellow glowy thing that Lash used on me that made the shadow thing.”

“I doubt something that couldn’t simply kill you outright is powerful enough to force a spell into the torrents and keep its disposition all the way to the end,” Kyra said.

“At the same time, it was able to harm Rainbow, where she seemed immune to the efforts of the zambet,” Luna pointed out. “So it may be possible that one of these kazim stones…”

“It can’t.” Spite was once again flying between Kyra and Luna again. “And I have the terrible feeling that what Grim and Rainbow drove off wasn’t a zambet. It was the zambet.”

“What do you mean?”

“I’ll show you. Brace yourselves.” Luna barely had begun to ready herself for the plunge when they were already out and flying above a landscape that was vaguely familiar--but for an immense dome where the small city should have been.

“...is that a… geodesic dome?” Kyra said, sounding as stunned as Luna felt. “Where did it come from? What is it made of?”

“It’s made of the material of the Void,” Spite said grimly. “It’s one of the first steps a zambet takes when they’ve seized a city: shielding themselves under a curtain of the Void so they might feast without anyone to disturb them save the rare few beings that can crush them as insects.”

Luna narrowed her eyes and overlaid a simple far-seeing glamour over her sight. Her vision jumped forward and she could clearly see the intricacies of the structure, evenly-spaced members with what seemed to be panes of dimmed glass hung between them and laced with deceptively delicate supports. The exquisite engineering of the dome made her pause a moment before she dismissed the spell and looked at Spite. “Kyra was right. It’s far more of a engineered structure than a curtain. It faintly reminds me of...”

“...the exquisite and fine detail work Master did on one of the creations you looked on with a form of second sight?” Spite finished.

“Yes.”

“Zambets don’t bother with detail,” the dragon said. “Their typical mindset is that a profligate use of their power and the material of the Void doesn't matter because they’ll soon have more than enough. The dome is solid, blocking out the light…”

“The sort of reckless overuse of power you find in young mages who haven’t learned how to use only as much of their font as they need,” Kyra said.

“Whereas this looks like one of Twilight’s magical constructs,” Luna said. “Mathematically-precise. A calculated use of power, the product of a technical mind.”

“Exactly.”

Luna swallowed as the implications struck her. “Not a zambet, but the zambet.” Her brow furrowed. “But she was so blatant when she toyed with me. A dime-store novel monster, taunting, egotistical, although still clever. She didn’t seem to understand mortals, trying to hurt me with memories that I’d long since put behind me.”

“It was the same with me,” Spite said. “Arrogant, quick-tempered, unstable… exactly what I’d expect of a zambet.”

“The best guise is the one that shows everyone what they expect to see,” Kyra said. “So what do you know of the zambet?”

“That her name is also ‘Zambet’,” Spite replied. “Beyond that, only legends. That she nibbles rather than gorges. That indulging sadism pleases her, but a pleasure she permits herself in small doses. That the immense power of age and experience is paired with a well-ordered mind, and that she prizes her intellectual detachment. But the most consistent point of agreement is that she doesn’t feed for power, or pride, or intimidation, but to achieve specific goals.”

“Meaning?”

“An ordinary zambet would ignore a timid creature like Fluttershy because she’d be so easy to terrify,” Spite said quietly. “Zambet would apply her experience with Rainbow Dash, realize that Fluttershy’s presence endangers her, and neutralize her first.”

“But the Element protected Rainbow.”

“Loyalty and Kindness are not the same, Princess,” Kyra siad. “It stands to reason that they’d react differently to danger.”

“You say Loyalty reacted by… imbuing her hits with flashes of energy?”

“Yes,” Luna confirmed.

“I suppose it would be in the nature of Loyalty directed by a pony as straightforward as Rainbow Dash to strike out at a foe in front of it.” Spite sighed. “Too much to hope that it would do the same thing for Fluttershy. We should draw closer, see if there’s a weakness in the dome. I doubt there will be but…”

“To what end?”

Spite shrugged at Kyra. “I’m not sure. The zambet I encountered was Zambet playing pretend. I’ve never met her personally, have no specific idea of how she operates, and can’t imagine her creating something so intricate just to advertise her presence. It seems certain that she’s found Lashaal here, however, or she wouldn’t have enclosed the city.”

“Can the construct be broken through?”

“Of course,” Spite said, sweeping forward. “It is of the Void.”

“Cryssy got a message to me about that,” Kyra said, flanking her to the left. “Lots about Dark and Light, and fire and acid, and it all seems to add up to most magic being able to dissolve the Void like the sun does frost flowers.”

“Yes.” Luna moved onto the dragoness’ right flank. “I believe the creative energies of Dark--which seem to be my affinity--affects them as acid and the energies of Light--what Tia has--acts like fire.”

As they drew nearer to the city, Luna could more fully appreciate the deceptively delicate dome that Zambet had made over the city. If she hadn’t come across Void energy before, she’d have thought that the members of the structure were made of blackened steel. As they came close enough to the collassel construct to land at it, she could see that the creature had even gone to the trouble of simulating bolts driven into structural joints to hold the entire thing together as if was an actual structure and actually required physical bolts to secure its pieces.

“Incredible,” Kyra breathed. “Obsessively detailed, as if it actually needs to be constructed the way real steel would be.”

“You’d be surprised how much such random and insignificant details matter,” Spite said, reaching out and tapping the sheet of simulated steel over where the gates of the city would be, creating a hollow clang sound. “A moment please.” The dragoness snapped her claws and a thin jet of white flame sprung from the tip of one of them. She brought the jet against the construct and pressed forward.

The flame sputtered and surged against the ‘steel’ but appeared to have about as much effect as a match flame. Spite blinked several times before she furrowed her brow and the flame became much more intense, so much so that Luna was forced to avert her eyes from the scorching light the magic emitted. After a moment, Spite snorted and the light faded.

“Curse me for an idiot,” she sighed. “You can look now, I’m done with trying to use Light on it.”

The effort, Luna saw, had produced a slight distortion to the pretended metal but otherwise, nothing had happened. She looked at Spite. “I thought that Light…”

“This is why I said that tiny details mattered,” Spite said. “Mathematics and engineering are inherently aligned to Order. The more intricately something is engineered, the more precise the mathematics employed, the more it aligns to the Light, to Order, even when it’s a material that the Light normally burns. Your own magic, however….”

Luna nodded and formed a long black straight blade out of magic and pushed it against the covering. The material instantly melted away before the touch of the dark magic and Luna rapidly carved a hole large enough to fit through with ease and nearly ran straight into a griffon as she stepped through. A startled moment later, she realized that he wasn’t moving, visibly breathing but staring straight ahead, his eye sockets covered with a black film that made them appear to be holes in his head.

“What’s wrong with him?” Kya said, stepping around and looking at the griffon as she circled around to his back.

“I… think he’s been pulled into a zambet fever dream,” Spite said. “But I’ve never seen it done this way before. Victims are usually cocooned in the Void by the feeding…”

“In other words, Zambet just barely used enough material to suit her needs.” Kyra came around the other side and looked at Luna. “I sense a pattern at work.”

“Yes.” Luna walked passed the frozen griffon, looking around the streets at the dozens littering the streets, all standing there and breathing the steady rhythm of sleep. “Is there any way to know where Zambet is?”

“Normally I’d suggest the center of the city but she’s already broken the normal patterns of her kind. I don’t think we can rely on my limited knowledge of zambets to locate…”

The dragon trailed off into silence, her expression becoming puzzled. “Princess, are you feeling…?”

Luna squinted and then closed her eyes, feeling the tingling against her magical senses. “Yes. It’s…. the aura is like standing next to the Tree of Harmony. The power tingles and buzzes like the air right before lightning. It’s…”

“...getting more intense.” Kyra swallowed. “Something really big is building. I think we should put something big and solid between us and whatever is ahead of us.”

The air began to become warmer and the tingling became pins and needles against Luna’s senses. “Yes, I think you’re…” And suddenly, in a rush of impossible cold, they were where Spite had first brought them within sight of the city, except just a few inches above the ground. Luna turned and looked at the dragon. “What was…?”

“I’ve felt something like that before, and when it peaked, some extremely violent…”

Luna saw her mouth continuing to move, but it was if the sound had been abruptly cut off, like flipping a light switch. And then she was flying, except she couldn’t remember having opened her wings or taken off, and she was tumbling through the air as she flew with her wings still tucked against her body, and a rather jagged collection of rocks were approaching at a disturbingly great speed, and her mind suddenly caught up to the fact that something had thrown her into the air and away from the city, and she was about to be smashed against the rocks. She snapped her wings open as she forced magic through her horn to create dozens of layers of thin magic and started crashing through them, each leaving a light tingling on her skin, but each slowing her dramatically. So instead of crashing at full speed into the rocks, she dropped short and tumbled head over tail until the nearest rock stopped her and she found herself upside down and facing in the direction of the city.

She could feel her eyes getting wide as she watched a towering cloud of dust mixed with motes of silver-white magic mushroom over the city, rising hundreds of feet into the air with the faint echo of a bone-shaking roar still echoing in the stillness of the shockwave that had sent her and Kyra flying. The changeling was sprawled almost comically in the sand and dust of the arid lands, watching the mushrooming cloud with the same speechless awe as Luna.

“Ow.” Spite flopped off her feet right next to Luna. “That stung. A lot. I’m pretty sure that even my horns are throbbing.”

“What is that?” Luna asked, not looking at the dragoness.

“Mushroom cloud,” Spite siad. “I’ve seen them a few times, usually from the nice safe distance of over twenty miles away hiding in a bunker. Always kind of wondered what it would be like at ground zero. Now I know. I wish I didn’t. Did I mention ow? Because if I didn’t, ouch.”

“I can tell it’s a mushroom cloud,” Luna said. “Seeing as how it’s a cloud that looks like a mushroom. But what is it?”

“If we were somewhere else, I’d know exactly what it is. Here?” Spite twitched her shoulders in the faint shadow of a shrug. “Ow. And my only guess here is… Fluttershy annihilated Zambet, or at least disintegrated her mortal anchor.”

Luna sat with that for a moment. “I’ve seen the Elements entomb Order’s counterpart, Discord. I’ve seen them practically disintegrate Sombra. They’ve been used to defeat many enemies of Equestria over my lifetime but I’ve never seen just a single one do… whatever that is.”

“Normally, walking straight into ground zero of one of those would kill you where you stood but if the Element of Kindness set that off, I have a feeling that it’s not radiating death in all directions.” Spite started to stand, and then sank back down. “Ow. I think I want to take a nap. A few centuries should sort me out. Maybe a millenia or so.”

“Spite…”

“I’m kidding, Princess,” the dragon said. “But no matter how nice and cuddly I am, being blasted by that amount of unrestrained Light rang my bells pretty good. I’ll be right as rain in a few minutes.”

Luna rolled to her hooves and found, to her own surprise, that she felt fairly steady despite being hit by the shockwave. Kyra seemed similarly uninjured and gave her a look. “I don’t see any more dome, Princess. And if a nice Void thingy like Spite here got scrambled by the hit, pretty sure Zambet got laid out like a sack of apples.”

“Concur.” Luna spread her wings and slipped into the air with Kyra joining her a moment later, her anisopteric wings blurring soundlessly. “Did your sister get you any other messages?”

“About Nachtmiri Mein, but I’m sure she’s already contacted you,” Kyra siad. “We know about the entire sleight of hoof and relationship. We might have always had a different perspective on Nightmare Moon than Equestrian ponies did, but we still required a full explanation from her when she popped in on Chryssy.”

“How’d your sister take that?”

Kyra smirked. “How do you think?”

Luna winced a little. “Full induction?”

“Yup.”

The memory of seeing changelings use that particular weapon made Luna shiver involuntarily. “Doesn’t sound like an auspicious beginning.”

“It turns out that an ageless eldrich horror is more annoyed than harmed by being Induced, fortunately for all involved.” Kyra grinned widely as they neared the now-cleared gates and alighted. “They worked it out.”

“Sounds like Nacht.” The griffon they’d run into before was now slumped over in the street, his eyes closed, looking to be sleeping deeply and comfortably, and everywhere she looked, Luna saw the previously-captive griffons similarly sprawled out and resting. The streets weren’t even filled with dust clouds, or the remains of stirred-up dust starting to settle; even the awnings that Luna had seen before the blast seemed undisturbed. “The lack of damage is…”

“...eerie,” Kyra agreed, looking around. “It’s like that shockwave just… ignored everything that wasn’t made of the Void or outside the city walls. How is that even possible?”

“Magic can be attuned such that its effects ignore things within their path,” Luna said. “For instance, attuning it to a particular spectrum so that it slides passed a bin of red marbles and only grasps the blue ones. Advanced students from Tia’s school regularly find summer work on farms so the farmers can dump all the varieties of fruits and vegetables into the same wagon and the student can quickly and accurately sort them into their own bins when they get back to the barn. I suppose Fluttershy did something similar but far more… involved.”

“Yeah.” Kyra looked upwards at the slowly-dissipating cloud of magic and dust above the city. “Dramatic as buck, and extremely precise.”

“Far more than I had expected of the butterfly.” One minute, the street was empty of anyone but the slumbering griffons; the very next, an abomination was approaching at a casual walk. The right side reminded Luna strongly of Lady Fleur de Lis: slim, long-legged, elegant patrician features, one edge of her mouth seeming to be permanently stuck in a tiny smile, eye like an expertly-cut amethyst, and the long horn coming to a sharp point, all rendered in glossy black coat with a stylishly-coiffed neon green mane. The left side was a skeleton with the bone structure of the right side, and nothing seeming to hold it in the correct shape. The exposed skull was scorched and blackened with soot, sharp amethyst light erupting from every orifice, a mass of violet flame erupting from its eye socket with a thing sputtering flame of blood red serving as a pupil. The divide between the two halves was as precise as if it had been cut with a sharp blade and guide, the normal fleshy features of the right stopping abruptly when they reached the midline, like the creature was some kind of living anatomy model.

On the abomination’s back was draped two seemingly slumbering ponies: one, white-coated with long golden hair, was the pony shape that Lashaal used. The other was Fluttershy, her long pink mane draped across half of her face, wings unconsciously splayed out in the way that certain pegasi slept, looking visibly unharmed.

“Surprised?” The abomination asked, her voice silky and pleasantly feminine, the jaw of her skeleton side moving in perfect timing with her mouth.

Luna opened and shut her jaw several times as she stared at what was very likely Zambet. “You’re…”

“...alive,” Zambet finished. “It is not as impressive as you imagine. She made it clear that she was not going to try to kill or otherwise harm me, just shatter my hold on the citizens. Her decision was vexing for the moment, but I have many banquets from which to sup and the loss of some crumbs costs me little.”

Luna furrowed her brow. “You are… not what was described to me. Nor are you what I met outside of that structure Master was in.”

Zambet smiled a bit more deeply. “That was purposeful, Princess. Had you expected a mad beast and met instead a restrained Evil like Nachtmiri Mein, you would have been wary, watchful for some scheme or plan or a deeper purpose. So you were given the witless thrall, one so disconnected from reality that she thought to wound you anew with pains you had overcome, and memories with which you’d made peace.”

“OK, this is neat and all,” Kyra said. “It looks like you feel like the high road right now, and there’s no reason not to walk it with you. But kicking your plot up between your ears is sort of our obligation, since Fluttershy decided to manifest Kindness to the hilt.”

Zambet shrugged. “And when you choose to do so, I shall simply leave. You are strong, Ambassador, and the Princess is very nearly a deity, but anchoring any being of the Void to a mortal plane is a difficult endeavor even with the knowledge of how--and you do not even have that.” She used her head to gesture to the two mares on her back. “Lashaal can likely survive going through the Void unconscious and unanchored. I regret that Fluttershy likely will not. Do you really want to start a fight and compel me to leave?”

“What would stop you from doing that anyway?”

“If I intended it, I would have gone already. Wasting time taunting your foe is a quick way to lose your victory. It is very much the tendency of the limited beasts that constitute the least of my kind,” Zambet said, a touch contemptuously. “I am ancient because I do not reach for more than I can grasp.”

“What does a conversation gain you?” Luna said.

“A gesture of good faith,” Zambet said. She turned sideways and knelt, tilting her body slightly so that Fluttershy slid harmlessly into the dust of the street. She then straightened and turned to fully face them again. “I offer you this Butterfly, unharmed, in return for a service.”

“And what might that be?”

“You will permit me to leave, and not molest me afterwards.” Zambet gave Luna a little bow. “I have business yet, and wish to conduct it without concerning myself with impediments.”

“Don’t suppose we could have the other one too?” Kyra pointed at the form of Lashaal.

“No,” Zambet said. “She is mine, personally mine. It is to me that she swore her oaths, made her promises, told her tales. She carries the weapon she promised to obtain, and I shall take her to where she will render payment.”

“And I don’t suppose you’ll tell us where that is?”

“I do not yet know,” she said. “Otherwise, I would tell you. I know only that the Voice has sworn to seek it out, having secured a confluence of the greater lei line.”

Luna looked steadily at the abomination, and then bowed her head carefully to her. “I will not molest you, if you will give Fluttershy to me unharmed.”

“And the Ambassador?”

“She’s an ally, not my subject. I cannot make agreements on her behalf.”

Zambet snorted amusedly. “How very unfortunate for you.” She took several steps back from where Fluttershy lay. “Examine her as you will to prove that I have done as I agreed, and given her to you unharmed.”

Luna gave Zambet another long look and the abomination rolled her eyes. “Princess, I slipped into your head while you were not distracted. If I intended to harm you, I would not have wasted so much time talking to you.” She nodded at Kyra. “The Ambassador will surely prevent you from coming to harm.”

Luna frowned, but nodded in admission of the point before stepping closer to the prone Fluttershy and reaching out with her magical senses. That the pegasus was unharmed physically was readily apparent: she breathed deeply and easily, her coat had a healthy sheen, and there were no signs of injury. So, too, did Fluttershy seem unharmed within: she did not stir at all in sleep and her dreamscape radiated the same contented peacefulness that it always had when Luna had stopped by to rest a moment in between quelling nightmares. Despite the fact that Zambet had a point--that Luna actively defending against her hadn’t stopped her attack before--Luna decided that fully slipping into the dreamscape while the abomination was standing and watching would be foolish, and she opened her eyes to regard her.

“Why?”

“Destroying something so innocent and gentle would be a pleasure,” Zambet said, her expression of a light smile not budging at all. “A trophy, a symbol of my power, precious, delicious agony like the finest wine. Crippling the Elements, taking one beloved of the deviant, breaking hearts, shattering spirits.” She shrugged. “And all of it a trap. I was baited that way once,” she gestured to her skeletal half, “and I will not be again. I have done what I desired, making my mark and making all those who remain living heralds to proclaim my power, and carrying away the debtor I sought.” The abomination tucked her skeletal leg against her chest and bowed deeply. “Adieu.” And between one blink and the next, she was gone.

And Luna was standing at the city’s gates, looking inwards at the emaciated forms of griffons lining the streets of the city, slumped over stands, fallen atop one another, crowded in the streets as if they’d been struck down instantly as they were going about their everyday lives. The gate guard was leaned against the wall nearest them, his breathing uneven and shallow, sounding phlegmy and labored. Luna glanced down to see that Fluttershy was still laying at her hooves, her body still unmarked, her breathing still easy and natural, before she stepped over to the stricken griffon and reached out a tentative hoof to touch him.

The guard gasped and jerked away from the hoof, falling backwards and striking the ground with a groan of pain. “Who… who’s…” he said in a labored, creaking voice. “Oh… oh, it’s you Princess…” He rolled onto his belly and coughed weakly. “Was the… chase a dead end…?”

Luna looked at him and glanced over her shoulder at Kyra, who was looking completely shell-shocked as she stared at the avenue full of griffons. “No,” she said. “I’ve been gone for nearly four days.”

“Mmm?” He looked up at her blearily. “Four days? But you left just yesterday…” He closed his eyes and shuddered, before visibly forcing them back open. “At least I thought you did. Ugh… that was a strange dream. Thought I went and… grabbed a drink with some friends… spent time with a cute little chick…” He frowned. “Just a dream then?”

“I… honestly could not say,” Luna admitted. “Are you alright?”

He blinked a few times and yawned. “Tired and famished, but I’ve been worse.”

“Incredible.” Luna turned to see Spite standing there, looking at the emaciated forms with a look of genuine awe.

“Definitely not the word I’d use,” Kyra said. “Shocking, horrifying, terrible… all better words.”

“Well, yes, all of this is terrible,” Spite siad. “What I’m referring to is that I saw how they looked mere minutes ago: hale, heart, healthy resting comfortably. Now they’re sickly and starved.”

“An illusion.”

“No mere illusion, Princess,” the dragon siad. “A simple illusion would come apart the moment you drew near to it, and yet we walked into the city and all saw the same thing. This was a displacement.”

“A displace…?”

“I’m sure she can explain it later,” Luna interrupted. “We need to see if they’re all in the same state, see if any are worse. Could you go and bring the changelings and Rainbow here, Spite?”

“Yes.” Spite nodded once and just like Zambet, was gone in the blink of an eye, and Luna turned back to helping the guard into a comfortable position and giving him a brief sweep before turning, grimacing, and starting into the city to see what the abomination had left behind. She carries the weapon she promised to obtain, and I shall take her to where she will render payment, Zambet had said and about where she was going I know only that the Voice has sworn to seek it out, having secured a confluence of the greater lei line.

But where could that be? Luna shook her head as she nosed at the nearest griffon slumped across a stand, the wares that had been resting on it splayed across the ground, getting the same shiver and weak cough, and the same sleepy confusion as to the day. And who is this ‘Voice’ of which Master and Zambet spoke?

Author's Note

Why yes... Fluttershy blasting Zambet with her Element creates an effect an awful lot like a mushroom cloud.

You're welcome.

Commentary and criticism is, as always, desired and welcomed. :)

Trixie: Eclipse I

Celestia’s pronouncement caused a momentary silence as Trixie looked to Cadence, who was looking at Celestia with a confused expression. “The Tree of Harmony?” She said.

“A magical construct in the form of a tree,” Celestia said. “Unless it’s changed since I and Luna last visited it, there are six shapes in its branches that fit the Elements. We believe it to be the source of the Elements, although we’re not sure where it comes from.”

“So you plucked the six pieces of a magical weapon out of a physical manifestation of your world’s latent aethir,” Sadow said. “I don’t have the Maestro’s brilliant mind for the details of runescription and other means of creating magical objects, but I’m sure that magic like the Elements just appearing, appearing to be manifestations of six esoteric principles that…”

“How would you be familiar with the Elements of Harmony?” Cadence furrowed her brow. “Come to think of it, I don’t think I asked Maestro how he was informed about them. I’d jumped instantly to having read something, which gave him an easy way to not mention how he came to know, but hanging out Tetti gives me the impression that that sort of information would be locked away somewhere and only seen by the trustworthy.”

“We have a book about it over…” Spike hesitated, sweeping his head back and forth before pointing, “...there.”

Cadence looked askance at him and then at Celestia. “I guess it would make sense that it’d be a foal’s story, along with the tale of Nightmare Moon.”

Celestia smiled faintly. “We never thought there could be any harm from our subjects knowing they exist and what they represent.” Her smile faded and she looked up at Sadow. “But that knowledge was laid out for our subjects. How would yourself or this Maestro have it?”

“A being of the Void I’m on good terms with--one of the few it’s possible to be on good terms with--was familiar with this world,” Sadow said. “I asked her, and conveyed what she told me to Maestro Leonid.”

Celestia’s brow furrowed. “How would any being of this Void become so familiar with…” She stopped and her eyes widened. “Are you speaking of… Nightmare?”

“A nightmare, yes,” Sadow said. “I don’t know of one specifically called ‘Nightmare’.”

“The name I knew her as was ‘Nightmare Moon’.”

Sadow thought. “It has the same general flavor as Nachtmiri Mein but attributing the ways of another nightmare to Nachtmiri is… not generally wise.”

“I don’t think it matters who this nightmare is, Auntie,” Cadence said. “The fact is that at least two of our otherworldly allies know about the Elements, at least to some degree.”

Celestia stared for several moments at Sadow before she nodded once and looked at Shining Armor. “Captain Armor, would you go and see what’s keeping the soldiers?”

Shining stood up and bowed to Celestia before clanking over to the door and pushing through it, letting it fall shut behind him. Celestia then looked at Sadow. “When I interrupted yourself and my niece, you were speaking of some deep vines that you could use as a weapon?”

“Yes, the network that runs under your kingdom.”

“Under the kingdom?” Trixie repeated. “Like, the entire land of Equestria?”

“I can only be sure that it stretches as far as the palace,” Sadow said, “and under the ruined castle. But it wouldn’t be unusual to encounter a plant or fungus that has tendrils reaching hundreds of miles in many directions.”

“You… said they could be used as weapons,” Cadence siad. “And you could break armies with them.”

“I am a pureblood kitsune, Princess Cadenza,” Sadow bared her carnivorous teeth in a slightly unnerving grin. “All plants are my weapons.”

“But ya didn’t throw the fields against the atermors and their constructs,” Spike said.

Cadence looked at Spike and then gave the kitsune a raised brow. Sadow’s grin became somewhat sheepish. “You’re… right,” she said, the grin disappearing into a frustrated-sounding sigh. “The plants in Equestria are very… stubborn. I have the very distinct impression that they do not recognize me as their mistress, that their master is another.”

The plants around Ponyville? Have a...“Maybe not a single master,” Trixie said. “Forest, could plants sort of… ignore magic put on them if their master has a lot of control over them?”

“Plants that obey my will have ignored magical fire and ice as if they were made of steel in the past.”

“Could they defy whatever the atermors do?”

“I... suppose they could but what does that have to do with…?”

“I think I see where you’re going with this Trixie,” Celestia said. “We call ponies without horns or wings ‘earth’ ponies, Miss Sadow, because they have a very strong connection to the earth and growing things. Sweet Apple Acres wasn’t afflicted by the plague. The family that owns the property has very deep roots in Ponyville, in their orchards. Perhaps deep enough that their crops refused the disease, like your plant weapons have refused fire and ice?”

“It’s possible.” Sadow sighed. “And it means that at least until we’re quite a distance from Ponyville, I have only my personal weapons to offer the cause.”

“And the gremlins,” Trixie said.

“Yes, and them.” She grinned. “Good soldiers are a more potent weapon than any great spell anyway. I wish we had more of the black ponies to draw on. Where do they come from?”

“The other side of this continent,” Cadence said. “They’d sent a division ahead in General Market’s airship in case we needed them. It’s otherwise a very, very long journey to get to Equestria from the Barrens. My younger sister Tettidora devised a magical means but it’s only suitable for a single pony at the moment.”

“Then it appears that what we have is all we have,” Sadow said. “Not that what we have is very lacking: a demigoddess, her niece, an army, some rough field fortifications, and artillery.”

“And the Quarantine Flag.” All of them turned to look as Krysa and Anori walked through the door. Or, rather, ponies that Trixie recognized as the pair of bodyguards despite the fact that it was readily apparent that both were changelings. Their shapeshifted disguises abandoned, both were even more lean than they had been before, and the stalking cat cadence of their movements were no longer hidden behind an imitation of Royal Guard training.

Anori had the tattered flag draped over his back and lit his horn to raise it up to show them. “It didn’t seem to be doing anything without being activated, so we took it down,” he said. “And if I may say, Princess Celestia, it’s good to see you awake and about.”

“Thank you, sir…?”

“Anori du Closs, Your Highness,” he said, bowing lowly to her. “My mate, Krysa du Ard.”

“Ard and Closs families?” Celestia smiled a little more brightly. “Both still exist?”

“Officially absorbed into the royal house of Amaryss, Your Highness,” Krysa siad. “Unofficially, still considered distinct noble houses. The estates of Tempesthaven and Messana are still our home, although somewhat… displaced.”

“Um, yes,” Celestia agreed, looking suddenly awkward. “There were a… great many oversights, I’m afraid.”

“Including letting an entire manor and outbuildings be carried away?” Anori grinned widely.

Celestia blinked. “It wasn’t burned…?”

Somehow, the grin seemed to get wide and toothier. “To this day, we’re still teased about that. But I’m told my many-greats-grandmother was a determined mare.”

“Determined is… such a mild term for Sarissa du Closs…” Celestia smiled. “So is stubborn, come to think of it.”

“The Looming That Walks?”

“One of her very appropriate titles.” Celestia sighed. “I wish I could enjoy a long trip into nostalgia, Sir du Closs, but our enemies draw near.”

“I’m not sure you need to fear them as much as you think you do, Your Highness,” Krysa said. “Although… the reason will sound irrational.”

“After a strange dragon showing up with a letter of introduction from an otherworldly monarch, the Element of Loyalty being attacked by a beast of darkness, and this plague being laid on my kingdom only to be revealed as some bizarre magical trick, I’m not sure anything can be irrational anymore.”

Krysa smirked very slightly. “The Flag wants to help.”

Celestia blinked and looked askance at her. “The Flag… wants to help.”

“Yes.”

“What do you… what does that mean? Is it not some manner of extremely magical object, like the Elements?”

“Well, based on what Starswirl wrote down, the Elements definitely can have intentions, Your Majesty,” Spike said. “I mean, when your sister ended up on the moon for a thousand years with some stars acting like a sort of alarm clock, that doesn’t sound like something you thought up at the moment and told the Elements to do, right?”

Celestia opened her mouth, and then closed it, furrowing her brow. “That has… not been pointed out to me before,” she said. “I just remember taking them and directing their power at her but…”

“...the Elements came up with the thousand years and four stars?”

Celestia nodded to him and then looked back at Krysa. “I beg your pardon, please go on.”

“It’s hard to really explain,” she said. “When I or Anori pick the Flag up with our horn magic, we get distinct emotion out of it. Mingled lust, love, fear, and hope mainly. Interpreting the mix as something coherent isn’t an exact science but… it feels like a desire to help, and the feeling that help will be accomplished.”

“I don’t remember getting that when I poked at it with my horn magic,” Trixie said.

“Well, positive emotional radiance isn’t part a healthy diet for you, Trixie,” Cadence said. “Nothing is for free with magic. For changelings, that price is a need to… well, basically, ‘breathe in’ a certain amount the positive energy from positive emotions every day. It’s like a nutrient for them--for us, rather. We need all the rest of the good things: balanced plant diet, air, water, all the things normal ponies need. We just add in a healthy cup of hugs to stay well-nourished and feeling good.”

“You… eat emotion.”

“No more than you ‘eat’ sunlight,” Anori siad. “‘Eat’ implies that there’s less of it afterwards. Positive emotional radiance is why the horn magic and wings and respectable strength, plus the
shapeshifting.”

“It’s a lot of benefit for a simple addition to the diet, but then again Equestria is practically saturated in it, so it’s sensible,” Krysa added.

“The dietary needs of changelings aside,” Celestia said, “Are you certain of this, Sir du Closs, Lady du Ard?”

Both nodded. “As certain as we can be, Your Majesty.”

Celestia compressed her lips a moment and looked at the fox being standing quietly at her shoulder. “Explain.”

“I have no personal knowledge of the Flag’s making, Princess Celestia, but I’m familiar with its legend and a generally-understood principle of making magical artifacts,” Sadow said. “The principle is that your material either must be able to bear the magical ‘weight’ for lack of a better term, or be reinforced until it can. The way that this happens to ordinary objects--such as the tattered remains of a flag--is that a soul is partly or completely infused into it. Not,” she added at the suddenly horrified look Celestia gave her, “that it can be done forcibly, and it borders on impossible to do it with deliberate intent. Such infusion is unintentional, which is why such objects are so valuable--and powerful.”

“And the Flag?” Cadence asked.

“The legend is that the infusion is that of a physician, a plague doctor as a point of fact. It is said that they spent the last of their strength to raise a quarantine flag over a plagued village where the atermors had gathered, and lived long enough to see the atermors trapped in the village and an inferno destroying them.” Sadow smiled a little. “And that is the legend. What is fact is that around the time this was meant to have happened, the atermors were trapped on some mortal plane and massacred, even the first Canceros, self-named Emperor of All Maladies. What is also fact is that the Flag consumes them in fire and ashes if properly used, which lends credence to the legend.”

“So it could have intent? Desires of its own?”

“It is a possibility. Without the creator of the Flag, certainly is impossible.”

“Alright,” Trixie said, “So how does any of this change anything?”

“The same way that the Elements having some kind of will changed things,” Celestia said. “It seems that Nightmare Moon was somehow distinct from Luna. My will would have simply been to drive her out or destroy her; the Elements did something different and so, she was both able and willing to help when the time came.” She smiled a little sheepishly. “Although I don’t think we can know what the exact benefits are, or even could be. This is another of those instances where I would rely on my sister.”

“Hopefully, this Flag feeling generous will do something useful like that.” Trixie looked at the two guards. “Did you see Shining Armor on your way here?”

“I’m here, Trixie,” Shining said as he shouldered passed the two guards. “Colonel Kipper has pulled his forces off fortifying the town and is on his way to retrieve their artillery. The… whatever they are took the long way around and attacked them on the road from Canterlot. The courier said that they beat back the first assault but Kipper was concerned enough to abandon the town to march to their relief.”

“...and General Market?”

“I’m here!” Market said leaning around Krysa and giving them all a little wave.

“Where’s First Tantalus?” Cadence asked.

“Setting up headquarters in the town hall,” he said. “One of our engineers said it was solid and defensible, so there we are.” The excessively cheerful, slightly bashful and nervous demeanor visibly faded. “Princess, I think I can fit about a third of the town into the Black Mambo and start evacuating them towards the Barrens. Princess Tetti gave me a way to tell her what’s up so they’ll probably be safe there.”

“I can’t believe the only way is to tell my little ponies that they must flee from their homes and take nearly nothing with them,” Celestia said.

“If there’s a better way to keep them safe, Auntie, I don’t see it,” Cadence said. “We have no way to know what form the helpfulness of the Flag would take, and no army to put itself between them and the atermors.”

“Well, there’s a lot of them and their fakes, but they’re not real strong,” Market said. “Could probably beat ‘em up really good if they tried to get into Ponyville again.”

“But they outnumber you at least ten to one,” Sadow pointed out. “Those kinds of odds are beyond even the race from which Ersari and Elena spring, and even the most ill-trained jei and jeikitsu have decades of combat experience.”

“We don’t need to kill all of their fakes,” he said. “We just need to kill them until we get close to the boss. How’d the people who started the fire in that legend keep ‘em from running away?”

“By dragging them into mortality and forcing them to remain manifested by some manner of binding or seal,” Sadow said. “Otherwise you’re just destroying a puppet made of Void material. But you don’t have a way to do that.”

“Well, I sort of… uh… kinda do,” Market gave her a bashful smile. “Little trinket thing Queen Chrysalis gave me. I think she got it from her friend, that Empress pony.”

“Empress?” Celestia furrowed her brow. “What an… unusual name.”

“It’s what Queen Chrysalis calls her, to tease her because being called ‘empress’ seemed to annoy her.” He tapped his chin in a pondering manner. “I think it’s because she kept reflexively calling her ‘Queen Chrysalis’ after she told her…”

“What does she look like?”

“Um… black coat, long blue mane with stars in it, turquoise eyes with dragon pupils, wings, horn…” He brightened. “Just imagine the pictures of Nightmare Moon. She looks like that.”

“A pony who looks like Nightmare Moon?” Celestia squinted at him. “How much like Nightmare Moon?”

“Uhh… like someone lifted her directly from the pages of a storybook?”

“So an elaborate illusion…”

“...which I believe Mother would be able to see through…”

...or…” Celestia stared off into space for several moments. “It wasn’t insanity. It wasn’t a delusion, or some predator seizing upon her in a moment of weakness. She...” Celestia slumped back hard on her flanks, her stunned appearance almost comical if not for the utterly lost expression on her face. “...actually tried to… it was… real, the entire time...”

Trixie looked to Cadence, who was watching her aunt with a concerned expression. “Auntie Tia, what’s wrong?”

“Luna,” Celestia said faintly. “She… she wasn’t a victim. She… it was… she agreed to Nightmare’s plan… or was it her own plan all along?”

“I don’t know, Auntie, but didn’t that happen over a thousand years ago?”

Celestia stared at her for several moments before her features smoothed over and the haunted, lost expression melted back into a calm and attentive mask. “You’re right, Cadence. Right now isn’t the right time for this. It can… keep until I see my sister again.”

Cadence glanced at Trixie now, her brow furrowed, before she looked at Celestia. “Auntie, are you…?”

“Yes.” She looked at Market. “This trinket allows you to actually kill the atermors?”

“I think so,” he said. “The Empress said it’d take out anything not of this world. But… um… only once.” He looked sheepish. “I guess it’s real hard to do so… uh… wanna make sure we kill the right one with it.”

“Or any of them, really,” Sadow said. “It might deter them, seeing one of their kind actually killed, since they’d think it impossible here. Not even the Bloodwynds can actually kill them with the weapons they carry, which they’d be aware of by now.”

“I don’t think so,” Shining said.

“Why not?”

“The messenger that came loping up on one of those beasts they use mentioned that they drove off the attack by killing the atermor leading it. I don’t think they just meant that they destroyed--what did you call it? A puppet?”

“It wouldn’t be unheard of for a mixed unit to be carrying a contingency,” Sadow said. “Probably a satchel of munitions with their preference for machines.”

“So nothing we can use,” Trixie said. “I mean, I’ve used cannons in my act before but I always pay a professional to prepare it.--the trick is worth a hundred times the bits--so all I know how to do is pull a cord.”

“And I think our own cannons are more rust than metal,” Shining said. “We--uhh--haven’t had to fight anything big enough to need one that the Princess doesn’t simply… smite. Until the Guardian.”

Celestia gave him a wan smile and then sighed. “Another area where I’d defer to my sister.”

“How did you…?”

“By twisting every problem I needed her for into a problem I could handle.” She looked to Cadence’s bodyguards. “Clearly not the best solution. I can’t imagine this Chrysalis has shirked her international relations.”

“Embassy with every nation, Princess.”

“Not a single one of which has spoken a word about foreign pony emissaries since I expelled the changelings.” She sighed and looked at Sadow. “I concur with Trixie, we likely can’t use the gremlins’ method. It seems like this ‘Empress’ is our only hope--and she only gave you one, General.”

General Market nodded. “We’ll make it count, Princess,” he said earnestly. “And if you need to go somewhere else to stop the bad guys, we’ll take care of Ponyville.”

“I am honored by that General Market, after exiling those you lead.” Celestia smiled briefly before she looked at Sadow. “You have some way to teleport, the way Spite did?”

“It’s far more natural to her, but it’s a skill I have.”

“Can you take others with you?”

“I... suppose I can but…”

“How many?”

“I’d feel safe with no more than six.”

Celestia nodded to her. “Would you be willing to spirit my little ponies away from Ponyville while General Market and his forces shield you?”

“I would be, Princess, but did you not just say that you didn’t want them evacuated?”

“I did,” she said. “But I don’t think the atermors will continue to wait and if the Tree is broken or taken…” She looked at Market. “...I fear that only a changeling queen is strong enough to shield them.”

Author's Note

Time to try out some advice from a better author than me and seeing if shorter, more frequent, regularly broken-up chapters will give the story some energy. As I always do, I emphatically encourage commentary. :)

Trixie: Eclipse II

“So why did you exile them?” Trixie winced a little as everyone else stopped on the trail and looked at Shining Armor.

Shining shied away a little at the concentrated attention for a moment before squaring his shoulders and looking directly at Celestia. “I’m sorry Your Majesty, I’m sure it’s a very sensitive subject, but as your captain of the Royal Guard, I feel that the question of why I’ve spent my tenure scrambling to plug holes when Equestria used to have an entire race who are to soldiering what pegasi are to weather is relevant. I feel that it’s my right to at least ask, even if you choose not to answer.”

Celestia looked steadily at him for several moments before she inclined her head to him. “You’re right, Captain Armor,” she said. “You have every right to ask and… I feel that I’m obligated to answer. But as we walk, if you please.”

The walking resumed and after several more moments, Celestia spoke, “There was too much pain to do anything else,” she said, not looking back as they went at an easy canter. “Generation upon generation of accumulated resentment at an endless list of tiny, often unintentional, slights. Fighting for the other races, but still feeling their fellow ponies’ discomfort at their odd appearance. Generations of watching their children be the freaks in mixed schools, especially painful when their children came from a loving marriage with another race. Ponies being unable to understand changelings, fearful of the very simplistic understanding of how their special diet works, accumulating hundreds of stories of how horrific their last-ditch means of self-defense is. Fearful of their shapeshifting, confused by their tradition of self-government by a council of queens, trouble separating propaganda efforts to intimidate enemies into peaceful surrender from the actual nature of changelings. It was like a disease, an impossibly subtle one, that just kept infecting everypony and simply would not respond to any effort to smooth issues over.”

Celestia snorted. “The queens spent inordinate energies trying to gently suggest, sometimes even clubbing ponies over the head with, the fact that their special diet inclines changelings to be more friendly than other ponies. Everyone being happy, everyone having fun together and hugging and falling in love, and being friends makes the positive emotional radiance they feed on more nutritious.”

“And the general bad feelings from ponies made it less,” Trixie guessed.

“Yes.” Celestia twitched her wings in agitation before settling them against her barrel. “Not badly, fortunately. There was never any risk of starvation, not with the general atmosphere of warmth and friendship that, as Lady du Ard said, Equestria is saturated with. But it was noticeable and even with the efforts of the queens, even with me making it clear that the changelings were not to be maligned in my presence, even with Luna frequently crossing the line to nudge ponies into feeling comfortable around them, all the problems remained and kept slowly accumulating. Really, that we spent centuries with the lid kept firmly on the problem is a testament to the generational determination of the various queens to keep a tight, oligarchical grip on the issue.”

She looked over her shoulder at Cadence. “It’s true that Malyss struck the match and fanned the flames but there were six queens that refused to get in her way. I never found out why, never… really asked.” She turned her head back to the trail with a sigh. “I guess that in the time before reaching my decision, I was… afraid to know. Sarisssa du Closs was a good mare with overwhelming force of will. Aleera du Dune was the queen for the common pony, warm and obsessively hard-working; Ansela du Ard was practically her second self. Beatrice du Sylvi and Tessa du Aquis were more traditional nobles but with a strong sense of noblisse oblige. Martella du Luc was at once extremely stuck-up and a mare who would quite literally fight for anyone she considered friend. None of them seemed the kind who would abide a supremacist burning a stable relationship down around their ears… and yet they did. And yet not one approached Amaryss to open her eyes. Six mares who were as good of leaders as I could have ever hoped to work with allowed Malyss to stoke generations of petty wrongs into…” Her voice became rougher. “I still… I don’t have words for what Malyss did, what the sister-queens allowed her to do. I’d…. I’d never seen my little ponies hate each other like that….”

Cadence increased her pace so she could lean against her aunt’s side. “Auntie…”

“...it was… agonizing,” Celestia said after a moment more. “Ponies hating each other… spitting on each other… throwing slurs, full of anger and fear, full of pain from things that did not seem to matter, until that moment when they suddenly did. Some… there were a… some home burned. Some businesses. My little ponies were losing everything, watching entire lifetimes of treasures and memories go up in smoke, holding…” Another pause. “...watching it and crying… and then going out to share their pain with their perceived enemies, making the entire cycle turn around again worse than before. And all the while, me and Luna were helpless. Helpless to help, but more than that, terrified.”

“Of what, Princess?” Trixie asked.

“Of whom, Trixie.” After a minute of silence, Trixie wondered if Celestia was going to continue. “Of Discord. Counterpart to Order, the thing that became the Guardian, but far stronger, far more dangerous. Equestria spent nearly a year as his personal plaything, a horror of sadistic comedy, lethal pranks, shattered lives, every living thing he could reach being used for his own sick amusement, tastes that would change for one instant to the next. But the worst thing by far was… he was… wise. Cunning. His whims were insane and random, but the chaos was entirely within his control. Every failing and foible were as changeable as he was, and he used them like masquerade masks, taunting the few ponies that could actually stand up to him with illusions that he had weaknesses that could be exploited. If we hadn’t come across a magical weapon unlike any we’d ever seen, an unknown that Discord could not account for because he had no more concept of how the Elements worked than we did, his reign as the mad god of the world would have never stopped.

“The Elements froze him in the form of a statue, and imposed a cocoon of order around it to keep the pressure on his shackles. Luna and I did everything we could to extend that cocoon and empower it, creating as many formal rules, and rituals, and celebrations, and laws as we could, trying to make sure that Discord’s prison couldn’t develop a flaw he could exploit. We did well, I feel, and then… the land was drowned in a tide of disharmony, of discord. When we weren’t trying vainly to stem the tide of hate, we were watching that statue, terrified that a Discord that had rested for centuries would be too strong to cage a second time. It didn’t happen but we got far less sleep than we needed to deal rightly with the terrible problems that were developing.”

“So it was more than just desperation to solve a problem for the good of your subjects,” Anori said.

“There were many, many reasons behind it: stopping the suffering, trying to devise a way to give the changelings a place where the old pains wouldn’t accumulate again, preventing the emergence of Discord…” Celestia went quiet for a moment “The tragedy of it all was the timing. Luna had very recently completed a campaign to extend the rule of the Dragon Lord over their entire lands, intervening to make sure that there would be no more of this business of no one dragon being able to speak for the whole. It was a very ugly affair, as you might expect when the enemy can kill soldiers by the dozens, but it was also a high point for my sister’s efforts. At the end of it all, we hard formal relations with the dragons for the very first time in the form of Dragon Lord Singe.”

“I think I remember that name,” Cadence said. “Tetti didn’t manage to buttonhole me very often with her occasional unhinged rants about the glory of the past--if you remember what Twilight is like when she gets a hold of an idea, it’s like that--but stories about Queen Amaryss are always fun to listen to and I think the name Singe came up in one.”

“Of course it did.” Celestia sighed. “There are times I wish I could forget those days, Cady… the suffering of my subjects before... that moment where Amaryss’ royal mask slipped and I could see the devastated, utterly betrayed look of a filly whose mommy had just struck her for a reason she did not understand… and the aftermath of it all. An annus horribilis never ends cleanly, much less one as bad as the year I exiled your race.”

“Every enemy Equestria had pounced the moment they realized our army had been expelled?” Shining said.

“That was what we had expected,” Celestia said. “But it didn’t happen. The various minor powers remained quiet, Zebrica acted as if nothing had happened, the Provinces gave no indication that they even knew what had happened, and the dragons disappeared into isolation. Closed their borders, sent diplomats and aid workers home, ignored all further attempts to talk to them, and all forms of communication were as cold and hostile as they’d been before Luna’s campaign.”

“And then there was what Aunt Luna did…”

“It wasn’t quite like the bedtime story,” Celestia said. “We had no grand and epic duel, shattering our palace so badly that we had to abandon it to the Everfree. There was no terrible threat to the entire world, no looming eternity of night, and while Luna may have struggled to be the divine figurehead radiating motherly warmth to everyone she met, she disappeared into crowds as if she belonged in them. There was nothing I had that made her jealous, whatever the tale claims.” She made a brushing-aside gesture with one of her wings. “Oh, she put up a truly professional act but I know my Lulu, and I’ve seen her fake it; I was not deceived and she never really believed I had been.”

“Then why…?”

Celestia sighed. “Luna has always been… highly idealistic. Of the two of us, she was more the intellectual, thus her mastery of a highly technical branch of magic like runescription. In the wake of the chaos that erupted around the changelings and their eventual exile, she came to the conclusion that we needed to alter the way things were done radically and rapidly. Having two rulers, she thought, created a situation where debate would slow down decisions when they needed to be made quickly. And she believed that in the troubles she’d been pushed aside and not given adequate heed.”

“And she was right,” Anori said. “I don’t mean to bruise old wounds, Celestia, but while we know your sister would have stood by you out of love and loyalty no matter what decision you made, the exile was not her solution.”

“It was not.” Celestia slowed her steps and perked her ears. “Does it seem… quiet for approaching the scene of a battle?”

“I’m sure the stone walls of the ruins would deaden the sounds of fighting,” Shining suggested. “Or there may be some kind of lull. I believe Keen Edge spoke of Lord and Lady Bloodwynd chopping the heads off the leadership of the atermors. Eventually, they’d have to pause so they could rebuild the puppets they use.”

Celestia nodded vaguely. “I suppose. Still, there’s something… unsettling about…”

“It’s quiet,” Anori said.

“Too quiet,” Krysa agreed gravely.

Celestia gave them both a look that drew delicately-fanged grins, and smiled momentarily. “However cliche it may sound, I think it’s best to proceed with greater caution.”

“Caution is wise your grace,” said an exotic voice Trixie knew quite well. “But still, I advise against slackening your pace.”

Celestia turned as Zecora emerged from the underbrush, carrying a wicker basket slung over her neck partly filled with many plant cuttings, and she smiled broadly. “Flavius Zecora,” she said warmly. “How very unlikely a place to meet you.”

Zecora returned the smile just as broadly. “Unlikely meetings are common of late,” she agreed. “Though most recently, they portend an unpleasantly grim fate.”

“Where have you been?” Trixie said. “The Cutie Mark Crusaders returned to Ponyville with visitors days ago, and said your hut was empty.”

Zecora sighed. “They found my hut empty, that is true. But I had left a message with little Scootaloo: I had traveled home to visit relations and lingered in Zebrica for an extended vacation.”

“And so now you’re back,” Shining noted. “In the middle of the Everfree, while there are otherworldly creatures wandering around, gathering plants. Alone.”

Zecora regarded him in silence for several moments. “I normally travel alone,” she said. “The Everfree has long been my home.”

“She lives alone in the Everfree…” Trixie began.

“I know,” Shining said. “I was there when Scootaloo told their story of meeting the Bloodwynds and their retainers. If I might be blunt, Miss Zecora, the enemies lurking about can make creatures out of pure magical material that they can shape as they want. And very much out of the clear blue, a zebra walks up to us carrying plant cuttings, completely unconcerned about anything, having been unseen since the start of this crisis.”

“I thank you for being perfectly clear, but I assure you that you have nothing to fear,” Zecora said. “But you are correct that there is more to the story, and in not telling it quickly I have acted rather poorly.”

Celestia gestured to the path ahead. “We have to keep walking, Zecora, so if you could explain as we do?”

“I apologize for making delay,” Zecora said, trotting over to walk beside the alicorn. “With all that’s been happening, I haven’t quite felt like myself today.”

“I think you’ll find it easier, as will we, if you speak in ordinary prose,” Celestia said. “I apologize, you no doubt make a great effort to maintain the traditional rhyming mode, but…”

“I will not refuse a princess’ request.” Zecora nodded. “To speak in more common prose is, for now, probably best.” She glanced back at Trixie and smirked a little. “Although those who have known me for a time will probably be shocked that I can speak in something other than rhyme.”

“I’ve only lived in Ponyville for six months,” Trixie pointed out. “And Twilight has told me several times that you prefer your solitude.”

“Twilight Sparkle is a dear but she’s projecting just a little bit there,” Zecora siad. “I welcome and enjoy regular guests and those incorrigible fillies I find myself liking the best.”

Celestia chuckled a little. “Force of habit, I see.”

“When you have worked all your life to maintain the traditional show of intellectual cunning, to suddenly stop is…” Zecora snorted. “...as difficult as to stop a river from running.”

“So, how did you come upon us, Miss Zecora?” Shining asked.

“I left a message with Scootaloo, that much is true,” Zecora said. “And I was bound for Zebrica and my family too. But I often like to walk by the castle before looping west, and came across the thestrals establishing themselves there. Some had unwisely eaten marsh fruits and needed an herbalist's aid to stave off the sickness. So I moved the things I would need into their colony for a time and helped them, which served their purpose as well since they wished to make sure I couldn’t speak of them to Ponyville but were uncomfortably with being too forceful.”

“Underneath all the swagger and her big mouth, Keen Edge hews pretty closely to Mother’s gentler philosophy about dealing with Equestrians,” Cadence siad.

“So you’ve been acting as a doctor for them this entire time?” Shining glanced up at the trees above them.

“Don’t bother, love,” Cadence smiled. “Being unseen until they can go for the jugular is how they prefer to work, and they’re very good at it.”

“I can only do so much with local plants and my own implements,” Zecora siad. “I could do far more with the proper equipment. Or competent assistance, but Equestrian medical philosophy leans more towards allopathy than natural ways.”

“Depends on where you go, actually,” Krysta said. “That one alchemist is university-educated, isn’t he?”

“Green Leaf.” Anori nodded. “Although the focus on plants might just be…”

“Did you said ‘Green Leaf’?” Zecora looked back at him.

“Oh, do you know him Miss?”

“I do indeed,” she said with a smile. “He comes to the Everfree with a pleasant amount of frequency. Eager, and I can never quite understand why he wants the plants he does--they have no medicinal properties--but I have always been pleased to help him when asked.”

“Some alchemy theory he has,” Anori said. “He calls it ‘essentia’ and dubs the entire field of using it ‘thaturmagy.’ I don’t think anyone, even Princess Tettidora, fully understands how his ideas work but they do work.”

“This changeling alchemist visits without bothering with a guise?” Celestia glanced at Zecora.

“Depending on his mood,” the zebra said. “Sometimes in his natural skin, sometimes he lets out the hippie within, and once or twice has appeared as my kin. But he is hard to mistake for any other since he always comes calling with a staggering amount of saddlebags.”

“And you didn’t find his changing appearance odd.”

Zecora shrugged. “He is a changeling. The bodyguards too. Seeing Queen Chrysalis’ people about is nothing new.”

“Zebrica?”

“They seem to love to visit with families in tow and I’m told by my cousin that their numbers have grown.”

“And yet my ambassador never encounters them, and has never spoken of them,” Celestia sighed.

“I myself thought that if ponies were vacationing often in the zebra nation, their rulers would know,” She shrugged. “Perhaps the shamans and the caesar believe the same, and see no need to speak of it.”

“I’m sure many queens have also asked that favor of them.” Krysa said. “If I remember rightly, circumspection is highly valued among your people, Miss Zecora.”

“When truth is required, it is best to be blunt,” Zecora said in the tone of someone reciting from memory. “When privacy asked, do not be up front.”

“I thought I remembered there being a reason I manipulated Luna into attending Zebrican state dinners.” Celestia sighed. “I fear there’s going to be a lot of chilly relations between Equestria and others after this is all over.”

“I do not assign you blame; were I in your shoes, I would do the same.” Zecora paused for several steps. “Princess, I hope you know that not speaking of them is not meant as vengeance or disrespect.”

“If it was anyone else saying so, I would dismiss them out of hoof,” Celestia said. “But if, as Lady du Ard says, circumspection is important to the zebras I could understand how your people would see it as neither.” Even from the back, Trixie could see enough of Celestia’s face to see her grimace. “However frustrating it is for me personally.”

“You have always treated us well and with justice,” Zecora said. “I’m sorry that this has made you doubt that you can trust us. But please pardon the interruption, Princess, but while we walk I could use all of your group’s assistance.”

“Finding herbs?”

“Yes. I came into the forest seeking artemesia, aconitum, digitalis, and atropa, along with some others.”

“Wormwood, wolfsbane, foxglove, and nightshade?” Trixie glanced at Anori, who was giving Zecora an incredulous look.

The zebra stopped and looked levelly at him. “Yes.”

“Forgive our ignorance, Flavius Zecora, but what possible herbal use could poisonous plants be to you?” Krysa asked. “I recall that Green Leaf uses foxglove sometimes in his preparations to relieve a weak heart but the rest…”

“Drawing poultices,” Zecora said. “To those who know modern healing, using a poison against a poison is very unappealing. But sickness can be drawn out this way especially when I have never seen anything like it before.”

“I thought the thestrals brought you here to help with accidental poisoning,” Shining said. “Wouldn’t that be… routine? Especially when it’s a plant you’re…”

“The patients are not thestrals, but two earth ponies and two pegasi.”

Trixie froze. Two earth ponies and two pegasi. “A… mare and her colt?”

Zecora looked confused. “Yes. And two pegasi stallions.”

“And they’re… alive,” Celestia had turned and faced the zebra squarely, her expression clearly broadcasting that she was thinking alone the same lines Trixie was.

“They are,” Zecora said, looking between Trixie and Celestia. “You seem… surprised that mother and son are still alive.”

“We were told that their illness was fatal and extremely contagious,” Celestia said. “I was sending them to Canterlot, to make the colt comfortable during what I thought were his final days. They clearly did not arrive.”

“And the plague doesn’t seem to have mutated them into the creatures of the atermors.”

“OK, so this kind of begs the question,” Shining said. “If the creatures called ‘black death’ that have as their sole reason for being to spread a fatal, incurable, and twisted plague are not actually spreading that plague but a completely different one…”

“...and they’re not using the plague victims as soldiers, but masses of magical constructs…”

“...what is the atermors’ true purpose?” Celestia turned to look down the path. “And where are their victims?”

Author's Note

And on we trek in my attempt to publish chapters at a somewhat more reasonable pace. If you've endured this long, you know the drill: comments are eagerly accepted and I love constructive criticism. :)

Trixie: Eclipse III

Trixie could smell the castle before she could see it. At first, she wasn’t sure what it was she was smelling, since it was cloying and acrid, yet not extremely unpleasant. She didn’t realize it was making her nose, her lips, even the insides of her ears tingle until she found herself stopping to brush her hoof against the end of her muzzle.

“The thestrals are burning the bodies of the golems the atermors create,” Zecora commented. “They believe it an effective way to prevent the magical material from being used anew.”

“Aren’t the golems formed of some kind of magical Void material?”

The zebra shrugged. “Whatever it is, it burns.”

“And causes a less than pleasant tingling,” Cadence noted.

“Burning magic is not an exact science.” With the lack of warning, or any touch on her magical senses, that seemed characteristic of however the visitors teleported, Eresari and Elena Bloodwynd were walking beside them. They looked just as they had when Trixie had first met them, and how they’d appeared at the war council: unruffled, unharmed, and no indication that they’d had to fight anything in the meantime.

“But it’s by far the most effective and lethal tool in the mortal arsenal,” Elena added to her brother’s comment. “The atermors have no special tools to counter it, and naturally fear it since mortals have long favored it as the ideal way to cull their plagues. A few times, it has also been used on the atermors directly.”

“Such as at the creation of the Quarantine Flag?”

Elena gave Celestia a nod. “The Physician spent his strength to raise the tattered flag as a relief column came in sight. They understood the cloth, and the magi that had come to relieve the suffering with their craft magically quarantined it, unknowingly forcing numerous atermors to the mortal plane and trapping them. Then came the local lord with sword and fire, and made the town a funeral pyre to the fallen--and slaying the first Emperor of All Maladies.”

“They burned an entire town because it had been afflicted by a disease?”

“No, Princess. They burned a city that had been afflicted by the atermors,” Ersari said. “Although they were able to bear the healthy away before they raised the inferno.”

“That seems kinda extreme.” Shining looked between the two lupines. “Unless they were told that it was the only way to stop the danger in its tracks.”

“Well spotted, Captain Armor,” Elena said approvingly. “Yes, our great-granduncle and his mate were there in embassy when the plague arose.They approached the lord and explained the plague to him, and how it could be fought. Both were mildly unsettled by how quickly and naturally he accepted the extreme measures to cull it, and implemented them.”

“A trait common among his nation, as a point of fact,” Ersari said. “I believe Sadow remarked on a recent reverse for the atermors where their machinations were known immediately and several were taken and thrown on the bonfiress that consumed the crops they had poisoned. Though separated by well over a thousand years, the ruthlessly pragmatic mind that the local lord had when the Flag was made remains and is even more common now.”

“There is always another way,” Celestia said firmly. “Even in the most dire of circumstances.”

“There is no…”

“You may be correct, Princess,” Elena said, holding a quelling hand up to her brother. “Magic radiates from every grain of sand here, so there may be options that would not be found elsewhere. Not that they’d be needed any longer.”

“This circumstance is… very worrying,” Ersari said.

“That the plague did not do the horrible things you described?” Celestia gave him a sharp look.

“Frankly, Your Majesty, yes,” he replied, looking at her steadily. “Altering the nature of their plague this way is not something that the atermors do. It would never enter into their wildest imaginings. This means that another did it, and certainly with their consent.”

“At the same time, they would not countenance weakening the sickness, which means that they permitted another to alter the plague but were not aware of what that other planned,” Elena continued. “This also means that we now have no idea how it spreads, and what it does, and whether it can be cured, and how to do so without inadvertently turning it lethal.”

“It causes twisting, and agony,” Zecora said. “And great exhaustion. But it appears run its course without intervention, though I hope to shorten it.”

“I could attempt to collect Green Leaf,” Cadence offered. “His peculiar sciences might be suited for something this strange and unpredictable.”

Zecora looked back at her for several moments before smiling broadly. “You must be Chidinida.”

Cadence blinked at her. “Yes, but…”

“You offered to collect him, as if you know where he is,” Zecora said. “And during his most recent visit, he spoke excitedly of a Princess Chidinida. You are clearly a princess, and his description was quite detailed.”

“He must have felt comfortable speaking of it to you because you live so far apart from the rest of Equestria,” Cadence said.

“Still, I’m obligated to smack him for allowing his enthusiasm to override his common sense, not that that’s unusual for him,” Anori added.

“Oh, don’t do that love,” Krysa sighed. “Being hit in the head just reduces his common sense. And makes him loopy, and the last time he got loopy that incident with General Market and Princess Thryssa happened.”

“Anyway,” Cadence said before Anori could reply. “I could attempt to collect him.”

“I prefer to have you near, Cadence,” Celestia said. “I think we’ll already be spread thin fighting off the atermors’ golems, much less any of their kind that appear.”

“I appreciate the offer, Princess Chidi,” Zecora said. “I’d love to have him here to assist me. But I think I have all I need, and do not wish to bother Green.”

“Very well.” She looked to Ersari. “We were noticing that if there’s a battle going on, it’s awfully quiet.”

“Even with as much material as they could ever wish to replenish their thralls, forming them takes time,” he said. “And they need to rebuild their projected forms in this plane from having heads repeatedly removed from bodies. Alas, they’re quite familiar with us and know how to place themselves out of the reach of our blades.”

“In terms of space between themselves in the Void and their projections here,” Elena added.

“So we’ve arrived during a lull,” Celestia stepped into the light they were approaching and stopped. “I wish I hadn’t felt compelled to abandon it to the Forest after Luna was sent to her moon, but there was just too much history in these walls. That, and the way was steadily becoming hazardous as the years passed, and I didn’t want to force my subjects to brave a hostile wood to see their princess.”

Trixie stepped up to join her, looking across the chasm at the ruins. The castle reminded her strongly of the manor house of one of the noble estates rather than the vast and towering palace at Canterlot, even as broken and decayed as the ruins were. It looked like it could have housed the Princesses and the small army of servants and functionaries that made up the royal court, but only just.

“It strikes me, Princess, that your old palace barely fits that description at all,” Elena said, glancing sidelong at Celestia. “It seems more like the manor house of a jei fortress-estate.”

“That’s because it was,” Celestia said with a touch of sadness in her voice. “It wasn’t a towering structure proclaiming our glory and power. It was home, really home. At Canterlot, I practically live in a different home than my sister; here, her room was just opposite mine. It was no accident that when Luna took upon herself the visage of Nightmare Moon, neither one of us was willing to damage it. And now, it’s encompassed by foul things from a completely different place.”

“Hey now, Princess, no need to be harsh.” Trixie jumped a little at the voice seeming to be practically in her ear and based on the reactions she could see, she wasn’t the only one surprised by its suddenness: Celestia’s horn glowed, and both of the Bloodwynds had half-drawn their swords.

“Hey, hey, hey… we’re all friends here, no need for that kind of action.” The taloned hoof of a light-coated thestral appeared on the rim of the chasm they were standing near and with a deft, fluid little hop, a thestral mare dressed improbably in a top hat and waistcoat with gold watch hanging from around her neck like the tag of a dog, landed in front of them and made a show of dusting herself off. She turned a brilliant showmare’s grin on them all and twirled a hoof dramatically before taking a bow. Without the tall hat, Trixie realized that the thestral seemed barely bigger than a filly

“Matchstick,” Zecora said with a little nod in the thestral’s direction.

“Hey Zee, plants inside if ya please.” Matchstick grinned at the rest of them. “Welcome royalty, visitors, bodyguards, captains, soldiers, and my favorite fellow con artist to our humble little colony with a rather persistent cockroach problem.”

Trixie gave her as bet a glare as she could manage. “Fellow con artist?”

“Buck yeah.” Matchstick’s grin didn’t fade at all. “Show magic is all about the trick, So’s playin’ cups, not that I’d ever run a con involving three walnut shells and a lima bean on a nameless side street of Manehattan. I’m an honest mare; I do it on the mian.”

“Matchstick is not your given name,” Celestia observed with an amused look.

Matchstick took another elaborate bow. “Premium matchstick mare at your service. Now speakin’ of such, time to do one of those smoke-and-mirror acts and make this party disappear.” She stepped to a side of the bridge leading across the chasm and took off her top hat, rolling it along her leg to the end and catching it with a hoof, gesturing across with that smug grin and the formal hat.

Zecora smiled a little and trotted across the bridge first, followed by the Bloodwynds. Trixie decided to bring up the rear, gesturing the others on ahead and then making sure they were out of earshot before leaning in closer to Matchstick.

“Walnut shells and a lima bean are a pretty distinct signature,” she pointed out in a low voice.

“Yup.” Matchstick put her hat back on and winked. “How long do ya think Armor’s gonna poke around the major cities before he figures out that he’s been played?”

“I’ll give it a couple weeks,” Trixie shrugged. “He grew up with Twilight Sparkle without going stark raving mad.”

“Ah.” Matchstick grinned again as she led Trixie across the bridge. “Still, two weeks of fun for the cost of a few words. That there, my con-artist showmare, is how you hit the big time.”

Trixie just shook her head. Being called a con artist was annoying but she was already getting the impression that Matchstick meant it as a compliment. “How’ve things been holding up here?”

Matchstick dropped the smug grin and her eyes (which Trixie hadn’t realized, until just now, were two different colors) became more serious. “Hard slog.” she said. “They really like coming at us in giant waves of bodies. They can’t beat their way through stone, though, so they gotta pressure the chokepoints and we have an engineer, so we’re trading one wounded for a thousand bodies. Can’t beat the math of infinite bodies, though.”

“Does cutting heads off help?”

“Seems to,” Matchstick said as she headed in towards the castle. “About a minute where they don’t seem to know what to do before another one steps up. Hit on the idea of burning the leftovers yesterday and it’s slowed them down pretty good cuz the bosses seem freaked out by the bonfires.”

“Whose idea?”

“Brass, like all the real clever ideas are.” Matchstick grinned. “She put it together when she set up a sawdust trap on the approach to a chokepoint. Stirred up the stuff pretty good and threw a torch into it. Thought ya woulda heard the blast all the way in Ponyville and they ran like mad… and the ones behind were burnin’ so Brass was all like ‘huh, idea’ and so we light the corpses after each wave.”

“Have any tried to get below?” Celestia asked, appearing out of Trixie’s peripheral vision. “Tried to get at the Tree?”

“Yup. Made Everfree awful mad.”

Celestia furrowed her brow and looked at Trixie. “What do you mean?”

Matchstick shrugged. “Anyone tries to get down there, by stairs, by sneaking in, whatever, all the vines go absolutely ponypies until they make tracks. Ain’t seen anything like them anywhere else, even in the rest of the Everfree. Thick as a leg, covered all over with giant thorns, and try to grab and crush you if you get in reach.”

“And they’re… plants.”

“Near as I can tell,” Matchstick said. “Was thinking of showing them to Zecora since she’s top-tier herbalist and has lived here forever, but Sharp put the kibosh on because we can’t afford to throw away a healer just to see if we can figure out what some vines are all about.”

“Will you show them to me?”

“To us,” Shining said, flanked by his fiance and her bodyguards.

“To us,” Celestia amended. “If you please.”

“Eh…” Matchstick shrugged. “Sure. If the princess of instant fiery holocaust can’t handle some uppity plants, we should probably get lost and let the birdbrains and their golems feed the things.”

She turned and casually trotted off the edge of the chasm, snapping her wings open as she did and starting to lazily spiral down into the depths. Trixie heard Celestia sigh lightly before she felt the princess’ telekinesis wrap around her and levitate her a little bit above the ground before she followed the thestral off the edge, Cadence (carrying Shining) and the bodyguards following. To Trixie’s surprise, the chasm was not nearly as deep as it looked from above, on the bridge. A far less pleasant surprise was that the darkness at the bottom was created by a solid floor of thick, black, thorned vines that seemed to spontaneously writhe of their own accord. Matchstick banked and headed into the shadow of the bridge before she came to a sudden hovering stop.

“Uh-oh.”

“What do you mean ‘uh-oh’?” Trixie said from where Celestia was levitating her.

“I mean, uh-oh, the plothole writhing vines of aggressive murder-death-kill got murder-death-killed.”

Celestia’s telekinesis briefly blinked out and Trixie dropped a her full height before the alicorn recovered. “Matchstick, are you saying the way to the Tree is…”

“Clear, yeah, that’s exactly it,” the thestral reported. “And whoever did it looks like they just upended a vat of acid on ‘em.”

Author's Note

Another day, another chapter, and hopefully a batch of commentary to go with it. Hope y'all liked it.

Trixie: Eclipse IV

“Matchstick.”

“Yes, Princess?”

“You need to tell the Bloodwynds and anyone you find,” Celestia said in a low, deliberate voice. “If they can kill off the plants and infiltrate below the ruins, they can simply come up the stairs.”

The thestral swallowed, nodded, and was off like a shot, sweeping smoothly up and flipping gracefully onto the bridge before the thunder of her hoofsteps could be heard as she charged into the ruins. Celestia looked at Cadence gravely. “I assume this is an effect of the Void?”

“I would have no way to know, Auntie,” Cadence siad. “The Empress apparently explained it to my family but Tetti didn’t pass along very many details before I returned to Ponyville. The only thing that seems relevant is that the Void poisons and disintegrates life on contact, but this damage looks more akin to acid, more like what Dark magic does to the energy and material of the Void.”

“Dark magic?”

“Tetti said that Empress Moon used the term ‘chaotic dark’ for it but Tetti just called it ‘dark’,” Cadence said.

Celestia hovered for several beats of her wings. “So it could be called Chaos magic as well.”

“I… guess? Auntie, I think that if Discord got out…”

“I don’t think he did.” Celestia looked further down the chasm floor to where the living vines were still twitching. “But the mere possibility that he has something to do with these hostile magical vines cutting off access to the Tree is… deeply concerning.”

She descended to just in front of the rough-hewn opening in the cliff under the bridge and brushed aside the dead remains of the vines before setting Trixie down gently. Just as Matchstick had described, the vines looked melted like hot water poured over ice, or a powerful acid over pretty much anything else. She fully expected one of the many smells of burning plants; six months as Big Mac’s marefriend had treated her to a wide variety since cleaning up plant debris was a natural part of working on a farm. But the smell of the melted plants was more akin to…

“...candied caramel apples?” she said, taking another sniff to make sure.

“Piping-hot orange meringue pie,” Anori reported.

“Key lime meringue,” Krysa said.

“Carrot cake,” Celestia frowned. “My favorite. Well, if there was any doubt about who’s responsible for these vines…”

Trixie decided it wouldn’t be the right moment to mention that Forheest Sadow had said something about the vines running under Ponyville and as far into Equestria as her senses extended. Then again, I don’t think the right moment for that is ever going to arrive.

“”But how could he have…?”

“It doesn't matter at the moment,” Celestia said with a toss of her mane. “Captain Armor, I appreciate that I’m your princess, that you are sworn to protect me if you possibly can, that you’re similar enough to Twilight that you seem like her brother by birth… but I need you behind me.” She looked over them. “All of you.”

“Your Highness…”

“I don’t want you in between me and someone with the raw power to casually burn away the magical constructs of a near-god,” Celestia said. “And I don’t wish to see my niece harmed.”

Without giving either Shining or Cadence a chance to protest, Celestia ducked into the opening and walked a few steps. “I see no one awaiting us in ambush,” she said. “Come along.”

Shining stepped in immediately, flanked by Cadence and then her pair of bodyguards. Trixie walked in after them and was instantly assaulted by the mingled scents of her favorite childhood treat, ozone, and something else she couldn’t quite identify, a pungent, cloying scent that made her think of a bog. She looked around herself as the followed the rest of them through the dim passage, lightning her horn to see where she was going better. The vines were still visible in the tunnel--but far less than they were outside. Where the ones before had looked melted, the ones inside looked like they’d been scoured down to the walls. Something else about the way the vines had been destroyed struck her as odd somehow, but she couldn’t think of why.

“Hey, Celestia?”

Celestia canted an ear backwards to Anori. “Yes, Anori, what is it?”

“Have you ever seen a cauterization blade before?”

“I wish I could say I hadn’t.” Celestia’s shiver of revulsion was visible even as far back as Trixie was standing. “That was… not a happy time for medical practice. Why do you ask?”

“Well, the vines outside look like someone doused them with acid,” he said. “Pretty quick and dirty, trying to get rid of a threat as fast as they could. The ones in here thought, they look like someone…”

“...cauterized them,” Trixie finished, the realization making its way out of her muzzle before she could stop herself.

Anori glanced back at her. “Yeah. This concentrated, the vines in here were probably a hay of a lot more dangerous but they’re disposed of pretty cold. Systematic, unhurried.”

“Two different people working together,” Celestia said.

“Or two different groups,” Krysa said.

“As if the atermors were not bad enough,” Celestia sighed. “I’m surprised they didn’t set guards behind them. It costs them nothing in return for early warning from a horde of completely disposable minions.”

“Arrogance,” Cadence said. “The few times that one has spoken to us, their self-assuredness was invincible even as we laid waste to their golems by the hundreds around them and even shredded their masked forms. Sadow and the Bloodwynds have both suggested that they tend to be remarkably impervious to reality when outmatched, even after being badly hurt by it.”

“Sorta makes sense,” Trixie said. “I mean, they can just sit back and pull the strings of puppets, and remain completely out of reach, knowing that even with people who know exactly what they are, how they do things, and how to hurt them, it takes special preparations like carrying special am…” She frowned. “Amoo…”

“Ammunition,” Shining Armor supplied.

Trixie nodded. “That.”

“So their arrogance could be well-founded.” Celestia considered that. “I suppose it’s academic. We don’t need to kill them, just remove them and keep them out, and the Tree cannot be damaged by fire.”

“Um…”

“How’d we find that out?” Celestia chuckled a little. “Controlled experimentation predates even Starswirl the Bearded by centuries; his contribution was to formalize it. Granted, the philosophy of empiricism wasn’t formalized by Clover until a generation after Luna was banished, but…”

The solar monarch stopped suddenly and went silent. It was quiet for several moments before Shining stepped quietly closer. “Prin…”

Celestia made a vicious gesture to quiet him and the captain of the guard went silent immediately and once again, there were several more moments before Trixie could hear the faint tones of conversation, indistinct sounds of rising and falling noise with the impression of a male voice and a female one to them. Being further down the tunnel, Celestia could apparently make out some of the words because her brow furrowed with mild confusion before she gestured with her head for them to continue on, with another very firm gesture for silence.

The rise and fall of the voices, with the cadence of a heated discussion, continued as they drew closer until the passage began to gradually widen and Celestia brought them to another halt, then gestured Trixie forward to stand at her side. Trixie moved forward and stopped, swiveling her ears towards the voices even as she saw Krysa taking up position on her left in her peripheral vision.

“...very nearly enclosed,” the female voice was saying as she focused her attention on listening.
“Which would be going much faster if you supplied the blood as you were tasked.”

“Vorka,” a familiar masculine voice growled.

“Their leader,” Cadence whispered. “Or at least the one that spoke to us.”

“It was your imbecile idea to commission him,” the female said, her voice heavy with contempt. “How could you have possibly not been aware of how he operates?”

“We did watch the fork-tongued little obsessive,” the male siad. “Closely, and with Void-sight. And his toy worked on the first batch.”

“Oh, you watched him,” the female said mockingly. “How very cunning. So how’d that work out, boy? Did you stop him from tainting your plague?”

The reply was indistinct but even from where they were, Trixie could faintly hear a ladylike snort.”Clearly, that is not the same, or I’d look as weak and foolish as you do.”

“I have done as I agreed, and I expect payment.”

As the female heaved an exasperated-sounding sigh, Celestia gestured with her head and they stepped quietly towards the sound of the disputing voices. “Yes, yes, I suppose that if given a task simple enough for even the atermors to do right, you perform acceptably. And Voce is a creature of his word, because as Miri proved, it’s the best survival strategy by far. But you have no agreement with me, so I have no obligations for your well-being.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“That there will be no repercussions for being only the second one of the Void to have her very own Canceros head as a prize and decoration,” the voice informed the leader, who appeared to be named ‘Canceros,’ coolly.

Much closer now, Trixie could hear the extremely refined Canterlot lilt to the female’s words and the looked at Celestia. Celestia’s brow furrowed again and she looked back towards Cadence and Shining. “That’s a Canterlot accent,” she said very softly. “How is that possible?”

“It is,” Shining agreed. “Whoever she is, she’s not an atermor. Perhaps she can assume disguises if she wishes?”

“I’d think so,” Cadence said. “I’m sure that in all the Void between various worlds, there’s at least one that can assume any shape or voice they wish, just as a changeling can.”

“You mean to say that that isn’t your prize?”

“That is the linchpin to all of this tiresome affair. She must be kept alive and healthy, and stable in spirit and intellect.”

“And after she’s no longer useful?”

“That all depends.” The female voice sounded like the speaker was leering at Canceros. “If you want Morgana Fata to play you like a fiddle--and I mean that in a very literal way--feel free to use her as a plaything. I myself would prefer to remain on speaking terms with the Weaver.”

“As if you are,” Canceros scoffed.

“Who do you think gave me permission to use her as a linchpin? Only two panels to go, by the by, and I can be quit of you.”

“You’re lying.” But Canceros’ voice sounded subdued even as he leveled the accusation.

“From time to time, but it would be unwise to lie about that.”

There was a long silence between the two voices, which Celestia decided to treat as an opportunity to walk carefully closer, a vibrant silver light beginning to become visible at the end of the tunnel.

“And how in all nine Hells and Heavens does a world-killer get on speaking terms with an insufferably moralistic Weaver?” Canceros asked at their party drew close enough to partly see into the room through the nearly blinding glow.

“The same way Miri can sit down to tea with archangels and speak without anyone smiting her: professionalism, self-control, manners, and respect.” The female chuckled with a touch of wryness. “And if you sincerely call me world-killer, my legend is clearly getting a little too large for its stockings. World-killers are my malformed and inferior kin.”

“Killing worlds is a feat of your inferiors?”

“That you even need to ask shows your limitations far more than any display of power could. The stronger one is, the less wasteful their murders. Why consume a dozen cities when a single one will sate you? Why kill a million, when just one will topple a world? Why leave a dozen bodies to cause fear, when a single finger and its signet ring will spread unthinking terror?”

“To show that you are strong, naturally.”

The female snorted. “How many bodies do you think Miri has left in her wake? How many shattered worlds? How many broken fools? Why do those that know of her, even when they enjoy her warm regard, regard her cautiously?”

“Man…”

“One.”

Canceros was silent in response to this for several moments. “And yet she…?”

“...is the Dread Empress.” The female chuckled again. “One panel to go then. I can hardly believe I’m wasting my time enlightening one such as you.”

“An atermor?”

“A dead atermor.” A pause. “That expression makes you look like a wit-addled bird. Your death does not belong to me, Canceros, and I shan’t be the one to do it.”

Canceros snorted contemptuously. “If you’re referring to that solar… whatever she is, I believe she is quite… indisposed. Princess Chidinida’s work, trying to stop her from turning her own subjects into cinders.”

“So you’ve told me.” There was the sounds of hooves on stone, strolling casually.

“Where are you going? The final panels aren’t…”

“Be silent, idiot.” Before any of them could think to react, a tall, slender pony shape appeared in the doorway, facing them. “I just wanted to see if you’d set sentries on the passage. Call it… curiosity.”

“The others are keeping those… creatures stuck in place, trying to save their ruins,” Canceros said. “There’s no need.”

“In which case, I have decided that there is a need for a short pause in my endeavor. It shall not disrupt your time table, so sit down and be silent for the moment until I return.” The pony shape entered the passage, walking towards them without any sign that she could see them. Trixie felt the tunnel seem to grow a little colder, moving from her hooves up, something she guessed was an effect of the pony-shaped thing’s mere presence. As the shape grew closer and blocked out more of the light, Trixie noticed that there was something… wrong about it.

One side looked like the features of an attractive pony mare--tall, slim carriage, a slight curve to her horn, mane trimmed to hang just passed the level of her muzzle. The other side seemed… distorted, somehow. Shrunken, withered, somehow more skeletal. The pony stopped several lengths short of them and the direction of her muzzle indicated her shifting her gaze between each one of them in turn.

“I know, Celeste, that you have very good cause to annihilate Canceros where he stands,” she said, the mellow, feminine smoothness of her Canterlot accent almost melodic-sounding now that she was directly in front of them. “But if you strike before certain matters are settled, I am oath-bound to chastise you and yours very severely. You do not wish that result. I do not wish that result.”

Celestia hesitated a moment before she drew herself up to her full height, a full head taller than the other mare. “I will not abide a nickname from an utter stranger; you will call me ‘Celestia.’ And what ‘matters’ do you refer to?”

“That is not your concern.” The mare informed her calmly. “No harm will be done to the lodestone of your Elements; the Tree of Harmony is not important in the matters directly forthcoming.”

“Why are you approaching us?” Cadence said.

“Because calling you from the room of the Tree would have alerted Canceros, which I did not wish to do. And putting someone into my power requires fairly close proximity.”

“What do you mean, put us into your power?” Celestia said, tensing visibly.

“I mean this.” And between one blink and the next, they were standing on a sheet of unnaturally smooth ice in a snowfield as far as the eye could see although strangely, Trixie didn’t feel the least bit cold.. The being’s pony shape was now healthy and lovely on both sides, her coat a glossy black, her mane silken and white… and her eyes a solid red with violet irises.

“To say that approaching you without taking certain measures would be dangerous to me is to understate things by orders of magnitude,” she said in the same pleasantly melodic voice. “I have not, and will not, attempt to harm you so long as you comply with my requirements.”

Celestia looked as stunned by the sudden change of scenery, and the change in the being, as Trixie was. Unlike Trixie, it only took her a moment to shake it off and her horn blazed with the faint amethyst light of her magic. “Where have you taken us?”

The being looked around them, entirely unconcerned with Celestia’s implied threat. “A prison of sorts,” she said. “Although only one of the prisoners is any manner of criminal, and this being the location of the prison is merely speculation for now. But to answer your question, Princess, I have not taken you anywhere. You are still standing in a tunnel under a ruined castle with your adopted niece and the rest of your group.”

Celestia doused her horn. “An illusion.”

“No. But the point of this is that we converse without any unfortunate mistakes taking place, and I would prefer that we converse and not waste each other’s time.”

“Very well.” Celestia gave the being a nod. “So you want non-interference from me until certain events happen.”

“Yes.”

“And these events do not involve harm to the Tree.”

“Correct.”

“Nor to my subjects.”

“Canceros and his ilk are idiots who latched on to the inflated promises of a con artist, so no more harm will be done to them by the events beyond what has already been done.”

“And in return for our forbearance, you will not attempt to harm us, and won’t impede me from attacking Canceros.”

“After the matters are completed, I will leave and as a point of practicality, will be unable to interfere. So yes, that is the exchange I propose.”

“What are the matters in which you require us to avoid trifling?”

“That is not your concern. You will know that the matters are concluded when I take my leave of Canceros. He is not aware of this, nor will any action of mine make him so.”

Celestia nodded slowly, her expression thoughtful. “And if these matters don’t go as you say they will?”

“Then your intervention will be appropriate. I will not impede appropriate intervention, although I will protect myself, my own, and those things that are my own by right or agreement.”

Celestia’s brow furrowed. “What things?”

“The webweaver Lashaal and the being she has laid hold of, who is one of your subjects.”

“Did you not say…?”

“I said that the events will not do harm to your subjects beyond what has already been done to them.” The being smiled a little, and the expression looked genuine. “But you need not fear for her.”

“The ‘she’ that you said had to remain healthy,” Celestia stated after a moment.

“Yes. The consequences for failing to abide by my word given to a being like The Weaver are are…” Fully half of the being melted away, revealing a bare, charred skeleton and the associated eye replaced with a red flame with a violet core. “...quite severe.”

Celestia visibly recoiled at the sight of the bare skeleton, until the being resumed her fully pony shape. “Assuming you’re not deceiving me, I can see how I need not fear for my subject.”

“Lies of commission are complicated, difficult, and costly,” the being said. “I profit more reliably and richly from lies of omission.”

“I find that to be true as well,” Celestia said.

“Although if the lie is well-liked, you get famous.” Trixie wasn’t sure why she spoke up, and she shrank a little as the being’s gaze swung down to fix on her.

“Bellatrix Lulamoon.” Her expression became a genuine-looking smile again. “The blow you struck against Canceros in the town square was done well, and boldly.”

Trixie blinked at her. “Uh… thanks?”

“You are welcome, little pony.” Her expression became mildly regretful. “The dreams of this luxurious land would be delicacies to remember for decades at least. All the things that might be, all the hopes that ponies share, a past and future filled with magic… all like crisp, dew-kissed wine grapes, pressed and aged to the very split-second of perfection.”

Celestia looked oddly at her. “Excuse me?”

“You need not worry, I know better than to try to match myself against your sister in her own realm.” The being bowed to her. “Do we have an accord, Celestia?”

“If I may call you by name, yes.”

The being looked thoughtfully at her for several moments before bowing her head. “A fair condition. My name is Zambet.”

And again between one blink and the next, they were standing in the tunnel with the silvery light of the Tree spilling out of the door ahead of them, largely obscuring Zambet. Trixie had the brief sensation of something flowing under her hooves towards the pony-shaped creature, and then the sensation had passed. Zambet bowed again to Celestia, this time bending both her living knee and what Trixie now knew was her skeletal one.

“Come then Princess, and your companions,” she said as she rose and turned. “Come and see, and afterwards... revenge.”

Author's Note

Yet another chapter in the attempt at accelerating. Ironically, I think I'm actually writing more words in this single fragmented chapter than I do with a consolidated one? Crazy, ain't it? Anyhow, there's a comment section, the author likes to read it, please put words in it.

Trixie: Eclipse V

“Have you satisfied yourself, Za…”

Canceros froze in midsentence as Zambet’s shadow loomed over him and the intensity of the flame that constituted her skeleton iris increased visibly. “If you even begin to speak my name, Canceros, I will destroy you before you finish,” she growled.

The leader of the atermors, with all the adornments gone, had the rather plain appearance of a sun-dried corpse: heavily wrinkled, skin stretched so tightly over bone that it looked like it might tear at any moment, empty pits where his eyes would be with glowing green spheres serving as irises, and a triple row of the tearing incisors of a predator that was clearly visible whenever he opened his mouth, which he always seemed to do as widely as he could.

“Fine,” he replied with a touch of petulance. “Have you satisfied yourself?”

“Thoroughly,” she said as she approached the Tree. “It is clear to me that setting up your puppets as sentries would have accomplished nothing.”

“Then it is as I said,” the atermor said smugly.

Zambet sighed as a black mist wafted off the blackened bones of her skeletal half and flowed towards the Tree, beginning to laboriously build itself into a semi-transparent pane to match all the rest of them. Trixie was still not sure why Canceros seemed unable to see them. After walking with them to the doorway, Zambet had stopped them with a gesture of her hoof and some of the same mist that she was using to build the pane had flowed up and solidified around the rim of the frame. It was clearly some kind of magic meant to conceal them, and Zambet had seemed able to simply will it into existence with no visible effort.

The Chamber of the Tree was perfectly round and had clearly been a beautiful setting at some point. What tiles that had survived hundreds of years in the middle of a wild forest were polished white and seemed to glow silver in the radiance of the Tree of Harmony. A raised wall around the Tree implied a pool or fountain had once surrounded it, and on the walls were the cracked and aging remains of various murals depicting events that Trixie imagined were from Equestrian history--a pony in a tall conical hat doing something to three ponies that seemed to have fish tails instead of rear legs, a bull with a pony lower half being wrapped in chains, beams of magic causing a black unicorn to turn into smoke--but nothing that she recognized.

The Tree itself looked like a weeping willow made of glowing silver with strange growths in the branches that Celestia had, in a whisper, identified as the indentations that had once held the Elements. It was clearly blindingly bright normally, but the light had been diminished to more comfortable levels by the semi-transparent magical construct that Zambet was building around and over it.

“What is she doing, Princess?” Trixie asked her.

“And I mean this with all possible respect, Your Majesty, but have you spit your bit?” Shining said, audibly struggling to keep his tone as respectful and polite as he could.

“I believe she’s building a construct around the Tree that allows Canceros to remain in its presence,” Celestia said. “See how he stands so that he’s out of the path of the light coming from the gap? I’m certain the radiance would destroy him if Zambet hadn’t done something about it.”

She turned fully to face Shining Armor, giving him a look of very slight amusement. “And no, Captain Armor, I have not gone mad. If Zambet’s proposal had been harsher, I’d have still agreed to it.”

“I don’t like how her terms were so extremely precise,” Krysa said. “I could drive a couple carts side by side through the gaps in what she required and agreed to.”

“As well as her statements about… whatever matters she requires you to simply stand by and watch,” Anori added. “Especially how she specified that the matters would do no harm to ponies or the Tree but said nothing about the effects of those matters, or what they would lead to.”

“Yes, I was there too,” Celestia said wryly. “And I heard exactly what you did… and more.”

“Like all of the things she seemed to know?” Trixie said.

Celestia frowned and gave Trixie a single nod. “Yes. What the Tree is, and what it does. Your given name, and a strangely specific detail about a confrontation you had with that Canceros creature. That dreams are Luna’s realm of power. And her comment about the ice plain that she used as the backdrop to the dreamscape, that it was a prison but only one of the prisoners was a criminal. I feel strongly that there is something very, very dangerous about it, but I can’t quite place the reference.”

“And she’s a dream predator,” Cadence said. “Who can apparently simply seize others and pull them into her dreamscape by being near them, and so smoothly that I didn’t even realize she had.”

“Nor did I,” Celestia said. “And yet, she did none of us any apparent harm. With that power, she did nothing more than bargain with me, promising vengeance against Canceros in return for all of us watching, and learning, but not interfering.”

“Which means she’s sure we won’t gain anything by it,” Shining said. “And sure that she’ll gain a great deal by us not interfering.” He looked at Celestia. “So why did you strike a bargain with her, Princess? Why promise to give her what she wanted?”

“Because I do not believe I could overpower her on her own ground where she has every advantage.” Celestia gestured at the Tree. “But with the barrier around the Tree broken, the advantage would be mine, and I’ll be able to fight her. And if these ‘matters’ are not to my liking, that is what I will do.”

“She seemed to take you at your word.”

“I don’t think she seriously believes that any commitments I made while we were at her mercy are sincere.” Celestia turned her eyes back to the events taking place in the Tree chamber. “It begs the question of why she acted as if she did, but I don’t think we’ll know that until she reveals it.”

Trixie edged around the alicorn and watched as Zambet’s magic had finished the rim of the pane and was flowing towards the center, completing it. Trixie could tell the moment that the being had finished, because the light of the Tree dimmed dramatically, and then took on a very faint reddish tint. Canceros’ strange mouth gaped open in a delighted grin and he stepped forward, circling the confined Tree as if to assure himself that it was completely covered by the construct Zambet had been building.

“As exquisite as your legend claims,” he said, leaning down and reaching out to it.

A tendril of the dusty power that Zambet used shot out and wrapped around his hand. “Don’t touch,” she said. “It is perfectly balanced, physically and metaphysically, and you’ll disrupt it.”

He snorted and pulled his hand free of the confinement. “Mechanists are all the same,” he said. “Always afraid that us unlearned barbarians will somehow destroy their creations by looking at them cross-eyed.”

“If you cannot do the work, do not mock those who can.” Zambet walked around her construct once before her gaze once again fell on her companion. “What is the exact direction of the town of Ponyville?”

Canceros shrugged and gestured in the vague direction of the tunnel. “That way.”

Zambet’s eyes narrowed. “Which ‘that way’?”

“That way, that way,” he said. “What do you mean ‘which that way’?”

“I need precision you witless cretin,” she growled, the flame of her skeleton side flaring up. “Lei flow is specific not general, you blathering waste of material. You were told that this information would be required.”

“If the Tree is the center and the entrance tunnel zero, Ponyville is at eighteen point sixty-three degrees,” came a tired-sounding female voice from an area of dimmed light.

Zambet turned towards the voice and gave a brisk nod and a brief smile before magic flowed from her and the image of an extremely large compass formed in the air above the Tree, its center directly over the center of the construct around it. Numbers from one to three hundred sixty were filled in around the rim and a red line appeared. It swung to the eighteen, and the rest of the construct melted, and the segment between the eighteen and nineteen enlarged, filled with numbers one through ten, then the process was repeated before the segment shrank back to its original size and the rest of the compass structure reappeared.

Trixie glanced over at Celestia, who was looking as transfixed as Trixie felt as Zambet’s magic worked with a rapid and exactly precision that she’d only seen in Twilight Sparkle before: drawing lines between points, generating grids, materializing tools like compasses and protractors, even projecting a weight at the end of a string to ensure that one thing was directly below another.

From the various methods of determining placement, a circle was drawn (with the compass of course) and then came actual stone tablets filled with extremely neat rows of symbols which were moved back and forth like the letters on an old printing press as select ones were transferred to the circle, being placed using spidering guide lines that Zambet drew even as she was runescribing the ritual circle. Finally, all the tools disappeared, the excess lines vanished, and Zambet looked towards the shadow. “Blood.”

What Trixie initially mistook for a pony, a mildly thin unicorn mare with a light violet coat, purple mane, and a streak of light blue in both, stepped silently from the shadow and walked over to the circle. After a moment, Trixie realized that although her legs were moving, her hooves were not touching but she moved as if they were. After another moment, she realized that the pony was enclosed in some kind of construct that fit her shape perfectly but was almost a suit, moving along with her but keeping her away from the floor. It wasn’t until she stopped at the circle and was backlit by the Tree, that Trixie could see that the construct wasn’t really a construct, but some kind of creature.

The creature had a face. The face had no mouth, and two rows of four eyes that glowed red. “Does it require infusion?” the pony and the creature enclosing her asked, the voice feminine and weary just like before. Instead of its muzzle opening, however, tendrils snaked out from the mouth and quivered while the speaking was being done.

“No, ordinary blood will do, and only a single drop.”

“As you wish.” With no visible action on the part of the creature or pony, a gash appeared on her fetlock and she extended the leg over the circle and allowed a single drop of blood to fall. Like a flame to a fuse, the circle ignited and the flickering light of it spread over the entire circle as the enclosed pony watched impassively, and Canceros gave his gaping-mouth grin.

“Finally,” he said. “Are you certain that it will…”

“Even if I was not, I would say I was if only to enjoy your impotent rage,” Zambet informed him. “But I know this will ride the lei current to all of its concentrations, thanks mostly to Lashaal giving good service at long last.”

“So that is Lashaal,” Celestia said. “Presumably her actual form. And the pony within is my subject.” She frowned. “I recognize her, but can’t remember her name.”

“She looks familiar to me too,” Shining said. “I don’t think I was ever given her name but after growing up with Twiley, recognizing unusual magical ability is kind of inborn.”

“Part of the reason for your appointment, Captain,” Celestia gave him a momentary smile. “What do you remember?”

“Near Twiley,” Shining said. “Different… flavor, for lack of a better word. Somewhere between Trixie and Twiley’s old schoolmate Moondancer as to control, a little over three-quarters Twiley’s font. Most of the papers she was carrying were personal hoofwriting, so I pegged her as a theorist of some kind more than a scholar. Most of her study material during her week in Canterlot was on cutie marks and destiny. I think that if she could have devised a way, she’d have drawn heavily on the high-security archives but Head Librarian Index reported no indications that she’d come up with a way of accessing them.”

“Marchioness Chiti believed she accessed them to a great degree,” Anori said. “But she assessed that Captain Armor would be intelligent enough to wonder how she was so certain, so she maintained her guise.”

Shining and Celestia both turned to look at him. “Did you just say…”

Celestia sighed and forestalled him with hoof gesture. “Yet another thing to speak with Chrysalis about when we meet,” she said. “For now, focus. Did this Chiti report anything else?”

“Only that she was concerned for her,” Anori said. “Her drive was well into the territory of obsession, and Chiti’s impression was that it was driven by a mix of anger and grief. She also said it seemed odd that the mare always kept her cutie mark concealed by fur dye, and would even stop to reapply it regularly.”

“For Void’s sake, just get on with it.” Zambet growl brought their attention back to the scene in the Tree chamber, and Canceros still closely examining the runic circle.

“You don’t like me, and I don’t like you…”

“...although it’s more accurate to say that you hate me and I regard you with utter contempt, but continue…”

Canceros seemed to flush a little at that, glared, and then kept talking. “So I’m making sure that you didn’t include any… surprises.”

“The only surprise will be mine when you, as the locals put it, do your bucking job.”

“Given your naked contempt for me, I can’t imagine why you would agree to aid me in this,” he smirked as he stepped into the lit circle. “So this is meant to…?”

“Yes, yes, now give your message. Voce will confirm, you will counter-confirm, and we’ll be done with this irritant.”

Canceros eyed her. “You’re forgetting…”

“Nothing. Speak.”

He gave her a nod and faced in roughly the direction that Zambet’s compass needle had pointed when she was determining where to place the circle. “Sotto Voce, your prize is here!” He shouted. “”I do not know what it is, and I do not care! You will give me my due, for I have done my part!”

He waited for several moments, clearly expecting some kind of response, before he looked at Zambet. “And the confirmation?”

“YOU HAVE NO PATIENCE, PAPER EMPEROR.” Trixie jumped as a rumbling voice loud enough to make the stones of the chamber tremble exploded from seeming every direction at once. “FOR THIS ENTERPRISE TO SUCCEED, PATIENCE AND BALANCE IS REQUIRED. THIS IS WHY YOU ARE ENTRUSTED ONLY TO TORMENT THE KINE AND CARRY A MESSAGE.”

Canceros seemed stunned by the volume of the reply and visibly swayed on his feet. “Which I have done.”

“EVEN YOU ARE NOT SO SMALL THAT YOU CANNOT SPEAK WHEN BIDDEN AND STEP WHERE A GREATER SERVANT DIRECTS YOU.” There was a short pause, as if the voice was turning to look somewhere else. “THIS IS THE CHAMBER OF THE VAUNTED TREE OF THE ELEMENTS, IS IT?”

“As you say, Lord Voce,” Zambet said, looking entirely unaffected by the booming voice.

“YOU HAVE DONE WELL TO DIMINISH IT, ZAMBET. YOUR PRICE WAS DEAR, BUT WISELY SPENT.” There was that sense of attention being shifted again. “AND YOU HAVE DONE AS YOU AGREED, CANCEROS. IF NOT FOR YOUR IDIOCY IN COMMISSIONING VORKA TO ALTER THE SICKNESS, YOU WOULD WARRANT YOUR PAY IN FULL.”

Canceros looked surprised by this, and then flushed again. “I have done as I agreed! The sun princess is incoherent, Ponyville drowns in waves of constructs, and we bleed the freaks for no particular cost! And you have the location of your prize.”

“I CANNOT DECIDE WHETHER YOU ARE IN EARNEST, A LIAR SO CONVINCED OF HIS WORDS THAT HE DOES NOT KNOW THEM AS LIES, OR AN IMCIBILE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.” Someone taking in a breath, holding it for a few seconds, and then letting it out again came through whatever magic was being used. “AND YET THE ONLY THING YOU WERE REQUIRED TO DO IS BE MY CANARY IN A COAL MINE. YOU HAVE SHOWN ME THE DANGER, AND MY EYES BEHOLD THEIR PRIZE.”

“Then you see where I have shown you your prize?”

“YES, I SEE WHERE MY PRIZE IS AND WHERE IT MIGHT BE COLLECTED.”

“Good, now do as you vowed. Give me these colorful herd animals for my pleasure and amusement, and the pleasure and amusement of my own.”

“IT IS DONE. WHEN MY PURPOSE IS ACCOMPLISHED, THEY ARE MEAT AND DRINK, TO BE TRIFLED WITH AS YOUR KIND DESIRE AND WISH. THIS I WILL PERMIT, SO LONG AS THERE IS A PRIZE TO BE CLAIMED AND ONE TO CLAIM IT.”

Canceros’ expression soured. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“IT MEANS THAT I HAVE FULFILLED MY WORD TO THE LAST JOT AND TITTLE. THESE KINE ARE AVAILABLE TO YOU, TO BE USED AS YOU DESIRE. BUT THIS IS ONLY TRUE SO LONG AS YOU ARE ABLE TO CLAIM YOUR PRIZE, A THING WHICH IS AND ALWAYS SHALL BE TRUE. IF YOU LACK THE POWER TO TAKE YOUR MORSEL, THIS IS NO FAULT OF MINE, NOR INVALIDATION OF ANYTHING WHICH I HAVE SWORN. I WILL NOT FEED YOU, SELF-NAMED EMPEROR, AS IF YOU WERE A MEWLING CHILD UNABLE TO TAKE HIS BREAD OF HIS OWN WILL.”

Canceros continued to stare at apparently nothing. “You… betray me?”

“I HAVE DONE NO SUCH THING!” Trixie could feel the ground buck beneath her hooves and she was only saved from falling by Celestia using a touch of telekinesis to right her. “HOW DARE YOU SPEAK SUCH BLASPHEMY, CANCEROS! ALL THAT I VOW IS AND MUST BE, AND THIS HAS ALWAYS BEEN! ALL PROMISES THAT PASS MY LIPS, ALL THAT I SPEAK IN BARGAIN, IS AS IF WRITTEN A DEEP AS A SPEAR’S LENGTH IN THE VERY NOTHINGNESS OF THE VOID! YOU DOUBT ME? YOU BLASPHEME BY PRESUMING THAT I FULFILL NOT WHICH I HAVE VOWED?”

Canceros appeared completely unfazed. “Have you not? Your vow was to deliver these to me! Now you say that you simply permit me to take them of my own hand, as if this was ever a thing that was not true?”

“The precise words that were spoken to your ears were ‘show to me my prize, and when the matter is done, you will receive the kine’.” Zambet’s pony half grinned widely. “To deliver them was never vowed.”

“IT IS AS ZAMBET SPEAKS.” There was something amused and even a little smug in the voice now. “BUT I SHALL GIVE YOU ANOTHER GIFT, CANCEROS, TO COMPENSATE YOUR DISAPPOINTMENT THAT YOU WERE NEVER PROMISED PLAYTHINGS HELPLESS TO BE PLUCKED RIPE AT WILL.”

“A gift?”

“YES, A GIFT.”

Canceros looked mildly placated. “Your unexpected generosity is… appreciated.”

“I AM SURE. ZAMBET TELL HIM WHAT HE SHALL BE GIVEN, AS A TOKEN OF MY UNDYING GRATITUDE.”

“As you will, Lord Voce.” Zambet turned her rictus grin on the suddenly confused-looking Canceros. “The gift will be an opportunity.”

“An.. opportunity.”

“It has long been the conceit of those atermors which bear the name Canceros that they are among the Named, equals to myself, to Vorka, and Voce, and Miri. But you may yet make your claim true.”

“By?”

“By slaying a demigoddess. By overcoming the greatest terror of the atermors. By grasping your payment in an iron fist and claiming it for your own.”

“YOU LIE TO YOURSELF AND YOUR OWN, CANCEROS,” the voice of Sotto Voce told the atermor. “FOR EVEN NOW THE KINE GRIND YOUR LEGIONS TO DUST AT PONYVILLE… AND THE SUN PRINCESS WALKS AGAIN. LAY LOW HER PRIDE, SLAY HER, AND YOU WILL RECEIVE THE REGARD YOU HAVE ALWAYS LUSTED FOR.”

Canceros looked blankly ahead. “Not… incoherent…”

“INDEED.” There was something immensely satisfied in Voce’s voice. “YOU ARE A FOOL, CANCEROS, BUT EVEN YOU MUST HAVE REALIZED THAT IF I DID NOT SLAY YOU IN THIS PLACE, CELESTIA WOULD. GOOD-BYE, CANCEROS.”

The circle began to flicker out the way it had come in, as if individual candle flames were being doused one by one. Just before it went completely, even as Trixie could see Zambet’s concealing magic begin to dissolve away from the door frame, another voice brought all of their attention back towards it.

“Bye-bye Mister Canceros!” And then the circle was entirely doused, Celestia’s horn blazed, and a visibly and suddenly enraged Canceros came flying at them as if thrown.

Author's Note

Dum-dum-dum! I'm astonished with myself at getting this one put together as fast as it was. As always, commentary is welcome, needed, desired, and all sorts of other words that mean I want you to comment and level criticism and what not.

Trixie: Eclipse VI

Canceros’ charge crossed the several feet of space between the circle and Celestia almost before Trixie had realized that he had launched himself. She had barely begun to light her own horn to defend herself against the enraged atermor when there was a blinding flash of light, an overwhelming smell of ozone, and a great volume of ashen dust splashed harmlessly against the solar monarch’s chest.

“Oh, I think I rather like you,” Zambet commented. “Speed and agility met with obliterating power.

Celestia looked askance at her. “Aren’t you meant to be leaving?”

Zambet shrugged. “I changed my mind. But I shall not hinder you in this.” She gave Celestia a chill little smile. “And believe me, Princess, you do not want to hurry me along.”

“Such anger.” The shaded part of the room where Lashaal had been standing before called now disgorged Canceros, looking none the worse for wear. “Such rage, like a sun.”

Celestia narrowed her eyes. “They are my own. You have hurt them, terrified them, tormented them.”

“They’re just cattle.” Canceros’ eyes shifted to look at Trixie. “Like this one. I remember you, little calf, and that adorable little flechette spell.” His eyes narrowed. “I said I would find you, kine, and pay you back.”

“You’re hardly in a position to make threats,” Celestia said to him, her horn glowing anew.

“Because you can annihilate a temporary form?” He bared his triple rows of teeth. “Go on, do it again. Perhaps you can make it sting.”

Celestia bisected him with a ray of light so fine Trixie could barely see it, but got the full experience of watching the two halves fall different directions, disintegrating into that ashen dust as they did. “Why would I prefer that you linger?” she asked Zambet in a polite, conversational tone as if nothing had interrupted them.

“That would be telling, Princess,” Zambet said. “And unlike your sister, I’m sure you’d reach an inconvenient conclusion, because you haven’t been away for a millenium.”

“You have met my sister?”

“And brute-forced my way into her mind,” Zambet replied, her tone frank, without any hint of pleasure or satisfaction. “Once, and left no more of a mark on her than I did you. And then she gave me leave to come here without opposing me, which was impeccably polite of her.”

“Which is how you seem to know so much.”

“No, that is because I have as much of an addiction to reading as does your eldest daughter.” She tilted her head and her living brow furrowed. “But that does not mean anything to you, does it?”

“Why waste your efforts in conversing with the cattle?” Canceros’ form flowed out of one of the shadows caused by the tiny wall around the Tree. “The are mayflies, here one moment and gone the…”

Another flash of searing light erased him in another pillar of dust, and Celestia stepped over the pile that had come of his first charge, allowing the rest of their group to emerge from the tunnel and spread out to either side of her. “Should it?” she asked as if the conversation hadn’t been interrupted.

“It ought.” Zambet too took a step closer. “I expected an expression of fear, suppressed by centuries of practice in schooling your expressions and emotions. But that I read all I know out of books means nothing to you at all.”

“Do you have a point?”

“Only that your gaze stops at the borders of your lands, when not a sparrow should fall to the earth anywhere without your notice.” Zambet nodded a few times, her expression becoming thoughtful. “I see what you are, Celestia. It is… novel, like all this world.”

“And what is that?”

“A prize calf, fattened for the slaughter.” This time when Canceros appeared (out of the faint shadow cast by Lashaal standing in the way of the reddish light radiating from the enclosed Tree), the only skin of his corpse-like form that was visible was his face. The rest was covered in the guise the atermors seemed to prefer: broad hat, thick clothes draped over their bodies, and heavy boots. “The more you strike me down, the stronger I become.”

The beam of fiery light was quite visible this time as it bored a hole directly through the middle of Canceros’ head and once again, his body disintegrated into wafting cloud of the ashen dust.

“A dog,” Zambet said. “An especially vicious one, on a long length of chain.”

Celestia considered her. “That is… oddly flattering.”

Zambet shrugged. “My purpose is not to feed your ego; flattery was unintentional.”

“Then what is the purpose of all this?”

Zambet replied in her very polite manner, but Trixie let the words go passed her as she partly turned and leaned towards Anori. “Flattering?” she asked in a low voice.

“The implied analogy is an especially lethal beast confined to a given place,” he supplied in the same low voice. “And the confinement causes others to believe the beast is not dangerous. But within that place, the beast is invincible and the confinement is in fact temporary.”

Trixie blinked at him and he shrugged. “The sand drake matriarch greeted our queen in a similar fashion, so I’m assuming the same approximate meaning.”

Trixie caught another flash of power out of the corner of her eye and assumed that Celestia had destroyed another of Canceros’ bodies. “Is he trying to wear her down?”

“If Zambet and this mysterious Sotto Voce are speaking the truth, yes.”

“You don’t sound like you believe that,” Trixie noted.

“We believe that the one thing she said that was absolutely true in all respects is that she lies by omission, not commission.”

“And one way to do that is word-weaving,” Trixie nodded. “Saying something that from your perspective is true, but would not be true to anyone else. Or leaving something out; the most skilled can omit just a few words that would change the entire meaning.” She winked at the changeling guard. “When you’re a professional magician showmare, you associate with a lot of liars to get better at deception.”

“On that note…” Anori ducked his head to the side and pulled the tattered shape of the Quarantine Flag from where he’d stuffed it in one of the small pouches he wore. “If this is everything that it’s implied to be, it should be in the hooves that need it the most.”

Trixie quashed the tiny flare of hurt and offense that being implicitly called the weakest evoked in her and accepted the proffered item. Sort of stings, but between two princesses, the captain of the Royal Guard, and a pair of bodyguards, I’m not exactly something to worry about, she told herself. On the optimistic side, it’s not exactly difficult to pick me out as the least dangerous. Edging a bit back and out of immediate view, she unclasped her cloak and slipped the Flag under it before pulling the badly-abused garment back on.

“Why would anyone involved in all of this be politely conversing with Celestia?” She asked Anori. “Especially after implying that leaving will further the plan, which is something we don’t want to happen.”

“Delaying.” Somehow, Cadence had slipped close enough to participate.

“But why?”

Cadence shrugged. “Something to gain by spending time.”

Trixie frowned and took in a breath, then instead of sighing coughed and cleared her throat. “Well, whatever else this Canceros is doing, getting disintegrated all the time is making it really dusty.”

“Probably stirring up dust that was,” Anori coughed, “already here.”

“Here.” Cadence summoned a light brushing of magic that swept the dust behind them. “I do wonder why annihilating him leaves behind dust of some kind. They seemed to fade away to nothing each time we’re hit them before.”

Trixie frowned and looked towards Celestia. “Light?”

“Well, yes, we used Light but Auntie…” Cadence furrowed her brow thoughtfully and returned to her position next to Celestia. “Auntie?”

Celestia held up a hoof in Lashaal’s direction (the creature seemed to have joined the conversation while Trixie was talking with Anori and Cadence) and looked to her niece. “Yes?”

Cadence leaned up and spoke into Celestia’s ear, getting a brief flicker of a mildly chagrined expression in response, before the alicorn turned back to Lashaal. “I apologize, please continue.”

“Of course. As I was saying, although this shell seems unsettling, it is not actually doing your subject harm, Princess,” Lashaal said in her weary and slightly saddened voice. “I am not a nightmare, slipping into the husk of a mortal body does not entail feeding, and will not cause the subject soul to fray from longevity.”

“A nightmare… such as Nachtmiri…”

“No!” Several moments of silence stretched from the abrupt switch from cool and collected to a hint of anger in Zambet’s sharpness. She grimaced. “But also, yes.”

Celestia’s expression hardened. “Which?”

“Neither, and both.”

“That is not an answer.”

“It is an answer,” Zambet said heatedly. “Just not one that pleases you. You wish to know that Miri was your enemy from the start, and your sister pure; this is not true, and yet is not wholly false.”

Celestia coughed lightly and looked hard at Zambet. “How can you know that?”

The eldritch being looked steadily at her for several moments. “I read,” she said finally. “And the time requires me to leave you. I think… it would please me if you lived. You are well-mannered, as is your sister; it is a virtue long forgotten among you ephemeral mortals.”

Zambet tucked her skeletal leg against her chest and bowed to Celestia, the gesture imitated almost exactly by Lashaal, before both simply… blinked out of existence.

“I thought she’d never leave,” Canceros said, his voice sounding like he was leaning over and speaking in Trixie’s ear. She jumped and lit her horn, turning around and firing her flechette spell in the direction it came from. The blast caught and shredded the atermor standing behind them in full masked regalia, removed the top half from the one behind it, and the head from the third in line. The ones that were outside the cone of destruction continued to stand, while the ones behind the destroyed three stepped mutely into place.

“She talks a lot,” Canceros remarked from the direction of some of the atermors to the left. Proving that it wasn’t just in Trixie’s head, a lance of vibrant white light shot down the tunnel, disintegrating the atermors into thin air… followed immediately by more stepping into visibility and starting calmly down the tunnel towards them. A tickle in her chest forced Trixie to cough again, echoed by a light cough from the directions of Shining and Anori.

“I imagine that I should eventually learn her art,” the atermor mused, standing in the same space Zambet had a moment before. This time, veins of power arced from Cadence’s horn and enclosed the now-masked emperor, causing him to disintegrate into dust again.

“It’s a good way to create a delay while I work.” Once again, the voice came from somewhere in the mass of patiently encroaching atermors and Celestia turned again, audibly breathing harder with a slight wheezing sound to it. Or it could have been from Krysa who was on Celestia’s far side from Trixie; she wasn’t sure.

“You mean,” Cadence had to pause to cough a couple times, “entertain us by repeatedly having your projection destroyed.”

“I actually mean kill you.” The atermor nearest them took off his mask to reveal Canceros’ face, his glowing orbs seeming to dance with a malevolent light. “As Zambet invited me to do. She’ll be ever so disappointed in you, Celestia, for dying here before she could converse with you a second time.”

“Dying?” Celestia gave a scornful laugh that broke down halfway through into coughing.

“Yes.” The atermor put its mask on and immediately Canceros’ voice came from the direction of the Tree again. “Have you heard of consumption, Princess?”

Celestia cleared her throat noisily as she turned to look at him. “No.”

“Yellow jack? Ague?” His mouth gaped open in a grin. “Pertussis? Boulogne? Breakbone? Delightful little tools, all of them. And of course there’s the one for which my kind are named. They even devised symbols that they used to warn travelers that they were doomed; my favorite was simply drawing a skull in a black spot on whatever they could improvise into a flag. I destroyed entire cities with it once, scarred the souls of the living for generations; shame you don’t know it.”

Trixie felt her stomach churn and the room seemed to spin for a moment, making her stumble before the brief fit ceased--only for her chest to tighten suddenly, forcing a racking cough out of her.

Celestia looked back at her, and then again at Canceros. “The dust.”

“As it happens, you can bind all manner of plagues to what seems to be dust, but is not.” His eyes roamed over the ponies. “Ague for the guards--a particular favorite. Bonebreak for the sweet little pink one--the really, really fun type--and I think… yellowjack for the adoring husband. For the cattle... “ He stepped around Celestia as another coughing fit wracked her body and looked down at Trixie with malicious glee written all over his face. “Our namesake, breathed in, to make her cough her poor little lungs out--in a literal way--and choke to death. Oh, and a touch of consumption, just to make a point.” He leaned close, enough that even with her nose stuffed from the fit of phlegmy coughing, Trixie could smell the stench of a rotted body and the metallic tang of blood on his breath. “You are kine, little trickster. You were never great and powerful and now, neither will you ever will be.”

Another fit of coughing struck her and this one felt as if something in her chest had torn loose. This seemed to delight Canceros, and he reached out and she felt him tear the cape off her shoulders, exposing the Flag.

“Now, what have we here?” Trixie wasn’t sure what she expected would happen. Canceros catching fire, crumbling to dust, being vaporized in a flash of light, or a variety of variations on the theme. What she did not expect was that the Flag followed the cape in being pulled off her back, and Canceros dangled it in front of her face, his gaping grin somehow even more pleased than before.

“A piece of tattered cloth with a black spot,” he sneered. “What use did you think this would come to? Scaring me? Driving me off? Perhaps you too believe in that adorable myth the jei tell their kits, about a doctor spending his last breath raising a warning flag against us, and seeing my kind destroyed.” He pressed the Flag against her lips, streaking it with spittle and (to her horror) a great deal of blood before tossing it behind him. “Tricks, endless tricks,” he chuckled as he rose again and turned. “Is that all the Great and Powerful has to offer?”

The taunting continued, but she was no longer listening, staring at the crumpled piece of threadbare cloth, streaked with spittle and blood, lying pathetically in the diseased dust. But… I could feel the magic in it… she protested silently, covering her mouth with her hoof at another painful fit of coughing. The Bloodwynds said it was powerful, Forheest said so, Maestro said it was… how could they all be wrong? How could he have just… picked it up, like it’s just an ordinary piece of cloth?

The next fit forced her to her knees, gasping for breath, unable to even turn her head to see if the others were suffering as badly. And how is this even harming either princess? I saw Celestia do some healing spell on the afflicted colt, and Cadence clearly can do something similar…

“Disease… does not… progress like this…” Celestia said, panting before another fit of coughing was followed by a heavy thump of a large body striking stone; Trixie couldn’t tell if Celestia had been driven to kneel or had just fallen over.

“I am the Emperor of All Maladies!” Canceros declared. “They obey my will! They infect at my will, progress at my will, even spawn more symptoms as I desire it! And you can do nothing, pretty pony, supposed goddess, gentle little thing burning with rage and having to be slapped down by your niece to maintain control! You will be the key to the thing that has evaded the Emperors for as long as there has been memory! We will be respected at long last!” His voice began to sound strained, as if he was gritting his teeth. “No longer the butt of jokes and tricks, no longer ordered around like hirelings! Arrogant beasts will be compelled to regard me as their peer and then their better. Especially… Miri.” He practically spat the name.

Trixie felt herself losing her balance and slumped to her belly and then to lay on her side, panting for breath, dimly aware of the atermors stepping over her to mass behind their ranting chieftain, silent and somehow exuding an aura of intense satisfaction.

“Ancient avatar of perfection,” he snarled, his footfalls audible as both sound and faint vibration against Trixie’s cheek. “Little miss perfect, miss ‘dread empress’. Lacks the will to lay a claw on a mortal for millennia, but is she the joke? Is her weakness the thing of hidden sneering and superior smirks? Void forbid the coward should be mocked for her soft touch, afraid to hurt anything, relying on rumors of some collection of trophies to cow any rivals. What has the ‘empress’ ever done? What world has she devastated? What souls has she scarred? Where is the legend of the dread beast stalking children in the night, tearing apart families, drinking of tears of terror, grief, suffering?”

The ranting continued, becoming increasingly enraged and loud. Trixie was sure that if she’d been up to it, she would be scorning the ‘emperor’ for throwing a childish tantrum because this ‘Miri’ was better than him. Instead, she shivered against the cool stone, trying to cough but finding herself lacking the strength. At least the Guardian was quick… she thought. This is… so much worse than being dead…

Barely had the thought passed her mind when she felt something brush passed her, the hem of another atermor’s’ robe as it hurried to join its fellows... and the pain and struggle to breathe shrank. Trixie coughed, finding it less painful than a moment before. The hay…? She squinted and managed to move her head enough to look into the mass of watching atermors.

Even if it was not slipping into place, the rest parting to give it place, the atermor would have been immediately recognizable. Trixie couldn’t have put her hoof on exactly why it was but there was something… alive about the newcomer. His (and Trixie wasn’t sure how she was sure the faceless creature was even a he, but the thought felt right) mask was somehow just a little more real, the coverings faintly reflecting the reddish light off the tree, his hat in better shape and as Trixie focused, she realized that as he’d passed, he’d scooped the Flag off the ground and was holding it with an almost respectful touch.

Canceros, meanwhile, appeared to have reached a state of such frothing indignation that he could barely speak and was instead watching what Trixie assumed was Celestia, his expression fixated, a ropelike tentacle of a tongue darting passed his rows of teeth to lick over barely-existing lips like a person contemplating a scrumptious meal.

“You… you are the key, princess,” he said finally. “How the strong fold, and the mighty fall. What has your peace wrought for you, Princess? How are your little ponies safe under the aegis of their beloved white horse sitting on a throne? What even is such a figurehead as you for?”

“To fight the savage wars of peace.” Much like Sotto Voce’s voice had done, the ponderous voice echoed off the walls of the chamber and made the floor itself vibrate. But there was something about it that was more pervasive than loud, and listening to it didn’t make Trixie reflexively cant her ears to muffle it.

Canceros visibly jumped at the voice and looked around the room in convulsive, jerking motions. “Is this meant to be some kind of mockery, Voce?”

“To fill full the mouth of famine,” the voice replied, as if the speaker didn’t hear Canceros or was ignoring him.

Canceros became more still, and his posture and expression was one of distinct confusion. “...who is…?”

“And bid the sickness.... CEASE.” Although the last word was not shouted, it nonetheless exploded into the room causing Trixie’s ears to ring from the sheer immensity of the word as it was spoken. Trixie saw the odd atermor step forward, even as each of the ones surrounding him began to crumble in on themselves, decaying into flakes of mingled black, grey, and white.

Into ash.

Canceros turned slowly to look at him, now looking less confused and more angry. “And just who are you meant to be?” He snarled. “One of those accursed Bloodwynds, dressing up to slip your way in? Mocking our accoutrements?”

The atermor stared steadily at him, paying the rest of the atermors gathered in the room no apparent mind and they, for no reason Trixie could see, seemed frozen in place, as unmoving as statues.

Cancerous snorted and reached out with the apparent intent to grab the mask off the atermor’s head. With no movement, no flash of light, not even a sound, the hand simply disintegrated into a cascade of ash. The Emperor stared at the missing extremity for a shocked moment before shrieking in what was very obviously pain.

“Ring around the rosey,” the same voice said, but now audibly originating from the ‘atermor’ and in a voice that was more song than speech. “Pockets full of posies.”

“What… nonsense are…”

The figured ignored him. “Ashes… ashes….” He raised the hand that was not holding the Flag, clad in very heavy roughly-stitched gloves, pressing the thumb into pointer and middle fingers. “And they all… fall....” He leaned in closer to Canceros and the mask’s stitching stretched and distorted into a grisly smile. “...down.”

He snapped his fingers and the crack was deafening, and sharp enough that it shook dust from the bricks of the Tree chamber… and every atermor, excepting Canceros, began crumbling into a cascade of ashes. At the same time, the dust on the floor began to swirl, as if it was being blown about by a tiny whirlwind, and lifted off the floor and began to revolve in a ring around Canceros’ wrists.

“I am not Elena or Ersari Bloodwynd,” he said, his voice ponderous and low, yet as pervasive as it was when it was shaking the chamber. “Nor Forheest Sadow, nor any other you know. But an emperor knew me once. The second Emperor of your kind, as I later learned.” He turned his back on Canceros and walked over to look at the Tree through Zambet’s containing panes. “He knew me as the insect to be stamped on, that sad mortal engaged in a futile fight against his plague. And then he knew me as his doom, and heard the same little child’s song as the holocaust gaped open to receive him.”

Canceros tried to step back but seemed to be held in place by the rings of dust around his wrists. “...no…”

“Ring around the rosie,” the figure said, speaking the lines now. “Pockets full of posies. Ashes, ashes, and they all fall down.”

“...but… you are…”

“...a myth?” He glanced over his shoulder, his mask returned to the same neutral pseudo-expression as it had been before. “So you have desperately believed, so much so that you came to be sure, and so doomed yourself. Did you think that to lay hands on my symbol, the Flag of the Quarantine, would do nothing? Did you allow yourself to believe that a flag so tattered would remain intact by luck, and not by the binding eternity of a soul woven into its every stitch and fiber?” Trixie felt his eyes settle on her. “Did you think that innocent blood touching my Flag would not invite recompense? That I would ignore this offense, this travesty against innocent creatures whose first love is peace and life?”

Canceros just stared and the figure turned to him. “Nothing? I suppose it doesn’t matter.” He gestured and ash swirled from the floor and mingled with the dust rings around Canceros’ wrists, pulling them taut and yanking the emperor down to a kneeling position. “It’s time to die, Emperor of All Maladies, but this revenge does not belong to me.”

Throughout the entire short exchange between the figure dressed as an atermor and Canceros, Trixie had felt the symptoms of illness rapidly disappearing and as the masked person used the ropes of ash to pull Canceros to the ground, she gathered her hooves under herself and stumbled to her feet. She glanced behind her and saw that the rest had already risen, although Cadence looked like she was staying upright through sheer force of will, her knees locked and her eyes looking slightly clouded. But her chest rose and fell in a more regular fashion and she was certainly recovering. The three changelings all looked in far better condition--Shining gentle cleaning the flecks of blood from his fiance’s muzzle--and Trixie felt Anori’s hoof patting her shoulder as she turned her attention forward again.

The figure was gently helping Celestia to her hooves and patted her shoulder. “It would be just if it was possible for every one of your subjects wounded by Canceros to revenge themselves upon him, but I think their princess will do,” he said.

Celestia regarded him. “You’re the physician that Forheest Sadow spoke of.”

He inclined his head in her direction. “I think I will have to have a word with her, and with the Bloodwynds. Secrecy with regards to my Flag is counterproductive and harmful, but that is a matter for later.” He gestured towards the bound Canceros. “Make him suffer for his crimes.”

Celestia did.

When Canceros lay sprawled on the ground, a smoldering corpse twisted and distorted by heat, Celetia looked towards the physician. “It’s a relief to see justice done to that creature for the evils he did my little ponies, but vengeance will not heal them.”

The physician smiled at her. Trixie wasn’t sure how she could tell, because his mask remained in place and his body language remained unchanged. But there was a sudden sense of warmth and happiness about him that gave the distinct impression of a smile. “I am a physician,” he said, his voice full of pride and joy as he said the words. “The afflicted will be healed and any power the atermors have over them will be removed. I cannot comfort, or succor them, or soothe the wounds of fear, for I am not their princess.”

“Nor would I expect it,” Celestia smiled back. “For being bound to a fraying flag, you appear to be awfully… well-informed.”

“It’s a matter far more complex than binding. Suffice it to say, I am able to go where I will, as I please. But to exercise any particular power requires the Flag, and adhering to its peculiar strictures.”

“Such as not conveying who this Sotto Voce is, or his intent?”

“I am not permitted to intervene in mortal affairs beyond dealing with the atermors and the effects upon mortals their machinations have.” He bowed to her. “A difficult condition to abide in all but a few situations, but to halt the depredations on innumerable others is a power well worth the cost of what I cannot do.”

Celestia frowned at him but nodded. “I understand having boundaries on your strength.”

“You would.” The physician took a knee and bowed deeply in Celestia’s direction. “I will heal your people as I go, Celestia, and break the power of the atermors in this place and all other places of this world. This I am permitted to do, and shall. I am also permitted to say that everything Zambet does has a purpose of vital importance to her mind, and I am permitted this because to speak of the personality and mind of an acquaintance is no intervention, for nothing is advised nor a direction recommended.”

“Acquaintance?” The physician turned his head to look at Trixie. “I’m sorry, but you don’t exactly seem like the sort that someone like Zambet would hang around.”

“When you have an eternity, everyone who has the same eternity eventually becomes acquainted with you,” he said, rising to his feet. “It is not friendship, but the mere fact that she crosses paths with me as she pursues her purposes, and I cross paths with her as I pursue mine. As overcoming her requires no greater power than being rational and reasonable, I find to my delight that I can serve a good end even without leaning upon the Flag.”

“She seems remarkably… benign for an Evil,” Cadence said as Shining helped her walk forward and stand beside Celestia. “Polite, seeming to be quite comfortable in conversation, no obvious malice.”

“And yet, knowing precisely what Canceros was up to, she lingered and kept the princess talking and focused on her while the infection set in,” the physician said. “There are evils other than what you might call the ‘mwahahahaha’ villain.” He gently folded the Flag and put it in a pocket of the very long coat he wore. “I must go now and do my duty, and chastise some fools. I will instruct them to leave the Flag in your keeping when I am done with them.”

He gave small bows in the direction of the two Princesses and, to Trixie’s surprise, herself before slipping deftly around them and starting down the tunnel. Trixie turned as he did. “Mister Physician?”

He stopped and turned. “Yes?”

“Why did you not…?”

“Intervene immediately? Because the strictures of the Flag must be upheld. I am permitted to step into a conflict with the atermors only when the Flag comes into direct contact with one of their number. It is infused with magic that ensures that the stronger they are, the less dangerous they recognize it as being; naturally Canceros himself cannot even tell that it has magic.

“Why didn’t Ersari and…”

“That, Bellatrix Lulamoon, is why I call them fools and wish to chastise them.” He seemed to smile again. “Anything else?”

Trixie gave him her best showmare smile. “Reconsider directing us where we could do some good?”

He chuckled and shook his head. “I have already given you everything you need, and in a way that honors the spirit and letter of my boundaries. Farewell, Bellatrix; I hope neither you nor any of your kind have need of me again.”

Trixie watched until he had vanished into the gloom of the passage, and then turned to look at Celestia. She was looking at the still-covered tree but her gaze was distant and thoughtful. “The key is the icy plain,” she said. “It is important in Zambet’s mind; that’s what the Physician said..”

“Is there anything you know of that has something to do with an icy plain, Auntie?” Cadence asked..

Celestia’s eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “Several possible things. But the field was vast and unnaturally smooth, with a sheet of ice in the middle. There are no mountains there, no ruins, no strucures, no signs of anything important.”

“Zambet called it a prison, with only one of the prisoners being a criminal, and said that it was only a possible location for it, for the time being.”

“So lost,” Celestia nodded. “Lost in the icy north, a prison with many prisoners and only one criminal, and extremely….” She blinked. “...like a city.”

“An… invisible city on the ice?” Shining said.

“No.” Celetia’s expression became grim. “Under the ice. The capital of the lost Crystal Empire… and the vault of the Crystal Heart.”

Author's Note

So ends the single POV bit broken up into multiple chapters. I hope this was a better way to do things, and that people like the contents. I hope to hear from ya'll, assuming there are any of you here.

Twilight: Nor'easter I

“I don’t suppose the dragon lands have anything like an anchorage for the Red Mambo,” Twilight ventured after several minutes spent in silence, standing beside the armored dragoness.

“Nope,” she said.

“So how’re we going to…”

“Don’t care,” she said. “That’s your problem, Sparkle. We didn’t exactly send ya an invitation. You came here on yer own, didn’t send ahead, so I guess you get ta pull some clever ideas out of your plots to land yer fancy flying thing.”

“The Mambo was designed to operate without an anchorage or landing,” the captain said. “Can’t exactly expect a nice landing zone everywhere you go when you’re a military airship.”

“Looks like your buddies figured it out, ain’t that nice.”

“Blue, what’d we do ta you to get you all sour?” Dawn clopped up to stand on the dragoness’ other side. “Or are ya naturally this charming?”

“Don’t make me throw you over the side, Pinkie,” the dragoness growled. “It ain’t ‘Blue’ it’s Ember. And no, I’m normally all kittens and flowers and friendship and all that saccharine-sweet happy-time shit. Just woke up on the bad side of the hoard last year and I never got my girly-girl disposition back.”

“This started a year ago?”

“Do ya know what the word ‘hyperbole’ means, genius?”

Twilight gave her a steady look. “So when?”

Ember growled. “Just… stop talking Sparkle.”

“Twilight.”

Ember twisted and slammed the tip of the sword down hard enough to crumple the deck plate. “I don’t care who you are! I don’t care why you’re here! I’ve got actual problems to worry about and some meddling pony princess and her little tea circle is just one more damned thing. Be happy I’m not pitching your clever plot off the ship and just stop talking.”

Twilight took an involuntary step back from Ember and felt herself nodding, canting her ears before the dragoness’ sudden flare of anger. Ember snorted and turned back to looking towards the bow. “I can’t believe you’re standing behind this, Lady Maredusa,” she said after several seconds. “You’ve been dealing with the Lands for years, you should be the first one to tell the brats to step off.”

“I cannot,” Maredusa said, weaving deftly around Rarity and Applejack to take Twilight’s place on Ember’s right. “If Crysaliss wasn’t keeping a close eye on more immediate dangers, sshe would march an army up here to ssettle the hash of whoever or whatever sspooked her little sister. If you were Thalia’s big sister, wouldn’t you?”

Ember snorted. “Wouldn’t stop with just one army.”

Maredusa turned her head to look at Ember, staring for several seconds. “How much worse is this one?”

Ember seemed to droop slightly. “It ain’t good, ‘Dusa.”

“Sso far, they’ve all been bad,” Maredusa said. “If not for Lepinora’s paranoia, the one Chryssalis is dealing with would have murdered a transport of wounded for pleasure. All of Equestria iss gripped by a monstrous plague made by creaturess called atermors. The one called ‘Master’ has sswallowed nearly all the Provinces, and iss being aided by ssomething far more inssidious and dangerous.”

“So everywhere’s under attack.” Ember turned and looked over the ponies. “This ain’t a social call, and it ain’t only cuz Thalia. Yer coming looking for the one that’s squatting up here, ain’t ya?”

“So there is one of the Evils up here,” Twilight said.

“Yeah,” Ember said. “And all that shit Lady Maredusa said those things have been doing? Mine’s worse.”

Twilight exchanged a look with Dawn. “What can you tell us?”

“Not a fucking thing,” Ember growled.

“How long has it been up here?”

“Can’t tell ya,” Ember said. “Before ya ask a whole list, here’s yer heads-up: I ain’t answerin’ squat about the one up here. I can’t. Can’t say what, can’t say who, can’t say for how long, can’t say any of the rest of it either.”

“Why?”

“Can’t tell ya that either.” She crossed her arms and leaned on the pommel of her sword. “Not here, not yet. Ya gotta see the one up here with yer own eyes.”

“But…”

“Cuz that’s the way it’s gonna be, Sparkle,” Ember said. “My lands, my rules, and if ya can’t deal ya can turn yer plots around and start walkin’.”

“How can this ‘little one’ possibly know if you told us?”

Ember looked squarely at Rarity. “That one I can answer: no idea. Thalia’s got a theory, pretty good one, way the hell out there.”

“Can you tell us the theory?” Twilight asked hopefully.

“Theory is, knowledge is power, right?”

“Well, not…”

“I know, aphorism. Stipulate.”

Twilight nodded. “Alright, yes, knowledge is power.”

“Power makes waves,” Ember said. “Tiny ones, but waves. If yer real good, ya can notice the waves.”

“...which means you can know if someone else knows something,” Dawn nodded. “Logic fits together, sis, if you treat ‘knowledge is power’ as bein’ literal.”

“So what you’re saying is…”

“Ain’t sayin’ anything,” Ember said. “Sharin’ a theory. Ain’t proven, no supportin’ evidence… so it’s just a theory.”

“Right.” Twilight glanced at the rest of the girls; every one of them looked right back, clearly understanding at least the immediate implications. Anything she tells us, whoever this ‘little one’ is, she’ll be aware that we’ve been told and can prepare for it. Twilight was sure that if the theory was right, it had to be narrowed down to things that the being didn’t want known, or knowledge she believed endangered her or put others at an advantage. Of course, not knowing what knowledge could possibly be on that list, anyone who guessed that the ‘little one’ could sense certain knowledge had to assume that anything of any value would be on that list. Twilight looked up and her eyes met the ruby irises of the armored dragon princess. “I see your problem, Ember.”

“Glad ya put it together.” Some of the tension in the way Ember held herself faded noticeably. “Still ain’t gonna be any kind of good times when we get there, even if nothing goes on that’d make her suspicious. Changeling ariship with changeling soldiers is gonna make her freak cuz Queenie is a big deal ta her. Not yer two princesses, which is really weird, but she seems awful sure that Chrysalis’ got her number and waitin’ till the worst possible time to stick in the knife.”

“Chrysaliss is certainly a great power of the world, but only one of many,” Maredusa said. “Odd that she should fixate sspecificially on her.”

“If ya can believe it, that’s the least odd thing about this thing.” Ember looked at the captain. “So how do ya lock it down when ya don’t have a dock?”

“The magic that allows it to fly can be manually adjusted,” the captain said. “And so lower us to an altitude where it can sustain itself nearly indefinitely, and also cancel any force that might alter its inertia while it’s anchored.”

Twilight and Dawn both gaped at her. “It cancels all external forces?” Dawn said.

“Or something,” the captain said. “If a thousand metric tonnes of the stone can keep the palace suspended as if it was on solid ground, are you surprised that a quarter metric tonne can exercise complete control over motion related to a modest-sized airship?”

“I guess not.” Twilight pressed her lips together thoughtfully. “Are there very large reserves of…”

“Bow watch!” One of the crew called from the rigging. “Settlement off starboard!”

“No kiddin?” Ember turned and strode to the front of the bow, and then lightly jumped onto the leading mast to walk to the end, balancing without any visible sway as she walked. “No kiddin! This Red Mamba of yers is pretty fast.”

“Where would be the best place to secure her, Lord Ember?” The captain asked.

“Edge of the clearing, and we walk in.” Ember walked off the mast and loomed over the captain. “And it’s just Ember. I ain’t the dragon lord.”

“Very well, Miss Ember.” The captain turned and started towards the stern of the ship, calling out commands to the crew as she went and getting a chorus of affirmative replies.

“Is Lord Scorch awaiting us in the ssettlement?”

“No.” Ember deliberately turned her attention upwards, to the changeling crew scurrying around woking on the masts and ignoring Maredusa’s questioning look.

Maredusa slithered passed Ember and then turned back, blocking her view. “Why do you want uss to walk in?”

“So no one knows what happened to the airship,” the captain said as she took position on the opposite side from Maredusa. “You clearly don’t want to elaborate, Miss Ember, but it’s vital that I know: what do you expect to be waiting for my passengers in that settlement?”

“Have ya not gotten yet that I can’t tell you?” Ember snorted. “Ya think I want to drag you in without telling ya anything? Big fucking hint, Captain: I wanna blab it all to ya, right here, right now. But I can’t, cuz she’s freaking omniscient or something and if she knows that ya know things, she’ll start the music when she’s loaded fer ursa major ‘stead of when she ain’t prepared.”

“Ember, you know there’s one fairly big hole in your reasoning?”

Ember looked at Rarity. “Yeah? And what is that?”

“All those other dragons you sent away,” Rarity said. “If she’s omniscient, she’ll know what they watched you do and if she is at all inteligent, will begin from the assumption that you’ll tell us everything and prepare for that scenario.”

Ember blinked a few times at her. “Oh,” she finally said. “Well… horseapples, as you pony types say.”

“So…?” the captain prompted.

“Well, ya don’t have to worry about her showing up personally,” Ember said. “She seems ta really like hanging around where she is. Wanders the place all the time, but doesn’t ever leave. She’s got more spells than anyone I’ve seen or heard of--that includes you, Sparkle--so she can probably make all kinds of trouble that I don’t know about, but she likes to use her sock puppet hoard.”

“The other dragons?”

“Naw. They are sort of still alive.” Ember shuddered slightly. “The sock puppets are… wrong. Always flickering and stuttering between real an’... something else. Best I can see is they’re sometimes walking drawings on paper and the rest of the time, having all three dimensions.”

“Princess Tettidora’s instruction about golems and other things powered by magic should give us a way to bar them from entering the Mambo,” the captain said. “Anything else?”

“She kinda does a puppet thing…”

“We can deal with your people or if needs be, outrun them,” the captain said.

The assurance seemed to take a little more tension from Ember. “Good. Cuz it’s not like they’re… doing it cuz they want to.”

“I understand.” The captain made a circling gesture to the crew and went back to the stern as the Mambo descended towards the sparse trees near the settlement. Ember turned back towards the bow before Twilight could say anything to her, so she looked at the rest of the girls.

“I guess we’d better pack up.”

“Have you ever seen her create them?”

Ember looked over her shoulder at her as they walked. The dragoness had removed her helmet, which was now secured to her waist, revealing that she was blue-scaled and her features were much more like the idealized depictions in books than those of any other dragon Twilight had seen. Even though she had never met Lord Scorch and had only the vaguest idea of his appearance, Twilight had a feeling that there was a connection between the idealization in the books and Ember’s obvious position of authority.

“Never,” she said. “Pretty sure she pulls them outta her book, but I ain’t seen it.”

Dawn looked back at Twilight and then at Ember. “Out of her book?”

“Just said that.”

Dawn raised a brow. “A variant of the intensified study spell, do ya think?”

Twilight nodded. “Sounds like orientation reversal, although I can only sustain it because…”

“...it’s a personal transformation, coming off yer font.” Dawn nodded back. “If they move around, she must tie them into something but it can’t be stable if they stutter like that.”

“And yet always retains a high enough baseline to keep them coherent.”

“Could be there’s something inherently magic about the Lands she can anchor them to,” Dawn suggested. “I mean, Equestria is like that and Scarabi is like that, so why not where the dragons hang out?”

“Of course it’s like that,” Ember snorted. “C’mon… we eat fancy rocks as a treat. An’ the fancy rocks taste like something. Of course it reeks of magic where we come from.”

Which was something pretty obvious when said aloud, but Twilight couldn’t remember having ever considered. “You know, I’ve had Spike around for all these years and it… never even occurred to me to think about that,” she said. “That he can burn a scroll and it magically gets to Celestia? Hours. That he could eat a ruby like a slice of watermelon? I just… accepted it.”

“Spike?”

“My assistant,” Twilight said. “Baby dragon, about six years younger than me. Hatched him as part of my entrance exam into Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns and he’s been around ever since.”

Ember stared at her. “Your entrance exam was… hatching a dragon.”

Twilight felt her cheeks burning. “I don’t think Princess Celestia meant it to be possible but I, uh…”

“She blew the roof off the room, turned the observers into potted plants, grew Spike big enough that his head protruded from the hole, and went full-blown avatar mode,” Dawn said. “At six. I know Mom had at least one head-to-desk session for not reading the big bucking sign.”

“Ain’t she put some kinda memory thing on herself?” Applejack said.

“Why the heck would she want to forget her kid?”

“Protection,” Rarity said. “If Celestia didn’t know, and no one else knew, no one would take advantage of Twilight. She’d be just one more extremely talented mare. The Princess probably didn’t imagine that magical aptitude could be so directly inherited.”

“Heh.” Ember looked at Dawn. “And you popped outta her head while she was crazy.”

Dawn considered this. “Eh, close enough. I just didn’t get the horn.”

“And yer pink because…?”

“Pink is the color of happy!” Pinkie said from her position at Ember’s right elbow, having not crossed any apparent distance.

“An’ the color of me really, really annoyed,” Ember told her. “How’d you…?”

“It’s Pinkie, don’t question it,” Twilight said. “I mean it. It’ll drive you insane trying to logic it out.”

“Snap your sanity like a twig.” Dawn gave Twilight a grin. “As big sis knows from personal experience.”

Pinkie’s mane drooped slightly, although her cheerful expression remained in place. “Twilight didn’t know the secret, though,” she told Ember sotto voce. “Wanna know?”

Ember eyed her and then shrugged. “Sure, why not. What’s the secret?”

Pinkie leaned closer and held her hoof up to the side of her mouth with an expression of extremely exaggerated seriousness. “The secret is… you ask Pinkie.”

Ember waited for several moments. “That it?”

“Yuppers!”

Ember then looked over her shoulder at Twilight. “You seriously never asked her?”

Twilight gave the dragon her best offended look. “Of course I…”

“You asked if my Pinkie Sense told me that you had a frog on your face,” Pinkamena informed her with a grin. “And that’s pretty much the only question you asked. The rest… you remember.”

“I remember the same thing,” Dawn interjected before Twilight could say anything. “Or, I guess it’s better to say Mom remembered the same thing cuz of the friendship report you wrote. So if ya forgot to tell her about plying Pinkster with questions, I can’t back ya up.”

Twilight conceded the point with a sigh and a hoof gesture. “So, yes, I didn’t ever ask.”

“Though it sorta begs the question,” Applejack said. “Why ya ain’t had all them twitches in a while anyway?”

“A friend getting punished by coincidence because she isn’t equipped for blind faith isn’t funny,” Pinkamena said with a shrug. “Popping out of nowhere without any explanation still is.”

“Element of Laughter,” Dawn said to Ember.

“Gotcha. Don’t suppose you could pop out of Lia’s stuff and tell her we’re on the way in?”

“Tried,” she said. “I can’t.”

“Not funny?”

“No,” Pinkamena siad. “I think Thalia has a great sense of humor, so it should work. But it’s like having a straw,” she pulled a normal straight straw out of her saddlebags, “suddenly get switched for UltraTwisty Mark Two Nine-Thousand,” and then came the most twisted and convoluted straw Twilight had ever laid eyes on. “Hard to go from one end to the other.”

“Ain’t that, yanno, impossible?”

Pinkie shrugged as she put the straws away. “I do ten impossible things before breakfast. Maybe she does twenty.”

“So what yer all saying is… little bint can shut down magic that works on the basis of ‘just because’?”

“Seems so,” Twilight said. “Still, I should probably check if it’s only for Pinkie, or anyone using teleport magic.”

“What, by blind-teleporting somewhere?”

“No, that would be foolish,” Twilight told her, unfolding her wings. “Too much risk of being deflected off of something. Midair blinking should do for demonstration.”

Twilight picked a spot far above the ground, set her wings for a glide, and reached for her preferred blink spell when Dawn put a hoof on her should. “Sis, I don’t think that’s such a hot idea.”

Twilight let the building spell go and looked at her near-twin. “Why?”

“It’s… sorta hard to put a hoof on,” Dawn said. “But I’m getting this sorta… I dunno, thickness ahead. Like hitting a wall of humidity when ya walk outta a nice cool place into a muggy afternoon.”

“Like around the Tree o’ Harmony,” Applejack added. “‘Cept thicker-feelin’ and not nearly so light an’ inviting.”

Twilight nodded to them both. “Alright, I’ll look.” She glanced at Ember. “If you don’t mind?”

Ember snorted. “Look all ya like. I ain’t in a hurry to scurry on home with that thing waiting.”

Twilight nodded again and then reached for her mage sight spell. Much like how it had appeared when she used it on the flying transport, it seemed to have more… breadth than it had before Nightmare’s bestowal had altered it. At least, until she had taken her eyes off the ground at her hooves and looked forward.

Directly ahead was almost a solid wall of pulsating magic. Twilight held up a hoof without consciously thinking about it. “I… I think the way ahead has been booby-trapped,” she said.

She saw a vaguely Ember-shaped figure in her peripheral vision as the dragon took a few steps forward. “Don’t see anything.”

“I didn’t either, until I used this viewing spell.” Twilight found herself taking a few steps forward, staring at the construct to try to make heads or tails of what she was seeing.

“I believe what I’m seeing is several constructs layered on top of one another so tightly that they appear to be a solid wall,” she said.

“I was thinking the same thing,” she agreed. “But how are there so many?”

“Lei line theory would fit the situation well,” she said thoughtfully. “I know it’s not yet been scientifically established, but it would adequately explain…”

“...the constructs that the invader is using as her tools.” Twilight nodded several times. “An overwhelmingly powerful torrent of magic would be the…” At about that moment, her brain caught up to the fact that she was talking to herself and was getting coherent replies. What’s more, the replies seemed to be coming from beside her, and she turned to look.

She was standing there, looking curiously at the constructs, her hoof tapping her chin. “...would be the perfect explanation for long-term maintenance, but perhaps also why the mobile constructs stutter,” she said. “What do I think?”

Author's Note

A great many apologies for this taking time. Life comes at you hard. Anyway, I hope those few of you who read enjoy, and I'd love to hear what you have to say. Please?

Twilight: Nor'easter II

Twilight couldn’t help but stare at herself as she tilted her head back and forth in a habit that Twilight recognized with uncomfortable familiarity.

“I am of the opinion that staring at a strange, but seemingly harmless, phenomenon is probably less important than trying to work out what a series of constructs in front of me are for, and how to remove them,” she commented, not looking at her.

That that exact thought had just crossed Twilight’s mind as she had turned to stare made herself talking to her all the more eerie. “What… I…”

“Uh, Twi?” She felt Applejack’s hoof tap her shoulder. “Who ya talkin’ to?”

“A hallucination,” she and herself replied harmoniously. “Or at least what I assume is a hallucination.”

“An’... it just… popped up, jus now?”

“Shortly after I began using magical sight to look at the area ahead of us.” Twilight turned to frown at her duplicate as she continued to speak in perfect harmony with her. “Although she seems… coherent.”

“I think the hallucination is somehow connected to me, since she thinks as I do at the same moment I do and can speak in perfect synchronization with me, but she can also voice my thoughts independently from me,” she said, finally turning to look directly at Twilight. “Are any of the rest of you experiencing this?”

Twilight eyed her. “They can’t hear you, you know.”

“They can hear me perfectly fine, when I’m the one speaking,” she replied. “They just can’t hear the hallucination voicing my thoughts. Perhaps I should repeat what she says, since knowing whether the phenomenon is specific to me could be important.”

Suppressing a shudder at how incredibly eerie the situation was, Twilight turned away from her and repeated her earlier observation, receiving mute shakes of the head in response. “The timing between turning on the magical sight and the hallucination appearing is just a bit too close to be coincidence,” she suggested from behind her. “I think there might be a connection.”

Twilight turned to look at the hallucination. “Alright, what are you?”

“I can only see three possibilities,” the hallucination said. “First, that I’m experiencing some kind of adverse neurological effect and talking to a hallucination as if she was a discrete pony who could converse with me. Second, that one of the various entities that are involved in the attack on Equestria and other lands has the ability to read my mind and imitate what it sees there, as well as my appearance. Third, that when Nightmare gave me a gift of instinctive knowledge to better use the arsenal of spells she also gave me, she tied it to certain of the spells and that gift manifests as myself.”

Twilight nodded as the hallucination vocalized her thoughts. I feel like I can dismiss the first one out of hoof, she thought. By its very nature, a mental defect wouldn’t be coherent and make sense. If the second was true, I’m sure the creature would have shown up earlier instead of timing its appearance to me using mage sight. Which means…

“...there must be a way to use the hallucination as a source of knowledge, one that can speak to my mind’s ears,” the hallucination said. “But that doesn’t seem to be urgent right now. What seems to be urgent is making sure the way ahead of us is cleared of anything runic that could harm us.”

“You seem interested in keeping my attention away from you.”

The hallucination shrugged. “And yet, the hallucination speaking my thoughts aloud is not so much wrong as being squirrely. It also seems to be either unable or unwilling to have any effect on the physical world. But the most pertinent fact seems to be this: taking into account all known factors, the most likely defense we’re confronting is spells meant to react violently to magical auras, such as the ones ponies inherently have. But although I’ve studied runes and several branches of emergent runic sciences, such as runescription, I’m not confident enough to try to dismantle these spells. I’m also not sure that any of the runes would be familiar to me. The solution seems to be Nightmare’s bestowal of knowledge, which I’ve concluded that the hallucination represents.”

Twilight furrowed her brow at the hallucination. I… don’t remember thinking that. It’s correct, and the reasoning sounds like my own, but… The trail of thought brought her up short. So that’s how it works.

She could have sworn that she saw the hallucination smirk at her when the realization came, but it was already turning away from her and looking over the field of runic traps. Twilight turned to her companions in time to catch a few worried looks passing between them. “Alright, I think I’ve figured out how it works,” she told them.

“How… er… what works, sis?”

“The hallucination,” Twilight told her matter-of-factly. “I’m not crazy.”

“Didn’t think ya were, Twi,” Dawn said. “Just… um… were a bit worried that you suddenly got something’s hands in yer head.”

“I considered that.” Twilight turned to look at the eerily perfect facsimile of herself. “But the behavior seems a little too… benign to be trickery, or someone picking information out of my head. And before you mention it, yes, I also considered that I’m crazy but if so, my delusions are incredibly well-meaning and helpful.”

“Umm…”

“Also, she only appeared when I used my magesight, one of the spells Nightmare imprinted on me,” Twilight interrupted Applejack. “I think she’s some sort of… my mind trying to understand the imprint of knowledge that Nightmare also gave me, at my request. It’s my working theory at the moment.”

“An’ how does it work?”

“If I’m right, I’ll tell you in a moment.” Twilight stepped closer and focused her attention on one of the runes, resisting the urge to look in the hallucination’s direction.

“I’m trying to see a pattern in the runes,” the halluciantion commented. “This one in particular seems to combine the runescription concepts of ‘delay’ and ‘repetition’.”

Twilight started to smile triumphantly, but quashed it. One consistent result isn’t proof. She shifted her attention to another of the runes, one positioned on the opposite side of the construct from the first.

“The function of this one can be derived from the first identified but…” Twilight could see the brow of her duplicate furrowing the way she knew hers did when something didn’t make sense to her. “...this does not logically follow. It combines ‘to read’ and ‘to be read to’ with ‘memory’ and ‘listening’. But if this rune script follows a logical progressive order, this is directly in the center of a complete idea. I think that reading from the rune I understand forward might reveal how it fits in.”

“The hallucination repeats the knowledge imprint by projection, I think,” Twilight told her friends. “It states the facts as logical chains, the way I try to think things through.”

“Yanno, sis, that sounds like a really complex construct for Nighty to stick in your brain without telling you it’s there and how it works,” Dawn said as she stepped forward to stand at the side opposite from the hallucination.

“I’m sure it’s just my own mind attempting…”

“You’re not crazy, sis,” Dawn said. “Not-crazy people imagine a voice in their head when they talk to themselves. Crazy people see and hear things that aren’t there, as if they’re there. If it’s not a construct, turning on the magesight screws with your mental state, which makes it malicious an’ Nightmare didn’t come off like she’s trying to hurt you.”

“Nightmare?” Both Twilight and Dawn looked at Ember. “Who the hell is ‘Nightmare’? Only person I know called that is some pony in a pony story about it being night all the time or something.”

“Real pony, darling,” Rarity told her. “Quite pleasant, in fact, although by her own account, she’s ruthlessly pragmatic.”

“Huh. And the ‘eternal night’ thing?”

“We ain’t asked her directly, but Ah think it’s meant ta be an alleygora..”

“Allegory.”

“Thanks Rares. Ah think it was meant ta be an allegory fer Princess Luna, the princess of th’ Night, rulin’ for eternity.”

“Damn shame this ‘Nightmare’ didn’t make it happen,” Ember said. “Nothin’ against Celestia, but her kid sister’s a lot bigger deal up here.”

Twilight gave the dragon a nod before looking at Dawn. “Nightmare is alien to our reality,” she said before she turned her attention back to the runes, choosing to focus on the one at the 9 o’clock position and waiting to hear the hallucination’s diagnosis.

She’d gotten it for the 3 o’clock and 5 o’clock before Dawn said, “So you think that it’s not a construct, and not supposed to screw with your head, but does it anyway because yer head doesn’t work like Nightmare’s?”

“It’s a plausible alternative to her shoving magic into my head without permission or telling me it’s even there.” She shifted her eyes to an especially elongated rune that ran through the approximate ten and 11 o’clock positions. “She openly admits to being ruthless and manipulative to attain her goals, but her disposition towards us has shown every sign of being helpful, with no indications in the negative.”

“Yeah, that sounds too overt,” Dawn said. “So what’re ya seeing?”

“The field of constructs all seem to have some kind of facade of rune script on them,” Twilight said. “By focusing one rune at a time, the knowledge imprint is helping me translate them but the runes don’t seem to form any kind of coherent idea.”

“Well, yeah,” Pinkie said. “It’d be no fun if you could just read it and know what it’s all about. Do you see a secret decoder ring anywhere? Nonsense has to have a decoder ring, it’s in the rules.”

“I’ll look,” Twilight said, keeping her tone as serious as she could manage at the absurd question “but it doesn’t look like there’s anything like that.”

“How boring.”

“Darling, is it unusual for these rune scripts to make no sense?”

“It’d take too long to explain but, yes, it’s unheard of for a runescripted construct to follow no real logic. Logic is why runescription works at all.” She nodded unconsciously as the hallucination translated the four o’clock character (“simultaneously, the ideas of knowledge and a message”). “Runescript shapes magic. It has to follow a logical progress or it fizzles or worse, causes the runescripted object to disintegrate in an ethereal explosion--I’ve experienced the last one, was fortunate Mother was there--from the ‘works’ being ‘dammed up’.”

“Like sommat stuck in an irrigation pipe,” Applejack said.

“I’d have gone with a blocked outlet on a heavy boiler, but close enough.” She looked towards the hallucination. “I know you’re just a manifestation of my own mind and can’t actually hear me, but this piecemeal approach isn’t working.”

“This piecemeal approach isn’t working,” the hallucination agreed harmoniously. “I can’t discern how all these pieces fit together but some elements seem to be activated by cognition.”

Twilight nodded, knowing immediately what the manifestation was referencing. “Starswirl the Fifth’s treatise on pre-union Equestrian tribal conflicts.”

“Yanno, Twi, Ah don’t think it’s good for yer mental health to be talkin’ to a yerself only you can see.”

“Force of habit.” Twilight closed her eyes to think back to the entry, a pitifully small one that only brushed over how the especially pernicious practice of blending a runic trap into a piece of reading material, activated by someone casually reading the words, had been a popular tool of assassination. Even nastier than the trap was that it caused a paranoia about education and literacy that took years to completely resolve.

But if simply reading triggered some effect, it would have already done something, she said to herself as the hallucination supplied the seven o’clock rune meaning. If my subconscious spotted a resemblance in the logic to a cognition trap, it must work in a similar fashion. She started to look towards the large rune stretching over the one o’clock and two o’clock, but stopped herself. Although the treatise didn’t explain how they worked, the name implies that the trap is somehow activated by sensing certain thoughts.

While her study of mental magic had so far been limited to just emotional manipulation and discernment, the countermeasure was the same for manipulation and reading of thoughts, and Twilight paused a moment to cast the backfeed. For being basic, the backfeed defense was a tricky one, feeding a trickle of one’s magic back into the font to create a sort of ‘static’ that disrupted most mental magic; Twilight had the feeling that if she wasn’t the Element of Magic, she wouldn’t be able to create the defense with such ease and avoiding an agonizing feedback. Now feeling more confident in her defenses, she glanced towards the hallucination for a translation of the rune.

“It implies both beginning and end,” the hallucination said.

Twilight looked surprised in the hallucination’s direction. That was quite… She stopped in mid-thought and glanced at the ten and eleven position, which was a mirror image of one and two. So the implication of delay and repetition in between identical runes that both implied beginning and end. A… cycle? A slow timer?

The elongated rune on the ten and eleven vanished the moment the thought ‘timer’ entered her mind and as she watched, the nine o’clock rune began to slowly disintegrate almost, Twilight realized instantly, like a fuse. But… it couldn’t have possibly… no, act now. Can think about it later.

“Girls, I think I set one of the traps off…” She said, taking several steps back and beginning to construct a barrier between them and the field of constructs.

“What, just by lookin’ at it?”

“Cognitive trigger.”

“...you thought too loud at it?”

Twilight couldn’t give her sister a look, so she settled with sighing as loudly as she could. “Dawn…”

“Yeah, yeah, keep the wall between me and the explosions and shut the buck up. I know.”

“And keep backing away.”

“Kinda figured, seeing as how that’s what you’re doing.”

The nine o’clock disappeared and immediately, the three o’clock began disintegrating, although noticeably faster. Before it had even gotten a quarter of the way, twelve and six started vanishing from two points at once each. In mere moments, all three had vanished and as if a switch had been flipped, the entire wall of runic constructs popped out of existence. Twilight blinked and stopped, and heard the rest of their group stop as well. What? They’re… gone? And no apparent effect?

“I take it we’re about where we need to be,” Ember stated.

“The constructs started a countdown, the runes disintegrating, and then just… vanished. Like they weren’t supposed to do anything,” Twilight said.

“Oh, Ah think they did somethin’ Twi…”

Twilight turned to look at her friend. “And what’s…?”

Standing behind them, neatly arrayed in a line four deep, were… ponies. Except it was immediately clear that they weren’t really ponies, as they stuttered and twitched in place as if being barely held together. The effect made any identification of characteristics impossible; at any one moment, features went from one extreme to the next with no warning: emaciated to obese, long manes to shaved, tails done up with bows to wrapped in a practical way, and even stallion to mare and back again, all in the span of seconds or whenever Twilight tried to focus in on one in particular.

“...oh. They were to herd us into the grasp of… whatever these are without us being aware.”

“Helluva lot more of ‘em than usual,” Ember said. “Guess she wanted to make ya feel welcome.”

“Do they talk?” Dawn asked after several seconds of the constructs staring at them mutely.

“If they gotta,” Ember said. “Normally, they’re awful good at making ya understand ‘em without a word.”

Barely had the dragon said ‘word’ when an earsplitting screech, like the metallic squeal of the high-speed saw at a lumber mill, made Twilight jump and turn towards the noise, and she found herself muzzle-to-muzzle with another of the not-ponies. It stuttered and flickered like the ranks that had appeared behind them, but its form remained coherent: pegasus, pure white from tail to eartip, no eyelids, blacker-than-black holes where its eyes should be… and no mouth. It stared at her for several moments before the same ear-splitting screech came again, centered on the construct.

“What the heck is that noise?” Dawn demanded.

“I… don’t know,” Twilight said, her ears ringing from the explosions of sound inches from her, “but I think this…” She was interrupted by another screeching, making her wince. “...thing is making the noise.”

“They understand if you talk at them, right?” Dawn said.

“They react that way, yeah.”

“Great. Hey creepy, stop with the noisemaking.”

The construct tilted its head back and forth before another screeching made Twilight stagger.

“Hey.” Dawn stepped forward, raising a hoof. “I said…”

“Dawn, stop.” Twilight furrowed her brow at the construct. “If you can understand me, whatever that noise is does not mean anything to us. Can you make common gestures that we might understand?”

The construct tilted its head back and forth before nodding, then following it by shaking its head several times.

“So you… can?” Another nod. “...but you won’t.” It nodded a second time. “Do you have a way to communicate why not?” A third nod. “One that we’d understand?” It shook its head, and Twilight sighed. “So we can talk to you, and you understand, but you cannot communicate with us in a way we would understand, outside of simple gestures. Do I understand the situation correctly?”

The nod somehow seemed frustrated. “And there’s no way for you to convey to us…”

“Can it do them rune things you were readin’ earlier, Twi?” Applejack siad.

Even without any way to convey it with expressions, there seemed to be some confusion in the slow nod Applejack’s question received.

Twilight smiled at the farmpony before looking at the construct. “I have a way to read runes,” she told it. “I have magic that allows it.”

The construct somehow seemed relieved by this and rapped its hoof sharply on the ground a couple times before defty sketching a series of runes into the dust. “Concept of a superior or a god,” the hallucination reported. “Concept of… memory or knowledge. Concept of… simultaneously true and false. Magi. Concept of memory or knowledge again. Concept of a superior or god, again. Concept of darkness and dreams. Horse. And the last one is…”

“...the moon,” Twilight finished, repeating the hallucination’s translation aloud as the construct completed each rune, and tapped its hoof again, watching her with its completely empty ‘eyes’.

“So… a superior or god has knowledge that might be true or false about a magi that has a memory or knowledge related to a superior that has something to do with darkness and dreams, and is a horse, associated with the moon,” Dawn said. “No prizes for what the last one is.”

“Nightmare,” Rarity said.

“Yeah,” Pinkamena said. “And ‘Magi’ is Twi. Soooo….”

“...the construct’s superior--I’m guessing that’s the “little one” Princess Ember speaks of--has true or false knowledge about me, and I have knowledge of Nightmare Moon.”

“Pretty sure ‘knowledge simultaneously true and false’ means ‘belief’ in lots shorter language,” Ember said. “So basically… creepy little thing believes you know something about Nightmare Moon. Which is true. So…”

...why the hay does she care? Twilight eyed the construct, who looked back at her blankly. And why would her own creation feel a need to warn us?

Author's Note

As always when this happens, you have all my apologies for all the delays. And as always, I'd be tickled pink if people would offer their thoughts, any thoughts at all. Hope you enjoy!

Twilight: Nor'easter III

The journey on foot (the leader-construct became extremely agitated when Twilight spread her wings, although its reasons were as incomprehensible as before) was a very eerie experience. The first part of it was that except for the coherent construct that had ‘spoken’ to them, the rest of the flickering creatures seemed mindless and the randomness of their forms was more than a little unsettling. The hallucination, after interpreting the leader’s runes, had offered no further insights into what the constructs were, something that was even more unsettling as it implied that Nightmare was also unfamiliar with the nature of the creations escorting them. Turning off her magesight just made the situation more creepy, because the very odd-looking “pony” that had communicated with them turned out to be disguised as a freakishly tall and slender pony in an immaculately-tailored suit, carrying a scythe. And if all of those elements hadn’t set Twilight’s nerves on edge, the town they passed through had the appearance of having been abandoned only moments before they arrived: toys lay strewn as if dropped in a hurry, wisps of smoke curled from chimneys, many of the homes were well-lit, and what little land each home had looked like it had been groomed in the last couple of days.

Given the eerieness of the atmosphere and the unsettling nature of their company, Twilight was only mildly chagrined that her reaction to a sudden girlish “Hi!” from a filly she hadn’t noticed until right then was to shriek and knock said filly head over flank with a panic barrier. The sudden creation of distance between herself and the filly allowed her to notice two things about her: first, that she was a zebra with stripes that were more blue-grey than black. The second, she noticed as the filly righted herself, was that the zebra was also a unicorn.

The zebra-unicorn gave her head a quick little shake before beaming in a very childlike expression of awe and excitement. “Hi lady!” she said. “That’s a cool pink glowy bubble.”

Twilight just blinked a couple of times as she looked at the cheerful mixed-species filly standing in the middle of an extremely eerie neighborhood of abandoned homes and beaming like she’d run across Twilight in the middle of a school playground.

“Um, thanks,” she finally managed.

“You’re welcome.” The filly turned her smile on the rest of the girls. “Hi! I’m Penny! What’re your names?”

“Hi! I’m Pinkie!” came the instant response from the grinning pink earth pony. “Nice to meet you, Penny!”

“Dawn.”

“Rarity, and aren’t you an adorable little thing?”

“Thanks, lady!” Penny turned her smile on Applejack, who just eyed her for several seconds before doffing her hat. “Jackie.”

Penny was turned away from them, or she would have seen four looks of blank surprise directed at Applejack. As it was, she bounced a little in place. “Jackie! That’s a really cool name.”

“OK, just cut the acting,” Ember growled. “If you’re an innocent filly, I’m a skink.”

“You’re not a skink, silly,” Penny said in exactly the same bubbly and happy voice, without her excited and cheerful demeanor fading even a little. “So nice to meet you all. Don’t be late for dinner, now. Buh-bye!”

Twilight waited until the odd little filly had turned and trotted down the empty street out of earshot before she stepped closer to Ember. “Acting?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s the one they called ‘little one’ ain’t it?”

Ember grimaced. “Yeah.”

Twilight watched as the small unicorn-zebra continued up the road, her trotting consisting of several bouncing little steps as she went. “Is it a disguise?”

“Yeah, but not the kind yer thinkin’.” Ember looked at the head of their escort. “OK, we’ve met your boss. Can we go now?”

The abnormally slim pony illusion nodded to Ember once and the entire pack of them began moving, going in the general direction that ‘Penny’ had taken, which Twilight assumed was the way out of the town and wherever their ultimate destination was.

“Hey sis,” Dawn said in a low voice as they walked.

“Yes?”

“Got a spell that lets us talk at each other like we’re whispering and right next to each other, while we’re actually apart?”

“Yes, a… umm… telegram spell.” Twilight did her best to sweep her eyes over the others without turning her head too much. “But I’m sure our guide has supernatural hearing of some kind.”

Dawn shrugged. “So we test it first. It’s not like us trying to conceal conversation from an enemy is any kind of surprise. It’d probably get suspicious if we were perfect little angels and trotted along like sheep to shearing.”

“Good point.” Twilight lit her horn and picked the memory of the spell’s pattern out of her mind. With a small effort, she sent several motes of lavender light into the air, flitting over to the ears of her companions and settling thereon, winking out as they did.

“OK, g…”

“Kin hear ya jus’ fine, Twilight,” Applejack said before Twilight could even ask. “Kin hear ya jus’...”

“Whoah, sis, it’s like you’re talking normal…”

“The hell can I hear you talking, Sparkle?”

“...in my ear…”

“...Twilight.”

“You’re coming through…”

“...and not in a whisper.”

“...can I hear you…”

Twilight stumbled a little as she first heard her friends reply to her question, before she even asked it, and then heard their voices repeating what they just said a split second later.

“I think Nightmare tweaked another one of your spells,” Pinkamena observed after the discordant cacophony had stopped; significantly, her voice repeating what she just said didn’t follow immediately.

“Whatcha mean, Pinkster?”

Pinkamena waited until the inevitable repetition passed. “I mean, I can hear you speak before you speak,” she said. “We all heard Twilight’s question, and then she actually asked it.”

“Pinkster, are you saying we’re talking with our thoughts?”

“If we were, we wouldn’t be able to hear ya,” Ember said, also without repeating herself audibly. Dawn turned her head and blew a raspberry at the dragon, who just bared her teeth in a grin.

“I think it’s more that the improved spell ‘intercepts’ the intent to speak, and the words intended to be spoken, before they’re actually spoken,” Twilight said, keeping her mouth shut as she did. Noticeably, the ears of their escort had turned back forwards, implying that there was nothing to hear any longer.

“So we’re talking to each other without making a sound?”

“Until our escorts choose to respond, we can’t be sure of that,” Twilight said. “But the probability seems such that it would warrant acting as if it was true, given the data. Simply, the captain of our escort is imitating pony mannerisms with enough precision that it seems highly likely that the mannerisms are as automatic to it as they are to us. It turned them back to listen when we initially spoke all at once, but turned them back forwards when we stopped being audible.”

“Well, not lahk she kin learn anything more ‘bout us if the theory about her sorta readin’ minds works out,” Applejack said. “Seems pretty harmless.”

“If ya thought that, ya wouldn’t have lied to her face, Element of Honesty.”

“Why did you lie to her, darling?”

Applejack looked uncomfortable. “Well, it ain’t a proper lie cuz some family calls me that, so it’s sorta mah name, but it ain’t the name folk usually use.”

“So Applejack, why did you lie to her?”

Applejack frowned. “Ah… dunno, ‘zactly. Jus’ kinda had a sense that she knew it all, but wanted ta hear it from us. Lahk…”

“...she gets something from it,” Dawn finished.

“Eeyup, that. Ah… jus’ got the feeling it’d be bad if Ah said mah name ta her.”

“So the rest of us who answered the question could be in danger?”

“Considering we’re walking straight into her clutches with the ‘help’ of a bunch of her creepy constructs, I think yer already sorta in danger,” Ember said. “Like, tons of it. What can she get from you telling her your name?”

“There’s lotsa theories about that,” Dawn said. “Ranging from being able to control someone like a puppet on a string, to being able to drag you into their presence by name repetition, to being able to kill you and have done.”

“All the research is pure theory, conjecture, and guessing,” Twilight said. “No pony has ever developed that kind of power, so there’s no proof to go on. In theory, certain beings have related powers due to intellectus but all are too strong and malevolent to be a useful source of data.”

“Intel… what-is?”

Twilight looked sheepishly at her friends. “Sorry. Um… situational omniscience.”

“Twi, Ah’m afraid…”

“Being all-knowing except not really,” Dawn said. “Basically, having power over a place so that you know absolutely everything that goes on there. Like, a fly lands on an apple in the place, and you instantly know which apple in which tree and know exactly where on the apple it is, even if you have no way to see the apple, much less the tree.”

“It’s also possible to gain the state of being in relation to a field of knowledge,” Twilight added. “Attain intellectus in mathematics and you gain the ability to instantly know the solution to an equation. You no longer need to understand how to solve the equation, you just look at the equation and instantly know the answer. Mom and Luna inherently have intellectus in relation to their sun and moon respectively: every fluctuation and nuance is instantly available to them, which is why they can move them by pretty much wishing it to be so.”

“Sounds about like what Little Bint set up,” Ember said. “She always seems to know everything about everyone in the Lands. Betcha she’s got that intellectus thing going on.”

“I’ve never heard of being able to simply create a state of intellectus,” Twilight said.

“Pretty sure these Evils and their buddies don’t obey our rules sis,” Dawn said. “I mean, remember Nightmare’s story? About how her species can just sort of hollow out a body and wear it like clothes? Shred the soul, even when they don’t mean to? We don’t even have a theory for that kind of thing.”

“And so we give up all hope?” If Twilight hadn’t been able to see the ghost of a smirk and the slight skeptical twitch of an eyebrow, Applejack’s question would have sounded more resigned.

“No.” Pinkamena shook her head. “We just kinda start believing we don’t know anything, then watch really closely. Everything obeys the rules, even when ‘the rules’ are totally different. So what’re the rules of Penny?”

“Don’t get noticed,” Ember said. “Yeah, the meeting your airship thing was really noticable and so was popping in to talk at you herself, but she’s usually keeping it low key.”

“You said she fears Queen Chrysalis, right?”

“Yeah, but I don’t get why she latched onto the bug queen,” Ember said. “Griffons are a bigger deal. So’s Equestria, and you’ve got Princess Burn-Cities-To-Set-An-Example and Princess Black Banners.”

“...did mum really…?”

“Naw,” Ember glanced at their escort, who continued to walk along unawares, before flashing Dawn a grin. “She’s sorta too nice to go that far. But I wasn’t kidding about her kid sister. Clearly, you ponies didn’t write down what the princess of sky pictures and moonlight did with her spare time.”

“Eyup, probably,” Applejack said. “So she’s got only the single one?”

“She’d got another, but it’s sorta… hard to describe. For me, at least, cuz I haven’t actually seen it myself.”

“Thalia has?”

“Yeah. It’s why she wasn’t the one to meet ya on the airship in front of the crowd: if Pen put two an’ two together, she’d’ve pulled some puppet strings and dogpiled her to death.” Ember expression became grim. “I’ve seen it done, bunch of times. Ever heard that anyone can kill th’ king if they don’t care about living after? Same principle, ‘cept the meat don’t have a choice.”

“How’d she…?”

“Take power?” Ember snorted. “Take a wild guess.”

“You didn't figure she was gonna stab ya and twist the knife till she did.”

“Got it in one, pinky.” Ember sighed. “Oh yeah, couple things about Penny. Not rules, but stuff ya might wanna keep in mind. First, ya don’t want to touch her.”

“She… don’t lahk bein’ touched?”

“She doesn’t mind at all,” Ember said. “But she feels like a long-dead corpse to the touch. Cold as ice and clammy, though she’s pretty clearly breathing and doing all the other alive stuff. Doesn’t smell like a corpse either. I mean, sorta odd-smelling, but she’s a zebra with a horn so that comes with the territory.”

“Can she use it?”

“Sure, ‘bout as well as any average unicorn from what I hear.” Ember glanced at Twilight. “Why’d ya ask? Ain’t it, yanno, normal for pony with a horn to be able to use it?”

“Hybridization is a very rare birth defect,” Twilight said. “Viable hybridization even rarer. As in, the last census data from three years ago showed ten hybrids in the entire world and upwards of seventy percent aren’t viable.”

“Pretty heartbreaking no matter what,” Dawn added. “Stunted and useless wings, withered legs, barely any horn to speak of or more than one horn, and a hybrid with a horn can’t really use it cuz there ain’t a metaphysical connection to the font. So Penny’s pretty much the only one ever.”

“Explains why ‘Lia seemed taken aback. OK, so the second thing about her is that looking her direct in the eye is a bad idea.”

“Why?”

“Cuz behind the eyes is the brain, and the brain is the metaphysical mind, an’ her mind can reach out and play with your mind.” Ember gave Twilight a wide grin that didn’t quite reach her eyes. “So, fun fact about winning a fight without fighting: ya can back someone down who’s a lot bigger and stronger by lookin’ ‘em directly in the eye. Or, if you’re big and strong too, you can beat someone down by force of will without hurting them.”

“And that is why the other dragons were acting strangely.” Rarity hadn’t said much during the mental conversation, so her chiming in made Twilight glance at her. The elegant fashionista (who was inexplicably groomed considering their long walk so far) was watching Ember with a distant but calculating expression, and Twilight had the immediate impression that she was watching her friend’s assassin training at work even though no weapon was visible. “She enthralled them.”

“Some, yeah,” Ember said. “The biggest brawns. Me and ‘Lia are still trying to work out what she did to the ones with a big of brains on top of the muscle…”
\
“...and why she didn’t do it to the heir to the throne.” Rarity fixed Ember with a look. “And why she didn’t do it when you inherited.”

“Well, that last one is cuz I haven’t inherited anything.” Twilight realized that she could hear Ember’s retort with her real ears instead of her mind at about the moment that their escort’s eyes snapped to them and even with how alien it looked, she could see metaphorical gears turning behind the construct’s eyes.

“Something you want to say to me?” Ember said as she stepped around Pinkamena and stared at the construct with her arms crossed.

The construct stared back at her before the total black that were its eyes seemed to flow out of the sockets, leaving black irises behind, and its disguise began shrinking down even as a mouth and a gray-and-black mane formed. Its coat turned a deep charcoal and over it grew a black, perfectly-fitted suit. After several moments of the transformation, the construct tilted its head back and forth, jointed popping, before the mouth curled into a sneer.

“Yeah,” it said in a very male voice that sounded like it was plucked directly from the upper cruster of Trotsford University. “You’re kind of cute when you’re hurting and trying to cover it up.”

Ignoring Ember’s expression turning suddenly stormy, the construct looked at Twilight. “If you don’t want me to teach you a few lessons, princess, don’t try that thought-speak trick anymore.” He tapped a hoof against the side of his head. “I can hear you jabbering up here, and I don’t have a lot of patience for nonsense.”

Twilight blinked a couple times as the construct changed forms with no apparent sign of having used any kind of magic, or some kind of magic being cast on it to alter it. Was a completely different…?

“None of your business,” the construct interrupted her thought-question. “Any other dumb questions you need answered before I get you out of my mane?”

“Yer pretty chatty all of a sudden,” Ember snorted.

“So was he, but you lot couldn’t figure out how to listen to him.” The construct leered. “Lucky you. Now, I woulda loved to watch him give you the garden tour but boss-girl wants your plots kicked to Ember’s house, recently swiped by her intellectual and magical superiors. Chop chop kids, daddy’s already bored with you.”

“Yeah, sure, got it,” Dawn said. “So if you can hear us thinking, does this mean we can chatter loudly to each other and piss you off instead of thinking it?”

The construct looked steadily at her for several moments. “Alright, so we have our first problem child on this little playground tour. Guess this means I get to spank a bad little filly.” His grin became unnaturally wide, and the teeth looked pointed all of a sudden. “Lucky me.”

“What makes you think I’ll let you hurt her?” Twilight said, looking hard at the construct.

“What makes you think you can stop her from getting hurt?” The unnatural grin persisted. “The things you want to step in the way of? They operate on a higher level than you, girl. Sure, you can stop me; it won’t even be hard for you, you just need to ask with a really angry expression on your face. And do you know what I’ll do, if you do?”

“An’ what’s that?”

“Don’t interrupt your betters, farmer.”

“An’ what’s that?” Twilight repeated, doing her best to imitate Applejack’s drawl.

The construct’s eyes narrowed very slightly. “I’ll stop, and we’ll keep walking. And I’ll tell the boss that there’s a problem in this little shindig. Girl with a bunch of spirit and a good touch of defiance. Possible obstacle, kid sister of one of the Elements.” He paused, the rictus grin dropped, and he gave Twilight a perfectly blank and neutral expression. “Fixing that little character flaw rarely takes more than an hour.”

“...excuse me, fixing?”

The construct ignored the question from Dawn, staring at Twilight with that perfectly neutral expression, before the sadistic grin returned. “No matter who does it, Miss Sparkle, a little problem gets a lot solved. I suppose you could strike me down--I’m sure you have the power for it--and scatter my pieces to every edge of the world but that’d be like coming right out and telling the kid that you’re hostile and need to get beat. You want to plan, to learn what you’re up against, devise a strategy, use all that book learning and massive smarts to get an advantage-- or at least a level playing field--and I’m pretty sure you’re hot and bothered to chat up the firecracker Penny want to throttle but can’t. Goes down the crapper real quick if you start the party early, don’t it?”

“So, wait, you’re telling us that if you don’t get to stop and torture me for a while, the cheerful little thing made of smiles and bubbles will rewrite my mind?” Dawn gaped at the construct. “You realize how stupid that sounds, right?”

“Feel free to correct anything I’ve said to you.” He smirked, although he continued to not look at Dawn. “If I’ve said anything that’s false, or simply omitted the truth, lay it down. But the clock’s ticking. So, lightning round princess: you’ve got exactly one minute to decide as of the end of me speaking this sentence.”

Twilight stared at him. “Do you honestly expect me to stand by any let you torture my sister in front of me?”

“Forty-one, and yes.”

“Why?”

“Thirty-four, and because I’m taking an opportunity that was offered me by circumstances. Twenty-five.”

“I’m serious. Why are you doing this?”

“Eighteen. Because I’ve got something to gain, and the rest is none of your business. Think fast, princess, cuz your time is nearly up. Seven.”

“...what will you do?”

“I’m not going to make it that easy.” The sadistic, rictus grin returned. “Time’s up, Twilight Sparkle. Make the call.”

Author's Note

For your dinner show this evening, I'm going to make my first stab at a cliffhanger of sorts. Sorry these don't get out as fast as I've wanted to get them out; real life is a harsh mistress. But, this is something I don't plan to let go of so long as I have a choice to continue it. So please, read, hope you enjoy, and really hope you comment. :)

Twilight: Nor'easter IV

“Sis, I’m not angry.” The break in the silence made everyone, with the exception of the construct, visibly jump. It had been at least a couple of hours since any of them had said anything, even their vicious minder, and Twilight had focused her attention on the eerie abandoned settlement, and then the stark rocky landscape, and then even the pattern of steam and emissions from the volcanic mountain that was the palace of the Dragon Lord. All of it was interesting, but it wasn’t why Twilight was keeping her attention on it.

“Twi, I’m not stupid,” Dawn said. “I ran the same bucking numbers, got to the same place. I’m not mad about it.”

Twilight still couldn’t look at her sister, managing a vague nod of assent in her general direction as she continued to plod along after the sadistic construct.

“OK.” Dawn sighed. “OK, I’ll amend that a little: I’m not mad about you handing me over to a psycho so a bigger psycho doesn’t erase my brain, but I’m gonna start getting mad if you keep your eyes averted like the nut cut me up so bad that I’m horrifyingly hideous or something.”

“If you’d met psycho, you’d know it,” the construct said without looking back at them. “You’d better hope you never do.”

Twilight quashed the impulse to try to find out what the pretended pony was talking about and forced herself to look at Dawn. The ‘art’ the sadistic creature had carved into the brilliant pink earth pony was horrifying to look at, whorls and lines of scabs destined to become scars spreading out across her face and barrel in a macabre composition of pain and ruination. Far more disturbing than the actual work was that with some detachment, Twilight recognized tha pattern of the cutting: every line, every whorl, every strip of flesh, all followed the natural contours of muscle, although none of the cuts were deep enough that the sadist could have guided his blade by feel. Which meant that the construct was either so well-practiced that it instinctively knew where the contours were, or it could somehow see the muscles below the skin, and coupled with its mind-reading ability, both possibilities opened up a whole menagerie of questions.

“No matter how much you turn it over in your head, sis, yer not going to be able to fit this into some kind of logical framework,” Dawn said. “And really, |’m gonna be fine. We’ll kick the kid’s plot, and kick this thing’s plot, and kick some other plots, then I’ll go back to Sweet Apple and stare lewdly at farmpony plots and it’ll be OK. Speaking of plots…” She looked over her shoulder at Applejack grinned. “Liking the new tats, AJ?”

Applejack blinked a couple times at that and her cheeks colored briefly before she snorted. “Ya’all get cut up by a mad whatever-it-is and you still ain’t turning if off?”

“Part of mah charm, farmpony,” Dawn replied in an exaggerated drawl.

“Ain’t charm at this point, Dawn.” Applejack told her. “More like desperation.”

“Only desperation if it doesn’t get me anywhere.” Dawn’s grin faded as she looked back at the maze of healing flesh left over from the construct’s work. “So Twi… speaking of my nice new tattoos, can we talk about that alchemist weirdo’s iron case of what-the-buck? Because I’m pretty sure I should still be bleeding from whackadoodle’s fun times.”

“Oh, he wasn’t weird,” Pinkie said. “He just liked the dark.”

“Mighta been a mite odd, but Ah ain’t ever seen or heard of medicine that does that kinda work.” Applejack’s expression was unusually pensive, and had been ever since they’d applied a salve that Green Leaf had labeled ‘Regenerative Stypic’ to Dawn’s seeping wounds in hopes that it would make her able to travel sooner without needing to be carried along. The instructions that the odd-looking alchemist had included with the vial directed that no more than the smallest drop should be applied to any given wound and it had been instantly apparent why: the instant the greenish fluid had contacted the first wound, it had audibly sizzled and the bumpy slightly shiny new flesh of a cut well into the end stages of the healing process had begun covering the wound from one end to the other. Twilight suspected that the miraculous-seeming curative couldn’t prevent scarring but to see it regenerate a wound as effectively as magic from a single drop had made all of them (including the construct) stare.It was all Twilight could do not to use the vial generously to relieve her sister’s pain sooner.

At the end, the vial was still half-full and Green Leaf had even included instructions on the proper resealing procedure. While the others had marveled, however, Applejack had gotten the oddly pensive look on her face and it had persisted through the resumption of their journey.

“I haven’t either,” Twilight said. “Sure, the usual stories of some miraculous curative derived from a mythical plant or spring, accompanied by some point meant to teach a moral principle, but never anything like an ordinary pony preparing a carrying case of curatives as part of routine preparations for sending other ponies into danger. It’s probable, based on how he treated an order to prepare a case of them, that…”

“...they use ‘em lahk we use analgesics an’ bandages,” Applejack concluded.

“Or at least use weaker forms,” Twilight said. “He did call them his most advanced alchemical aids, implying that they’re unusually effective somehow.”

“At this point, Twi, I’m wondering what the buck his ‘alchemical suspended animation’ thing is when his thing for closing wounds doesn’t just stop the bleeding but skips directly to the last stages of healing,” Dawn said. “I’ve never seen chemistry that can do this. Hell, magical healing can only accelerate, not just make it all good.”

“Remember the smoke lamp thing, Twi?” Pinkamena said.

“Yes, the one he said naturally balanced moods.” Twilight furrowed her eyebrows slightly as she recalled how Green Leaf had explained it. “He said something about ‘medical essentia’ being part of how…” She stopped. “That’s right, he called what he was doing ‘thaumaturgy’ and distinguished it from alchemy.”

“Which also combines the traditional practice of herbalism, and the sciences of botany and chemistry,” Pinkamnea nodded. “I guess there’s your answer for why his treatments work differently: it’s a branch of alchemy that obeys different rules.”

“I don’t think it’s alchemy,” Ember said. “He demo’ed it for a delegation, which I got into, last year. Stuck a gem in a weird furnace and it, like, burned. Like it was made of wood. Then these sparks of magic come out the top, go into a thing that spun real fast, and liquid the same color as the magic came out and he put it in a jar. Watched the entire thing through a big lens with a gold frame. He did it again but let us look through the frame, and it was freaky. You could actually watch energy flowing, and it was everywhere. Doesn’t seem like alchemy, or runes, or any of the other stuff.”

Dawn looked at Twilight. “Sounds really… sciencey.”

“Yes, it does.” Twilight frowned and looked ahead to the construct, and the extremely roughly-made ‘palace’ that was the home and center of government for the dragons rising ahead of them as they neared the edge of the abandoned town. “Making this ‘thaumaturgy’ at least as much about energy flow as a variant of chemistry. You said that the sparks were rendered into liquid by a spinning instrument, Ember?”

“Pretty sure it was a centrifuge of some kind, yeah.”

“So part of the science is a means to render something into magical essence, and then to render the essence into liquid, presumably so alchemy can be done with it.”

“Couldn’t tell ya, Princess,” Ember said. “He demonstrated how he derives the essence, but didn’t discuss what he did with it. Not really sure how he makes random items he puts through a furnace into a potion that regenerates like magic, but it can’t be too hard if he hooks you up with a buncha them.”

“Circling us back to the observation that making the aids must be routine if Green Leaf had the components and means on hand to make a case of advanced ones for us in a single day.”

“So, I bet you’ve been wondering why the kid’s worried about the Queen and her hugbugs coming over and causing trouble,” the construct said without turning its head. “Especially when the alternative is that Sun and Moon come over and kick plot. So’re you starting to get the picture yet?”

“Green Leaf’s thaumaturgy.”

“Keep goin’ girl, keep thinkin’.”

“Queen Chrysalis has an actual army.”

“And spies,” Rarity added. “And assassins.”

“Yup, that’s interesting, and that’s interesting too, and all that adds up to yeah. What else?”

“She’s being…”

“Don’t think there’s anything else,” Dawn interrupted. “Unless you’ve got something to suggest, suddenly helpful creepy sadist thing.”

It snorted. “Don’t know why you bothered trying to stop her from mentioning the 800 pound gorilla, but I’ll play. The other big thing you’re missing is she’s a queen. The other two’re diarchs, equals, two halves of a whole, two minds trying to achieve the same goal. That ain’t ever gonna be as strong as a single will guiding a million hooves.”

“A million hooves?”

“Hang that.” Applejack stepped passed Twilight and Dawn. “Why’re ya bein’ so neighborly?”

“I’ve got nothing to say to a dirt farmer.”

“Got anythin’ ta say to an apple farmer?”

The construct looked back at her. “Orchards?”

“An’ vegetables, sure, but Ah’m an Apple, born an’ bred fer generations.”

The construct considered this. “Alright then, sure, I’ve got something to say to an apple farmer.” It looked squarely at Applejack. “Kid stepped over a line. Price of doing that is that I put a knife or two in her back. She knew it when she did it, an’ did it anyway. Giving you something to think about that might hurt her is a knife in her back; don’t think I’m doing it to be nice.”

“And torturing me so she doesn’t is another one?”

That got a smile, an actual smile without any of the sadistic leering. “Clever girl.” It stopped walking and gestured towards the palace. “So, ya see that place up ahead?”

“Hard to miss home, jackass.”

It sneered. “Orders are, I stop here and you walk on. No escorts, no supervision, no threats, just a rule: no wings.”

Twilight eyed it. “Why?”

“Don’t know, don’t care. I just know that if you break the rule, ya get hurt and I get ta have fun watching.”

Twilight watched it for several moments before nodding. “Alright.” She paused. “You know you’re going to pay for what you did to my sister.”

“Worry about surviving the kid and her friends before you start threatening to punish a nobody, princess.” It gestured towards the palace. “Chop, chop children, little zebra filly wants her play date.”

Author's Note

I decided to be shorter this time, in the interests of getting something out. Maybe it's too short; if you think so, feel free to say something and I'll try to make things more meaty before I drop the next one. I hope you enjoy, and as always I really want whatever feedback you have to offer. :)

Twilight: Nor'easter V

Approaching the palace of the dragon lord was in its own way as eerie as walking through the abandoned town. Upon crossing the invisible line that constituted the edge of the town, where the construct left them, they started to see dragons fairly frequently but even from a distance, it was clear that the dragons were little more than extensions of Penny’s will. Their movements were mechanical and utilitarian; even without wings, Spike would frequently scurry about with a certain bounce in his step but the few dragons they saw that were also wingless simply put one foot in front of another, staring straight ahead. The few sounds came from the movement of the dragons and themselves. Even the air around them smelled heavy and stagnant, and the humidity made it feel thick enough to make walking difficult.

And it was cold, bitingly cold.

“What t-t-the hay is goin’ on?” Applejack inhaled a warm breath into her hooves and rubbed them together. “It w-w-was pretty cozy… b-b-bout two meters back.”

“Little Bint likes it cold,” Ember said, noticeably not shivering. “Makes her minions feel uncomfortable and sluggish, deters visitors from everywhere else. She likes to switch it between hot and cold so it’s hard to come prepared unless ya got a baggage train.”

“W-w-well, I’ve got a s-s-spell for this.” Twilight cast a quick warming cantrip and felt the air become somewhat warmer around her as the sphere of sputtering magic radiated heat on them as if it was an actual flame. The girls all crowded closer to the source of warmth, their shivering and chattering teeth disappearing as the spell compensated for the fierce cold.

“Guess that’s one way ta defend yer castle,” Applejack said. “But how the hay is she controllin’ so much? Ah’ve seen Twilight do big spells and even brimmin’ over with power like she is, she can’t keep it running for that long.”

“Little Bint has her ways. Don’t know what those ways…”

“Does she have the Scepter of the Dragon Lord?”

Ember frowned at Dawn. “If she had it, I’d know how she can do her tricks, now wouldn’t I?”

“So where’d it go?”

“Someplace safe.” Ember held up a hand. “Not sayin’ anything more. She might not be keeping invisible spies around but we can’t be too careful.”

“Alright, so where’s Thalia?”

“If she’s smart--which she is--she’s holed up in her safe room--although she’s not because she’s also got more brave than smarts.” Ember actually smiled briefly at that. “It’s a good thing up here, not being afraid of anything. Even better when you can figure out which things to be afraid of, and fear them, and which things to not be afraid of and fight them. There was a time when Thalia would stick around playing dragon and if you didn’t know it, you’d totally buy the act.”

“Like her, do ya?”

“She’s got brains, will, and heart.” Ember shrugged. “Met the queen once and that dorky daughter of hers that wears pigtails; seems it runs in the family.”

“What was Tettidora doing here?”

“I think she was setting up that saferoom thing for her aunt.” Ember tapped her chin. “Couldn’t have been more than a couple months ago, after Mini-Demon was starting to get tired of being careful about her shenanigans. Weirdly cute little lovebug, for being only a few years younger than me.”

“Hey Twi?”

“Yes Pinkie?”

“Didn’t Mister Evilpants say we weren’t getting any escorts?”

Twilight directed her attention away from Ember and forward again, to see that one of the mindlessly lumbering thrall dragons were ahead of them and walking directly at them, expression as vacant as any other but on a definite course to intercept them. The dragon looked odd somehow, as if it wasn’t sure of exactly where to step before stepping, and was being very careful about doing so while appearing to be operating as automatically as any of the others enthralled to Penny.

“Should we… spare her feelings, or tell her she can drop the act?” Rarity said as they drew closer to the dragon.

“Not sure it’s insulting ta tell someone they’re bad at looking like they’re a mindless slave,” Ember said. “But yanno… invisible spies, can't be sure, yanno the drill.”

This drew nods of assent all around, and so when Thalia-pretending-to-be-a-dragon, also pretending to be enthralled, reached them and simply said ‘follow’, they kept up the polite illusion that they had no idea who she was and that she was faking the enthrallment. Even though, as Ember commented in an undertone, a sinuous twirl of the tail and a sharp beckoning motion was challenging for most dragons, much less one that was bound to the simplest movements by being under Penny’s control.

The paucity of other dragons around the palace became more acute as they drew closer, until they were close enough to walk into the main entrance, and the only dragons visible were Ember and Thalia in a dragon guise. Just barely had they gotten into the palace when the patently fake look of mindless vacancy vanished and Thalia turned around to look at them, her viridian irises remarkably similar to those of Chrysalis even in her dragon disguise.

“What are you doing here?” she hissed.

“Checkin’ up on ya, like yer sister asked,” Applejack said.

Thalia facepalmed. “Of course you are, because of course she did. Bucking big sisters…” She sighed and turned around again. “It’s not that I don’t appreciate her concern but Celestia’s solar mareheat, I did not need this.”

Twilight gaped at the disguised changeling, aghast, as she heard repressed snorts from her traveling companions. “Excuse me?”

“I said, I did not need this, Princess Sparkle,” Thalia said. “Playing chess with Empress Moon’s malevolent male counterpart and his sock puppet is hard enough without having to foalsit the majority of a magical superweapon.”

“Sock puppet?” Rarity said. “Do you mean Penny?”

“Penumbra,” Thalia said, forging ahead into the caverns of the palace. “Though she’ll occasionally call herself ‘Umbra’ as well. And she’s not really a sock puppet, but I’ll explain after we’re locked in.”

“Your safe room?”

Thalia stopped and narrowed her eyes at Ember. “Yes, I mean the damned safe room. Luna-eclipsing orgasms, Ember!”

There were more snorts at this and Ember sighed. “Yeah, yeah. And what’d I tell you about taking the names of the sisters in vain?”

“That they might take notice.” Thalia grinned before she started walking again. “Good. Wouldn’t mind meeting that pair myself, sometime. I envy the buck out of Chiti sometimes, because she runs across one or more of them every day.”

“Is Chiti one of your sisters?”

“Second-oldest. Works in the main library of Celestia’s School under the name Precise Index.”

Twilight blinked at this. “Head Librarian Index is your sister?”

“Yup.” Thalia beamed, which was as menacing as it was happy with a muzzle full of dragon teeth. “Loves books absolutely to death and probably the smartest of us four. Did she ever show off her translation trick to students while you were there?”

“That thing where she translates something into two different languages simultaneously?”

Thalia snorted a plume of smoke. “So the lame version. The cool version is where she translates a passage of ancient Equestrian into two other dead languages while narrating her efforts in a third.” Even from behind, Twilight could see her grin. “Don’t think Celestia knows she’s literate in every language the Restricted Section is written in.”

“...how long has she been there?”

“Since the year Chidinida was born. Another way that Chiti’s tons smarter than the rest of us: she agreed that Chryssy spit her bit when she came up with the clever plan to get Chidi adopted by Celestia, but instead of running off and sulking in embassies far away from Equestria like her dumb little sisters, she grabbed a job within spitting distance of the palace at Canterlot.” There was a touch of bitterness in Thalia’s tone. “Was part of the adorable little thing’s life and raising since she was told enough to walk and talk. I mean, what safer place is there for a little filly than a library surrounded on all sides by hypercompetant staff hoof-picked by Celestia herself?” She shook her head and sighed as she stopped by a large entrance to a side cavern and gestured them to go inside. “Met Chidi for the first time last year. She’s got Celestia’s presence and common touch, Chryssy’s beauty and power, and Chiti’s keen intellect and composure.”

“Index certainly has composure,” Twilight agreed, unable to think of what to say to the rest.

“Scary levels of composure,” Dawn added. “She can shut up a room in apocalyptic party mode just by standing in the middle of it.”

“Among the royal family, we call that having a lot of du Closs in you,” Thalia said, stepping inside after the last of them had entered. “Your mom used to call the exile-era queen of the du Closs line ‘the looming who walks’ cuz she had overwhelming force of personality, and could loom over ponies that were bigger and stronger than her. Anyway, give me a second here to shut the door.”

Twilight was generally aware of the room around her--she’d looked around briefly on entering--but her attention was entirely on what sort of enchantments had been used to make it a ‘safe room’, and she’d reached for her mage-sight immediately. To her surprise, the sight showed her nothing, and no indications of magic being held in reserve. At least, not until Thalia said she was closing the door, and tapped several small stones embedded in the wall next to the entrance in a particular order that suggested it was some kind of combination.

Lines of flowing magical energy spiderwebbed out across the walls, the ceiling, and the floor and resolved themselves into complex patterns of runes and containment circles, all of them built around a theme of reinforcement, strengthening, and flow. Then another series of lines arced across her altered vision and resolved into protection and silence. An entire other series emphasized blindness; the fourth was a reiteration of reinforcement. The last was a grab bag of light, comfort, reinforcement, sustenance, and protection.

“Well, it’s more or less what I expected when she called it a safe room.” With the activation of her mage-sight, the helpful hallucination had appeared again, more or less confirming that it was somehow tied to the spell. “Reinforcing the stone against breaching, reinforcing the enchantments against being unraveled, and then the slew of spells to prevent listening in or scrying.”

“You said that Tettidora did all this?” Twilight said, looking around at the runescript that her mage-sight was showing her.

“If you’re seein’ all the spells that make it a safe-room, yeah, pretty sure it’s all her,” Ember said.

“It is all Tettidora’s work,” Thalia said proudly. “She’s definitely got the smarts to be the Chiti of her sisters. Toyed with getting an engineering degree from Celestia’s School when she was the right age, but ultimately just raided the library for the theory work done by a Viridian Rain ‘bout ten years ago. Pioneered her first difference engine construct working with her aunt, not that she submitted it for formal examination.”

“Why not show off?” Dawn said.

Thalia shrugged. “She never said why but she’s always stood on the bleeding edge of experimentation with runic constructs--and I use ‘bleeding edge’ for a reason. There can be a plotload of serious issues when you’re making magic that’s autonomous, pretty sure your imagination can fill in the scary pictures.”

“Ah think we’d rather not,” Applejack said. “So, we’re all holed up, snug as bugs in rugs an’ all. Time ta spill sugarcube, both of ya.”

“Fair ‘nuff.” Thalia looked at Ember. “Got a bit we can flip for it.”

“How ‘bout ya start with whichever one of you can tell me about the get of a tail-lifter who decorated me,” Dawn said, gesturing at the marks on her face.

Thalia winced. “Yeah, he’s one of the worse ones. Still on track with the rest of them but a nasty piece of work.”

“The rest of Penumbra’s constructs?” Twilight said.

“The rest of the suits,” Thalia said. “My name for them, not sure what they call themselves. You saw one hand off control to another, right?”

“The creepy mouthless one turned into the sadistic one.” Dawn frowned. “Hang on… you mean there’s, like, multiple versions of the same construct all smooshed together?”

“Complex and long to explain but that’ll do for the moment,” the transformed changeling said. “Based on references and the ones I’ve met personally, plus the ones others met, there’s twelve suits total. Fear Suit you met and I guess he didn’t feel like pulling out the fear. Sadist Suit you also met and probably won’t forget.”

“That Green Leaf guy’s miracle potion fixed me right as rain, but I’m wearing Sadist’s artwork for the rest of my life,” Dawn said. “I think I’d be madder if he wasn’t floating the ‘little kid will eat your brain’ alternative at me.”

“An’ he was being completely honest ‘bout it,” Applejack added.

“I guess you’re lucky that the Suits seem to have a grudge against Penny, even though they’re completely willing to work with her and obey.” Thalia looked at Ember. “Speaking of…”

“Yeah, yeah, my turn. Mind raiding the larder while I tell ‘em a bedtime story?”

“Sure. If I find any peridots, should I bother?”

“Naw, too big of a giveaway.”

“Pretty sure she’s figured out that I can do this, but suit yourself.” Thalia’s draconic horns glowed with the familiar viridian green of changeling magic and she was gone in a flash of heatless green flame.

“Before you even ask, Sparkles, I ain’t got a clue.” Ember smirked at her and Dawn. “OK, so, how we got ourselves royally fucked by a zebra filly with a horn.”

Twilight: Unalive

“We’re still trying to figure out where the little bint came from,” Ember said. “Obvious guess is that she comes from Zebrica, but that’s one hell of a walk and no one has ever seen her teleport or show that she’s capable of it; must be a limitation of her magic or something.”

“Being able to teleport accurately, even at short distances, is an unusual talent,” Twilight said. “Look at who has it: Luna, Mother, me, the daughters of the changeling queen and both she and the crown prince. And her sisters, needless to say. The power and control to do it is kind of rare.”

“Twi, you’re thinking of blinking,” Dawn said.

“I am?”

“I am.” Her hallucination confirmed. “Most unicorns have the ability and focus, but being able to do so rapidly and with pinpoint precision is something only I and a few others can do.”

Twilight looked hard at the apparent manifestation of Nightmare’s bestowal as Ember frowned severely at she and Dawn.

“I don’t care,” she said. “Just that the twerp doen’t seem like she’s able. With how she works, it’s probably something she’s planning to keep tucked away in a saddlebag till she can get the most outta it, but I’ve never seen her do it. Anyway, she sorta… appeared one day. Not like, popped into existence sort of appearing, but we dug her out of a snowbank out north.”

“Put herself in danger so ya’d feel bad an’ help her right inta the middle of your caves.”

“Got it in one.” Ember sighed. “I know you ponies think that dragons are full of mean about everything, and we’re all the same, and yer actually mostly right but we got altruists too. Looking back on the entire thing, pretty sure she was watching for a while before she set it up so a maternal sort would find a poor little filly shivering and lost in a blizzard. I actually sorta doubt she can suffer from cold, what with the fact that she’s cold as death to the touch.”

“Coincidentally, she’s dead.” Twilight hadn’t even noticed Thalia reentering the room--which she had done somehow silently via the door, which shut again even as Twilight looked at her--but she’d also shed the dragon shape she’d been wearing at some point during her raid of the larder.

Although Twilight had never been to an actual competition, she knew about kickboxing and had spent several days shadowing and interviewing a few of the semi-professional competitors, trying to understand the mentality behind violent bouts as a popular spectator sport (although mostly in the northern cities like Trottingham and Stalliongrad). Thalia looked like one of those competitors: lean, layered in hard shaped muscle from intense exercise and fighting, with visible scoring along her chitinous hide where she’d used it to take hits meant for vulnerable places. The theme extended to her mane, where she’d cut it almost unattractively short so as to remove it as something to grip, and the smooth, rolling gait she walked passed with that made her hoofsteps almost silent, no movements wasted, hooves placed with the casual and unconscious care of someone who’d trained it into muscle memory.

“What came first, the chicken or the egg?” The hallucination said. “Did a princess become a strong fighter and decided to represent Scarabi to the dragons, or did she decide to represent Scarabi to the dragons and made a fighter of herself?”

Twilight looked hard at the hallucination again. This seems… new. What it says is still the way I think but it’s like she’s… it’s… switched from voicing my thoughts to lead me somewhere, to commentary.

“The first, certainly,” she said lowly.

“What was that, Princess Sparkle?” Twilight looked at Thalia, who was watching her with a concerned look.

“Thought tumbled out of my head,” she said. “What did you say about Penumbra being dead?”

“Closest guess Tettidora had,” Thalia said. “Pickled cabbage leaf?”

“About what, and... “ Twilight eyed her. “I’ve never heard of pickling cabbage.”

“Great preservation technique,” Thalia said, offering a leaf that smelled pungently of vinegar. “Sprig of dill, mustard seed, and… something else, should ask Green about it when I get the chance. Weirdly enough, tastes sorta like a sharp cheddar.”

Remembering the almost pie-filling texture of the citrus skate and vegetables that’d been served at the state dinner before they left Scarabi, Twilight accepted the leaf and took a bite. The flavor was sharp and acidic, but the inside of the thick leaf had softened enough to remind Twilight of biting into a slice taken from an aged cheese wheel. “A little more like a gouda,” she said. “Maybe asaigo.”

“Boffin Farms bleu, sixth year, seaside casks…” Applejack made a loud smacking sound with her lips. “...mmm… applewood barrels, raw stripplings.”

All of them turned and stared at Applejack, who looked uncharacteristically smug.

“...that’s amazing!” Rarity gaped after a moment.

Applejack snorted. “Who y’all think taste-test farm products before they make their way to the upper crust? More upper crust?”

Thalia grinned. “Bet they can sip your select and tell everyone what tree it comes from.”

“Sugarcube, that’s impossible.” Applejack winked at her. “Cardinal section.”

“Kin of the soil, I swear.” Thalia sighed and the merriment faded. “To answer your question, Twilight… closest guess Tettidora had about Penumbra’s nature. Even calling her dead isn’t really accurate, though. She’s a… copy of alive. A perfect duplicate of living, but not quite… living, not really.”

“Took us a really long time to notice,” Ember said. “The sense of wrongness she carries with her is awfully subtle and she had evading too long around one dragon down to an art form. ‘Lia was the first one to keep her pinned down in business long enough to catch it, and that was after it stopped mattering.”

“So what happened when ya brought her back?” Dawn said.

“Nothing, at first,” Ember said. “Girl was crazy invested in her acting gig, and she playacted out a few weeks of recovery like she actually had gotten lost in the snow and was gonna die. It was convincing as hell, and she poured on the ‘adorable little filly’ cham too. Got everyone to think she was some poor innocent child, though she didn’t go for the orphan gig and overplay it.”

“So she claimed to have parents?”

“A dad,” Ember said. “Said her mom died just after she was born, and it was just her and pops ever since.”

“It wasn’t a lie either,” Thalia added, offering Pinkie and Rarity leaves of the preserved cabbage. “Unless she’s good enough to manufacture the correct emotions for the story. I think she really is the child of a single father, that her mother really did die in childbirth or close to it. And she spoke of her father in the present tense, and the emotions fit for a parent who was still present.”

“But she’s an evil, not-quite-alive eldritch something that can break minds,” Dawn said.

“And impose order,” Pinkamena said quietly. “Being Laughter allows me to just treat reality as optional, if the result is funny. But not here. Here, my head would get stuck in the basket of sponges, instead of me being able to pop out up to my shoulder and sink back down, like it was water. You called us part of a magical superweapon, Princess Thalia…”

“...but Penumbra can stop it from firing without taking any overt action,” Twilight finished. “I’ve… I can’t even imagine how that’s possible.”

“I can.” Thalia said grimly. “But we need to build up to it.”
“Princess Thalia, with all due respect, that’s a bit too important to just dangle.”

“The situation won’t change in the time it takes to explain how Penumbra came to be in the position she’s in,” Thalia said, with a touch of sharpness. “If you’re gonna deal with her, you need to know how she operated before now, and how she might operate again.”

“Somethin’ more to it, ain’t there?”

“Always is.” Thalia said. “Like the playacting. There was a great deal of exaggeration in how she presented her state, and how much recovery she actually needed, but the damage was not faked.”

“Yeah, yeah.” Ember rolled her eyes. “She can get a mountain dropped on her and shakes it off, but a blizzard fucks her up when she’s already cold as death. Ya gotta know that’s a hard sell, ‘Lia.”

“The delay gained her nothing,” Thalia said. “If she’d come to, eaten heartily, and wrapped up extremities to fake frostbite, you would have bought it just as hard. But she threw away weeks being an invalid. If she did it for fun, it would be literally the only thing we’ve ever seen her do that has no logical purpose and gains her nothing. Either she got something that we still don’t know about, or you’re being too hard on yourself and you weren’t played as hard as you think.”

“I think Ember was the one to find her and bring her in,” the hallucination said at about the moment that the thought occurred to Twilight. She glanced to either side of herself and could tell that the same realization had hit the other girls, but no one seemed like they were willing to bring it up.

“This lot says a bunch of them have been moving around and making trouble,” Ember siad. “Maybe she was waiting for everyone to get on the board.”

“Plausible.” Thalia looked at them all. “Once she got started, it didn’t take long. She started with the shy and isolated, then moved up to the clever. Swept up the thugs on the way up. After all we’ve tried, we still don’t know what she’s doing to keep them knuckled under, but it doesn’t seem to need her to concentrate to make it work, and no matter how you poke at an enthralled, they don’t react like they’ve got a mind of their own.”

“Alright, so how does she not have that staff thingy?” Dawn looked at Ember. “Yer sure she doesn’t have it, and you’re not running around with it, so what gives?”

Ember grimaced. “Father’s centuries old,” she said. “Ya don’t stay on top if you’re dumb as he played at. She screwed up, thinking that loud and brutish was the whole story, and didn’t figure out all the dynamics right. When the guy who’d drag himself to his post same time every day if he was bleedin’ ta death didn’t show up when he shoulda, Dad figured that weird cold filly was bad news. Decided to go fix her but good, but first took a detour with some boulders, chains, and a shiny object.”

“About three kilometers offshore to the north is the Wound,” Thalia said. “Call it that because it’s like someone took a big axe and drove it about as deep into the bottom of the ocean as they could. If yer a giant ancient dragon, you can get to the bottom. If ya can guise into a deep diver, you can get there too. But it takes a few hours, goin’ straight down.”

“And excessive amounts of flowing water can deaden active magic,” Twilight said. “But can’t she pry information out of her puppets?”

“Probably can, but Father isn’t just some dragon, and he ain’t just some puppet either.” Ember looked the most serious and solemn she had during the entire time they’d been interacting with her. “Dragon Lord isn’t just a title. I don’t know the entire thing. Father has been slowly laying it out for me in pieces for a while, but I know enough to know, there’s a reason we pass an artifact down instead of a pretty piece of metal.”

“Sorta like that amulet Queen Chrysalis had around her neck?”

“Exactly like that,” Thalia said. “Except Chryssy uses hers as a magical focus, and the Wyrm Stone works like a battery.”

“That’s all interestin’ and such,” Applejack said. “But sorta gets aside from the main point: she can’t just pry open his head and rummage.”

“I’m sure she could if she felt the need,” Thalia said. “But brute-forcing a mind is reckless and dangerous, and her seeming disinterest in getting it makes it seem like removing it from play fit her objectives.”

“And Lord Scorch?”

“She subdued him,” Ember said. “Didn’t seem to hurt him--I’ve seen him, not a mark on him, good health, given regular food and water like all the rest--but she’s keeping him under lock and key.”

“Like he’s a threat still.”

“Yeah. I don’t think whatever trick she used on the rest worked as well on him, so she’s keepin’ him imprisoned.”

“And yet, she doesn’t seem to be bothering you,” Dawn said. “You’d think the heir would be prime meat for control, but yer walking around.” She looks at Thalia. “And it’s a sure bet she’d love the idea of having a thrall wandering around the court of her enemy.”

“We don’t know,” Thalia said. “She hasn’t said a word on the matter. Talked plenty with us, but never discussed motivations or anything.”

“The hay’d a filly got to talk plenty about?” Applejack said. “Ah mean, Applebloom can chatter fer a long time but doesn’t go for the long conversations. Until compelled, o’ course.”

“Empress Moon’s malevolent male counterpart and his sock puppet.” Twilight glanced at Pinkamena. “You mentioned him before. How does he fit into this?”

“That was the thing I was working up to,” Thalia said. “Penumbra’s father rides shotgun in her head. Based on what Chryssy told me about Empress Moon, he’s the definition of whatever she is, some kind of otherworldly thing that uses Penumbra as a kind of container.”

“A nightmare.” Twilight said. “Nightmare--Empress Moon--speculated that we’d run across another of her kind, and one that had the inclination to talk their way into a vessel instead of force their way in. And Nightmare speaks of regarding her last vessel, Luna, as her sister so I guess it makes sense that this one would see Penumbra as a daughter, and she see him as a father.”

“As near as we can tell, that’s pretty much how it is,” Thalia said. “Although…”

“Let’s wait on that ‘although’ a second,” Dawn said. “So, we’re probably facing someone with the kind of power that Nightmare Moon has, except male and malevolent. But, see, we’re not screwed enough yet, so it’s time that you tell us that we’re not just kind of screwed or very screwed, but double-triple-plus-plus-bad screwed.”

Thalia looked blankly at her.

“She has an off button for the Elements,” Dawn said. “And you know why, and when you tell us why, we’ll understand how our level of screwed has reached scientific notations.”

“What you call an ‘off-button for the Elements’ is just a supposition at this point,” Thalia said. “A… pretty reliable supposition given how Laughter simple does not function here, but I can’t be sure.”

“And…?” Applejack gave her a skeptical eyebrow raise.

Thalia sighed. “And there’s a good reason I suppose it. But you’ll have to indulge me; there’s a bit of a story behind this.”

Author's Note

I was planning to publish this and the next as a single chapter, but decided at the last second that they're different enough to need to be split. Sorry it took a while.

Twilight: Archive

“If you’ve spent any time at all around Chryssy, you’ve run across at least one of the du Dune family.” Thalia said.

“Callista,” Rarity said.

Thalia smiled briefly. “Lucky you, she’s a really good kid. Anyway, their schtick has always been that they have a sort of insane wanderlust. They wander everywhere they can reach, or spend time looking for ways to get to places they can’t reach yet, and when I first met Daring Do I was fully expecting that she was one of the du Dune scions scratching that adventurer itch. She isn’t, by the way, she’s just a really clever pegasus with the same kind of itch to scratch.”

“Now, one of the most significant ways that the du Dunes find places to poke around in is an obsession with mythology and legends, and generally look for the most outlandish claims on the reasoning that chasing down a pipe dream will provide dozens of times the amount of fun that tracking down a legitimate claim would be. It’s a little disquieting how often the strangest beliefs are legitimized by nosy du Dunes, but most of the time the rumor is nonsense.”

“Everyone likes their little superstitions and urban legends,” Pinkamena offered.

“And believe you me, the du Dunes are happy that those urban legends exist.” Thalia breathed out heavily and grimaced a little. “The issue is that the strangest ones are usually very dangerous and the most strange and dangerous was the Archive.”

“Heard that one,” Twilight said, barely needing to think to recall the myth; it was naturally just the kind of thing a scholar would enjoy dreaming about. “Supposedly, a massive library in the middle of nowhere that contains every written work in existence, and you can only find on certain days in certain exotic conditions.”

“Oh, it contains written works all right,” Thalia said. “But the reality is not a happy one.”

Twilight gaped at her. “It’s real?”

“Oh yes, it’s real,” Thalia said. “Looks like an ancient temple from the outside, filled with shelves full of books on the inside, and magically many times as large inside as it is out. Enchanted so that while you are there, you do neither thirst, nor hunger, nor sicken, nor require rest, nor age. Its collection has no known end, and is constantly expanding.”

Twilight continued to stare at her, knowing that her expression was one of almost comical awe, but not caring. “A library that has every book, that’s always expanding, and lets you stay forever?”

“It has a catch.” Applejack frowned. “Don’t it?”

“You wouldn’t think so,” Thalia said. “Especially as it does not contain any outside written work; it does not collect books. What it collects and constantly transcribes is knowledge. If anyone, at any time, anywhere comes to gain a bit of knowledge, it will be recorded in the Archive. It is a font of infinite knowledge; using it, a pony could know everything even as it’s happening. I hardly need to point out what kind of power that represents.”

“Penny has access to it, doesn't she?”

“If my supposition is correct, she has constant access to it. But that’s not actually the kicker. The big deal is, she has constant safe access to it.”

“How the hell is a big library supposed to be unsafe?” Ember snorted. “It’s a bunch of writing, and it can keep you alive forever. What, is there predatory bookworms? Pony-eating scrolls? Living shadows that can strip you to the bones?”

“I’ve got a better question.” Twilight was surprised at how incredibly icy and calm her voice was and how the room seemed to get quieter around her as she stared at Princess Thalia. “Why would something like this remain unguarded?”

“The same magic that…”

“And why would you not use it the moment you became aware of what the Evils intended?” Her tone must have been colder and more menacing than she thought, because her friends actually took a step back, as if trying to clear a line of fire to Thalia. “When Nightmare came to help prepare the changelings and solicit their help, why was this Archive not the first place you went to?”

“Ah gotta wonder that mahself.” Applejack looked at Thalia. “Seems ta me that knowin’ everything coulda stopped an awful lot of ponies getting hurt.”

There was a moment of Thalia looking genuinely taken-aback and unsure before Ember snorted again. “Are you two morons for real?”

All of them, Thalia included, looked at her. “Excuse me, morons?” Dawn said.

“Um, yeah?” Ember said, her tone that of someone stating the obvious. “I still think it’s weird that a library can be dangerous but put your brains to it a second. Infinite knowledge? Infinite power? Do either of you seriously think you get infinite anything totally for free?”

Applejack looked a little chagrined, and Twilight felt the cool anger vaporize almost immediately as the blue dragoness pointed out the thing that should have occurred to her without Thalia needing to mention it before. “The catch.”

“The catch,” Thalia nodded. “The du Dunes are no one’s fools. They’ve run across a lot of legendary stuff, a ton of artifacts, and learned about a ton more that Celestia keeps buried deep and out of even her own reach--and they’ve done some burying too. ‘Infinite’ anything is s giant red flag when your hobby is legend-hunting and for anyone with sense, the first thing they ask is ‘what does it cost?’ In the case of the Archive, it has several constructs that aid seekers but also a single manifest spirit, a kindly and helpful being with the vague shape of a wolf walking upright who answers any question in an extremely literal fashion. The du Dune explorers made several attempts to phrase their questions correctly, but finally managed to get an answer of how it has its miraculous properties.”

“Basically, it entrances any seekers that partake of its knowledge, drawing them deeper and deeper into the Archive and into an enchanted obsession that obliterates everything but the hunger for knowledge. They become living shells with their souls imprisoned inside of their bodies, sustained forever by the power of the Archive and in turn give it power to gather every speck of knowledge from every mind and inscribe it. By the manifest spirit’s calculations, as of about three hundred years ago, The Lost numbered around a thousand.”

“It begins to seep into the mind and feed the knowledge obsession from the moment someone reads one of its books. We know of no magic that can prevent the Archive from doing this, although we do not dare risk one of our queens to be sure. Nor, frankly, has it ever been safe to warn Celestia because until very recently, she was a desperately lonely soul hungering for the presence of her lost sister, and that frame of mind can easily lead to making a very serious mistake.” She looked at Dawn momentarily, significantly. “As you all know quite well.”

“If yer implying that I’m a mistake…”

“If it sounded like I was, I apologize, it was not intended,” Thalia said quickly. “But yielding the allure of the nightmare that created Flare in a moment of desperation, grief, and emotional agony was a mistake. And it proves the point: someone whose frame of mind is desperate, in emotional pain, is extremely vulnerable to the lures the Archive sets out and given what it can do with a thousand ordinary souls--sustains life without end, entraps minds, shifts from one physical location to the next--imagine its power if it fed from an extraordinary soul.”

“I take it the du Dunes attempted to sabotage its power.”

“Not immediately,” Thalia said. “They brought the matter before the queen at the time--Queen Vespa, I believe--and devised a way to make a careful attempt. Like, reading books and taking rests until they’d learned to instantly recognize the beginnings of the entrapment, devising ways to magically augment mental defenses against meddling, that kind of thing. They halted the expedition at the fifth circle, where the intensity of the Archive’s defense against such an attempt--the entrapment--had cracked through their defenses against it. The manifest spirit says that there are fifteen circles, which means that trained soldiers prepared specifically against the entrapment could only get a third of the way to the core, where The Lost are kept.”

“So that’s how a library can get dangerous,” Ember said. “So ya think Little Bint has a way passed all that crap?”

“Or her ‘Father’ protects her somehow,” Thalia nodded. “I’m willing to guess that with an evil mechanism to maintain its power, the Archive naturally resonates with an Evil and doesn’t even try to entrap her.”

“So why isn’t she victorious?” Rarity said. “I know it better than most, darling: if you know your target well enough, they might as well already be dead, you’re so spoiled for choices. So with the power to know everything, the power to know every weakness and how to exploit it, why are we even fighting her? Why didn’t she already win?”

“KNOWLEDGE IS BUT A BRICK, GIRL.” Before she was even aware of the voice speaking, the shaking of the ground from the sheer resonant force of it had taken her hooves out from under her and Twilight wince from the sharp pain in her side, even as little filly hooves walked deliberately through her peripheral vision and the diminutive form of Penumbra stopped in the center of the room. She was largely as she was when they’d met her in the eerily empty town, but for one difference: hovering in the electric blue aura of her telekinetic grip was a book easily the size of her entire body, pages fluttering in a non-existent breeze.

“VICTORY,” the massive voice continued, “IS A HIGHWAY, LEADING WHERE WEWOULD HAVE IT GO.”

Author's Note

Leading on from the previous author notes, this is the second part of a split chapter. Sorry it, like the last, took awhile. Also, sorry for the short length; barely seems worth the wait, don't it? Anyway, I'd solicit comments but I've sort of given up asking.

Twilight: Nor'easter VI

“You will not believe this, and will likely believe I’m insulting your intelligence, but none of what is happening to Equestria, to the Provinces, to the Lands, was conceived of in malice. This is all part of a Game in motion long before the gods began playing dice with this world for their own advantage.”

After the filly and what seemed to be her father had walked directly through Terridora’s defenses (which based on Thalia’s reaction should not have been that easy), they’d simply turned around and politely requested that everyone in the room come with them. Which they had promptly done, without hesitation and very much without wanting to.

The diminutive crossbreed had completely dropped the cute playful filly persona, and looking out from the sapphire-blue eyes was the analytical wariness of a much older mare who had bought a great deal of her wisdom at a steep price. Her voice was still high and youthful, but now had the very precise dictation of a noble who’d gone through finishing schools and graduated with university honors.

“What th’ hay do ya mean, none of what’s goin’ on is meant ta be malicious?” Applejack snorted. “Ponies gettin’ sick all over, them atermors poisonin’ crops, that thing in the Barrens trying ta kill us and a buncha wounded ponies, yer pet torture thing carvin’ up Dawn, whatever the hay is going on in the Provinces, and ya sit there an’ say ya didn’t mean ta be mean?”

“Yes,” Penumbra said, “although none of what you listed was part of the plan. In fact, the time table for the plan would have seen the crowning of Princess Thryssa das Chrysalis’ great-granddaughter before it could bear fruit. The interlopers have… accelerated things.”

“THEY ARE APT TOOLS IN OUR HANDS,” the massive and resonant voice said, “BUT WE HAVE MADE THEM TOOLS BECAUSE THE ALTERNATIVE WAS TO ALLOW THEM TO FULFILL THEIR PURPOSE.”

“This world is ours,” Penumbra said with a tone of finality.

“WE WILL NOT ALLOW SOME PRATTLING FOOL OF THE VOID TO RIP IT FROM OUR HANDS. AND SO, PLANS WERE ALTERED, SLOWED, ACCELERATED. A PLAGUE MEANT TO BE REPEATED AT A TINY SCALE DOZENS OF TIMES OVER BEFORE SHIFTING TO PANDEMIC IS NOW A SINGLE PANDEMIC FROM THE START. YET THE LETHALITY IS VIRTUALLY NONE. CULTIVATING THE ‘GIFT’ DISCORD LEFT FOR CELESTIA AND LUNA IS NOW A BRUTE FORCE BID FOR THE TREE.”

“Which will fail.”

“WE CANNOT KNOW THAT YET. AND IT DEPENDS UPON WHAT MANNER OF SUCCESS WE WISH.”

“We can know that, and we do.” Penumbra tapped her chin with a hoof. “Although…”

“EXACTLY.”

“She should be arriving soon. I’ll divert her and describe what we need, see if the more extensive task requires extra pay.”

“THANK YOU, DEAR.”

“Anything to further the Grand Design, pater.” Penumbra looked at them. “Allowing you to leave is not conducive to our design, but if you wish, I could bring you victuals and comforts.”

Twilight blinked. Did she just… offer us food and drink? Like we’re guests? “I’m sure we’d appreciate that but… why would you offer us that?”

“It advances our goals, naturally,” she said. “Prisoners who become hungry, thirsty, and uncomfortable are motivated to leave quickly so they can rectify it. Prisoners supplied with food, drink, and comforts are motivated to patiently seek an advantage that would let them escape, inclined to spend time determining a way to minimize their risk and maximize their chances.”

“And?”

Penumbra smiled--an expression that seemed more pleasant on her face than when she was pretending filly-like excitement--at Applejack. “And old habits die hard, especially good old habits. It was something so simple as socializing every pony to make a guest of the stranger that led to a flourishing society over which the glorious Sun and Moon rule with altruism and benevolence.”

“And they had to band together against wendigos,” Dawn said.

Penumbra snorted at that. “The Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant.”

“The story makes ponies feel good.” Pinkamena gave Penumbra a look Twilight had never seen on her face before, that of a pony appraising a threat. “Promotes unity, and the values of Equestria. It’s good.”

“Not nearly so good as the truth,” Penumbra said. “When this is all over, I’ll tell you that story. You can pass it down to your foals as the special family version. But I have a great deal to do, and shall not tell you now.”

“You sound like you expect us to live,” Ember said.

“That is up to you, and whether you act cleverly or foolishly,” Penumbra said. “Father, if you’ll please attend to our guests while I discuss matters with her?”

“OF COURSE I WILL, DEAR.”

“Visibly.”

Twilight could have sworn ‘Father’ smiled. “YES.”

Penumbra smiled. “Thank you Pater. I’ll be back soon.” And with that, the filly simply popped out of visible existence. And then between one moment and the next, there was a black-scaled dragon lounging on the dias, taking up the entire thing. Or more accurately, Twilight supposed, there was the moving corpse of a dragon on the dias, empty sockets taking up the place where eyes were meant to be, its skin visibly hanging off of it like molding cloth, bones bleached and exposed beneath what remained of its hide, and what little could be seen of internal organs were decaying.

“This is what my daughter requested of me.” The corpse-dragon moved its jaws as ‘Father’ spoke, although the decayed face was too rotted to approximate the tongue and lip movements of speech. The volume and reverberation were gone and without them, the father’s voice was pleasantly basso. “I am given to understand that you would find it more comfortable to speak to a face instead of a sourceless voice.”

“And ya thought a… corpse would work.”

“It is symbolic.” ‘Voice’ turned his eye sockets to face Twilight. “I think I desire an amusement. Do any of you understand the fundamentals of kraespahl?”

Twilight frowned. “Isn’t that a chess variant popular in Germane?”

“No,” he said. “Yes, it is popular in Germane. No, it is not a variant of chess, unless you believe chess to have three dozen pieces per player.”

“Like Strategy?”

“No, that only has a dozen pieces and each side’s complement is partly visible to the other side.” He made a contemplative sound. “Pardon.”

“Depends on whether you want many participants.”

“True.” Another contemplative sound. “Perhaps chess itself then.”

“I know the rules and strategies but haven’t had anyone to play with in years.”
“I can take him on.” Twilight turned and looked at Ember, who was glaring in the direction of ‘Father’. “Besides, ain’t like there’s a point beyond bragging rights.”

“Perhaps.” ‘Father’ made a gesture with a claw and a chessboard appeared, suspended in midair, already set with pieces intricately carved out of what appeared to be onyx and sapphires. “I am aware of the rules, but you will move first.”

Ember moved her king’s pawn out, to a mirrored move from Father. She moved a pawn out, and then put her king’s minister on the field; Father’s first intricate pieces out was the princess side knight. Twilight felt Dawn and Applejack move up to either side of her, and the rest of her friends and Thalia on the other side, watching.as the two exchanged pieces. Given her abrasive demeanor, Twilight hadn’t expected that the dragon princess would have any real skill at the game, but Ember had clearly practiced because her strategies were too sophisticated for a novice.

Father was clearly no novice either, although there was something about the flow of the game where his moves seemed more responsive than planned. He managed to go on a windmill in the center of the board with his king knight, but a series of maneuvers on the peripheries found Ember with a smothered mate using her princess’ knight, and Father’s bony jaw gaped in an approximation of a grin. “Cleverly done, Heir,” he said as he tipped his king in acknowledgement of defeat. “You persevere through great losses, willing to sacrifice for victory.”

“Doesn’t look like that to me,” Ember said with a touch of bitterness. “Go again?”

“Yes, but not with you.” His head turned towards Rarity. “You, assassin. Will you play my game?”

“I’ll play chess with you,” Rarity said. “But I don’t play other people’s games.”

He chuckled as the pieces reassembled themselves, Rarity’s now made of diamond instead of sapphire. “You are wrong, dressmaker. You will play my game, you’ll see.”

Rarity put her king’s knight out as her opening move. “Will play? I’m not playing it now?”

He advanced his princess’ pawn. “No, not quite yet.”

Rarity turned out to be an advanced player, making sparing use of her pawns and using her other pieces in a strange and intricate dance that made them seem hanging one minute, and then well-positioned the next. As before, Father only seemed able to react rather than be proactive but his reactions were good and the game stretched on far longer than the one the eldritch entity had played with Ember. The end was an almost poetic one: Rarity advanced a pawn until it was right next to the king, and then promoted it to a princess to seal the mate.

“You seem to prefer playing my game,” Rarity said as he toppled his king.

“Removing obstacles your way is messy,” he replied calmly. “I prefer to set up the possibility, but only move in time with my opponent.”

“And what about Penumbra?”

The positioning of his jaws seemed more like a smile than a grin this time. “My daughter makes me look like a blunt instrument. Our Game is mostly hers.”

“How is she your daughter?” Twilight said. “You’re not mortal, not even from Equestria, and you don’t have a body of your own.”

“All true.” He gestured and the game board reset, the pieces made of amethysts now. “I would test your wits, Twilight Sparkle. You have nothing to lose by it.”

“But you have something to gain by it.”

“Do I?” He smiled again. “I would still test your wits, if you would consent.”

“Princess Ember allowed him to rampage among her own, bringing down many, before she trapped him in his own cave.” Twilight had to struggle not to jerk her head up at hearing her own voice in her ear. I shouldn’t be hearing the guide hallucination without having used the associated spell. “Rarity played a cagey game, distracting him with many more threatening pieces while a seeming pawn danced up to the unwary princess, and cut her throat. He could have won both games easily; the strategies were cunning, but visible.”

I see. “I consent,” Twilight said to ‘Father’ “If you make the first move.”

“That would be inappropriate,” he said. “But that would seem right to you, wouldn’t it? Very well.” His king’s pawn moved out two spaces. “There. Is that what you thought you’d see?”

Twilight couldn’t help but blink at him. What I thought I’d see? “It is one of the most favored opening moves,” she said. “So… yeah, I guess I thought it’s what I’d see.” She moved her princess’ pawn out a single space.

“Then you’d don’t see matters clearly, princess,” he said. “And I don’t think you understand yourself either. Perhaps we overestimated how dangerous you’d be.” He brought out his king’s minister, putting it as a direct threat to her king. “What about that? Did you see what you thought you would?”

“I…” Twilight cleared her throat and moved a pawn to block the path of the minister. “Yes, that seems like a perfectly reasonable move, taking advantage of an opening.”

He captured the pawn. “It is reasonable, going directly for the king early in the game. What I would ask you, Princess, is whether your move was right?”

“Of course it was right,” Twilight huffed. “The use of a pawn…”

“...did nothing,” he said. “Your mother would be disappointed with you, Twilight, to see you play the game so.”

Twilight stared again.”What… what does my mother have to do with this?”

“Everything, Princess Sparkle.” He gestured at the board. “Your move.”

Twilight captured the minister, and he responded by bringing out his king’s knight onto the right of the board. The game continued in silence for several more moves: he castled his king, she advanced her pawns, and the piece exchanging began until between her rook, minister, and princess, she cornered his king.

“Well played, Princess,” he said as he tipped his king.”and thank you for this game. It was very… interesting. You are not as much your mother’s daughter as I thought you were.”

Twilight narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Your mother would have imposed her princess between my minister and your king,” he said. “Not her pawn.”

“But that would have been…” Twilight stopped suddenly. Mother would have imposed her princess between a threat and her most important piece. “...oh.”

“And that, Princess Sparkle, is what your mother has to do with this.” The eldritch creature’s tone was actually… sympathetic sounding. “But this is not the Game your kind plays.”

The decision with the pawn was symbolic, she realized, still staring at the nearly-empty board. And then something fell into place and she looked up at ‘Father’ looking at him for several moments. “I feel sort of odd saying this but… thank you.”

“What are you thanking me for? It was just an idle amusement while we waited for my daughter to return.”

“Right.” Twilight said. “Who was the ‘she’ Penumbra was going to meet?”

“My minister.” And then the construct vanished, and Twilight looked at her sister, her belly starting to twist with icy dread..

“...Dawn.”

“I heard,” Dawn spat on the floor. “So much for not intending malice.”

Author's Note

I cannot even express how sorry I am to have taken this long to give you this little. I've been working this chapter for weeks now; only with the thoughtful suggestion of Reykan that I finally broke through and came up with something that I actually feel really good about; please give him some love. :)

As always, as futile as the pleading is, comments, suggestions, criticisms, even rants damning me to Tatarus are welcome. I hope to get you happy few something new faster than I did this time.

Twilight: Nor'Easter VII

“Yanno, Twilight, Ah reckon you an’ Dawn reacted just a pinch too much to a chess game,” Applejack said a few minutes after ‘Father’ had left.

Twilight took in a breath through her mouth and blew it out through her nose, and gave her friend a nod. “I know. But it wasn’t the chess game, it was what he said.”

“All the malarky about what ya expected an’ what not?”

“It was all meant to be symbolism,” Dawn said. “I mean, not all the piece exchanges, just the ones he said something about.”

Applejack nodded slowly to this. “So… mocking you for thinkin’ that he an’ his daughter make big, bold, blatant moves like trying to assassinate folk?”

“Well not…” Twilight paused and thought about it. “Actually, that would make sense too. I don’t think any of the symbolism was about assassination but it’s possible. If neither of them were exaggerating or lying--big assumption, I know, but let’s go with it for the moment--then… removing obstacles would be part of any extremely long-term plan. I think.”

“Not necessarily, Twilight,” Rarity said. “If they anticipated bringing the plan to fruition centuries from now, time is not their concern. Their plan seems to be built around simply outlasting any obstacles.”

“But they had to accelerate it,” Thalia said. “There’s an outside force interfering, making a bid for whatever goal the two of them are working towards, and they’ve been forced to move faster than they wanted to. They wanted to slowly build the plague of the atermors up instead of going all in at once, and meant the end result to be more lethal….”

“Yeah. ‘Not conceived of in malice’.” Dawn snorted. “Ponypies.”

Thalia nodded. “Yes. And they planned to cultivate whatever gift this ‘Discord’ left, but are now forced to use brute strength to get control of the Tree of Harmony.”

“Why do they care about a fucking tree?” Ember snorted. “I mean, yeah, it sounds like it’s somethin’ associated with the Elements of Harmony or something but it ain’t the Elements, right?”

“The Tree is one step among many.” Penumbra was abruptly standing beside Twilight, appearing as suddenly and soundlessly as she’d left. “It’s the keystone to your Elements--remove it and they would become little more than pretty jewelry--but there are other uses to which it may be put. For our purposes, more valuable uses.”

“There’s something more…”

“Of course there is,” Penumbra said. “Otherwise I’d have had the Cards kill you.” She glanced over at the maze of intricate scarring on Dawn. “Instead of manipulating the sadistic one into making artwork of the pink one.”

“...you were planning to have him do that to me?” Pinkamena looked steadily at Penumbra.

Penumbra met her gaze. “Yes. Debilitating Laughter was the only way to accomplish one of our goals. That our derivation of Tettidora’s research would be effective was not something we could count on.” She paused a beat. “I am sorry, Lady Pie.”

Pinkie huffed. “Yeah, sorry. That’s all?”

“I can hardly do anything more for you than apologize, Pinkamena,” she said. “After all, you are unharmed.”

“Dawn isn’t,” Pinkie said, her voice uncharacteristically quiet.

“That was not intentional,” she said. “I hadn’t visited Ponyville for a couple years. I believed you to be the same sort of high-energy pony that would most annoy the sadist that you were back then. That Dawn might be more irritating, and you highly composed, was not anticipated.”

“What do you get from your pet psychotic carving me up?” Twilight had to turn her head at the question, having never heard Pinkie speak with a bitter tone before.

“For the time I need you to be, you are in my power,” Penumbra said calmly, seeming not to hear the bitterness. “You cannot leave, and your Element is suppressed. But if the sadist had done unto you what he did unto Dawn, you would have grisly reminders, but be otherwise unharmed. You would be fully able to act in your capacity as the Element of Laughter, and find a mate, raise children, and all the other components of a good, harmonious life. That would also advance my agenda. Thus, it was the solution to the problem with the fewest possible downsides, that I was certain would work. That a better solution would present itself after the reliable solution was in place was not something I could have known.”

“You’re not even ashamed of unleashing a sadist with a knife on a completely innocent pony, are you?”

“Shame is appropriate when you fall short of expectations,” Penumbra said, her expression and tone still perfectly even. “I have not. In fact, I had advanced above even my own expectations, because the sadist’s error advantaged me in an unanticipated way.”

“Ya’ll know how effective Green Leaf’s potions are.”

“Yes.” Penumbra bowed a little in the direction in Applejack. “This is enormously important, because I can know where to focus my attention later. Now, I offered you food and drink and comforts, and you accepted my offer. It required some cleverness, what with the present difficulties with farm crops in Equestria, but you ponies are an admirably far-seeing lot.”

The comment seemed like an odd non-sequitur but Applejack clearly knew what Penumbra was implying, and she looked aghast. “Ya raided ponies’ food stores?”

“I made sure to leave behind thrice the scarcity price of replacement,” she said with a shrug. “It wouldn’t do for ponies to do without in the wake of the atermors’ depredations.”

“You say that like it wasn’t part of your plan.” Rarity said. “Our memories aren’t that short, darling, we remember what your Father said.”

“What is currently happening was not part of our plan,” Penumbra said. “I will explain further shortly but for now, I believe your last meal would have been aboard the airship you flew in on. A moment, if you please.”

The little zebricorn’s horn glowed softly for a moment and then with a pop, a pair of wooden crates phased into existence with a rough canvas on top and on top of that, plates piled with fresh pears, apples, carrots, and leafy greens. Another pop brought another makeshift table with a spread of fresh fruits and vegetables; the next came with several chilled pitchers of water and juices. The last two crate tables brought loaves of recently-baked fresh bread and a variety of jams on one table, and several magic-driven hotplates with a bowl of batter on the last. After another moment, Penumbra summoned a long table with hay-stuffed pillows to sit on, with one place set with a platter covered in an array of gems and rocks which, if Ember’s reaction was an indication, constituted good food for a dragon.

“If you need me to replenish any of the victuals, or if you have requests, I will be your hostess,” Penumbra said. “For those of you without horn magic, I could operate the hot…”

“Ya went ta mah home.” Twilight turned away from the fresh food to see Applejack looking into the bowl of batter, using a hoof to tilt it slightly so she could look into it.

“Well, yes, but…”

“With my granny, and my brother, an’ mah little sister.” Applejack didn’t raise her voice at all, and her tone didn’t change, but there was something simmering in it that Twilight had never heard from Applejack, no matter how upset her friend became: rage.

“Your brother…”

“YA WENT TO MY HOME!” The hoof Applejack had been using to tilt the batter bowl came down on the stone floor with a deafening crack and small fissures spiderwebbed from the impact. “Ya opened my gate! Ya knocked at mah door! YOU WALKED ONTO MY FAMILY’S FARM, WITH MY FAMILY THERE!”

Another crack and fissures accompanied Applejack’s next step as she advanced on the genuinely stunned-looking Penumbra. “Yer filthy kind kin do all kinds o’ things ta mah town, an my friends, an’ Ah’ll give ya what for.” She leaned down, her irises literally glowing the green of healthy leaves and growing things, and spoke, her words vibrating the air much in the way that ‘Father’ had, each word spoken between clenched teeth with the finality of a gavel. “But. You. Just. Crossed. The. Line.”

Several things seemed to happen at once. Twilight threw power into her horn, trying to impose a barrier between Applejack and Penumbra, seeing it wouldn’t work, and then just slamming the barrier into existence between the two mares and everyone else. In the same moment, Penumbra’s horn exploded into eye-searing brightness, seeming to have the same idea that Twilight did, but also too late. Finally, Applejack’s hoof came down and Penumbra was blasted backwards like she’d been hit by a haymaker from a colossus, just barely missing clipping the dias as she flew out of immediate view.

“Oh, no, no, no, no, no…” Twilight heard her own voice saying, but the ‘hallucination’ throwing away all pretense of being a simple construct was something she shoved into a mental box for the time being; of immediate concern was Applejack charging after Penumbra with motes of golden light trailing her and her cutie mark blazing like a magical flare. She gathered her hooves beneath her and leaped, easily clearing the edge of the dias, and vanished from view as well.

Twilight barely had a moment to consider what to do next when there was another thunderclap and the small form of Penumbra came rocketing into view, her horn blazing like the noon sun, watching the ground with a disturbing degree of calm and detachment. She slowed down and alighted with about as much force as someone stepping off the last stair, and then the golden missile that Applejack had become came into view again.

Her mane had become strands of gold floating in midair, although her trademark hat was inexplicably still planted firmly on her head. The motes of light that had been streaming off of her before had now become coherent, resembling flowing robes, and the glow of Applejack’s irises had overtaken her entire eyes, the light flowing backwards like sputtering flames. As Twilight watched, barely conscious of her jaw dropping, some of the golden strands floated free and twisted into an approximation of a merchant’s balance that remained suspended in midair, moving along with Applejack when she hopped down from the dias, the floor shattering under her.

“No one who ain’t a friend, or acquaintance, or harmless gets near mah family,” Applejack said as she advanced on Penumbra again, each step blasting chips out of the stone floor.

“Exactly.” Penumbra stood her ground, looking especially tiny against the luminous Applejack. “I am not your friend, or even your acquaintance. I am not harmless. But…”

“But NOTHING.” Applejack stopped several lengths short of Penumbra. “Ah ain’t interested in listenin’ to any more of your ‘no malice’ nonsense. You sent some unnatural sorts to make mah friends and acquaintances sick. You said this is all yer plan, modified some. Was that just a lie?”

Penumbra looked at her directly. “We did not conceive…”

“...of the plan in malice. Yup, ya said that already.”

“And I intend to say it again. We did…”

“Ah don’t care. Now tell me: was what you said ‘bout this being all your plan a lie?”

Penumbra looked at her steadily before shaking her head. “You do not want this fight, Applejack,” she said firmly. “Your family does not need a headstone, they need a sister, and a granddaughter.”

Applejack’s glowing eyes narrowed. “Ah wonder why you won’t just say that it wasn’t a lie.”

“Because you’ve decided what that will mean.” Penumbra widened her stance, planting herself firmly. “And now you have another decision: listen, or learn.”

“Ah’m done listening to…”

“Listen to her.” Twilight was shouldered aside as Pinkie stepped forward moving to stand between Penumbra and Applejack.

Pinkie interposing herself between Applejack and her opponent seemed to give the farmpony pause, her expression becoming confused. “Pinkie, what in tarnation are you doing?”

“Saving my friend.”

“What, from a little…”

“...ancient mare who’s been doing this since before Equestria.” Pinkamena looked over her shoulder at Penumbra. “How long?”

“A few hundred years before the birth of Celestia.”

Applejack visibly stepped back at the reply, her expression morphing into one of wordless astonishment, and the reaction made them all take a step back from Penumbra (except Pinkie, who seemed to somehow expect this response). Twilight suspected that the amazement came from Applejack knowing from Honesty that Penumbra was telling the truth about her longevity, and for Twilight at least, the natural logical conclusion was frightening.

A quirk of unicorn aging was that as the body gradually decayed from age, the unicorn’s magical potential increased. While there were many prodigies who’d begun their careers early in life, there was a reason that Clover the Clever was in her late middle age when her most famous work was done, and why Starswirl the Bearded was said to get away from his ground-breaking magical experimentation by playing with his great-grandchildren. Increased power by longevity had been one of Twilight’s favorite theories to explain how Luna and Celestia could move celestial bodies at will, and why it was said that unicorns were able to pool their power to do the job before Celestia and Luna took it over.

What this amounted to was that a unicorn older than Luna or Celestia would be approximately on an alicorn’s level just by passive living, and Twilight had a feeling that Penumbra hadn’t just been sitting idly by for millennia.

Pinkamena gave Applejack one of her characteristic broad, happy smiles. “Maybe you could hear what she has to say before you try to hurt her? As a favor for your friend?”

“One sentence,” Applejack said, stomping the ground once as emphasis.

“I neither harmed your family, nor went to your home with malicious intentions.” Penumbra smiled. “I just wanted apple pancake batter.”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “Ah said, just one sentence. That second wasn’t even true.” She paused. “Not completely true.”

“The first sentence was the one that mattered. And that is correct, I had other motives. But those motives did not involve harm to your family.”

“Yeah.” Applejack frowned heavily at her. “Why not just head it off at the pass?”

“You wouldn’t have attacked me without being provoked,” Penumbra said. “Much less by partly bringing your Elemental power to bear. Demonstrating the futility of brute force makes a capture situation easier to manage and safer for all involved.”

“So ya used me.”

“And you were a marvelous and useful tool in my hooves. Yet it seems just to give you some recompense by way of apologizing for the necessity.” Penumbra tapped her chin with a hoof. “Do you know any card games?”

Applejack looked blankly at her. “What?”

“Card games,” Penumbra said. “Poker, blackjack, bridge, scum, single…?”

“Ah heard what you said. Don’t know what it has ta do with anything.”

“I would give you an opportunity to get something from me, and Father, that we’d give no one else: the whole truth, nothing concealed, nothing left out,” Penumbra said. “An apology, for exploiting you. But even feeling an obligation to do right by you is not a powerful enough motivation to simply give you something that precious.”

“I know ‘em all. Prefer ‘single’.”

Penumbra looked surprised. “Not poker?”

“Kid, if ya can walk up to my door and radiate harmless so hard that Granny pats ya on the head and sends you on your way with pancake batter, Ah don’t think you have a tell.”

“I have many, but that is very sound reasoning.” Penumbra turned to look over them all. “There will be no further violence, so please, enjoy your food and drink. If any of you want Granny Smith Apple’s mouth-watering pancakes, I can help operate a hotplate.”

One period of filling their plates later (everyone had taken at least one pancake), the two combatants took their position across yet another makeshift table Penumbra had summoned and laid out their cards. Dawn joined after pointing out that Penumbra owed her payback for the scarring, and the zebricorn abruptly offered a spot to Ember as recompense for taking advantage of her. Pinkie also asked to join, provoking a grin from Penumbra but nothing more.

Everyone took their hands and started the game. Dawn took an early lead, but then ran into doldrums for several turns as Applejack and Ember traded leads with Penumbra steadily depleting her cards.

“How were you shrugging off those hits?” Dawn said as Penumbra put a couple of cards on the pile.

“Have you ever tried popping a balloon by punching it?”

“So you were full of hot air?”

Penumbra smirked. “I magically nullified all relevant friction, and thus provided even less resistance than air. Then after impact, I projected a thin envelope of magic behind me to slow myself down to harmless velocity.”

“So not immune so much as ya cheated,” Ember said.

“I applied scientific principles of inertial, friction, and momentum to the situation,” Penumbra said evenly. “You are quite skilled with the sword you carry, Princess Ember, which means that you invested heavily in that ability. I invested heavily in learning, and enjoy that advantage.”

“Ya cheated by bein’ here in the first place,” Ember growled. “I’m still mad I fell for the innocent filly trick.”

“Without sustained physical proximity, it’s impossible to distinguish me from a genuine young mare.” Penumbra put down five of her cards and passed the turn. “Expecting yourself to be omniscient is grossly unfair to you, Princess.”

“So what was your plan if I wasn’t so stupid?”

Penumbra considered this as Applejack forced Dawn to draw two cards, compensated by her putting down three. “Discover how it feels to die.”

This drew all of their eyes to her. “...what?” Ember managed to say.

“Die,” Penumbra said, putting down another card. “Princess Thalia reasoned correctly that being trapped in the snowdrift represented an actual risk to my life. I believed that pretending to be in distress would make even the most compassionate dragon suspicious. The obvious solution was to be in genuine danger.”

Applejack put down her last three cards and looked pointedly at Penumbra. “An’ what was so important to ya that it was worth dying for?”

Penumbra blinked slowly at her, used her telekinesis to check the card stack, and then smiled broadly. “A better world, Lady Applejack. My better world was worth the risk.”

“Ain’t worth much to win if you can’t reap what ya sowed.”

“You cannot possibly get paradise without paying a steep price,” Penumbra said. “Gaining this nation as our base was the only way, and it had to be done quickly. So we rolled the dice, and it came up lines, and now we await word from our agent in the Everfree.”

“And who’s that?”

“Her name is Zambet,” Penumbra said, “and although she is a zambet, she is even less similar to her base kind than the Dread Empress is to an ordinary nightmare.”

“So all the things Nightmare said about zambets are…?”

“True,” Penumbra said. “Absolutely true. But Zambet is not a zambet. She is the Zambet. All zambets flow from her; she is the first, and all the others severely flawed imitations.”

“How does she…”

“How’s she different?” Applejack cut in, keeping her eyes firmly fixed on Penumbra.

“How is Winona different from a timber wolf, outside of the obvious?” Penumbra shrugged. “She has mastered her impulses, but no one understands why the Named are so much greater than their peers, not even the Named themselves. Suffice it to say, if you met a zambet and then Zambet, you would see nothing of the mad beast in her.”

“So she’s some sorta higher zambet?”

“That is accurate enough.”

“Then why send her off to the Everfree? Ain’t y’all completely focused on Queen Chrysalis?”

“Did one of the Brothers tell you that?”

“Ember here.”

“Really.” Penumbra looked askance at Ember. “Princess Ember, did you honestly believe that my focusing my concerns on the intentions and movements of Chrysalis' sister was because I’m frightened of Chrysalis?”

“Ya were awfully…”

“It isn’t fear, but a healthy amount of caution,” Penumbra said. “Being older than Celestia and Luna, I know both of them extremely well and can anticipate the general path of their thoughts and intentions. Trying to do the same with Chrysalis or any of the changeling queens has been a frustrating challenge. Their people practically worship them and remaining very aware of whoever lingers in their company is so ingrained into their race that it’s an unconscious impulse. In virtually all instances, they just enjoy watching their queens interact with them like they were peers rather than subjects, but a little zebracorn visiting often enough to understand any given queen would draw dangerous levels of attention.”

“And Chrysalis has an army.”

“Chrysalis has the army,” Penumbra said. “The largest military force anywhere. The soldiers that created a permanent Pax Equestria stretching over the entire known world. I don’t have the power to prevent them from marching in and deciding the results of the Game; Chrysalis only need a good reason, and I haven’t harmed a strand of her sister’s mane for that exact reason.”

“Chryssy still could,” Thalia said.

“Yes, and the airship your visitors flew in on has already passed beyond my grasp. But they didn’t have a royal on board, so they have no means to magically breach space and time to alert Chrysalis to whatever they were told or guessed.” Penumbra smiled a little. “There is still time to achieve our goals.”

The conversation continued to move along with Applejack asking all kinds of thoughtful questions, and Twilight was impressed despite herself. It’s not that much of a surprise, she scolded herself. “Her whole family projects simplicity in normal conversation, and then you come across them near a job and realize that they’re smarter than they allow others to believe.

“Yes.” Twilight turned her head to look at the copy of herself, speaking in her voice, with her inflections, only visible to her. “I did not really realize it at first; those were the days when I was not sure why Celestia had sent her best student to a backwater to supervise the celebration. It is true that the purpose of the thing was revealed to me by events--Nightmare’s masquerade of the evil moon goddess returned to destroy the world, and attuning myself to the Element of Magic--and yet I cannot help but wonder: did she sense it even then, in some tiny corner of her mind?”

Twilight looked at herself, and herself looked back at her, before smiling a little. “My panic at Applejack trying to fight Penumbra removed all doubt that I am not what you believed me to be, or what I pretended to be. Let us withdraw so that Penumbra does not draw any dangerous conclusions.”

Author's Note

I know, it's been a long haul. It's strange that sometimes, the hardest part about finishing a chapter is restraining your impulse to keep going, and going, and going.

Feedback is much appreciated and eagerly accepted. Please.

I plan for the next part of this POV to be the last and then, we move on to the third leg of the stool. I'm also considering taking an axe to this story at the climax and making it into two stories, one to cover the point leading up to the climax, and a second to act as the resolution to the conflict and an introduction to a sequel that's been in my head since forever. Feedback on this idea is welcome and eagerly accepted as well.

Twilight: Nor'Easter VIII

When they had walked far enough that Twilight was sure she couldn’t be overheard, she fixed the hallucination with what she hoped was a stern look.

“Yes, Nightmare meddled as Dawn suspected,” the hallucination said. “It is not difficult for a mneumonician of exceeding skill to deliberately create the visual and auditory hallucination normally attending mental illness and then meld the fragment of consciousness into memory. I am not a spirit, or some ally of Nightmare, or some kind of spell fragment she left behind. The reason I seem self-aware and to think independently of you is that like anyone else, you have never experienced the phenomenon of the thoughts generated by talking to yourself being audibly articulated.”

Twilight blinked several times. “So you’re a mental illness.”

“No more than the thoughts you have when you talk to yourself are the result of mental illness,” she said. ”I am entirely natural; Nightmare’s work was to transform internal thoughts into speech audible in your mind’s ear.”

Twilight frowned again. “What possible purpose could that serve?”

“Logic would suggest that since transferring the whole essence of her understanding of the powers she was giving you required extremely exotic measures, bridging the gap between that understanding and your conscious mind would require similar measure, inasmuch as she was doing whatever she could to avoid damaging you.”

Twilight nodded, thinking. “That makes sense, and it tracks with your--well, my--ability to read those runes.”

“And the form of the reading,” Twilight said. “Your method of learning to read something that has no explicit and direct translation to Equuas has always been to…”

“...learn the literal meaning, and then derive the colloquial.” Twilight sighed. “So assuming this is all true, you represent a resource I can’t access if I get rid of you.”

“That would logically follow from the previous conclusion.”

“Alright, so what can you tell me?” Twilight realized something and held up her hoof to forestall the reply. “If you’re just part of me, how can you panic?”

Twilight smirked. “There are no friendship problems, what shall I do?”

Twilight actually blushed a little. “Point taken. But before we continue, I think I need a way to address you.”

“Muninn.”

“Muninn? Why?”

“The name literally means ‘mind,’ and since I am your mind speaking to you, it’s the most appropriate name to give me.”

“Good enough. So, when you were panicking, you were reacting to knowledge you have about Penumbra in the way I would if I had access to that knowledge.”

“Yes.”

“What knowledge is that?”

“That with all the awesome power of the Element of Honesty, a power far greater than Applejack realizes, Penumbra could have struck her dead with a word,” Muninn said. “Which means that Penumbra and her father have been at work here longer than Ember realizes. Because according to the knowledge that Nightmare infused into you, Celestia could not do it. Luna could not, nor could fundamental beings like Order and Discord. But Chrysalis could do it despite having substantially less pure magical power than others.”

“Why?”

“Because over a thousand years, Scarabi has become fundamentally tied into the changeling queens. It has become their desme, the heart of their power, giving them every possible advantage against an adversary.”

“Penumbra and her father have done something like that to this place.”

“Yes.”

Twilight thought. “She lied about how she neutralized the Element of Laughter.”

“Yes. It does not work here because Penumbra, or her father, or both wish it to be so.”

“I wonder if she was lying about her motives for manipulating that sadistic construct into cutting up Pinkie.”

“That is difficult to determine,” Muninn said. “The claim is far from implausible, because what the sadist did to Dawn would have caused debilitating pain requiring long-term care to recover from.”

“Except Green Leaf’s salve turned weeks of recovery into minutes,” Twilight said, “something impossible to anticipate unless Penumbra was aware of the effects of Green Leaf’s novel new science.” She sat with this a moment. “So it’s reasonable to assume that she can suppress all of our Elements while we’re here.”

“That is the most reasonable interpretation of the facts before us.”

“Well knowing how bucked we are, as Dawn would put it, is a good starting point at least.

“Bear in mind that this is all supposition,” Muninn said. “Every part logically follows from observations, but there is no way to test those observations.”

“Starting from the assumption that you know nothing can only get you so far,” Twilight said. “But all of this sidesteps two of the most important questions.”

“What is the nature of the being she calls ‘Father’...”

“...and why do they want us to stay here?” Twilight looked at the audiovisual representation of her mind. “There’s something they gain from us being here, doing nothing in particular.”

“There’s somewhere we could be, and something we could be doing, that they don’t want us to do and don’t want us to go.” Muninn was silent for a moment, looking contemplative. “The best and most cautious strategy is to assign your opposition the best version of your own abilities, and assume they know everything that you do.”

“Caution appears to be their modus operandi,” Twilight said. “Feeding us and making us comfortable. Offering us idle diversions. Pushing Applejack’s buttons so she would provide an object lesson about the futility of fighting, and yet not harming her in doing so. Simultaneously incentivizing us not to do anything yet, while subtly threatening consequences if we try to do something.”

“A proactive but subtle strategy.” Muninn paused again. “It occurs to me…”

“...that if this is how they behave when they’re on a time limit, they must be very dangerous when they have as much time as they need.” Twilight nodded. “Speaking of time, as useful as this was, I think Penumbra is going to notice that I wandered off to a corner out of earshot and am having a lively conversation with thin air, especially for a notable length of time.”

“Yes,” Muninn agreed. “I am your own mind so can be consulted at any time, though I suggest doing so silently.”

“At least Penumbra hasn’t demonstrated the ability to read thoughts like the sadist could.”

“An unexpected boon.”

The party Twilight returned to was much more subdued than the one she’d left. Applejack was looking a little stunned, Thalia and Ember both had expressions that would have been politely neutral to anyone unused to being among nobility, where very careful control was routine; Twilight picked up a touch of disbelief in both. The rest were various flavors of concerned or skeptical; Pinkamena was being Pinkie, probably the only disguise no amount of magic or knowledge could penetrate.

“Sorry, did I…?”

“Later, sis,” Dawn said. “Apparently, we’re about to receive a visitor.”

“A projection,” Penumbra corrected her, “which you understand just as well as Twilight.”

Dawn rolled her eyes. “You said they could talk to us, so it’s a visitor.”

“He can, but you will deeply regret giving any indication of your presence.” Penumbra looked at Dawn with an expression of solemn severity that did not belong on a face that young. “Not because of what I will do to you, or what Father will, but the person in the projection rune-circle will do on his end.”

“And what…”

“Kill a considerable number of ponies before he’s stopped.” Penumbra looked at Twilight. “That being said, Princess, what follows is something that you will want to see.”

“Why?”

“Because up until now, the evil that you have seen is Tharalax; you have no personal knowledge of the rest. I and Father have also claimed benevolent intentions, but talk is air without action.” She smiled a little. “And perhaps with the perspective of actually seeing Zambet at work, you will understand her a little better, and be better prepared for encountering her.”

“And?” Applejack said.

“And you will see,” Penumbra said evenly. “Father, would you like to deal with him or shall I?”

“YOU ARE CONFINED TO A PHYSICAL FORM, CHILD.”

“Granted, but it is… incautious to assume that he’s too stupid to tell the difference.”

“SOME DICE MUST BE THROWN. AND DO NOT FORGET HIS ARROGANCE AND HIS PREDILECTION TO ASSUME THAT ZAMBET’S COMPETENCE IS MERE SHOW. ANY INCONSISTENCIES WILL BE SMOOTHED AWAY IN HIS MIND BY HIS DELUSIONS.”

“Hubris has always been the fatal flaw of the emperors.” Penumbra bowed her head slightly in the direction of the dias. “Thank you, pater.”

“YOU ARE WELCOME DEAR” ‘Father’ said with a tone of affection. “WILL YOU BE INVITING ZAMBET OVER?”

“This is the best place to position her, although the Waste might be better.” Penumbra made a shooing gesture. “The projection should appear at any...”

“Finally.” Even Penumra was visibly startled as a rasping, unctous voice slithered out of thin air, seeming to come from just in front of the dias. “Are you certain that it will…”

“Even if I was not, I would say I was if only to enjoy your impotent rage.” The second voice was feminine cultured, and pleasant with the barest hint of musical lilt Twilight recognized as characteristic of mares who’d been put through the finishing schools exclusive to the very oldest-money nobility. It was how she’d worked out, before it was made more obvious by later encounters, that Fleur de Lis was not at all the shallow trophy of Fancy Pants that she sometimes masqueraded as in public. “But I know this will ride the lei current to all of its concentrations, thanks mostly to Lashaal giving good service at long last.”

“Tha...” Rarity gaped in Penumbra’s direction, looking visibly shocked at what was clearly the voice of Zambet, before all sound from her direction ceased completely, accompanied by Penumbra fixing her with a look that made Rarity wilt and subside.

“Nightmare spoke of the zambets as independent creatures,” Muninn commented, “so that polished accent isn’t her just grabbing some kind of puppet, she is actually speaking in an accent that is not only local to a single city, but to a specific social class in a specific district of that city.”

“Imitation?” Twilight thought in the direction of her mind made manifest.

“It’s too perfect and fluid to be imitation,” Muninn said. “She’s duplicating her chosen dialect exactly, as if she was taught it the way any other debutante would be. As if she’s a native.”

“A predator who, at least by accent, can blend in perfectly among the most powerful nobility in the capital city.”

“Highly eccentric as well,” Muninn said. “The flatter, more ordinary nobility accent or the low-affectation accent common to the entire Canterlot precinct would make it easy for her to go where she desired and blend in as a native. Yet she chose to learn how to speak like the extreme minority of upper-class Canterlot society.”

“For Void’s sake, just get on with it.” Even when growling out of frustration, Zambet retained the affectations of her chosen accent: the slight fade of the ‘h’ in ‘with’, the ‘o’ in ‘for’ drawn out very, very slightly more than the precise annunciation of the more common nobility.

“You don’t like me and I don’t like you…”

“...although it’s more accurate to say that you hate me and I regard you with utter contempt, but continue…”

“So I’m making sure that you didn’t include any… surprises.”

“The only surprise will be mine when you, as the locals put it, do your bucking job.”

The bickering between the two seemed… odd to Twilight. Even in private, without the need to keep up appearances and full of enough drink to be bolder than wise, Twilight had never heard the nobility bicker with her mother. Disagree strongly, but the puerile sniping back and forth just didn’t happen in Celestia’s presence. Well, except between the sisters but… this bickering also doesn’t seem like the way siblings fight.

“Sotto Voce, your prize is here!” Canceros shouted. ”I do not know what it is, and I do not care! You will give me my due, for I have done my part!”

There was a pause and then, with the very slightest touch of uncertainty, he continued. “And the confirmation?”

“YOU HAVE NO PATIENCE, PAPER EMPEROR.” Twilight twitched at the sudden floor-rumbling voice as Penumbra’s father used, now coming from the seeming filly. “FOR THIS ENTERPRISE TO SUCCEED, PATIENCE AND BALANCE IS REQUIRED. THIS IS WHY YOU ARE ENTRUSTED ONLY TO TORMENT THE KINE AND CARRY A MESSAGE.”

“Kine?” she asked herself.

“Antiquated term for a herd food animal, although not used on this world,” Muninn supplied. “It seems that it’s how Canceros sees ponies if Penumbra used the term in speaking to him.”

“THIS IS THE CHAMBER OF THE VAUNTED TREE OF THE ELEMENTS, IS IT?”

Twilight blinked and furrowed her brow at what Penumbra was saying, and she spied the same confused look on her friends.

“As you say, Lord Voce.” Penumbra’s eyes shifted to them and their looks of confusion as Zambet replied, looking mildly confused but then seeming to understand.

“YOU HAVE DONE WELL TO DIMINISH IT, ZAMBET. YOUR PRICE WAS DEAR, BUT WISELY SPENT.” Penumbra’s horn glowed and suddenly, as if they were looking through a window, the image of an abandoned but still glorious chamber appeared in front of the dias.

What tiles that had survived what Twilight was sure was hundreds of years were polished white and seemed to glow silver in the radiance of the Tree of Harmony. A raised wall around the Tree implied a pool or fountain had once surrounded it, and on the walls were the cracked and aging remains of various murals depicting events that Twilight recognized from Equestrian history--Starswirl the Bearded confronting three sirens, the binding of Tirek, and towards the edge of the magical window, what appeared to be a black unicorn turning into smoke, the only reference that Twilight didn’t recognize.

The Tree itself looked like a weeping willow made of glowing silver with strange growths in the branches that looked like the outlines of their Elements. It was clearly blindingly bright normally, but the light was dimmed and flickering, some kind of construct that looked all the world like it had been made from glass panes streaked with coal soot stretching over it with the precisely-engineered appearance of a geodesic dome.

“AND YOU HAVE DONE AS YOU AGREED, CANCEROS,” Penumbra continued. “IF NOT FOR YOUR IDIOCY IN COMMISSIONING VORKA TO ALTER THE SICKNESS, YOU WOULD WARRANT YOUR PAY IN FULL.”

Canceros had the odd appearance of an upright-standing corpse that had been mostly mummified, his features completely flat, noseless, and with holes in his head where glowing green spheres of light floated like irises. His mouth was rimmed with what looked like crudely-applied tar and was constantly gaping open, showing off a triple-row of serrated teeth. What appeared to be a poncho of sackcloth hung on his emaciated frame and what ‘hands’ he had appeared to be made entirely of extremely long and spindly fingers. “I have done as I agreed!” He said in a tone of offended dignity, his mouth opening and closing in time with his words but in the way of a puppet, the rest of his face remaining frozen and showing no sign of forming the words he was speaking. “The sun princess is incoherent, Ponyville drowns in waves of constructs, and we bleed the freaks for no particular cost! And you have the location of your prize.”

“I CANNOT DECIDE WHETHER YOU ARE IN EARNEST, A LIAR SO CONVINCED OF HIS WORDS THAT HE DOES NOT KNOW THEM AS LIES, OR AN IMCIBILE OF THE HIGHEST ORDER.” Penumbra visibly rolled her eyes and very obviously mouthed “idiot” before she sighed heavily. “AND YET THE ONLY THING YOU WERE REQUIRED TO DO IS BE MY CANARY IN A COAL MINE. YOU HAVE SHOWN ME THE DANGER, AND MY EYES BEHOLD THEIR PRIZE.”

“Then you see where I have shown you your prize?”

“YES, I SEE WHERE MY PRIZE IS AND WHERE IT MIGHT BE COLLECTED.”

“Good, now do as you vowed. Give me these colorful herd animals for my pleasure and amusement, and the pleasure and amusement of my own.”

“...did I just hear that right?” Twilight merntally asked herself, rocking back on her hooves a little. “Did he just say that Penumbra and her father promised to give us to him as his playthings?”

“You heard that right,” Muninn confirmed as they watched Penumbra going back and forth with Canceros, the zebracorn smugly informing him that he’d have to actually claim his prize, and then looking increasingly exasperated as Canceros whined, actually whined, about this. “But keep listening. I obviously cannot have feelings but there appears to be some lawyering involved with the promise.”

“Lawyer…?” Twilight stopped as Canceros’ complaining finally turned into an accusation of betrayal and with a sudden grin, Penumbra delivered a grandiose and extremely hammy villainous rant about being accused of betrayal, and Twilight could see that the visible shock among her friends at Canceros mentioning what he had been promised was turning to repressed snickers at Penumbra grandstanding and clearly enjoying every moment. “I think you’re right.”

“Of course you do.”

It was at this moment that Zambet moved forward, smirking as she reminded Canceros of the exact wording of what Penumbra and her father had promised (confirming Muninn’s speculation) and Twilight could finally see her clearly.

She was… shockingly ordinary. Somehow, it wasn’t any surprise that she’d adopted a pony shape to go with her use of a pony accent but the shape she’d gone with was a bundle of all the average traits among the nobility. Slim carriage, but not enough that anyone would take notice. Good care of her mane and grooming, without the hundreds of tiny accents that would make natural prettiness into striking beauty. Fit without being formed, a horn average in all respects, the expected adornments going no further than the bare minimum social expectation. The only thing that stood out was that her eyes did not fit her shape. The subtle brightness of life was cold and sharp, like her eyes had been cut from gemstones, and her irises smoldered with amethyst flames--with scarlet red pupils.

And she was leering with vicious, sadistic pleasure in the direction of Canceros as she added “to deliver them was never vowed.”

“Her eyes look like objects,” Muninn observed, “and yet her features are as expressive as any living pony’s would be. I speculate that we’re seeing the rest of the disguise that she began with a foundation of the accent.”

“But that’s…”

“...unthinkable,” Muninn finished. “A vicious creature, servant of Penumbra and her father, strolling about Canterlot. But to what end?”

“Espionage,” Twilight concluded, “like the spying that the changelings were constantly doing.”

“That is a high probability, and yet there is a subtle variation that is higher.”

“...monitoring.”

“Yes. She waited, watched, and then brought word. But of what? It seems that is the all-consuming question.”

“The return of Aunt Luna from her moon.”

“That’s by far the most plausible explanation. We can put aside for the moment why father and daughter would employ her that way, although given that Penumbra has stated in this very conversation that her services were very expensive, it’s difficult to imagine that it was for something so… pedestrian.”

“...slaying a demigoddess.” The statement from Zambet seized Twilight’s attention immediately. “By overcoming the greatest terror of the atermors. By grasping your payment in an iron fist and claiming it for your own.”

“YOU LIE TO YOURSELF AND YOUR OWN, CANCEROS,” Penumbra said, and while Twilight had been interacting with Munninn, the zebricorn had taken to levitating a black pawn in her telekinesis, looking idly at it, a smile of vicious pleasure edging over her face as it twirled and tumbled. “FOR EVEN NOW THE KINE GRIND YOUR LEGIONS TO DUST AT PONYVILLE… AND THE SUN PRINCESS WALKS AGAIN. LAY LOW HER PRIDE, SLAY HER, AND YOU WILL RECEIVE THE REGARD YOU HAVE ALWAYS LUSTED FOR.”

“Not… incoherent…” Cancerous’ voice sounded distant and vacant, like he was lost in thought even as he spoke.

“INDEED.” The vicious pleasure eased a little and Penumbra shook her head with a barely-audible sigh that Twilight doubted would carry through the connection.

“YOU ARE A FOOL, CANCEROS.” And suddenly, ‘Father’ was in the chamber, speaking in his own earth-shaking voice. “BUT EVEN YOU MUST HAVE REALIZED THAT IF I DID NOT SLAY YOU IN THIS PLACE, CELESTIA WOULD. GOOD-BYE, CANCEROS.”

“Bye-bye Mister Canceros,” Penumbra added in a girlish falsetto, making a gesture at the image and as if her hoof was brushing it out of existence, it disintegrated into motes of light and drifted away. “And when it’s over, Zambet, please meet us at the Glass Waste. You know the place, I expect?”

“Yes,” Zambet’s cultured voice replied out of thin air. “I’ve invited the Sisters there, one less explicitly than the other. I expect that Luna will be bringing Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash with her, along with the changeling ambassador to the Provinces and Einspithiana. Celestia will certainly be accompanied by Bellatrix Lulamoon, Shining Armor, Chidinida, and the two Honor Guards Chrysalis assigned to her daughter. Possibly others as well; time will tell.”

“Contingencies?”

“One, unfortunately. I had to expend the other due to an anomaly so as to be able to maintain the timetable. To our benefit, however, I now know what form Kindness and Loyalty take when directed against an enemy.”

“I should like to hear more when you arrive.”

“I should like to tell you more when I arrive.” Zambet’s voice sounded like she was smiling. “Did you arrange for this little show, Milady Umbra?”

Penumbra smiled as well. “I can’t take any credit for the arrangement, although I anticipated that it stood a high chance of occurring. Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m entertaining guests. Traditional obligations of hospitality command me to see to them.”

“Oh, did Princess Ember finally see sense?”

“Not exactly.” Penumbra looked at Ember. “But she is among the guests to whom I need to attend. At the Glass Waste, when time and circumstances permit.”

“At the Glass Waste, when time and circumstances permit,” Zambet repeated as Penumbra turned and looked at all of them.

“I took the liberty of procuring the proper accoutrements for extreme cold while I was gathering victuals,” she told them. “Even for you, Princess Ember. I recommend you all get a good meal in you before we set out.”

“‘Scuse me, but Ah don’t think we’re going anywhere till you tell us what the hay that was,” Applejack said. “Ya said it was something we would see, an’ that there was a purpose, and that it would show you two ain’t just all talk, and a whole bunch of other malarkey. Instead, it just seemed to be you taunting this ‘Canceros’, talking about a prize, and showing us what yer ‘Zambet’ friend looks like.”

Penumbra looked at her for several seconds, although there was something vacant in her expression as if she wasn’t really seeing Applejack, before she closed her eyes and grimaced. “Well, horseapples,” she sighed.

“YOU DID FORGET TO…”

“Yes, I did.” She sighed again. “We really do have to…”

“IT IS NOT NECESSARY TO TRAVEL IN AN ORDINARY FASHION WITH THEM.”

“I’m not terribly comfortable with moving them through the Void, and the book can only interpret magic that I can see, so Princess Tettidora’s experiments with runic-stabilized point-to-point teleportation are unavailable.”

“VERY WELL. SO GIVEN THOSE LIMITATIONS, WHAT WILL YOU DO PENUMBRA?”

Penumbra hesitated a moment before tilting her head back as far as she could, as if ‘Father’ was looming above her. “It can’t be done over, so it must be done right.”

“GOOD GIRL” Despite the overwhelming presence of his voice, despite his alien nature, ‘Father’ sounded like exactly that as he said the words. “I WILL WAIT FOR YOU THERE.”

“I’ll be there soon.” Penumbra turned to them. “I’m going to give you the clipped notes to give you some idea, and then explain the rest as we travel. Those who aren’t comfortable with this arrangement will remain here, because I have a timetable.”

“You’d just… let us go,” Rarity said, “just like that?”

“Of course she will,” Dawn said, glaring at Penumbra. “She’d love to leave the Elements out of the equation. That’s why Flutters and Dashie got mentioned, so you know that you need to be there too to round out the six. That was some pretty ham-hoofed manipulation, kid.”

“Sometimes it’s important that a message be clearly stated.”

“Well, I’m staying here,” Ember said, crossing her arms.

“In which case, I’ll dismantle the desme structures as we leave, and restore your subjects’ wills to themselves,” Penumbra said without missing a beat. “I’m sure you can see to the freedom and care of your father without my interference.”

“Lemme guess… not useful to you anymore?”

“Still useful, but no longer needful,” Penumbra said. “So unless you plan to reconsider, I have a summary to convey and an expedition to prepare.”

“Fat chance of that.”

“Splendid.” Penumbra looked at Thalia. “What is *your* preference, Ambassador das Pupa?”

“It you’re dismantling the magic that’s interfering with direct communication with my sister, I’d be a fool not to linger.”

“Then I suppose I’ll next see you arrayed for battle, at Queen Chrysalis’ side.” Penumbra nodded a couple times. “Good, it’s where you belong.”

Thalia grinned. “What are you talking about? I’m a fantastic ambassador.”

“Your hooves are,” Penumbra said, grinning right back. “Good fortune to you, Thalia das Pupa.”

“I’d say the same to you, if I knew what you were up to.”

“As Rarity could explain to you--in soul-destroying detail, no doubt--we mares rather like pretty things,” Penumbra said, smirking just a little now. “It just so happens that I’ve got my heart set on a very particular... crystal.”

Author's Note

Another piece of the puzzle, taking a while to complete because I didn't want to just hit rewind and repeat; you'll see what I'm referring to as you read. I hope people enjoy, and hope harder that they comment. :)

Next up, moving the Luna side of the equation and then the moment(s) that you've all been waiting for, me most of all.

Luna: For the Night is Dark I

Tending to an entire city, one griffin at a time, was by far the most exhausting task Luna would remember having taken on. Spite had disappeared shortly after they’d begun, saying that since she was useless at tending to the sick and wounded, she could at least try to track Zambet. On the other hoof, Kyra seemed to have an inexhaustible reserve of energy to work with, and when her contingent arrived with the strange artifact they used to carry their camp, Luna was finally able to find someplace to lay down.

Throughout the entire process, Fluttershy had remained peacefully slumbering--even, Luna noted with concern, in the midst of enough noise and commotion to awaken anyone sleeping normally. But there had been people to help that were starving, emaciated, and badly drained and Fluttershy did not appear to be in any danger.

“I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything like this,” Kyra said as she stepped around the door frame and into the cool, dim room that housed the pegasus. “Deep, regenerative sleep certainly, but this is some kind of compulsion. Yet there’s none of the disruption in her emotional state that compelled sleep causes.”

“I haven’t been able to find anything magical keeping her this way,” Luna said. “Zambet was entirely truthful in that: she doesn’t appear to have harmed Fluttershy despite threatening to carry her into the Void as casually as if she was suggesting that she take Kindness out for a treat.”

“I imagine that’s why her kind are called ‘Evils’,” Kyra said. “I take it you noticed the same oddity about how she spoke that I did?”

“The noble accent?”

Kyra gave her a sidelong glance. “Noble, yes, but something more specific.”

Luna returned the look. “The Pillars accent. Or, if you prefer, palatial aristocratic derived. I’ve also heard it called ‘the royal tongue’.”

“Are you not concerned that an evil shapeshifter can imitate it so…”

“It’s not imitation,” Luna interrupted. “The training involves vocal exercises to mold the physical form of the vocal apparatus. It also involves rote memorization, turning the placement of the ‘lazy’ letters into a kind of muscle memory. The entire point is that to use it, you must have been trained to use it. Her placement was smooth and unconscious; she underwent the training.”

“And that doesn’t worry you?”

“I haven’t had the time to consider the various dangers,” Luna said. “Events haven’t allowed for much contemplation. However, her having that accent answers the question of how Twilight’s nursery was recreated so exactly. It doesn’t answer why, but her being able to access the palace without anyone paying her any mind explains how it was done.”

“And raises another,” Kyra said. “Why spend so much time being unnoticed within easy reach of yourself and Celestia, and do nothing? She’s strong enough that being thrashed by an Element and one of Vorka’s pets appeared to have done her no harm, and while she claims that Fluttershy avoided harming her while blasting an entire city with her Element, I’m highly dubious.”

“She is an exceptionally gentle soul,” Luna pointed out.

“She’s an exceptionally gentle soul who keeps omnivores and carnivores well-fed and healthy,” Kyra said. “The unfeeling necessity of the natural order didn’t traumatize her before the Guardian’s rampage forced her to step up to her responsibilities in the aftermath, so I find it hard to believe that she’d treat an Evil nibbling on the life force of an entire city with a gentle touch.”

It was, Luna had to admit to herself, an extremely good point. “So how did Zambet escape being in the epicenter of a blast that accidentally punted the two of us hundreds of meters and rang the bells of a creature who treated her jaw being shattered by Applejack with aplomb?”

“Neither of the possibilities I can think of are very pleasant,” Kyra said grimly. “Either Zambet is so powerful that being blasted by an Element of Harmony didn’t bother her, or she had some way to compel Fluttershy to restrain her Element.”

Luna looked at her, and then at the slumbering Fluttershy. “It seems obvious which of those it is,” she said. “Even though neither of us can sense any compulsion magic keeping her asleep, neither of us understand Zambet either, or exactly how Einspithiana’s powers work.”

“But we’ve examined her in every way we can,” Kyra said. “Magically, physically, even her dreams. There’s nothing.”

“No,” Luna said. “There’s one thing I didn’t try, because Zambet was looming over me and I didn't think it wise. I could feel the radiance of her dreams, but didn’t delve into them to examine them in detail. The compulsion may be extremely subtle; the only way to spot it is within.”

“I could pull my guards off of…”

“No,” Luna said. “Continue to help the griffons. If you’ll stand by me, I’ll be safe enough.”

“Of course I will, Your Highness.”

“Thank you.” Luna lay her head down and closed her eyes. “Despite how deeply I may appear to be sleeping, I can be awoken with relative ease. Do so if you think the situation warrants it.”

After the Elements had shoved Nacht into a tiny corner of her awareness, and the seemingly infinite layers of complications that her return caused had been cleared up, Luna had slipped away to Ponyville to thank each of the Bearers in person. She hadn’t needed to be saved, but the six had shown that they were equal to the burden of protecting Equestria, gratitude was the least she could offer them. The meetings were pleasant, and brief… except for one.

The resemblance in disposition and appearance between Fluttershy and Queen Amaryss was physically painful. They were both soft-spoken, painfully shy, effortlessly gracious and kind, and both had something that weighed them down. Fluttershy was burdened by her fear keeping her isolated and quite lonely, Amaryss by the responsibility of commanding six mares of overwhelming will and presence outside the council chamber.

And both were strong in their way, despite their shyness. Fluttershy resonated with animals in a way Luna had rarely seen, understanding them as if they were fellow ponies, and exercising a presence of quiet and steely authority that made predators live peacefully with their prey.

Amaryss was made of silk and steel under the mask of anxiety, unafraid to look her princesses in the eye and tell them that they would eventually have cause to weep for failing to use their awesome power to halt the events that led to Celestia’s desperate decision. Luna had not seen it herself, but Celestia had made it quite clear that Amaryss had been exactly right.

Naturally, her own discomfort around Fluttershy just drove the poor pony to feel even more anxious, and the conversation was almost completely carried on by Luna. She’d honestly felt an urge to give Fluttershy a hug but after seeing Kindness trembling at the possibility of a friendly pat on the shoulder, she’d ended up making very awkward goodbyes and escaped to indulge intellectual topics with Twilight.

With that shyness and discomfort around others (although that aspect of her personality had been dramatically diminished by the trauma of the Guardian) It had always surprised Luna when she peeked in on Fluttershy that the pegasus was utterly at peace when asleep. Dreams were Fluttershy’s refuge, a haven of tranquility and peace where Angel was a nurturing giant instead of a spoiled and cruel pygmy

Even so, finding the dream Fluttershy sharing a companionable cup of tea with Zambet, both of whose halves were living pony, made her stop and stare.

“Good afternoon, Princess,” the fully-alive Zambet said. “Please sit; Lady Fluttershy has a good taste for tea.”

Luna stood there, staring. “How… how are you doing this?”

“Do you really need her to state the obvious?” The specter smirked. “That if I can poke and prod at your mind and recall memories of the past against your will, I can do it with anyone?”

“You’re referring to yourself in the third person. Partly.”

“For the simple reason that the momentary sliver of my presence sitting at tea in the butterfly’s dream is not me,” Zambet stated. “She is speaking, but my presence is not me. Please sit.”

“It’s good tea, princess,” Fluttershy’s dream-self said. “Lemon peel and prickly pear zest, sweetened with date.”

Luna stifled her reaction to the dream Fluttershy casually naming the extremely exotic Saddle Arabian blend that Amaryss had enjoyed, and looked at her. “You’ve actually tried it before?”

Fluttershy smiled with her distinctive slightly-hiding-her-face-behind-her-mane shy smile. “Lord Fancy Pants and Lady di Lis served it at a dress showing that Rarity brought me to, as a model.”

Luna vaguely remembered her sister mentioning Fluttershy’s brief time being a model for her dressmaker friend, detailed by one of Twilight’s various reports. “That was kind of them.”

“Oh, yes Princess,” Fluttershy agreed, beaming. “They are very kind.”

The projection replying to a remark about the past with a switch to present tense was a reassuring one: it was definitely Fluttershy, and she was somehow lucid within the dream. Luna caused the fabric of the dream to replicate one of the comfortable dining chairs that furnished the castle, and sat. “You keep some strange company.”

Fluttershy took a sip of the tea. “It’s better than having an uninvited guest.”

“Is she uninvited?”

“She was.” Fluttershy gestured towards the amused-looking fragment of Zambet. “And she’s a clothespin.”

Luna blinked and looked at the fragment. “A clothespin.” A moment later, it came to her. “She’s here to pin the dream in place.”

“She is,” the fragment said. “Curious that the butterfly tolerates her, but perhaps she wishes to remain in the dream for the moment. I expect you’ll be rid of her?”

“So long as I have a conduit to you, I would ask you something.”

“And I would answer something.”

“Why the long charade?”

The fragment was silent for several moments. “That seems a curious thing to ask. But it seems natural that you’d recognize my affected accent and come to many correct conclusions.”

“You’ve lived in Canterlot.”

“Yes.”

“For some time.”

“Yes.”

“My sister is quite busy but I doubt that murders would have been overlooked, so you must have chosen not to kill ponies for your own amusement.”

“Oh my,” Zambet said through her fragment dryly. “It is almost as if I have a modicum of self-control. It is as if I can entirely enclose a city and feast on all who live there--I’m sure Einspithiana explained the dome to you--and yet so spread the drain that they’ll all recover shortly.”

“And I made you let them go.”

“You did, little butterfly,” Zambet said, “and yet I had all but finished my meal by the time you came entirely to yourself. I recognize your achievement; it is more than an extraordinary mortal has done to me in hundreds of years. But it was not as great an achievement as you might think.”

“My name is Fluttershy,” Fluttershy said with more firmness than Luna had ever heard from her.

“I know,” Zambet said, “and I am sorry.” The fragment turned her head to Luna. “I did no lasting harm to anyone in Equestria while I was in Canterlot, and so avoided Celestia obliterating me.”

“I know, and I am sorry?” Luna mentally set the odd reply aside for later. “What purpose did it serve? Espionage? Sabotage?”

“Research. Research, and pleasure.”

Luna looked askance at her. “Pleasure.”

The fragment shrugged. “I am unwholesomely powerful and have a highly educated mind. Few things challenge me; even fewer amuse me. Speaking with the Pillars accent was something beyond me, a challenge to overcome, and I overcame it. Naturally, mingling with excellent minds and sampling the rarest and finest pleasures Equestria has to offer was a substantial bonus.”

“And it gave you a chance to understand Equestria,” Fluttershy said. “Who rules it, who lives in it, the buttons to press and the strings to pull.”

The fragment smirked. “How else would I know that needling you over the Element of Loyalty’s choice in mates would produce a reaction? I was in earnest, mind you, but there was no reason to speak of it except as a tool.”

Luna looked at the fragment a moment. “Evolutionary fitness?”

“Yes.”

Luna snorted. “Naturally. I take it you were responsible for helping Vorka re-create Twilight’s nursery?”

“After it had been revealed to Celestia, examining it in detail was a simple matter. She was… distracted for a time.”

“To what end?”

The fragment shrugged again. “Neither I nor Vorka were told, I assume so that if Vorka was cornered, he would throw any enemies off track with a stream of pet theories. I simply do not need to know, and being highly compensated, I’m not very curious.”

Compensated. “You’re a mercenary.” It explained a great many things: why Zambet would play all sorts of games to amuse herself, why she would seek idle diversion in Canterlot, why she openly bickered with and threatened Vorka, and why she seemed to have no personal loyalty to her employer.”

“Precisely.” An ornate silver pocket watch simply popped into existence in front of her fragment, and she looked at it for a moment, long enough that Luna could see that it was labeled in 24-hour time, and had five hands. “Speaking of such, I must begin the next task I’m being paid to do. Do whatever you wish with the fragment; I find it curious that both yourself and the butterfly has tolerated it so long.”

And then the fragment went limp and its eyes became glassy and dead, looking disturbingly corpse-like. Luna used a hoof to shove it out of the chair and seated herself across from Fluttershy. “Hello, Fluttershy.”

Fluttershy smiled to her and took another sip of tea. “Hello Luna.”

Luna arched an eyebrow at being addressed simply by name. “No honorifics?”

“We are too old of friends to stand on ceremony.” The dream projection of Fluttershy paused. “And despite what the sliver of herself that Zambet left behind called me, I am not Fluttershy. I’m just… borrowing her, for a time.”

Luna considered that. It had rarely happened in the past, but the six Elements had occasionally manifested a distinct awareness apart from their Bearer and all had been various types of pleasant to her when she peeked in on their Bearer’s dreams. “Kindness.”

“Apoptosis,” the manifest presence of the Element corrected her gently. “Entwined with my chosen, I am Apoptosis, the death from which life springs.”

“Apoptosis then,” Luna agreed, just barely preventing herself from giving the manifestation a look as surprised as she felt. This is the first time I recall one of the Elements taking on a different name. “Where is she?”

“Safe.” The manifestation sipped. “I am protecting her.”

“From what?”

“From who,” Apoptosis said. “From Zambet, and from you.”

Luna didn’t restrain her expression this time. “From me?”

“You remain a dedicated ally to a peer of the one who harmed my chosen,” Apoptosis said calmly. “Unlike Magic, Generosity, and Loyalty, I have barely brushed against Nacht and have no insight into her motivations or your alliance with her. After what Zambet did to Fluttershy, I will not take the chance.”

“But you must have some sense of her,” Luna said. “Neither Celestia nor your Bearer had any concept of who Nacht was, so neither could have directed you and your…?”

“Sisters.”

“...sisters to deal with her the way you did.”

“I, Honesty, and Laughter deferred to our sisters, who understood the whole matter. Honesty and Laughter gained a great deal of insight because that is what they are, but I did not.”

Luna huffed in frustration, but decided that it would be pointless to argue with the manifestation. “What did Zambet do to her?”

Apoptosis sipped again and frowned. “I do not know. Neither does Fluttershy. Only in communion with Magic would I be able to understand what happened, but she and her chosen are far too removed for me to call to her.”

“I’m not surprised,” Luna said. “They were going east…”

Apoptosis’ expression brightened considerably. “Magic was traveling towards Queen Amaryss’ people.”

Luna nodded. “I can hardly imagine a safer place for my niece.”

“I agree.” Apoptosis sipped again. “Whatever Zambet did deeply wounded Fluttershy. Her terror has taken hours to quiet, and this caused by a mere polite request.”

“A polite request.”

“Quite. ‘Fluttershy, please constrain your element from harming me.’ That is what she said, the exact words. So simple, polite, even friendly.” Apoptosis set the cup down. “Yet the moment Fluttershy refused, she began to scream. I am apart from my chosen; I know only that her torment grew by magnitudes, until she fulfilled the request. I do not know the form of the torment, only the fact of it.”

“And this was initiated by… asking nicely.”

“Yes.”

“No spells, no magic, no sign of using some manner of power?”

“As a point of fact, she could do none of those things,” Apoptosis said. “She was unnecessary. At the will of Fluttershy, I was turning the Graven Light of Order against her, enough to obliterate her entirely and purge her influence from the city. She is the antithesis of life; I am a source of it. She had no power there, and could gather none. And yet…”

“...she simply spoke and exercised gaes-level compulsion on Fluttershy, who was forced to grant her request.” Luna sat with that a moment. “I regret to tell you this the being I was traveling with, an ‘Einspithiana’, believes that Zambet is so orderly of mind and precise that the Light of Order does her very little harm. And… washing the city in Light didn’t dispel her work. The illusion of all the griffons being asleep but unharmed disappeared when she willed it, not before.”

Apoptosis considered this visibly. “So I did her no harm.”

“If she was in no danger from you, she wouldn’t have used a compulsion to restrain you, through Fluttershy,” Luna pointed out.

“Yet she made such a performance of being put out that we might disrupt her doings…”

“It seems to be something she enjoys,” Luna said. “She put her heart and soul into a performance pretending to be an ordinary beast on a chain to deceive me, and before me put on a performance as an old-money noble right under Tia’s nose.”

“Thus, we are her audience and she a thespian of unlimited talent and variety. But to what end?”

“If I could speak to Fluttershy…”

“Out of the question,” Apoptosis said firmly. “Even if I was willing--and I am not--she physically cannot speak to you. Something that I suspect Zambet intended, for her serf managed to place some manner of message in my chosen’s hooves.”

“Her serf.” Luna pursed her lips. “Lily Shell, Lashaal, or whatever she styles herself?”

“I don’t know her name, just that Zambet had a hold on her and that she had contact with Fluttershy within their shared fever dream, some doing of Zambet’s.”

Luna gave the manifestation a nod, considering whether to ask, deciding that the question was needed. “If you had to, how quickly would you be able to make her able to speak to me?”

“If the greatest necessity required it I could… enable her to speak, for a short time.” Apoptosis raised her cup and gave Luna a hard look over its rim. “I see no greatest necessity here, Luna.”

“Do you know of the danger to the same extent that Fluttershy does?”

“No, and that is not my…”

“It has something to do with lei lines,” Luna interrupted. “Someone called ‘the Voice’ has secured a confluence on one. Vorka believed that he had secured another.”

Apoptosis looked at her for a moment before putting her tea cup down. “Well,” she said as she rose to her hooves, “that does change things.”

Author's Note

Yet another chapter on my way to (what I very desperately hope is) the epic conclusion. Or at least the epic climax. And yes, I entirely swiped the notion of giving the various Elements personalities from the fic "Contact" by the author Digi which you can read here -> https://www.fimfiction.net/story/158171/contact Although it's incomplete and by now probably constitutes an abandoned fic with its last chapter being 4 years ago, I liked the idea Digi came up and encourage people to see how he handled it in his own work. Anyway, I hope people enjoy this and now it's off to write the next chapter. Comment below, please; I could always use more perspectives.

Luna: For the Night is Dark II

Apoptosis setting down the tea cup caused the entire dream to dissolve around them and be replaced with them standing just inside a white picket fence in the midst of a bright, cheerful garden, and the immense mansion of a noble’s estate spread out before them. It was a place that Luna recognized instantly, and she turned to look at Apoptosis with what she knew was a surprised expression.

“Can you imagine a better place for a gentle, wounded soul to recuperate in?” Apoptosis said to her unasked question.

“That’s not why I’m surprised,” Luna told her, turning back to take it in. It was Fluttershy’s dream so only some of the sense of the Verdant Heart Recuperative Asylum was conveyed by it, but during the six months since the destruction of the Guardian, she’d visited nearly daily and knew the grounds intimately. The true Asylum was bathed in subtle and soothing fragrances from the gardens, swept by gentle breezes, and was so airy and light that it had a feel more like a resort than a hospice and treatment center for any form of mental illness that didn’t require securing the patient for their safety.

“You think it strange that I’d be familiar with a mundane institution.”

“It does seem a bit out of the scope of the concerns of… well, whatever you and your sisters truly are.”

“It would seem so, and yet the only thing that we are more concerned with is our chosen bearers,” Apoptosis said as she started wending her way through the gardens, noticeably taking care to stay on the paths. “Generosity is intimately familiar with institutions and individuals that embody a generous and giving spirit. Honesty could tell you every detail about those who are especially concerned with discovering truth or proclaiming truth, as if they were her dearest foalhood friends. If there is a magical researcher or practitioner of note, Magic knows who they are and what they’re doing right now.”

She gestured to the Asylum with a wing as they approached. “That place radiates peace. Its gardens glow with gentleless and its very walls are woven through with kindness. For a thousand years, it has rested the spirits of the afflicted and embraced them in whatever state they arrived in. More than any place of medicine, the structure itself exists to heal. And Doctor Verdant Heart has made its flame burn all the more brightly. Of course I know it; I could stroll through its corridors blinded and deafened and always know where I was.”

Luna nodded slowly, understanding. “And it’s where you are sheltering Fluttershy, to help her recover from what Zambet did to her.”

“Yes.”

“Because of what she associates with it?”

“Because of what I associate with it,” Apoptosis said. “Like the physical baubles of us Elements, having a symbol to believe in makes me far more potent than I’d be without it. This place symbolizes what I am and so, I am made more powerful within its manifestation in this dreamscape.”

“You speak as if you’re…”

“...a person,” Apoptosis finished. “That surprises you.”

“No more than you using a personal name for yourself, or expressing a dislike for Nacht, or talking about the other Elements as your sisters, or ascribing personality traits to them, or explaining your willingness to handle Nacht in a particular way coming out of trust for your sisters.” Luna reached the doors of the asylum, each decorated with colorful stained glass depictions of a bouquet of roses on one and two ponies sharing a cup of tea on the other. “This is the first time either of us have had any indication that you’re fully aware and have distinct personhood. Some awareness was implied by the results of aiming your power at a problem, but not sapience.”

“It can hardly be surprising to you that each of us having an individual chosen bearer would have a different effect than having to share.” Apoptosis put her hoof on the door and looked at Luna. “Ask only about the message. I recognize the danger, which is why I’m allowing this at all, but I will not permit even unintentional harm.”

“I will abide by those conditions, out of courtesy.”

Apoptosis smiled broadly, even a little warmly. “Luna, your own capacity for evil is not strong enough to do what would be required to overcome me. Which is also why I am willing to permit this: you are not evil enough to force the issue.”

She pushed the door open and just like putting her teacup down, this caused the dream to dissolve again and Luna found herself inside Fluttershy’s home. Outside, she could hear a storm raging, causing the windows to rattle a little in their frames, but the home was bright, warm, and cheery. Fluttershy lounged in front of a fire with various animals snuggled up to her, looking over her shoulder at a book she seemed to be reading to them. A cup of fragrant peppermint-apple tea sat at her hoof and an exquisitely hoof-stitched quilt was draped over her.

“H… hi Princess.” The faint, trembling stutter both made it clear that she was talking to Fluttershy herself within the dream--and that the pegasus was terrified, even safe in an illusion of her own home, her animal friends clustered protectively around her, what was clearly a representation of Rarity’s work shielding her, sipping a kind of tea that blended the favorites of Pinkie Pie and Applejack, reading a book that Luna suspected was a Daring Do story.

“Hello Fluttershy,” Luna said quietly. “I hope I am not causing you distress.”

“It’s… the opposite,” Fluttershy near-whispered. “You’re… real. And that means… she’s gone.”

“Yes.”

“B… because she wanted t...to go.”

“Yes.”

Fluttershy nodded slowly and took in a breath, closing her eyes. “T… there is… a great and t… terrible power under… under the ice in the east,” she said. “If Evil.. o… o… obtains it… the results will… be unimaginably… terrible.”

Luna blinked. “What?”

“She… asked me to tell you,” Fluttershy said. “Glamor… told me… to tell you. It’s…. It’s where their plans are.”

“Who’s…?” Luna shook her head. “Never mind. I’m sorry to have disturbed you, Fluttershy. Thank you for passing the message along.”

“Stay,” Fluttershy said. “Please. Apoptosis is… very kind… but she’s not real. She’s… only in… in my head. You’re real.”

“I promised…”

“She… she can b... b... buck off,” Fluttershy said. “Please.”

Luna took in a breath and nodded. “Alright. I have to act on the message but… I’ll stay, for a time.”

Fluttershy smiled and patted the space beside her with a wing and as Luna lay down and rested one of her own wings atop the shaking pegasus, Fluttershy pressed in against her side and once again began to read as a dream storm raged outside the dream house, deep within a dream of safety.

Luna woke and raised her head to find herself eye-to-eye with a pair of brilliantly turquoise eyes she recognized immediately, despite having never seen outside of her dreamscape.

“Hello Selune,” Nightmare Moon said with a broad, warm smile. “Did you rest well?”

“No.” Luna climbed to her hooves and returned the other alicorn’s smile. “When did you arrive?”

“Shortly after you entered your dreamscape.” Nightmare looked at the still form of Fluttershy. “Trying to discern why the Element of Kindness is comatose, I take it.”

“Yes,” Luna said. “Zambet.”

“I was afraid of that.” Nightmare shook her head. “I had some idea that she would eventually come here but I foolishly mistook your warning of a zambet roaming about looking for an easy meal as a sign that she had passed this situation by in search of a richer morsel. I ought to have known better.”

“You know of her?”

“I both know of her, and know her personally,” Nightmare said. “We are… peers. Colleagues, in a sense, effectively in the same ‘business’.”

Luna considered this a moment. “Fixers?”

“One term for it, yes, although ‘facilitators’ would be more accurate. To use a business analogy, we’re both contractors although I seek out the ‘employers’ I wish to work with, whereas her ‘employers’ seek her out.”

“What is her usual way of working?”

“The exercise of patience,” Nightmare said. “And of highly selective violence. She greatly prefers to act after she’s tied up every loose end she can imagine, and always keeps several contingencies on hand to deter opposition or crush it rapidly and efficiently. She has industriously cultivated a habit of being deferential and polite, and approaching any kind of negotiation with a very big stick so that her carrot is especially sweet and appealing. She has an obsession with order, rules, and keeping every aspect of an agreement, both the letter and its spirit. I suspect that you’ve seen why she cultivates that obsession as much as she cultivates excellent manners.”

“It renders her all but immune to Light,” Luna said, thinking of Spite’s attempt outside the city.

“You can’t make water wetter by adding more water,” Nightmare confirmed. “It’s very clever, because the mortals that confront her never try to oppose her with the Darkness. It is always with fire, faith, or sunlight; never with innately creative and chaotic energies.”

“So why would she use violence to prevent one of the Elements from blasting at her with Light?”

“The Elements are a perfect balance of Dark and Light, and so work as both at the same time.” Nightmare’s expression grew solemn. “And she didn’t resort to violence. Her violence is horrifying to behold and she has a very, very distinctive signature. No, this is what is left behind when she leverages her contingencies.”

“A broken spirit.”

“It varies, depending on how the request is received, and how strongly it repulses the one she poses the request to.” Nightmare sighed. “Sometimes she asks a thing that someone is willing to do but wouldn’t normally do at the time it’s requested, and very little mark is left. More rarely, it’s a distasteful request and is extremely uncomfortable to struggle against. Most rarely it is strongly against the person’s nature and well…” She gestured at Fluttershy to illustrate. “Only a few times has it been utterly anathema--not in this case, you’d know immediately--and… what is left is difficult to heal, and the person will never be the same.”

“So this contingency is… she asks politely for something.” Luna eyed the other alicorn. “There must be more to it. She was able to simply ignore any resistance from Apoptosis in forcing Fluttershy to obey.”

“Zambet knew her Name,” Nightmare said. “With that, no force short of divine intervention can guard against it.”

“Well, she is one of the Elements of Harmony, so I imagine…”

“No,” Nightmare said. “That’s not her Name. The difference is incredibly subtle but from a metaphysical perspective, is like night and day. If you were say to Zambet ‘Her name is Nachtmiri Mein’ she would know the name that I am given but if I was to say to Zambet ‘my name is Nachtmiri Mein’ she would know my Name.”

“Fluttershy called herself by name in Zambet’s presence,” Luna said. And then something connected and she looked at Nightmare with horror. “As did everyone she’s spoken to.”

Nightmare blinked. “I… don’t imagine that’s many people,” she said. “Zambet isn’t…”

“We suspect she’s been masquerading as a high society pony in Canterlot for some time,” Kyra said from the doorway, before bowing to Nightmare. “Empress Moon, well met.”

“Well met indeed, Kyra das Pupa,” Nightmare said with a touch of warmth, returning the bow. “But yes, that wouldn’t be unusual for Zambet. She may not have overwhelming raw power but what she does have is a particular set of skills which are ideal for learning everything she needs to know to accomplish her purpose.”

“Similar skills to my niece’s spies,” Kyra said.

“Identical skills, actually, although Zambet doesn’t have a dozen professionals, who benefit from a dozen generations of their family each, to help her.” Nightmare turned back to Luna. “But you need not fear for what is likely dozens of ponies who introduced themselves to her while she was concealing herself. The power she uses is incomprehensibly complex with dizzying numbers of caveats and details, one of which being that if she gains a Name from someone who is not aware of her actual self, the someone has to be actively willing to grant the request. It’s ideal for espionage because it leaves no trace and the touch is so light that the contingency can be used as often as she desires.”

“Conversely…” Luna glanced at Fluttershy’s prone form.

“...any more harmful use of the power can be done only once,” Nightmare said. “Correct.”

“Is there a way to take a Name back?”

“Difficult to know,” Nightmare said, looking at Kyra. “Do you remember every single time you introduce yourself to someone?”

Kyra nodded slowly. “I see the genius of it. The thing that lets her use it is so incidental that you only know you made the mistake when she asks nicely for you to kill yourself.”

“I’ve never known her to use a contingency that way,” Nightmare said. “If she has her contingency on someone strong enough she needs to eliminate, she’ll have far more effective uses for them.”

“Seems like she could have used Fluttershy more effectively then.”

“And I’m sure she’s furious at herself.” Nightmare smirked. “I’ve no doubt that she used the contingency at the last moment, because she was forced to, and that she hadn’t calculated Fluttershy to be any danger to her. I’m sure that learning that apoptosis is a component of kindness, and of healing, came as something of a shock.”

“The personification of Kindness in the dreamscape called herself that, Apoptosis.”

“Interesting.” Nightmare took in a breath and looked towards Kyra. “So with Vorka having evacuated and Zambet having left, I imagine that the threat to the griffons has passed.”

“Vorka left a lot of his toys behind but without him to direct them, I doubt it would be hard to systemically free all the cities he ensnared,” Kyra said. “And for the moment, the Archive is anchored in the…”

“Not anymore,” Nightmare said. “The airship returning from conveying Twilight and her friends to the Dragon Lands to check up on your sister said they saw an immense building materializing in the plains near the dragon lord’s grotto.”

Kyra gaped at her. “Vorka can direct it?”

“Of course he can’t,” Nightmare snorted. “He’s a genius at creating things but he can only decipher the creations of others by dismantling them--and as you know, the Archive is far too dangerous to be dissected under controlled conditions like Vorka requires.”

“As she knows?” Luna looked at Kyra. “I think you left something out when you told me about that place, Kyra. I thought it was some kind of metaphysical place where Vorka was storing Spite. It didn’t look particularly exceptional.”

“You entered it?” Nightmare looked at Luna and then at Kyra, and then at Luna again. “Please tell me you didn’t try to read anything.”

“She didn’t,” Kyra said. “None of us did. We left immediately upon retrieving Spite after Vorka got hold of her.”

“Excuse me, what are you two talking about?” Luna stared hard at both of them. “Why wouldn’t we enter? And why do you care whether I read anything?”

The two of them looked at one another, before Nightmare looked at her. “You… might want to be seated for this,” she said. And then when she was, they told her: how the Archive had been found, the attempts made under Queen Vespa to penetrate its defenses, and how the changelings had been monitoring it. She sat with it for a moment afterwards, turning the information over in her mind, before looking up at Nightmare.

“So there’s some kind of metaphysical magical phenomenon wandering all over the face of the world, promising unlimited real-time knowledge of any subject whatsoever, ensnaring innocent people to power itself and… it has suddenly appeared in the Dragon Lands. Where my niece and most of the Elements of Harmony went to check up on Ambassador Thalia das Pupa.” She let the statement sit for a moment. “If this is all a coincidence, it’s the most unlikely one I’ve ever heard of.”

“Most of it is,” Kyra said. “Even with Tharalax hanging about the palace like a foul odor, there’s no way that whatever force caused Thalia to ask for big sis to help could have anticipated that Chryssy would ask the Elements to act on her behalf.”

“I wonder if the force could be that ‘Voice’ that Zambet was referring to.”

Nightmare looked at her. “What voice?”

“I don’t know,” Luna said. “When we encountered Zambet here, I asked her where she was going to do her business, and she claimed not to know. She said that somewhat she called ‘the Voice’ was seeking out the location, however.”

“That sounds like Sotto Voce.” Nightmare frowned. “But that couldn’t be right, I haven’t heard word of him for thousands of years. Granted, creating a construct like the Archive strikes me as the kind of project he’d approach with intense enthusiasm, but it would require a vessel with unusual magical gifts.”

“So a nightmare like you.”

“Yes,” Nightmare said. “One of the few, in fact, who examined my aversion to seizing vessels and concluded that it merited experimentation. Even so, I had assumed he’d made a mistake and been destroyed; that he could possibly be here, positioned at the point of decision, possibly in control of a weapon like the Archive is… concerning.”

Luna met the black alicorn’s eyes directly. “Would he be inclined to harm the Elements?”

“That’s a complex question,” Nightmare said. “Yes, if it was the best way to achieve a goal, he would certainly harm them. If the risks outweighed the benefits, he would only do so if circumstances compelled it. A move like positioning the Archive near to himself is an unusual gambit given my admittedly fragmentary memory of his nature.”

“So, summary time,” Kyra said. “We know that Vorka was seizing griffons for experimentation, to make footsoldiers or something. We know that Zambet was faking being a normal zambet, was faking being Vorka’s pet, was probably faking more things than that, and eventually showed up here. She made off with Lily Shell, true name Lashaal, and used one of her grisly contingencies to completely disable Fluttershy for the time being.”

“We know that someone called ‘the Voice’ has secured a confluence of a lei line,” Luna said. “We know that another such confluence is somewhere in the Provinces, and that there are others besides. We can reason that ‘the Voice’ is at or near the Lands and this probably means that’s where his confluence is. I know, from a message that Fluttershy passed on in the dreamscape, that everyone who’s part of this plan wants something buried under ice and it would be devastating if they succeeded.”

“Passed on from whom?”

“Someone she knew only as ‘Glamor’,” Luna said. “I have no idea who it could be.”

“Figure it out later,” Nightmare said. “So, buried under ice. The only places I remember from our collaboration with a lot of ice are the Lands, the Ends, and the Glass Waste.”

“So called because it’s a featureless plain of perfectly and perpetually smooth ice stretching over hundreds of square kilometers,” Kyra said.

“And somewhere under it is imprisoned the capital city of the Crystal Empire of ancient times,” Luna said. “Along with every structure that was part of the Empire, and those that lived there. The Abomination of Sombra dragged it all out of time and reality, his contingency to stop us from executing him, a spell that neither of us have ever fully understood.”

“Moved it under the ice, but it’s not really physically there,” Nightmare said. “At least, so I recall from your memories.”

“Yes.” Luna nodded. “And part of the Abomination is that no one knows where it is. We could be standing right on top of it, with our nose plastered against the ice sheet and staring directly at it, and it would be invisible to us. Part of the reason it’s so inexplicable is that the spell is so incredibly complex, something requiring the talents of a Starswirl or a Clover or possibly Twilight, and yet was used be a unicorn that has never shown any exceptional magical aptitude.”

“He used an artifact.”

“Yes, and one we don’t even have legends about.” Luna sighed. “And the perfect thing for some loose confederation of Evils to be looking for. They could also be seeking the Crystal Heart but I can’t imagine they have a way to use it.”

“Love is not purely a force of gentleness and light,” Nightmare said, “any more than Kindness is purely soft and sweet and harmless. Even love can be used for evil, if you know how, but neither Zambet nor Sotto Voce do.”

“How can you be sure of that?”

Nightmare turned to look at Luna, and then at Kyra. “When you were speaking to Zambet, did you have any sense that hurting others had any emotional weight to her? Satisfaction, guilt, happiness, sadness, anything?”

“No,” Kyra said. “She said that she would take Fluttershy with her in a jaunt through the Void if we tried to stop her from leaving. She said it like she was offering to take her down to the corner shop for some sweets.”

“I had the same sense,” Luna said. “Why?”

“Are either of you familiar with the psychological concepts of sociopathy and psychopathy?”

“Only that both are extraordinarily rare in Equestria,” Luna said.

“And fatal for changelings,” Kyra added. “At least to any degree above extremely mild. Even extremely mild cases cause dangerous levels of malnourishment. We only recently developed a means to cure the condition.”

Nightmare blinked. “This is the first I’ve heard of it being possible to cure.”

“Before recently, it wasn’t.” Kyra stared into space a moment before focusing on Nightmare. “Why did you ask about psychopathy and sociopathy?”

“It’s a trait inherent to Evils,” Nightmare said. “All Evils, with impossibly rare exceptions. Lacking the trait or experiencing it on a more mild level makes you practically an abomination, a freak.” She grinned widely. “Not that the extreme few have any reason to complain.”

“So you…?”

“You remember my story about my first attempt to seize a vessel the way nightmares ordinarily do?”

Luna thought a moment and nodded. “Empathy would make it impossible.”

Nightmare gave her a nod. “And that is why I’m certain that neither Zambet nor Sotto Voce would be able to use love for evil ends, at least in the abstract. It’s possible to use emotional connections to pull a person’s strings, possible to intellectualize emotion so you can use it against a person, but magical energy isn’t sapient. You have to resonate with it to manipulate it, the way that Zambet resonates with Order and so can manipulate energies infused with it, and…”

“...if you can’t experience the essential quality of magical energy, you can’t control it,” Luna finished.

“So what do we do with any of this?” Kyra said. “It’s great to know where they plan to go, and what they’re looking to do there, but the place is invisible to us.” She frowned. “Which raises the question of how they plan to find it.”

“The lei line.” All three of them turned to look at the doorway, where Spite was standing. “They’re following the lei line there.”

Author's Note

And here is the next installment. Took me a while to find a place where it felt like it could be broken, so my apologies to my readers. Please comment and if you can find something to criticize, I encourage you to speak up. :)

Off to work on the next part, wish me luck.

Luna: For the Night is Dark III

“Lei lines,” Luna repeated.

“Quite,” Spite said as she wove her way sinuously around Kyra before prostrating herself in front of Nightmare. “Your Imperial Majesty, it is an honor.”

“I’d say good day to you, Einspithiana, but it emphatically is not,” Nightmare said. “And stop that, please. You know as well as I do that the title is polite compliment but has no specific weight.”

“If there’s another nightmare that all the rest defer to, I haven’t heard their name Empress,” Spite said as she raised her head. “There’s a reason for the ‘polite compliment’ as you put it.”

Nightmare sighed. “This is not the time or place. What do lei lines have to do with this?”

“If this world has lei lines--and Zambet referred to them explicitly, so they certainly exist--then they definitely flow between a few different points: Canterlot, the Tree, the Provinces, the Lands, the Barrens… and the repository of a certain artifact..”

“So they find a lei line, figure out where it’s flowing, then follow it until they reach a juncture,” Luna said. “And then they figure out how to undo the Abomination of Sombra.”

“The… what?”

“It’s what Luna and Celestia call whatever some ancient unicorn sorcerer named ‘Sombra’ did to disappear the entirety of a semi-autonomous pony nation in what’s now called the Glass Waste,” Nightmare said. “Charmingly dramatic, isn’t it?”

“Disappear like, killed them all?”

“No,” Luna said. “The entire nation disappeared. But the details aren’t really important at the moment. You seem quite certain that the Evils are going to use the lei lines to find it.”

“I stopped by Ponyville to speak with Celestia,” Spite said before looking at Nightmare. “The latest Canceros got obliterated, along with all the atermors that were anywhere near him.”

Nightmare smirked. “Three hundred forty-two years. A new record. So, what was it this time?”

“And how is my sister?”

“Someone got a jeikitsu family involved and they showed up with the Quarantine Flag.” Spite gave Luna a brief smile. “And Celestia is fine. Still a bit shocked that Princess Chidinida is her adoptive niece and that the changelings regard her fondly, but the manifest spirit of the Flag addressed any of her physical ailments when he removed Canceros.”

Nightmare smiled a little. “I’m glad Celestia came out all right. As to eliminating Canceros with an artifact of the Flag’s magnitude, points for novelty and for massive overkill. So what does the…” She paused, squinting in thought “...seventy-third incarnation getting wiped out have to do with lei lines?”

“Hold on a moment.” Kyra looked between them. “Canceros? Quarantine Flag?”

“I assume that the quarantine flag is some magical means of preventing the spread of the plague.” Luna looked at Nightmare. “Who’s Canceros?”

“Essentially, he is to atermors what I am to nightmares.” Nightmare smirked a little. “Or, rather, each one of him is. The name is more of a position than an individual because each one has an astonishingly short life for a Named.”

“Measured in the hundreds of years,” Spite added, “with the next shortest-lived being several thousand. Three hundred forty-two was the oldest Canceros anyone is aware of.”

“And he was obliterated by this Flag.” Kyra looked at Luna. “That seems an odd property of an artifact called a quarantine flag.”

“It’s called that because it’s what it originally was: a piece of ordinary cloth dyed yellow with a black spot in the middle, a symbolic warning that approaching anyplace with it displayed would be a lethal error,” Nightmare said. “The current owners--several families of creatures called jeikitsu--have a heroic narrative of how it became enchanted and how a manifest spirit called ‘the Physician’ was attached to it, but the truth is that only three beings in all of existence know how it and he came to be. What is known for certain is that the manifest spirit can indeed quarantine a settlement of any size, has a dramatic effect on disease generally, and has a specific grudge against atermors. Even the presence of the Flag dampens the ability of the atemors to cause harm, and when specific conditions are met to allow the Physician to manifest fully…”

“...your sister described him as being able to destroy a hundred atermors simply by wishing it to be so,” Spite said, “and he was capable of stripping all of Canceros’ protections away to allow Celestia to revenge herself on him on behalf of her subjects.”

Luna swallowed involuntarily at the implications of this, vividly remembering what her sister could be like when sufficiently provoked. “I’ve seen my sister angry,” she said simply. “Unless you have more questions, Duchess?”

“I do not.”

“Then please, Spite, pardon us for interrupting. You were explaining how the destruction of Canceros has something to do with this Sotto Voce’s plan to follow the lei lines to the Crystal Heart?”

“It was where he was and what he was doing,” Spite said. “Celestia and those with her found him and Zambet in the chamber with what she called ‘the Tree of Harmony’ and…”

“The Tree is connected to a lei line,” Nightmare said. “Might have even grown out of the flow of magic. Zambet created some kind of runic circle in a certain position, correct?”

“Yes,” Spite said. “She apparently needed to know where Ponyville was in relation to her to an extremely precise degree.”

“Which means that the lei line runs through Ponyville,” Luna said. “Or so I’m guessing.”

“If she was setting up a containment circle that let her safely interact with the line, the precise direction of flow would be critical.”

“So, yes.”

Nightmare nodded and looked at Spite. “So she completed it and then had Canceros do something with it?”

“Yeah, stand in the middle and talk to Sotto Voce,” Spite said. “And here’s the most important part: he started off by proclaiming that whatever Sotto is after was ‘here’ and confirmed that Sotto could see it. So…”

“...the spell was projecting him in a way that let Sotto Voce see him at different points along the line, probably at junctures.” Nightmare took in a breath and sighed it out. “And that’s why the atermors were here, to cause trouble and then get inside that chamber so Sotto Voce would know where to look for the lei line juncture at the capital of the Crystal Empire.”

“The spell keeps the Empire concealed, even if you know exactly where it is,” Luna said. “So how is knowing where it is going to help him?”

“The Archive,” Kyra said. “If he can bring it to him, or know where it is reliably enough to point some minion at the entrance, he can probably get the Archive to explain the Abomination to him. I kind of doubt he has to worry about being ensnared.”

“What’s troubling me is that he knows about the Empire, and its artifacts,” Nightmare said. “He’d have to have lingered here for a very long time to get that kind of knowledge, and if I can’t linger in your company for more than a couple years, Selune, without harming you, even with gentler methods he’d have to be going through vessels at a staggering rate to remain anchored here. There’s no way that could be concealed.”

“Well, he at least has a vessel right now,” Spite said.

Nightmare looked at her. “How do you know that? Did you spy on him?”

“No, Celestia mentioned that just before Sotto Voce ended the conversation with Canceros, another voice came through the conduit, a voice like a very young filly,” Spite said. “She called Canceros by name, so she was somehow aware of him.”

“The child that’s not a child.” Nightmare shook her head. “That’s what Thalia meant by her letter to Chrysalis.I had suspected it, enough to warn Twilight, but without confronting Sotto Voce personally I couldn’t be sure.”

Luna gave her a horrified look. “He has a child as a vessel?”

“I can’t think of another explanation and yet, it should only be possible over a very, very short period of time. To call the feat ‘delicate’ is understating it by an order of magnitude; I could barely manage it, and I’ve been developing my skill at minimally invasive coexistence for tens of thousands of years.”

“He could have been using magic to fake it.”

“That is possible, although I can’t see the motivation.”

“Fair.” Kyra thought a moment. “So, quick hop to the Dragon Lands?”

“I’ve never visited personally, and the knowledge I gained from my time with Selune is over a thousand years old.” Nightmare looked at Spite who shook her head. “Then it would be very risky to do and I’m reluctant unless the…”

“The matter is urgent,” Luna said. “If Sotto Voce can go to the place instantly, we can’t be too far behind him. Besides, the approaches to the Dragon Lord’s rock remain entirely clear, unless the airship saw more construction than just the Archive.”

“They didn’t report it, which doesn’t preclude it being there.”

“Regardless…”

“Buck that noise.” Focusing on the conversation with Nacht, Spite, and Kyra, Luna hadn’t seen Rainbow enter until the pegasus was already inside and walking over to where Fluttershy lay, looking at her friend’s prone form with an entirely blank expression.

“Where…”

“Flight path went passed Gilda’s place,” Rainbow said. “Went to look. It’s…” She drifted off, continuing to stare at Fluttershy. “That freaky thing did this to her, didn’t it?”

“She did,” Kyra said. “How’d you know?”

“Grim said something about how Fluttershy would be a perfect meal or something,” Rainbow said. “Wasn’t hard to guess.” She turned and looked squarely at Luna. “Sounds like she’s hanging around where the dragons are. I’m gonna break my hoof off in her plot. Let’s get a move on.”

“I understand your zeal, Rainbow Dash, but fighting her…”

“Kicked her plot once, can kick it again.”

“You kicked her plot with help,” Kyra said. “And she was playing us at the time. She was pretending to be a creepy stalking predator out to eat Twilight, but she’s really…”

“...roughly on my level,” Nightmare said. “And she does worse things than the kazim that fed on you when she wins.”

“You mean if.”

“I mean when,” Nightmare said with emphasis. “You are not a stupid mare by any means, Rainbow, but you are a mare of the strong right hook and beating the pies out of a problem only works if the problem feels like letting you hit them.”

“And she can put her jaw back together like you, right?” Rainbow looked at Spite.

“Among other things,” Spite said. “And I doubt you can pulverize bone with a haymaker.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Yeah, whatever. But she’s on your level, right Nighty?”

Nightmare smirked. “Roughly.”

“OK, so you kick her plot.”

“That is my intention,” Nightmare said. “Assuming she lets me. If she was my clear inferior, it would be no great difficulty to bring her to blows, but I cannot compel her to stand still and let me thrash her. And like myself, she has friends and one of those is also roughly on my level.”

“I thought you said you hadn’t seen him in…”

“That is true,” Nightmare said, “but even something as simple as forming a partnership with Zambet indicates that he is no ordinary nightmare anymore, if ever he was.”

“How so?”

“Zambet has mercenary motivations in most respects: she concerns herself with her payment before any other consideration when deciding who to work with,” Nightmare said. “He would have had to promise her adequate payment, and prove that he was capable of fulfilling that promise.”

“And if she has the patience and the resources to casually infiltrate a very exclusive population without being noticed, her prices wouldn’t be cheap,” Luna said. “That, and I am personally aware of how complex effective runescription is.” She frowned. “I see the connection.”

“OK, so, I can’t kick her plot, and you can’t kick her plot.” Rainbow’s now-draconic eyes had begun to acquire a faint glow. “So who’s gonna kick her plot? Cuz hurting Flutters is an open invitation for a plot-kicking.”

“When it comes time to beat Zambet down, I’ll hold her so you can get the first shot,” Nightmare said. “Let’s see, how did that go… cross my heart and hope to fly…”

“...stick a cupcake,” Luna supplied.

“...stick a cupcake in my eye,” Nightmare said. “But when it comes time.”

“Which is as soon as we see her.”

Nightmare stared at Rainbow steadily for several moments, and the pegasus stared back, before Nightmare sighed. “Let me help you understand, Rainbow. Trying to go straight at Zambet and kick her plot is like trying to kick Twilight’s plot after giving her fair warning and enough time to cast any spell she wants.”

Rainbow’s eyes got a little wide. “She knows how to do the Gerbil Ball of Punishment?”

“The…?” Nightmare thought a moment before nodding at Rainbow with a very solemn expression.

“Well, geeze, why didn’t you say so in the first place?”

“I did emphasize that her victory over you would be a matter of when, not if.”

“Oh yeah, ya did.” Rainbow paused for a beat. “So if we aren’t gonna go beat her, what the hay are we gonna do next?”

“Pay a visit to one of her friends, of course.” Nightmare looked at Luna. “I will be going, of course, along with Einspithiana so she can move between the points as needed. I think that if I don’t take Rainbow, she’ll follow on a wave of sonic rainbooms and make sure everyone between here and Tartarus know we’re coming.”

“You know it.” Rainbow grinned.

Luna give Nacht a nod and looked at Kyra. “Duchess, please see to the relief efforts here and keep an eye on Fluttershy.”

“I’d have suggested it if you had not.” Kyra bowed. “Luck, Princess Luna.”

Author's Note

I apologize for this being late-ish and on the short side despite it being late, but here it is. I hope to hear suggestions, and further hope that people enjoy it. Please comment.

Luna: For the Night is Dark IV

Author's Note

Once more into the breach, dear friends. At least, those of you who're still reading (if any). As always, I hope you enjoy and as always, I wish to extend a futile plea for commentary on the work. We creep ever closer to the climax, and I'm excited to share what this is all leading up to.

Luna: For the Night is Dark IV

During the conflict with Celestia, Nacht had insisted that Luna develop the ability to blink over immense distances using the Void, “skimmng the edge” as the eldritch being had put it. With Nacht’s guidance, she’d eventually became so adept at it that she could do it with the ease that her advisor could.

Experience, though, didn’t make it any more pleasant.

Luna stumbled into the bracing cold of the plain that surrounded the throne cavern of the Dragon Lord and had to take several shuddering breaths to chase the impossible chill of the Void off.

“Until I had a form of my own, I never really understood how unpleasant that is for the living,” Nacht said. “Is everyone alright?”

“All awesome here,” Rainbow said. “Creeped out, but awesome.”

“I have a good view of this place and can bring others here as needed,” Spite said. “I feel that I should return in case Kyra needs my services.”

“Like collecting the griffon and her caregivers?”

“Among other things,” Spite said. “I know many places and if needed, could supply food, water, and medicine as the situation warrants.”

“Then please do,” Luna said.

“Gladly, Princess.” And with that, Spite disappeared.

“After my time with you, I got used to doing that, traveling the Void,” Luna said with a gesture to where Spite had diseappeared, “but it never got any more pleasant. Did the airship happen to mention where the Archive was in relation to the cavern?”

“You mean cardinal direction in relation to the entrance? No, they just reported seeing it materialize on the plains,” Nightmare said.

“So what’s the deal with this Archive?” Rainbow said. “It’s just a bunch of books, right?”

“Basically, books bad, don’t read, the Archive will eat your soul if you do,” Luna said. “Did I get that about right?”

“Close enough,” Nightmare said with a shrug. “It’s more enslavement but it might as well be eating the soul, at least if its guide spirit is to be believed. Naturally, there’s no way to test whether the spirit was being truthful without going to the core.”

“Why haven’t you?”

“I tried.” Nightmare snorted. “Of course it had a completely separate defense against someone who could rebuff its attempts to worm its way into their mind. The classic infinite loop defense where it endlessly displaces your route ahead of you as you travel so you can’t make progress, while hammering at your mental defenses. I couldn’t spare the power to break its displacement while shielding against it, so I got nowhere.”

“Sounds complicated,” Rainbow said.

“It’s actually very simple, which is the genius of the design,” Nightmare said. “Simple machines are the most difficult to break or otherwise render non-functional because their mechanism is robust in its simplicity. The same principle applies to building magical constructs.”

“Cool. So, shouldn’t there be like, dragons all over the place?” Rainbow gestured with one of her dragonic wings. “Like, this is where their king is at. Shouldn’t they be pigpiling us or something because we just showed up out of nowhere?”

“They should be,” Luna said, “but if this Sotto Voce is on Nacht’s--excuse me, Rainbow, Nightmare’s--level, I’m not surprised to find this place silent as a… well, grave.”

“Let’s not jump to conclusions, Selune,” Nightmare said. “Wanton slaughter would be unusual for an unexceptional nightmare unless they were cornered in their husk and those that cornered them were extremely reckless.”

“Which would be typical of dragons,” Luna pointed out.

“Fair point,” Nightmare said. “Still, eliminating your entire stock of possible replacements would be wasteful.”

“...alright then, that’s not creepy or anything.” Rainbow said after a moment of uncomfortable silence. “Do I even want to know?”

“You probably don’t,” Nightmare said. “We should probably begin searching the….”

“It’s about fucking time!” Luna turned her head in time to see the very distinctive sapphire-scaled form of Princess Ember emerge from the caverns carrying an ominously large sword in a single hand and close the distance. “Where have you been, Princess?”

“Canterlot,” Luna responded, lamely. “What do you mean, where have I been?”

Ember stopped just barely outside of easy reach and planted the tall sword, looking up at Luna but holding herself like she towered over her instead. “I mean, where have you bucking been? I see your moon every damn night, see your sister’s sun every day, and the two of you have been sitting with your fat plots in your thrones for all this time while some… something has been squatting in my kingdom, ripping the identities out of my subjects, and then ending up with some fucking pony building planted next to my home. Aren’t you supposed to be the clever one who can shove your way into dreams and read minds? And you didn’t figure out to come here until after the scary little bint and her papa dearest dragged your nieces and their friends off?”

Nightmare gaped at the angry dragoness. “Her what?”

“Scary little bint?”

“She took Twilight, Dawn, and their friends?” Luna said. “Do you know where?”

Ember grimaced and pointed at each of them in turn. “Her papa dearest,” she said pointing at Nightmare. “Little zebra filly with a unicorn horn,” she said with a gesture to Rainbow. “And yeah she did, they went with her with some manipulation, and she said something about a heart.” She finished by looking at Luna.

“A… zebra filly with a unicorn horn.” Luna blinked. “That’s… I didn’t know that birth defect was even possible.”

“Don’t think it was a defect,” Ember said. “She threw spells like they were goin’ out of style.”

“And she called Sotto Voce her father,” Nightmare said. “Which means… actually, I have no idea what it means. I’ve never heard of this kind of thing being done before.”

“He’s somehow using her as a voluntary vessel, the way you did with me, right?”

“No,” Nightmare said. “I don’t know what he did or how this is possible, but zebricorn fillies don’t just trot up to several adult ponies, four of whom are the Elements of Harmony, and make listening to their sales pitch the best option. Not even with a nightmare on my level pulling the strings.”

“‘Scuse me but did the dragon here say something about a heart?” Spite said. “And aren’t we here to stop Sotto Voce and whoever else from getting one?”

“Name’s Ember, squirt,” Ember said. “Princess Ember, if it means much. And yeah scary little bint said she had her heart set on a crystal or something like that. Took the gal pals with her cuz Dawn spotted that if they didn’t, the Elements would be short when they got to wherever they were going. Left me and Thalia behind. She’s off somewhere doing something but bet she’ll come running if she figures out you’re here, Loony.”

Luna gave her a steady look. “I have an older sister, Ember. She can hold me down and poke me into submission, so she gets to call me ‘Loony.’ Unless you’re planning to fight me right here and now…?”

Ember rolled her eyes. “Whatever Loon.”

“If you don’t want to call her by her given name, call her ‘Selune’,” Nightmare said.

“Selune huh?” Ember smirked. “OK, yeah, I like it. So anyway, Selune, I’m sure ‘Lia will come running if she knows you’re here.”

“While we wait, explain the scary little bint part,” Nightmare said. “I was there when Queen Chrysalis told Twilight and her companions about the message from Thalia but I could only speculate about what the rather vague allusion to a ‘child not a child’ meant.”

“Not too hard,” Ember said. “Looks like a kid, sounds like a kid, but talk to her for a minute and it’s pretty obvious she’s faking the little kid part. Told the blonde pony with the hat that’s she’s older than Selune, and blonde pony bought it. Pretty sure that means she was being straight.”

“Older than me?” Luna’s brow furrowed. “But that would make her thousands of years old. That can’t be right. I’d have heard of someone so long-lived, even just in the form of a rumor.”

“Probably because she’s only kinda alive,” Ember said. “Not dead but… it’s weird, believe me. She’s cold as death to the touch, but she breathes, needs food and drink, and does the rest of the alive stuff, but I don’t think she’s supposed ta be alive, yanno? Like she was gonna die, then something stepped in and said no. So she’s sitting on that cliff just before dying, but not taking the jump.”

“Well if she was meant to die, she would have,” Nightmare said. “Nothing could have stopped that.”

“You know, you seem sorta like a pipsqueak,” Rainbow said from above, in the middle of doing a lazy circle over the head of the dragon.

Ember looked up and stared at her for a couple seconds. “OK, run that by me again?”

“I said, ya seem like a pipsqueak,” Rainbow said. “I mean, except for Spike, all the big adult dragons are like, boom,” she spread her wings as wide as she could, “giant, bout a hundred times my size. But you’re ‘bout as tall as Nightmare here.”

“Is this leading to a point?”

“Yeah,” Rainbow said. “Ya called it yer kingdom, so I guess that means you must be the boss, right? But ya look like you’re about as old as I am.”

“Well, how old are you?” Ember said, an annoyed tone starting to creep into her voice.

“Twenty-six, give or take six months.” She looked down and smirked. “What about you?”

Ember glared at her.

Rainbow’s smirk turned into a grin. “Yer younger, aincha?”

Ember glared harder and after a moment said, from between clenched teeth. “Twenty-six in two months.”

Rainbow’s grin stretched to Pinkie Pie levels. “Hah!” And then it dropped and Rainbow resumed circling without looking down. “But seriously, what’s the deal?”

“Dad’s… not in good shape,” Ember said. “Better shape than the rest but… yeah, whatever the bint needed to do to keep him from putting her through a thick wall, it wasn’t very…”

“...gentle?” Luna suggested.

“Yeah.” She grimaced, squeezing her sword grip which she had yet to let go of. “Eating, drinking, sleeping but… weak. Can’t… can’t really keep a thought together in his head. Can’t move around much. Gets the chills of all the fucking things.”

“Sounds like the result of very heavy-hoofed magical restraints,” Nightmare siad.

“Or…” Luna looked at the other alicorn.

“...a specific one,” Nightmare said, looking back. “A humourchill spell. Far and away the most effective method to use if you needed to subdue a dragon.”

Ember looked between them, her expression becoming one of guarded hope. “So you know how to fix it?”

“If it’s what we think, it would be very simple,” Luna said. “But if it is, it would be extraordinary. The specific spell is several many, many hundreds of years out of date, a brutal relic of a less refined system of combat magic. Ones that are simultaneously more efficient and significantly less painful have come into common use since the class was phased out.”

“But humourchill remains by far the most effective,” Nightmare said.

“There was a reason they were phased out,” Luna said quietly. “And why Tia so enthusiastically endorsed Clover’s work.”

“I know. But this offers a couple of interesting insights into this apparent filly. First, that she’s genuinely old enough to know how to use the spell and second, that she embraces the same brutal war logic that I do,” Nightmare said. “Which is something that doesn’t seem to come naturally to any of the pony or pony-like races, even the pony race who took on the role of being Equestria’s soldiers.”

“Yeah, she’s definitely got the carrot and stick schtick going on,” Ember said. “Treats the girls all nice and polite, but casually mentions that cutting up the annoying pink one was meant to be done to the other annoying pink one, to stop her from using her Element. Said it as casually as if she was talking about the weather.”

“...cutting up?”

“Yeah,” Ember said. “She’s got some construct she calls ‘the cards’ that switches personalities totally at random and one of the personalities likes making things hurt for fun. She thought that the sadist would carve up Pinkie but he carved up the other one instead. Don’t worry, she’s fine, Twilight fixed her up so it’s just painless scars now.”

Luna frowned pensively. “I think that we should go look at your father now and on the way, you should go over the entire story of this filly from the beginning. Because she doesn’t sound like just an element of some plan.”

Ember snorted. “Element? Naw, pretty sure the little bint is the mastermind.”

It was a relatively short walk from the entrance of the caverns to the cave where Lord Scorch was convalescing, but Ember was able to fit the entire tale into the audible equivalent of bullet points: how she found Penumbra, the disposal of the Scepter of the Dragon Lord, the arrival of Twilight and her friends, and the various conversations that happened, ending with Penumbra bundling the girls into arctic clothing--forcibly when it came to Twilight who had protested that she could just maintain a warming spell on the group--and blinking out of existence.

“She was true to her word,” Ember was saying as they approached the closed cave, “so everyone starting coming back to themselves although they’re so exhausted that they pretty much dropped where they stood. Still don’t know what she was doing but she turned it off like she said.”

“Mass compulsion?” Nightmare said.

“It’d need a font as large as myself and Tia combined,” Luna said. “Keeping hold of a will is difficult, moreso with a dragon.”

“I vaguely remember as such, from my secondhand examination of your interactions with… mmm… what was her name…?”

“Singe?”

“Yes, Singe. Did you really have to overthrow her will to get her to calm down?”

“You’re thinking of Pyre,” Luna said, smiling a little. “Thought we’d come to kill his sister, not put a crown on her head, so to speak.”

“And he was mad that you weren’t throwing your weight behind Ember?”

“There was that too.” Luna looked at Ember. “She would have been your.... Great-great-great aunt?”

“Great-great-grandmother,” Ember said. “Singe couldn’t have kids.”

“Oh.” Luna shifted uncomfortably. “Well… oh, that’s…”

“Way in the past,” Ember said. “And no biggie, wasn’t anyone’s fault, severe bellyrot just after hatching.”

“I… genuinely never knew,” Luna said. “That’s a real tragedy. It’s good that her descendents follow in her footsteps, even if it didn’t quite turn out well.”

“Could have turned out better, yeah,” Ember said as she switched out the gearing of the opening mechanism and started moving the door out of the way. “At least she was an honest bitch and good to her word.”

“I still wish I understood her nature,” Nightmare said. “Her long life makes no sense, and being so closely connected to Sotto Voce should have turned her into a scoured husk in months.”

“And the plans she spoke of sound pointless,” Luna said. “They also don’t match her way of working. She can’t have a harmless plague so she goes for a lethal one? Resorts to torturing Pinkie Pie to disable her, and yet claims to want her to survive and raise a family? Claims that none of this was conceived of in malice, but a nightmare is sat on her shoulder? She has some grand plan to make everything better, but wants to do it in secret and using evil methods and at the end she gains, what exactly?”

“LUNA!” a massive, basso voice bellowed from the door just as it opened barely enough to squeeze through. “WHERE THE…?” Lord Scorch’s voice dissolved into a wheezing cough midway through his question. “...where the buck have you been?”

“Canterlot,” Luna said as she magically nudged the door open further and stepped in. “I see you’re well enough to roar at me.”

In truth, Scorch looked like death warmed over. His eyes were sunken, his scales hung loosely or were drawn tightly against his bones, and there were several places where the tough skin between his wings had torn and been bandaged. Far worse though were the telltale signs of the humourchill she’d suspected: blood visibly oozing from cracked gums and nostrils, a milky film over his eyes, and the cloying tang of partially-digested gems that wafted from several ragged tears in his sides.

“...Reaper’s razor mercy…” Nightmare breathed.

“You look like shit, Scorch,” Luna told him. “That little demon really broke a hoof off in you, didn’t she?”

Scorch grinned at her, blood dripping from a corner of his mouth. “Small but fierce. Reminds…” He coughed. “...me of a certain war princess.”

“Well, I’m not here to kick your tail right now. Wouldn’t be worth the effort.” Luna softened her tone. “How’d she get a sucker punch in on you?”

He tried to laugh but the first gruffaw dissolved into hacking gasps and a spray of blood from his mouth as he coughed. “Didn’t. Beat… me down in a fair fight. Didn’t even… have to try.”

“So she nailed you with humourchill right in your face.” Nightmare looked at Luna before back at Scorch. “How’d you not turn her into spare ribs while she was doing the chant?”

“Chant?”

Luna looked at Ember. “A humourchill spell this strong would require layered casting. Takes nearly a minute to do, which is why a magi using one needed a lot of help to put it together without getting gutted.”

“She didn’t… need it.” Scorch grimaced. “She stepped in right in the midst of casting something and then... can’t… quite describe it. It was like she did… all that but it got fit into a couple seconds.”

“Well, if anything was going to make my skin crawl right off my bones and out the door, that’d do it,” Nightmare shook her head. “I don’t know the counterspell, Luna.”

“I do. Subsidize me?”

“Do you even need to ask?” Nightmare’s horn glowed and Luna felt a thread of power reach out and delicately wind around her own horn, temporarily letting Luna combine their respective fonts of power to make the casting easier. As she’d suspected, whatever mysterious benefactor had formed the body Nightmare was using had made her an alicorn in truth as well as appearance: her font was at least as immense as Tia’s.

One saving grace of the humourchill type spells, and one of the reasons that even the compassionate Celestia had been slow to endorse phasing them out, was that dismantling them was simple. A lot of work, requiring the magi to have support so she could ‘snip the threads’ without collapsing, but requiring no real complex work. Penumbra had poured a staggering amount of power into her casting, enough to fully disable a centuries-old dragon in his prime, but if anything it was even more simple to take apart.

Dismantling the spell had as dramatic an effect as Luna remembered: the gaping wounds closed and mended, the blood oozing from gums and nostrils, and his eyes cleared. Scorch took a deep breath, and stretched. “The hell’d she even hit me with?”

“A humourchill spell,” Luna said. “Out of use for about a thousand years by now but it still works for laying out especially strong creatures without killing them.”

“Like, phlegm and bile and crap?”

“Similar principle, but different,” Nightmare said. “There’s a lot of magic theory and experimentation involved but it boils down to altering the flow of magic within the body. Like clotting a lot of veins at once.”

“It’s not hard to unclot them, it just takes a lot of power and magical energy,” Luna said. “So how’d she sucker punch you?”

“Thought she wanted the Scepter, so I weighted it and threw it in the Wound,” he said. “Turns out I was right--but she didn’t want it to use, she wanted it so she could wrap it in weights and throw it in the Wound.”

“Ember mentioned that in her bullet points,” Luna said. “If that was manipulation...”

“Naw, she didn’t know I was on to her until after I got rid of the thing,” Scorch said. “Pretty sure she was coming up with a way to get it and chuck it, but then I did it for her cuz, yanno…”

“...even if she couldn’t use an artifact of that magnitude for its intended purpose, there’s a lot of things you can do with that raw energy.” Luna nodded. “Helluva thing when the smart move is what the other guy wants you to do.”

“And the foundation of the most foolproof plans,” Nightmare said. “When you can make your opponent taking the smartest course of action the basis of your victory, it’s hard to lose. So what does it do?”

“All kindsa shit,” Ember said. “Big one is deflect magic.”

“No prizes for guessing why she wanted it out of play,” Nightmare siad. “Any way to put it back on the board?”

“If ya give me a month,” Scorch said. “Bet yer going after the demon now, right?”

“Seems like the only way to stop her from doing whatever it is she plans to do.”

“Everyone’s dancing to Penumbra’s tune.” Luna looked to find Thalia standing at her side, looking at her in turn. The changeling displayed a truly awe-inspiring amount of muscle, reminding Luna of a professional gladiator, and she suspected that the mare also had the unconscious stalking gait of a hunting cat, seeing as how she could approach silently.

“Penumbra? Not her ‘father’?” Nightmare said.

“She all but fed the atermors to the Physician,” Thalia said. “I’ve been having a word with Chryssy, who got the scoop from Chidinida’s bodyguards. I saw how she communicated with Canceros, how she made sure that Zambet was there to see it done, and it seems clear to me that she permitted personal loathing and contempt for a useful tool to supersede calculation.”

“Even I would hesitate to do that,” Nightmare said, nodding. “I doubt Sotto Voce would be willing to sacrifice such a destructive tool if he had a choice.”

“She also employed the self-named ‘Master’ to work at cross-purposes with Canceros, crippling the ability of the plague to do any lasting harm,” Thalia said. “Kyra’s account of what she personally experienced makes that clear. It’s a very strange decision, ordering one servant to sabotage another, and then claiming that she intended for the plague to be more dangerous.”

“It sounds like she started in one strategic direction, and then reversed herself,” Luna said. “Like planning to get Pinkie Pie cut up to prevent her from using her Element, and then suppressing it in some other fashion which was clearly selective because she didn’t try to stop Applejack from attacking her with a fraction of Honesty.”

“Don’t sound like she likes being nasty,” Scorch said.

“She didn’t apologize for…”

“I didn’t say she regretted it, said she didn’t like it.” Scorch looked from his daughter to Luna. “Starts a deadly plague then sabotages it. Tries to get Pink cut up, but doesn’t try again when the wrong one gets cut. And she didn’t abuse anyone, she just made ‘em unable to stop her.”

“What about with you?”

He shrugged. “Bet she’d do the same to Queenie, or you, or Celestia, or another big player. Gentle don’t work on any of us. Only way is ya hit so hard we’re either buried or can’t do shit.”

“Fair point.” Luna looked at Thalia. “I assume the changelings remain the military power I remember?”

Thalia grinned. “Not to brag but when Penny said that Chryssy has enough force to make her stop whatever she’s planning, she wasn’t exaggerating.”

“So is she…”

“When she said she had enough time to win, she also wasn’t exaggerating,” Thalia continued, her grin dropping. “Chryssy could have everyone standing by to march at any second, and mustering would still take days. It’ll take at least six because several units are helping the Royal Guard keep peace and help sickened ponies, General Market and his First Tantalus are posted at Ponyville with his Black Mambo airship, and pulling the elite guard from the Families in to a central staging point cannot be done quickly. Tettidora will be able to help with speed but…”

“...logistics are a brutal mistress, and she might have to sustain a campaign.” Luna sighed. “And Penumbra didn’t even have to sabotage it. Not, I suspect, that that was in her power.”

“Whatever she wants the Crystal Heart for, they can only undo it after she’s acted,” Nightmare said. “We have to assume she has a way to get the Heart.”

“We need to know how, and what her purpose is.” Luna tapped her hoof on the ground. “And it just so happens she left us a way to find out.”

“Your Highness, I don’t think you understand…”

“You’re right, I don’t,” Luna said. “But I understand that we’re dealing with an ancient magi, with an even more ancient nightmare perched on her shoulder, who has just dragooned two thirds of the most powerful artifact we know of into keeping her company, and is certain that another terrifyingly powerful artifact will serve her purposes. I don’t see an alternative, Princess Thalia.”

“Countess.” Thalia sighed. “Well, fuck. I suppose we’ve got some books to read.”

Luna: For the Night is Dark V

It didn’t surprise Luna at all that Penumbra had placed the manifested Archive on the opposite side of the mountain from the one they’d arrived on. What did come as a surprise as that when it wasn’t metaphysically anchored to some other structure, the construct had an uncomfortably familiar appearance.

“...is that your… old castle?” Nightmare said as they came in view of it.

“As I remember it,” Luna said. The not-a-filly had captured the palace with the exactness of someone who’d made a detailed study of it. The turrets were of the correct number, the crenulations atop the walls were staggered in the three-two pattern that was the architect’s signature, and the fittings on the front gates were bimetal instead of the uniform brass everyone assumed after the metal had weathered. “It’s… I can’t… what would lead her to make an homage to my and Tia’s old home of all the possible designs?”

“Old people are quirky and nostalgic?” Thalia suggested with a grin.

“But why our old castle?”

“Maybe ask her sometime, Selune,” Nightmare said. “Thalia, did the du Dune explorers ever record the exterior appearance of the Archive?”

“They’ve always worked on the theory that it doesn’t have one,” Thalia said. “Their supposition was that it was a metaphysical construct floating in a pocket of reality built from the inside out. To my knowledge, we’re the only ones other than its creator to see it anchored independently in actual reality.”

“Did they, or anyone since, ever ask the manifest spirit who its creator was?”

“They did.”

“And?”

“I don’t know,” Thalia said. “It’s been decades since I checked out what the originals had to say about it. But we’ve been assuming the worst up until now, so it’d be a shame to start getting optimistic.”

“Penumbra made it, brought it here, and anchored it,” Luna said. “And we have no idea why.”

“Perhaps she had use for it,” Nightmare siad. “I’m sure that having all the knowledge you’ll ever need on hand before going to dismantle a curse would be useful.”

“So this is what this place looks like?” All three of them looked up to see Rainbow lounging on the peak of the roof directly above the front door. “Cuz it sorta looks like that busted castle in the Everfree, ‘cept it’s all in one piece.”

“We were just commenting on that,” Thalia said. “You should go back and hang out with Ember, Rainbow. This isn’t exactly a fun exploration trip with the other Elements.”

“Depends,” Rainbow said. “Anything in that fancy ‘Archive’ of yours got books about how to kick the shadow thing’s plot up between her ears? Cuz I’d love to read them.”

“It does but…”

“Great.” Rainbow stepped off the roof, expertly flared her wings at the right moment to touch down as sofly as if she’d stepped off a flight of stairs, and looked slightly up at Thalia. “Point me at ‘em.”

“Rainbow Dash, what part of ‘the books will eat your soul’ didn’t you hear?”

“Eh.” Rainbow shrugged.

Luna narrowed her eyes at her. “That’s it? A shrug?”

“Flutters is my friend,” Rainbow said. “Someone hurts your friend, you kick their plot. If the books can tell me how to kick shadow thing’s plot, I don’t care about the rest.”

“Rainbow, we’ve covered this,” Nightmare said. “You can’t kick her plot.”

“Well, not right..”

“No.” Nightmare sighed. “Rainbow, she’s not not some immense megalomaniacal entity that you can kill by hitting her really, really, really hard. The Guardian was ultimately a being of this world. He was fully real, he had a distinct body, and you could kill him by harming that body. Zambet isn’t like that.”

“Well, yeah,” Rainbow said. “I mean, she burst like a balloon and went through the ground like water.”

Nightmare blinked a couple times. “So you realize that she doesn’t have a body for you to beat on with your hooves and yet you believe you can just… stroll up to her and kick her plot?”

“Nope,” Rainbow said. ‘You need to hold her down first.”

Nightmare grinned widely at this. “Not exactly what I need to do, but accurate enough.”

“Rainbow, you understand what…”

“Yeah, I heard ya the…”

“I am not finished.” Thalia glared at Rainbow until the pegasus subsided, and glanced Luna’s way as well. “The archive’s books are a lure, a temptation. If you read them, it will worm its way into your mind and make you want to read more, learn more, study more. The need to know will become overwhelming because no matter what you want to know by reading, it will strive to create that empty space that must be filled so you can be absolutely sure that you know enough… except it will never be enough. In the Archive, you will never tire, never hunger, never thirst, never become bored, and need nothing except to read. All of this with the ultimate goal of drawing you into the center and making you into fuel for its power. It is a machine fed by the lives of those incautious enough not to recognize the seductive whisper, that all the knowledge ever gained in the entire world can be had if you just keep reading.”

Rainbow’s eyes got wide. “Whatcha mean, all the knowledge.”

“I mean exactly what it sounds like,” Thalia said. “If anyone at any time in the entire history of this world knew something, it can be read in the Archive’s books. You can read every moment of your own life’s story, even the parts that you cannot remember because for a single instant, you knew it. Every meal, every word, evey experience, every single moment.”

Luna took in a breath. If Tia had learned about this Archive after I’d been bound to my moon by the Elements... “You… didn’t put it that way when you explained it the first time.”

“That’s true, I didn’t.” Thalia looked steadily at her. “Do you understand now why this is a risk, Princess? Do you understand how much of a risk it is?”

I could relive all of it, Luna realized as she stared at the changeling royal. The campaigns with the changelings, all the good times I had with Tia, every joyful moment with every friend and lover… all of it. “I do,” she said, trying to put extra emphasis on the words, “and it terrifies me. But I cannot turn aside, I must know what Penumbra does and what use she intends to put the Crystal Heart to.”

“That won’t do,” Thalia said. “You need to have a very, very specific goal. Tettidora theorized that Penumbra is immune to the Archive’s snares and can peruse its infinite knowledge as she pleases. If you seek to know everything she knows, you will never leave.”

“Then how she intends to return the Crystal Empire, and what she intends to do with the Heart,” Luna said. “Is that specific enough? Seeking knowledge of her specific intentions related to the Empire and the Heart?”

“I believe so,” Thalia said. ‘But don’t let yourself lose sight of those specific knowledge goals. As long as you have those specifics to cling to, I--or at least the du Dunes--believe that you’ll be more resistant to the Archive’s manipulations.”

“Wouldn’t they know?” Luna said. “You said that under Queen Vespa, they interacted enough with the Archive to immediately be able to sense it attempting to intrude in their minds.”

“You’d have to ask an older member of the family directly,” Thalia said. “My understanding is that the interaction wasn’t scientific. They didn’t do trial and error to see what way of reading might defray the influence. The best they could offer was anecdotal recollecitons that they tried to derive information from.”

“I’m surprised Vespa was willing to take the risk.”

“She was extremely close to the du Dunes,” Thalia said, stepping up to the ponderous door of the Archive. “Her dearest childhood friends were du Dunes. Her husband came from their family. She accompanied them on dozens of their expeditions before she was crowned. She understood the nuances of their work and obsession, and the uses to which certain of their pieces could be put without consequential risk; by sheer coincidence, she presided over the humbling of the yetis and establishing a successful permanent embassy with the dragons. You’ll not meet a single du Dune who’ll even entertain the thought, but there is every reason to believe she leveraged her understanding of the du Dunes’ collection to enforce her diplomacy.”

“She seems… irresponsible.”

“I can’t comment on that,” Thalia said. “Tettidora could, or perhaps Chiti, but I’m not a scholar.”
She paused to take a firm grip on the handle for the doors with her teeth and pulled against the weight, nearly falling over as the door moved easily, and the interior that was revealed was emphatically not like the dim, torch-lit expanse of bookshelves that it had been when Luna entered in the Provinces..

Natural light streamed from above, slightly golden in tone from the noon-day sun overhead, through a glass roof laid in heavy iron framing. A rug of rich violet, blue, and teal stretched before them over a floor inlaid with what Luna knew was green marble sprinkled through with quartz that looked like points of light--stars as a point of fact--in the night sky. Luna glanced to either side to confirm, but knew exactly what banners she’d see: a portrait of Celestia rendered in thread and fabric to the right, one rendered of her to the left. The replication was exquisite, even down to replicating slight cracks and flaws in the stone.

“What the…?” Luna held up a hoof for Nightmare to stop and stood there, drinking in the scenery around her. It’s… our palace, she said to herself. The chip where a workpony slipped with a statue, the wear of the Guard never using the carpet, even damage from where dignitaries would wait for an audience.

“I never thought I’d…” She took a breath to collect herself. “It’s my home. It’s the home Tia and I shared. She even duplicated details, down to miniscule damage caused by the workers and servants. I don’t understand, why did she do this?”

“A gift, Silver Ellune, now Princess Luna.”

There was nothing to warn of the manifest spirit’s appearance, no sense of gathering magic, nor slight chill in the air as the specter drew in energy from around itself to create a distinct form. Just like how the Evils traveled through the Void by disappearing or appearing in a blink, a form that looked like a young wolf standing upright, clad in the jacket, trousers, and shirt of a well-to-do shopkeep, was simply there.

“Thus I was instructed by Light Shadow,” the spirit said, his voice like a young colt. “It is recorded that she was pleased with her work when she instructed me so.”

“Light Shadow?”

“It is recorded that she also uses the name ‘Penumbra’ as an approximation of her given name.”

Luna looked from side to side, taking in all the familiar features again. “Modeling my home with Tia was a gift.”

“So stated Light Shadow, and so it is correct.”

“I suppose I can just ask her later, assuming she gives me the chance.” Luna advanced on the manifest spirit. “Where are the books?”

“It is recorded that you know where your library is, Princess Luna. But if you will permit a minute of your time to be used, I was commanded to give messages to Princess Luna, Princess Celestia, and Queen Chrysalis upon meeting them. Will you allow me to discharge her command?”

Luna didn’t hesitate; the chance to gain some personal insight into this ‘Penumbra’ if only through her choice of words was too great to pass up. “I will.”

“Your consideration is helpful, and appreciated. You will receive her message to you where you received guests in your home, when you lived in it.”

Luna quirked an eyebrow at the spirit. “You can’t just give it to me?”

“I cannot. However, I can be called upon wherever you or your companions are by the use of the phrase ‘librarian please assist’.” The manifest spirit’s expression, previously frozen into one of vague, vacant pleasantness became a pleased smile. “It has been centuries since I was last able to aid seekers of knowledge. I regret that my services were so off-putting to those charming du Dune gentleponies that they kept others away all this time.”

And then he had vanished, between one blink and the next, just as he had appeared.

“Well then,” Nightmare said. “That’s an… odd way to create a manifest spirit.”

“Odd how?” Luna said.

“Typically, a manifest spirit represents the thing it’s a manifestation of,” Nightmare said. “With the Quarantine Flag, for example, the manifest spirit represents the artifact, totally controlling it and bound within it. This manifest spirit seems more like a caretaker who has access to its power--the repeated phrase ‘it is recorded’ means that he probably has access to all of the information in the Archive--but doesn’t represent it. He’s not in control, but obeys Penumbra.”

“Odd that she’d require me to go to my antechamber to receive a message she left for me,” Luna said. “Perhaps she means to do what Zambet did: project her presence somehow and converse with me. About what, I can’t imagine, but I, Tia, and Queen Chrysalis represent the entire leadership of pony nations so I’m sure that’s related in some way.”

“Then you’d best go and find out what she has to say,” Thalia said. “I’ll see if there’s a way to formulate what we’re after to minimize our exposure to the Archive’s allure.”

“If you’d like me to go with you, Selune…”

Luna shook her head. “I doubt she’d have overlooked your possible presence, Nacht,” she said. “It would be unusual to say the least if her Father didn’t mention the Dread Queen of Nightmares.”

“He’d have called me ‘Meinnacht’ but point taken.” Nightmare seemed to hesitate a moment, as if she was thinking of adding something, before she gave Luna a smile that reminded Luna strongly of Tia--mouth closed, crow’s feet at the corners of her eyes, radiating warmth--before turning away to begin a conversation with Thalia.

The way to her room, even after a thousand years had passed, was so familiar that Luna was sure she could walk it blindfolded. The obsessive attention to the most miniscule detail--even down to the difference in rug texture where the weaver had been forced to use a different regional wool for a few inches of a design--carried on through the walk and it lent a familiarity to it that was intoxicating.

And that was genuinely frightening.

The manifest spirit had called the duplication a gift, and Luna suspected that he was telling the absolute truth, but it was becoming clear that Penumbra had another purpose to it. The exactness of the replication almost smothered her in nostalgia and comfort, every little thing full of familiarity, wrapping her in a blanket of safety and peace--and not a bit of it was magic. Giving Luna a space that she instinctively recognized as home was an incredibly subtle way to put her off her guard, dull her senses, and distract her and it was made all the harder to fight because there was no magic to disrupt, no illusion to pierce, no runes to smear. And if she confronted Penumbra on it, the filly could quite compellingly deny any ulterior motives because there was no malice obvious or implied, and worst of all… Luna had no way to be certain that there were any reasons other than what Penumbra had conveyed via the manifest spirit.

Calculation like this took practice, lots of practice, and an understanding of the target that was nearly as good as being able to magically sift through their mind. She knows me, Luna realized as she continued to her room along the incredibly familiar hall, and all I know about her is what others have told me.

And then she opened the door to her room--she even duplicated the slight indentations from when Tia lost her patience and started to kick at the door to get my attention, how could she even know about that--the subtle fragrance of the alstroemerias she loved to decorate with swept out to enfold her, mingled with the mouth-watering aroma of ginger-camomile tea from a still-steaming cup that had been set on the side of the table she met dignitaries at, her side of the table as a point of fact.

Luna approached the cup cautiously, horn alight and probing for illusions, and then traps, and then any hint of poisons, and finally for any runescription on the black porcelain with hoof-painted designs of waterlilies in the moonlight. The cup was real, as was the tea, and there was no malicious magic or poisons about it. There was a simple preservation runescription--one that kept the contents fresh and at a constant temperature, and prevented the heat from evaporating the liquid--but no other runes that she could find. Satisfied that there was nothing dangerous about the tea, Luna seated herself on the comfortable bench, and picked up her very favorite tea blend to sip.

It was perfectly-steeped, rich with flavor, sweetened with a quarter teaspoon of honey the way she liked it, and there was a pleasant tang to it as well, something different than the norm but familiar in a way Luna couldn’t quite place.

“Thank you for agreeing to meet with me, Princess.” Luna raised her eyes from the cup to see a full-grown zebra mare standing there, looking quite pleased. Her pure black mane was long and woven with very familiar zebra ornaments--familiar, because Luna had spent time admiring the ancient Zebrican art pieces the last time she’d gone to visit the Caeser. These, however, had no visible signs of age and looked quite new.

Despite the tribal ornaments, however, Penumbra had ice-blue eyes that were very much not Zebrican but Luna had seen in many ponies, and a long horn that had been carefully and painstakingly ground into a point and capped with iron to make it a viable weapon. She also wore the iron shoes that professional hoof-fighters used, and a pair of bandoleers holding the various small pieces of a battlemagi’s kit.

“It seemed rude to refuse to hear your message,” Luna said evenly.

“And you wished to learn about me by examining my words and the precise way I said them.” Penumbra smiled and walked over, her footfalls having no impact on the ground, and magically levitated a chair out so she could seat herself, making it obvious that she was some kind of projection or illusion by not denting the cushion. “I expected no less of Equestria’s princess of war and espionage.”

“That was a thousand years ago.”

“The war part, perhaps.” A small clear glass of liquid and ice, topped with a sprig of chocolate mint, appeared in front of the illusion and she gunned it down with a sort of brisk motion before putting the empty glass down again. “But you cannot do your duty without slipping into minds and learning the deepest of secrets as you guard the dreams of ponies.”

“This is not a mere message,” Luna said, sipping her tea again.

“It’s a message, but it would be poor form to leave some sliver to speak to you and be unable to answer.” Penumbra tipped the glass onto a point of its rim and rotated it steadily, looking levelly at Luna. “We are long passed games, Princess Luna. You know what I’m trying to do, the artifact I’m seeking, and where the palace tower of the Crystal Empire was positioned when the capital was built. You know about Vorka and his experiments, the fate of your sister and of Canceros, and that I leveraged your niece and her friends into accompanying me on my journey. You know about Zambet and her contingencies, and I while I don’t know who she used one of them on, I suspect you do and that you wish to smite her for harming one of your little ponies.”

“Fluttershy.”

Penumbra grimaced and let the illusion of the glass return to level. “Naturally,” she sighed. “Naturally it would be the one Element I least wanted to see harmed in this endeavor. This will greatly complicate things.”

Luna eyed her. “You pretend a great deal of remorse for someone who tried to manipulate one of her servants into torturing Pinkie Pie.”

“It is genuine,” Penumbra said. “Disabling Laughter with exquisite agony was necessary; harming Kindness was neither necessary nor desirable. My only regret in regards to Pinkamena Pie is that I lacked the certainty in my alternate method to disable her harmlessly.”

“Would you have, if you could have?”

Penumbra smirked. “You think I would have preferred harm to Laughter, who never raised a hoof to me, when my means of dealing with Honesty attacking me was to let her bat me around while trying to talk her down?”

Luna’s stifled her reply and gave the zebricorn frown, and a slow nod. “That’s a reasonable point,” she admitted. “Did you genuinely not expect her to try to buck you through the nearest wall when she realized that you went to her home and spoke to her family?”

“I knew she would,” Penumbra said. “And for that reason, beyond my personal aversion to doing harm without good cause, I made sure that I did neither harm nor injustice to any pony in Ponyville while I was gathering food and drink for my guests.”

“Because if you had, you couldn’t have hidden it.”

“And Honesty would have known immediately, and harming Applejack could have easily become necessary,” Penumbra said. “Combined with the nearly crippling blow dealt by Zambet by disabling Kindness, it would have defeated my plans entirely. Fortunately, Applejack is unharmed and Fluttershy will recover in relatively short order.”

“After seeing the wreck your mercenary made of her, I have trouble believing that.”

Penumbra snorted. “I would have thought you’d be the last pony to underestimate the Elements, Princess. After they made their debut by pile-driving Discord into the bedrock, I’d have thought you’d error on the side of overestimating them.”

“I try not to make a habit of overestimating the powers available to me.” Luna sipped her tea. “You’d been described to me as a filly.”

“I am, for the moment. I can resume a form more appropriate to my age but it’s enormously uncomfortably and hideously humiliating.”

“It’s not an illusion then.”

“No.”

Luna considered this. Something to think about later, she decided after a moment. “It’s a bit cliche but I feel compelled to ask… why?”
“Because there is no harm in showing consideration,” Penumbra said. “Because it’s an artifact of a wonderful and beautiful time in history. Because I’m old, and nostalgic, and like to hold on to my little box of good things.”

Luna blinked and realized that she was referring to recreating the forest palace. “No, I meant…”

“I know what you meant Princess.” Another illusion of the drink with a sprig of chocolate mint appeared, and this time Penumbra sipped it instead of drinking it whole. “Although I meant every word I just said. But why am I doing this? Because I have spent over ten thousand years refusing the sword, while everyone else has failed.”

Luna didn’t have to fake her confusion. “Failed? Failed to do what?”

Instead of answering, Penumbra leaned back in her chair and looked at Luna, although something about her gaze made Luna think that the illusion of the zebricorn wasn’t really looking at her. “I want for very little,” she said after a moment. “I have relatively few ambitions and even fewer desires. A bit of lovely land near the sea where I can build a simple cottage. Good food and drink, and some basic comforts. Safety and security for a mate, should I desire one, and for foals should I adopt any. I’ve never really wanted the world, or to rule it, or conquer it, or exploit it. I’ve only ever wanted the world to leave me alone, and naively left it alone in the hopes that I could just exist as I pleased, with my simple things.

“My lack of grand desires is probably why you were confused when you were told of someone out there who was the most ancient living being you’ve heard of, but you’d never actually heard about before.” Penumbra’s eyes shifted and focused on Luna. “I very much want to leave all you mortals alone to do whatever you please. You have nothing to offer me, and nothing I want. But I can’t do that because the lot of you refuse to stop bucking it up.”

“Bucking what up?”

“The world, Luna, the entire bucking world.” Although her expression remained impassive, Penumbra sounded angry. “The people I was born to lacked the resolve to bat down the sphinxes at first, and thousands died over nothing to achieve an agreement that gave everyone what they wanted and would have been achieved if someone had just said something. I could have been that someone, but I refused the sword. Leave the little mortals to their meaningless squabbles, I thought. Surely nothing bad could come of this, I thought. It would have only taken someone to lose their mind for a split second and just yell what they wanted at the other person, but no, it couldn’t have been that easy. It never is.

“I might have prevented much of the suffering that led the griffons to establish the Provinces as they are. Stopped a few wars, ended a few famines, stopped a grisly plague, saved so many lives but I refused the sword. It wasn’t my place, I thought. These are things that they have to work out by themselves if a solution is ever to be achieved, I thought. There were so many decision points along the way, Princess, where an immortal battle-shamaness of a tribe that even by then had been long forgotten could have done a great deal of good. But I? I refused the sword, and suffering came. Because I trusted that the lot of you could smooth out your own petty squabbles, and advance my goals without even the gentlest touch upon your destinies.

“And so it went, Luna. Preventing the rise of the succession of Storm Kings among the yetis; how many lives have been destroyed by them, I wonder? But I refused the sword, being such a wise and tolerant girl.” Penumbra practically spat ‘wise’ and ‘tolerant’ as she said the words. “Broken the squabbling dragon lords until they united under the strongest centuries before you did… but I refused the sword. The dragons are mighty, I said to myself, and wise and they can surely work it out without a nosy little zebra filly to interfere. Better to leave them to struggle. It would ennoble them, allow them to overcome their troubles by themselves and have a better foundation to build on, I thought. I wonder if Synge would have still suffered the bellyrot from being weaned in a dank cave instead of the airy one she belonged in? Guess we’ll never know, will we?

“And then we came to you two.” Penumbra’s eyes narrowed, the first time in her recitation that her face reflected her voice at all. “Born unicorns, but ascended to a higher plane through forging a bond to the forces of Order and Chaos and embodying the Graven Light and Mutable Dark. Sisters by adoption--I remember it, even if neither of you do--but as much family as if born from the same parents, the Royal Sisters, the Princess of Sun and Moon respectively. The dual rulers, to occupy the Dual Thrones, one a warrior who tore down evil in the name of her people, the other a glorious queen whose maternal wing sheltered all. You had so many potential. You were perfect for the task of bringing my paradise to be without me saying a word or doing a thing. I refused the sword again; I left matters to the rulers who would stretch the cooling shade of peace over a world thirsting for justice, for mercy, for abundance, and for safety. I could rely on you, I thought. The two of you embodied everything required in a perfect monarch, balancing each other’s flaws, each containing a part of that ideal. In time, everyone would serve you gladly, should serve you gladly, I thought.”

Penumbra stood silently, staring, before she leaned forward and her ice-blue eyes glowed. “And then a petty malcontent fanned a couple sparks to flame, and that feeble sister of yours sent your army away and you did NOTHING to stop her!”

Luna involuntarily reeled back from the sudden crescendo from a normal speaking voice to a deafening roar that put the Royal Canterlot Voice to shame, staring, momentarily shocked at the sudden surge of anger from the illusion. After a moment, Penumbra’s glowing eyes dimmed back to normal and her face slid into the placid expression again.

“And that is when I knew I could not refuse the sword again. You two were the last hope; Nachtmiri Mein engineering your sojourn on your moon for a thousand years was just a coda to a cacophony where a symphony once played. Over ten thousand years of waiting patiently, of refusing my impulse to make things better, of putting aside my accumulated power and knowledge out of a sense of duty, a belief that the gardener must allow the flowers to bloom, and it came to nothing. Things were worse than ever after that fundamental failure, and so I made a decision. I would step into that dark place that is rightly called ‘evil’ to do what must be done. I would finally discard my foolish notions of a gentle touch, and I would do things my way this time. No excuses, no promises, no forgiveness, no second chances, no kindness, and certainly no hesitation. I will have my peaceful seaside cottage, Princess Luna, to look out across the sea and watch the sun rise on a world made glorious and beautiful by my labors.

“We have reached the end of the game. I and my Father have dealt with the interloper who was arrogant enough to believe that they could take my world from me and make it their plaything. Their loss is assured; there can be no recovery from the blow we’ve dealt by feeding that pestilence to the Physician.”

“So Thalia was right about that.”

“Yes.” Penumbra smiled slightly. “I stole one of the interloper’s pawns, played at using it well, then cast it into the fire. With my competition dealt with, I move to finish my antagonists.”

“We weren’t your enemies before…”

“Nor are you my enemies now,” Penumbra said. “The antagonist is the one who opposes the protagonist; they aren’t necessarily the villain. You may esteem me your enemy, but I see the lot of you as mere obstacles to overcome, not adversaries to grind under my hoof. You would oppose me even if I didn’t take certain actions to secure my path before walking it; I just regret that I was forced to do this now instead of during the reign of Chidinida and Shining Armor’s grandchild.”

Luna blinked at her. “Their… grandchild.”

“Yes.” A gesture replenished the illusionary glass and she began sipping again. “Had I been permitted to wait, I could have simply walked into the reborn Empire with a disguised Zambet at my side, strolled up to the Crystal Heart, and implemented the final phase of my plan. Everything would have been perfect, few if any people hurt, but alas.”

Luna tried to maintain a straight face for her question, but the absurdity of it made her grin. “I don’t suppose you’re going to reveal your master plan in a villainous monologue.”

Penumbra had been in the middle of a sip and the question made her snort; based on the momentarily pained expression, Luna guessed that whatever was meant to be in the glass was extremely strong alcohol, although making an illusion do such a natural thing as their eyes watering from sneezing strong alcohol struck her as odd. “That would be so gloriously cliche that it’s very tempting,” she said after an illusionary cloth appeared for her to blow her nose, another oddly alive gesture, “but that would endanger many ponies I wish to keep from harm.”

“I didn’t expect that you would reveal your full intent.” Luna swallowed the last of the tea in her cup. “So is this your message? Explaining your motives and engaging in small talk?”

“No, this was me indulging in a desire to speak with a mare whom I’ve admired for some time.” Penumbra’s avatar stood. “The message I wished to deliver is this: I intend to shatter the wheel of destiny to which all ponykind is yoked. I do not wish to harm you, or your sister, or any other pony; having chosen to regard this entire world as specifically mine, I prefer to protect you all. But I will not accept defeat; please do not compel me to harm anyone by putting them in my way.”

Luna sighed and nodded. “You know I can’t just leave this be.”

“You wouldn’t be a portion of the perfect monarch if you knew of a danger to your people, and did nothing,” Penumbra inclined her head deeply. “But I had to ask, nonetheless. Fare well, Luna; until we meet again.”

“Why the Heart?” Luna said as the illusion began to visibly destabilize, the clear sign of whatever was powering it coming to a halt.

“It’s the only one I have any right to use.” Penumbra smiled broadly. “It’s an artifact of love, after all, and the love of home resonates as surely as the love of another.”

Author's Note

Lordy, I thought I'd never find a place where I felt comfortable ending. Welcome to the villainous monologue, such as it is. Hope people enjoy and I really hope that the motivations aren't cliche or come across as a cheap attempt to "humanize" the bad guy. As usual, I am a writer starved for feedback of any and all kinds, and would really appreciate some. Eventually, someone might even tear me a new one and I'll have another flaw to put on my list of things to correct.

That's actually an exciting prospect, believe it or not.

See y'all for Part VI!

Luna: For the Night is Dark VI

The disappearance of the illusion--projection is more like it, she thought--of Penumbra left Luna lounging comfortably in front of the recreation of her table, with an empty cup of her favorite fine porcelain design, in her antechamber with the gentle scent of alstroemerias subtly urging her to indulge in some nostalgia instead of thinking on the current situation, and frowning pensively.

“I intend to shatter the wheel of destiny to which all ponykind is yoked.” Everything that Penumbra had said was very rational, reasonable, even understandable. Now free to think on it, Luna realized that what she had taken for anger in the zebricorn’s voice had been closer to bitterness--and sadness. The only beings that Luna had met who were anything like as old as Penumbra were Order, Discord, the alicorns of the four seasons, and Nacht, and the very personal way that Penumbra spoke of past events removed all doubt in her mind that what appeared to be a young mare was fully as ancient as she claimed.

Which of course presented the problem that as unicorns--and alicorns--accumulated centuries, they accumulated power which meant that Penumbra could well be her peer in terms of pure magical prowess. Far more worrying was that someone who she should have been at least dimly aware of had kept herself essentially invisible for millennia. What Penumbra had said about her desires being extremely ordinary probably contributed to that--those who wanted for very little were very difficult to notice in the first place--but she was also so extremely exotic that no crowd, no matter how heedless, could fail to notice her.

“Some form of concealment,” she said, still looking down at her empty cup. “Something that makes her difficult or even impossible to notice.”

“Penumbra, I presume?” Luna hadn’t heard Nacht come in, but when she looked up, the other alicorn was easing herself into the chair opposite her.

“Yes,” Luna said. “Her ‘message’ was her projecting herself in the form of the young adult mare she probably normally appears to be.”

“Claiming to be ancient wasn’t just talk.”

“No,” Luna said. “She spoke of the past in a very personal way, the way one talks about things they’d witnessed themselves. I can’t confirm her claims--except the ones that pertain directly to Tia and myself--but what she said about the history of the zebras, griffons, dragons, yeti, and Equestria all fit into the pieces I know.”

“So, what’s our little villain like?” Nacht leaned back a little and grinned. “Megalomaniacal? Any villainous monologues or overblown threats, or nifty catchphrases?”

“I take it the changeling libraries contain comical graphic novels.”

“Comic books, Selune.”
‘That is what I just said.”

“No it…” Nacht shook her head. “Never mind, later. So any cliches?”

“Just the adage that even villains are the heroes of their own story.” Luna said. “She claims to want nothing more than a quiet little home by the sea, and the bare essentials of a comfortable life. She says she has no desire to conquer, plunder, or rule. She imagines that after all this is over, she’ll build a cottage on the eastern sea and watch the sun rise on a world she made better.”

“And?”

“And every instinct I have, everything I know about reading people, says she’s entirely sincere.” Luna sighed. “But she’s also intensely bitter about what she sees as patiently waiting for over ten thousand years, leaving people alone to live their lives and govern themselves as they chose, and having nothing to show for it. No better world, no peace and security, and no cottage by the sea.”

“So we’re dealing with an ancient magi whose patience with trusting mortals to sort themselves out snapped, and she’s set to do something major to make it work this time.” Nacht folded her forelegs. “So how does Daddy Dearest fit in?”

“She only mentioned him in the context of the two of them giving an ‘interloper’ a swift kick to the plot and a ballistic arc,” Luna said. “Whoever was playing the game for the purposes of winning control of our world. She seemed certain that with Canceros dead, their strategy was entirely wrecked and they could not recover.”

“The Games rarely if ever involve participation of the world they’re being played for,” Nacht said. ‘Of course, few worlds have demigods, or ancient beings with an even more ancient being riding on their shoulder. So what’s our ancient little dead-not-dead filly-not-filly’s intention?”

“To shatter the wheel of destiny to which all ponykind is yoked,” Luna said, “to quote her word-for-word.”

Nacht furrowed her brow. “That’s… strangely pointless. Did she elaborate?”

“No, but you seem to know what she meant.”

“I don’t know her exact meaning but her phrasing sounds like she’s under a bizarrely out-of-date impression of destiny,” Nacht said. “In the wider universe, fate--destiny if you prefer--is managed by The Weaver. Used to be--as in, over a hundred thousand years ago--The Weaver was evil. Not purposefully, but he was an object lesson in the principle that anything taken to an extreme goes really bad, which in his case was neutrality. He was, in essence, neutral to the point of torturing everyone by treating all outcomes as equally appropriate. He was a tyrant, obsessed with keeping everyone and everything in their neat, orderly little fate box and remained restrained by their established thread of destiny. The only being who knows why this was so has never explained it, but the old one eventually just sort of disappeared and the new one was a mirror image. Zealously idealistic, uses her threads to make things bend to what she believes ‘good’ to be, but thinks mortals should be just left alone to figure things out. The way Penumbra talks about ponies being yoked to a wheel of destiny makes it sound like she thinks that destiny is still being controlled by the tyrant Weaver.”

“It’s hard to imagine she’s so out-of-date that she doesn’t know about the god of destiny being replaced.” Luna thought back a moment to a comment Ember had made. “No, I’m confident she’s aware of it. Ember said that Penumbra is like someone who was supposed to die, but was saved and now sits just shy of dying. I can’t imagine the obsessive god you describe letting that pass.”

“No, you’re right.’ Nacht hummed thoughtfully. “Maybe she means to do something with cutie marks?”

“Cutie marks.” Luna frowned. “Well, I suppose it fits. All ponies have them, and you can’t remove it, so from a certain point of view you’re yoked to that destiny. And… there are ways to… trifle with them.”

Nacht blinked. “Really?”

Luna sighed. “Yes, it was an incident at Ponyville.”

“No big surprises. The Trio?”

“Who else?” Luna smirked. “Cute fillies, too driven for their own good.”

“Oh, I don’t know, their changeling counterparts turned out well enough.”

“...their what now?”

“Changeling counterparts. Belladonna du Luc, Pear Bloom du Sylvi, and Sugar Bell du Closs. The resemblance is eerie as all buck, although the changeling Trio are about six years older than the Ponyville Trio.”

“I think I need to see this. Later. At any rate, Apple Bloom got her hooves on an alchemical tincture a zebra shamaness named Flavius Zecora was developing and decided to down it because she thought it would give her a cutie mark.”

“Gave her a ton and piled them on thick and fast, compelling her to do the things being depicted, until she mended her ways?”

Luna gaped at her. “How could you possibly…?”

“The du Dunes keep several variants of the end product on hoof,” Nacht said. “It’s meant to temporarily induce an altered mental state so a pony can achieve a better insight into their cutie mark if it’s especially obscure. Unfinished, before being mixed with the other component tinctures it… well, it does what happened to Apple Bloom.”

“I suppose it’s good that the unfinished potion isn’t poisonous, then. At any rate, that’s what I mean about it being possible to trifle with them.”

“And what can be altered can be destroyed, or at least altered in a way that there’s no real difference.” Nacht grimaced. “I can’t imagine how she plans to do what she says--how do you smash something metaphysical that has no known driver?--but if we assume that her intentions are in that direction, she means to smash a symbol that confirms what a pony already knows about themselves. The result seems weirdly pointless for the amount of planning she seems to have taken on.”

“Cutie marks aren’t just pictures on your flank.” Both Luna and Nacht turned to see that Thalia had appeared in the door, leaning against the frame. “I don’t know more about what they are--I’ve got a sister and a niece who do, but they’re elsewhere--but I do know that Starswirl the Bearded conducted a whole plotload of practical tests to confirm it. Pretty sure he was doing it as part of constructing some kind of spell, and I know that it’s all under serious lock-and-key in Canterlot’s archives.”

“How?”

“You know my sister as Precise Index,” Thalia said, a grin pulling at the edges of her muzzle. “I know her as Chiti.”

Luna gaped at her. “The sister who holed up in the Royal Archives is the head librarian?”

“Kyra mentioned her, I see.”

“In passing but she never mentioned that she had become the head librarian.” Luna settled back in her seat. “The only one with unfettered access to the Forbidden Section besides myself and Tia. How?”

Thalia shrugged. “She’s a genius. I’m sure she got help with inventing her identity and making it airtight and bulletproof but leading your big sis to trust her with the most dangerous repository of knowledge in the world--except perhaps this crazy place--was completely her.”

“Your sister must be an extraordinary mare.”

“She is.” Thalia smiled broadly. “It’s fortunate that she didn’t get ahold of your niece, or Twilight would have become a magitechnician to rival Starswirl instead of being a highly technical battlemagi.”

“At this moment, with Twilight compelled to be in the company of Penumbra, I’m not sure I’d be unhappy with her hiding in a library and doing research.” Luna got up. “Did you figure out a way to get at what we’re after?”

“Yeah, and it was suspiciously easy,” Thalia said. “Penumbra wants to exploit the central position of the lei node that the Crystal Heart is anchored above to saturate everywhere that the bodies and tributaries of the network reaches with some spell.”

“Her thinking skips directly to approaching the Heart?” Luna said. “Nothing about how she plans to return the Empire to reality?”

“I didn’t want to risk asking,” Thalia said. “Truncated, narrowly-construed questions are the only safe way to get information out of the Archive.”

“Which means we can’t stop her from returning the Empire.” Luna frowned. “Not that the Empire finally being free, and the crystal ponies returning to the embrace of Equestria is a bad thing necessarily, but she clearly means to exploit it.”

“Did she say how?”

“Only that if her plans had gone the way she wished, Cadance and Shining Armor’s grandchild would be on the throne of the Empire by the time she executed her plan, and that few if any ponies would be harmed.”

“So messing with cutie marks in the same way but with different timing would endanger ponies less.” Nacht frowned. “That’s curious. Why would a more stable world change the result of blasting every pony with a spell that does something to their cutie marks?”

“Yet another question on a stack that we have no way to solve.” Luna shook her head and trotted over to where Thalia was standing in the door. “I don’t suppose you thought to ask the Archive where the Empire can be found?”

“That was worth the risk, although I don’t think it was significant enough of a question to encourage the manipulation: dead center of the Glass Waste. Looks like an ice sheet as far as the eye can see, supernaturally smooth, no snow on top.”

“I have a clear picture of it in my mind.” Luna looked at Nacht. “In case you need it so you can get us there.”

“I know it as well,” Nahct said. “So, where’s Rainbow?”

“Back near the entrance, complaining about how the books are all stupid and unreadable, and how she really wants to kick Zambet’s plot.” Thalia smirked. “I think she was under the impression that she could pick up a book and start reading, and didn’t need to learn the language.”

Nightmare looked oddly at her. “Why would she have to do that?”

“They’re all written in some kinda weird pictographic language,” Thalia said. “As I hear it, it was lucky that the du Dune archeologists that breached the Archive initially had just finished surveying a tomb that used it.”

“And this has remained consistent ever since?”

“Yeah, why?”

“Just… that seems somewhat counterintuitive, doesn’t it?” Nacht looked at Luna. “It’s supposed to entrap ponies who read its books, but it requires them to learn an obscure ancient language before it can?”

Luna swallowed. “Thalia, where’s the nearest repository of the books?”

“Uh… up the stairs, though the..”

“My library,” Luna said. “I’ll meet you both there.” Before either of them could say anything, a quick spark of magic brought her into the comfortably familiar space, complete with the illusion of an eternally-shifting night sky above, that she had no time to enjoy. Picking the nearest shelf, she pulled out a book and opened it.

Pre-union Equestrian. She gritted her teeth, shoved the book back in place before choosing one on a different shelf, placed up high, and opened it up. It was the same language, in flowing and decidedly not pictographic script, and Luna flung it at a corner before turning and heading towards the door, nearly crashing face-first into a panting and slightly lathered Thalia.

“They’re written in pre-union Equestrian!” she snarled. “Which is not a bucking pictographic language!”

“I didn’t know!”

“Well you should have put two and two together.” Luna gritted her teeth. “I’ll chew you out later, where’s Nacht?”

“I don’t know,” Thalia said. “I looked away for a moment and she was gone.”

“Probably didn’t want to wait until I confirmed what she suspected.” Luna picked up Thalia with her magic and then blinked to the entrance, carrying the surprised royal. What she fully expected to find was Nacht restraining an entranced Rainbow trying to make her way deeper into the castle; what greeted her eyes on the other side of the teleport was Nacht and Rainbow practically nose-to-nose with Nacht holding a book out of Rainbow’s reach.

“I was getting to the best part!” Rainbow growled. “The plucky heroine was totally gonna save the day in, like, two more pages!”

“Thalia warned you about these books, Rainbow,” Nightmare growled back. “The last thing we need right now is one of the Elements being enslaved to a damn library.”

“It ain’t gonna enslave me,” Rainbow scoffed, pulling back just enough that Nacht could see her superior smirk. “I’m too smart for it.”

“Really now.” Nightmare raised the book still further and looked over her shoulder at Luna. “The idiot was trying to see if Thalia’s claim about the books being able to tell your entire life story was true. But there’s a providence that protects children, morons, and ponies because she skipped the ‘boring’ parts so relatively little reading was done.”

“Yeah, and that’s why I want you to give it back,“ Rainbow said. “I’m about to totally save the day and I wanna read about it.”

“I’m not going to let you read the book,” Nacht said firmly as she slid it back into the only gap in the rows of books. “We’re leaving anyway, so we don’t have time for you to finish.”

“Then let me take it with me.”

“The Archive doesn’t work like that,” Thalia said. “Unlike the stuff I supposed, that’s one thing the du Dunes were pretty direct about: any book that leaves only has writing on the pages it was open to at the time it got taken. If it was closed, it’s blank.”

“Ponypiles,” Rainbow said, looking frustrated. “OK, fine, I can come back later or something. So where’re we going?”

“To pick a fight,” Luna said, “and find out what the mastermind of this entire mess has in mind.”

Author's Note

So, here's the gasp before the plunge. I know it's pretty darn short; I'll make it up to the lot of you somehow. Feedback is always appreciated, wanted even (I might even pay bribes), so please leave all you like below.

Please.

Also, thanks for sticking with me through my uneven and erratic schedule of posting chapters and updates.

Celestia: And Full of Terrors I

Celestia looked down at the scorched and twisted husk that was all that remained of Canceros. Incredible that something so small, could do so much evil, she thought. Yet in the end… I couldn't be enranged. I couldn’t make myself slowly bake him to death instead of just wreathing him in flames so intense that he barely had a moment to make a sound. “I think it’s been centuries since I last did something like this,” she said aloud.

“I think this would be the first enemy you’ve come across in centuries who warranted execution,” Shining Armor said. “There are times when I still find it hard to imagine how frequently hard-case criminals are bundled off to a secure asylum instead of prison.”

“Professional rehabilitation is almost miraculously effective,” Cadence--Celestia was still struggling to remember to think of her niece by her given name--said as she joined her fiance at Celestia’s side. “Some of the places are still too gloomy, though.”

“They can’t all be the Verdant Heart,” Celestia said, pulling her gaze away from the twisted mass of charcoal. “Although I’ve often wished I could somehow duplicate the directors and staff. Perhaps with a wider pool of ponies, we can open more like it.”

“I hope so,” Cadence said. “I spent a lot of time there, if you remember.”

“Hard to forget after the number of notes of appreciation I was sent by the staff,” Celestia said, giving her niece a brief fond look. “Now, to make sure the thestrals are well and then get to the Glass Waste.”

“The frozen plain that Zambet showed us?” Shining said.

“Yes, where the Crystal Empire and the Crystal Heart were carried off by the dying curse of one King Sombra,” Celestia said, turning her head to look for the stairs leading upwards. “I and Luna gave it the suitably overly dramatic name ‘the abomination of Sombra’ because of how many ponies were dragged into the curse with him. Well north of a hundred thousand, a crushing number of innocents.”

“I guess that means everyone knows what the prize is now.” Celestia spotted the stairs at the same moment that Spite appeared in them, her sleek draconic shape looking somewhat haggard. “Because I had no idea until just now either.”

“Spite,” Celestia said. “What are you doing this far south? Has something befallen my sister?”

“She is fine,” Spite said, seating herself in front of the stairs and curling her tail around her feet in a very feline gesture. “Met a changeling named Kyra, got my sorry tail free, and had a pretty tense bicker with the prime alpha bitch of the zambet race. Luna is currently trying to make a city of griffons comfortable after Kindness simultaneously freed all of them from Zambet’s grasp and blasted the bint with her Element.”

“Well, Zambet’’s obviously not dead,” Anori said. “So she’s either so strong that she can shrug off enough pure magic to disintegrate a city block, or something went wrong.”

“Pretty sure something went bad,” Spite said. “Fluttershy went comatose afterwards. Not like sleeping it off, more like can’t be woken up at all. How did you know Zambet didn’t get destroyed?”

“She was here, aiding Canceros in doing some task for a person they called ‘Sotto Voce’,” Celestia said. “Had I known that she’d come from rendering Fluttershy helpless, I would have struck her down.”

“I’m not sure you’d have been able to, with all due respect,” Spite said, inclining her head slightly. “Relatively little is known for certain about Zambet, but all manner of powers have stretched forth their hand to kill her, and failed. May I ask more specifically about this task they were undertaking?”

“Zambet enclosed the Tree in magic that dimmed its radiance,” Celestia said. “She then built a runic circle of some kind that appears to have had the purpose of building communication between this place and Sotto Voce.”

“She was very particular about it, though,” Anori said. “She needed to know which direction Ponyville lay in, down to the degree, minute, and second, and she used it to orientate her circle.”

“That seems an… odd thing to concern herself with. I take it Canceros gave her an idiotic expression when she asked him.”

“We couldn’t see either of them at first,” Krysta said. “But I’m sure his expression was idiotic because she snarled at him for not having the information.”

Spite smirked at this. “Of course he didn’t. No Canceros is particularly bright, just brutal.”

“There’s more than one?”

“Yes,” Spite said, “but it’s a title more than a name. Canceros is the name of the Emperor of All Maladies, but none of them have the wisdom to avoid tangling with someone or something that can and will kill them. The only question is how long before a Canceros runs out of blind good luck; this one had the shortest run of any.”

“I got that sense from the contempt with which Zambet and Sotto Voce treated him,” Celestia said. “They treated him like an errand colt, someone too stupid to be entrusted with anything more complicated than carrying a message.”

“You should have seen him frothing at the mouth and ranting.” Trixie had been spending her time pointedly avoiding looking at the husk of Canceros, and instead looking over the various murals with interest. Although the showpony hadn’t turned around, she was clearly smirking. “He has it in for Nightmare something fierce.”

“The various incarnations of Canceros only have two consistent traits: folly, and poisonous envy of Nachtmiri Mein,” Spite said. “In their mind, mass slaughter proves power, but without killing anyone, Nachtmiri Mein is vastly more powerful than they will ever be and is treated with caution and respect. No one fears or respects an atermor.” She paused, seemed to realize what she’d said, and inclined her head in Celestia’s direction. “Apologies, no one in the wider universe does. I understand that they are an unholy terror to anyone who encounters them without the power to simply swat them like insects.”

“That they are,” Celestia said quietly. “It will take years before my subjects have recovered from what the atermors did. We’ve never experienced a pandemic before, and it being attached to ordinary food makes it even more traumatizing. The only saving grace is that someone called ‘Vorka’ sabotaged the plague so it wasn’t nearly as lethal, or was not lethal at all; I’m not clear on which it was. Engaging his services was apparently one of the proofs of Canceros’ stupidity.”

“Oh, contracting Vorka is not stupid,” Spite said. “His brilliance in the art of crafting magic is unique. But you have to be paranoid about his ‘help’ because the only person he ever helps is himself, and his whims. I am sure Sotto Voce wanted to throttle Canceros for failing to do something so basic.”

“Actually, he seemed not to care,” Celestia said. “His concern was with something that Canceros was showing him by talking to him. I have some doubts that the prize was the Tree of Harmony, or he would have kept Canceros in place as a useful tool. Instead…”

“...he practically fed Canceros to Auntie,” Cadence said. “Granted, Canceros was equal to the task but I don’t think Sotto Voce expected him to be.”

“Everyone here looks pretty healthy for being dead by a variety of horrible sicknesses.”

“We got help.” Trixie completely turned around, looking at Spite and away from the husk. “There’s been some artifact called the Quarantine Flag that’s…”

“Oh, ho, ho.” Spite’s grin was impossible wide and toothy all of a sudden. “The walking, talking, tail-kicking avatar of overkill stepped in. The strongest bound spirit I know of, and the atermor hate for Nachtmiri Mein is not even a match flame before the holocaust that is his hatred of the atermors.”

“He was on an entirely different level of power than I am,” Celestia said. “Reality ordered itself to his will without him even needing to exercise it. He destroyed them all merely by wishing it to be so, as if he was operating in his desme instead of the abandoned basement of an old manor. I’ve been told he was a mere physician in life but that seems impossible.”

“The Physician himself was quite impressive in life, but what you saw was mainly his master,” Spite said. “In certain narrow circumstances, The Physician is given the authority to exercise his master’s power in accordance with that master’s will. Destroying his enemies by merely wishing it to be so was such an exercise of power.”

“Which has tight constraints.”

“The most stringent I know of,” Spite said. “But it could be no other way.” She paused, thinking visibly. “Did you say that Sotto Voce essentially fed Canceros to you?”

“My niece did, but that was my impression as well.”

Trixie snorted. “‘You are a fool, Canceros, but you must have realized that if I did not slay you in this place, Celestia would. Good-bye, Canceros.’ And he sounded deeply satisfied as he said it.”

“Impressive,” Spite said, before giving Celestia a sidelong glance. “Just an impression, was it?”

“He did also offer the opportunity to kill me as a reward for Canceros’ service,” Celestia said. “And Canceros got very close. I’m effectively impervious to disease normally and this certainty has made me… complacent. I haven’t had to actively concentrate my magic on fighting off illness in centuries, so an onslaught of Canceros’ arsenal drove me off my hooves before I understood his manner of attack.”

“If he had struck and survived, I would be concerned,” Spite said. “But the Physician destroyed him and any of his kind that could bear the tale of how close their emperor got to getting the respect he coveted. What does concern me is that Sotto Voce would send any potential tool of his to die.”

“I would expect that Evils are unfaithful to one another all the time,” Celestia said. “Treachery is typically evil, after all.”

“Yes, Evils generally tend to be,” Spite said. “But backstabbing becomes dangerous at the upper ends of power, where tacit alliances are routine. Vorka can get away with it because his treachery is a known price of engaging his services; if given the chance, he will meddle in your plans in some way that benefits him or amuses him. Nightmares like Sotto Voce and Nachtmiri Mein, or creatures like Zambet, gain power by building networks of favors, obligations, debts, and alliances. Sotto Voce engaging the help of the atermors and then setting up their emperor to die at a mortal’s hand destroys so many of these vital connections that he would have to gain something invaluable by it.”

“Maybe it was one of those obligations,” Trixie said.

Spite looked at her. “What do you mean?”

“Maybe he made a deal with someone and one of the things they wanted was Canceros dead,” Trixie said. “The last thing that came from his end was what sounded like a filly saying ‘Bye-bye Mister Canceros.’ I mean, I’m sure this Voce isn’t making deals with kids but I’ve known mares who sound like they’re a child.”

Spite’s brow furrowed. “A filly.”

“Someone who sounded like a filly.”

“That makes even less sense.” Spite tapped a claw on the stone. “Alright. I think I need to take this to your sister. Right now, she is in a better position to figure out what is going on. She will be relieved to hear that you are well, Princess Celestia.”

“And I’m relieved to hear that she’s well, although I’m deeply concerned for Fluttershy,” Celestia said. “I intend to look in on my subjects and then go immediately to the Glass Waste to see if I might interfere with Zambet’s plans, since she appears to attach significance to the place. But before you take word to my sister, I have a question.”

“By all means, ask.”

“Who is Nachtmiri Mein?”

“The Dread Empress of Nightmares,” Spite said. “By far the oldest, most powerful, and most…”

“Is she also Nightmare Moon?”

“Yes, that’s one of her more familiar names.”

“I see.” Celestia sat with it a moment, and the implications it raised. “Thank you, Spite. Safe travels.”

“I’m glad to help, Princess.”

After the dragon had blinked out of existence, Celestia turned her head to look at Cadence. “How much do you know?”

“Only what Mother told me,” Cadence said, meeting Celestia’s eyes unflinchingly.

“And that was?”

“That Empress Moon has been a polite, helpful, and very personable houseguest,” Cadence said. “That she has proven her worth as an ally. That Mother was willing to hear her out because she knew that she had some connection to Aun… Princess Luna. That it would be best for everyone if Luna was allowed to choose the time and place to discuss the matter with you.”

“Your mother is wise,” Celestia said. “And I think that a very frank family meeting will be needed when this is all over. But right now, Zecora spoke of the mother and her colt and my guards having survived and their illness being treatable. I wish to see them before I go, them and the thestrals.”

Two thoughts struck Celestia as she emerged from the corkscrew staircase onto the main floor of the stone manor house above the chamber of the Tree. The first was, has it really been so long? The second, however, was a somewhat confused, wasn’t there meant to be a ruin here?

The little that she’d been able to see from the bridge before following Matchstick down to the entrance had made it seem like nothing had changed since she’d greeted her sister, after the Elements had…

I suppose I no longer know what they did, she mused as she took a moment to orientate herself in the no-longer-familiar no-longer-husk of her and Luna’s home from a millenia ago. They knocked away the visage, but the way that Spite describes Nightmare Moon and nightmares in general it would make no sense for their association to be forcible. Yet the Elements clearly did something, or Lulu got bored on the moon and became a much better actress.

“This is incredible,” Anori said, slipping around her to unlatch a door and pull it open. “We were informed that they were building it up, making it more livable and defensible, but this?”

“Keen plays the fool sometimes, but she does more noticing and thinking than she appears to be,” Kryssa said. “Although I have a feeling that we’re seeing the…”

“...work of a nutty engineer?” Matchstick had somehow managed to appear as if out of thin air again, beaming in a smug showmare’s grin, making sure to roll her garish top hat over one leg and up the other. “Because that’s what you’re seeing. Coupling got birthed holding a toolbox in her hooves and a wrench in her mouth, so she can’t stop herself from doing engineering to it and making it nice, strong, and ideal for preventing entry.”

“Have you been building up the entirety of the ruins like this?” Celestia looked upwards as she asked the question, taking note of the row of engineered members paused in the middle of being covered over, the first stages of a solid roof.

Matchstick shrugged, rolling her hat again and tossing it up to land on her head. “Yup. The hoard of buckers stopped us in the middle of making a room specifically for…”

“And are there many of you here?”

Matchstick paused in mid-roll. “Um… ‘bout a hundred or so.”

“Hmm.” Celestia successfully tamped down the broad smile she could feel beginning to something more restrained. “Dear niece, am I being overly sentimental or does a hundred or so ponies that have moved onto officially uninhabited land and constructed permanent housing constitute a colony?”

Cadence didn’t make any attempt to restrain her smile. “That would fit the recognized standard.”

“I thought so.” Celestia looked down at the puzzled-looking Matchstick. “Something to discuss afterwards with this ‘Keen.’ Miss Matchstick, would you take us to where the colt and his mother that Flavius Zecora mentioned to us are resting?”

“Uh, who?”

“Zecora,” Trixie supplied.

“Yeah, got that, c’mon.” Matchstick turned and began trotting deeper into the former manor. “Pretty sure her first name ain’t Flavius.”

“Family name,” Celestia said. “In Zebrica, the correct formal way to address a zebra is family name first, given name second.”

“Cool.” Matchstick mulled this over a moment or two. “How does ‘Gaius Zahira’ grab you as…”

“No,” Celestia said. “Don’t make me tattle on you to Chrysalis.”

“Pies.” But Matchstick was still grinning when they stepped into a curtained-off section of the ruins, and the smell of a great number of ponies in a confined space mixed with the sharp floral scent of herbalist preparations washed over her, along with the sight of a few dozen ponies (overwhelmingly thestral) convalescing.

Zecora looked up from where she was gently prodding a broken wing as they entered. “Your Highness,” she said. “Are you looking for Keen or Brass?”

“You, actually,” Celestia said. “And a certain quartet of patients.”

“They’re not here,” Zecora said. “The doctor you sent to take care of them healed them completely, so they were sent somewhere to rest.”

“Do you have a moment to take us to them?”

“I do.” Zecora smiled. “Your doctor saw to their various hurts before he went. He didn’t heal them--apparently, he was not allowed to--but I’ve never met a more experienced and able physician.”

“He gave me that impression, certainly,” Celestia said. “And he’s not my doctor, but a physician brought here to fight the atermors.”

“Odd,” Zecora said, patting the thestral on the shoulder and deftly moving to the door. “He introduced himself as a servant of the princess, and said that you’d called upon him to help your little ponies.”

“A bald-faced lie.” Celestia smiled. “But one that I appreciate him telling. It was kind of him.”

Zecora stepped into the hall and let the door close behind her. “It was, although I knew he was lying.”

“How?” Trixie said. “I usually can as well but he was wearing clothes that completely concealed him and his face.”

“Because in Zebrica, the jackals do not speak or walk upright,” Zecora said. “His head and face were uncovered while he was here.”

“I suppose it comes as no great surprise,” Celestia said. “How are the colt, his mother, and my guards?”

“Entirely healed as I said,” Zecora replied. “The illness just evaporated from their bodies in moments, and the growths all over the colt melted like wax and then evaporated as well. I’ve never heard of such a thing before, not even in myth.”

“I think I’m coming to see what ‘narrow circumstances’ allow him to borrow his power,” Celestia said as they approached one of the few rooms that looked to have been fully rebuilt--her own room, as a point of fact, which felt oddly appropriate.

“Excuse me, Princess?”

“It’s nothing, Zecora,” Celestia said. “A musing on something I was told of the physician earlier.”

“Very well.” Zecora reached a hoof to push the door open, when it was pulled in from the other side and Celestia found herself subjected to a sudden full-body hug.

“Thank you, Princess!” The pony embracing her said, her face pressed against Celestia’s chest.

Celestia recognized the mother of the colt after a moment and smiled down at the mare. “No thanks are necessary, my little pony,” she said in as gentle and maternal a tone as she could. “I could never let my subjects suffer if I could do anything at all to help them.”

“The doctor you sent was very kind,” the mare said, still hugging determinedly. “I tried to thank him, but he said that all credit belonged to you.”

“He did, did he?” Celestia chuckled a little. “Well, I won’t refuse the praise of an excellent physician. May I see your son, and my guards?”

“Of course, Princess!” The mare let Celestia go and disappeared into the room. “Button, dear, the Princess is here to see you. Sergeant, the princess…”

“...is here to see us,” one of the guards said. “So we’ve heard.”

The mother appeared, flanked by two of the Royal Guards who were still somehow in uniform, with her hoof resting on the shoulder of a small-framed colt who looked a couple years older than the fillies Celestia had heard regularly about. He gave her a shy smile and took a couple half-steps forward.

“Thanks, Princess Tia,” he said. “Doctor Klepios was very nice, so thanks for sending him.”

Celestia looked the colt over. Gone was the horrific twisting of his limbs, and his hooves bleeding from clawlike protrusions. His neck and mane--a straw-colored bird’s nest that reminded her of Applejack Apple--were normal again, and the branching lines of infection following his veins were no longer here. Not only did Klepios heal him, he restored his body to its original shape, Celestia noted. And of course, it’s a pleasure to finally know the name of ‘the Physician’ or at least the name he uses.

“He is an amazing servant,” Celestia said, smiling to the colt. “So you’re feeling well now? No pains, no sickness, no tiredness?”

“Nope!” The colt grinned from ear to ear and trotted in place with a bounce to his steps. “I feel awesome! So who’re the funny pegasuses?”

“Thestrals, sport,” Matchstick said with a grin, rolling her hat along a leg then tossing it up so it landed correctly on her head. “And it’s been a pleasure to be your entertainers this evening. Please donate generously to the collection plate that will eventually be…”

“Matchstick.”

Her hooves came up in a placating gesture, although the grin didn’t budge. “Fine, fine, I’ll go without compensation this time, I can always earn a bit extra later.”

The colt watched all of this with wide eyes. “Miz Matchstick?”

“Yeah sport?”

“Un… Bright Buttons but… uh…” his eyes almost glimmered with awestruck hope. “Could you teach me how to do that?”

“What, the hat trick?”

“Yeah!”

“Hay yeah!” Matchstick said, clapping her hooves together with delight. “I’ve got myself an apprentice in the art of being the coolest pony in the room.”

“But can you fire yourself out of a cannon, into a manticore mouth, and end up in a nondesscript trunk?” Trixie said, bearing her own sparkling showpony grin.

Matchstick pointed a hoof at her. “When this is over, Mystery Mare, I want you and me in the Ponyville town square at high noon. Because that sounds like an awesomeness challenge.”

“Then you’d have to make it a three-way with Rainbow Dash,” Trixie said. “If we’re competing for awesomeness, she’ll join in whether we want her or not.”

The grin disappeared, and Matchstick’s eyes widened a little. “Rainbow Dash? Like, Element of Loyalty Rainbow Dash? Like, Best Young Flier, first in generations to do a sonic rainboom, rainbow mane and flight goggles Rainbow Dash?”

“As if there’s any other!”

“OK, yeah, we need to make it a… a… showpony contest then.” Matchstick’s grin returned. “Because I hate losing, and I’d lose that contest. Though a three-way with Rainbow Dash would be...”

The colt was looking between them. “So… can I learn the hat trick?”

“‘Course ya can, Buttons!” Matchstick took the hat off her head with a flourish and put it on the colt’s head. “We can start now, if yer mom is cool with it.”

“Awesome!” The colt turned the hopeful eyes on his mother. “Please?”

His mother patted him on the top of the hat. “Of course, dear, have fun.”

“Awesome.” Matchstick flourished the hat back onto her head. “Come right this way, kid, and I’m gonna make ya the coolest ever.”

“Trixie, would you go and keep an eye on them?” Celestia said as the pair started off down the hall, Button with a definite spring in his young step.

Trixie looked confused. “Aren’t we going to…?”

“We are,” Celestia said, using a hoof to indicate Cadence, Shining Armor, and the various guards. “But you have done everything anyone could ask of you. You did your best in Ponyville, you came with me here to confront Canceros, and now you’re going to complete your circle by watching the colt you saw struck down with illness frolic and laugh at least partly because you did your best.” She turned fully to the showmare and rested a hoof on her shoulder. “You are acting as my daughter’s proxy, but you are still my subject, and I still have to keep you safe. Canceros nearly slew me and he is meant to be a joke among his peers.”

“I…” Trixie took in a breath and the winning smile returned. “...am clearly needed here, so I couldn’t go with you anyway.”

“Yes, you are needed here,” Celestia said, then leaned in to speak more quietly to the showmare. “Ponyville has months of hard work ahead. They need someone to look to, and you have their founding family in your corner. If it becomes too hard, just lean on Big Macintosh; he’s as solid a stallion as I’ve ever seen.”

“Won’t Twilight be…?”

“My daughter has the duties of an heir to the throne, even though that throne won’t be vacant for generations yet. She cannot be a librarian, scholar, Element of Harmony, heir to the throne, troubleshooter, and a backup mayor.”

Trixie nodded. “Alright.” She looked passed Celestia to the mother. “I’ll keep the lesson from getting out of hand, Pearl.”

Pearl smiled. “Thank you, Trixie.” She looked up at Celestia. “And you, Princess. I don’t think I can thank you enough, even if I spent the rest of my life doing it. You gave me my little Button back; there are no words.”

“All of my little ponies are precious to me,” Celestia said, sincerely. “I’m glad that doing my best here let you bring your child home. I fear that much of Ponyville is badly damaged, and that it’s…”

“I don’t care,” Pearl said. “I have neighbors who’ll take me in. Things can be replaced; my son can’t.”

Celestia smiled at her and stepped forward to hug the mare. “Thank you for saying that, Pearl. I would stay with you, and maybe we could talk about each other’s children. But there are other ponies who need me right now.”

Pearl hugged her back. “I don’t know what you’re thanking me for.”

“We all need somepony to tell us that we’re doing well, even a princess.” Celestia let the mare go and nodded to the two Royal Guards. “Fare well, Pearl Button.”

“So how can we get to this Glass Waste, Your Majesty?” Anori said as they exited the ruined manor, their number expanded by two. “I doubt the Express has a stop there, and seven is a great many passengers for a teleport.”

“There are ways,” Celestia said. “We can’t very well spend days on a train to visit the edges of our kingdom. Even the carriage is poorly-suited for it, even if we knew where it was.”

“We’re sorry, Your…”

“I’m just pleased you’re alive and well, Sergeant,” Celestia said. “It’s not a dearly-beloved keepsake, another can always be made.”

“So what are these ‘ways’, Princess?”

“Quite literally that, Sieur du Closs,” Celestia said. “If a route is traveled enough, it creates something of a metaphysical tunnel. Luna can explain it better, but a way allows you to go from one place to the next with very little power invested. It takes very specific knowledge to even be aware that one side of the tunnel exits, much less how to exploit it. Fortunate, because they never lead anywhere that is safe for an unaware pony or Sola forbid, a child, to go.”

“Alright,” Shining said. “So this ‘Way’ is going to take is directly there?”

“Not this one, no,” Celestia said with a tiny smirk, stopping about where a stone garden trellis was still intact enough to be recognizable.

“So, where does it go?”

Celestia let her smirk turn into a coy look. “Take a guess, Captain of the Royal Guard, and in a moment, you’ll see if you’re right.”

Author's Note

Hello, my steadily-dwindling readership! Here's the first chapter of the next cluster; bonus points if you draw the connection between this title and the last one. As always, I need, want, and desire all kinds of commentary and criticism, and also as always, I hope you enjoy reading.

Twilight: Light Shadow

“We’ll be traveling over sea ice for the last leg,” Penumbra said, lounging casually on the snow with the air of a pony splaying themselves across a comfy couch. “Be very careful of your footing, and avoid dark patches.”

“Ah’ve had ta walk ice around the farm before,” Applejack said. “‘Course in the lakes ‘round Ponyville, ya had to watch for where ice-cutters were set up.”

“Yes,” Penumbra said, her ears dropping very slightly. “Especially in driving snow, when it’s dim and the path is hidden. Without the greatest care, a pony will never see what happened, they’ll just...” She shook her head and stood. “Just be careful Elements, Dawn. I won’t be obliterated by an enraged demi-goddess because one of her wards was careless.”

“Would she even be able to?” Pinkamena said, her voice sounding quiet even accounting for the muffling of the hood she wore.

“I am not nearly as durable as the Guardian, and she slew him,” Penumbra said. “With help, of course. I also know what she’s capable of when angry. While I had Canceros on my strings, he reported that her passive anger can make cinders out of a small town; I’m sure her active anger is even more lethal.”

“Just the town square, really,” Dawn said. “But yeah, Mom’s got a direct line to the bucking sun.”

“I hope that was enough,” Penumbra said. “There will be a path running along the cliff face to the right, which will descend to the sea. Please follow in single-file, with Pinkamena directly behind me, Applejack at the rear, and Dawn roughly in the center.”

Not even Dawn gave the zebricorn filly any snark as they quietly lined up as Penumbra had instructed and followed her onto the path. After they had determined to go with her, Penumbra had teleported dedicated arctic gear into the cavern and instructed them on how to put it on. Twilight had begun to object that maintaining a bubble of heat around them as they traveled would create no strain on her font, but in between sentence and the next, ten minutes had passed and everyone was dressed in the gear--even her.

Penumbra had ignored her demands for an explanation, but Twilight swiftly worked out why the filly had used some kind of magic to override her objections and force her into the gear: compensating for all of the difficulties of traveling in extreme cold would have required many layers of spells running constantly, and trusting her reserves to keep layered spells running for the entire journey would have been extremely foolish.

“This isn’t run-of-the-mill,” Rarity had stated after a Penumbra had used a quick surge of teleportation magic to drop them into a snowfield out of sight of the Dragon Lands capital. “This is dedicated, professional-grade, type four cold hazard gear.”

“Your experience shows,” Penumbra had said. “It’s type four special, but you could not have known that.”

“How did you get it?” Rarity said, her tone dumbfounded. “And in our sizes, no less.”

“I made preparations for many possibilities,” Penumbra said. “I perused enough proprietors to piece together your measurements from your individual purchases. I then commissioned ponies with the proper expertise. The expense was a staggering one in mortal terms, but my longevity makes such expenses trivial, and the work is exquisite so I feel I came out the better in that bargain.”

“You…”

“Commissioned it, yes,” Penumbra said. “I also have gear fitted to Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash’s measurements. I had been concerned that six months was too short a span to get the proper things for Dawn but if you pay enough bits to equal six months of the artisan’s highest profits, they can work wonders.”

“You’re older than compounding interest by at least an order of magnitude,” Twilight said. “So the longevi…”

“Pause and consider what you’re about to say, Princess.” Penumbra smirked at her. “I wouldn’t want you to feel foolish.”

“Developing every skill you’d need to make a rich living still doesn’t explain that degree of wealth.”

“Well-spotted.” Penumbra seemed to consider the answer sufficient because she’d immediately turned her efforts to packing food for the journey. It had taken her a moment to realize that Penumbra had put more into the saddlebag than its physical dimensions could possibly accommodate; like with the gear and her fortune, Penumbra ignored all of their inquiries about this.

“We’ll need to travel a kilometer towards our destination by hoof before I can move us more quickly,” Penumbra said presently. “I’ll explain things as we walk.”

“Ya can start with what th’ hay happened in that entire soiree we all were lookin’ in on,” Applejack said.

“Not without some…”

“Y’all can give the context second,” Applejack said, her eyes narrowing almost imperceptibly. “Ah still owe ya a good horseshoe ta the plot for trotting into my family’s farm with my family there. Even if ya didn’t mean no harm by it, yer intent weren’t benign.”

“It was benign towards your family,” Penumbra said, turning back to look Applejack directly in the eye. “It is true that I used it to manipulate you personally, but what harm did I do to you?”

Applejack frowned at her, huffed, and nodded once. “Not even a scratch. Though ya woulda if Pinkie didn’t step in.”

“To save my life only,” Penumbra said, with a slight catch in her ordinarily steady voice. “I’ve killed so many in my long life that I was not going to add you to that toll unless you left me no other way.”

Applejack blinked and actually took a half-step back as the zebricorn filly turned away from her. “Ya… what?”

“That is part of the context,” Penumbra said. “But you don’t want to…”

“OK, fine, start with yer context,” Applejack said.

“I’m glad you see things my way.” Penumbra started trotting towards the ponderous doors to the chamber they were in, and they swung outwards without any indication that she’d moved them with her magic. “I’ll be as concise as I can.”

“I was born dead, or so I understand it; naturally, one does not tend to remember being dead when returned to life. My mother has always been dead. I do not remember her being alive, and I don’t even know her name, nor the name of my sire. The only family I’ve ever known is Father, and I’m sure you understand that he cannot possibly be my direct relation in any way.”

“Are you his vessel, the way Luna was the vessel of Nightmare Moon?”

Penumbra smiled a little. “I grew up on stories of the Dread Empress, Princess Sparkle; you can drop the pretense and her assumed name. However, the truth is that I do not know. I am Father’s anchor to this mortal plane, and carrying some portion of his essence is what causes me to have an unsettling presence and be as cold as a corpse, but a vessel of a nightmare wholly contains them, and I do not.”

Twilight nodded to this. “And that is why you are so old?”

“I do not know that either,” Penumbra said. “I know why I am alive, but not why I have remained so for hundreds of times my natural life span. I was spared a return to being dead by my own choice, and it would be grossly inappropriate to explain that any further, but to never die was not my request nor an offer made to me.”

“That must be hard.”

“You’d think so, but the ravages of time have left me with no great sorrows, nor any particular regrets.” Penumbra took in a breath and sighed it out with a smile. “Mortals are ships passing me in the night, an experience to be deeply treasured and many good memories left behind. I visited the Havens--Tempest, Dust, Vine, Tumble, Arbor, Eddy--at the height of their glory; if I never saw another great thing in my entire life, the Havens would be enough.”

“What’re the…” Twilight let the question die when Penumbra stopped and turned to look at her with a pitying expression. “What?”

“You, one of the most well-read ponies in Equestria, the daughter of Celestia, have to ask me that question.” The filly looked at her for several moments longer, before she turned and continued walking. “It is good that I finally seized the sword and began my journey. This has continued for far too long.”

Twilight looked back at her friends and got looks of concerned confusion. “Seized the sword?” She thought at Munin. “Monomyth?”

“Monomyth,” Munin said, the illusion of the thought-construct suddenly walking beside her. “She seems to regard what she’s doing as a hero’s journey.”

“That seems…”

“...bad,” Munin agreed. “Everyone is the hero of their own story, but they’re rarely conscious of that thought.”

“So the logical question is what elixir she’s seeking.”

“Kay, I’ll bite,” Dawn said. “What’s been going on too long?”

“Mismanagement,” Penumbra said. “Mismanagement, and me being idealistic and sentimental instead of doing the right thing. I’ve refused the sword so many times because I thought it was the thing that a powerful immortal should do. That I don’t know everything, that I can’t know what is best for people different than I, that I ought not to impose my sensibilities on others. I spent thousands of years being that foolish child with Father patiently and persistently chiding me for not crossing the threshold.”

“So yer… enacting a hero’s journey?” Dawn smirked at her.

“That is the scholarly term for it, yes,” Penumbra said. “I see it as admitting to myself that power has purpose, and I was not given my life to simply sit by and watch mortals suffering because of my bottomless sack of excuses.”

“Ya killed lotsa folk.”

“Yes.”

“Take it from me,” Rarity said. “Not saving someone is not the same as killing them.”

Penumbra looked over her shoulder at her for several moments. “I thought that once,” she said. “And then there was a very, very hard winter. It was… mm… about a thousand years ago, just after the fall of the Crystal Empire, likely because of the fall. Ice boxes were still used to preserve foodstuffs so deep winter was when icecutters worked, cutting extremely thick ice off of ponds, lakes, rivers, sometimes even the sea. Back then, they didn’t make a practice of making their work sites.”

“Granny told me ‘bout the times when a marker got buried.” Applejack’s expression was grave. “Bet it was worse when there weren’t any markers at all.”

“Yes.” Penumbra walked for nearly a whole minute before she continued. “I had been visiting--practically living--in a wagoneer’s inn at the time. I knew all the ponies by name, and their families, and friends. Became… close to a couple. None of them knew, of course; I was just a young mare, traveling the world. Wagoneering was--still is--very hard work. You often had to go out in foul weather just to scrape by. There were many who didn’t come back from a run, all of them found in the spring or along a road much too late.

“I… can’t say what was different that specific day, when it was practically whiteout conditions, but there was a… a sense I had about a specific mare I knew. Somehow, I was sure that when she left with a loaded cart, I would be seeing her buried come spring. There was no reason to think so; she was blessed with a curious talent for never losing her way even if blinded. But I had such a certainty about it that it presented the situation to me with a directness it never had been before: she was going to die, unless someone followed her right then. No one else had a reason to; only I could do it. I told myself that letting her die was not killing her; there was no reason her death should be my burden.

Applejack snorted. “What a load of horseapples.”

Penumbra gave her a brief smile and nod. “You are right, of course. I’d believed the comforting lie for many thousands of years by then but this time…” She shook her head. “I couldn’t swallow the lie anymore. I follow her into the storm. I found where the wagon had slipped off a steep bank over an unmarked cutter’s field. I was only barely in time, but I was in time.”

She smiled broadly. “The first time using immense power to do a selfless thing is… unique. It leaves a mark, a very good mark, and changes so many things. Mortal lives are that of mayflies to me but… I had acted to extend a mortal life just a bit longer. I brought her back to her friends, her family, gave her a future, even rescued the submerged wagon so she could complete the delivery. It made me realize that allowing others to die when I had the ability to prevent it was no different than killing them myself. It would be years yet before I crossed the threshold but it was in that moment that I realized that I had to.”

“Because you’d be responsible for any suffering that happened if you didn’t,” Pinkamena said.

“There was that, but it was far more than that. Imagine, Pinkamena, if you had spent most of your life with your immense power to give joy to other ponies, to lift their spirits, to give them that little candle in the tempest and you just… didn’t. You remembered all those that you could have helped and did not, remembered them in almost excruciating detail, and had a great deal of time to mull it over in your mind and contemplate it.” Penumbra took in a breath and sighed, and her voice became lower. “Then imagine that one day, for reasons you could never put into words, you did use your power to help. You saw the joy on that pony’s face, you dried their tears, you helped them move on from grief, and it was so very, very easy. You realized that it took no effort at all, that you could do it almost without meaning to.”

Pinkamena visibly thought about this a moment before she quickened her pace and took up position at Penumbra’s side. “I’m sorry.”

“I knew that you would understand.” She looked over her shoulder at the rest of them. “Although I could posit the same thing to any one of you, even Dawn, and I suspect you’d understand just as well. Please remember this understanding, because there are unhappy things ahead of us, and you will be greatly outraged by my decisions at the end. I know you will not forgive it, but I would like you to understand what kind of burden rests on me, driving me to do what I have done and will do.”

“Why do you care?” Dawn said. “And why are you bothering to drag us along anyway? It’s not like you need us, and it’s pretty bucking clear that you don’t need to worry that we’ll get in your way. What the hay is this even about?”

“This is about rectifying my past errors,” Penumbra said. “In the past, I killed hundreds of thousands, perhaps millions, and let an order of magnitude more languish in misery and hopelessness by doing nothing. I trusted too much to the greatness of individual mortals, believed too strongly that I could hope for the best and that would be sufficient. When the four races of ponykind crossed into the sliver of verdant lands that are now the Canterlot-Ponyville line, the world changed in a very positive way. Relatively speaking, it took very little time for Equestria to push out to its present borders, and then Luna and Celestia ascended to govern the sun and moon. I believed at that point that all my worries were done with. I could go about doing good at a low level and feel like I was making a difference, but I didn’t need to worry about the higher level.

“Your mother acted as the glorious sun queen: larger than life, radiating maternal warmth and charisma, at her most dangerous when it was time to war with words. Luna forged a special bond with the changelings and they became the Black Host, the sword and shield of the Dual Thrones. No one could oppose them; none of the ones who tried lasted for long. It was a world of the Pax Equestria, the peace of the ponies, backed with the immense military prowess that the changelings represented.”

“But it didn’t last,” Twilight said.

“You have some idea of what preceded the exile,” Penumbra said. “Celestia might have stopped it; she did not. Luna might have stopped it; she did not. But it was Celestia who chose to send the changelings away.” She sighed sadly. “So passed the pony peace. So passed the last hope I had that I could have my deepest wish without my intervention. All the plans I’ve put into practice began the day that Amaryss and her people disappeared into the deserts of the Eastern Waste.”

“Like what?” Applejack said. “Ya still haven’t answered the question, yanno. What was with that scene we looked in on, with that Canceros feller, and Zambet, and the rest? How does it show what kind of evil Zambet is? What was it even for?”

“To show you the nature of other Evils that are not a blunt instrument like Tharalax. And so you saw them: Zambet with her flawless Pillars accent, bickering with Canceros who is one of innumerable Emperors of All Maladies.” Penumbra leered. “Who is most certainly also dead. Part of the improvisation required being the one to pull his strings but I don’t care for plague personifications so I gave my hired help a little treat.”

“Set ‘im up to get whalloped by Celestia?”

“Assuming she’s able,” Penumbra said. “It can be very, very difficult to reach the true Evil behind the projected mortal form but if any mortal could do it, it would be the one with the power to annihilate cities. However, no matter the result of the confrontation, Cancerous will die and Celestia will live. This is as it ought to be.”

“You know stabbing Canceros in the back doesn’t absolve you of the suffering you inflicted by using him,” Rarity said. “Your employee, your responsibility.”

“Those afflicted have their lives,” Penumbra said. “Where there’s life, there’s hope.”

“And the chance for trauma,” Pinkamena said. “Does that matter to you?”

“Only the living can be traumatized, and they will heal.” She looked at Pinkie. “Verdant Heart is a single pony and you know what she can do. There are hundreds like her, and each with but one purpose in life: to be a balm to the troubled soul, to soothe the storm-wracked spirit, and to quell the nightmares. The traumatized will heal.”

“And that makes it okay?”

“Absolutely. I took a situation where hundreds of thousands would die, and horribly, and created one where the only dead were those that brought the plague. I could not slay Canceros myself, and chasing him off would make him a free agent who could rampage in any direction that pleased him, without my sabotage of his precious sickness.” Penumbra’s gaze became stony. “You think you would prefer the path not taken, but I’ve been there and you do not understand the cost.”

“So what about Zambet?”

“She is an eldritch horror with a fastidious Pillars accent and attractively plain features. She’s also the best mercenary someone operating on my level can buy. She coordinated the elimination of the plague’s lethality, provided vital intelligence on the state of Equestria, and has personally overseen the most critical parts of my plan.” Penumbra snorted. “She also obtained the key to all of my endeavors and offered it to the highest bidder, just to be cheeky and make a point. I made my own point to her, and I believe it’s resulted in a very productive working relationship.”

“The two of you sounded quite friendly when you were instructing her to meet you at the Glass Waste,” Rarity said.

“Always be polite,” Penumbra said. “It costs you nothing but breath, and buys you as much as your life. We are polite to one another but I would be lying if I pretended that associating with another cosmopolitan of unending life was not also pleasant. She played at being a noble because the lust for the finest things isn’t something she has to fake.”

“I had wondered.” Twilight said.

“It was entirely on her own initiative,” Penumbra said, “and she has told me nothing about the life she pretended to lead or any of the secrets she ferreted out. I asked once, politely, and she said that her false life was no one’s business but hers.”

“So she’s just hired help?”

“No Evil of her power can be just anything but yes, she is a mercenary.”

“So, ya’ll started a plague in Equestria an’ that Zambet thing is working for you, and so does Canceros, and yer taking us this way ta look for a crystal heart.”

“All true,” Penumbra said. “But what shall I do when I find it? What even is this crystal heart I seek, and why do I seek it?” She looked at Twilight and Dawn. “Perhaps the well-read ponies among us know.”

“Do I know?”

“Yes, but the details are secondhand and vague. Perhaps Penumbra will offer us more if you tell her what you do know. The Crystal Heart…”

“...was some kind of artifact owned by the Crystal Empire,” Twilight said, speaking in time with the hallucination. “It extended a magical effect over the Empire, keeping windegos at bay and allowing them to have a prosperous nation built on the ruins of the previous pony civilization, before we moved to Equestria.”

“And it was powered by love, so I’m sure you can guess who some of the most numerous citizens of the Empire were,” Penumbra said.

“Changelings.”

“Yes. The du Arkis family, heavily mingled with the three other races. Opulent and beautiful, before the wrong pony sat on the throne and it was removed from the flow of time, along with the Heart.”

“If it was removed from the flow of time, how are you planning to get at the Heart?”

“You will see, Princess,” Penumbra said. “I know how it left, and how to bring it back.”

They had been traveling about an hour over the sea ice when Twilight first saw the mast rising out of the perpetual fog that seemed to hang over the frozen field, and she stopped; a moment later, so did Pinkie. Penumbra went on for several more paces before she noticed that they’d all stopped and she turned around to face them.

“Is something the matter?”

“Is that a… mast ahead of us?”

“It is.”

“The mast of a sailing ship?”

“If my sense of direction remains true, it’s more of a modified barge, but essentially correct.”

“From the Crystal Empire.”

Penumbra grinned. “Why yes. Due west was Glacierfast, the Empire’s cold-water port and one of the most significant shipyards in the known world. At least, for the time it existed; I believe the Ironhoof Sound yards near Trottingham are this era’s center of Equestrian shipbuilding.”

“Ain’t ships have lookout posts an’ what not?”

“The VLCCs didn’t need them. Very Large Carriers of Cargo,” she added before Twilight could ask. “Not a flowery name but an accurate one. Very ungainly, but also so stable in unpredictable seas that the royal family of the Empire purchased one and…” She stopped. “At any rate, they didn’t need elevated lookout positions to navigate.”

“So why the tall masts?”

“Signaling between themselves and the rest of the convoy,” Penumbra said. “They never went anywhere without an escort, and the escort did the navigation. This particular VLCC is special, although I don’t yet know the way in which it’s special. It, its sister ship, and their single escort are our destination.”

“Ships stranded in sea ice are going to reawaken this Crystal Empire.” Twilight didn’t look back, but she could feel Rarity’s best level look.

“Precisely.” Penumbra grinned widely. “No one would ever think of looking outside the Empire’s former borders for the way to restore it. The Empire is suspended in time within its borders. The Crystal Heart is within its borders. It logically follows that the means to put both within reach again must be within the borders. But I know one great secret that no one else knows.”

“That being?” Twilight said.

“The magic that whisked the Crystal Empire away was not a curse, and not the working of a dread artifact, and no feat of terrifying magic on the part of King Sombra--the exceptionally puerile nom de plume of Night White, the ‘wrong pony’ I alluded to--as the Princesses believe. It is a defense, the ultimate defense, taking the Empire out of the reach of its enemies.”

“And the ships?”

“A defense so powerful can remain in effect forever, so a way was devised to signal that it could safely slumber.” Penumbra gestured towards the distant mast, a merry grin spreading. “A shame Rainbow Dash couldn’t be here. This would be right up her alley.”

Author's Note

You know, the entire time I was writing this chapter, I had the sentence "Penumbra explains things" written at the bottom of the page because that was really what I was trying to do here. I'm finding that it's fun to write her, and she's far more ambiguously evil than I originally intended her to be. This simply will not do; I need to do something really bwahahahaha evil or the audience might start to think she's genuinely trying to do the right thing but is going about it in a fucked-up way.

Ahem.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy and please, please, please, please provide commentary and biting criticism. I forgive you in advance for being mean, I swear. See ya'll next time. ^_^

Twilight: Vigilance

“Very large seems like an understatement,” Twilight said as they stood, staring up at the side of the immense vessel. “I’ve never seen anything this large, or read about it.”

“It’s even bigger than the old quarry barges,” Dawn said. “I’ll bet a hulk like this maneuvers like a nauseated beached whale.”

“I wonder what she’s doing up there,” Rarity said. “For all her talking, she doesn’t actually say anything about her intentions. She’s here to get a ‘Crystal Heart’ from a vanished empire, but doesn’t say what it’s for. She says she’s on a hero’s journey to correct mismanagement, but not how. She talks about ponies she’s failed to help as if she had killed them herself instead…”

“She really believes that,” Pinkamena said.

“Yup,” Applejack said. “When she said she’d killed a whole lot, she was bein’ totally honest.”

“She is hurting,” Pinkie said. “I think she has been for a very, very long time. I don’t think her Father was really talking about himself and her when he played those three chess games. A great sacrifice for victory. Killing the strongest piece with the weakest. Making the first move and asking if you saw what you expected to see, then chiding you for risking a pawn to save your king.”

“He was telling us about the plan,” Dawn said. “Dunno what the first part’s about, but killing the strongest piece with the weakest? Betcha that’s Canceros going after Mom. She said he’d be hard for her to fight, and it sounded like she put a backup in place to kill him in case Mom couldn’t.”

“And he as much as said that she’s responding to someone else making the first move,” Twilight said. “Which is likely the players of the Game doing something, and her responding to them. Zambet is her ‘minister’ in that scenario and Mother is the princess, but who is the king?”

“The ‘king’ is Celestia’s little ponies.” Penumbra said, looking down at them from the very tall railing of the barge-like vessel, nonchalantly balancing on it. “I would think that was obvious.”

“So the chess game was about you?”

“In a way,” Penumbra said. “Father doesn’t waste his time doing only one thing at once. He was telling you about himself, about me, about my plans, about my past, about Zambet, about yourselves, and giving you a warning. He is always at my side, but I’m given to understand that he is so thoroughly entwined with my existence that he is able to travel anywhere he pleases, although he only has power over the mortal world if he is in close physical proximity to me.

“Now then, I would invite you up but the Constance is only carrying ballast so there’s relatively little to see. Besides, it’s not as if it’ll be sunk by the return of the Empire so in your future, you can walk her decks at your will and pleasure.”

“Is she abandoned?”

“For the time being.” Penumbra smirked down at her. “I apologize, Princess, but there’s nothing here to indulge macabre curiosity. The nature of the magic that hid the Empire took its citizens along with it so you won’t even find bones on these ships.”

Twilight frowned up at her. “That’s not why I asked, but never mind. Did this one turn out to be special like you thought she would?”

“Yes.” Penumbra stepped off the railing, plummeted most of the way down, then landed as light as if she’d simply stepped off a stair. “Constance is at the rear of the column, as it was meant to be, so I now know where to find Vigilance and Dawnbreaker.”

“Another VLCC and escort, I take it.”

Penumbra gave her a single nod. “Yes. Perhaps Vigilance will be more interesting to you because she would have carried more than ballast. At least, according to her manifest.”

“An’ how’d ya know that?”

“At some point in the history of Equestria, it was knowledge that somepony had.” She looked over them. “I know that the ambassador told you about my archive.”

“Her archive?” Munin said.

“Your archive?” Twilight repeated, carefully avoiding looking at the hallucination lest the almost comically-aghast expression (“Is that really what I look like when surprised?” she thought) make her giggle.

“Yes, my archive,” Penumbra said. “The one that those gloriously paranoid Du Dunes caught up to when I left it in place too long while doing some research. They might have brushed aside the spell matrix meant to capture the overly curious and gotten to the center if I didn’t know how they work and rebuilt the defenses. It was a close call, and taught me greater caution.”

“So you…” Twilight gaped at her. “How? How could you have possibly created an entire magical library that can simply… have all knowledge ever?”

“Any magic is possible when you have the right ingredients,” Penumbra said. “And I didn’t create it--at least not entirely--I stole it.”

“Stole it?” Dawn furrowed her brow. “From who? Who had the kind of juice to build an omniscient artifact-library that floats around the aethir? And how the buck did no one know they had? Pretty sure if Mum or Aunt Luna knew this thing was around, they’d be obsessed with finding it.”

“Its existence precedes their birth, and the migration of ponykind to Equestria,” Penumbra said. “As a point of fact, had ponykind migrated before its creation, they would have fallen into the clutches of its creators and would have a history of enslavement. Not that I was motivated by altruism at that time, but I accidentally did good by stealing this particular work.”

“An’ how’d them creatin’ the thing take them out of our way?”

“You really don’t want to know that,” Penumbra said.

“Jus’ checked with mah brain ‘bout a second ago and it told me Ah really do want to know.”

Penumbra looked at Applejack’s level look for several seconds before she nodded. “Because the creation was exceedingly violent but more than that, it required a truly staggering amount of the proper metaphysical medium.” She looked passed Applejack at Twilight. “Tens of thousands of units, as a point of fact.”

“Proper metaphysical medium?” Twilight said to Munin as she furrowed her brow at Penumbra.

“Lives,” Munin said. “Mortal life can be used to empower certain spells although…”

Twilight tuned out the rest of what her mind had to say as she felt a touch of nausea and then a surge of it that hit her hard enough to make her stumble. “You killed tens of thousands of people?”

“Yes, but also no,” Penumbra said. “It is true that stealing the construct at the time I did in the way I did caused it to kill those who were creating it, and kill them in unimaginable numbers. But I merely redirected the portion that swallowed up the breath of life from their intended fuel for the project onto the creators themselves. There was no way to prevent a staggering number of deaths at the stage the project was at, so I don’t consider myself…”

“Horseapples,” Applejack said. “Ah don’t know magic in detail but I know that if you’re gonna step in and take somethin’ someone else’s almost done making, ya gotta be watching and waiting for it to get to that point. So ya allowed it to get to the point of killing so you could swipe it.”

“I did no such thing,” Penumbra said heatedly. “There were two ways to fuel the process and until the choice was made, there was no way to know which choice it would be. After the choice was made, there was no way to stop the deaths. I am not all-knowing, Applejack, and until I completed my Archive I couldn’t simply learn information at will.”

Applejack narrowed her eyes at Penumbra but didn’t contradict her.

“So the way you cleared a bunch of whatever people out of our way was lethal dramatic irony,” Dawn said.

“Yes, although the process was not a smooth one,” Penumbra said. “They failed to be cautious enough so it’s possible that their attempt would have backlashed upon them anyway. As it was, I was able to deflect the backlash along the main trunk of the Imperial lei line.”

“How big of a backlash are you talking about?”

“Blasted most of a mountain into the sky, where it remains floating as if it was sat atop solid ground.” Penumbra gave Dawn a small smile. “I hear Amaryss chose it as the site of the royal palace, so I’m glad to have made that contribution as well.”

“Who were they?” Twilight said.

“A people that the world would not mourn, and their fall displeased no one but themselves,” Penumbra said. “They were hung on their own gallows, and have since plagued the world because I have and have always had better things to do than exterminate them.”

“Why not just tell us?” Dawn said.

“Because I don’t want it to become a further discussion,” Penumbra said, sounding slightly annoyed. “They’re not a people you have friendly feelings towards, so it hardly matters that their idiocy, and my exploitation of that idiocy, so obliterated their empire that they no longer have the power to endanger the world. At least,” she added a moment later, looking slightly pensive, “they didn’t have that power.”

“That’s changed?”

“It has,” Penumbra said. “Or more precisely, it will. Perhaps sometime I’ll explain the danger in being power-hungry and inept, and keeping a subordinate who is exceedingly competent whom you have lied to.”

“I think that lesson is a fairly well-taught one,” Rarity said.

“One can never have too many poignant examples of a vital truth,” Penumbra said. “Now then, I can see the mast of Vigilance ahead of us so any of you who want to poke around an icy ghost ship, I’ll drop the gangplank for you while I attend my business.”

“An’ what is that?”

“My business,” Penumbra said. “Knock on the door to the captain’s quarters if you need something. I won’t be responding immediately, but I’ll hear the knock and do what I may.”

The VLCC Vigilance was exactly what Twilight had observed of the Constance:the cargo carrier could have easily fit a pair of quarry barges, five hundred by three hundred meter flatboats designed to remain buoyant while carrying thousands of tons of quarried stone, with room to spare. But where the quarry barges were oar craft (since they typically traveled along river currents), the VLCCs didn’t have the slots for oars. Instead, Twilight found herself standing alongside the two most immense shaft alleys she’d ever seen, making no attempt to contain her reaction.

“Screw propulsion,” she said to Dawn, who was openly gaping at the two shafts that seemed to run the entire length of the massive vessel. “Pony-driven screw propulsion.”

“Yup,” Dawn said. “I count two hundred treadwheels to a side. Two screw shafts per wheel, going to gears, going to gear boxes, going to quad-pulleys, going to secondary drive shafts, going to the primaries.”

“Not so much complex as applying simple mechanical principles on a massive scale,” Twilight said. “They couldn’t have been fast but…”

“...that kind of torque, they could haul anything and probably tow a small fleet of quarry barges behind them.”

“But how did they get a crew to walk the treadwheel for the entire journey?” Twilight looked around. “I don’t see any rest stations for ponies to take shifts. But I also don’t see any loops to… um…”

“...hook a chain ta?” Applejack stepped passed them both and up onto the nearest treadwheel. “Cuz there ain’t, and no need for it. We use treadmills like this for cranes and you can operate one for hours on end without tiring out. Th’ trick is, ya have lots of wheels in the holder so it remains stable, an’ lay material on top with just the right amount of give. Stable such that yer knees don’t hurt from having ta adjust your footing all the time, yet each step is soft so you don’t get hoofsore.”

“So what you’re saying is, their shaft crews were in fantastic shape from constant walking.” Dawn grinned widely. “I know where I’m spending time after all this is over.”

“Jus’ as long as you’re not after me anymore,” Applejack said dryly. “Anyhow, if this was a live ship, you could see that they built these so th’ crew could walk for hours at a time without wearing out. Bet they pulled shifts: one shift walks while the other grabs grub and sleep, then the resting shift walks it while the previous one grabs grub and sack.”

“It’s incredible to me that in an era over a thousand years ago, if Penumbra’s account is correct, ships were constructed with such modern propulsion,” Twilight said. “Not driven by a combustion engine to be sure, but still amazing.”

“Not nearly as amazing as their gems!” Rarity said, leaning over one of the trunks lining the walls of the massive lowest hull. “Some of these are the size of cantaloupes and exquisitely cut.”

“Sure they’re not crystals, Rares?” Dawn said, joining Twilight in trotting over to see what Rarity was looking at.

Rarity gave her a level look and gestured to the trio of gemstones on her flank. “Ahem?”

“Point taken--also, thanks for the excuse--but ya gotta admit that legit gemstones as big as a cantaloupe are sorta… impossibly rare.”

“Don’t be a lout darling, and I’m vividly aware that gemstones this size have never been seen before.” Rarity levitated one of them out of the trunk and Twilight stopped mid-step to stare at the exquisitely-cut emerald being held aloft in the faintly blue-tinged field. “Now they have.”

“That is quite…”

“Make her put it down now.” Munin was suddenly visible and looking genuinely terrified, gesticulating wildly at the levitated emerald.

“Why?”

“Because your subconscious is screaming at you that it’s a terrible idea to touch it with any magic whatsoever and the subconscious is part of your mind.”

“OK.” She squinted at the gemstone, trying to figure out what her subconscious, in the form of Munin, was trying to tell her. “Rarity, I think you should put the gemstone down.”

Rarity lowered it to the deck. “Why?

“I don’t know yet.” Twilight reached out to roll the gem with her hoof and stopped just before she made contact, feeling the buzzing tension of magic encompassing it. “Alright, that’s not good.”

“Told you so.”

“It’s strange enough to be literally talking to my own mind,” Twilight thought at Munin, trying to ‘sound’ slightly cross. “Don’t make it stranger by being smug.”

“I’m literally you,” Munin said. “I can’t not be smug in circumstances where you’d be smug.”

“It’s still unsettling.”

Munin grimaced. “I know.”

“So, gem buzzing with magic just from being lifted and moved by the simplest unicorn spell. Engineered crystal focus?”

“Yes, and a pretty enormous one.” Munin grimaced again. “And Rarity says there’s multiple of them.”

“In what appear to be trunks apportioned to each member of the menial labor crew.”

“On a vessel that has every appearance of being just what Penumbra says: a massive cargo ship.”

“Just what kind of place was this Crystal Empire?” Twilight looked up from the gem at Dawn and her two friends. “I believe it’s a crystalline magic focus,” she said. “A gemstone cut and carefully engineered so it’ll do something when magic is used on it. This one’s buzzing with power after Rarity just levitated it, so it’s either extremely efficient or was already storing a lot of magical energy.”

“And all the trunks Ah opened so far’ve got the same bunch of gems this one does,” Applejack said from several boxes away.

“Looks like all of them do,” Pinkie said from inside of the one right next to the trunk Rarity had opened. The lid then popped open and the pink mare climbed out, her mane hanging limply as it had been for a couple days now, now that Twilight thought about it. “Also, Penumbra isn’t suppressing me anymore, thought you’d like to know.”

“It’s a relief,” Twilight said. “Are you okay, Pinkie? You’re looking a little… straight.”

“Surprisingly, yes.” Pinkamena smiled slightly. “I’ve never really tried a normal pace that was not also depressing and dull. It’s… nice.”

“And you can jus’ climb out of boxes you can’t fit into without needing to be funny,” Applejack said.

“Maybe that’s always been how it is and I never tried a different way because… you know…”

“Constant hyperactivity?”

“I would have said lots of energy but yes.” Pinkie shrugged. “So what’s up with the gems?”

“Foci,” Dawn said. “Boxes full of foci made with really big gems.”

“And that’s… bad.”

“Yes,” Twilight said. “Especially since, if indications are right, they were being kept as standard equipment by menial-labor ponies.”

“The sorts that don’t have horn magic,” Applejack said. “An’ so wouldn’t be able ta use them. Can ya tell what they do, Twi?”

“Yes, but also no,” Twilight said. “I have the ability to do it but if the magical examination overloads it..”

“Crater,” Dawn said. “One the size of an acorn can demolish a room, walls included. Scale that up and you can probably say ‘bye-bye’ to the entire ship, when chain reactions kick in.”

There was a long pause. “Put the one we have back an’ go get Penumbra, do ya reckon?” Applejack said visibly nervously.

“That would be best,” Twilight said. “And it would probably be best if you did it rather than me, Dawn.”

“Sure.” Dawn tucked the giant gem against her chest and three-legged her way over to the chest, setting it inside. “So, do you really think ol’ Numbra didn’t know about this kind of magic just lying around inside the hold?”

“There’s no question of that,” Twilight said. “She told us that she read the manifest.”

“And she was cool with us getting our hooves on it?”

“I don’t think she believes it matters,” Rarity said. “I and Twilight are the only two who can do anything with the gems, and they appear to be so volatile that we don’t know what they’re even for, much less how to use them.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Dawn said. “Like, no one’s gonna hand out big volatile weapons to every pony in a crew doing heavy labor. It’s gotta be some kinda assist or something else that it’s no big deal if the crew just kinda has and keeps on hoof for regular use. Still, we should prolly tell the cute stripey that there’s a bunch of those things just laying around charged up and volatile.”

“Did she actually tell us where the captain’s cabin is?”

“Top deck about two holds back from the bow,” Pinkie said. “Only place I can’t go, even with Laughter helping.”

“Without a desme to work with?” Munin said.

“Apparently so.” “So, just like in the Dragon Lands?”

“No, it tastes different.”

“‘Tastes’?”

Pinkie shrugged. “I experience the difference as flavors. Penny does it like whipped cream, this is more like ice cream pie.”

“So a… harder defense.”

“That’s what it tastes like, yup.”

Twilight looked to Dawn who shrugged. “I guess we just go up and pound her door down just like she said.”

“Pretty sure she didn’t say it that way.” Twilight looked to Pinkie. “Where is it?”

Pinkie gave her the typical Pinkie grin--impossibly large, just short of being unsettling--and trotted up the nearest flight of stairs with a distinct bounce in her step that made her look like she was taking short hops up the stairs instead of walking up them, and the rest of them followed.

The cabin turned out to more resemble a tower, with two long decks protruding out from either side of the top. In addition to visibly robust construction, extremely thick anchor ropes flowed from it, going from thick iron loops in the deck up to the top of the tower to further stabilize it. Unlike all the other doors they’d seen on the ship, the one leading to the captain’s cabin was made of iron with rivets that suggested that it was heavily reinforced.

Unprompted, Applejack trotted over to the door and knocked hard enough that the door frame shook slightly at the impact. “Miz Penumbra, something we need ta discuss with you.”

They waited in silence for several seconds before Applejack turned and used a back hoof to ‘knock’ again. “Miz Penumbra, we…”

The door swung open, revealing a spiral staircase leading up to a second level, and light coming down it from what appeared, from its flickering nature, to be a lit lamp.

“Ah guess she heard us.” Applejack stepped forward into the tower. “Don’t see anything special here.”

Twilight squinted and extended her magical senses forward. The tower was intensely magical, although the effect felt passive--no doubt the defense keeping Pinkie out--but she could also feel the buzzing sensation of an active and quite powerful spell running somewhere above. “I can feel the magic keeping you from just popping in Pinkie, but it’s not hostile, just akin to a magical wall.”

“Makes sense.”

“Also, Penumbra’s doing something pretty powerful somewhere above. I guess she must not be bothered about us approaching if she opened the door and gave us a clear route up.”

“Seems rude not to take her up on it.” Applejack trotted forward and up the spiraling stairs without hesitation, followed closely by the rest.

The next floor up seemed to be some kind of combination clothes closet and armory. Ponyquins were lined up with various suits on them, ranging from elaborate military dress uniforms to the heavier practical wear of a sailor up to finely-wrought iron chain. Weapons included a set of crossbows with windlasses, a saber that somehow still looked new, and a weapon that looked like a long leather strap. The gear was clearly meant for an alicorn (or, more likely, a changeling) with the clothing containing accommodation for wings and a horn but interestingly, a small stand beside the chain armor with pegs meant for a combat sheath for the horn and military shoes was empty.

“Looks like this captain fella was ready for anything,” Applejack said.

“And was moderately wealthy,” Rarity added as she peered at the practical clothes. “The stitching is artisanal rather than merely professional, and it was fitted rather than standardized.”

“All interesting girls, but Penumbra is still above,” Twilight said. “And she did sort of invite us.”

This time, Twilight took the stairs first and this time, they emerged into what was clearly the sleeping area of the captain. Twilight didn’t spare more than a glance, and started up the next staircase. She had next to no warning; one moment she was taking the first steps up the stairs and the next, a tingling sensation washed over her face and the world exploded into the sounds of two ponies conversing just above, and one of the voices was extremely familiar.

“So Thalia was right about that,” Luna said.

“Yes.” Penumbra’s voice sounded older, tinged with an accent that sounded faintly Stalliongradi. “I stole one of the interloper’s pawns, played at using it well, then cast it into the fire. With my competition dealt with, I move to finish my antagonists.”

“We weren’t your enemies before…”

“Nor are you my enemies now,” Penumbra said. Twilight felt a hoof tap her leg and looked down to see Applejack below, looking concerned. Twilight quietly took a few steps upwards and knew immediately when Applejack and then Rarity had stepped passed the sound barrier Penumbra had constructed around the conversation “You may esteem me your enemy, but I see the lot of you as mere obstacles to overcome, not adversaries to grind under my hoof. You would oppose me even if I didn’t take certain actions to secure my path before walking it; I just regret that I was forced to do this now instead of during the reign of Chidinida and Shining Armor’s grandchild.”

Luna sounded as taken-aback by the comment as Twilight felt. “Their… grandchild.”

“Yes.” There was a slight tingle of magic in the air and the sound of someone taking a sip of something. “Had I been permitted to wait, I could have simply walked into the reborn Empire with a disguised Zambet at my side, strolled up to the Crystal Heart, and implemented the final phase of my plan. Everything would have been perfect, few if any people hurt, but alas.”

“I don’t suppose you’re going to reveal your master plan in a villainous monologue.”

Twilight heard an aborted snort of laughter followed by a coughing sneeze; Penumbra had clearly inhaled whatever she was drinking at Luna’s laconic comment. “That would be so gloriously cliche that it’s very tempting,” she said, “but that would endanger many ponies I wish to keep from harm.”

“I didn’t expect that you would reveal your full intent.” Luna paused for a moment. “So is this your message? Explaining your motives and engaging in small talk?”

“No, this was me indulging in a desire to speak with a mare whom I’ve admired for some time.” Twilight heard the clank of metal shoes against the wooden decking. “The message I wished to deliver is this: I intend to shatter the wheel of destiny to which all ponykind is yoked. I do not wish to harm you, or your sister, or any other pony; having chosen to regard this entire world as specifically mine, I prefer to protect you all. But I will not accept defeat; please do not compel me to harm anyone by putting them in my way.”

Luna sighed.“You know I can’t just leave this be.”

“You wouldn’t be a portion of the perfect monarch if you knew of a danger to your people, and did nothing,” Penumbra’s voice sounded slightly warm, but distinctly regretful. “But I had to ask, nonetheless. Fare well, Luna; until we meet again.”

“Why the Heart?” Luna said, her voice sounding very slightly tinny as if the spell conveying it had begun to break up.

“It’s the only one I have any right to use.” Penumbra’s voice sounded genuinely happy for the first time Twilight could remember. “It’s an artifact of love, after all, and the love of home resonates as surely as the love of another.” There was a long pause. “I appreciate you not interrupting, Twilight, but there’s no point in hiding. I heard you knocking so I’ve known you were in here ever since you entered.”

Twilight took the rest of the stairs up and found herself in a brightly-lit chamber containing a table with a large decanter of liquid in it, a small tray of ice, a bag of small leaves, and a fine-looking glass. Any further details of the chamber, however, fell away as Twilight saw Penumbra.

She was older now, a young adult mare, looking extremely fit and clad in the horn sheath and military shoes Twilight had noticed missing from the closet. She also had various bits of tribal ornamentation woven into a lovely black mane, and all the various bandoleers, pouches, loops and belts typical to a seasoned battlemagi that were filled with the foci and tools that would greatly improve the speed and precision of spellcasting on a battlefield.

“You look rather flabbergasted, Princess,” Penumbra said with a smile. “Honestly, did you think I was trapped in the shape of a child?”

Twilight just gaped at her. “This can’t be right, it’s only been a couple of hours!”

“And yet it’s not an illusion,” Munin said, trotting over and peering more closely at Penumbra. “Nor was it an illusion when she was just a filly. But that’s not what’s interesting.”

“A filly becomes a grown mare in a couple of hours and that’s not the interesting part?”

“Not at all,” Munin said, reaching up and giving Penumbra’s horn a phantom tap. “What’s interesting is that this sheath fits. Fits like it was made for this specific horn.”

Twilight’s eyes widened a little. “So those pieces missing from that cabin…”

“...are hers,” Munin said. “So she either visited before and left them or they have been here ever since this ship was crewed.” She quirked an eyebrow at Twilight. “And now you know why her assuming an adult form is not the interesting part.”

Author's Note

Alrighty then, yet another installment in the ongoing story of DualThrones doing storytelling. This week, my faithful readers find out what the conversation with Luna looked like from the other end. Shocking, thrilling, other superfluous words that make it sound more impressive than it is!
More seriously folks, thanks for tuning in and as I always do, I wish to invite your commentary and criticisms, every single one of them (but mostly the criticisms). I hope people like this chapter.

Twilight: Storm Bells

“Trust the pony with gems on her flank to locate the endurance foci,” Penumbra said as she held one of the massive jewels in her magic, letting it spin lazily. “I understand why they would raise concerns, but they’re all extremely stable.”

“Endurance foci?”

“Quite,” Penumbra said. “The normal strain on the shaft teams can be mitigated by making the treadmills and harnesses to a high standard and fitting the traces to the individual pony, but there are times when the ship has to go fast, maneuver, or simply needs an outsized amount of power, more than could be obtained by ordinary effort. The options are the whip--as you can imagine, a stop was put to that notion with extreme prejudice--or using a stable foci to allow a pony to push themselves beyond their physical limits without harm. The second part--without harm--was the important benefit of the foci.”

“Cuz otherwise, they wouldn’t get volunteers?”

“That’s a factor, certainly, but not the deciding one.” Penumbra put the jewel back and turned to trot up the stairs to the main deck. “Training four hundred ponies to walk in perfect synchronization, stop perfectly, speed up and slow down perfectly, is an extremely long and difficult task. An expert team can also do double-duty as haulers so they’re a critical part of the imperial infrastructure. A team losing effectiveness from the loss of a single member is hard enough; losing a member to negligence is unacceptable and unthinkable.”

“You sound like you speak from experience,” Twilight said.

“Seeing as how I’ve been alive for thousands of years, Princess…”

“I mean that you talk like you’ve explained this to others, numerous times,” Twilight said. “During the time that the Crystal Empire was still here.”

Penumbra smiled. “That is true, but…” She paused, furrowed her brow, then nodded. “I slipped into the present tense.”

“As if the Empire was still around, and you were explaining it,” Twilight confirmed.

“You would hardly believe the number of times I was in that precise position,” Penumbra sighed as they reached the top decks and trotted across the immense wooden plane towards the gangplank. “We were always an anomaly to Equestria. No one understood why we’d want to live in frozen lands without plants or animals or growing things. A royal family that was openly a mingling of changeling and Equestrian nobility was disconcerting to other ponies, even during the long periods where the discomfort with the fourth race wasn’t so significant. That we called ourselves an empire caused acute discomfort because empires are expansionist, even though the only land we wanted to seize was more glacial plains that no one else wanted.
“Being an Imperial citizen was… special. I felt comfortable among them, enough to linger for centuries, and I regarded them as my people. I made friends with them, attended births and funerals, marked the annual Festival of Matches by…”

“Festival of Matches?” Dawn stepped around Twilight so she was following directly behind Penumbra as they started down the gangplank. “Like, Hearts and Hooves Day?”

“Nothing like that,” Penumbra said. “We celebrated all the traditional holidays--although the annual Hearth's Warming Eve pageants would be unrecognizable to you--but added a couple of our own. The Festival of Matches was… well, have any of you heard the tale of the little match-filly?”

“The lil what now?”

“Little match…”

“I know the tale,” Pinkie said.

“I do as well,” Twilight said. “Not that I’m happy to know it. It’s quite tragic.”

“Yes,” Penumbra said. “It was heartbreaking that of all the people to show the poor little thing the slightest kindness, it had to fall to a beggar instead of the thousands of citizens shuffling passed her with full purses who didn’t even look her way. But just one pony doing the right thing made all the difference, and the world is now better for her having lived to old age. The festival in her honor is… was my favorite.”

“How many of our stories are based on things that actually happened?” Pinkie drew even with the zebricorn so she could look at her as they walked. “And how many have a twist?”

“Very nearly all of them,” Penumbra said. “Ponies--all people really--tell fantastical tales about very real things all the time without realizing it. The ponies of the past were both worse and better than you think they were, and there are far too many tales about them that remain untold or are so badly mangled that they’ve become pure fiction.”

“I’d like to hear one,” Pinkie said.

“This isn’t really a setting for storytelling, Pinkamena.”

“Do you have something better to do?”

“A tangled stemwinder about the Empire would be preferable.” Penumbra sighed at Pinkie’s look. “Very well. Does the name ‘Snowfall Frost’ sound familiar?”

“Magical miser pony?” Applejack said.

“Tried to magically remove Hearth's Warming Eve?”

Penumbra stopped and turned completely around to look at Pinkie. “Excuse me?”

“Tried to magically remove…”

“I heard you but…” Penumbra sighed and shook her head, turning and continuing to walk. “This is what I meant by pure fiction. The notion of removing a celebration is absurd in the first place, but by the time Snowfall was at work, Starswirl the Bearded’s spell that allowed interdiction of decisive points on a present timeline had been secured beyond even the princess’ means of easy acquisition. At any rate, Snowfall wasn’t trying to remove Hearth's Warming Eve, she was trying to disassociate it from metaphysical interaction with the windegos.”

“What kind of metaphysical interaction?”

“The windegos ultimately represent discord; ever since the flight from the original homeland, ponies have represented harmony,” Penumbra said. “Discord and harmony are two side of the same coin, respectively representing fundamental forces in the world. Snowfall saw this interaction as something that was sustaining the threat of the windegos, so she tried to snap the chain that bound the two.”

“That seems kind of ill-advised,” Twilight said. “Severing that kind of connection would have to be a very delicate process and the Hearth’s Warming Tale depicts Snowfall as a skilled alchemist but not a true magi.”

Penumbra snorted. “Skilled alchemist. Her ability was roughly on par with Clover the Clever, who was actually a school friend of hers. You should know better, Twilight, you would know that the fundamentals that Snowfrost would need to formulate her conclusions are far above the abilities of an alchemist.”

Twilight raised a brow. “Snowfall Frost, the miserly pony of a foal’s tale, was not only real but had abilities on par with one of the most famous artificers and runescription scholars in history… but no one knew she even existed?”

“Did you know that changelings were real before meeting them?”

“Point. So why is she a story and not a historical figure?”

“Are you familiar with the Emeritus Question that fully flowered during the time of Starswirl the Fifth?”

“I am.” She was sure that everyone who’d attended advanced education, or even who were very well-read, were familiar with the academic debate over the weighting of traditional status versus manifest merit. Starswirl the Fifth, usually called ‘The Innovator,’ had provoked a great deal of dispute over promoting the theories of Cadlilly Meadowbrook over noble-born herbalists with regards to disease control. The ultimate result had been the acceptance of merit as being equal to noble status and eventually, being superior. “Why?”

“Snowfall was an early, and very earnest, ‘meritist’ before the argument began to gain enough traction to provoke debate,” Penumbra said. “As you can imagine, the nobility has a variety of ways to deal with upstarts that challenge them, and Snowfall didn’t have a charismatic bone in her body. She had very few friends because it took some time before ponies realized her fixation on hard work was not, in fact, a way of impugning anyone who didn’t spend sixteen-hour days working.”

“Sounds like the kinda pony who’d slip between the cracks real easy,” Applejack said, “even without a bunch of nobles ignorin’ her. Plodding hard-working folk don’t make for excitin’ stories.”

“And so she did,” Penumbra said. “She was not particularly talented at magic. Her mind worked neither quickly nor brilliantly but it did work extremely thoroughly. She compensated for lack of talent with a frankly unhealthy work ethic, dipping deeply into the territory of obsessive, but her fixations bore fruit consistently. Through sheer effort, she devised a theory about the relationship between Hearth’s Warming Eve and the windegos that thoroughly resisted disproof despite being wholly incorrect, and it was this situation that led to her misguided effort to sever the chain.”

“Wholly incorrect?”

“Yes,” Penumbra said. “Which was no fault of hers since there were only three ponies in the entire world who knew the true facts, and I didn’t meet Snowfall until after the incident mythologized in the story about her.”

“The other two were Mum and Aunt Luna,” Dawn said.

“Correct.” Penumbra stopped walking and glanced around, seeming to be trying to find her bearings. “Dawnbreaker should be coming into sight.”

“We’re not that far from the Vigilance,” Twilight said.

“Nor was Dawnbreaker supposed to be,” Penumbra said. “It’s an icebreaker and if the VLCCs didn’t follow closely behind it, the sea ice would start closing in around them.”

“Maybe it started to move in a different direction?”

“Very plausible.” Penumbra slipped a sextant out of her saddlebags and made it level on the horizon, raising the arm meant to make an angle with the sun. “Forty-five degrees should do the trick. Twilight, I trust that you’re familiar with the principles of reflective augmentation of a far-viewing cantrip?”

“A reflective augmentation of a…”

“Tell her yes,” Munin said.

“But I’ve…”

“...never heard of such a thing.” Munin grinned a little smugly. “Your conscious awareness might not have, but your mind did.”

“How…?”

“...are you meant to cast a spell you’re not consciously aware of knowing?” Munin shrugged. “It’s not hard, really. Just cast the base spell--a standard far-viewing cantrip--and your mind will fill in the rest. I know, it’s extremely uncomfortable and unfamiliar but you know a pony who practices it as part of her career.”

Twilight thought about it a moment, conscious of Penumbra giving her an odd look, before it came to her. “Oh, that’s how Trixie’s special talent works. I suppose I never really wondered about the mechanics of how she can…”

“Twilight, Penumbra is staring at you.”

“Oh, right.” Twilight looked back at Penumbra. “Sorry, I don’t have many chances to use the spell.”

“It is one of the more obscure variations,” Penumbra said. “If you would, please project the reception in front of me.”

Twilight was tempted to mentally protest, but the hallucination of Munin was looking impatient so she sighed softly and let the magical energy from her font fill the framework of the spell as she always did. Between one instance and the next in the process, she abruptly knew exactly what to do in order to get the effect she wanted. The sensation was odd enough to make her stumble a little in surprise, nearly losing hold of the magic, before she returned to the proper frame of mind and calmly proceeded to form a construct like a long mirror through which she channeled the power to do what she knew the next step to be, and then the next, and one more step to finish.

She instantly understood why Penumbra wanted the unusual variation of the cantrip: it allowed them to look down at the stranded ships and frozen sea from above, but as stable and stationary as if it was on solid ground instead of suspended in the air. Without thinking about it, she turned her head and the view shifted so she could see Vigiliance from high above. From the high angle, it blended nearly perfectly with the ice around it, and she could tell that it was deliberate camouflage instead of the ship being iced over. Various fixtures were built into the deck, breaking up the image of the massive vessel such that it didn’t really look like an artificial construction at all.

“If you could shift your view to the right, Twilight?” Penumbra said.

“Alright,” Twilight said and did so.

At first, she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. The profile of Dawnbreaker was nothing like the two VLCCs behind it, starting with the fact that about a dozen of what were visibly smokestacks jutted from the structure. Where the immense cargo-carrying vessels were ungainly-looking and utilitarian, the icebreaker had the flowing lines and length of a military ship, a clipper but massive in scale. Even from the distance her far-viewing cantrip was positioned at, even at an angle with the mist of the frozen sea partly obscuring it, the bridge was clearly visible, towering above the deck with the dizzying array of pennants, banners, and flags hanging limply along the cables running from the top of the town down to the deck again. But the most important thing Twilight noticed about the ship was that it was exactly where Penumbra had said she believed it to be: several hundred meters in front of the Vigilance and as Twilight noted when she bumped the focus back to the left, not in the direction they’d been traveling.

She ended the spell and looked at Penumbra. “What was the point of that?”

“”I needed to be certain of something before we continued,” Penumbra said. “But I also wanted you to see the Dawnbreaker from a perspective that you would never otherwise utilize.”

“Showing off?”

Penumbra grinned a little at Rarity’s question. “If you had a hoof in making one of the national treasures of an empire, wouldn’t you?” Her grin faded into a small smile. “You are all the first to see Dawnbreaker for going on a thousand years. She was the pride of the Empire, the flagship, a marvel of engineering and innovation, carrying the very best sailors and propulsion crews. With my preparations made on the two trailing ships, she is the key to standing down the ultimate defense and advancing my goal to its next step.”

“They put the thing that turns the magical defense off on a ship?”

Penumbra nodded. “Precisely. A ship that, after the defense was activated, can only be boarded by an Imperial citizen, or someone so familiar with our culture that they’d recognize certain signs and know that those signs were associated with a unique cultural event.”

“So, just you.”

“Yes.”

“So if you were to be killed, the Empire would remain as it is forever?”

Penumbra turned fully to Dawn and gave her a level look. “I have made provisions to ensure that if I was to die, others would have the knowledge to board the Dawnbreaker and dismantle the defense. Obviously.”

“Well, it’s not obvious to…”

“In which case, you are an idiot.” Penumbra turned away from her and started in the direction that Twilight had seen the Dawnbreaker in. “Come along. The rites to gain entrance are significantly more difficult and dangerous after night falls.”

It wasn’t the scale of Dawnbreaker that made Twilight pause and do a double-take when she got closer to it; the VLCCs, after all, were much larger. Neither was it that the icebreaker had the lines and design elements of a warship; she’d seen that from above. What made her pause was how eerily modern-looking the icebreaker was. The hull was clearly clad in iron and enough was visible that she could tell that it was also copper-bottomed. The vessel carried no visible sails, instead appearing to rely on its shaft crews and some manner of machine turning the trio of paddlewheels integrated into the hull instead of beside it. One of the more interesting things about the vessel, however, was that a long structure with various ladders, towers, decks, windows, and other features ran almost from the stern to just in front of the towering bridge. It was a design she’d never seen before, and it took a sharp jab in her flank from Dawn to stop her from staring and analyzing it from afar.

“Awful modern-lookin’ ship,” Applejack said.

“Necessity is the mother of invention,” Penumbra said. “A icebreaking ram on a wood frame wasn’t up to the task, so covering it in iron was the only way. The frigid waters have a particularly aggressive breed of hullworm so copper plates were fastened on. Copper disintegrates iron bolts after a time so a solution to that was needed. And metalclads are more ponderous, so a solution to that was needed.” She gestured at the vessel, “The most capable minds I could beg, borrow, or steal--not literally, just an expression--got Dawnbreaker to the point you see it now, as a series of solutions and compromises.”

“Over 500 years ahead of Equestrian experiments in copper-plating wooden hulls,” Dawn noted. “Those must have been some amazing minds.”

“Warm-water hullworms aren’t aggressive or nearly so large,” Penumbra said, “and they’re marine so the constant movement between salt water and fresh has the unintentional effect of cleaning them off. Equestria didn’t need aggressive defenses against marine life infestation of its wooden vessels, so your nation was slow to recognize the need, slow to research, and slow to adopt. Equestria did not need, so Equestria did not invent.”

“That, and most copper has to be imported.”

“The essentials for more exotic industry do not favor Equestria,” Penumbra said with a nod. “But now that you’ve met Chrysalis and been formally received in her court, and a traditional alliance will be sealed by marriage after this is all over, things are going to go much better for you in the future.”

“I mean, I can see how the courtesan sector…”

“There’re copper mines in the Barrens?” Twilight said as a firm bap from Applejack cut Dawn off.

“And tin, and bauxite, and calamine, among others,” Penumbra said. “It’s a blessing to Equestria that the changelings regard you with nostalgic fondness, because those deserts and scrub hide many treasures for the pony wise enough to perceive them.”

“Coal?”

“Yes, although the oleum nigris is significantly more abundant and valuable.” Penumbra smiled slightly and momentarily. “Perhaps you’ll help them develop it into effective fuel in the future.”

“I don’t think they’ll be willing after what Maredusa…”

“This resource stuff is interestin’ an’ all,” Applejack said, “but didn’t ya say that getting it all sorted would get mighty hard after dark?”

“Yes, of course,” Penumbra said. “The point is that there are very sensible reasons why Equestria didn’t experiment with coppering their ships for such a long period after the Empire did. Those reasons aside, we need to walk to the bow to gain entry.”

“What’s at the bow?”

“The figurehead.”

Twilight gave her a level look. “Really.”

Penumbra smirked at her. “Ask a silly question, Princess, and you’ll get a silly answer.”

“I’ve never seen a ship that is boarded from the bow,” Twilight said. “It’s not silly to ask what makes Dawnbreaker different.”

“We’re not boarding from the bow,” Penumbra said. “We’re gaining entry at the bow.”

Twilight thought about it for a few steps. “You have to perform the rites to gain entrance at the bow.”

“Yes.” Penumbra smiled and picked up the pace. “Truth be told, I’m looking forward to this. It’s been over a thousand years since I had the chance to perform these specific ones. A lot of the rites of memory, of honor, of dedication, and the rest can be done at any time and place with the right material components. A few, however, can only be done at a specific place and time and are of deeper significance than the more common ones.”

“Like, to you personally?” Dawn said.

“And metaphysically,” Penumbra said. “Recall that Snowfall Frost tried to sever the metaphysical link between Hearth’s Warming Eve and the windegos. There’d be no point severing the chain unless things like giving gifts, celebrating with friends, and decorating had metaphysical significance--and quite a bit of it too.”

Applejack snorted. “Drinking spiced cider at mah family’s yearly shindig is… what? Special some way?”

“Not by itself, no,” Penumbra said. “What you do as a single pony is a bit, maybe a few bits, on a pile. But it’s not just you, is it?”

“Nope.” Applejack drew herself up a little proudly. “Can barely fit all the kin in any two barns.”

Penumbra smiled. “Yes your family are lovely ponies. But my point is that if I was to have three bits for every one of your kin at that party, I would have done quite a day’s work--but that’s just one gathering of Apples across Equestria, and the Apples are just a few hundred ponies among hundreds of thousands--and that’s just one celebration around the festivities.”

“So each little thing ain’t much but when ya put them all together, it’s a whole lot?”

“Precisely.” Twilight could see the turn of the bow at the edge of her vision, looking through the mild fog that had begun to develop when Penumbra’s glance fell on her. “Speaking of Snowfall, however, I recall that I never said exactly what became of her.”

“Well, she failed,” Pinkie said.

“‘Failed’ implies that she went forward with it. Luna had been paying close attention to her dreams for some time beforehand, which was useful solely because Snowfall’s focus was so tight that her dreaming mind manifested her thinking in fragments, and finally realized that not only had Snowfall formulated a tight theory, she had a plan of action that was dangerously feasible.”

“What’d Auntie Luna do?”

“Spoke to her,” Penumbra said. “She told her everything: the purpose that the windegos served, why there was a connection between them and Hearth’s Warming Eve, and explained the danger in breaking the connection. Snowfall put aside her entire plan without question, but Luna wisely perceived that her intellect was a power needing careful guidance and took her under her wing.” She smiled as they rounded the bow. “It’s why I respect Luna, and regard her fondly. She did more than she strictly needed to do, and Equestria benefitted from the decision.”

“That’s interesting, but why do you bring it up?”

“Pinkie wanted me to tell you the truth of a myth, and I have.” Penumbra smiled and gestured up at the figurehead suspended above them. “And now I will show you another.”

Twilight looked up. The figurehead was so far above her that it was a little difficult to make out the details but she had the vague impression of a young pony draped in tattered rags cradling something in her hooves. She looked back at Penumbra to find that the zebricorn was in the process of unbuckling her heavy winter gear and sliding parts of it off.

“What are you doing?” Twilight said. “Isn’t the cold here…”

“Ex...tremely b...bad?” Penumbra said, her voice already going into stuttering. “T… that it is…”

“But you’re taking your winter gear off.”

“H.. have t… to.” Penumbra let the gear drop off completely. “R... r… rites… only w...w...work… s… sympa… pa… thetically.”

“What does…?”

“C… can’t… a… answer…” Penumbra opened a latch on her saddlebags and pulled out… a match. Twilight blinked at it as the zebricorn took a shuddering step towards the figurehead. “T… trust… m… m… me… go… gon… gonna work…”

“Munin, am I watching our guide… kill herself?”

“I don’t know any more than you do,” Munin said. “But I, and by that I mean you, are getting an odd feeling off that match.”

“Odd how?”

“Find out.” Munin smirked. “It’s not a really complicated spell.”

“Oh, right.” Twilight used a moment of focus to bring up her magesight cantrip. The world immediately shifted into the unreality in which magical energy suddenly became visible to her. She glanced at her friends to orientate herself, seeing magic flowing around and through them as it normally did, before she turned her eyes to the shivering Penumbra.

The magic radiating from the ordinary-looking match Penumbra had clutched in her telekinesis was intense enough that on sheer reflex, Twilight jerked her head away from it and shielded her eyes.

“Somethin’ the matter, Twi?” Applejack’s voice was genuinely concerned and out of the corner of her eye, Twilight could see the farmpony looking between her and the frankly bizarre tableau of Penumbra shivering violently while holding a match and stumbling towards a figurehead.

“No,” Twilight said, dousing the spell as dots of afterimage swam around her vision, as vivid as if she’d looked at the noon sun. “Just… I don’t think that’s an ordinary…”

The zzst of Penumbra striking the match was a sound more enormous than any Twilight could remember hearing, more so because such a soft sound should not have been audible at all, and abruptly, she wasn’t standing on a frozen sea in heavy winter gear with her friends.

Instead, it was her third Grand Galloping Gala after being sent to Ponyville. There had been an early chill that year, so Celestia had gathered some of her sun and suspended it in the middle of the gala hall ceiling, the gentle warmth washing over everyone below it. Rarity had outdone herself in designing their dresses that year, and even the very rough-around-the-edges Rainbow Dash had drawn ample admiration and comments from how Rarity’s brilliant work had emphasized her slim athletic body and highlighted her vivid mane, something that Rainbow did her best to play off as girly and embarrassing, but Twilight had caught her looking happily bashful when she thought no one was watching. The food was delicious, Octavia Philharmonica and her marefriend had made a very pleasant blending of mechanical and string music that gave the Gala an exciting energy, and it was the first one that both Shining and Cadence could attend together. Given how soon after it the entire incident of the Guardian exploded onto the scene, Twilight remembered the moment as being the last taste of true joy before the plunge, the last taste of safety and happiness.

A vision of safety and joy that flashed into being with the strike of a match.

“Is that one of mine?” Twilight blinked and the vision faded, and she was back on the frozen sea next to an exotic icebreaker called the Dawnbreaker, and Penumbra was no longer shivering as a black-coated filly dressed in ragged scraps of cloth stood in front of her, looking up at the match.

“Yes,” Penumbra said with a smile.

“You are courteous to honor me so.” The filly blew the match out with a quick motion. “Who are you?”

“I am the snow falling soft on the frozen field,” Penumbra said. “I marshal the winter to shield the weak. I am the light of the lamp in the mists of the storm. I am the shadow of my charge, falling athwart the path of my foes.”

The filly looked steadily at her through the odd recitation, and then she beamed and threw her legs around Penumbra. Legs that Twilight abruptly realized were partly transparent. “I know you now,” she said, her voice bubbling over with sudden joy. “Welcome home, Light Shadow. Your empire has missed you, lo these thousand years.”

“As I have missed it.” Penumbra gestured to Twilight and the rest of her friends. “Matchlight, I present my companions, five mares of Equestria who have walked my return with me.”

“Hail fellows of the verdant south, lit by the gold and silver of the Sisters,” Matchlight said, bowing politely to them. “Be welcome, though I fear we are not quite prepared to embrace visitors now.”

“That ends now, my friend,” Penumbra said. “The vigil is over, the danger is passed, the Empire is safe again. I request passage so I might call the Watch to their service.”

“Passage you have, and I strongly suggest you make yourself secure atop Dawnbringer as not a one of you is well-suited to arctic water.” Matchlight smiled to Penumbra. “But I shall call my Watch from their long sleep, and return to my own. Be safe, Light Shadow.”

The filly faded out of existence, and a cacophony of pealing bells exploded from somewhere above. Penumbra nodded and then turned to them as she picked up her discarded winter wear. “We should get up on deck, quickly.”

“An’ why’s that?”

Twilight felt a long, grinding shudder beneath her hooves and looked down. The sea ice suddenly looked darker than it had even seconds ago. Her eyes met Applejack’s and she could see that the farmpony had realized the same thing she had.

“The Empire is returning, Applejack Apple,” Penumbra said. “And believe you me, sub-zero water is not good for swimming.”

Author's Note

It's been a real struggle to find the ending to this chapter, but I finally did it! I'd appreciate any feedback people can give; please feed the writer all your comments!
I hope to get the next chapter out with a little more speed.

Celestia: And Full of Terrors III

Packing the tentage had to be done in a hurry; Celestia once again found herself silently praising Starswirl and Clover for having always conceived of the tents as military equipment and designed them to be easily erected and quick to break down. With the framed bound up and secured, Celestia allowed herself to look at the maelstrom gathering in the far distance. It’s like watching the events of the past being undone in the order that they happened, she thought as she stared at the visible torrent of wind, speckled with the chilling forms of windegos galloping with the flow.

“So this Empire is returning,” Shining Armor said. “What are we meant to do about that?”

“I…” Celestia sighed. “I’m not sure what I hope for us to accomplish. Making things right in regards to the Empire is beyond any of us, and hopefully Sombra will be as much of a problem for Sotto Voce as he will be for us. The real purpose of being here is to frustrate Sotto Voce’s goals, whatever those may be.”

“I’ve never heard of this ‘Sotto Voce,’ and my family makes sure I’m kept aware of dangerous foes,” Cadence said. “Which raises the possibility that he has just now tipped his hand and revealed that he exists.”

“Or he’s a piece just brought into service by whomever is playing the Game,” Shining said. “...which ultimately makes no sense because Zambet and the late Canceros were acting on his instructions, Canceros for long enough that his minions could thoroughly taint multiple harvests from all over Equestria so the disease would break out all over at the same time.”

“And that disease had already been altered by yet another tool of Sotto Voce before Canceros did anything with it,” Anori added. “Which means that the Game had been in progress for some time before Spite was sent to do something about it.”

“And yet she seemed to think she was arriving at the very start of the Game, which means…” Celestia slowed as the chain of logic finally reached its conclusion. “...the Game was started so that one of its players could take advantage of something already well underway.”

“Worse than that, Your Majesty,” Krysta said. “It didn’t seem pertinent to speak of this before, when you were not yet aware of Nachtmiri Mein’s hoof in this entire mess, but she approached our queen just a month after the Guardian had been put down speaking of someone equal to herself that had been or would soon be employed to coordinate the scheme.”

“Sotto Voce?”

“I don’t believe so,” Krysta said. “Nachtmiri Mein referred to her peer as ‘her’ where both Zambet and Canceros were speaking to someone who was not female.”

“Which means that Sotto Voce must have been pulling strings since at least six months ago.”

“I wish we could have brought Trixie with us,” Cadence said with a wan smile. “This is sounding like a very intricate shell game, and her entire act is about the sleight of hoof.”

“I will not subject Trixie to this,” Celestia said as firmly as she could. “Trixie, or any other pony not trained to war or not on the same scale of power as either of us. She’s safe for now, and that is where she will stay.”

“I wasn't suggesting we bring her Auntie,” Cadence said. “Just that she’s probably one of the few ponies who could reason out where the lima bean is.”

“That’s not the real question, though,” Celestia said. “The real question is….”

“...why now?” Shining said.

“Exactly.” Celestia sighed and picked up the pace again. “I wish Luna was here. Wheels within wheels was always something she understood better than I, for she could be as subtle as the light of her moon when she wished to be.”

“You’re no slouch in that yourself, Celestia,” Anori said. “You couldn’t be and yet still have managed the noble houses and fairly contentious diplomacy for as long as you have.”

Celestia smiled briefly at him. “I thank you for the flattery, Sieur du Ard, but I’m not nearly the hidden-hoof pony you think I am. My success has been chiefly a matter of letting my opposites believe absurd things rather than supplying the absurd things to them.”

“If Princess Lepinora’s smug declarations are anything to go by, allowing others to deceive themselves is part and parcel of spycraft,” Krysta said grinning. “She’s the living embodiment of it too.”

Celestia found herself grinning a little as well. “And how is that?”

“My little sister by blood is… very colorful,” Cadence said. “When she’s not concealing it, there is no visible part of her body that is not intricately tattooed; Mother fortunately prevailed upon her to confine her body art to her skin. It makes her into a living, walking, talking, breathing piece of art.”

“And no one would imagine that someone so eye-catching, so blatant, and so attention-seeking is concealing something,” Celestia said, nodding. “And ‘spy’ is the last thing anyone would think she is.”

“Like no one would think that such a gentle, maternal, wise matriarch is being manipulative,” Anori said.

Celestia smiled at him. “Again, I appreciate the flattery. But you’d agree that being able to be sneaky does not mean that you have insight into the schemes of others, especially when you have never met them and know nothing about them.”

“That is fair,” Anori said. “So where are we going?”

“Towards the capital,” Celestia said. “I hope. I believe that the way ended just outside a rather famous roadside inn called the Wight Flagge which was just off the major western highway leading to the capital city. Without the Flagge or the highway, I can only guess as to the correct way to go. And I don’t trust wings to let me get a better view.”

“Can you use your sun to at least check if we’re traveling east?”

“I have, and we’re certainly going east,” Celestia said. “My concern is that the highway steered travelers well clear of natural hazards, such as a large area of marshes that bordered one of the Empire’s most prominent natural curiosities.”

“Wouldn’t marshes sort of…?”

“Freeze?” Celestia smiled. “Normally, but the natural curiosity was tar pits, tar pits that were heated by some unknown means so as to be barely more viscous than water. The marshes were deep enough that they had currents which circulated enough heat to keep the marshes warm. They tended to be dangerous because the parts of the marshes furthest from the tar pools could develop a crust of ice over the top of the deeper water and frequent snows made the ice appear to be solid ground.”

Shining raised a hoof to shield his eyes from a sharp breeze. “So we could be walking out over this crust of ice and not know.”

“We’d find out pretty quickly,” Celestia said. “Fortunately, none of us are carrying anything that can’t be simply dropped. But the marshes aren’t what worries me.”

“What worries you then, Auntie?”

“The Empire was known for very harsh weather and as the magic that removed it unravels, I’m concerned that it’ll be especially intense. Even for me, getting caught out in one of the regular gale blizzards would be dangerous.”

“Is there any kind of advanced warning for one of those gale blizzards coming?” Shining said. “Like, some kind of stillness in the air, a certain sight, something like that?”

“There are many, but it takes a lot of time to learn them,” Celestia said. “The Empire trained a section of their Imperial Guard that they called the ‘Bell Watch’ to recognize the signs and sound storm bells when they saw a blow coming.”

“So, like the bells we heard when packing up the tentage?”

“Exactly so,” Celestia said, ”although the bout we heard was too short to be a proper signal. It would have been sustained for almost a quarter-hour to ensure that any ponies out in the weather definitely heard them.”

“Oh, alright.” Shining put his hoof up again to shield his eyes and squinted. His horn glowed and Celestia saw the sparks of magic, a basic far-viewing cantrip, overlay on his eyes. “When it wasn’t in a storm, did the Empire have much fog?”

Celestia furrowed her brow. “Not that I could remember. Why?”

“Well, it’s just that there’s a fog bank quite a ways ahead of us,” Shining said, pointing. “And it seems to be approaching.”

“Approaching?” Celestia overlaid her own far-viewing cantrip over her eyes and the details of the greyness ahead leapt into view as if she was right next to them. As Shining had said, it was a fog bank although it was thick enough that she could see the wind currents cause it to fluctuate and roil. She then raised her eyes to see how high the fog was and saw the clouds above it, ominously black and dark enough that she could see white shapes dancing and circling above.

Windnegos, she realized, her heart sinking. In storm clouds.

In a flash it came to her: storm bells had been sounding as the winds rushed in and scoured the Empire. She’d always thought they were sounding in response to the winds but as the Empire was returned to existence, they were still sounding. A thousand years later, she had no way to be sure of how long the bells had been rung before the spell was complete but now it was clear that the combined duration, interrupted by those years, was a quarter-hour.

“Gale blizzard,” Shining Armor said calmly.

“Yes.”

“And we don’t have enough time to get back to that anchor point.”

“Yes.”

He paused a beat. “So what can we do about it?”

“Get below it,” Kryssa said. “It’s how we’re trained to handle sudden sandstorms if we’re caught in the open desert: magically excavate a pit where you stand, project a shell shield above you to prevent yourself from being buried, and wait while the storm spends its energy.”

“There are windnegos riding the storm,” Celestia said. “They can sustain it for hours and a large enough herd will stop me from drawing upon my sun to sustain myself indefinitely.”

“So what do we do?”

“Take shifts,” Cadence said. “One of us reinforcing your barrier at a time while the others rest or perhaps devise a variant of the sandstorm strategy.”

“We won’t be able to keep it up forever.”

“It’ll be long enough.” Cadence pointed with a hoof. “And we don’t have time to rethink it, because the edge of the storm is accelerating.”

Celestia glanced at the storm, confirmed what Cadence had said with a nod, then braced herself and brought up her barrier. The strain was heavy for a moment, and then eased to very little as Shining braced her shield with one of his own. It seemed like within a moment, she could feel an impact as if something entirely solid had collided with her construct, and then the storm had arrived.

Celestia had heard about the storms of the Empire, of course; anyone who had ever traveled there was quickly made aware of the “big blows” as Imperial citizens referred to them whether by being caught in one, traveling near the edge of one, or being in shelter while one was raging outside. They were caused by windnegos making their way into the gaps between settlements, where there was nothing repelling them, and bringing the winds and killing cold with them. She’d been caught in the edges of one just once, mistakenly thinking that her travel from one settlement to the capital would be quick enough that she could avoid it, and it had been all she could do to keep the lethal storm at bay while severed from her normal store of nearly-infinite power that came from the connection to her sun. But now, they were in the dead center of one and it was all she could do to hold the magical construct of her barrier against the immense kinetic force of the raging ice-beings running rampant.

As the wind howled outside of her shield, Celestia started to become aware of the low tinkling of bells, as if someone in a belled harness was trotting nearby. She opened her eyes and peered through the yellow-tinged barrier of magic and noticed what looked like a light bobbing faintly in the midst of the storm, swaying and bouncing in rough coordination with the tinkling of the bells.

“Am I imagining things?” Shining Armor said, speaking more loudly to be heard over the sound of the wind. “Is there someone actually out here in this?”

“If you’re imagining things dear, we all are,” Cadence said. “Aunt Celestia, who could be…?”

“...out there?” Celestia peered through her shield, watching as the light grew along with the volume of the tinkling bells. “I… believe I know but it couldn‘t possibly be. When the great spell fell upon the Empire, everyone would have been hiding inside their homes, in shelter. There would have been no one from the Imperial guard walking duty along the highways to keep a watch for lost travellers. For someone to be out anywhere near the Wight Flagge this soon after the return began they would have had to be on the roads at the time.”

“‘Allo ye lost an’ wayward in the storm!” The voice with the unmistakable Imperial accent, the pronunciation of all vowels like a long ‘a’, surprised her so much that she very nearly lost her grip on the spell. How can I hear him so clearly against the sound of the winds? “Do ye need some ‘elp to shelter?”

Celestia took a breath to regain her composure. “That would be very helpful.”

“Eh? Ye sound awful put-together for a lost soul buffeted by th’ blow.” The light bobbed closer and then, as if it was a curtain being brushed aside, the driving snow parted to reveal a changeling holding an iron lantern aloft, dressed in chain and a belled harness, and with the appearance of his carapace being made of polished glass rather than chitin, the signature of someone who had lived for a considerable time in the Empire. Upon seeing her, the light blinked out from around the pole he was using to hold the lantern, to be caught a moment before it fell as he recovered from his surprise.

“Ay! Princess Tia by me very soul!” he exclaimed, beaming happily at her. “And a couple of honor guard to shoes! What unkind fate left ye to huddle in this blow with only these?” Celestia opened her mouth to reply but before she could, he barreled onwards. “Curse me, never mind such things. Ye are but a few key from the Flagge and ye shall be joyfully welcome.”

“We came from the direction of the Flagge soldier,” Celestia said, “We’re trying to reach…”

“...the Wight Flagge of course,” the soldier said cheerfully. “I too am going there, so this is most convenient.”

Celestia frowned at the soldier. I don’t think he mishead me. “No, soldier, that is not correct. We are…”

“...bound for the Wight Flagge and safety, Your Highness.” The cheer evaporated into an expression of genuine concern. “Please.”

Celestia blinked. “I’m afraid you don’t understand the situation, soldier.”

“Captain,” he said. “And I do understand the situation. The situation is that anyone traveling to the capital right now will be in danger, and I am sworn to keep citizens and visitors from danger, and to save them if they are endangered.”

Celestia looked to Cadence and Shining, then back to the captain. “Captain, are you aware that a thousand years have passed?”

“Princess, are ye aware that the situation from a thousand years ago remains?”

“King Sombra…”

“Night White,” the captain said sharply, unconsciously baring his fangs as he said the name. “What of him?”

“If he did this to your empire, why would…” The captain’s utterly flummoxed look caused Cadence to trail off. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

“Who has told ye that…?” The captain looked at Celestia. “Never mind, I think I know. Princess Celestia, whatever business you have at the capital, I must urge ye to return to the Flagge for ye own safety and the safety of your entourage.”

“I can’t Captain,” Celestia said. “I am here because another danger is on its way here, one formed in the thousand years the Empire has been locked away inside Sombra’s curse.”

The captain’s expression tightened. “It is no curse, and White Light had buck-all to do with it.”

“Not a…?” Celestia gaped at him. “What do you mean?”

“Imperial secret Ye Majesty, but revealing that what ye think a curse is not, and the pony ye blame for the not-curse had nothing to do with it can’t do harm.” He sighed. “Princess, please follow me to safety. It is but two keys and some away, and we can talk where there is food an’ drink aplenty.”

“If Sotto Voce has released… whatever it is that was keeping the Empire in whatever state it was in Princess, he clearly has stolen a march on us,” Anori said after a moment. “With the storm in front of us, it’s no longer possible to get there before him, especially if no storm impedes him.”

The captain sighed again. “I am eager to hear how ye got it all turned ‘round such that ye think that White Light made it an’ that some ‘Sotto Voce’ undid it. Now break down ye barrier an’ walk near to me. I shall escort ye to the Flagge an’ try to sort all this out with me marshal.”

Given her own experience with the gale blizzards, Celestia had always found it difficult to understand how certain hoof-picked members of the Imperial Guard could simply walk through the storms looking for travelers who’d gotten lost and take them to safety. As she stepped into the Wight Flagge with the captain, she still wasn’t sure what kind of magic he was using to do it, but in a certain radius around him, the storm simply did not exist. The wind was perfectly calm, it was a chilly but tolerable temperature, and the path was lit with the stark light of the arctic sun in defiance of the roiling storm around them. She suspected that there was a connection to the lamp he carried, but she had no sense of magic radiating from it, and the only magic the changeling captain was using was to hold his lamp aloft as he trotted.

The next moment after stepping inside, all contemplation of their journey was swept away by a roar of sound, the combined warmth of dozens of ponies and a roaring fire, the smell of sizzling food (and those dozens of ponies), and a sensation of intense welcome and happiness washing over her from every direction. It was if the last thousand years had never happened; once again, she was plunged into a sea of friendship and she couldn’t keep the smile off her face.

“Souls bless if it isn’t Princess Tia!” The pleased baritone cut through the noise of conversation and song with very little effort, and Celestia turned her head to see a crystal earth pony at least as massive in frame as Big Macintosh sporting a giant beard and a riveted skull cap waving to her. “A thousand years and you don’t look a second older, you glorious white cheat!”

Celestia hesitated, combing her memory for a desperate moment before the pony laughed. “Maybe I was wrong, and you’re going senile old mare. No, no, I realize it’s been too long for you to remember. Bright Hops, Princess, and a pleasure to meet you for the first time yet again.”

The name brought back a memory and Celestia smiled at him. “It’s been a while, Hoppy.”

“Hah!” He picked up a large mug and nosed open the lever from one of his kegs, tipping it with the expert touch of someone who’d been pouring drinks for decades--which, since he’d mentioned his name, Celestia remembered that he had. Five of them, as a point of fact. “Knew ye hadn’t forgotten yer favorite dispenser of plebian swill.”

“Luna never has held her liquor very well.” Celestia felt a tap on her shoulder and gave the captain a glance and a nod to indicate she’d join him in a moment. “She felt pretty bad about it after…”

“...we got sealed away?” He shrugged. “Tell yer Lulu that a jibe don’t raise a blister. I’ll take her drunken renditions of sea shanties as apology enough. Oy, Lotus!”

“Oot’s the word, chief?”

“Princess and her friends are on the house, get ‘em what they need.”

“Treat ‘em like royalty, yup.” A crystal pegasus mare with a startling resemblance to Rainbow Dash (but with pastel stripes and a deep blue coat) materialized out of the crowd. “Oy then, they are royalty. Great, an’ what’s yer crave?”

“Crystal twist with sour rocks,” the captain said. “For all of ‘em; we need our heads, they’re new, and the princess is 1000 years older.”

“Six crystal twist with sour rocks.” The waitress nodded and vanished back into the sea of ponies.

“Sotto Voce,” the captain said. “Who is he?”

“We’re not clear on that point,” Celestia said. “We know he is a malign presence, we know that he commands the loyalty of monsters that attacked Equestria, and we know that he intends to come to the Crystal Empire. We suspect his goal has something to do with the Heart.”

“So he’s not a threat.” Preparing the drinks must have been simple--or there was simply a lot of ponies who’d ordered it--because the waitress was already back with six glasses of what looked like water with ice cubes. The captain didn’t even hesitate, taking a long drink from his glass before putting it back down. “Elemental powers bounce off the aura of the Heart like peas offa armor plating.”

“Sotto Voce’s agents were able to approach the Tree of Harmony without trouble Captain,” Celestia said, taking a sip of the drink. It was tart and slightly sweet, and she sipped again despite herself. “One of them was able to dim its light with her powers.”

“Really.” The captain frowned and took another drink, slower this time. “The storm will be too heavy to walk through for the next hour. I’ll find my marshall, deputize a couple old gummers, and we’ll get you clear. Wings’ll get you from there.”

Celestia blinked at him, and cast a glance at Shining and Cadence. “That was… quick.”

He shrugged. “If this Voce can dim the Tree, Field Marshal’s gonna need reinforcements. You look pretty good for that, Yer Majesty.”

“Field Marshal?”

“Yup.” He sipped again. “By this time, she’ll have made landfall at Glacierfast and be on her way to the capital to sort out Night White.”

“Where’s Glacierfast?”

“Eastern edge of the Empire,” Celestia said, looking at Cadence. “Cold-water port and shipyards about the size of those at Ironhoof Sound.” Something occurred to her and she looked at the captain. “Why would a field marshal be on a ship coming west from the Snowbell Sea when the… whatever it was happened?”

“It’s not important,” the captain said. “What is important is that she can deal with Night White on her own, but won’t be looking for some kinda danger coming up from the south. If we get ye to the capital, can ye take care of this Sotto Voce?”

“Thus far, he has operated from behind the scenes, using puppets and pulling strings,” Celestia said. “I doubt he’s prepared to confront either me or Luna directly and my little sister has always had a penchant for showing up where she’s least expected.”

Author's Note

I'm back again after a gap with another chapter. It's the normal bit: hope you enjoy it, hope you comment upon and critique it, and I'll see y'all the next time through with the next step on the journey.

When I figure out what that next step is.

Ehehehe... heh..

Luna: Rekindling

It was one of those moments that for no real reason, had always stuck in Luna’s mind. Some business or another had led her to be visiting the Crystal Empire and she’d needed to speak with the newly-enthroned Empress Lamplight and had been directed to an icecutter’s settlement on the Snowbell Sea called Glacierfast. She found the empress, who was just barely old enough to qualify as a mare, standing at the edge of the frigid sea on one of the floating docks that was used during the summer months for fishing, and looking over the packed sea-ice.

“What do you think, General?” the empress had asked as Luna approached her, her accent tinged with the Imperial quirk of pronouncing all vowels as a long ‘a’ but even more distinctively Stalliongradi.

“Concerning what?” Luna had asked, eyebrows furrowing as she tried to work out what the mare was looking at.

“The bay,” Lamplight said, gesturing vaguely at the way the coastline formed a deep concave and rocky cliffs jutting out into the water. “Deep enough to be a natural harbor anywhere else.”

“It’s a very good natural formation,” Luna said. “Unfortunately, it’s ice-locked.”

“Not during the summer.” Lamplight had hummed thoughtfully. “I had an advisor--friend of my mother’s, as a point of fact--suggest to me that it may be possible to build a ship that can break through heavy sea-ice.”

“I’m sure that’s possible, Empress, but how would you propel it with enough force to push through?”

“I don’t know,” Lamplight said. “Yet. But I like the idea. It’s visionary, worthy of an empress, the sort of thing that…”

“...history would expect of Matchlight’s daughter?”

Lamplight nodded. “The Begger Empress brought every poor pony in from the cold, wrapped them in her own blanket, and fed them from her own table. That stone is already rolling downhill and no one is going to seriously give me credit when it arrives at the bottom. So I gotta set my own stone rolling and this would be a really good one to push.”

Luna smiled at that. “I suppose if a beggar can sit on the throne, her daughter can part the Snowbell Sea. So what would you call this miraculous vessel?”

“I’m glad you asked, General.” Lamplight’s eyes twinkled. “I’ve actually been thinking about that, ever since mother’s old friend stopped by to see me. How does the name ‘Dawnbreaker’ sound to you?”

It had always been to her intense regret that the christening of the Dawnbreaker by a then-elderly Lamplight had coincided with one of her various peacekeeping campaigns in the Provinces--then being menaced by the surge of raiders that always accompanied the crowning of a new Storm King--and Tia had gone in her place. She’d seen the vessel since, always at a distance, weighing anchor at the mouth of the river leading to Equestrian ports because it was too large to safely enter but the awe-inspiring sight on the horizon had nothing on watching the immense warship gliding into the port city that Glacierfast had become.

It was a massive construct, even larger than the titanic Very Large Carriers of Cargo the Empire had built over the years after completing Dawnbreaker. It was powered by hundreds of ponies that were each at least the size and build of the rugged ploughponies of the old-blood farming families, like the Apples and the Carrots, if not a bit larger. The pullers, consigned to grueling manual labor before the revolution led by Empress Matchlight, were Lamplight’s answer to Luna’s question of how such a magnificent ice-breaker could be powered.

“How is it possible?” Nacht breathed. “Where did they get the cladding? The timbers? And how are they propelling it?”

“The timbers were special-order from Du Sylvi,” Luna said. “It’s why the Dawnbreaker wasn’t commissioned for decades, because it took that long to grow the special trees that were needed. It’s propelled by two shafts driven by about three hundred pullers each. As to the cladding, though… I have no idea. We asked but the only thing we could get from Lamplight was that her family friend had made the arrangements.”

“That friend must have had a bunch of reach to get enough metal to clad a ship like that,” Thalia said. “Did you ever meet him?”

“Her,” Luna said. “And yes, I did. Imperial field marshal named Light Shadow. She struck me as being extremely young to have been a dear friend of Matchlight but her mannerisms and accent were from the right time period for it to work. I had the distinct impression that she was very popular in the Imperial military but nothing about her explained her long reach.”

“I imagine it didn’t back then,” Nacht said.

Luna furrowed her brow slightly and looked at her. “Has… something changed since then?”

“Well, she sat down and had a conversation with you, didn’t she?” Nacht said. “In the Archive.”

“What are you talking about, Nacht? Penumbra…” And then she stopped. Penumbra. Light Shadow. “...oh.”

She would normally have hesitated to make the leap but Penumbra and Light Shadow being the same pony connected too many things to be a red herring. Penumbra had shown every sign of knowing her, the way that a gregarious and friendly colleague might after decades of association. Light Shadow had always appeared strangely young, and yet had the mannerisms and reach of an elderly mare who had been developing connections over a long lifetime. Penumbra had gone out of her way to make Luna comfortable, and most of their conversation had been a discussion completely unrelated to the message she had intended to send. Light Shadow was known and admired for being a mare of very simple desires and very modest ambitions, despite having been elevated to the personal and trusted advisor of many emperors and empresses. Finally and most damning, Penumbra had called the Crystal Heart the only artifact she had any right to because it represented her love of her home, and Light Shadow’s unabashed patriotism and love of the Empire was famous.

“I suppose she as much as told me who she was,” Luna said after a moment. “It’s incredible to me that Tia and I spent so much time around her, and never even suspected. She remained in her post for nearly 200 years, and the only thought I can remember having was that she seemed strangely young for her position. The magic to accomplish that must have been astonishingly complex.”

“It must have been,” Nacht said. “But also, it’s kind of long passed. I’m curious about where that ship is returning from and why it was gone in the first place.”

“What I wonder is whether it’s been sitting out there in the frozen Snowbell this entire time.”

“You never looked?”

Luna looked at Thalia. “We had no reason to. Glacierfast is in the far north-east of the Empire and when we searched in vain for anyone who had escaped the spell’s reach, we naturally stuck close to the Empire’s borders.”

“Predictable response,” Thalia said.

“Yes, which implies that it was sailed out of the search range deliberately…”

“...and that whoever sailed it knew that the spell was coming,” Nacht concluded.

“Hey Princess?”

Luna looked up to see Rainbow gliding in from high above. “Did you see any sign of your friends?”

“Nope.” Rainbow alighted and folded her wings along her sides. “But there’s another two really big ships behind the first one.”

“A pair of VLCCs trailing the Dawnbreaker?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah I guess, if VLCCs means the really big ships behind the one with the weird hull.”

“Well, I guess that settles that,” Thalia said. “Not only does someone take one ship outside of where you’d be looking, they took three. That kind of thing doesn’t just happen.”

“If it wasn’t about to berth, I’d ask one of the dock scribes,” Luna said. She looked off to a side at all the ponies that had been gathering at the waterfront, none of them acknowledging the presence of herself or any of her companions, although a few glanced their way.

“You could ask the dockmaster.”

“He’s about to be very busy,” Luna said, pointing at the older-looking stallion who was gesturing and yelling something at a few dozen dock workers, and getting quick salutes and gestures of acknowledgement as they went to their tasks. “And I’ve never met an Imperial citizen who stops what they’re doing to genuflect before me or Tia. Nothing wrong with their manners, they just don’t see a need to treat a foreign dignitary as if they were their Empress or Emperor.”

“They’re like us in that respect,” Thalia said. “Though we’d be more reverential. Was the Empire ever under Equestrian rule?”

“Never,” Luna said as she watched Dawnbreaker start to turn towards its special drydock berth on the side of the bay she and the others had chosen to stand. “The Empire started as a project of the du Arctis family, building a family estate in the region they were most comfortable in, the way that du Closs built Tempesthaven, du Aquis established themselves in the Drainlands, and so on. The discovery of thick veins of mana-sensitive crystals under their claimed lands allowed them to expand considerably and draw more settlers until a noble family became a royal family, and an estate became a city, became many cities, and eventually became an empire.” She smiled a little. “Or so they decided to call it for whatever reason.”

“And the Heart?”

“No one really knows,” Luna said. “My and Tia’s belief was always that they’d cut it out of an extremely magically-dense vein, possibly one in the direct path of a lei line, and spending years in the midst of changelings infused it with an echo of your people’s unique magical characteristic. Wherever it came from, though, any form of elemental magic which includes the powers of elemental powers like windnegos shatters against its protection like glass beads against plate armor.”

“And you never tried to secure it, given it was that powerful?”

“The Heart is special,” Nacht said. “It alters the mind on a deeply fundamental level, psychically burning away evil impulses directly related to itself. The theory of Celestia and Selune was that a lifetime of exposure to it led to the emperors and empresses being consistently good--and Night White’s parents being extremely cosmopolitan and traveling extensively through his early life is why he thought it would be a fine idea to declare himself king and come up with a deeply puerile name for himself like ‘Sombra’.”

“Which makes ya wonder how Penny gets it to do bad things,” Rainbow said. “If it sets her brain on fire and makes her be a good lil filly, how does she use it to mess things up?”

“I can only suppose that she is so thoroughly convinced of the rightness of her intent that the desire to use the Heart to carry it out must not register as evil or an impulse.” Luna shrugged. “Or her particular evil is so unconventional that the Heart doesn’t understand it. The pseudo-sapience of extremely powerful artifacts is not distinct for creativity. Translating it to true sapience, giving the magic the capacity to reason, seems to need at least a thousand years of associating with reasoning beings.”

“Or being purpose-formed to resonate with a living Bearer,” Nacht said.

“Or that.” Luna looked over at Rainbow. “Rainbow, I have a somewhat… strange thing to ask you.”

“Do I talk to my Element sometimes?”

Luna blinked. “Um, yes, that’s what I was…”

“Sure.” Rainbow shrugged. “She’s cool.”

Luna and Nacht both stared blankly at her. “She’s… cool.”

“I mean…” Rainbow shrugged again. “What else would she be?”

“I…” Luna sighed. “I can’t even be surprised. Of course you would be the one to consciously chat with the magical construct that’s entwined with your being.”

“It does explain your impulsive nature,” Nacht said. “Your imaginary friend is encouraging you.”

Rainbow snorted. “Are ya deaf? She’s cool. Cool people tell their friends not to do stupid things, and only go along if their friends aren’t listening, cuz they’re cool.”

“And the fundamental nature of Loyalty is to be loyal.” Nacht nodded. “Well, as interesting as this is, pretty sure we’re about to find out what the buck three Imperial ships were doing in the middle of the Snowbell when the hammer fell.”

“But the Dawnbreaker just started its approach.” Luna turned to look again and found that the immense warship had dropped anchor short of its berth and a large stair had been wheeled up to its bow which protruded considerably forward of the ship’s hull. Ponies in the distinctive uniform of the empire--burgundy under large grey greatcoats trimmed with white faux fur--were already walking down the stairs, pullers based on their large frames. As she watched, dockponies were sliding large pontoons into the water and affixing slats to them, extending floating docks to the side of the ship so more gangplanks could be wheeled over.

“They seem really fixated on getting ponies off that ship fast,” Thalia said. “Maybe whoever’s on board is on a time limit?”

“If Penumbra wasn’t a dearly-loved field marshal of the Empire, I could imagine that the three incoming ships were warned that she was up to something,” Luna said. “But the soldiers do love her; I remember it from every military collaboration I participated in. The chances of Penumbra needing to hurry to accomplish things seems remote, especially since she had the time to just sit and drink with me while doing a villain monologue.”

“Space we can recover.” Luna jumped a little and turned her head sharply towards the sound of Penumbra’s voice, and the mare was just… there. Her arrival had been totally silent and hadn’t even brushed against Luna’s magical sense, which was worrying in and of itself, but Penumbra--Light Shadow--also exuded a sense of fearless calm as if she wasn’t standing within easy reach of Luna, much less Nacht. “Time, never.”

Still wearing her battlemagi kit, Penumbra had added the field marshal uniform that Luna was familiar with--scarlet and green trimmed with gold thread, a white snowflake with a star on each point to represent her rank, a black cap with a golden star on its front--and Luna felt a sharp spike of pain in her temples. She closed her eyes briefly as she winced, and when she had opened them again, Penumbra was the Light Shadow that Luna remembered, a charcoal-coated mare with a silky white mane she wore just a little bit too long to be strictly regulation.

“I sincerely apologize for the discomfort that the normalization enchantment causes,” Light said. “Ordinarily it wouldn’t have any such effect but you know what’s beneath the glamor so the dissonance causes a brief spike of pain while your perception is aligned with the illusion. Before you start being astonished that I’m casually breaching your profound mental defenses against such manipulation of your mind, the magic acts purely on your senses rather than trying to deceive your mind. Thus the momentary pain: the senses object rather enthusiastically to being overwhelmed.”

“If you were all that sincere, you wouldn’t have presented yourself as a young zebra mare when projecting the illusion to speak with Selune.” Nacht’s gaze swept over the disguised zebricorn. “I can see now that I was mistaken about you. I had privately thought you a mere vessel of Sotto Voce; instead you are to him what this flesh is to me, except you are a complete individual. Phyrrus’ work is marvelous to behold, and it is indeed his. He has many servants with unique gifts, but even the most uniquely gifted artisan pales before a true master.”

Penumbra’s expression became more discomforted as Nacht spoke and by the end, she was looking genuinely uncertain. “That is… interesting. Do you have a point, Empress?”

“Only that the Reaper gave you a unique opportunity, and I wonder if your cause is really important enough to risk it.”

“To exist is not living Empress,” Penumbra said. “And merely living is a waste of a life. I have refused the sword for too long, and wasted thousands of years in my folly. My causes--and there is more than one--are all enough to die for.”

“Shattering the yoke?”

Penumbra nodded. “That among many others. More history will follow my success than will precede it, and there are numerous things that will need doing in the centuries afterwards.”

“What about Night White?” Luna said.

“He has helpfully provided me the best possible cause to gather every spear in the Empire and march on the capital.” Her expression became grave. “He closed the poor houses.”

“That seems petty and heartless but…”

“It’s more.” Luna looked at Penumbra. “I don’t have the most broad grasp of Imperial history and culture, but I know that since Empress Matchlight--who is still reverently referred to as the Begger Empress--the poor houses are a fixture of Imperial culture.”

Penumbra nodded. ”As it is often said, the Begger Empress brought every poor pony in from the cold, wrapped them in her own blanket, and fed them from her own table. Matchlight was not the saintly creature of boundless giving that she is remembered as--we regarded one another as dear friends, I know of her flaws better than anyone--but that saying about her is not an exaggeration.”

“It was also a brilliant decision,” Luna said. “Her charity towards the ‘pullers’ endeared her to the common citizen and laid the foundation for Lamplight to build her own great work upon.”

“I was very proud of her for that,” Penumbra said. “She had already struck before I discerned that the iron was hot, and embracing the ploughponies meant that by the time of Night White, every town and city had a guard composed entirely of ‘pullers’ and things were very peaceful for it.”

“Because the pullers were good colts and fillies from the same neighborhoods?” Since Penumbra had appeared, Luna had lost track of the fact that Rainbow was even still there but her making the remark just above Luna’s head dispelled that illusion thoroughly.

“Because imagine trying to stand up to a half-dozen ponies with the size and build of Big Macintosh Apple looming over you.”

“Yeah, I get what you’re saying.” Rainbow rolled a little in midair and looked at Penumbra upside-down. “Yanno, the final boss is a ton more impressive in comic books.”

“Comic books are a medium of grand and dynamic narratives.” Light Shadow looked out across the harbor. “The villains can’t be the type who have one grand scheme and whose intentions after that are to build a little cottage by the sea and live a peaceful life; that would be boring. That is why I am not so impressive as those villains, Rainbow Dash.”

“Well, yer buddy put Gilda in one of those screwed-up griffin things he was building,” Rainbow said, her tone casual but her fuchsia eyes suddenly hard, with a predatory focus. “And I’m gonna go out on a limb here, but I think the one who hurt Flutters works for you too. I don’t know where those two are so I can’t kick their plots, but you’re right here.”

Penumbra smiled and then looked up at her. “Applejack Apple couldn’t kick my plot, Rainbow, but you have the right to do your very best. However correct I believe my actions to be, my plans have hurt those you care about. It is only right that you break your hoof off in my scheming plot.”

Rainbow grinned and tapped her hooves together. “Yup.”

Ever since first meeting Big Macintosh Apple, Twilight had been certain that the towering stallion was unique. She’d seen the Apple Family gather for reunions, for holidays, and for other occasions and the quiet stallion always stood out even among the solid ploughponies that seemed to comprise at least three quarters of Applejack’s extended family. Getting on the deck of the Dawnbreaker to find hundreds of tall, heavily-muscled ponies very much like Big Mac waiting had been a disconcerting experience to say the very least.

For Twilight, at least. Applejack just seemed faintly surprised before grinning from ear to ear, Dawn was being her normal shameless self, Pinkamena seemed delighted, and Rarity was clearly awestruck. Penumbra’s reaction was to walk up to one of them and throw her forelegs around him in a crushing embrace, which the stallion was quite clearly happy to return.

“At has ban taa lang,” he rumbled to her.

“It has,” Penumbra agreed. “Are you prepared, Commodore?”

“Waa aare saar,” he said. “What as yaar cammand?”

“Signal the Constance and the Vigilance,” Penumbra said. “Return to Glacierfast at best speed. There, disembark and make ready to march on the capital to restore our empire’s honor.”
The stallion saluted her. “A haar and abay.” He turned and began shouting commands to other ponies, who immediately saluted in turn and hurried to whatever tasks he’d assigned them; with the extremely odd manner of speech, Twilight was having trouble following the words being exchanged.

“They seemed pretty quick ta hop to whe ya told them to do things,” Applejack said.

Penumbra shrugged. “I outrank them.”

“Outrank ‘em.” Applejack eyed her. “So that makes ya a…?”

“Field marshal.”

Applejack gaped at her, and she wasn’t the only one. “Ya’all are a field marshal. Ta some empire we’ve never heard of. Who’d ya have ta kill?”

Penumbra’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, Miss Apple. My stars are the work of decades, and they were given to me by one of our greatest empresses. I will not have you speak ill of her in my presence and tolerate it.”

“She wasn’t just your empress,” Pinkamena said.

“That is true, she was not just my empress,” Penumbra said, giving Pinkamena a nod. “Matchlight was a dear friend and an admirable pony. I was sad to lay her to rest, although the entire Empire mourned when she passed and it was the first time I felt able to grieve with others instead of stand apart and mark down yet another mortal I had outlived.”

“Didja, though?” Dawn said. “You called that ghost at the front of the ship ‘Matchlight.’”

“And the match you struck,” Rarity said. “The moment you did, I was with my family at my grandmother’s house for a family reunion. One of my happiest memories. The matches that the little match-filly struck trying to keep warm showed her visions of safety, comfort, peace, and happiness, according to the story, and the ghost you called ‘Matchlight’ said that the match you struck was one of hers.”

“Yes you are both correct,” Penumbra said. “A great many fanciful stories grew up around her after her passing because of the fondness the populace had for her. The fundamentals of the tale are true, but Matchlight obviously did not freeze to death on a street corner.”

“So that spirit was Matchlight.”

“It was.”

“How?” Twilight said. “She was clearly a coherent presence with her own personality and power, yet she was also not alive.”

“I honestly do not know,” Penumbra said. “I bid her farewell, saw her buried, joined in the mourning, consoled her daughter Lamplight… and the next time I visited her grave, she was counting the bundles of flowers that had been left and wiping away tears of happiness that so many of her people really did love her. She never told me how it had happened, or why, but some force beyond my understanding had bound her to the Empire itself, to act as its guardian spirit. We have both speculated over the years that it was something in the nature of the Crystal Heart but the joy of the nation that one of their greatest and most beloved empresses stood vigil as their guardian washed away any drive to understand how such a thing could be.”

“So… the whole lot of ‘em knew?”

“Some knew--principally her Bell Watch, which she founded during her lifetime--but she was hypersensitive to the possibility that her proven presence could cast a pall over her successors and she allowed the tale of the spirit of the Begger Empress lingering to bless and protect her people become an article of faith rather than sure knowledge. Despite her best efforts, the legend of Matchlight being the guardian spirit of the Crystal Empire became something that Imperial citizens accepted as truth rather than a mere story.”

“She’s more than a guardian spirit,” Twilight said.

Penumbra’s curious look was just enough that Twilight felt that she was exaggerating it. “What do you mean?”

“You told her that her vigil was over and the danger was passed, and requested permission to call her watch to service.” Twilight paused as the next logical step slotted into place. “It was her, wasn’t it? She removed the Empire from the flow of time, kept others from finding it. She was keeping the sea frozen and all the rest.” She paused and her eyes widened as she realized what she was saying. “...but… how?”

“She was an empress, even after her death,” Penumbra said. “Her people still believed in her and looked up to her, even as they invested their faith, love, and trust in the emperors and empresses that followed her. Faith is powerful, Twilight Sparkle; just ask your mother and your aunt. But love, especially to a changeling, especially to a monarch of changelings, is power and especially so in the Crystal Empire.”

“She could stop you.”

“If she wanted to do that, she would have ignored the rite.” Penumbra smiled. “I could have done nothing about that, for all my power. Just one of those strange little tidbits of history: had I not embraced and befriended a ragged little filly with the determination to take the crown and succor her people despite centuries of tradition, all of what I am doing would be impossible. Friendship really is magic.”

“An’ that’s why ya looked at me like ya could kill when Ah impugned the field marshal thing,” Applejack said. “Bein’ field marshal was a gift from yer best friend.”

“Something I earned honestly as well,” Penumbra said, “but it was also a gift from someone very dear to me and I have always been the very model of what the Empire requires of her field marshals.”

“Which is?”

“Coldness,” Penumbra said. “Ruthlessness. The capacity to consider the unthinkable. The willingness to do what is needed for victory. The intelligence to know what that thing is, and the moral strength to watch ten thousand die to save ten million, and never shed a tear.” She looked at Twilight and then at Dawn. “Your aunt could explain far better than I, and with vivid examples. She pitted changelings against massive, armored, ancient fire-breathing magical beings to impose the Pax Equestria on the dragons, and I promise that required many sacrifices.”

Twilight very deliberately avoided thinking about the implications, but Penumbra’s matter-of-fact tone made her shudder a little. “So what do you plan to sacrifice?”

“To depose White Light, the so-called ‘King Sombra’?” Penumbra smiled. “Very little. He is a fisher king atop a cold throne without…”

“You know what I’m talking about.”

Penumbra’s smile fell and she looked away. “A thousand years of time I could have lived, loved, and laughed in my beloved Empire. Certain individual ponies, a very great number of lives, and a part of the soul of all ponykind.”

“That sounds very chilling but isn’t very clear,” Pinkamena said. “You can bat us aside, why don’t you want to name the ponies you’ll hurt?”

“Because I already hurt one, and I didn’t want to.” Twilight couldn’t be sure from her angle but the working of the muscles along her jaw made her think the zebicorn had clenched her teeth. “She was not meant to be hurt, none of you were. It happens that it furthers my purpose but this was not part of the plan.”

“‘Fraid that kinda thing happens when ya start doin’ evil, ma’am,” Applejack said with a touch of venom in her tone. “So who’d ya hurt?”

“You…” Penumbra sighed. “You’ll see. Just be patient, Miss Apple, I think you’ll take some pleasure in what happens when we reach Glacierfast.” She glanced at them. “You all will, to different degrees.”

Applejacked snorted. “Yeah? What’s waitin’ in this Glacierfast place, a good old fashioned whuppin’?”

Penumbra snorted as well, but with amusement. “As a matter of fact, yes, that is precisely what is waiting. One thing I’ve learned over thousands of years, Applejack, is that there are times when the only way to settle something is to walk out of the saloon, kick off your shoes, and start hitting. There’s just something about pain and blood, and inflicting it on someone else, and having someone else inflict it on you, that is… honest. Like something has been really and truly settled, and sometimes like a thorn that you didn’t notice has been pulled out of a festering wound. I really should have given you that pleasure yourself, but when the size of a filly, I am as fragile as a filly… and you were really not in control of yourself.”

Applejack blinked. “Ya serious?”

“Of course I am. Upon reflection, I provoked you as hard as I possibly could have and gave you no satisfaction for that outrage.” She shrugged and looked away again. “Maybe I should have assumed a more adult form sooner and gave you at least one hit to…”

Applejack hit her just as she was turning her head slightly to look over her shoulder.

Given that she was very accustomed to it, she could have easily turned on a dime and delivered the double-hoof buck that left impressive dents in apple trees and had shattered Spite’s jaw when she’d surprised them; that she merely threw a haymaker with all of her weight behind it was a mercy, Twilight supposed as the entire thing seemed to play out in slow motion before her.

There was a sharp snap as Penumbra’s head was jerked in the opposite direction from the impact and the rest of her followed, stumbling, trying to retain her footing, and then collapsing onto her side. She lay there for several moments, her jaw hanging loosely as blood started dripping from her mouth, and her eyes were unfocused before the life returned to them and she looked up at Applejack. At that point, Twilight became acutely aware of where they were: on the deck of a ship full of soldiers all of whom regarded Penumbra as their superior officer and had all stopped what they were doing to gape at the sight before them.

Penumbra worked her mouth a little and spat blood on the deck before grinning widely, her already-swelling lip and jaw oozing blood even more as she did. “Ya hat lak a pallar garl,” she said, rolling and pulling herself unsteadily to her feet.

Apparently, this meant something to the crew around her because the gaping looks turned to grins and vigorous stomping that sounded like…
“Am I imagining things or are they…?”

“Applauding Applejack when she just floored their superior officer?” Munin finished. “Yes, I think that’s exactly what they’re doing. I wish they’d speak that odd dialect a little more, it’s hard to work out what they’re saying.”

“I think what Penumbra said was ‘you hit like a puller girl’.”

“What the hay is a puller?”

“Context would suggest that the crew are pullers.” Twilight frowned at the thought. “A sort of utilitarian name for them.”

“Considering that comparing her to them seems to be evoking great enthusiasm, it’s clearly not insulting.”

“True.” Twilight watched as the part of the crew that weren’t resuming their duties came clomping up to Applejack, looking her up and down appraisingly but the interest struck Twilight as friendly rather than suspicious.

“What famaly, garl?” One of them asked after a moment.

Applejack grinned widely. “Apple, born an’ bred!”

“Apple?” The one repeated, looking over his shoulder.

The others thought a moment before one stomped a hoof. “Apple! Lak Ald Red!”

This occasioned excited discussion, most of which Twilight couldn’t follow properly because of the strange dialect, but the conclusion seemed to be that Applejack being from the same family as “Ald Red” was an occasion for celebration because the very surprised farmpony was hoisted on several shoulders and carried towards one of the open hatches; with the gestured invitation of one of the ponies, Twilight followed the abruptly jovial procession and her friends followed her.

The hour or so that followed was surprisingly pleasant. Applejack hitting like a puller seemed to endear her to them and her being from an old farming family was deeply meaningful for reasons she could barely guess at. After getting used to the dialect of the Imperial ponies, she found them easy to communicate with and extremely friendly and welcoming.

She was sitting in the galley with Dawn and sipping a deliciously sweet-sour beverage that seemed to be standard fare when Penumbra reappeared, looking none the worse for wear after having been flattened by Applejack, and sat across from her.

“The pullers are well on their way to regarding her as one of them,” she said. “That is a very significant thing in the Empire.”

“They’re the ones that haul the ships, right?”

“Yes,” Penumbra said. “Lamplight’s solution to the quandary posed to her by Princess Luna: from whence would come the propulsion to drive an icebreaker? Her mother had embraced the pullers, lifted them from grinding serfdom, presented them as the living embodiment of the...”

“Grinding serfdom?” Twilight interrupted, frowning at the zebricorn.

“Yes,” Penumbra said. “It is not a very proud time in the Empire’s history, binding settlers from the great farming families of Equestra to the land they worked and demanding hard, thankless labor to enrich certain nobility. Emperors and empresses gritted their teeth and tolerated it because for a very long time, the only way to make the Empire solvent was to apply the heavy muscle and towering frames of rugged ploughponies to various problems. Eventually, it became an institution.”

“Then came Matchlight.”

“Actually, then came Red Apple who is adoringly remembered as Old Red.” Penumbra smiled. “Largest pony I’ve ever seen alive, afflicted with some form of gigantism such that he towered over even the largest puller of his time.”

Dawn snorted. “So what’d he do, put the lot of ‘em through walls one giant kick at a time?”

“He was a symbol,” Penumbra said. “A towering, stoic monument to the proud, hard-working ponies of old family bloodlines dating back to the founding of Equestria. He gave Matchlight a living example to point to as the epitome of the common, ordinary citizen quietly doing their best without praise or reward. Even so long after his passing, he is so important to the pullers that Applejack being from his extended family made them feel a close kinship with her.”

“And she hits like a puller.”

Penumbra grinned. “Yes she does.” Her grin vanished and she looked over in the direction of Applejack. “She asked for specifics earlier, and I denied her. She will learn at the same time Rarity and Pinkamena do, but I think it important that you be aware of who I harmed without intending to.”

“Rainbow.”

“I was totally uninvolved in that, as were any of my hirelings.” Penumbra sighed. “Your friend Fluttershy confronted Zambet alone, not knowing who or what she was, and directed the full power of her Element at her. Suffice to say, it did not go well.”

Twilight swallowed and made herself speak calmly. “How badly did Zambet hurt her?”

“She is in a coma while her Element repairs her badly-wounded mind,” Penumbra said. “She is in no further danger, and she will recover, but it will not be immediate.”

“What the hay…” Dawn shook her head. “Flutters isn’t a scaredy-pony anymore but she’s not exactly bold either. What the buck happened?”

“Zambet did not give me a full explanation, but I am familiar enough with beings like her that I can speculate with a reasonable degree of accuracy,” Penumbra said. “The contractual relationship forbids her to kill and very narrowly sets the terms under which she may do harm. It is my belief that she devised a set of circumstances that would have led Fluttershy to stand and fight; very likely, she endangered innocents in such a way that your friend was able to reach the destructive aspect of Kindness, the concept of apoptosis and turned it on her. It is likely that she did this because she believed that disabling the full power of the Elements of Harmony would dramatically increase the chances of my endeavor succeeding… and facilitating success is the overall purpose of employing her services, which she is quite aware of.”

“So she was… trying to help?” Twilight gaped at her.

“She was making a point,” Penumbra said. “Certainly one of the things she enjoys doing. The point was that for all the planning I do, it’s beyond my power to dictate exactly who gets hurt. She was also making the point that as thoroughly as I devised the terms of the contract, she can stamp all over its spirit while obeying its letter if she wants to. I did not chain an eldritch horror, Princesses, I employed one.”

“And you’re taking the blame.”

“I am,” Penumbra said. “This is my fault. I had planned to avoid doing you and your friends any harm, Princesses Sparkle, but I perceived a need for extremely competent help that would have no issue doing morally repugnant things to achieve my goals. I gambled, and the well-being of Fluttershy was the price of my folly.”

“So where’s Rainbow in all of this?” Dawn said. “Can’t imagine she’d be cool with Flutters getting hurt, and I know she’s looking for a plot to kick.”

Penumbra grinned. “Rainbow Dash will be waiting at Glacierfast, I believe. Which is where we’re going.”

“For a good old-fashioned whupping.”

Penumbra nodded. “Doing me any real or lasting harm is outside her power, even with Loyalty helping her, but I understand that they are childhood friends. It is justice that after I hurt her friend, she will hurt me. Badly, I suspect.”

“And then what?”

“And then I will brush her aside--harmlessly--and continue on to my purpose.” Penumbra’s horn lit up and a glass of the drink Twilight was sipping floated over. She took a long drink from the glass. “To do otherwise would amount to your friend being deeply hurt for no reason at all.”

The violence was as real and brutal as it was immediate: tapping her hooves together was followed instantly by Rainbow rotating on her shoulders and smashing both of her rear hooves into the top of Penumbra’s head. The zebricorn’s head snapped downwards in a spray of blood on the packed snow beneath her hooves and she fell over. Rainbow swooped down, a four-hoof stomp to the barrel just barely avoided by Penumbra shifting herself in time, and then the beating began.

Luna had expected that when Penumbra had smiled and told Rainbow that she couldn’t kick her plot, she’d just project a barrier and let Rainbow beat herself against it until she was too exhausted to continue. Instead, the zebricorn wasn’t even fighting back as blow after blow rained down, some of them starting to be visibly assisted by Loyalty the way they had been when Rainbow attacked Zambet.

It seemed like forever but was really probably only a few minutes before Rainbow stepped back panting, her pink eyes ablaze with anger, as she stared down at that barely-stirring Penumbra. “That’s it?” she demanded. “You’re just gonna let me hit you?”

Penumbra raised her head, her face misshappen from the pummeling but her breathing oddly steady and even. “That’s the point of allowing you to settle the score, is it not?” she said, her words a little mushy and slurred but still remarkably clear.

“Beatin’ someone isn’t kicking their plot, it’s just beatin’ them.” Rainbow glared down at her. “What, ya thought just hurting you was gonna make it all right? I’m paying you back, and that means you try to stop me. Like Gilda did. Like Flutters did. ‘Cept this time, yer the one that loses and gets hurt. Ya get it now?”

Penumbra stared at her for a moment before she rolled over and onto her feet in the same motion. “I understand.” She pressed the catch that kept her fighting hoofshoes secured and stepped out of them one by one before looking at Rainbow. “I will do as you wish, but understand this: if you try to break or otherwise damage my horn, Fluttershy will not be the only badly injured Element. I shall not use any magic, nor use the horn as a weapon.”

Rainbow snorted contemptuously. “If you can’t win clean, winning doesn’t mean pies.”

“I knew you’d say that.” Penumbra planted her hooves. “Now then, Rainbow Dash, shall we?”

Author's Note

I know, it's been a while. Three months at least, and I'm sorry guys. But here it is, my latest shot at writing something good to entertain and interest you. Same thing as always applies: I am starving for commentary and criticism, would be really grateful if you sent some my way, but most of all... I really hope you enjoy. :)

I'll try to do better about getting a chapter out to you fine folks sooner than 3 months next time. Keep watching this space.

Celestia: And Full of Terrors IV

“I’ve seen plenty of experiments done by Princess Tettidora,” Anori remarked as they walked. “And du Dune have demonstrated some of their finds--the less hazardous ones--in my sight as well. But I’ve never seen something quite like this.”

“This” was a howling blizzard sweeping over them, making the snow to either side of them shoot passed in smeared white streams or swirl in miniature whirlwinds, presenting a solid bank of white ahead of them. All of it might as well have been a gentle summer breeze for all the good it did against the aura of light around the lanterns that their escort carried.

The captain’s marshal turned out to be a yellow and pink ploughpony--Celestia idly remembered that the local Imperial parlance for them was ‘pullers’--named Cloud Runner who looked like she’d been dragged out of a drunken sleep when she stamped over. Gunning down three of the tasty brews they’d been sipping (helpfully supplied by a server by way of an Imperial ten-bit) seemed to clear away any hint of surliness.

“So, need ta stamp through the storm,” she’d rumbled with a drawl that reminded Celestia strongly of Applejack Apple. “Sit a spell and I’ll rouse some Lighters.”

“Thank you, Marshal Runner,” Celestia said.

“‘Course, Princess,” she said with a smile. “Can’t do any less.” And with that, she walked into the crowd and disappeared.

“Lighters?” Krysta said.

“Lamplighters,” Celestia said. “The part of the guard that patrols the highways.” She nodded towards the captain. “Which I suspect our escort is also.”

“Did you actually need to ask?” He sipped his drink. “Only with Lamplight’s grace can a pony survive the storms to bring the lost to safety.”

Celestia gave him a curious look. “I thought that Matchlight was the one that Imperial ponies regard in a semi-religious way.”

He frowned. “It’s not religious.”

“Usually, one only refers to something as a ‘grace’ when…”

“Very well, it’s her legacy.” His wings buzzed in irritation. “The point is that it is how we Lamplighters can walk the storms, and is also the symbol of our office.”

“That much I knew.” She nodded towards the lamp and pole he’d leaned against the table. “I wouldn’t mind to know more.”

He shrugged. “I volunteered, passed their tests, swore the oath, and received the lantern. They gave me one of the fourth string, the one that were designed to seem like ordinary lanterns. First and second string were made by mages working directly under Lamplight, third string was experimental, and fifth string are all special.”

“So the lantern you have is…”

“...passed down from the reign of Empress Lamplight.” He dipped his head in acknowledgement. “Enough were made that we’ve never needed to try to make more, and they’re artifact-type magical items so time doesn’t decay them, and they can’t be broken.” He grinned. “You can’t improve perfection, otherwise it wouldn’t be perfection.”

“If I hadn’t seen what your lantern can do, I might argue that with you, Captain.” Celestia had finished her drink and set the glass down, whereupon one of the waitponies was already refilling it. She blinked, looked at the stallion’s bright smile, and took a sip from the full glass. “I’d forgotten what the Flagge is like.”

“I find it hard to believe you forget anything Aunt Tia,” Cadence said, picking up her own refill from the extremely attentive wait staff.

“That’s because I train my memory very strategically,” Celestia said. “I remember enough fragments that whoever I speak to is convinced that I remember everything and happily fills in details with their responses and mannerisms.” She gestured around the pleasantly raucous tavern. “This isn’t the kind of thing I can remember well. Smells, sights, sounds, and the indescribable feeling of a place are all… I don’t retain them, except as descriptive facts in the back of my head.”

“Is it that way for all places, Celestia?” Anori asked.

“No, not all.” Celestia sighed. “Some places I can still remember because they changed, or because they were important to me. The Castle of the Sisters, the Dis Lis Estate, the Havens...” She trailed off at the same time that the captain, the changeling captain from the Empire that had been removed from the flow of time before the Exile, looked hard at her.

“What about the Havens, Princess Celestia?” He asked, his tone dangerously even.

“I…”

“It would take a long time to explain, Captain,” Krysta said. “A lot has happened since the Empire disappeared, and not all of it was good.”

“Well it’s lucky we have to walk for a couple hours, isn’t it?” He looked over the other occupants of the table before his gaze settled on Celestia. “I think there are a lot of Imperial soldiers who would be very disappointed to hear that their relatives were badly treated by Equestria, Princess Celestia.”

“I hope that they’ll remember that I’ve had a thousand years to regret certain decisions, Captain,” Celestia said. “And at least that long to repent.”

“I said disappointed, Princess, not angry.” He stood. “Still, I should like to hear the entire story as we walk. If you want to leave some of the weight behind, it’ll be secure here.”

“I suppose we won’t need it when we get to the capital,” Celestia said, “one way or the other. I don’t recall… does the capital have any barrier to someone simply teleporting inside its walls or nearby to it?”

“Inside the walls, yes,” the captain said, putting his empty glass down. “Especially with Night White there. But the defense doesn’t extend very far, and you should be able to get within sight of the capital once we’ve walked the storm. Here comes my marshal.”

From there it had been a matter of flagging down someone (surprisingly easy given the crowd) and being given a place to stow most of their gear while the Lamplighters prepared their own lamps to head out into the storm. Cloud Runner did not appear to have a lantern, or at least had chosen not to carry it, and had fallen into the trailing position as they walked. The captain had seemingly decided not to say anything for the first few minutes of the walk--something Celestia silently thanked him for while she gathered her thoughts on what to say--but she knew her reprieve was over when he dropped back to walk beside her.

“What happened that the Havens are merely something you remember?”

“I didn’t…”

“The Empire didn’t give me my lieutenant bars without being able to do critical thinking, Princess, much less give me captain bars,” he said. “I can work from context.”

Celestia sighed. “Circumstances arose that required me to expel the entire changeling race from Equestria.”

“Expel.” He frowned. “You mean exile.”

“Yes.”

“Which direction?”

“East.”

“Into the Wastes.” He chewed on this pensiverly for a moment. “It’s a bit selfish of me, but I’d like to know what became of my aunt Sariah du Closs and cousin Sarissa,” he said. “Or, I suppose, how is your royal plot not planted six feet down?”

Celestia carefully stopped herself from smiling at the mention of Sariah du Closs and her daughter. “Amaryss das Lavara chose to strike me with words instead of power,” she said. “The power would have been more of a mercy.”

“Lots of enemies in the world Princess,” the captain said. “Not sure how you missed that wronging the ponies that stomped all over those enemies for you would get them licking their chops.”

“You would have thought so Captain, but the Black Host loomed over diplomacy for nearly a century after the exile,” Celestia said. “Other powers, even powers that correctly discerned what had happened, negotiated as if the Host was still a threat.”

“Which of course it was,” he said. “I don’t know this Amaryss but I do know that if Equestria was in real danger, the exiles would come to her rescue. Speaking of exiles returning,” he looked over at Cadence, “you’re traveling with a couple of Honor Guards and a royal. Reconciliation?”

“Not formally,” Cadence said. “But my mother--the current queen--says that the hatchet has been buried for centuries.”

“And yet you’re staying in guise.”

Cadence grimaced. “It wouldn’t make a difference. My younger sister, the family genius, calls it guise stasis.”

“We always preferred calling it ‘transitioned,’” the captain said. “Sorry to hear it Lady.”

“Princess,” Cadence said. “Mi Amore Cadenza is my Equestrian name, Chidinida das Chrysalis is my birth name. ‘Chidi’ or ‘Cadence’ are equally appropriate.”

“Princess Chidinida then. Unofficial diplomatic liaison?”

“Adopted niece.”

“Lucky you.” He smiled slightly before it disappeared and he looked at Celestia. “What about my aunt and cousin?”

“Sariah passed shortly after the disappearance of the Empire,” Celestia said. “Sarissa took up her crown and carried the weight like she’d been born for it.”

“Which she had.”

“Which she had,” Celestia agreed. “The nobility quipped that she was ‘The Looming That Walked’ for her habit of seeming to loom over ponies that thought she wasn’t close enough to overhear them. She and the rest of the queens of her generation were…” she trailed off trying to find the right word “...special.”

“So how’d Sari respond to the exile?”

“Basically, she said ‘buck you all,’ took Tempesthaven apart down to the very last nail, and carried it with her into exile.” Anori grinned. “At least so goes the family story.”

“It’s something of an exaggeration,” Celestia said, unable to stop herself from grinning anymore, “but not too far off. If there was anything of value in Tempesthaven, even if it was a particularly pretty brick from the garden wall, it went with Du Closs. She even took support beams that du Sylvi had grown for her family when they were building the estate.”

The captain grinned. “I always knew that pigheaded stubbornness would be good for something.”

“Sarissa du Closs was a mare of immense willpower and determination,” Celestia said. “And along with the six others were good ponies, every one of them.”

“So why kick ‘em out, Yer Highness?” Marshall Runner had shouldered Anori aside and taken up position on Celestia’s other flank. “Seems like mares a mite too valuable to let go.”

“I don’t suppose you ever met Amaryss das Lavara?” At the marshal shaking her head, Celestia continued. “If she was alive today, with many advancements in understanding phobias, she would be diagnosed with demophobia. She was a compelling leader in private or among a small number but in any public setting, suffered crippling fear and anxiety. So she had her sister Malyss act as her public agent and…”

“Ya don’t need to say anything more, Yer Highness,” Marshall Runner said with a sour expression. “Knew that bint was made o’ mean and trouble right off. So what’d she do? Go all supremacist an’ kick off a mess?”

“Precisely what she did,” Celestia sighed. “I suspected that Lavara was aware that her younger…”

“Older,” Cloud Runner said.

Celestia furrowed her brow. “Older?”

“Eeyup, by a few years,” Cloud said. “Lavara adored her kids, but she knew what Malyss was so Amaryss got the pat on the head. Pretty normal stuff, ‘cept I don’t think she ever passed it along.”

“I’m confident that she did not,” Celestia said. “Amaryss’ trust of her sister made her blind for the entire lead-up, and she continued to be blind when the unrest began while she tried to find a way to stop it.”

“So how’d it end?”

“Amaryss eventually realized that her sister had struck the match and never stopped fanning the flames,” Celestia said. “She clapped her in irons and physically dragged her into my throne room, telling me what Malyss had done and giving me carte blanc to deal with her however I pleased. But it was too late, in my mind; there was no way to douse the flames except to remove the fuel.”

“Or fight the fire.”

Celestia turned and looked at the captain, staring down at him from her greater stature. “I would never endorse my guard attacking my little ponies, Captain.”

“Then you were a fool, Princess,” the captain replied, looking her directly in the eye. “Do you know how Empress Matchlight achieved her velvet revolution? Why there was no serious resistance to the old ways being completely turned on their head by ponies deeply invested in puller serfdom?”

“She was a spellbinding…”

“No,” the captain said. “Well, yes, but words don’t win wars, they…”

“...they end wars,” Celestia said, quietly. “So my younger sister told me, several times. She believed that her soldiers could stop the unrest and bring peace.”

“She was right,” the captain said. “It would have been a tense peace, a nasty peace, a conquerer’s peace, but you...”

“Captain please stop,” Cadence said. “I know all of this is very new to you, but it’s been a thousand years. Aunt Tia has been blaming herself for centuries, and we’ve all forgiven her for centuries. When this is all over, the second daughter of the current changeling queen is marrying the adoptive son of the current ruler of Equestria,” she gestured with a wing at Shining Armor, “and that will be that.” She paused and smirked at the suddenly dumbfounded expressions. “You’re all invited by the way.”

“...well, hay, this ain’t anything like what Ah expected,” the marshall said with a grin. “Big ol’ royal wedding in Canterlot, an’ we’re all invited? That reconciliation isn’t just words, is it?”

“It’s not fair to call it reconciliation before I’ve actually met the queen,” Celestia said, “But she will shortly be the mother of my daughter in law, and as Cadance said, that will be that.”

“Will you be inviting us back?” the captain said.

“Of course,” Celestia said. “I understand that it cannot be the same as it once was. I can’t imagine any changeling queen would even bow her head to the Dual Thrones again, so changelings will largely be the people of a different nation visiting rather than fellow citizens of Equestrian ponies.” She sighed. “And there is little chance that the Havens will be restored. Du Luc will certainly reclaim the prime vineyard lands, as is their right, and I’m sure that the du Aqui will take their rightful place in the Drainlands. Du Ard will reoccupy Horseshoe Hill, and I’m sure the Lampwick Heights above Baltimare will once again see a du Closs estate. But the Havens are gone, reestablished in the Wastes…”

“We call them the Barrens.”

“...the Barrens,” Celestia nodded, “and I just don’t see them returning to Equestria. Vinehaven, Oakhaven, Brookhaven, Tempesthaven, Dusthaven,and Torridhaven were treasures of Equestrian industry, art, and harmony but they are where they belong.”

“You have an open invitation to visit the Tempesthaven of the Barrens,” Anori said.

“And one to visit Torridhaven,” Krysta added. “As often as you like, for as long as you like.”

“Although you’re incorrect about the ‘living’ havens,” Anori said. “Oakhaven was briefly established about four hundred years ago but du Sylvi chose to make the trees fruit trees instead of trying to cultivate timber groves again. Brookhaven and Vinehaven have never been reestablished in the Barrens.”

Celestia smiled. “I see that your queen is not the only pony I’m fated to have some long and earnest conversations with.”

“Camri du Luc will be kicking down your door the moment you’re done with Queen Chrysalis,” Krysta said, grinning widely. “Based on what I hear of Martella du Luc, you’ll think she was her reincarnation.”

“Lemon Bloom du Sylvi will just rebuild Oakhaven without saying much. Anise du Aqui will do the same with Brookhaven.”

“It will be a joy to see it again,” Celestia said. “Well, except for perhaps Dusthaven. Do the du Dunes still exist in a state of profound paranoia about that?”

“Paranoia that gets more paranoid the more trinkets they find that they don’t feel comfortable leaving in place,” Anori said. “Paranoia that got exponentially more severe about… six hundred years ago, love?”

“More like five,” Krysta said. “It was around the time of Vespa.”

“Right, right.” Anori nodded. ”Anyway, the paranoia has been significantly stronger since around then, although Princess Tettidora doesn’t think it’s related to Vespa using certain of du Dune’s collection for leverage.”

“Tettidora knows it’s unrelated dear,” Krysta said. “She’s got lots of tells and most of them show up when she’s pretending not to know why du Dune have been riding the paranoia train for about half the length of the Exile.”

Celestia sighed. “I would prefer to get the current crisis taken care of before worrying about whatever far worse thing Aleera’s descendents dug up.”

“If they’ve been paranoid about whatever it is for this long, it’s probably not immediately dangerous,” Cadence said. “Mother, when she told me about them, seems to regard it as a foregone conclusion that anything that the du Dunes had found and thoroughly investigated was as safe as if it had been locked in the royal vaults--yours, not ours--no matter what the family ended up doing with it.”

“That was my experience with them as well.” Celestia said. “Although I’ve always been slightly miffed that they showed off their collection to Luna and not to me. I know it wasn’t a matter of trust, but it did sort of stick in my craw.”

“I’m sure they’ll be willing to do you the courtesy when the queen tells them to,” the captain said. “If any part of their collection was so dangerous that you can’t even look, then it’ll be in some mumbo-jumbo box in another box in a room of boxes that look the same.”

“That would be a mighty poor filing system.”

“I know, Marshal, but it’s a great way to hide something.”

“Hidin’ something is the fastest way ta lose control of it,” Marshal Runner said. “If you don’t know where it is at all times, the only way you find out someone sneaked off with it is when you want ta play with it.”

“I wouldn’t characterize any of the du Dune family’s use of their collection as ‘playing’,” Anori said. “Nothing they keep on hoof is innocuous, although they’ve become fairly skilled at playing the artifacts against one another.”

“On second thought, it’s probably best that they never showed me the collection,” Celestia said. “Especially after the Exile, I’d lose sleep knowing that terrible things I’d thought buried were in a display case somewhere. I don’t even trust myself with most of the ones I’m aware of.”

“Du Dune would regard that as a mark in your favor,” Krysta said.

“Maybe enough of one to…”

“Marshal!” They all turned to one of the elderly Lamplighters who had stopped walking and lifted his lamp higher, looking back and forth and turning in a nervous circle.

“Eeyup?”

“Something’s wrong with the storm,” he said.

“Something bad,” the other said.

“Wrong with the storm?” Celestia said. “What do you mean?”

“The flow isn’t right,” the first said.

“And it’s too gentle,” the other added. “It’s not fighting the lamps.”

“Ain’t fighting the lamps?” The marshall stepped out in front of Celestia. “Since when do the windnegos submit to the lamps?”

“When they’re not driving the storm any longer,” the captain said as he raised his own lamp.

“WHAT A DISAPPOINTMENT.” The sound of the immense basso voice seemed to radiate from every direction at once, and the familiarity caused Celestia to stiffen.

“MY SLOTH AND DISREGARD APPEARS TO HAVE UNDONE MY EFFORTS,” Sotto Voce continued, the reverberation and pervasiveness almost deafening although the actual volume seemed to be no higher than normal conversation. “PERHAPS IT IS APPROPRIATE THAT I SHOULD BE UNDONE BY THE ALERTNESS OF THE LAMPLIGHTERS; THEY ARE THE GRANDCHILDREN OF THE BEGGAR EMPRESS, AFTER ALL.”

“How would the likes of you know of the Beggar Empress, villain?” The captain said.

“MATCHLIGHT WAS A GREAT STONE IN THE RIVER OF HISTORY, CAUSING ITS CURRENTS TO BEND AND SHIFT,” Sotto Voce said. “I WOULD BE A FOOL INDEED IF I DID NOT KNOW OF HER. BE NOT OFFENDED THAT EVEN A VILLAIN SHOULD KNOW HER NAME AND HER DEEDS, BEARER OF THE FOURTH STRING.”

“Why are you here Sotto Voce?” Celestia said. “Surely you have a prize to claim and suffering to inflict.”

“CELESTIA.” Celestia stifled an urge to look around as she felt as if she was being examined from every direction by a mob of invisible eyes. ”I AM GLAD TO SEE THAT WITHOUT PROMPTING, YOU HAVE COME HERE AND DONE AS YOU WERE MEANT TO DO. YOUR ESCORTS LEAD YOU SURELY TO WHERE YOU ARE MEANT TO GO AND THERE, YOU MEAN TO DEFEAT ME.”

“You are not invincible,” Celestia said. “No one is.”

The resonant chuckle seemed, like everything else, seemed to come from every direction at once. “I AM NOT. BUT I AM ALSO NOT THE ONE YOU WILL BE FIGHTING.”

Celestia paused. Blinked. “You’re… not.”

“I AM A PAWN IN A LARGER PLAN. THE GAME IS NOT SO STRAIGHTFORWARD AS YOU IMAGINE--OR YOUR DAUGHTERS BELIEVE. THE GAME IS ALSO NOT THE GAME THAT EINSPITHIANA WARNED OF, FOR SHE HAS UNKNOWINGLY ARRIVED AT ITS FINAL ACT RATHER THAN BEING IN ANTICIPATION OF IT.”

“A pawn,” Cadence said. “Like Canceros.”

“QUITE. IT IS THE HOPE OF THE ONE WHOSE PLAN THIS IS THAT THE PHYSICIAN BROKE CANCEROS, AND THAT CELESTIA REVENGED HERSELF UPON HIM IN THE NAME OF HER PEOPLE.”

“I would wonder why they care after unleashing him on my little ponies, but I would first ask this: is there a purpose to you being omnipresent in this storm?”

“MERELY THE INABILITY TO BE ANYTHING ELSE. TO TAKE A TRUE AND LASTING VESSEL IS A POWER SPECIFIC TO OUR EMPRESS. I HAVE AN ANCHOR, BUT SHE IS NOT MY VESSEL IN ANY REAL SENSE.”

“Do you intend to attack us?”

“NO. HARMING YOU MYSELF IS CONTRARY TO THE PLAN, AND TO THROW THE STORM I HAVE TAKEN CONTROL OF AGAINST THREE LAMPLIGHTERS WOULD BE FUTILE”

“Then what is your intent?”

“TO WATCH.” The storm’s intensity visibly and rapidly began to wane. “GO QUICKLY NOW, PRINCESS; YOU ARE EXPECTED.”

There was silence around their little party as the storm dissipated around them, vaporizing into a pleasantly bright overcast with a gentle breeze sending a dusting of the powdery top layer of the snow wafting passed them.

“Well that’s not a bad sign at all,” Anori said.

“Not in the least,” Krysta agreed. “Big powerful formless entities inviting you to hurry and telling you that you’re expected isn’t bad juju at all.”

“That was Sotto Voce?” The captain looked at Celestia. “He seemed… oddly innocuous.”

“He was the master of a host of sadistic creatures from outside our reality that unleashed a plague on Equestria,” Celestia said. “And some manner of dream predator--also from outside reality--deferred to him. Also, he seized control of a storm and keep driving it until he made the error that the Lighters noticed.”

“Your point is well-taken,” the captain said after a moment of visible consideration. “So if he is that strong, who is this one you will be fighting that he claims to be a pawn for?”

“Since Zambet---the dream predator, Captain--was all subordinate and respectful at him, and Lashaal was all subordinate at Zambet, we’ve only got one possibility,” Cadence said. “And we know less than nothing about her.”

“Her?”

“A voice we heard briefly when Sotto Voce finished speaking to the plague creature,” Celestia said. “Sounded like a very young filly, but…”

“...falsetto’s easy,” Marshal Runner said. “Guessing by ‘less than nothin’ you mean you’re pretty sure it was fake.”

“Yes.” Celestia sighed. “And yet with what we know, there is only one reasonable thing to do, and that is to continue towards the capital.”

“Eyup.” Marshal Runner looked at the captain. “Take the old guard with you. Go with the Princess and her companions to the capital.”

“Yes ma’am,” the captain said. “May I ask your intentions, ma’am?”

“Earning mah tenners captain.” The ploughpony looked at Celestia. “Luck, Princess. ‘Spect you're going to need it.”

Author's Note

In which all the players are on their way to the same place, to meet soon. Sorry it's taken a while to post up a relatively short (comparatively) chapter but life and such, you know. Anyway, I hope people enjoy reading and really hope people commentate extensively. Even brutally. Watch this space, I'll be working in the background!

Convergence of the Paths

By the time Twilight, trailed by the girls, managed to get out of the press of the pullers exiting the Dawnbreaker, the “good old-fashioned whupping” was well into its second round. Without waiting, Twilight opened her wings and flew the several dozen lengths over the waters of the harbor to get close to the fight.

Penumbra hadn’t struck her as being anything like Princess Thalia with her lithe, well-muscled form and unconscious stalking-cat gait. As a point of fact, the zebricorn had seemed to be in peak health but definitely on the slim side, like a scholar who took care of themselves and exercised recreationally. But Penumbra--now cloaked in an illusion that gave her the appearance of an attractive mare in a charcoal coat and white mane--had clearly taken her medicine from Rainbow without being particularly affected. Sprays of blood from blows to her face colored the snow under her hooves, but she kept moving as if nothing had happened, brushing aside some blows, rolling with others, and outright sidestepping at those times that Rainbow used her athleticism to build up momentum.

Rainbow also seemed unaffected by the exertion of delivering a heavy beating and then continuing to lash out against the slippery Penumbra, darting, moving, throwing out hits with her hooves and brushing, distracting attacks with her wings without even breathing hard. But Twilight knew her friend well enough to see that she was getting frustrated that her opponent wasn’t going down and seemed no more bothered by the extended bout than Rainbow herself.

“Been a while since I’ve seen a snake in a fight.” Twilight blinked at the familiar voice and looked over her shoulder to see Princess Thalia standing there, watching. Just passed the well-muscled changeling, Twilight saw Luna and Nightmare standing together, fixated enough on the fight that neither seemed to have seen her yet.

“A snake?” she repeated.

“Yeah,” Thalia said. “Pro fighter jargon. Means a fighter that’s really fast and light, striking hard but never from exactly the same direction or angle. Can sort of take a hit but it’s not really what they’re good at.”

“Rainbow?”

“Yup.”

“And Penumbra?”

Thalia furrowed her brow. “I don’t know. She let Rainbow beat on her for a bit, then came to her hooves like nothing happened, and now she’s just avoiding getting hit. Hard to call a fighter who doesn’t fight.”

“If you were to guess?” Twilight said.

Thalia looked at her for a long few moments and then went back to watching the fight. “She said that if Rainbow goes for her horn, she’ll put her in a coma. It wasn’t a threat.”

Twilight suppressed a shudder. “It seems like one.”

“If you put your hoof in a fire, you’ll get burned.” Thalia said. “That’s not a threat either.” She paused for a moment, her eyebrow moving upwards in appreciation as Penumbra slipped around two blows in quick succession. “Who is she?”

“She calls herself ‘Penumbra’,” Twilight said. “Claims to be old enough to precede ponies moving to Equestria.”

“She also goes by the name ‘Light Shadow’,” Luna said, resting an affectionate wing on Twilight’s barrel before she was aware that her aunt had joined them. “Tia and I knew her as the field marshal and trusted right hoof of virtually every emperor or empress that sat on the Crystal Throne.”

“Also the vessel of the nightmare Sotto Voce,” Nightmare said, joining them. “Although I am not clear how this is. It has been millennia since I last encountered Voce, and she has no trace of him on her. On an unrelated note, she seems to be a skilled pugilist.”

“She’s certainly good at not being hit,” Thalia said. “And tweaking her opponent, cuz Rainbow is starting to look really, really pissed.”

“You… are supposed… to be losing!” Twilight’s attention turned back to the fight at the slightly breathless snarl from Rainbow.

“This is losing,” Penumbra said calmly, not even sounding out of breath. “You beat me until you got tired of it, and now I am only dodging blows without even hitting back. If you’d like to start hitting me again, I could stand still.”

“That is so not the point!”

“You wanted me to lose. I did. You wanted me to get hurt. I am.” Penumbra brushed aside a poorly-aimed haymaker. “Am I missing something?”

“Your thug desecrated my friend’s remains!” Rainbow rolled in midair to bring two hooves down on Penumbra’s head, missing as Penumbra took just enough of a step back for the blow to just barely miss. “The other one put my other friend into a coma! And you’re just standing there as if it doesn't even hurt.” Rainbow thrust her face forward until she was nose-to-nose with the calm zebricorn. “Stop bucking with me and lose.”

Penumbra looked steadily and unflinchingly back into Rainbow’s eyes. “Applejack Apple couldn’t kick my plot, Rainbow Dash, and I even let her connect with a full-blown haymaker. I cannot lose this fight the way you want me to, so I choose to allow you to hurt me so you can feel that you have punished the bucker who wronged you.”

Rainbow backed off slightly and alighted. “Hey Twi?”

Twilight jumped a little at her friend suddenly addressing her. She didn’t even look in my direction, how did she know I was here? “Yes, Rainbow?”

“Is this bucker being legit? Did she really let AJ hit her good?”

“Right in the face, yes,” Twilight said.”It didn’t seem to bother her.”

“No magic shenanigans?”

“I didn’t see any,” Twilight said. “Which could just mean that she used magic I…”

Rainbow looked steadily at Penumbra for almost a full minute before she seemed to reach some sort of decision and folded in her wings. “Naw, if she used it you woulda seen it. So what next, invincible bitch?”

“I’m not invincible,” Penumbra said, “Does this mean you’re giving up on thrashing me?”

“Don’t know how to really hurt ya,” Rainbow said. “Yet.”

“Cold is especially lethal to me,” Penumbra said. “Although only if it’s unexpected.” She glanced over at Twilight and smirked slightly. “Yes, I’m aware of the irony.”

“So what now?” Rainbow said. “Planning to swat us all down or somethin’ before we can get too powerful?”

Penumbra quirked an eyebrow. “Goodness no, your well-being is a critical part of my plan. As to what’s next, I have a small army to organize and lead on a short campaign. I have some very smart ponies helping so if you really wanted to try again, I can spare more time for a good old-fashioned whuppin’.”

“Naw, I know when I need to put in the extra work.” Rainbow grinned. “Bleeding and bruised looks good on you.”

“I know.” Penumbra grinned back. “I’ve worn it for years, collectively. First rule of learning fighting is, you’re going to get beat. You’re going to get beat a lot. Pain is a good motivator.”

“So’s love,” Luna said.

“You would know better than anyone.” She visibly considered this. “Well, better than any other non-changeling.” Penumbra dipped her head slightly to both Luna and Nightmare before turning and trotting along the edge of the docks, to where one of the VLCCs--Twilight thought it might be Constance based on how the other VLCC was in front of it--was being carefully guided in close.

“She’s really, really not afraid of us,” Rainbow said. “Just turns her back on bunch o’ ponies that wanna kick her plot like it’s nothing. Didn’t even take her fighting shoes.”

“She laid Lord Scorch out like a sack of apples without even trying,” Luna said.

“And Applejack tried, in earnest, to splatter her against a wall,” Twilight said. “She couldn’t even touch her.”

“Yeah,” Pinkie said from where she was standing right next to Twilight without any warning. “Put a bubble of magic around herself and let AJ kick it. It only stopped because Penny warned her. Hi Dashie.”

“Pinkie!” Dash grinned widely as she turned and grabbed Pinkie for a hug. “The hay are you all doing up here anyway?”

“The ‘invincible bitch’ twisted our forelegs to go on a trip with her,” Twilight said. “Not sure why she wanted us all in one place--this was before she was aware of what happened to Fluttershy, I think--but she seems to sincerely want it.”

“She is sincere.” Applejack trotted up with the rest of the girls following in her wake. “Lots she ain’t quite honest about, but wanting us alive an’ well she’s damn earnest about.”

“Maybe she shoulda picked thugs that listen better then,” Rainbow said. “One of ‘em got Flutters, AJ.”

Applejack gave her a flat look. “Beg pardon?”

“One of ‘em got Flutters,” Rainbow said. “Didn’t do a lot of damage, didn’t kill her, but bucked her up so bad she’s in a coma.”

Applejack frowned, but nodded. “An’ that’s why she let me floor her, cuz she knew she done mah friend wrong.”

“I don’t think she could have stopped Zambet from disabling one of you to prove a point,” Luna said. “I saw the sheer scale of the power of Kindness unleashed with the intent to kill. Fluttershy purged an entire griffon city of Zambet’s parasitic constructs in blast strong enough to throw me hundreds of meters away from well outside the city walls, and all Zambet needed to defeat it was Fluttershy identifying herself by name in Zambet’s presence. The power she has to control minds…”

“...is unique, and poorly-understood even by her peers,” Nightmare said. “Fortunately, there is a law of sorts with any form of power: it can be strong, long, and broad to different degrees. The strongest power is short and narrow, the longest power is weak and narrow, and the broadest power is weak and short.”

“So she can only use the power face-to-face and it has extremely stringent limitations?” Twilight said.

“Exactly that,” Nightmare said with a smile and a nod. “I believe that she has also devised a way to set even more limitations on particular uses so that those uses are far more powerful, but she goes out of her way to avoid using the power in the presence of someone who might be able to gain insight into it.”

“So ya think she knows?” Rainbow said, gesturing in the direction that Penumbra had walked.

“She knows,” Twilight said. “When she was speaking to Zambet right after bidding Canceros goodbye, she asked about ‘contingencies’ and was informed that one had been used.”

“Yes, that’s the term that Zambet uses for her ability to leverage her power,” Nightmare said. “That Penumbra knew the term suggests that Zambet revealed her power to her, or that Penumbra deduced enough that Zambet surrendered the rest of the secret.”

“Zambet also lied to her,” Dawn said. “She told her that she thought Auntie Luna would bring Fluttershy to this little shindig when she had to know that Flutters was out for the duration.”

“Well, clearly she made her ‘fess up somehow,” Twilight said. “Because before we landed, Penumbra told us what happened to Fluttershy.”

“At least Flutters is gonna be OK,” Dawn said. “I don’t have AJ’s psychic power to figure out when someone’s shining me on but I’m pretty sure she was being straight about that.”

“She was,” Nightmare said. “I and Selune came to the same conclusion, myself from experience, Selune from entering her dreams and speaking to the psychic manifestation of the Element of Kindness, who calls herself ‘Apoptosis.’”

“Who doesn’t care for me very much,” Luna added. “Mostly out of a distrust for Nacht.”

“Our Elements have their own personalities?” Twilight gaped.

“And sense of self,” Luna said. “And regard one another as sisters. It surprised me too.”

“Yeah, Tee’s a pal,” Rainbow said. “Looks sorta like Daring Do ‘cept she has this weird mane that’s sorta a light green-blue that she puts into, like, fifty braids.”

Luna blinked. “So when you said you talked to her, it was face-to-face?”

Rainbow shrugged. “Yeah, sometimes.”

Twilight furrowed her brow. “What did Apoptosis look like?”

“She chose to look like Fluttershy when I met her,” Luna said. “As Rainbow indicated, though, I’m sure they can choose how they appear.”

Twilight frowned. This is sounding familiar. “Nightmare, I know this is really sudden but would you mind if I had a private word with you?”

Nightmare frowned, but then her expression cleared and she nodded. “Yes, I think that would be best.” She looked over to Luna. “I believe I know what Twilight wants to ask me. If you’ll give me a moment?”

Luna nodded. “Yes.” She nodded to the rest of the girls. “I suspect that with her having come home, we should keep a close eye on Penumbra, if the rest of you don’t mind accompanying me?”

As she turned to Nightmare, watching her friends out of the corner of her eye as they mutely followed Luna, Twilight caught her sister looking concerned, and Pinkie curious, but the rest seemed to accept that it was her business. When they were out of earshot, she looked up at Nightmare. “You said you believe you know what I want to ask.”

“Yes,” Nightmare said. “When you saw an illusion of yourself that could actually talk to you, I’m surprised you didn’t teleport back to Scarabi that moment and demand to know what I did to your head.”

“I’d thought about it,” Twilight said. “But she isn’t some cognitive construct representing the knowledge you gave me, is she?”

“No,” Nightmare sighed. “Apparently Munin--as you’ve probably worked out, it’s the name that Magic has given herself--thought that a stressful time was the perfect opportunity to say hello.”

“I was under the impression that we are supposed to be the Elements, and the jewels are just foci.”

“It’s… complicated,” Nightmare said, “but it comes down to both Equestria and the changelings having two halves of the complete truth and not knowing that there even is another half. You are the Elements, the vessels for the power, and the power you’re the vessels for has a distinct consciousness. A weapon forged to stop a being of effectively infinite power.”

“Except not a weapon.” Munin was abruptly standing there, glaring at Nightmare. “I am not a cudgel, I am a highly sophisticated tool.”

“Um… Munin doesn’t like being called a weapon,” Twilight said, forcing her eyes away from the expression of frankly unsettling anger on the manifestation’s face.

“No sapient does,” Nightmare said. “Yet, it’s accurate. They were made to end a war by striking down the other side. Call them a tool, call them a weapon, call them magical intelligences, their purpose was to pull the monster down. They did.”

“What ‘monster’ are you talking about?”

“The Guardian’s opposite,” Nightmare said, “but more dangerous. You were eventually able to pin the Guardian down and kill him by main strength; pinning Discord down was only possible when the magic being used against him was as flexible and adaptable as he was.”

“And we will have to confront him again,” Munin said. “He is chaos; chains are order. Chaos will inevitably destroy order no matter how powerful that order is. Besides that, the world can exist safely without a god-like entity enforcing order on it; mortals do that easily enough on their own. But chaos creates as well as destroys, and the world would crumble without it.”

“Great.” Twilight looked to Nightmare. “Why didn’t you tell me about Munin before?”

“When the magical intelligence threatens to obliterate you if you tell someone about her, and she can do it, and she will do it, you stay quiet.” Nightmare frowned. “Not that I believe she actually would harm me if it came to that, but the threat was more than enough to prove her earnestness.”

Twilight shifted her eyes to Munin, slightly aghast. “You threatened her?”

Munin had the grace to look sheepish. “Gently,” she said. “I wanted to approach you on my own timetable, make friends, become seen as a reliable adviser, and then explain matters. I would never harm Nachtmiri, she’s been too diligent about serving Luna faithfully.”

Twilight sighed. “As if I didn’t have enough to worry about with a friendly fanatic playing hoofsies with a sadistic eldritch horror.”

“Who, incidentally, seems to have pulled the wool over your eyes about what was in that first big boat,” Munin said. “She, uh… was storing an entire train in there.”

Twilight blinked. “...she was storing what now?”

Nightmare looked down the shore in the direction that Penumbra had trotted after the fight with Rainbow, and gaped. “A locomotive. A bucking locomotive in a cargo hold and they’re unloading a second car.”

Twilight looked and there was indeed a locomotive resting on the ground, steam wafting out of its multiple smoke stacks as its boilers were stoked up. Other than the familiarity of the stacks and the wheels, it was a very different kind of train than the Friendship Express. It was painted in a pattern of white and other colors, breaking up its mechanical profile to make it harder to see. Large windows were replaced with metal plates and viewing points, and even from the other side of the dock, it was clear that heavy metal plates had been bolted onto it; exactly what that kind of armoring was meant to protect against, Twilight was sure she didn’t want to know.

As Twilight watched, another car was being hoisted out of the hold of the Constance and swung carefully over to where the locomotive was warming up. The car was similarly covered in metal plates with the windows reduced to narrow slits.

“I don’t think Penumbra is as clever as she thinks she is,” Nightmare said. “Just openly and casually unloading an armored train in front of Selune is a guarantee of making her pretty upset.”

“Wasn’t the Empire friendly towards…?”

“So much so that the border was a legal technicality,” Nightmare said. “Still, the only nation bordering the Empire with a rail network is Equestria, which makes a train designed specifically for traveling through hostile lands an implicit threat.”

“Nacht is overestimating how paranoid Luna is,” Munin said. “Still, it’s best that we get down there and forestall any misunderstandings. Lu-lu getting…”

“Did you just call her ‘Lu-lu’?”

“Um… old habits die hard?”

“How did it become a habit in the first place?” Twilight said, starting to trot down the docks towards the train being unloaded from Constance.

“I spent some time communing with Celestia,” Munin said. “In her own mind, she never calls her ‘Luna’ she only calls her ‘‘Lu-lu,’ although she never calls her that unless they’re in a private setting. I sort of picked up the habit.”

“So you were around at the time that Mother expelled the changelings?”

Munin turned away from her as they walked. “I was. Honesty was terrified; the truth is never an easy burden but it’s a crippling one when the truth is harsh. Split between two Bearers--your mother and Luna--instead of six made it impossible for us to communicate with either of them the way you and I are communicating now. Not that it would have mattered.”

“Because Mother understood the danger.”

“Celestia is not the Princess of the Sun and the grand strategist of the diarchy because of her looks,” Munin said. “She did not know for certain, but she believed that her decision was reckless, yet it was the only path she could see.”

Twilight walked with this for some moments. “It’s hard to imagine the changelings being dangerous to Equestria, or frightening to other ponies. Cadence--Princess Chidinida--was like a big sister and she was exactly the same pony when she took off her guise in the palace. Unless the royal family is an anomaly…?”

“They’re not.”

“Then it’s even harder to understand.”

“Because you’re not thinking about it,” Munin said. “Which is understandable, you have very important things on your mind. But I know that it’s been pointed out to you that you six are some of the most experienced, well-traveled ponies in Equestria. You’ve personally met the races that constitute the powers of the world: gryphons, dragons, and zebras. I would be shocked if you met a hippogriff, a yak, an abyssian, or any of the other races of the world and were unable to cope with them being different.”

Any reply that Twilight might have made to Munin was stopped as she noticed that the crowd of pullers had stopped work and had started to congregate near Penumbra--who was presently looking Luna in the eye (which was not an easy feat, even though Luna didn’t have her elder sister’s stature) and saying something to her which Luna’s expression said that she did not like at all.

“Munin, would…”

Even as her mind asked the question, she knew precisely what spell to use and how it could be formulated. She eyed the mental construct.

“Twilight, I am Magic. It’s kind of in the name.” Munin grinned at her. “And we can talk at the speed of thinking. Just ask me and I’ll whip something up for you.”

“That sounds like something I imagine Laughter saying to Pinkie.” Twilight quickly assembled the matrix of the spell and then cast it. Immediately, Penumbra and Luna’s voices sounded as if they were right next to her, speaking at a normal conversational volume.

“...was never a threat,” Penumbra was saying in a tone of exasperation. “We had no idea how all of this would go, so we devised many contingency plans. The train is one.”

“I am afraid your assurances are not enough,” Luna said. “You are at odds with Equestria. You intend to shatter the yoke, whatever that means, and are working with a thing like Zambet to do it.”

“The train is not going to be used for invasion, Princess Luna!”

“You should know that I cannot afford to take your word on that!”

“Well, you don’t exactly have much choice, now do you?” Penumbra turned to her soldiers. “Keep unloading the train and make sure the works don’t have any ice blockage.”

Luna stared at the back of the zebricorn’s head and her brow furrowed. “Have you forgotten who you are speaking to?”

“Do you really believe that I’m going to take any threat of you smiting me seriously?” Penumbra took a few steps towards the locomotive and lit her horn, starting to work on something around the lower rear. “You would have to overwhelm my defenses with pure brute force. You would annihilate this entire waterfront and everyone standing here, with the exception of the Elements and Empress Nacht.” She looked over her shoulder at Luna. “You don’t have it in you to be a monster, and thank Sola for that.”

Luna’s eyes narrowed in response. “Were I you, I wouldn’t depend on that.”

“I disagree.” Penumbra finished whatever she was doing and turned, trotting passed Luna and unconsciously shouldering Dawn aside as she moved over to the boxcar that had already been unloaded before Twilight had noticed. “You know what my hired beast did to Fluttershy; if that was not enough of a provocation to strike me down instantly, I can’t imagine what would be.”

“If you strike at a queen you must kill her,” Luna said. “I’m not confident that I can kill you.”

Penumbra turned around at that. “I am not a queen,” she said with more coldness than Twilight had heard from her before. “Or a princess, sultaness, lord, empress, or any other kind of monarch.”

“How else do you intend to make everything right if not seize power yourself?”

“I will be guide, and guardian, and circumstances will compel others to heed my advice,” Penumbra said. “But I have all the power I desire here, with my soldiers, as the servant of the Crystal Empire.” She paused for a moment, contemplative. “I admit it will be a very… complicated relationship, but I have all the time in the world to find a way to make it work.”

“Your altruism is unbelievable,” Nightmare said. “Really and truly, unbelievable.”

“If you need to believe just ask Applejack,” Penumbra said with a shrug. “I cannot lie to Honesty, and you know that.”

“You could suppress Laughter in the Dragon Lands,” Twilight said. “Why not Honesty here, in your homeland?”

Penumbra smiled at that. “I made the Lands my temporary desme, but you’ve met the pony whose desme the Empire is, and you know it’s not me.”

Luna looked between them. “She can suppress the Elements?”

“Temporarily, and only in certain ways,” Penumbra said. “Laughter is infinitely creative but to a degree, she’s shackled to…” She paused and looked toward the Constance. “Just a moment, have to… um, be right back.”

Twilight walked up to Luna as Penumbra slipped around her and trotted towards the waterfront. “How did you know to come here?”

“I didn’t,” Luna said. “At least not specifically here. We followed the trail through the Dragon Lands, met Penumbra speaking through a projective illusion, and found a low-risk way to make her Archive tell us her goal and where to intercept her. I thought we were arriving at the ancient wind-barrier near Glacierfast but found the city as I remembered it instead. I was going to move on to the capitol but…”

“...Selune wanted to indulge nostalgia,” Nightmare said. “The memory of speaking to Empress Lamplight about the grand legacy she was going to leave her people, I think.”

“That remains a treasured memory,” Luna said, “but it wasn’t why I wanted to stay. Penumbra spoke so confidently of being able to return the Empire that I wanted to see if there was something about the Abomination that we didn’t know.”

“The ‘Abomination’?”

“What we call the great magic wrought by Emperor Night White that removed the Empire from existence,” Luna said. “We’re still not sure how even an emperor of the Crystal Empire could have…”

“He didn’t.” Both Luna and Twilight turned to look at Dawn.

“What do you mean, he didn’t?” Luna said.

“She means that whomever this Night White is, he wasn’t the one suspending the Empire in time,” Twilight said. “The Empire’s guardian spirit was. Matchlight.”

Luna and Nightmare blinked. “Matchlight,” Luna said. “The Begger Empress. That Matchlight.”

“Penumbra didn’t refer to her as such but every indication I have is that they are one and the same,” Twilight said.

“She seemed nice, for the like full minute we spent in her presence,” Dawn said. “Cute little thing, dressed in rags, pure black coat, called Penny ‘Light Shadow,’ talked weird.”

“Using archaic language,” Twilight clarified. “Referring to Equestria as ‘the verdant south’, calling it ‘lit by the silver and gold of the Sisters’, and instead of saying ‘none of you’ said ‘not a one of you’.”

“Did she have the Imperial accent?” Luna said.

“You mean that thing where they only use one vowel?” Dawn said.

“Yes.”

“Nope, she talked normal,” Applejack said. “Real formal, but sounded Equestrian.”

Nightmare and Luna traded a long look. “If Penumbra was deceiving you, she made an extraordinary effort,” Nightmare said. “Matchlight never picked up the Imperial manner of speech. In fact, she had the habits of speech of an Equestrian noble. It was one of the more curious aspects of her, outside of her small stature due to sustained malnutrition as a filly.”

“We eventually determined that her ancestry tied into the De Lis family,” Penumbra said, causing Twilight to jump a little as the zebricorn was suddenly there without any sign of having approached. “The main trunk, as a point of fact, but Matchlight preferred to let that sleeping dog lie. In her mind casting shame on a noble family who had done her no provable wrong, to settle an account with a total stranger, whose cruelty had led to her being enthroned and able to succor the poor and free serfs, would be petty and unworthy of a great leader.”

“And she liked Menage De Lis,” Luna said.

Penumbra smiled. “She adored ‘Menny’ like she was her own child. Lamplight practically grew up with her, which opened many doors when it came time to assemble the Dawnbreaker. Friendship is magical in what you can achieve with it. Build an empire, create a revolutionary vessel for trade, empower a magical tool of awesome potential….”

“Exploit it to carry out some malign plan?”

Penumbra gave Nightmare a very level look. “I’m extraordinarily powerful, Empress Mien, but the Empire is the desme of Matchlight, and it is in the Empire that I must bring my plans to fruition.” She turned and looked as one of the various pullers walked up and raised a hoof in a salute. “Yes?”

“Boiler’s stoked Field Marshal Shadow,” he said. “Will your guests be joining us?”

“They will,” she said. “Is the map car ready for our use?”

“It is, ma’am.”

“Then start your count. We leave in five minutes.” Penumbra looked at them. “Naturally, you may do as you like. The citizenry will certainly welcome you and make you comfortable if you wish to stay, and the gate staff will certainly give you directions if you wish to travel on your own. Keep in mind, the train will start moving in precisely four minutes and thirty seconds from now. Decide quickly.”

“Why do you want us as company?” Twilight said. “Not to sound conceited but if there’s any group of ponies anywhere better suited to frustrate your plans, it would be us.”

“Keep your friends close and your enemies closer,” Penumbra said. “Even though I don’t regard you as my enemies–merely obstacles–I know where you are and what you’re doing as long as you stay in my company. Three minutes forty-five.”

“Where’s the train going?”

“To the capital,” Penumbra said. “And I believe your sister will be approaching around the same time that I do. She will no doubt be even more surprised than you were, Luna, because she has no idea who I am beyond a loyal field marshal of the Empire.”

Luna frowned at her. “That was unnecessary.”

“It was entirely necessary,” Penumbra said as she turned. “I want to keep an eye on you and the Empress as well. If you intend to board, the train rolls in about a minute.”

Author's Note

Yeah, it's uh... been a while. I hope people are still reading this, and I hope people are enjoying this. As usual, I crave comments and especially criticisms and am now off to bring all the rest of the pieces of the board. Ciao.

Joining of the Roads, Part I

It had been over a thousand years since Celestia had approached the capital city of the Empire, much less along the great highway that led towards it from the west, but the longer she walked with her companions and escort, the more comfortable and familiar it felt. Familiar, but also extremely unsettling. Even with the Empire having been brought back, the highway felt desolate and empty, and the arctic landscape around it seemed to loom menacingly in all directions.

“It feels wrong here,” Cadence said after nearly an hour of silence. “Like there’s something that should be here, and isn’t.”

“Like Canterlot in the darkest and quietest hours of winter,” Shining Armor said.

“It’s the lack of travelers,” one of the older lamplighters said without looking back. “Except during storms, the highways and roads are teeming with travelers. Cart ponies, show wagons, soldiers, tourists, nobles and common ponies alike enjoying the weather, and foreign merchants moving goods.”

“All passages are unsettling when there’s no one there,” the other said. “You can feel the absence, especially when the place should be full of life.”

“With all due respect to your empire, I can’t imagine ponies enjoying the weather here,” Cadence said. “It’s rather… chilly.”

“It’s due to them being used to it,” Celestia said. “But also their patronage of Yakyakistan…” She trailed off and shook her head. “Well, when the Empire was around, that is. They’re fine, incidentally.”

“Good,” the captain said. “Is their yearly feast day still a popular tourist holiday?”

Celestia sighed. “They… don’t really have tourist holidays,” she said. “Or… tourists, really. Or any other kind of visitors. We tend to leave them alone and they seem to prefer it.”

The captain walked for a minute with this. “Oh, I… I see,” he said quietly. “Are the dragons still…?”

“Isolationist.”

The captain took this in silently and nodded a few times. “We have a world to rebuild, it sounds like. Lamps to light.”

“Starting with getting rid of Sombra,” Celestia said.

The captain grimaced. “His name is bucking Night White, not Sombra. He’s an emperor, not a king. And… he’s an embarrassment, an imbecile, reckless, selfish, spoiled, and his only unforgivable misdeed is closing the poor houses in the capital. Because his dumb plot thought it would prove to his council that he wasn’t a self-centered spendthrift, and then his dumb plot thought that kicking everypony smarter than himself out of ‘his’ palace made him look strong.”

“Tin pot dictator,” Krysta said.

“Shaping up to be one,” the captain agreed.

Celestia glanced at Krysta before looking at the captain. “The way you describe him he seems like a… spoiled brat rather than a danger.”

The captain paused to look oddly at her. “That’s because it was what he was, a petty tyrant who thought he was stronger and wiser than he actually was. Where did you get the idea that he was a danger?”

“He was aggressively expansionist, for one.”

“A program began under Emperor Lighthorn to get control of a really big chalcopyrite field,” the captain said.

“What’d he want all that copper for?” Anori said. “It’s pretty and I know Nurse Ratchet loves the stuff but it’s not great for tools.”

“Copper sheathing for ships,” Celestia said. “Right?”

“Lighthorn wanted to start building a larger fleet,” the captain said with a nod. “One of the things his kid canceled without canceling the expansion. So there ya go, ‘aggressively expansionist’ because he let dad’s initiative happen without connecting it to anything.”

“I seem to remember it was more extensive than just a vein of minerals.”

“It probably was,” the captain said. “But I’ll put a mousetrap to a monkey that the stuff I don’t know about was the same flavor: started by someone else, limited objective, kid kept it going without being sharp enough to do it properly. It couldn’t have been too bad or you would have whistled up one of the queens to deliver the nicest possible threat.”

“Believe you me, Luna thought about it,” Celestia said. “I can’t quite remember why she didn’t do it, however.”

“Confused picture?” Anori said.

Celestia thought on that a moment. “That was probably it,” she said. “It was not a happy time for any of us and memory can be mercifully fluid when times are difficult. There are many things I’d rather forget.”

“Like the Exile,” Kryssa said. “Although you won’t let yourself forget that.”

“That is correct,” Celestia said. “But I was thinking of the disappearance of the Empire, and certain horrors that followed it. I remember a general flow of events, and watching the winds scour the Empire into the Glass Waste, and the sound of the storm bells, but how we came to be so certain that Night White was a grave danger?” She shrugged. “You would have to ask Luna.”

“Your sister has a better memory?”

“A different memory,” Celestia said. “We remember different things and in different ways, so when we collaborate we can generally get a complete picture. She, for example, knew Matchlight personally and remembers details about her. I met her frequently enough and remember my impressions of her and what issues we discussed, but very few personal details. I, in turn, was well-acquainted with most of her predecessors and successors whereas Luna knew enough to convey the impression of familiarity without actually being familiar.”

“You two really are two halves of a whole, aren’t you?” The captain smiled.

“There’s a reason that Equestria is a diarchy,” Celestia said, smiling back at him.

“So what else led you to think he was a danger?”

“I believe…” Celetia thought a moment. “I suppose the way I’d put it is that the Empire spoiled us.”

“Spoiled you.” The captain glanced at her. “What does that mean?”

“The Empire was never a problem,“ Celestia said. “We’d have to untangle some tribal dispute in Zebrica, and the Empire held peaceful privy councils. The Provinces had to be induced to protect trade with a razor to their necks, and the Empire sent trade convoys with an armed guard. Raids from the yetis were a constant headache, except in the Snowbell shore and then in the entirety of the Snowbell itself as Dawnbreaker prowled the sea ice. The Empire was perpetually quiet, perpetually secure, perpetually safe, perpetually prosperous, and invariably well-led.”

“Then Night White sat on the throne,” Anori said.

“And the Empire having its first petty tyrant panicked you,” Cadence said. “It broke the pattern, violated the norms, and that meant that anything could happen.”

“It blindsided us,” Celestia said. “Much more than the realization that the Crystal Throne had been quietly perpetuating a system of grinding serfdom before the ‘Begger Empress’ pulled it all down.”

“Sotto Voce mentioned her,” Cadence said. “As have you, and the captain. She’s the ‘Matchlight’ you said Luna knew personally, right?”

“Yes.”

“She seems very important.”

“She was,” Celestia said. “Enough so that there’s a Hearth’s Warming Eve foal’s story about her that’s even popular in Equestria, although it doesn’t mention her name.”

Cadence blinked. “Really.”

“The Little Match-Filly.”

Cadence blinked again and exchanged looks with Shining. He looked at Celestia. “Um, I’m not Twiley so I’m not much of a scholar but doesn’t that end with the little match-filly… um, tragically freezing to death?”

“Yes, for some reason.” Celestia chuckled a little. “I can assure you that the Matchlight I met was very much alive. One thing the story doesn’t exaggerate is the effect of the matches. The spell was unique to her and since she was a head of state, I couldn’t exactly ask the court magi to examine her.”

“So, strike a match, you have a hallucination of happiness?”

“No, the full experiencing of a memory of intense contentment and happiness,” Celestia said. “The effect was…”

“Addictive,” Cadence said.

Celestia hesitated and then nodded. “Yes.”

“Which she took full advantage of,” the captain said. “Matchlight was not always a good pony, but if there was a greater empress in our history, I don’t know her name.”

“Nor do I,” Celestia said. “She was a mare intensely dedicated to her goals, and those goals were… well, if not precisely good all the time, were not so bad as to require any action on our part.”

“Affairs of state are seldom gentle and harmless, Princess,” one of the two old lamplighters said.

“You hardly need to tell me that,” Celestia said. “So then, if the self-named King is little more than a brat needing a paddling and a time-out, how did the Empire come to be suspended in time?”

“I know neither the how nor the why Princess,” the captain said. “But I do know that it was not due to anything that Night White did. I also know that that Sotto Voce thing didn’t undo it.”

“How can you know that without knowing the who or why?”

“Because Field Marshal Light Shadow sent a flurry of orders before it happened explaining what was to come and giving us instructions on where to station ourselves, and what to do when we came back to the normal flow,” he said.

“Field Marshal Light Shadow?” Celestia furrowed her brow. “That cannot be the same mare I’m thinking of.”

“That would depend: are you picturing a young mare, white mane, charcoal coat, rarely seen without the various components of a battlemagi kit and fighting shoes?”

“Yes, that’s the mare I’m thinking of.”

“Same one then,” the captain said. “Unless you can think of another way that the field marshal that reviewed my unit a month ago–a month before the end that is–was a young charcoal and white mare, dressed in full battlemagi kit, with fitted fighting shoes.”

“Bell and star cutie mark?”

“With a laurel arced above the star, yes Princess.”

Celestia took in a breath. Same coat, same dress, same mane, same mark, four centuries later.

“She’s immortal?” Shining said.

“As near as any of us can tell,” the captain said. “She hasn’t ever said so directly, but she never made any effort to hide it either.”

Shining looked at Cadence before looking back at the captain. “And no one seemed… concerned?”

“Why would we be?” The captain smiled. “She’s an unabashed patriot, and earnestly supports the Throne. She’s been the friend to every emperor and empress since Matchlight. A couple times, she was even the godmother to the heir apparent. She has been as much a part of our nation as the Crystal Heart itself despite having a life that would let her travel the entire world if she wanted.”

“And she’s not a…?”

The captain snickered. “There’s a whole division of fresh meat that wishes she was. Somehow–and I have no idea how–the entire lot of them caused some kind of mess trying to do… well, no one’s really sure what they were trying to do but it was a glorious mess. She spent a whole day walking down a line of every single one of the idiots and smacking them upside the head. Raised lumps you could hang a hat on. Never saw a ghost that could thump you in the head with a hoof and make it hurt for a week.”

“That seems rather severe,” Shining said.

“Severe was canning the lot of them, which was their CO’s impulse,” the captain said. “You look military, shield flank. Would you rather get smacked over the head and given a second chance, or not get the smack and get drummed out?”

“Shining Armor,” Shining said. “And yeah, I’d probably prefer the lump.”

“I think we’re side-stepping an important question,” Anori said. “How could this field marshal be aware of magic on that scale in advance of it being used? Did she cast this spell?”

“It’s possible,” Celestia said. “She could well be quite ancient, although she never seemed world-weary to me the way the truly ancient tend to be. Truly, I have doubts that she was the source. Luna would know better, but Light Shadow was a consummate military mare so I would expect her to lean on a military solution to a problem.”

“Though her knowing about it in advance sort of implies that she knows who did it and why.” Anori blinked. “Wait a moment… captain, you said in the Wight Flagge that you expected that she had made landfall at a cold-water port, didn’t you?”

“Yup, that was the plan.”

Celestia’s breath caught. “We never looked east. It… we…” She stopped herself and paused a moment for her suddenly scrambled thoughts to fall back into order. “Light Shadow didn’t only know about it far enough in advance to send orders, she knew far enough in advance to load up Dawnbreaker and possibly other ships and move into the Snowbell. But that makes no sense unless…”

“...she was moving the means to undo the magic outside where the wind wall would be,” Cadence said. “And from there, it follows that she either gave someone…”

“Why give someone else the instructions if she knew that she would be alive until the time came to undo it all?” Celestia blinked a few times. “...my goodness…”

Light Shadow, the keeper of the keys to the Crystal Empire that was frozen in time. Canceros, a dramatically evil being acting on instructions to reveal something to Sotto Voce. Sotto Voce, the master of the entire scheme, who claims to only be following instructions. Zambet, some manner of mental predator working with Sotto Voce. The mysterious filly voice, that ‘Lilly Shell’ thing traveling from the Wastes to the Provinces, and someone called ‘Vorka.’ Einspithiana claiming some grand game for ownership of the world is going on. Celestia was used to carefully schooling her expression but she could tell from the reactions of the others that they could tell something wasn’t right. All of them are chess pieces, most are working together… but only one of them could unlock the Empire again.

“What is it, Princess?” The captain’s brow had furrowed.

“Just… a few loose threads coming together.” Celestia said, gesturing with a hoof to brush the question aside. It was clear to her that Light Shadow was involved in the entire thing in some way; it was also clear that saying this to the captain, who clearly admired Light Shadow, wouldn’t help the situation. “I believe that Sotto Voce spoke the truth: there is a much different game in operation than we thought.”

“And you think the Field Marshal is one of the pieces,” the captain said. “I can follow a logic train, Princess. If Light Shadow was carrying the way to undo the spell east, she was the only one who could undo it. If she was the only one who could undo it, then it’s far too perfect for Sotto Voce that she undid it now.”

“Yes,” Celestia said.

“Alright. Cui bono, Princess?”

Celestia sighed. “I don’t know, captain. I would say that Sotto Voce does, but we still don’t know what his objective is, and he claims to be following another’s plan. We don’t know how any of the other players benefit either, and I will freely admit that all we have to tie Light Shadow to any of this is a very good train of logic.” She paused for a moment, realizing something. “That was an unusual way to phrase the question.”

“The Empire heavily favors the clever and the well-read,” he said. “Poor ol’ Bookmark has a yearly nervous breakdown from her very nice library being invaded by all the officer candidates.”

“Precise Index would start punting the lot of you out the door if you started being disruptive,” Celestia said with a small smile. “But to your point, we have no way to know who benefits or how. While I can’t imagine how Sotto Voce and those with him could compel Light Shadow to put the Empire within their reach, the Evils are strange beings and may be able to do such a thing.”

“The Evils?”

“A term for all of the beings that came to this world from some other place, which the emissary that warned us about all of this called ‘the Void’,” Celestia said. “They’re all varying degrees of evil, although I’m told that the one who calls herself ‘Nightmare Moon’ is a very good guest and Zambet was very polite.”

“So these ‘Evils’ may have somehow compelled Field Marshal Shadow to bring the Empire back,” the captain said. “Assuming that she had the means.”

“I am ‘throwing you a bone’ as the term goes,” Celestia said. “The power required to overcome a unicorn as ancient as you imply would be immense. But because speaking ill of someone you regard very highly gets us nowhere, and…”

“Don’t condescend to me Princess,” he said. “I’ve a sense that we’re close to the capital and will soon see the Skytower ahead of us. Will that be sufficient for you to skip the rest of the journey?”

The iciness of his tone and the sudden change in subject caused Celestia to hesitate a moment before answering. “Yes, that should be sufficient. The teleportation won’t be very precise but I only need to get us near the gates. What kind of welcome can we expect?”

“One due a visiting dignitary, of course,” one of the lamplighters said. “The pullers of the city watch take their duty of courtesy seriously.”

“Although there may be a very sparse honor guard for you, Your Highness,” the other said. “They had their hooves full last time I was there.”

“Dealing with Night White’s demands and general troublemaking?” Shining Armor said.

“The trouble he created by closing the poor houses, yes sir,” the first lamplighter said. “Arranging food, shelter, warmth, and safety for the destitute is the work and the glory of the Compassionates and they are exceedingly good at it. But…”

“...without their network of support, they can’t do much, can they?” Cadence said. “They don’t have clerks, accountants, quartermasters, cooks, maids, and the rest of the staff that keeps the enterprise working well. They only have the city watch who do their best but are not trained to the work.”

Both lamplighters and the captain paused to look at her with obvious surprise. “Well someone has been well-instructed in administration,” the captain said, smiling at her. “Very astute, Princess Cadence.”

“I can’t imagine that Night White could dismantle it all completely,” Celestia said. “We have institutions to help the destitute as well, so I know that they would have been kept well-supplied in case something happened that dramatically increased the number needing help.”

“Like what’s happening in Ponyville,” Shining Armor said.

“And in the aftermath of the Guardian,” Anori said. “And the aftermath of Canceros’ plague, even though this ‘Vorka’ sabotaged it.”

“Yes.” Celestia looked at the captain and the two lamplighters flanking him as they continued forward. “Did Night White seize the stores as well?”

“He didn’t have to,” the captain said. “You know how it is, Princess. No rich, spoiled bucker lasts long without a little gang of sycophants, lickspittles, and other petty evil little people looking to benefit from the bigger fish. Imperial citizens are no more paragons of unspotted virtue than any other people.”

Celestia kept her expression from twisting in distaste, although it didn’t take much effort; what the captain was describing was depressingly common. “I guess there are worse things than a petty tyrant.”

“At least they had to be careful about their theft,” one of the lamplighters said, smiling with a touch of ghastly pleasure.

“Getting caught stealing from hungry ponies by the pullers and even most of the citizens got them a stiff beating,” the other explained with the same touch of pleasure.

“Why not just…” Shining stopped himself and shook his head. “No, never mind, I’ve been there myself far too many times. If they’ll just walk right back out, it’s a waste of time. At least our, well, vigilantes have the good grace to not get caught.”

The captain shrugged. “Who was going to catch them? The pullers who were participating? The palace guard, who sympathized? ‘You make your choice, you pay your price’ was the common sentiment.”

“And if not a noble sentiment, it’s at least a fair one,” Celestia said. “Are there any other issues to be wary of?”

“You’ll cause quite a stir, Princess, but the worst that’ll come from that is a meeting with Night White.” He looked at Cadence. “She’ll cause about twice as much stir as you, honestly, because as far as anyone is aware you and Luna are the only alicorns that exist. Her being the daughter of the current queen–which will become readily apparent no matter how great her guise is–will stoke even greater interest.”

Cadence smiled. “I’m very used to friendly and curious crowds, Captain.”

“Then it’ll be no issue at all,” he said. “If my sense of the distance is right, we’ll be seeing the Skytower in a few minutes. It’ll be a damn fine sight no matter who’s on the throne.”

The Skytower, to Celestia’s recollection, was the first part of the imperial capital that had been built, predating Matchlight by centuries. Prior to the forming of the Bell Watch and Lamplighters, it was virtually the only early-warning measure the Empire had to spot storms forming and warn citizens to prepare for a blow. Its physically impossible height was magically-augmented, feeding off of the Crystal Heart that was placed directly beneath it and more than any other monument, it represented the Crystal Empire. Even a hundred miles away, the light on top was clearly visible at all times, and Celestia privately suspected that the eternal light was somehow captured by the special storm-shielding lamps that the Lamplighters carried, giving them a portion of the awesome power that deflected hurricane-force blizzards with such ease that the temperature in the capital walls remained constant even during heavy weather.

The walls and towers were also familiar, towering constructs of dense stone that, as Imperial mythology had it, was mortared with the blood of the building crews due to how frequently frenzied windnego attacks swept in before the Crystal Heart had reached its awesome strength as a bastion against the bloodthirsty ice spirits. The walls were also very thick, enough so that ponies could be housed within them semi-comfortably, and were designed such that they projected slightly out over their base, giving defenders a clear shot on any enemy trying to hide against the implacable surface and discourage attempts to scale the walls.

Celestia still marveled that the Du Arctis family had actually wanted to come to the vast frozen wastes that had once been called the “Gateway Wastes” because of their alleged past as the lands through which the tribes of ponykind had traveled, fleeing their original home towards the comparative paradise of Equestria. But the Wastes were where they desired to be and since no sane being wanted them, Du Arctis became the largest landowner in the world.

One thing that Celestia didn’t recognize as she walked off the lingering pins-and-needles sensation of being shunted out of teleportation by a magical disruption barrier was the immense statue of a stallion set atop the gate she was in front of. It was clearly not Night White himself–no horn–and visibly aged although even from the distance she was at, she could tell that it had been fastidiously cared-for. Clearly this stallion was very important to the Empire, but I have no idea who he is, she sighed to herself. I’m sure Luna knows.

“Hallo the gates!” she called, looking upwards to where she had seen arrow slits above the ponderous doors. “I am Princess Celestia, Princess of the Sun and diarch of Equestria, and I wish to enter.”

The pronouncement was greeted with silence, although Celestia had the distinct sense of eyes on her. She cleared her throat and tried again. “Hallo the gates! I am Princess Celestia, diarch of Equestria. I ask you to please open the gates so I and those with me may enter!”

This was also greeted with silence, and Celestia looked back at the captain. “Did I say something wrong?”

“Of course you did,” he said, grinning. “Because you’re not an Imperial soldier, or guard, or citizen, and don’t know the protocol.” The grin vanished into a small frown. “Perhaps that should have occurred to you, and you might have asked the soldiers with you for the proper pass-phrases before taking the responsibility yourself.”

Anori cleared his throat. “Captain, it was Princess Luna that involved herself with the military and would be familiar with the concept of gate protocols.”

“It’s as she said earlier,” Krysta said. “There is a reason that Equestria is ruled by a diarchy instead of just one pony.”

The captain frowned at them, but then sighed and conceded the point with a nod. “Fine, I’m sorry Princess.” Before Celestia could respond to this, he stepped passed her and looked up at the gate. “We have traveled the icy cold and seek shelter at your hearth.”

“And are you friend or guest?” A rumbling baritone voice said from the rough direction of the arrow slits.

“I am a lighter of the empress’ lamps with two others at my side,” the captain said. “We bring guests to your hearth and friends to your city.”

“It is well,” the gate guard said, accompanied by the sounds of bars being slid out of the way of the gates. “Speak your names, friends, and be welcome.”

“I am Pri…” Celestia caught sight of the captain shaking his head “...Celestia,” Celestia said. “And thank you for your hospitality.”

“I am Mi Amore Cadenza,” Cadence said, “And thank you…”

By the time they finished giving their names–both Anori and Krysta added their family surnames without the captain stopping them–the gates had swung open to reveal a dozen or so puller guards carrying halberds at parade rest. Their captain–or so Celestia assumed from his position at the front–gave her a polite nod. “Welcome to Quartzica, Princess Celestia and companions,” he said. “May I ask your business in the city?”

“Various matters,” Celestia said. “Seeing to the resolution of the problem with Night White…”

“Emperor White,” the guard captain said firmly.

Celestia blinked, taken aback. “Beg pardon?”

“You sully the name ‘emperor’ by attaching it to him,” the lamplighter captain said.

“And yet he has lawful claim,” the guard captain said firmly. “He has legitimate claim. Is this untrue?”

The lamplighters all glared before the captain bowed slightly. “No, you are correct.”

“The throne will be respected, even if the emperor deserves none,” the guard captain said. “I hate it as well, so we welcome the aid of the Sun Princess and a princess of the royal line. What other business do you have?”

“Some manner of evil, and those allied with him, intend some mischief with the Crystal Heart,” Celestia said. “His minions started a pandemic in Equestria by tainting food crops to conceal other minions finding the Tree of Harmony and using it to pinpoint precisely where the Heart could be found.”

“The princess’ description may seem vague, but we saw this evil,” one of the lamplighters said. “He seized control of one of the storms and rode it so that he could confront the princess.”

“He claimed that there is a greater plan,” the other said, “and that he is only a servant of another. We can’t imagine there being someone powerful enough to command a formless evil that can ride the storms, but we don’t know otherwise.”

The guard captain nodded. “Then it is good you have come. Between Your Highness’ command of the sun, and Field Marshal Light Shadow on her way from Glacierfast with the 731st Marines, we will be able to frustrate the schemes of this evil you speak of.”

“You’ve been in contact with the field marshal?” Celestia said. “Did she mention my sister?”

“I don’t know that.” He turned to look at another of the guard. “You took the message.”

“Yessir,” the puller said. “The Field Marshal did indeed say that she was being accompanied by Princess Luna, a…” He paused, frowning. “...Nacked Meeree Mee-an, and others she called ‘the Elements’.”

She’s traveling with Lu-lu. I suppose that precludes Light Shadow being a willing part of the entire scheme, Celestia thought. Aloud she said, “That is wonderful news. Shall we go speak to Emperor White then?”

“He can hardly refuse a diplomatic envoy, especially fellow royalty,” the guard captain said. “Though we’ve a number of stops to make along the route.”

“Seeing to the well-being of the poor?” Cadence said.

“Indirectly,” he said. “We recently received a number of generous donations from upstanding citizens who repented of their misdeed and wished to show kindness to those without.”

“You kicked down the doors of the thieves and helped them find an appropriate amount of compensation,” Shining Armor said dryly.

The guard captain grinned. “You’re familiar.”

“Captain of the Royal Guard,” Shining said. “Helping mistake-prone citizens donate to good causes is part of the job.”

Celestia gave the stallion a sidelong glance. “To the tune of what amount, Captain of the Royal Guard?”

He shrugged, not looking the least bit sheepish or ashamed. “Enough to help, not enough to be thieves ourselves.”

Celestia fought to stop herself from smirking at him, only partly succeeding, before looking to the guard captain. “I would be happy to help you carry these ‘generous donations’ to those that need them,” she said.

Author's Note

Yes, it's Part One. Don't worry, Part Two is coming soon to a Game of Worlds near you.

Joining of the Roads, Part II

The day was becoming late by the time Celestia found herself approaching the central square of Quartiza on the way to the palace. Strictly speaking, the radiating layout of the capital city didn’t require going through the center to get to any specific place, but it had been over a thousand years since Celestia had seen the Heart.

It was exactly as she remembered it: a sapphire the size of a pony, intricately carved into the shape of a heart and polished to a flawless sheen that floated and turned in midair as if it was being supported by an invisible air current. It glowed faintly, very neatly concealing the awesome power that was contained within it, and just being near to it made it hard to restrain a contented smile from the aura of peace and love that thrummed faintly in the arctic air.

And part of Cadence’s cutie mark was, as she’d always suspected, an exact duplicate of the Heart’s appearance down to the specific way that Du Arctis gemcutters had cut the facets.

“Pretty unsettling isn’t it, Auntie?” Cadence said as she looked between the Heart and the mark on her flank. “It’s as if someone tattooed it using the Heart as their reference.”

“I wouldn’t call it unsettling,” Celestia said. “That implies that the coincidence is unpleasant.”

“Fascinating then.”

“Exceedingly so,” Celestia agreed with an emphasizing nod. “It would handily explain your facility for making friends, though.”

“And how I got a rather silly full name like ‘I love Cadence’,” Cadance said. “It was kind of a relief to find out that my birth mother named me something sort of exotic-sounding but comparatively normal.”

“Repeated applications of hoof to head didn’t dissuade the spies who were pretending to be your birth parents,” Anori said.

“Then again spies tend to be extremely odd,” Krysta said. “For example, the painted mare spymaster.”

“If they hadn’t been on assignment, I’d have thanked them with a hug and a hoof,” Cadence said. “How did they arrange the tragic accident?”

Anori and Krysta looked at one another, and then at her. “Secret of the craft Cady,” Krysta said.

“But no one was hurt or in danger,” Anori said.

“That much I worked out on my own,” Cadence said, although Celestia detected a very light tone of relief. “I’ve just been wondering who died for the cause.”

“No one,” Anori said. “The two ponies died, but had probably been under preservation magic for some time.”

“Informed consent?”

“Sort of,” Krysta said. “Standard practice is that the family wanted cremation instead of burial, so they got a very beautiful memorial urn with the understanding that when the bodies were no longer needed, they’d get the ashes as well. Since the urn is the gravestone, families rarely care about having something in the urn.”

“So similar to how a pony will permit their body to be used for dissection and medical teaching after they’ve passed,” Celestia said.

“Similar, although it’s a rare family that’s comfortable with a loved one being used as a prop,” Anori said, before looking passed the Heart at the unassuming building to the north of the square. “I take it that’s the…?”

“Palace?” The guard captain nodded. “Emperor White is vainglorious enough to want it to look more grand, but that is going to take months and the project hasn’t even gotten to the stage of being planned. Nor will it, if I guess at your intentions correctly.”

“We have no right to depose your emperor, Captain,” Celestia said as the city guard spread out in a loose v-formation ahead, assuming the place of a diplomatic escort. ”I only hope to encourage him to be a better ruler, to inform him of the danger of the Evils, and to warn him not to interfere with my purpose.”

“And the reason you’re being so benign is that Field Marshal Shadow is likely to depose him when she arrives,” the lamplighter captain said.

“I didn’t create diplomatic peace by meddling when I could stand by and achieve the same thing,” Celestia sasid. “This will also be an interesting experience. I’d always seen Night White in passing but never formally met him.”

“So who gets to be emperor when White gets kicked out?” Cadence said, glazing up at the palace walls as they passed through them.

“He has a sister younger than him by a year,” the guard captain said. “She’s in the northwest at the moment to supervise the digging of a vertical shaft entrance to a crystal mine–she’s a structural engineer by trade–but when everything is settled here she can be sent for.”

“Is she away from the capital to…?”

“...keep Emperor White safe? Yes.” The lamplighter captain grinned. “Snow used to beat him up before she went to university, and doing her journeymare training with mining crews just made her left hook better.”

“The throne wasn’t important to her,” the guard captain said. “So when Night White was crowned, she was on her way north the very next day.”

“Which is why we couldn’t use her as a coup figurehead,” one of the lamplighters said. “She told us that she would only involve herself with the succession if the throne became vacant, but that she didn’t otherwise care. Kind of hard to depose an emperor when the possible empress has to be physically dragged into the revolution.”

“I’m surprised she didn’t have the crown forced on her,” Anori said. “Power is often best in the hooves of those that don’t want it.”

“The only ponies that know what passed between Snow White and her parents choose to keep it private,” the guard captain said. “But it must have been earnest enough that they permitted a good empress to dig holes while a poor emperor sat on the throne.”

As they approached the main keep of the palace, Celestia felt her steps faltering and then stopping entirely as she looked up at the edifice. There was something about it that felt… unnatural to her. Squat, square, with black curtains drawn across all the windows bordered by diligently-applied whitewash, it gave her a similar feeling that she’d had when approaching a tomb during the twilight hours: a sense of unwelcome and a very particular feeling of wrongness.

“Is there something wrong, Your Highness?” the guard captain asked.

“Is the palace normally this foreboding?” Celestia said.

“Not normally,” he said. “Emperor White finds the arctic sun irritating and has often demanded that the windows be blacked out like you see. The change in its appearance has caused the spirit of the structure to become imperious and unwelcoming.”

“It feels like more than just a sense caused by appearance,” Cadence said.

“Princess Chidinida, if I may?” At the nod from Cadance, the lamplighter captain continued. “I assume that you’ve spent time in your family home, in your queen mother’s palace.”

“Not a lot of time,” Cadence said. “My home is in Equestria and circumstances are such that I only found out about my mother a few months ago.”

“Even a short time works for my point,” he said. “How would you describe the feeling around the palace? How does it feel to walk around there?”

Cadence looked at him for a moment before she nodded. “So changeling structures tend to take on the emotional radiance of the changelings that occupy them?”

“Over an extreme frame of time,” he said. “This palace has remained in this state for hundreds of years.”

Cadence gave him a nod and then looked to Celestia. “Auntie, I believe what he’s…”

“I understood him Cady,” Celestia said, giving her niece a smile. “If my own palace has that kind of radiance…”

“...it does,” Anori said with a nod from Krysta.

“...then I’m so used to it that I don’t notice.” Celestia gathered herself and started walking forward again. “I still feel that something isn’t right here.”

“I agree,” one of the lamplighters siad. “It’s muted but there, like a tickle on the edges of your awareness.”

“I also agree,” the other elderly lamplighter said, raising his lamp slightly.

“I see no alternative to entering and finding out more,” the guard captain said, even as the other city guard shifted their grips from ceremonial carry to port arms.

“Are there any of the Bell Watch on post at the cathedral tower?” the lamplighter captain asked.

“No,” the guard captain said. “Field Marshal Shadow ordered them posted in the towers of the outer and inner rings to make sure the warning bells were audible everywhere outside the capital.”

“Dammit,” the lamplighter captain sighed. “Sensible orders, yet I wish we could approach this with at least a single bell and candle.”

“Would the inclusion of this ‘Bell Watch’ really make that much of a difference?” Shining asked.

“All the difference, in actual fact,” the guard captain said. “They were hoof-picked by Matchlight during her reign. According to them, they still are.”

“A passed empress is still hoof-picking members of a military order of the Empire,” Shining said.

The guard captain shrugged. “Their delusion about Matchlight still selecting them for service is a small price to pay. But it’s a moot point because they’re not here. Captain, if yourself and the other Lighters will support us?”

“Sure.” The lamplighter captain stepped up to the front of the group, while the other two fell into position behind, creating a rough triangle with everyone but the lamplighters themselves inside of it. At a nod from the guard captain, the lamplighter captain pushed the double doors open and walked into the dim interior of the palace with his lamp held high.

In any other circumstance, the palace would have been shockingly luxurious, shocking because its exterior was so utilitarian and unremarkable. On the other side of the featureless granite, the walls were paneled with white wood from which polished brass candelabras emerged regularly to ensure that every inch of that paneling would be well-lit with soft magical light. The ceilings had been covered in some kind of white stone, likely marble, and was mirrored by the floors. Artwork–some of which Celestia was certain was genuine and from artists who’d passed away centuries ago–was displayed almost as frequently as drapes and the lighting fixtures which gave the entire space the feeling of being a museum rather than the workplace of royalty and their staff.

All of this was ruined, however, by the fact that a stifling gloom hung over the interior. Candles being actually lit was infrequent and very little natural light seemed to be penetrating into the palace, effectively concealing all of the artwork and lovely paneling, and the sections of marble.

The gloom even seemed to hang over the guards standing at their stations: there was a strange lack of the spit-and-polish that was typical for palace guards, and as their party drew closer to the pullers, Celestia could see that they were looking tired as well.

“Welcome to the palace captains, Lamplighters, Princess Celestia and companions,” one of the guards said, the slightly glassy stare not at all reflected in the well-enunciated words. “Do you have business with His Imperial Highness?”

“Quartermasters first of all,” the guard captain said. “Personal business.”

“Well they’re known for keeping a very close eye on things,” the guard said with a shrug. “I don’t know what you’re hoping to get, but make things too dangerous for them and they’ll rat you out.”

“Maybe we should speak to them directly then,” the guard captain said. “Maybe have His Imperial Highness intervene for us?”

“I’m not sure he can.” The guard grinned. “He’s not mightier than the bureaucracy. No one is, that I know of.”

The guard captain sighed and nodded. “A difficult truth to accept, but one sort of has to. Very well, if you’ll guide us to the throne?”

The two guards nodded and with sharp military precision, despite their tired expressions, they turned and began marching further into the palace. After a moment, the guard captain followed with the v-formation of guards bending into a rough diamond as they followed their two guides. Despite the plainness of its exterior, in good light the interior of the palace would be a work of art, more of the marble, artwork, and candelabras creating a corridor of loveliness that someone would walk through to get to the actual throne room; except for the lack of towering stained glass, it reminded Celestia of the Canterlot palace.

In the dim light, Celestia could see a pair of large doors swinging silently outwards as they approached, and caught a glimpse of heavy stone liberally inset with crystal and a quartet of guards manipulating the doors two to a side, before they were through and were standing in a throne room that Celestia recognized immediately. Unlike the marble, stone, and metal that was used as decoration for the rest of the palace, the throne room was rendered completely in crystal: tiles of it decorated the floors and walls, chandeliers were suspended from bronzed chains from the ceiling speckled with quartz that glimmered like a perpetual night sky, and polished steel fixtures with enchanted crystal were spaced around the room to give a soft, soothing white light.

At some point, before Matchlight, the actual thrones of the emperor and empress were raised up on a dias and made of the rarest green crystal only found in the empire, beautiful translucent stones with speckles of reddish impurities that glowed in the soft light of the crystal torches. The new ones were level with the ground and made of the same opaque blue crystal that the Heart had been cut out of, with the previous thrones skillfully repurposed into a mural depicting the capital city of Quartiza as it would be seen from high above, series of concentric circles of buildings arrayed around the tower of the Heart.

Very little of this was visible in the pale, flickering light that the torches gave off as they approached the throne, leaving Celestia’s memory to fill in details that were practically invisible in the darkness. Sombra–Night White–himself was just barely visible as a shadow distinct from the throne he sat in, a stallion in the opulent robes and crystal crown that marked him as the emperor and the way he was slumped in his seat, he appeared to be asleep.

Celestia waited several moments for the guards standing at attention to announce her and her traveling companions, as was common protocol for visitors, but several moments later she realized that while the guards that had escorted them had looked tired, these were completely asleep, their halberds leaning listlessly against them as they slept in a locked-knee stance. Unsure of what else to do, she inclined her head in the direction of the emperor.

“Emperor Night White, I apologize for the abruptness of my visit and how I come unannounced into your palace under armed escort, but the situation seemed urgent enough to warrant unusual boldness,” she said.

There was silence from the throne for several moments. “And what is that situation?” a faint baritone voice asked, having the very slight resonance to it that the emperors and empresses of the Crystal Empire typically used when speaking, a method that somehow cut through background noise as surely as the booming Royal Canterlot Voice that was preferred in the Equestrian court.

“An… entity, I would term him, calling himself ‘Sotto Voce’ is in the Empire and by declaration and discovery, I’ve learned that he intends some mischief with the Crystal Heart,” Celestia said. “He is a thing from outside our own world, something called an ‘Evil’, and from what I can discern is bodiless but able to make his presence felt and speak if he chooses.”

There was another long silence from the throne. “I see.”

Celestia furrowed her brow at the strangely sedate response from the Emperor. This is the inept, spoiled brat the others were referring to? “I would offer the assistance of myself in this matter, along with the aid of my Captain of the Royal Guard, my niece Cadance, and the two changeling honor guards that accompany me.”

Another long silence. “Do not be concerned, Princess, it is… taken care of.”

Celestia blinked. “You knew?”

“Of course.” Night White paused. “If you would like, I could have the lamps turned up so that the Lighters with you need not use theirs.”

“That will not be necessary.” The lamplighter captain stepped passed Celestia, his lamp glowing more brightly than it had been. “The facade has already worn out its welcome.”

There was an amused snort from the direction of the throne, at the same instant that Celestia realized that she could no longer see the lamps, or the guards at the foot of the throne. “So I see,” the voice from the darkness said. “These lamps of yours are an interesting device. They remind me of lamps from a completely different place. I shall find it very engaging to study them.”

“I think that if you could touch them, we wouldn’t be alive anymore.”

“Don’t be silly, boy.” And like a switch had been thrown, the light resonant baritone slipped into the distinct cultured Pillars accent and became more feminine–and familiar.

“I don’t care for slaughter,” Zambet said, materializing out of the shadows and close enough to the aura of the lamp that Celestia could clearly see her horrifying visage. She had shed the imitation of a pony, now bipedal and thin with clothing seemingly made of the shadows around her draped loosely over her frame. But she was still cleanly divided between living flesh and skeleton, and her eyes having the appearance of rubies wreathed in violet flames floating in the center of her sockets had been preserved. “It wastes good food.”

“I suppose you’re the one that Sotto Voce was referring to when he said that he was not the one we would be facing,” Celestia said as evenly as she could.

“Oh no, Princess, for I am also a piece on a board set and moved by another,” Zambet said with a broad smile that wrapped all the way around her face and to the base of her ears, needle-like teeth gleaming in the steady light from the Lamplighters. “I admit that when I checked the archbishop, I didn’t expect the queen to move herself into my grasp but it would be foolish not to carpe the diem.”

“Since we’re not inside the mental landscape you pulled us into before, I take it that the lamps the lamplighters carry prevents you from touching us,” Cadence said.

“Absolutely true,” Zambet said, the disturbing half-living half-dead smile not budging. “But the power I wield can be solid enough to make an airtight dome around the aura of those lamps. It would take… not that much time, really. I have also made the preparations necessary to prevent any prey, no matter how strong, from leaving my web.” Her eyes shifted to Celestia. “Check.”

“You’re responsible for the dimness we saw, I take it?” Celestia said.

“Yes,” Zambet said. “I’m surprised you didn’t recognize it. I know you saw the construct I built around your Tree of Harmony to mute its ability to obliterate Canceros and his kin, and I make it a practice to repeat methods that have proven themselves effective.”

“What could you gain from placing the entire palace in your power?”

“A snack while I wait,” Zambet said. “Although it’s more of a light meal than a snack. These ponies are delectable, a rare and exotic vintage of fear that whets my appetite fiercely; I’ve only seen their like once before, and those ones threw me on a bonfire.”

“So that’s…?” Celestial gestured towards her skeletal half.

“The darling little mortals worked out that fire held no danger for me, so they added something extra,” Zambet said, her unsettlingly broad smile becoming a vaguely pleasant expression now, and the gaping grin shrank to a more normal breadth. “I was quite young and stupid, and had not yet learned that among the countless worlds that float in the Void, there are many that contain dangerously clever mortals. But what does not kill you teaches you, and I learned so much from the single error that I really do owe those mortals something only slightly malicious.”

"I seem to recall you referring to your fleshless half as punishment for failing to keep your world to the 'Weaver,'" Celestia said.

"That is also true," Zambet said. "I gave her my word that I wouldn't hunt on the world she forbade. I broke my word, and reaped the consequences. The Weaver of Fate can punish in person, but she prefers to bend fate to inflict punishments instead. She bent mine such that I arrived on hunting grounds that would put me in extreme danger without knowing, and the punishment was delivered by my own tendencies and folly."

Celestia looked at her for a moment. "You don't even resent it."

"I am older than you can comprehend, and I became that old by accepting my failures as a result of my errors, and eliminating those errors." Zambet smirked. "Besides, she can simply destroy me if she feels like it. Resenting her is futile."

“The princess was right: you’re a very polite monster,” the lamplighter captain said. “With a Pillars accent, no less.”

Zambet looked curiously at him. “I was not aware that the term for it predated the movement of the Empire outside of the flow of time. Fascinating. I shall be very interested to learn more about this place, more than I learned for myself by reading. More than that, I find your race of pony to be very interesting indeed.”

“You’re stalling,” Celestia said.

“And with awe-inspiring economy of force I might add,” Zambet said. “Which I find suspicious. Your sun exists and is especially vivid here, so you could be making a spirited attempt to break out. That you elect to stay and talk to me without much fuss tells me that you anticipate time to be a resource you can spend for advantage.”

“You haven’t given me reason to simply obliterate you and have done,” Celestia said. “Yet. You seem to regard time to be on your side as well.”

“I know something which you do not,” Zambet said. “I also know that you are waiting on the arrival of Miri, Luna, and the five remaining Elements to effectively secure Quartiza against the plans of my employer, although you do not yet know who they are. I know also that the Lamplighters travel in fours if they’re providing escort to someone of importance, so you were confronted by Sotto Voce and his error gave the fourth Lamplighter cause to leave your company and gather an army to frustrate our purpose.”

Ah, so that is what she meant by earning her tenner, Celestia thought. “Miri?”

“I and Nachtmiri Mien are peers, and will sometimes refer to one another by familiar names.”

“Peers.” Celestia frowned. “So equivalent.”

“I would not call myself her equal,” Zambet said. “I do not create, and she does. What makes us peers is that neither of us involve ourselves exclusively for our own interests. There is always an employer.”

“So who is yours?” Shining said.

Zambet smirked and waggled a skeletal finger at him. “That would be telling. Suffice to say that my employer is on their way. Whereupon I can finish my part, collect my pay, and then haul plot.”

“What kind of currency would be of use to you?” Cadence siad. “It couldn’t be anything material.”

“A ten bit doesn’t exactly spend in the Void,” Zambet said with a half smirk that once again extended further than was entirely natural. “Although I should lift one from the palace vaults as a souvenir. Equestrian ten-bits are distressingly plain and I’ve been taught that it would be extremely unwise to get within reach of any changeling noble, so I’m afraid the Empire shall be…” She trailed off and her eyes shifted back and forth, her expression slightly puzzled. “...making a… donation.”

Celestia looked side to side as well. “Is there a problem?”

“Always.” Her eyes shifted to the lamplighter captain. “The fourth pony was not a mere Lamplighter, was she?”

He shrugged. “She’s my marshal.”

“That’s what I thought.” Her eyes shifted back to Celestia. “I do apologize for making the ruler’s charming personality considerably more charming, poor sleep will do that.”

Celestia blinked at the sudden shift in conversation, and the brisk businesslike tone in Zambet’s voice. “You speak as if you’re bidding me farewell.”

“For the moment.” Zambet’s unnaturally wide grin spread across her face as she stepped back out of the light. “I’ll be seeing you soon, Celeste, and we’ll have a far more… interesting conversation.”

Celestia didn’t have any time to process this because even as Zambet stepped back, a resounding kshh of what sounded like breaking glass came from behind, and she instinctively turned towards the sound. While the oppressive darkness remained, concealing the crystal lights if not snuffing them completely, Celestia could clearly see a sputtering blue flame held aloft, its pale light dimly reflecting the shaft of a torch. After a moment, the flame started approaching accompanied by the steady, marching cadence of iron-shod hooves against the floor.

And then there was a resounding thong of a great bell and the darkness rushed aside to reveal a single changeling clad in a black greatcoat over blood-red gambeson, carrying a torch with a blue flame in his telekinesis along with a silver hand-bell, brilliant viridian eyes glowing beneath a tall broad-brimmed hat. Celestia had never actually seen a member of the Bell Watch before, but from the aura of unflinching purpose to the fact that his approach had caused Zambet to leave immediately left no doubt as to who he was.

“Good day Miss Celestia,” he said, his accent very strongly Germane. “If you will follow the trail of lamps to the outside, I have business with your escort.”

Celestia blinked at him. “Excuse me, Mister…?”

“If you will follow the trail of lamps to the outside, Miss Celestia, I have business with your escorts,” he said.

“Sir…”

“Follow the trail of lamps to the outside,” he said. “I have business with your escorts, Miss Celestia.”

“Excuse me, but what lamps?” Shining Armor said.

“The ones beyond the throne room door looking after the palace guards,” he said. “I should have thought it implied by my instructions that you were to leave. Now, leave.”

Celestia furrowed her brow at the stern-faced changeling. I cannot remember the last time anyone’s talked this way to me. But then she felt the hoof of one of the older lamplighters on her shoulder and saw him nod towards the door from the corner of an eye, and decided that it wouldn’t do any good to argue. “As you wish sir,” she said and walked passed him, trailed by Shining, Cadence, and the two throne guards.

“That was one of the Bell Watch the city guard captain spoke of,” Cadence said as they passed through a gaping hole right through the center of the two doors to the throne room.

“Must be,” Anori said.

“I haven’t seen someone back down as fast as Zambet since some stuffy griffon bint ragged on Cryssa,” Krysta said.

Anori winced. “I forgot about that incident. Thought Baroness du Luc would throttle her on the spot.”

“So did she.” Krysta looked at Celestia. “Sort of radiates an aura of being happy to deliver a haymaker to the next person to look at her wrong.”

“Strong stallions feared Martella for that very reason,” Celestia said as the arctic sun shining through the open front door began materializing out of the gloom. “I have it on extremely reliable authority that during the troubles right before the Exile, her elderly mother stopped a mob by hobbling out on her cane and just looking at them. I’m still not sure whether it’s an inherited trait or a skill passed down.”

“Both.” Celestia stopped and looked towards the lightly drawling voice to find the solid frame of Marshal Cloud Runner knelt beside the sprawled form of one of the palace guards, helping him drink from a canteen, a lamplighter’s lamp beside her.

“The inherited part was the presence, being able to menace without appearin’ to threaten them,” Cloud Running continued, taking a draw from her own canteen before helping the guard take another slow drink. “The skill was bein’ able to cow only the sorts they wanted scared of ‘em.”

“I see.” Celestia frowned down at where the guard was laying, then looked around and noted several other guards around, some slumbering with simple blankets and pillows, some being cared for by a half dozen or so Lamplighters. “May I help?”

“Thanks, but it’s not needed,” she said. “They’re exhausted, starved, and severely dehydrated but it’s easy to give a body sleep, food, and drink. The ones that’re in bad straits are bein’ looked after by the watcher, an’ while we don’t have substantial food on hoof, ‘bout a dozen watchers an’ a division of pullers are hauling a whole mess of rations in from an estate.”

“Earned your tenner,” Shining said with a big smile.

“And then some,” Marshal Runner said with a grin. “Thought I was fetching a watcher and some muscle from a watch post. Pretty much the whole damn order was waitin’ with a real big stick, already packed and ready to move like they knew I was coming.”

“Can’t imagine how they would,” Celestia said. “The only ones who knew that any of this was coming were the antagonists, Sotto Voce principally. Although she could have been deceiving us, I don’t believe that even Zambet was aware we’d be here.”

“Zambet?”

“The one who did all of this,” Shining said, gesturing at the dimness still hanging in the air. “When we first met her, it wasn’t clear that she was this powerful.”

“Our working theory is that she’s some manner of psychological predator,” Celestia said. “We know she can worm her way into your mind and show you what she wants you to see but I don’t know how it’s meant to benefit her. She claimed that the reason she was even in the palace was to get a ‘snack’ while waiting, but found a light meal instead. Said that the residents had a rare and exotic vintage of fear which… I don’t understand. Nothing about the guards we saw indicated fear, only exhaustion.”

“Perhaps they didn’t give her much fear,” Marshal Runner said. “So what she could squeeze out was real tasty. Anyhow, don’t know how they knew but we’re ‘bout to have more help than we know what to do with.”

“The Bell Watch.”

“An’ Field Marshal Light Shadow apparently,” Marshal Runner said. “Not sure which one’s the bigger stick. You’ve seen what the Watch can do, but Field Marshal Shadow’s special.”

“You mean her immortality?” Celestia said.

“Yeah, never dying is cool, but she’s the only field marshal I know who’s got her own castle.”

Celestia blinked. “Her own castle?”

“Yeah,” Marshal Runner said, finally getting up from the side of the guard she was helping and moving on to another. “Way the buck up north. Glass roof in iron fittings, doors with hinges that looked like they were made of silver and gold, crenulations, turrets, the whole kit.”

Celestia furrowed her brow. Glass roof in iron fittings? Bimetal hinges? “Do you remember the numerical pattern of the crenulations, Marshal Runner?”

Cloud Runner frowned thoughtfully, “No, I didn’t ever think to…”

“Three and two.” Celestia could feel her neck wrenching from her turning her head so sharply, but she hardly cared. The sight that greeted her matched the voice that was wonderfully familiar from millenia of mutual company: Luna, flanked by her daughters and the rest of the Elements, her expression fighting to remain stoic as she looked at Celestia.

“Light Shadow did indeed copy our old home Tia,” she continued, “and we are all in very grave danger.”

Author's Note

Like I said, Part Two is coming soon. ;) I'm really sorry this is taking so long and I rather expect that my readers are... minimal, if there at all. Still, this is becoming a personal project that I enjoy and that is going to have to be enough. But please, don't let that stop anyone from commentating, even up to and including explaining to me that I am a terrible person; at least that would be feedback.

I hope everyone enjoys the two-parter, and I aim to be better. Take care.

Striking the Match

Celestia didn’t stop to think about Luna’s comments as she stepped forward and embraced her little sister.

“Tia…” Luna’s protest was half-hearted at best, and she resisted returning the embrace for only a moment.

“It has only been a matter of days, sister, but it feels like far longer,” Celestia said to her, smiling as she let the smaller alicorn go.

“I can imagine,” Luna said, smiling back. “I heard about the plague, sister. Do you yet know how many perished?”

“No,” Celestia said. “But it could not have been many. Some being…”

“...sabotaged the plague,” Luna finished. “And then cut Canceros’ throat because she disdained him.”

She blinked at her sister’s words, and then. “She?”

“Field Marshal Light Shadow,” Luna said. “Who also uses the name ‘Penumbra’ and happens to own a creepily accurate copy of our old home. And by creepily-accurate, I mean that she recreated every scratch and dent.”

“So not an unwilling collaborator…”

“No sister, the mastermind of everything,” Luna said. “Vorka, Zambet, Cancerous… all of them are her tools in this. I don’t yet know what part the ‘Game’ that Spite warned us about plays in her scheme–it could very well be another feint–but it seems certain that her hoof was in that as well.”

“But to what end?” Celestia said. “How does she profit by doing any of this?”

“I do not yet understand her purpose,” Luna said. “She said that she planned to ‘shatter the yoke’ and that she was provoked to do all of this by our failure at the moment of crisis during the affair of Malyss and the changelings.”

“Queen Crysalis is a peach by the way,” Dawn piped up as she filed in with the rest of the Elements–sans Fluttershy–at her flanks. “Dressed us, fed us, gave Rares a neat gift, all the sort of good-royalty things.”

“I’m pleased that she treated you kindly,” Celestia said patting Dawn and then Twilight to reassure herself that her daughters were really there and in good health. She caught sight of a series of faint scars on Dawn and her eyes widened.

"Dawn! What happened?"

"Penny had a goon who loved his knives and cutting annoying ponies for fun," Dawn said with a nonchalance that seemed genuine but unsettling given the circumstances. "Said either he could cut me up himself or Penny would melt my brain. Think he believed it, but it was a load of horseapples."

"She was not confident in being able to use the powers of an established desme to disable the characteristic powers of Laughter, so she made sure the sadist greeted us," Twilight said. "She assumed that Pinkie would be the one to anger the sadist and lead him to inflict lasting full-body pain that would disable her. She reckoned without Dawn's personality or the fact that a talented alchemist named Green Leaf would be instructed to send an array of magical medicines with us that could accelerate healing and neutralize pain."

Celestia furrowed her brow. "I was aware that Light Shadow had the capacity to be ruthless but that is a degree above what I had expected." She looked steadily at Dawn. "And you're...?"

Dawn shrugged. "Totally healed," she said. "And honest... the guy wasn't great at inflicting pain. Razor-sharp knife, followed skin contours, all the kinds of stuff that pro surgeons do to tamp down on healing time."

Celestia shook her head. "I suppose there's nothing to do about it right now, but I will not forget this when I meet her." She tapped her chin thoughtfully with a hoof. "Green Leaf... I feel that I have heard that name."

"Gaius Zecora mentioned him Your Highness," Krysta volunteered. "Really loopy but he's to medical alchemy what Twilight is to scholarship."

Celestia nodded to her before looking at her daughters. "Other than letting a sadist loose on Dawn, how did Light Shadow receive you?"

“Like invited guests in a noble's estate,” Twilight said. “Captured us and then raided Ponyville for food and drink to make us comfortable. Said she left compensation…”

“...an’ she was telling the truth about that,” Applejack added.

“..but it was our first indication that she wasn’t really just a filly.”

“That and her preparations for us to accompany her,” Rarity said. “I know the industry. She had to have arranged for fitted winter clothes for months prior to any of this, which means she knew that she would meet us and take us on a journey over frozen sea ice.”

“The Dawnbreaker is an extraordinary achievement, isn’t it?”

“I’ve never seen anything like it,” Twilight said. “Metalclad, larger than any other ship I’ve seen, driven by hundreds of ponies working in,,,” She trailed off and looked at Celestia. “You knew it was out there?”

“Until just today no,” Celestia said. “I and Luna believed that it was inside the spell that removed the Crystal Empire from time. We never thought to travel deep into the Snowbell Sea just in case there were ships there.”

“Not that it woulda made a difference,” Dawn said. “Apparently ol’ Penny needed to do some kinda thing to whistle up the filly spirit so she’d turn off the magic. Till then, the ships were all frozen and looked completely empty.”

“Well, not completely.” Twilight grimaced. “We let her talk us out of looking inside the hold of the ship carrying the train.”

“Filly spirit?” Celestia’s brow furrowed at her two daughters.

“Matchlight,” Luna said. “Yes, that Matchlight. She somehow remained anchored to the Empire even after her death and it was she, not Night White, that was holding the Crystal Empire in a place outside of the stream of time.”

“And she is in active collaboration with Light Shadow,” Celestia said. “One of the Lamplighters told me that just prior to the spell being used, Light Shadow sent out a series of orders to make sure that everyone was prepared. She knew it was coming, and the only way she would know is if Matchlight was working with her.”

“That’s what she said,” Pinkamena offered from where she was flanking Luna. “Talked about how if Matchlight didn’t feel like turning off the spell, it would stop all her plans and she couldn’t do anything about it. Called Matchlight her friend.”

“Certainly consistent with how Matchlight–along with most emperors and empresses–treated her,” Luna said. “Amazing that an empress famously concerned with the common pony could be a part of all of this.”

“Unless she believed that what Penumbra planned to do would align with her goals.” The voice was vividly, almost painfully, familiar and the form of Nightmare Moon was just as painfully familiar as she came through the door just behind Luna, slipping deftly around Rarity and Applejack as she came. “Hello Celestia.”

Celestia consciously walled off all the emotions she had connecting to Nightmare Moon–her feeling of betrayal as she realized that Luna was collaborating with the being, the storm of conflicting feelings over Nightmare saying farewell, and the emotions connecting with the last time she’d seen her–and schooled her face into a neutral expression. “Nightmare.”

“Nachtmiri if you wish to be formal,” Nightmare said. “Which… I have a feeling that a lot of strained politeness is in my future.” She glanced aside at Luna, who was wearing a similarly schooled expression. “And not just me.”

“Am I wrong?”

“Not at all,” Nightmare–Nachmiri–said. “However, I’m sure you’re aware that we don’t have much time to discuss how justifiably upset you are with both of us.”

Celestia blinked at her. “Upset? You are under the impression that I am merely upset? Do you have any idea how…”

“...lonely you were?” Nachtmiri smiled, but it was a hollow one. “Celestia, you will not believe me, but I empathize with you in that. Please, however… we don’t have a great deal of time to spend. You can castigate us for our wrongdoing later.”

Celestia looked steadily at her for a moment before she nodded. “You’re right, we don’t have the time. But this isn’t over.”

“Nor should it be.” Nactmiri said. “Now, I know some of what Luna knows about the nature of Empress Matchlight. I suspect that the Elements know far less. What is your estimation of the mare and whether this fits with her nature?”

“My estimation of Matchlight is that she was goal-fixated while being extremely flexible about how she achieved the goal, although she preferred the least extreme means to get to her end,” Celestia said. “Unfortunately, this entire scheme does conform with her nature if she regarded all of this to be the least extreme means.”

“I shudder to imagine what she regarded as more extreme than this.” Luna sighed. “But we can’t exactly ask her. Unless…?” She looked at Dawn and Twilight.

“She had a match that she struck to do it,” Twilight said. “And for some reason, needed to remove all of her warm clothing. Even if we could figure out what the purpose of being cold was…” She paused, visibly thinking.

“Maybe we could make another match,” Dawn said.

“No.” Pinkamena said, her voice more firm than Celestia had ever heard from the normally bubbly mare. “The illusion was too real.”

“It wasn’t an illusion,” Celestia said. “Matchlight’s name matches her special talent in an unusually precise way; it’s possible that she was named for her talent as a point of fact. Her match spell recreates a joyous memory, firmly establishing it in reality. If there is a fireplace in your memory, even if you’re freezing in reality, you will come back to yourself genuinely warmed-up. It is a unique power, and each match she made is imbued with it. She had to have given the match to Light Shadow herself.”

“Did you collect any while she was alive?”

“A great many,” Luna said. “By the end of her life, she had mastered the talent to such a degree that she could enchant them by the boxful. But it was over a century between her passing and the disappearance of the Empire, and matches that can let someone experience their happiest moments are an excellent gift to offer.”

“Even if any of those that the matches were given to restrained themselves, it would take a long while to find out who,” Celestia said. “And we have an urgent need to speak to her.”

“You might try going to the throne room and asking.” Celestia turned her head to see that Marshal Runner had looked up from taking care of one of the slumbering guards. “The Bell Watch is always talking about how Empress Matchlight actively leads them. If these,” and she gestured to the Elements, “have seen Matchlight’s spirit and spoken to her, then the Bell Watch may have been telling the truth this entire time.”

“The one I met did not seem very pleased to meet me.”

Marshal Runner shrugged. “They take their duties far too seriously and don’t care for foreigners–even well-regarded friends of the Empire. But they’re just as responsive to a polite request as any other reasonable person.”

“I’ll talk to him Tia,” Luna said. “The Watch seemed to… if not like me necessarily, be civil with me.”

“There is no need General.” The Watcher materialized through the shattered remains of the throne room door. “The conversation was not difficult to overhear. You wish to speak to our empress, Celestia?”

Celestia allowed herself a blink of surprise at the abrupt appearance. “I do.”

“Then your timing is perfect, for our empress requests and requires your presence in the throne room.” He looked at Marshal Runner. “Except yourself and those who are aiding the sick and injured, Marshal.”

“All of us, sir?” Twilight said.

“Yes,” he said. “Come this way.”

Celestia glanced aside at Luna, who gave her a barely-perceptible shrug, before following the Bell Watch pony into the still-dimmed throne room, although none of the miasma that Zambet had brought was present so the crystal lamps were visible high above. The Watcher brought them to be nearly within reach of the throne itself before gesturing them to stop. He then turned and saluted the empty throne. “Empress, I have brought them to you as required.”

After a moment, there was a very exasperated, very familiar sigh from the side of the room. “Chapter Master, I admire your dutifulness but why are you saluting an empty throne?” Matchlight’s cultured voice said, her accent strongly Equestrian rural nobility rather than the unusual manner of the Empire. “Have you summoned the palace physician?”

The Watcher redirected his salute in the direction the voice was coming from. “The entity concentrated her efforts on disabling him as a first measure.”

There was a long pause. “And?”

The Bell Watch chapter master’s slightly disdainful stoicism cracked slightly as Celestia glimpsed a touch of sheepishness. “And I will send a runner to the hospital at once. I beg your pardon Your Imperial…”

“Yes, yes, you’re pardoned,” Matchlight interrupted, sounding exasperated. “Just light a fire under your hooves and show some damned initiative.”

The chapter master no longer attempted to conceal his sheepishness, and immediately turned and trotted out of the room at a change of pace. There was another sigh, this one more tired than exasperated, and Celestia turned towards the sound. “I understand you wished to speak with us, Empress Matchlight?”

“More like, you wished to speak with me and I find it necessary to speak with you. Just a moment please, I’m still getting used to the configuration of the throne room enchantments again.” There was a sharp tap-tap and the entire room was bathed instantly in daylight. Celestia closed her eyes involuntarily in reaction to the sudden swift change from dim to bright and when she opened them a moment later, Matchlight was occupying the throne.

Matchlight had always reminded Celestia strongly of the matriarchs of the Du Closs family in that when she was in a room, you could feel her presence even if her small stature sometimes made her hard to see in a crowd. White-maned in stark contrast to all other changeling nobility Celestia had ever met and with the exquisite ascetic features of very, very old-blood Equestrian nobility, she cut an impressive figure even though she was so small that even seated in an elevated throne she still couldn’t look Celestia in the eye. She also had her horn glowing dimly, although Celestia couldn’t see any particular spell being worked or any discernible purpose to it.

“You look a thousand years older than the last time I saw you,” Matchlight said after a moment of silence. “Like you’ve been carrying the weight of the world.”

“I have,” Celestia said. “If the field marshal has been keeping you informed, you know why.”

Matchlight smiled, but there was a clear sadness to it. “She didn’t have to. I… am not trapped in the borders of the Empire. Beyond them I have no power, not even to make myself known, but I can wander mostly where I will.” She closed her eyes and slumped in the throne. “It’s not right that you should have been made to be so agonizingly alone for this entire time, Celestia. What Light desires is good, but it was not until I had completed my part that I was fully aware that the kind and warm mare I treasured during my life and enjoyed the company of during my eternal vigil over my empire has some… very cold and cruel blemishes.”

“What she desires is good?” Luna stepped forward, glaring at the apparition. “Do you have any idea what she’s been up to, Match? Crippling two of the Elements, employing a thing like Zambet, letting another thing experiment on innocent people for some mad purpose, letting some eldritch monster unleash a pandemic on Equestria just to send up a beacon at a place she knows by heart? In what mad reality is any of that worth whatever bizarre objective she has?”

“The objective is a shared one.” Matchlight opened her eyes again. “How long since you had something to eat, General?”

The question clearly took Luna aback and she had to hesitate a moment before the glare returned. “What the buck does that have to do with anything?”

“You’ll recall that making sure hungry ponies had regular, hot, nourishing meals no matter their impoverishment was something of a fixation of mine in life.” Matchlight smiled, broadly and without the sadness this time. “It transpires that we are all spirits within bodies and remain who we were in life after death. So while you read me the riot act, General, I shall have the staff–those who Zambet’s little foray didn’t harm–prepare something.”

“One thing first,” Celestia said. “Why did you have the chapter master send a runner to the hospital?”

“My…” Matchlight sighed. “The current living occupant of the throne was badly harmed by what Zambet did. Not so much that he is in danger, but professional care is required.” She gestured off to a side with her head. “If you happen to have any among the Elements with medical knowledge, they are of course welcome to do whatever seems best to them. I would ask the help of Kindness but… well, you certainly know by now.”

“Zambet put her in a coma,” Luna said. “Used some kind of extraordinarily powerful…”

“...contingency,” Matchlight sighed again. “We weren’t certain that Zambet could use them against the Elements, even fulfilling all the conditions, since to strike the Bearer requires throwing down with the manifest spirit. Or so we believed.” She shook her head. “When Light warned that she had employed an eldritch horror but had very limited means of control, I thought she was being overly cautious.”

“It seems like she has no control at all Matchlight,” Celestia said. “Zambet crippled Fluttershy–the Bearer of Kindness–and came here to sup on the staff and your heir. I doubt either or those things were Light Shadow’s will.”

“The second was,” Matchlight said. “Zambet infusing the Palace ensured she would be at a specific place at a specific time and with ample warning, and the use of Light’s Archive, she was primed to abandon the position when my Bell Watch arrived. She is cunning and knows our purpose in making her aware, but has concluded–accurately–that the Bell Watch constitutes our own contingency against her going off-script.”

“And Fluttershy?”

“Zambet is under the impression that she can do as she pleases without consequences. She will learn otherwise at a time and in a way you will see for yourselves.” Matchlight frowned. “But I fear that Fluttershy herself will spend some time under the care of Verdant Heart. We will find some way to recompense her for the evil our folly did to her.”

“Why do it at all?” Twilight stepped forward. “What’s this all for, Your Highness? Why would you work with something like Zambet, and why would you keep supporting Light after she revealed that she’d hired a thing like Zambet to complete her plan?”

“She didn’t ‘reveal’ it to me Twilight,” Matchlight said. “She proposed the idea, and I agreed to support it. Sotto Voce explained her in detail to us, although he stipulated that she is like all of the Named in that she does not reveal her actual power to anyone whom she expects to survive the experience. Light used the fragments that Sotto Voce conveyed to us to give Zambet the impression that we had discerned enough about her power that it would be pointless to continue to be secretive, so she explained it. Not fully–we still have no idea how she gained it–but we learned enough to put strictures on her ability to use it while under contract.”

“Zambet keeps to the liberally-interpreted letter of her agreements,” Nightmare said, “and the way she was able to use the contingency–poking Kindness until the manifest spirit tried to smite her–trampled all over the spirit while holding to the letter.”

Matchlight snorted. “She’s a monster, but I give her credit for sheer insane bravery. Kindness is by far the manifest spirit most dangerous to a thing like Zambet since she has the tools to heal the profound psychic wounds that Zambet can inflict. It’s even very possible that Kindness has the raw power to transmit a lethal blow backwards through the link that the Void construct-form of Zambet maintains with her genuine self.”

“That’s likely why Zambet targeted her,” Nightmare said. “It seemed odd to me that Zambet would waste a contingency when she could have simply abandoned the position, and I had assumed she was surprised by how dangerous Kindness is and was forced to act. Now, I’m not sure, about the surprise part at least.”

“She made very good use of the Archive,” Matchlight said. “Likely, she understands the nature of the Elements better than any one mortal, although I understand them reasonably well. Light appears to understand…” She paused as one of the palace guard appeared, looking surprisingly well. “Yes?”

“Nurse from the hospital to attend to the… erm, Night White.”

“It’s proper to call him ‘Emperor,’ it’s his legitimate title,” Matchlight said. “Also, that was suspiciously fast.”

“I apologize for the delay Empress,” a burly stallion said as he stepped passed the guard, already opening a case of what Celestia recognized as basic examination instruments. “The Watch Captain hastened to send a runner to the hospital and failed to see that Helpinghoof already called us up for an emergency shift.”

Matchlight sighed and nodded towards the corner. “Checking his breathing and pulse is the extent of my knowledge, but both seemed… acceptable.”

“Very good, Your Highness.” It wasn’t until the nurse had walked passed her that Celestia was able to make out the mostly-still form of Night White, still dressed in his finery, sprawled out on a pad of several quilts. The nurse put down his case and began a basic examination with the brisk professionalism of routine while Celestia turned her look back to Matchlight, who was looking at the guard.

“Was there anything else?” she asked.

“Some of the other hospital staff have arranged for food and drink,” he said. “Fortified orange radish soup. The maid staff are setting a table for your guests as we speak.”

Matchlight grinned broadly. “Outstanding,” she said. “It’s good to see that the palace staff keeps up the tradition of initiative. You are dismissed.” She looked to Celestia as the guard bowed and left. “In my time, it was a strange day indeed that the staff failed to fulfill my every request before I even thought to make it.”

“I enjoy the same level of ability among my own staff,” Celestia said. “Many of whom are drawn from certain noble families.”

“Such as those that live in the Pillars District.” Matchlight nodded. “I think history would have been much different if we had the old blood of Equestria, instead of having to build our own in the wake of a revolution.” She straightened up and then hopped off the throne. “General, you never did answer how long it’s been since you’ve eaten.”

“I am not a general anymore,” Luna said.

“You were,” Matchlight said as she trotted passed their group, presumably towards the dining hall, with the sound of her steps clearly audible. “And it’s a better title. You are a princess because you wear a crown. You are a general because you earned it.” She paused and turned to look at Luna. “Unless you prefer I call you by your name?”

“We call you by yours,” Celestia pointed out as she stepped a few times to catch up with the very solid-looking ghost.

“That has merit.” She looked at Luna again. “Luna you never did answer how long it’s been since you’ve eaten.”

Luna visibly thought about this for a moment. “I think it was… when we met Kyra in the…”

“Princess Kyra?” Krysta said.

“The ambassador to the Griffin Provinces?” Anori said.

“...well, yes.” Luna looked sheepish. “I believe that would have been a couple days ago.”

Matchlight snorted. “Little wonder you’re grouchy. Well don’t worry, we Empire ponies have just the thing.”

Author's Note

I promise that it didn't actually take me this long to write something this short. What happened was that I went on for a while before it occurred to me that I could slice off part of it and post it as its own chapter. ^_^;; Sorry for the huge gaps in posting, whatever readers of mine that remain. Hope you guys enjoy, hoping the next chapter doesn't take nearly this long, and hope that people will share any commentary and critique.

...I just realized it's been a year since I last posted a chapter. That's deeply depressing to me, at least partly because people probably assume this was dead.

The Hammer Raised

Author's Note

I'm going to put this at the top because I feel like I really owe people an apology. I have been messing around with this thing for ages, changing very little and all the while making this story seem like it's been abandoned while incomplete. I apologize for that, and thank whatever few of you are left for your forebearance. With a dramatic change in my life, I am hopeful that I can make all the changes I need to in myself to be more consistent with this and deliver an actual story in a more reasonable time span. I again apologize, and thank you for sticking with me. Comments, as always, are welcome and desired.

The Hammer Raised

It had been over a thousand years since Celestia had a meal in the Crystal Empire, so she felt quite blameless about having forgotten just how heavily they leaned on root vegetables that were less sensitive to cold, and vine fruits and vegetables that could be easily grown in dense hothouses by guiding the long winding stems along tall wooden meshworks. The result was that orange radish soup was really more like a stew heavily fortified with onions, yams, potatoes and turnips and served with sticks of whatever squash was in season, lightly fried in peanut oil to bring out the sweetness. Celestia could tell by how vigorously Luna tucked into the food that her little sister had been famished and hadn’t realized it. She also noticed how naturally and unconsciously Nightmare imitated Luna’s mannerisms, which she tucked into the back of her mind for later.

To her surprise, Matchlight had also been served a bowl of the soup and was eating it as naturally as any living pony might. The empress seemed to sense her (and everyone else’s) eyes on her because she stopped and looked over the table. “Magic,” she said with a grin. “No other explanation is necessary.”

“You’re doing something like what the Evils do,” Twilight said.

“Yes.” Matchlight paused, thinking. “No. Well, yes, but also no. It’s the same concept but different application. The body I’m occupying is a physical echo of my metaphysical self.”

“A physical..?”

“The Evils mold metaphysical substance into bodies, which can be anything they wish,” Matchlight said. “I am a mold into which metaphysical substance is poured, and I can only be what I was. I was malnourished in my youth and so very small in my adulthood, and while possessed of a physical form, I can only ever be a very small mare of a specific appearance.” She smiled. “And I’m not a genius at magic, I simply listened closely when Sotto Voce had detailed high-theory discussions with Light.”

“Now,” Matchlight continued, looking towards Luna. “The esteemed general was about to ream me good and proper before we were diverted into other things.”

Luna politely dabbed her mouth with a cloth napkin and she fixed Matchlight with a hard look. “What the hay happened to you, Matchlight?”

Matchlight blinked a couple of times, clearly taken aback. “Beg pardon?”

“During your life you were their hero,” Luna said. “You broke the pullers out of serfdom, built the foundation of the significant improvements Lamplight would make, and quite literally wrapped your own blanket around shivering ponies and fed them at your own table. And what is the first we see of you as the guardian spirit of your empire? Paling around with a vicious evil like Zambet, scheming to do something with destiny, and it turned out that the event we have always called the abomination was your doing. What happened to the Begger Empress, Matchlight?”

Matchlight sighed. “She led a revolution,” she said. “She was crowned empress, bore a beautiful daughter that inherited her father’s inherent goodness, buried a hero of her people, passed the throne to the greatest empress the Empire has ever known, and died content and loved.”

The former empress took a spoonful of soup and sipped it. “Then a wicked and malicious force called ‘destiny’ entwined her spirit with a source of very nearly unlimited power, and you are now looking at the result.” She looked over at the Element Bearers, who had chosen to cluster together. “Girls, do any of you know Starswirl’s maxim of power?”

“It wasn’t technically his max…” Twilight flinched as Dawn lightly smacked her over the head with a hoof. “Do you mean his observation that power does not corrupt or create, but makes a person more of what they already are?”

Matchlight gave her a nod and gestured towards Twilight with a hoof. “That is what happened to the Begger Empress, General: she gained immense power and became more of what she already was. A firebrand, a revolutionary, a patriot, and a pony willing to do what she must to achieve an important enough goal. I know that you know that I never once feared to pick up the hammer when the hoofshake failed.”

“But it was always a last resort,” Celestia said. “You were careful about violence.”

“Violence has a tendency to fly out of control and have results you didn’t anticipate,” Matchlight said with a nod. “It is also…”

“...fragile,” Luna said. At a nod from Matchlight, she continued. “We saw it with the Havens towards the end, how the tide of mob violence broke upon them and lost all of its energy. It’s what made Tia’s decision… safe to make.”

“There has never been a question in my mind that Celestia would have waited until the changelings could leave safely before she resorted to something like exile,” Matchlight said. “There have been over a thousand years of experiments upon destiny. How to guide it, how to understand it, how to avoid it, how to embrace it, and how to meddle with it. No gentler method even slightly deters destiny from whatever course it is taken, and that is why I am willing to resort to this.”

“Violence,” Celestia said. “Inflicting the plague upon Equestria.”

“Letting that Vorka creature loose in the Provinces to experiment upon the griffons,” Luna said.

Matchlight sighed and nodded. “You forgot what Zambet did to Fluttershy and Light subduing the dragons for a time. But yes, all of that is the price of the hard approach. Light believes that with the luxury of time she could have devised a way to accomplish it without employing the services of Vorka and appropriating Canceros from the hand of the cosmic player that was making a bid for Equestria, but circumstances closed that road before we could explore it.”

“But didn’t you have time?” Everyone turned to look at Cadance, who had been watching and listening quietly the entire time. “Auntie says that the Empire vanished a thousand years ago and it’s clear that it was something you chose to do. If you hadn’t, wouldn’t that thousand years have…”

“...been enough?” Matchlight shook her head. “Princess Chidinida…”

“Cadence, please.”

“Cadence, please understand that while my profound regret at not being able to pass my guardianship to my daughter has always been in my heart, understanding destiny being the culprit was a theory developed and demonstrated during our sojourn out of time.”

“The… abomination?”

Matchlight rolled her eyes. “I struggle to believe that you two earnestly thought that a greedy little scrap of a tyrant was capable of something so profound as removing the Empire from reality,” she said, looking at Luna and Celestia in turn. “Not that it was a decision worthy of a great ruler.”

“Why?”

Matchlight sighed. “For all the legend around me, Celestia, I was not and am not a particularly courageous person. When the pony I trusted the most–Light–warned me that she believed that Discord was teetering on the edge of going entirely mad I assumed the worst. That there would be no stopping him. That he would reign over the world like a capricious and sadistic god.”

“All of which was true,” Celestia said quietly. “So you…”

“Yes” Matchlight nodded, her voice quiet now. “I saved who I could, the ponies of the Empire, the ones that I am responsible for. I abandoned the rest of you in an act of supreme cowardice and selfishness… and I would do it again. Because when the chips are down and the way is perilous, I am a coward, and emphatically not a good person. I am also proof that destiny is not a force for good.”

Celestia looked aside at her sister and then at the ashamed Matchlight. “What do you mean?”

“I mean that destiny could have fallen upon a ruler who was actually great,” Matchlight said. “A ruler who presided over eighty years of peaceful expansion, who established sea trade with Equestria, who made the poor houses a source of pride and a fixture of Imperial culture, who established the Lamplighters to guide ponies through the storms the windnegos drive, and raised the Crystal Empire from an isolated power in a frozen waste to a center of culture and creativity.”

“Lamplight,” Luna said.

Matchlight inclined her head. “My precious Light, the joy of my life, the pride of my soul. A builder who took the ashes of my revolution and rebirthed all that I had burned down into something far greater than it had been before. The calm after the storm, the steady hoof upon the tiller of the ship of state. Knowing precisely what would happen had history taken a different course is impossible but Lamplight would at least have been different and her nature would have inclined her to endure the Reign of the Mad God instead of fleeing from it. Just that one thing would have changed everything.”

“The Exile wouldn’t have happened,” Celestia said, quietly.

“With an empire founded by a changeling noble family, heavily populated by changelings, sitting across the Equestrian northern border?” Matchlight shook her head. “It could never have worked. And with the Black Host preserved as the shield of Equestria, and future rulers of the Empire following already-laid plans to build more metalclads like the Dawnbreaker, not a parasprite could have stirred without our leave.”

“The crises of a thousand years would have played out in the shadow of a professional military ready to act if those involved refused to settle matters peacefully.” Between one blink and the next, Light Shadow was simply there, standing on Matchlight’s right at a comfortable parade rest. “With the option of force removed, the maternal wings of the Sun and Moon would have stretched over the entire world, and nothing would be the same.” She turned to Matchlight and bowed. “Hey Match. Enjoying your company?”

“It’s been far too long since I’ve enjoyed the presence of Equestria’s rulers.” She glanced towards Luna with a grin. “Even if they’re fully prepared to call me on the carpet for my misdeeds. How are things going out there?”

“The 731st have dug in near the disembarkation point to await the following locomotives and are well on their way to emptying the city. I left orders for them to arrange for a beacon to be sent as well.” She looked over at Luna. “You missed some outstanding chowder, Princess. The storehouses at Glacierfast still had their spring haul of shellfish and Snowbell clam is the best there is.”

“I was under the impression that my sister was in danger,” Luna said dryly. “I wonder who could have suggested that.”

Penumbra smirked at her before shaking her head and looking amused. “I shouldn’t enjoy exploiting the fact that you are both deeply dedicated to your family, but it does sometimes amuse me. You rushing ahead with everyone else was necessary because once I wheedled you into coming here, I needed to ensure you were ignorant of my specific purpose in bringing soldiers.” She looked at Matchlight. “The Bell Watch?”

“Marshal Cloud Runner earned her tenner by three,” Matchlight said. “Correctly guessing exactly which outpost they’d rally at is veteran work. They’ve even now gotten their cargo of rations into the undercity entry at the Ald Red Gate and moved a bell transport to the library steeple. I haven’t spoken to them–I’ve been receiving the Princesses and their entourage here–but it seems certain that they brought their highest-purity iron bell up from its storage shaft.” She paused at Penumbra’s sudden aghast expression. “It’s a last resort, and don’t make that expression at me. You can never have too many hole cards.”

“Um.” Dawn raised a hoof. “What do you mean…?”

“Did you say that your soldiers are well on the way to emptying the city?” Although she didn’t speak louder than Dawn, there was something about Luna’s voice that made Dawn go silent instantly. Celestia glanced towards her sister and saw Luna staring at Matchlight intensely. “A city of tens of thousands?”

It would take hours to empty Canterlot. The thought hit Celestia suddenly, and just as suddenly another thing occurred to her. “How many hours have you been at work, Field Marshal?”

“By accurate measure, the 731st has been at work for over twelve hours and the Bell Watch only a little less,” Penumbra said.

“Twelve hours?” Twilight said. “But it’s only been an…” She glanced at Matchlight’s still faintly-glowing horn realization visibly dawned. “You’ve addled our perception of time. The dishes are all enchanted to preserve the heat and freshness of everything put into them.”

“I’m a little surprised that Magic…”

“Munin.”

“...that Munin didn’t notice the ongoing spell,” Penumbra said.

“I did take care to blend it into the ambient magical energy,” Matchlight said. “Although there is little point in the charade now that you know what is happening.” She dowsed her horn.

“She’s never seen magic fueled by positive emotional radiance in operation.” Twilight smiled a little. “She says it feels like cotton and soap bubbles.” She paused a moment. “How did you know that Munin was…”

“...actively conversing with you?” Penumbra shrugged. “We didn’t formulate our erroneous hypothesis that Zambet’s contingencies couldn’t touch the six of you on hopes and wishes. We did the heavy lifting to understand their nature as much as possible.”

“You thought that the Elements would be immune to Zambet’s contingencies?” Nightmare snorted.

“Laughter can bend reality as she pleases,” Penumbra said, “and the rest are of comparable power. So yes, we thought that. Zambet has never levied a contingency at a mortal that has an immortal spirit jealously protective of their partner taking up metaphysical space. It seemed reasonable to suppose that the Elements could disrupt the attempt.”

“Munin says that your supposition has merit but they’d have needed to know what to watch for.”

Penumbra frowned and nodded. “Unfortunately, we had no means by which to warn them, and honestly Munin: would you have believed us?”

“She says… um, just a moment, she says she wants to talk to you herself. This will take a minute.” So saying, she lit her horn and began working on what seemed like some kind of complex casting.

“Why lay such a deception?” Celestia said. “Deceiving us into thinking less time had passed.”

“It slowed you down,” Matchlight said. “Gave us time to…”

“...get your citizens to safety,” Cadence said. “You fear that Zambet will use them if it comes to blows with her.”

“We know that she will use them,” Matchlight said. “There are turntables at the terminus of the line from Glacierfast; as quickly as the locomotives arrive, they are being sent out full of Imperial citizens. Under the gaze of the Dawnbreaker and the mixed company bivouacked nearby, they will be beyond her reach.”

“And there’s that bell.” Dawn said. “You called it a hole card. How the hay is a bell a ‘hole card’?”

“Don’t discount it,” Luna said seriously. “There’s an artifact bell out there somewhere–we think that the du Dune family has it because they have a disturbing gift for securing dangerous things–that consumes magic when you ring it. Original owner was called Grogar.”

“Fortunately he’s gone,” Celestia said. “Watching the Bell at work was terrifying to behold. The strongest magic and the… strongest constructs…” A horrible thought suddenly occurred to her. That Bell Watch pony’s bell broke Zambet’s hold with the same terrible ease. She swallowed and looked at Matchlight and Penumbra. “...what did you do?”

“Before I answer that, know that du Dune has secured Grogar’s Bell against any attempt to take it,” Penumbra said. “Even I, who can deflect enough raw power to shatter a mountain, would hesitate to force the issue.”

“I have seen the Bell at work Light Shadow,” Celestia said. “When that stallion of the Bell Watch sounded the one he carried, it looked like that. It didn’t occur to me at the time because the notion that an ordinary person would be carrying around an artifact was too far-fetched to consider.”

Luna looked between them, looking as aghast as Penumbra had been when Matchlight mentioned a high-purity iron bell. “You duplicated Grogar’s Bell?”

“No one can duplicate the Bell,” Matchlight said. “How Grogar had such an artifact will always be a mystery. But we found a way to imitate what it does by carefully studying it. The more expertly-smelted the iron, the more powerful the effect is.”

“Zambet’s form on any mortal plane is a magical construct,” Nightmare said. “But what is the point of keeping her out of a single city? She’ll just go and amuse herself on the rest of your empire.”

“The bells don’t do anything to Zambet,” Penumbra said, “I tested their effect on her while we were conducting… unrelated experiments. However, while they’re harmless to her, they make her unable to use any power or magic of hers. One such power is being able to slip into the Void as a form of teleportation. It’s not a matter of keeping her out, but keeping her in.”

“Zambet is aware of this?” Nightmare said.

“We can’t be sure what she knows,” Matchlight said. “She has heavily-perused Light’s Archive but she can’t know all of the right questions to fully understand our resources and contingencies. What we are certain that she knows is what the Watcher who broke her hold here demonstrated: they have a way to break her constructs and disrupt her magic that she can do nothing about.”

Nightmare nodded. “With all of this, I’m surprised that she’s lingering with the forces converging here. My–well, Selune’s–memory of the pullers is that they cannot be taken lightly even though they don’t have the kind of flexible magic that can be used for spells. That Watcher purging all of her constructs by ringing a bell was a very clear demonstration of how just one of an entire order of ponies can endanger her.” She looked hard at Penumbra and then Matchlight. “What are you paying her that’s worth lingering within reach of extremely dangerous mortals for an extended period of time?”

“If I reveal that she will be tipped off in short order,” Penumbra said. “You are all fundamentally good, which is an admirable quality to be sure, but would be extremely dangerous in this situation. Untethered from her agreements, she’ll do as she pleases and you emphatically do not want that to happen.”

“So far, Zambet has seemed to care only about living creatures she can snack on and power,” Celestia said. “I will not abide you trading either one. You have to know that.”

“We do,” Penumbra said. “But that is where this discussion ends. We are keeping the terms of the…”

“Good.” All the gazes in the room swung towards where Twilight had been preparing her casting, and more specifically to the tall lavender-coated mare standing beside her wearing an expertly-fitted waistcoat and tall hat in a dull brown that was emphatically–and most suspected purposefully–out of the style of the time.

Munin adjusted her simulacrum’s brass-rimmed spectacles with a frown, looking at Penumbra and then Matchlight. “Now that we can have a word Penumbra, Matchlight, perhaps you can enlighten me as to exactly what mad idea the two of you have cooked up related to cutie marks.” She withdrew a golden pocket watch from the waistcoat and placed it on the table, tapping it with her hoof. “We are on a strict schedule, incidentally, so make it snappy.”

Wrath and Watch

“It’s nice.”

His hostess’ gimlet eye momentarily froze him in place, keeping him pinned where he was for just enough time to remind him of who she was, before she turned. “Nice.”

“Ostentatious? Showy? Hideously gauche?”

“I’m certain that somewhere here is a timekeeping mechanism so I know how much of my time you are wasting and thus how many pounds of flesh to take from your hide.” She informed him coldly. “And speaking of hideously gauche…”

He was tempted, foolishly, momentarily, before letting it pass. “I’m still alive so I can only assume that you were amused enough to entertain me.”

“Doth my ears deceive me?” She smirked. “A protégé of Folly…”

“Lord Quezel…”

“Folly,” she interrupted sharply, a hint of mockery in her tone. “An idiot going from failure to failure, defeated before he even thought about fighting, played by Trilychi like one of those absurd druumakai noisemakers. Followed by more like him, just as stupid, and some who were stupid and then grew wise. Have you grown wise, heir of Folly?”

“I would scarcely conceive of the game otherwise.”

“That remains to be seen.” She turned from him and swayed over to the large, square rough-hewn table, resting a hand on it and pivoting, swinging around to the far side and leaning over the table so stormy golden eyes could lock onto his. “You are bold, at least, and not cowardly.”

“I can scarce gather prizes if I’m too frightened of failure to remain on the field.” He stepped forward to stand opposite her. “And I have gathered many prizes.”

“Yes.” Her lips compressed very slightly. “The hope of a beloved, the music of a bard, the love of a friend, the joy of a parent, the destiny of an entire world, the light in the darkness. Fit prizes, to be sure, but fit for whom? That is what separates those of Power from others.”

He permitted himself a smirk. “You are displeased.”

“I am.” The grand, throne-like chair hadn’t been there before but now, she pulled it out and sat in it, looming over him despite looking up at him from her seat. “You’ve paid the price to come in the door but will you even be entertaining sport with such prizes?”

“You must have thought I would if you permitted me a chair at this table,” he responded reasonably, taking his seat in a much less ostentatious but equally comfortable chair.

“Your origin, and the fact that you are alive, intrigues me. I desire to see what prize you’re after and why you think you can snatch it from me.” She placed a hand palm-up on the table, a small black object that looked like a reptile scale smoldering inside. “My opening wager: corruption vanquished.”

He imitated her gesture, a white flame dancing on his open palm. “Hope stolen.”
Both eyebrows went up. “That’s a rich wager for a minor prize.”

“But meet for a rich prize,” he responded.

Her gaze grew wary. “And what is the prize?”

“Magic poisoned,” he proclaimed. “My first prize will be an optimus of a measured world.”

His hostess looked steadily at him, searching for a hint of uncertainty or jest, before her face became stone. “Name?”

“Sol Selune.”

Dead eyes regarded him. “No.”

“No?”

“No,” she repeated. “You bargain for the second of my patron worlds. I permitted Folly to bargain for the first and he slaughtered pointlessly, doing harm without any prospect of being victorious.”

“What if this wasn’t to be a game of overt war?”

She regarded him. “Explain.”

“War is… untidy and not necessary,” he replied. “We both know that there are particular individuals upon whom all the world turns. I propose to war on a much more subtle level for the optimus I wish as my prize.”

“I am intrigued. Continue.”

“I will corrupt the optimus with temptation and pain. It can be done and was done quite recently and thoroughly by one of my lesser, although to a much older and more seasoned target.”

She stared at him before her mouth curled into a smirk. “What do you propose for the laws of our contest?”

“Any tool we have is game. Neither can kill or cause to be killed but death is allowed, so long as it’s not the will of the players.” He stated. “A neutral mediator will decide victory and award the prize.”

“Allies are tools?”

“Of course.”

“Very well, but with a condition: the mediator will be Lord Trilychi of the Eighth. Neither of us can predict him and he acts according to his own motivations. He favors neither of us and so, neither of us have an advantage under his judgment.”

He swallowed, feeling a quiver of fear at the idea of the seemingly omniscient Lord supervising. “But he’s…”

Her eyes narrowed. “You should have counted all the costs before you were bold, boy. Either accept that you will suffer at his claws for your stupidity and impudence even if you are victorious, or take your wager and leave my place.”

“That’s not my…”

“I do not especially care.” Dead eyes suddenly lit up with anger. “Take a care, scion of the Void, and heed well: in bargaining for my most precious possession, for an optimus that is exquisite and beautiful to me, you have insulted me. I keep such tools hidden in my hands that you can scarce comprehend them and because you offer a calculated insult, I have a mind to use them all without restraint. I have in my hands allies of staggering power, one of whom is below your own rank but causes even the recklessly courageous to cower in their ranks for fear. I will entertain you and play your game but you had best hope you win or I shall harm you such that all creation speaks of it. And if you harm more than you ought, if you break the laws of this contest, if you attempt to take the Dusk or the Dark from me by wrong means, you are forfeit. Do we understand one another?”

He swallowed again, abruptly reminded once again that in this contest, his opposition was not a mere lieutenant or guardian but one of the Lights herself. After several moments of shaking a little under the weight of the reminder, he carefully stilled his trembling and looked across the table at his opponent with what he hoped was a blank, if not calm, expression. “We do.”

“Good.” And just like that, the table was occupied by a chess board, one larger than a typical chessboard would be and without any of the pieces. She inclined her head towards him. “I will concede first gambit to you.”

“Ought we to await our mediator?”

She laughed, a genuine and not-mocking laugh. “And deprive him of the tantalizing challenge of seeing the game in the middle and having to discern the beginning from it? One does not wisely commission a mediator such as he without offering payment and exercises of intellect are rich payment indeed in his mind.”

“That is well-said and I thank you for the concession.” He raised his hand and a vaguely human-esque figure with a scroll in one hand and an upraised pistol in the other materialized to be grasped between thumb and forefinger and moved forward one space. “Your move.”

She gave a short laugh of delight. “Ah, you are much more cunning than you appear! Very well then; you invoke wrath and watchfulness and I shall invoke...”

“…the shape of the gem, darling.”

Twilight Sparkle blinked and looked up from her scroll, already nearly full of tidy hornwriting. “The shape of the gem?”

A tiny tension around her lips was the only sign that Rarity was irritated at the question, a sign that stood out like a red flag for a close friend but would be all but invisible to anypony else. “Yes, dear, the details are important and one of those details is the shape of the gem.”

Twilight hurriedly wrote this down. “The current shape or the shape you need it to be at the end?”

Rarity smiled a little, amused. “I’m not a gemcutter, darling. I can do some rough shaping but for intricate work, I know somepony in Manehattan.” The fashionista canted her head slightly. “Why are you worried about gemcutting anyway, Twilight?”

Twilight shuffled her hooves a little. “Well, I was going to present a paper at the College about the relative flow factor in codirectional gem enchantment for transportational weight alleviation related to…” She cleared her throat at Rarity’s steady look. “…um, and I wanted to be able to craft the gems for the demonstration portion, uh… myself.”

Rarity eyed her skeptically. “You’ve never shown interest in making your own in the past, Twi. Why now?”

“Well… it’s a very important paper and… um…”

Rarity seemed to read her mind and her affectionately-exasperated look spread across her face. “Twilight Sparkle, you’re eventually going to have to get over your fear of being less than perfect in front of Princess Celestia. Especially now.”

“I… can’t help it,” Twilight fretted. “I mean, she’s always been like a mother and now she… literally is my mother. I don’t want to… disappoint.”

Rarity gave her another fondly-exasperated-friend look. “Darling, short of bullying foals and kicking bunnies, I don’t think you can disappoint her.”

“I know,” Twilight admitted. “Still it’s so… different. Ponies call me ‘Lady’ without even thinking about it now. I’ve even gotten called ‘Princess’ once or twice and I’m just… I haven’t even finished the honors certificate!” She gestured roughly towards her wings. “I have these now and my mom’s Princess Celestia and suddenly, I’m special to everypony instead of just special to a few friends and…”

“Twilight!” Rarity’s Manehattan accented-voice brought her out of her fretting like a whip cracked over her head and she stared at the fashionista. Rarity took a breath, used a hoof to tuck an imaginary strand of loose mane behind an ear, then looked sternly at Twilight. “Darling, you’ve had months to get used to it and I know you’re humble to a fault—we had to twist your leg to make you stand up to an obnoxious braggart, for goodness sake…”

“Speaking of Trixie…”

Rarity faltered for a moment but Twilight’s hopes of diverting her friend were dashed when Rarity gave her a look and cleared her throat. “…but the fact is, you are a ‘lady’ under the rules of nobility. It’s your proper title now and you’re certainly not ashamed of being the Princess’ daughter.”

“No!” Twilight proclaimed with much more vehemence than she’d meant to. “I’m…” She felt herself smile. “It’s been like all the research paying off with the perfect answer, a fact that makes perfect sense and explains everything.”

Rarity smiled happily. “Then concentrate on being happy about that and don’t worry about the little things.”

Twilight couldn’t help but grin a little at the famously fussy dressmaker. “Coming from you…”

“I wouldn’t be a proper lady otherwise,” the white unicorn sniffed proudly before her expression turned positively predatory. “Speaking of being a proper lady, Twilight, I do hope you at least wear something elegant to court.”

Twilight shrugged as she nervously put distance between herself and the nearest tape measure. “Mom and Aunt Luna don’t so I see no reason to.”

As per her normal modus operandi, Rarity affected a perfectly scandalized look. “That is because they are Princesses, darling!” She informed Twilight in the eminently authoritative tone she slipped into whenever the matter of fashion or manners or anything else loosely related to high society came up. “They can wear crowns, smiles, and not a stitch more…”

“Rarity, they do wear crowns, smiles, and not a stitch more.”

Her friend dismissed this with a wave of her hoof, barreling onwards. “…and no one would dare speak against it. But you’re the royal daughter and niece! You must represent yourself as a lady!”

Twilight sighed. “Rarity, I don’t need a new dress to present a research paper!”

“It doesn’t need to be anything fancy darling,” Rarity wheedled. “Something simple. Elegant. Compliments those beautiful wings just so.”

“Rarity, with you ‘simple’ and ‘elegant’ means you don’t use silk and diamonds,” she deadpanned. Then she saw the beginnings of Rarity’s next stage of persuasion—a sad pitiful expression that would put Fluttershy to shame—and held up a hoof in surrender. “Alright, Rarity, alright. But simple. I’m not going to the Grand Galloping Gala.”

Rarity bounced a little on her hooves—which, Twilight sternly told herself, looked nothing like when Pinkie did it—and threw her arms around her. “You shan’t be disappointed darling!”

Twilight chuckled as she hugged her friend in return. “Rarity, that’s like saying that I can expect the sun to rise in the morning.”

Rarity beamed at the compliment. “You’re too kind darling.” She let Twilight go. “After we’re done, you should go and relax and stop worrying. Maybe see if Rainbow is…”

Twilight cringed. “I think if I spend one more day ‘learning the basics’, my wings will fall off.”

Rarity gave her a sympathetic look. “Maybe go and visit Dawn?”

Twilight smiled a little at this. It’d been tense between her and her earth pony twin sister for the first two months but recently, Dawn had finally accepted that Twilight wasn’t going to drag her off to be a ‘lady’ or otherwise interfere with her life and had become friendlier—in the uncomfortable, socially-awkward, egghead way that was all too familiar to Twilight, combined with a shamelessness that was entirely Dawn’s own. Applejack had even grown slightly more comfortable with her (although she still unconsciously put distance between herself and the dark violet mare whenever there was anything nearby that could be used as restraints) and seemed to appreciate having an extra set of hooves around Sweet Apple Acres. “I might just do that. See how she’s liking that book on the history of apple variant development I lent her.”

Rarity grinned. “No shame, no manners, darker coat, but she’s very much your sister.”

Twilight colored lightly but grinned back. “I’m just glad I’m rubbing off on her. So do you need any measurements?”

Rarity’s horn glowed and her tape measure began unraveling as she levitated it over. “Darling, I thought you’d never ask.”

<><

By the time Rarity had finished her measurements, the light squall the pegasi had scheduled for early afternoon had just begun, producing a gentle misty drizzle that was fairly comfortable to walk in. Ever since she’d gotten wings, rain, wind, even fierce sunshine seemed somewhat muted and it wasn’t until she’d mentioned it to Fluttershy that she found out why. Due to living on clouds and shepherding weather as a matter of course, pegasi were less bothered by the mercurial weather and it appeared that she’d inherited the ability to be comfortable in weather from her wings. She wished she could just glide to Applejack’s farm to avoid the muddy roads but what she’d said to Rarity was true: Rainbow Dash was an intense flight instructor, albeit one with a tendency to forget that Twilight’s ability to fly was on par with a newborn pegasus, and Twilight’s wings were quite sore from two days ago when she’d finally struggled through what Rainbow termed ‘the basics’—which, because it was Rainbow was anything but basic.

In the privacy of her own thoughts, Twilight had to admit that it was sort of fun to be able to fly and cloud-walk; it just would have been nice if the wings hadn’t come with a title. For while Twilight had no doubt at all that she was a very special pony to her mother and her aunt and her friends, she was quite certain that she wasn’t anything special beyond that. Being called ‘Lady Sparkle’ was still deeply uncomfortable, made vastly worse when ponies bowed to her, as if she was royalty. Which, she supposed, was technically true but… as she walked, she shook her head and sighed. “Why couldn’t life just be simple again?” She inquired of the road resentfully.

“Ist life ever simple?” Twilight jumped slightly and immediately turned to see who was speaking. Standing practically right beside her was a unicorn mare, white-coated with a straw-colored mane that hung passed her face in dirty, rainsoaked strings. Her face looked… cavernous, almost skeletal and as Twilight glanced back, she realized that the stranger’s entire body looked starvation-ravaged and barely capable of supporting the triple-lay of bulging saddlebags she was carrying. Strapped forward of the front left-hoof saddlebag was a long wooden rod with round protrusion on one of its sides.

“I apologize, did I startle ye?” The mare inquired politely, the strong steady voice in marked contrast with her extremely emaciated appearance.

“Um, yes,” Twilight admitted, unable to keep herself from staring. “Are you alright?”

The mare looked curiously at her. “Of course I am,” she replied in an uncertain tone. “Do I seem unwell?”

Twilight blinked. “You seem… um…”

“Yes?”

“You…” Twilight was at a loss; how did one politely tell a pony that they looked like they hadn’t seen a bite of food in weeks? “…seem a little… uh…”

The mare stared at her for a moment before turning back to follow Twilight’s gaze. “Oh! Ye refers to my looking starved, does ye?”

“Yes.”

“Ah, then fear it not, I am well,” she assured her. “I have developed the habit of eating just enough to be minimally nourished when I leave the borders of my home. I have had… misfortune consuming the vittles of places that are not home.”

“That can’t be healthy.”

“I have done it for many years, and I remain alive and healthy enough to go where whim moves me.” The mare smiled. “But ye are kind to be concerned for my wellness when I am stranger to you. What may I call ye, young alicorn?”

“Twilight Sparkle,” Twilight replied. “May I ask your name?”

The mare gave her another curious look. “I would honestly have thought ye a Dusk. I am Lily Shell.”

Twilight blinked. “Why?”

“Why am I Lily Shell?” Lily smirked. “Well, I have a cutie mark that ist a lily and a seashell. Or are ye asking why I would think ye a Dusk?”

“The second.”

“Yer mane,” she replied, gesturing at it. “The pink of last light folding into the deep violet of the coming night.”

She blinked again, coloring lightly. “That’s kind of you to say.”

“I attempt to give small kindnesses to those that walk the roads when I meet them.” Lily inclined her head lightly. “I apologize that I startled ye but my journey calls me and I go now.”

“If you’re hungry, there’s a vast apple farm nearby and the family that owns it loves to feed others out of sheer friendliness,” Twilight offered, glancing at Lily’s unhealthy-looking thinness.

Lily considered this. “I do not see that I will come to misfortune by eating some apples in good company,” she said after a moment. “Ye have bought my interest, Twilight Sparkle, and if ye consents, I shall accompany ye there.”

“Perfect,” Twilight responded, smiling as she started trotting in the direction of Sweet Apple Acres again.

“So what parentage are ye, Twilight Sparkle?” Lily asked after a few minutes of walking. “There are not so many lines of alicorns and I shall be interested to know which line ye springs from.”

“Heh… I thought everyone knew by now…”

“Well, I did not want to presume yer parentage but if I was called upon to guess, I would say that I see the shadow of Luna in yer visage and in yer mannerisms,” Lily said. “And I would celebrate such, if it was so, for I often treasure the darkness.”

“Sorry to disappoint you, but Princess Luna is my aunt,” Twilight admitted.

Lily looked thoughtfully at her, silent for several moments. “Ye are so common for the daughter of the sun goddess,” she finally said as they reached the turnoff to Sweet Apple Acres, her voice sounding slightly regretful. “Ye wear yer blood well.”

Twilight noticed. “You sound like that bothers you.”

“If that ist the case, I apologize, it was not intended,” Lily replied. “It ist a pleasure to meet a daughter of Celestia and a niece of Luna. I only wish I had heard tell of it on my journey, that I might greet ye as would be proper. But the time for that ist passed; even in passing acquaintance, we are already too familiar for me to fawn over you as ist royalty’s due.”

“It’s OK,” Twilight assured her. “I’m still not very comfortable being bowed to or called by fancy titles or the other things that come with my mother being Celestia.”

This visibly brought Lily up short. “Would ye not have been accustomed to it since you were a foal?”

“I... didn’t know until recently. Neither did…” She blinked and looked hard at Lily. “Wait, how is all of this news to you anyway? The entire ‘Princess Celestia’s long-lost daughter’ story has been everywhere, as much as I wish it wasn’t. You’re the only pony I’ve met who this seems new to.”

“I have little or no reason to enter cities, towns, villages, or even interact with most ponies beyond a small kindness,” Lily replied with a shrug. “I only knew of Princess Luna’s return from exile because the mare-shaped shadow disappeared from the moon.”

“And yet, you converse naturally and easily with a complete stranger,” Twilight pointed out. “You’re quite comfortable with company for a mare that stays deliberately distant from others.”

“If I couldn’t stand the company of others, I couldn’t ply my trade.”

“And what’s your trade?”

“I engineer things,” Lily lit her horn, which glowed with a luminous black instead of the lighter color that Twilight would have expected, and levitated a small metal-capped cylinder from the middle saddlebag. “This ist a firing cap, part of…”

“…the detonation system for blast mining,” Twilight finished, taking the cylinder from the other mare and rotating it curiously. “I’ve never seen one outside of books before.”

Lily nodded. “Astute. Believe it or no, blast mining ist an extraordinarily delicate science despite the fact that it involves blasting giant quantities of material out of a mountain. It ist also a highly communal science, for no job ist the same and ye can only know the subtle differences from numerous sources.”

“It sounds like interesting work,” Twilight commented, returning the firing cap as they got within sight of the farmhouse. “Now, before we go any further, I feel that I should warn you about…”

“…an earth pony that looks identical to ye, save for the darker coat and lack of accruements?” Lily inquired wryly, gesturing towards the orchard.

Twilight nearly facehoofed. “Yes.”

“I sense a story,” Lily commented, smiling and giving a polite wave in Dawn’s direction.

“It’s a long one,” Twilight warned.

“I quite literally have nothing but time,” Lily returned pleasantly. “And at least two saddlebags of firing caps, but that ist neither here nor there.”

“And the other four?”

“The tools of my trade, Miss Sparkle, and the things vital to keeping me alive and well.” Lily turned her emaciated face towards the approaching Dawn. “Good afternoon, pony that looks bizarrely similar to Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight turned to see Dawn stopped and looking at the mare with an expression caught halfway between surprised, angry, and confused. “And good afternoon, pony that looks like her last meal was last year,” she replied after a moment.

Lily stared at her in abject fascination. “Yes, I do indeed sense a story behind this. I am Lily Shell.”

“Dawn.” Dawn looked at her with the same abject fascination. “You got some sorta wasting illness or something? Because you don’t sound sickly and starved but ya sure look sickly and starved.”

“A tenuous, and somewhat negative, relationship with food outside of my home,” Lily explained. “I am given to understand, however, that the apples here are appealing and have accepted Twilight Sparkle’s invitation to indulge in their succulence.”

Dawn looked at Twilight with a grin. “Oh, you have no idea, Lily Shell. The Apples are quite appealing, one variety more than the others, and we welcome your help indulging in their succulence.”

Now Twilight really did facehoof. “Dawn…”

“Stuff it, Twilight,” Dawn admonished, although she said it lightly, with a smile. “Can I invite the two of you in? Granny said she’d have hot fritters for us when we finished.”

“Apple fritters sound like a welcome indulgence, especially in rain,” Lily admitted. “I thank ye, Dawn, and accept.”

<><

“So where ya’ll comin’ from and goin’ to?” Applejack asked Lily as the emaciated mare nibbled one of the typically delicious Apple family treats, visibly taking pleasure in the experience.

“I am traveling from beyond Equestria’s borders to beyond Equestria’s borders,” Lily replied. “From the barrens in the east to the mesas of the north-northwest.”

In keeping with the simple and open warmth that seemed as much of an Apple family tradition as growing their trademark apples, Lily had been unhesitatingly invited in and all but force-fed a small plate of sweet, freshly-sliced apples before Granny pulled the fritters out and began to distribute them with the brisk ease of a pony who’d gone through the ritual countless times and expected to do so countless times more. Apple Bloom was off doing her best to find trouble (in the guise of finding their special talent that would finally give them their cutie marks) with her Cutie Mark Crusaders friends and Big Macintosh was spending the day with Trixie.
Even though she’d sought her out to try and bury the hatchet, and although she’d watched the showy mare’s efforts during the fight against The Guardian and his minions, Twilight was still taken-aback at the good and earnest mare that’d been hiding under the boastful nastiness Trixie had displayed when she’d first come to Ponyville. Trixie had proven to be quite likable and there was no doubt at all that she was very devoted to Big Mac—and to her craft. For despite not having immense raw power, Trixie did an amazing amount with what she did have and Twilight was beginning to think that it’d be only fair to approach Trixie sometime and sincerely ask for a few pointers on magical efficiency. In the meantime, she’d had a couple of opportunities to watch Trixie on stage and it was always worth the couple of bits to see the natural performer plying her trade.

“So… to th’ griffin lands?” Applejack asked, drawing Twilight back to the here-and-now.

“Yes, I seem to recall that it ist where the griffins live,” Lily confirmed.

“Give our regards to ‘em then. Woulda been in it deep if not for a real exceptional griffin.” Applejack took a swig of cider. “So where ya’ll come from? Must be an exotic place if th’ food ‘round these parts don’t agree with ya.”

Lily smiled wistfully. “Paradise. After ye’ve been born in paradise and eaten its food, it ist difficult to become accustomed to anything else.”

“Ah’m fixin’ t’ help ya with that,” Applejack grinned. “Ah guarantee, after ya’ll have spent a couple days eatin’ good ol’-fashioned Apple family cookin’, ya’ll will get some skin on them bones of yours.”

Lily looked taken aback. “I am only here at this hour at the invitation of Twilight Sparkle and Dawn,” she replied. “I do not mean to linger.”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed. “Ah dun know what other hosts ya’ve got since ya’ve been travelin’ but Ah’m not lettin’ somepony that looks as sick an’ starved as ya out th’ door without at least some good rest an’ three squares.”

Lily smiled and shook her head. “Ye are more generous and kind to me than any have been in many years, but duty draws me north and west.”

“Ya’ll can’t delay for even a few days?”

Lily thought. “Is it important to ye to extend this kindness to me?”

“Ya betcha,” Applejack told her earnestly.

Her starved face stretched into the broadest and warmest smile Twilight had yet seen of her. “Then I shall accept.”

“Great. How ‘bout ya help Dawn clear the table?”

“Anything you ask,” Lily replied instantly. “It ist proper, after all, that the guest show her gratitude by being pleasant and helpful.”

Applejack smiled to her as she gathered up the plates while Dawn took care of the pan but the moment she disappeared into the kitchen, the orange cowpony turned to Twilight with a very serious expression. “Who th’ hay is she?”

“She said she’s an engineer of sorts,” Twilight replied uncertainly, unsettled by the abruptness of the question. “Manages the details for doing blast-mining and apparently, she travels a lot and I think she finds food away from her home to be unpalatable.”

“Ah dunno about any o’ that, Twi,” Applejack frowned. “It’s a mite odd. When she says somethin’, it feels like she’s lyin’ and tellin’ th’ absolute truth at the same time. It’s real unsettlin’.”

“So why’d you invite her to stay if you think she’s not honest?”

The apple farmer grinned a little. “Bein’ evasive an’ half-truthful ain’t th’ same as bein’ out t’ hurt folks. The only clearly honest things ‘bout her are her smile an’ her gratitude. She’s real happy ‘bout bein’ invited t’ stay an’ she’s really grateful t’ boot. ‘Sides, she looks like the sort that’d benefit from a bit o’ kindness an’ bein’ around other ponies an’ Ah might not be Generosity herself but Ah could no more turn away a pony that needed somethin’ than Ah could embrace Rarity’s frou-frou nonsense.”

Twilight allowed herself to giggle a little at that. “So you think she’s safe?”

“Hay no!” Applejack retorted immediately. “Pony that takes a long trip an’ deliberately starves herself the entire time ain’t right in th’ head. Honestly, Ah think her odd lyin’ while tellin’ the truth comes outta not bein’ right: she might not be able to tell th’ difference between true an’ not true.”

Twilight shook her head. “That doesn’t make sense, though. She speaks smoothly, rationally, makes observations based on what she perceives, like saying that the name ‘Dusk’ fits me better or guessing that Princess Luna is my mother instead of Princess Celestia, and having very rational reasons for thinking both things. It’s hard to square that with being not right in the head, as you put it.” She frowned. “Come to think of it, I’m not sure how she’d know what Aunt Luna’s visage and personality are like. She claims to avoid pony contact as a personal preference but seems familiar with the Princess that’s sort of shy about being in public.”

“She could be relyin’ on stories, Twi.”

“That’s probably it,” Twilight nodded. “I suppose it’s a little unreasonable to expect that she’d be totally honest and forthcoming about everything to a complete stranger she meets on the road, especially somepony related to the Princesses.”

“Well, Ah aim to find out somewhat concernin’ mah new houseguest while I can keep ‘er here.” Applejack’s grin turned a little wry. “Maybe she’ll distract Dawn a mite. Ah can’t complain about the change t’ sorta sweet from really creepy but Ah think yer sister still dun quite understand that her feelin’s are unrequited.”

“In my experience, we eggheads can be a bit stubborn and slow to pick up on anything not delivered with a two-hoof buck to the head.” Twilight sympathized, patting her friend’s hoof. “How’s she doing learning the farm work?”

Applejack snorted. “Ya kiddin’? Learns like she was born t’ it. Th’ copied apple practically falls on top o’ the apple it was copied from in her case. Only complaint I got so far is that she’s so smart, she ain’t content to leave well enough alone. Sorta like another mare I know, come t’ think of it.”

Twi smiled a little ruefully. “I take it you want to strangle me for lending her that book?”

This earned her a deadpan look. “Twi, it’s been like givin’ Pinkie a double-strength shot o’ sugar and settin’ ‘er lose on the Grand Galloping Gala. What were ya thinkin’?”

“That bad, huh?”

“Girl’s got yer smarts without yer habit o’ pickin’ yer words careful.” Applejack chuckled. “Not that Ah mind blunt honesty, mind, but sometimes Ah think she has some sorta button in her head that makes her mouth talk without checkin’ in with ‘er brain first.”

Twilight sighed. “You know for a while, I thought Mother had made her this way because she really and truly remembered me as a mouthy, nyphomaniacal, childish foal with a desperate crush on you. Turns out that being joined with the nightmare distorts your thinking although I do not remember ever writing a friendship report to her implying sexual interest in you. It’d have made more sense for her to misunderstand me about Fluttershy or Rarity because… well... it’s sort of natural to write admiringly of Rarity, especially when she’s demonstrating her creative talents, and to write affectionately about Fluttershy because she’s… well…”

“She’s Kindness, speakin’ softly an’ bein’ extremely shy,” Applejack filled in, smiling. “Yeah, Ah kin see that. Whelp, like ya said, it was all a misunderstandin’ occasioned by that nightmare in her head. And it’s lots better, like Ah said. She’s become more… innocently sweet than scary an’ creepy. More like Ah’d imagine you bein’ if ya ever found an object of yer affections.”

Twilight felt herself blush lightly. “Why do you say that?”

“Well, yer a really nice sort, agonized on how t’ avoid hurtin’ any o’ us on more’n one occasion, and ya consider books th’ ultimate source of how-to,” Applejack told her with a smile. “So definitely sorta innocent an’ Ah reckon the fact that ya never been particularly easy interactin’ on a casual level with ponies other than the five o’ us Elements would lead t’ ya bein’ sorta shy an’ sweet about th’ entire thing. Voila, innocently sweet.”

“You sound like you’ve put a lot of thought into that.” She mentioned delicately.

“Well, with yer sis makin’ puppy eyes at me for weeks, it’s sorta crossed mah mind, thinkin’ how you’d go ‘bout it differently.” AJ colored lightly. “Ah mean, if ya was inclined t’ do it. Not that Ah think ya would or nothin’…”

Twilight had to laugh. “Applejack, you’re my friend, same as Pinkie, Shy, Dash, and Rarity. I love being around you girls for reasons that have nothing to do with romance. Besides, getting used to being royalty is hard enough without worrying about anything else.”

Her friend eyed her. “Still gettin’ used t’ it this many months later?”

Twilight gave her a level look. “AJ, I got killed, by my adoptive father no less. I come back to life in the middle of a fight with my mentor as a nightmare. She gets cured and I find out that the Princess who’s been like a mother to me all my life is quite literally my mother and just found it out. Which means that the Princess who’s slightly bookish and socially awkward like me, a pony I’d been working very hard to become friends with, is my aunt. And all of this means that I get called ‘lady’ and ‘princess’ by everypony; have to play nice with the nobles; am obligated to wear a dress whenever I go to Canterlot even if it’s just to pop in and spend time with my mom; have to actually pay attention when Rarity goes on a long-winded explanation of proper manners; sit there during court and act like some sort of stone ornament instead of being helpful; and receive the attentions of bucks with nice titles and personalities that make you want to buck them in the face.” She paused. “I think taking more than a couple months to get used to this isn’t all that unexpected.”

Applejack gave her a rueful look. “Well, when ya put it like that… Shoot, sugarcube, Ah guess it’s impressive as hay that yer adjustin’ as fast as ya are. Ah dun know what Ah’d do if Ah woke up from bein’ dead t’ find that mah mom an’ aunt were royalty.”

“The royalty part isn’t nearly as good as the family part,” Twilight smiled broadly. “It’s like I said to Rarity, finding out that Celestia is my mom is like discovering the answer to a vexing question that makes perfect sense and explains everything. She treated me like a daughter despite not knowing that I was and… I’d like to think that it means that my mother loves me so much that it couldn’t be restrained even by the strongest memory spells.”

“Love is powerful, Twilight Sparkle.” Without either of them hearing her approach over the slightly creaky floor, Lily had appeared in the arch leading to the kitchen and her eyes were fixed on Twilight in a chillingly steady gaze. “But I am certain that ye know that well. Just what ye say, that Celestia so loved her filly that no matter the power of the spell that made her forget, she took that filly into her care and loved her without knowing her, causes me to wish that I could know the Princess well. But when my hospitality here ist expended, I shall still have promises to keep and miles to go before I sleep and none of those miles approach Canterlot.”

Applejack stared at her. “Uh… how long ya been standin’ there?”

“In time to hear Twilight Sparkle conclude that you wished to strangle her for lending Dawn a book,” Lily replied. “I fail to see how she ist a problem; her personality ist pleasant, it seems, like that of Twilight Sparkle but without the mature reserve.”

Applejack’s eyes narrowed at her in a way that made it clear that Lily had been standing there longer than she had admitted. The expression was momentary but Lily still visibly noticed and she frowned thoughtfully. Then an expression of consternation flitted across her face and she looked between Twilight and Applejack. “Oh dear…”

Twilight looked at Applejack who looked right back with a similarly confused expression. “Um… something the matter?”

“I just came to a realization that ought to have been obvious, in retrospect,” Lily sighed. “I apologize, Applejack; I was standing in the doorway since Twilight Sparkle asked whether you believed I am safe.”

Both of them looked curiously at her. “You don’t seem bothered that we’re a bit…”

“Skeptical? Ye apparently have cause, and it does not bother me.” She looked at Applejack. “I am strange and unstable to ye, carrying two saddlebags full of low-grade explosives, looking like I am sick and wasting away but acting like I am in perfect health, freely mixing truth and untruth without apparent recognition of the difference between them. I understand yer concern.”

“An’…?

“And what?”

“An’ are ya jus’ gonna recognize it an’ that’s it?”

Lily smiled a little sadly. “What else can I do? If I haven’t been entirely honest with ye, I must have a reason beyond simply taking joy in lying. I cannot help my appearance nor what tools I carry with me. If ye feared that I meant ye harm, ye would certainly eject me—possibly violently—from yer home. So what ought I to do but let the untruths stand and continue to be polite and pleasant?”

Twilight frowned. “Why let them stand at all?”

“Because many truths would harm me but do ye neither good nor evil,” Lily told her. “I give ye my word, Twilight Sparkle, that I know of no secret I hold that will do ye or yers the slightest harm.”

Twilight glanced at Applejack who gave her a subtle nod before turning back to Lily with a smile. “OK, fair enough then. I wish you felt comfortable enough to…”

“…trust ponies that I just barely met with my life story and its more intimate details?” Lily finished with a twinkle in her eye.

Twilight coughed and gave the mare a sheepish look. “Good point.”

Lily patted her on the shoulder with a hoof. “It has nothing to do with ye, if that helps. Ye seem a good pony, what little I have seen of ye, and if I knew ye long and well we might speak of warm and familiar things. But as we stand, I am grateful to ye for yer comfort with a stranger and bringing me here that I might receive the kind hospitality of the Apples. I shall not forget it.”

<><

Night was falling when the violet alicorn emerged from the rustic building in the apple orchards and she stirred from her meditative pose on the branch with the best view. Tension of which she had not previously been aware melted away as she observed that the young princess was just as well as when she’d entered with Lily. She said in a low murmur, virtually inaudible beyond the length of her reach.

Below her, Twilight Sparkle trotted to the end of the lane and swept right, holding her feathered wings with the slight tension of muscle soreness, and continued on towards what she was sure must be her home. She smiled to herself.

Twilight was already nearly out of sight and she frowned at this, glancing towards the farmhouse. She unfolded and flowed silently down the trunk, a shadow amongst the shadows, and began to drift slowly after her ward.

Author's Note

1. Druumakai, commonly called "drummers" are massive troll-like creatures distinguishable for both the drums they wear as a decoration and their complex percussion-based language. While appearing to fit the expectation of a large, muscle-bound idiot, this perception of their intelligence is driven mainly by the fact that they heavily slur spoken languages because they're physically ill-equipped to speak. In truth, they're highly intelligent and thus constitute the primary shock troops of the few truly organized armies that the forces of Darkness field.

2. "The First" through "The Ninth" is common shorthand to refer to one of the Nine Primes, the rulers of the nine realms (called "Helles", pronounced "hey-lez") that compose the main forces of Darkness. Generally speaking, the First is the weakest Prime and the Ninth the strongest although the current three strongest are the Ninth, Sixth, and Eighth in that order. It also serves as an informal ranking system, again with the Ninth being the highest rank and the First being the lowest.

3. The Void is a realm of sheer nothingness that forms the primary obstacle to free travel between the numberless worlds. It is the antithesis of Life and the beings that dwell there are called "Evils" and are regarded as the enemies of both Light and Dark, who universally revile them as gross abominations. The substance of the Void is extremely corrosive to any living thing; conversely, all forms of magic are virulently poisonous to the Evils, which are formed of the Void's substance. As such, Evils tend to be deathly afraid of magic in all its forms, especially objects that have been infused with magic.

4. The Lights are the direct counterparts to the Primes. In terms of power and rank, their system is identical although the nine realms they occupy are inexplicably known as "Heavens". They are also called "Archangels" although the term is very rarely used.

Twilight: Unanticipated Stop

After their surrender, their captors quickly got the chaos of the fight under control. The wounded were collected and duos were tasked to carry them. The dead were lined up in very neat rows and wrapped tightly in bolts of cloth (Twilight couldn’t tell where they’d gotten it from) and other duos were assigned to them. It turned out that as impressive as Twilight wiping away a large swath of forest was, the rushing tide of creatures had halted and fallen back before the attack, suffering little more than scratches and bruises as they’d gotten far enough away to be shielded by the dense forest. Meanwhile, the five ponies and pair of griffins had been checked over, placed in restraints that were clearly designed to hobble a running pony (or flying griffin) without making walking overly difficult, and what seemed to be some sort of magic dampener affixed to each one. While the guards had moved on to the others, Twilight had tested the dampener and discovered that it had somehow been calibrated to permit simple telekinesis (such as a unicorn would use to pick up food or drink) while inducing throbbing stomach cramps if the limit was exceeded; Twilight found herself involuntarily impressed with how intricate the device was.

Oddly enough, the creatures had made no move to disarm the griffins. Or, more specifically, a couple had made as if to do it when the creature that had given them a hug of wild gratitude had stepped in and, based on their reaction, gave the offending soldiers a severe dressing-down. The one that had attacked Twilight directly and given her that maddeningly cryptic look when Twilight had suggested that they couldn’t speak Equish, seemed to be the one in charge based on how it was walking around chittering instructions and getting bows of acquiescence in return.

Eventually, the group began to move, setting an easy but regimented pace that was quite easy for the captives to keep to but ate up distance at a surprisingly rapid clip. When they’d gotten used to the pace, Dawn’s first action was to turn towards Rarity, who’d been totally silent since the end of the battle.

“So.” Dawn looked over at Rarity. “Your life as Jade.”

Rarity colored very slightly.

“All… buried, I remember. You forbade Sweetie to have anything to do with it and it’s causing problems between you,” she continued in a very light and casual tone of voice. “So you put aside all those skills you were using to defend yourself, and all the equipment you brought with you that you were using to fight with.”

“You lied to us,” Twilight said quietly, a tone of hurt that she felt far more vividly than she was expressing woven through the words. “Not a white lie, not a little lie, a bald-faced blatant lie. About you, about being Jade, about Sweetie Belle, about something that you know your friends would support you in…”

Rarity looked up, her expression troubled and slightly anguished. “Darling, it’s not…”

“I’m not finished,” the lavender alicorn said firmly. “You know us, Rarity. You know that we care, that we understand, that we would do anything for you because we are all, all six of us, the Elements of Harmony which work only because of the special magic that come of us being the closest friends.” She no longer tried to keep the hurt out of her voice. “We’re your friends Rarity! We fought a horrible monster together, bled together! You were part of returning me to life, giving me a whole new life as the daughter of the mare I’ve worshipped and loved like family since I was a foal. We found out about your second life as an assassin and we didn’t say anything about what that implies. And yet, with all that, you looked us all in the eyes and lied. Worse, you put effort into the lie, pretending to be offended and angry that Dawn would ask about it.”

Rarity swallowed and started to say something but Twilight cut her off with an angry sweep of a hoof. “We don’t expect you to just confess everything, that wouldn’t be fair of us at all. But you couldn’t have said that you were taking care of a few issues? That you were keeping your edge just in case? That no, you don’t need us to do anything, but a hug and just being there for you would be great? You felt that you couldn’t trust us to be discrete and respectful?”

“Now Twi…”

“Applejack, this probably isn’t the best time to say anything,” Pinkamena interrupted quietly, but with a seriousness and firmness that seemed to have the same effect as if she’d yelled, the orange farmpony nodding and looking down with a suddenly sag to her shoulders.

“Well, Rarity?” Twilight continued, as if Applejack hadn’t said anything. “Do you have anything to say?”

Rarity swallowed again and quailed under Twilight’s furious look. “I…” She sighed and hung her head. “Twilight, I’m sorry. I trust you all, I… love you like family. I know you’re my friends and you’d do anything and everything for me. But this… what… I had to take care of things that were… very dangerous. Things that could have gotten you all hurt, maybe killed!”

“Like going after a crazed moon goddess who wanted to bring Eternal Night?” Twilight asked dryly.

“Or a dragon?” Pinkie suggested.

“Or confronting a malevolent spirit of mischief that could reorder reality at will?” Twilight added.

“Or the Guardian?” Dawn grinned a little. “Or trying to defeat a crazed sun goddess who had turned into a tyrant so bad that Nightmare Moon plotted to bring her down?”

Rarity colored deeply, looking thoroughly miserable. “But… those things… you defeat them once and you… and they’re gone and they won’t come back to… they don’t remember you for decades and show up at any time to destroy your happiness! The assassin order does those things! They do those things, they have done those things! I couldn’t involve you without putting targets on you that would have lasted forever.” She looked up at Twilight, tears welling in her eyes. “Darling, you could live for thousands and thousands of years and every minute of every day, there would have been bad ponies watching and waiting to take everything from you!”

“That’s my choice to…”

“No it’s not!” Rarity wailed, drawing alarmed looks from the nearest soldiers. “I couldn’t allow that, Twilight! I couldn’t… I would not allow them to hurt you or hound you for the rest of your life. I couldn’t give you the choice because you might have chosen to do something and then…” She swallowed. “…but… but I made sure. It will never happen. They will never touch you, they will never stalk you, they will never threaten you, or Applejack, or Dawn, or Flutters, or Rainbow, or Pinkie, or anypony that I care about ever.”

The normally balanced (even when dramatically overreacting to something) Rarity looking to be on the edge of full-on hysteria gave Twilight pause and she stopped to look steadily at her friend. “We’re more than capable of handling danger, Rarity. You could have let us in, let us bear the consequences…”

Rarity looked up with a fierce expression. “You are too good for me to allow that, Twilight Sparkle. All of you are too good for me to allow you to risk yourselves. And now, you’ll never need to confront the assassins, ever, or fear their wrath.” Something dark and chilling entered Rarity’s eyes for a moment. “I made sure of that.”

“How?”

The dark and chilling thing bore down on her from behind Rarity’s eyes. “You don’t need to know that.” And just like that, it went away and Rarity was back. She seemed to realize that the coldness had been in her eyes because her ears drooped. “Sorry, darling. But you really don’t need to know how I made sure of your safety. I fear you would think less of me.”

“Rares, short of you admitting to selling your body for our safety, you’re gorgeous and golden to us,” Dawn grinned. “And even if you did sell that wonderful alabaster flank, you’d still be gorgeous.”

Rarity eyed the grinning Dawn, her mouth working as she struggled between a very Rarity expression of dignified disapproval—and a demure little grin as she recognized what Dawn was after. She settled on the disapproval. “As gauche as always, Dawn darling…” And then that demure grin. “…but thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, beautiful,” Dawn beamed. “Damn shame we’re all chained up or we could have ourselves an awesome group hug. Because I totally forgive you for lying to us all, lying to my face, giving me an evil eye over your lie, and then pulling out all the gear and flaunting the lie. It’s all good.”

“Dawn…” Twilight sighed. Rarity’s tearful explanation didn’t help the hurt but she didn’t need Applejack to tell that whatever her reasons, Rarity was totally convinced that she had to conceal the truth from them, and she had a vague and disquieting feeling that the alabaster mare had taken extreme measures to protect them from other assassins. She just wished she knew what Rarity had done, the better to trust her again and appreciate the depth of her sacrifice for her friends. “Rarity, I’m… disappointed in you but you’re still my friend. I wish you would tell us what happened because it’s very hard to have you admit to lying, tell us that it’s for our own good, and expect our prior trust to still cover the gaping holes.”

Rarity hung her head. “I can’t tell you, Twilight. If I could tell anypony, it’d be the six of you. But… I just can’t.”

Twilight considered that. “Can’t, or can’t bring yourself to?”

“…the second.”

Somehow, hearing that Rarity really and truly wanted to be forthright but felt unable to, lessened the hurt and Twilight dropped back to nose her friend. “I understand, Rarity. I... guess I wish you felt able to tell us.”

“Just tell me one thing, Rarity,” Pinkamena said, trotting up to walk alongside the unicorn, walking freely (after the fifth attempt, they’d given up trying to restrain her). “What you did… did it hurt you?”

Rarity thought about this visibly. “No, it actually… liberated me.”

Pinkamena gave her a Pinkie smile. “Then I forgive you and hope you never lie to us again.”

“Speaking of lies…” Twilight looked back at Applejack who heaved a mighty sigh and doffed her Stetson.

“Yeah, Ah didn’t say anything but that’s cuz Ah knew it was the sorta lie ya gotta tell, ‘stead of the kind of lie you want to tell,” she replied. “An’ as much as she loves all that frou-frou nonsense, Rarity is as good o’ pony as any in all of Equestria. So Ah trusted that she had a mighty good reason for lyin’ to the ponies she’s closest to an’ Ah didn’t say anything.”

Twilight sighed and smiled. “I guess I can see that. Just…” She sighed again. “I think we would have been better off having this talk before we caught Rarity in a lie and had to have it under unpleasant circumstances.”

“Unpleasant circumstances, ye say?” For a few minutes, Twilight had completely forgotten that they were traveling with the two griffin sisters since neither had said anything since the battle had ended. Now Elli was looking back at her with a bemused expression. “Is that what ye calls blatherin’ yer secrets an’ th’ details o’ yer conflicts inta th’ listenin’ ears of yer captors?”

Twilight actually swallowed hard at that, abruptly hyperaware of many sets of intelligent eyes following them with interest, a few switching to looks of sympathy as Twilight did her best to facehoof without being able to bring her hoof to her face.

“They are a tad easy ta forget about, sister,” Delphine said, giving Twilight a small smile. “And it’s easy to forget that one who cannot speak to ye may understand ye perfectly fine.”

“I’ve been wondering about that, actually,” Twilight said, looking over at the nearest soldier, who gave her a polite nod before returning its attention forward. “They’re completely unlike any citizen of Equestria and according to every book I could find, these lands are unsurveyed and a complete mystery so there wouldn’t have been any ponies they could have learned the language from. So how do they know it?”

“Perhaps ye should find their leader, an’ ask her,” Delphine suggested. “I’m sure that if she truly wished ta, she could find a way to communicate with you.”

“Yes, I thought that was their leader and…” Twilight compressed her lips and thought back to the apparent leader, slipping into analyst mode as she considered the image in her mind’s eye. Delphine’s assertion made her look at her mental details in a different way, and small affectations and subtle differences in movement abruptly fit into her new paradigm. “…and now that I think about it, there is something effeminate about her movements and subtonal vocalizations. I suppose she’s like their alpha female, assuming their structure is lupine, or their queen, assuming their structure is more insectoid.”

“Why do ya think insect or wolf, sis?” Dawn asked. “I mean, they walk around like lupine and those war cries were sorta wolfish, but the big heap bodyguards here said their language sounds like something dragons speak.”

“A dialect, actually,” Delphine corrected her. “Generally spoken by th’ more bestial dragons and those who act as servants to a more powerful dragon. High Draconic is the written language of dragons and spoken by those ancient, highly intelligent, an’ culturally-refined among the dragons. Low Draconic is also spoken by certain races with strong dragon blood in them, as many dragons can sire or bear offspring with any other complex creature.”

“And you said these… creatures seemed draconic to you?” Twilight asked, giving the nearest soldiers a nervous look.

“In the way they act? Ya, darl, very dragon,” Elli said with a vigorous nod. “As we said when ye asked us, they clearly intended no harm ta us, ‘cept fer tryin’ ta capture us. They have individual initiative, independence, but a hierarchy an’ they obey that shadow beastie.”

“An’ they have dragon in them,” Delphine added. “Or at least something like dragon, something ancient and strong in their blood. ‘Tis natural for them, slipping silently through the forest, appearing only when their master commands them, attacking six very dangerous prey as one, without hesitation or fear and without lethal force. These creatures are hunters, Twilight Sparkle, and predators besides.” She paused and looked grave. “I suspect there’s a very good reason that these lands are uncharted and unmapped.”

<><><

A few hours into their march, the forest began to thin and soon they were at the edge of a vast desert as far as Twilight could see. The column halted and began to split off into groups, twenty or so creatures to a group, and formed into tight circles. The soldiers around Twilight and her group did the same, notably keeping their prisoners safely within the interior of the circle. After the circle was formed, the waiting began, all in complete silence.

“What do you suppose…?” Dawn began before one of the soldiers turned and hissed at her, putting a claw to its lips in an urgent-looking manner before returning its attention to the desert. Dawn blinked and uncharacteristically fell silent at the admonition.

The minutes stretched into tens of minutes and then a half hour. Twilight was about to breach the silence a second time, to whisper a question to the nearest soldier in case they answered, when she felt a vibration in the ground that rapidly increased in intensity. Seconds later, the sand in front of each of their group exploded into a geyser that spewed earth like water and from the geysering earth emerged…

…a pony? Twilight felt her eyes go wide in shock as a grey-violet mare with a long mane and brilliantly green eyes emerged from the dust; her shock increased as the mare seemed to levitate into the air without a horn or magic… and then she saw the rest of her. The front of the pony was ordinary enough, her coat dusty but well cared-for and her mane rather attractive, but her rear half was snake-like, gleaming scales that looked all the world like polished stone glimmering faintly in the dust-muted desert air.

The mare-thing looked around at the defensive circles and grinned, laughing with a soft hissing undertone to her voice. “Defenssive circless?” She lisped in a rich, languid voice with a distinct Canterlot accent. “Oh, I am sso flattered… and a bit offended. Do you not trusst me, my new allies?”

One of the soldiers, its head bowed respectfully, stepped forward and began speaking to the mare in the sibilant language that the griffin sisters had compared to Low Draconic. The mare-thing tilted her head, listening, then nodded. “I ssupposse that’ss fair enough,” she nodded. “But I have delivered my sside of our arrangement. Where iss the toll promissed me?”

The question seemed to relax the soldiers around them and a minute later, four soldiers came trotting over with a large chest carried between them. They carefully set the chest down and one of them opened it, revealing a variety of sparkling gemstones, predominantly diamonds. The mare-thing gave a cry of delight, surging forward and snatching one of the largest diamonds out of the chest. “Sshe remembered!” She cried happily. “It’s been… oh my, it’ss been centuriess ssince I’ve had diamondss!”

She immediately popped the diamond into her mouth and began chewing with an expression of pure ecstasy. “Mmm… oh, oh…. and they’re of particularly high-grade, too.” She opened her eyes and beamed down at the soldiers. “I sshall not forget thiss act of kindnesss from her, remembering that I love diamondss besst and sending me ssuch a high grade.” She slithered closer to them. “Sso… who iss it that you wissh to transsport through my…”

The mare’s eyes fell on Twilight and she froze in place, staring with abject shock. “…a member of the Equesstrian royal family,” she said lowly after several seconds of staring. “You’ve ssseized a member of the Equesstrian royal family? And you’ve involved me?” The shock morphed into mingled fury and terror as she reared back, towering over the creatures with serpent fangs bared and her pupils narrowing to reptilian slits. Her tongue darted out, sampling the air with a snake-like gesture, and her eyes became even wider. “And it’ss worsse! Celesstia’ss own daughter! You’ve kidnapped the foal of the Ssun Princesss! And you’ve involved me! You’ve all but killed me! Killed me, do you comprehend that? The pact between me and the Dual Throness iss that I sshall leave their little poniess alone, and they sshall protect me here from sso-called ‘heroess’ sseeking to murder me for glory. And now you’ve involved me in the kidnapping of the heir to the throne!”

“Calm yourself, Maredusa.” A slightly resonant, honeyed voice said in perfect Equiish as the leader of the creatures brushed by Twilight without a second glance. “The seizure of Lady Twilight Sparkle and her companions is on our heads, and your name shall not even be mentioned if Celestia or Luna come seeking her. And any talk of you being executed for being an accomplice is sheer hysteria; the era in which the Dual Thrones were merciless and cruel towards any who so much as irritated the diarchs has passed us by centuries ago.”

Twilight turned and gaped at the half-snake half-pony mare, and she could feel that she wasn’t the only one. “Did you just call her Maredusa?” She asked, unable to help herself.

“Did I?” The leader threw an amused glance over her shoulder. “Why yes, I did, for that happens to be her name. And before you ask Lady Sparkle, yes, she is the same Maredusa mentioned in Equestrian myth and legend. I regret that you had to meet her under these circumstances, where she has flown into hysterics over a wholly imagined threat to her life.”

“Next time you ssee your mother, assk her how ‘imagined’ Celesstia’ss threats are,” Maredusa retorted, although she had visibly calmed down. “And remember that where you have a large brood, I have naught but my daughter.”

The leader’s expression softened with sympathy. “I have not forgotten that. If we didn’t have wounded and was the long passage not so dangerous for our captives, I would not have asked your help.”

Maredusa gave her a severe look. “You assked my help without informing me that you wisshed to kidnap the Elementss of Harmony and the Ssun Princesss’ child. You deceived me, at leasst in part, and I am displeassed.”

“Would it help if I told my mother that you weren’t involved?” Twilight asked tentatively, not wanting to draw the ire of a creature that legend stated could turn ponies to stone with a look.

The gorgon looked genuinely surprised by the offer before smiling broadly. “You are kind to offer, child, and I would be deeply grateful if you were to intercede on my behalf to your celesstial mother. Sspeaking of ssuch, how iss Luna? I heard of her exile and was quite ssad to hear of it; sshe hass always been accepting and kind towardss nonponiess like me and the otherss.”

“Luna… I mean, Aunt Luna is going fine,” Twilight replied. “I think she and mother have almost gotten back to where they were before her exile, mother minding the day and grand policy, and Aunt Luna minding the night and the details.”

“And sis got a great reading buddy out of the deal,” Dawn added. “Auntie Luna is just as literate and book-loving as Queen Egghead here.”

Maredusa gave her a curious look. “You… are alsso the progeny of Celesstia?”

“Yup, Twilight’s twin sister believe it or not.”

The mare looked taken-aback. “You...” she leaned closer, her eyes alight with curiosity. “…ressemble her, yet you lack wingss and horn and her coloration. You ssmell magical too, although not perssonally magical. Are you a homunculuss?”

“Not really,” Dawn replied. “Big, long, complicated story, though, so I’d be peachy keen if I didn’t have to tell it.”

“Then you needn’t.” Maredusa turned her attention to the other three mares, the soldiers stepping aside as she slithered through their ranks and came to a stop just above the very fascinated-looking Rarity. “Good afternoon, madam unicorn.”

“Rarity, darling,” Rarity corrected her. “And that is a beautiful mane! How do you keep it so luxurious when you do so much digging? And what do you do to that coat? The health of it is just… lovely in this desert light!”

Maredusa blinked at this, eyeing Rarity skeptically for a moment, before seeming to realize that the mare was being perfectly sincere and she immediately blushed. “I… that iss extremely kind of you Rarity. It’ss been… well, centuriess ssince a pony lasst complimented me with ssuch earnestnesss.”

“Think nothing of it, Maredusa darling,” Rarity smiled warmly. “It’s a great honor to meet a pony…”

“Being, if you pleasse.”

“…being straight out of legend,” Rarity continued smoothly. “Although those legends don’t seem to be quite true. For one thing, you’re quite alive and not the victim of a pegasus hero…”

Rarity went silent because Maredusa had suddenly gone very, very still, her eyes going cold and the pupils almost disappearing as she bared her teeth. “Do not call her a hero,” she snarled. “That… that… faithlesssss whore was no hero, and sshe iss only called one becausse sshe sspun ssuch clever taless of how sshe outssmarted and sslew the monsstrouss Maredussa. That ssslut couldn’t outssmart her dinner, couldn’t think her way out of a paper ssack. That sshe wass alive at all after her pathetic firssst attemptss wass a mercy from a naïve little gorgon who wass lonely and ached for ssomeone to appreciate her, compliment her ssincerely, or jusst be good company.”

“So that was her famous exercise of wisdom,” Pinkamena commented with a sad expression. “Manipulating and hurting someone so she could brag about defeating a monster that she had to know was no monster. The lies she told were just as bad as the betrayal, weren’t they?”

“You sspeak wissely, pink pony,” Maredusa replied, the hissing fury still in her voice although she apparently had control of it. “It iss alwayss worsse to have your name blackened than to merely be heartbroken. And sso, the Maredussa that wass admired ass a gemcrafter wass replaced by the greedy hoarder of gemss. The Maredussa that helped griffinss with the initial tunnels of their city-sstatess became the filthy worm that hid in her dank tunnelss. The lovely Maredussa who wass honored in sculpture became the ugly beasst with ssnakess for hair.”

“I’m sorry, Maredusa,” Rarity said, boldly trotting forward and patting the gorgon on her serpentine coils. Maredusa recoiled slightly but then relaxed and gave her a grateful look before looking to Dawn and Twilight. “And in my desspair, I met Luna. The famouss beauty of the Night Court, the grim and courageouss warrior-princesss, the noble executor of the lawss her gloriouss ssisster made, lonely and unloved and sseeking a friend, esspecially a friend that could undersstand. If circumsstancess would have permitted, I would have been the firsst to sstand by her when she fell into darkness, for sshe undersstood and sshe truly cared.”

“I appreciate that you wish to tell your true story to these worthy ponies, Maredusa, but even as the heat kills in full sun, the cold will kill in your sheltering tunnels if we allow the sun to slip away from us,” the creatures’ leader said in a polite tone of voice, “and I wish to thank you for your aid in this; your agreement will save many of our wounded and will make our journey safer and more pleasant.”

Maredusa bowed to her with a liquid grace. “We pariahss musst work together when we can.”

“Would that more felt as you do,” the leader sighed.

“I wass taught well by the wissdom of a good friend and you by the wissdom of a good mother and the foressight of a great queen,” Maredusa smiled a little. “But yesss… we sshould not dawdle. Provisionss await in my grotto, a mere hour distant.”

Maredusa turned and slithered smoothly into the gaping opening to the tunnel she’d emerged from at first, followed by the various soldiers, four of whom hefted and carried the chest of gems (which, to Maredusa, was apparently the equivalent of a box of expensive sweets). As they and their soldier escort passed her by, Twilight slowed and looked at the leader.

“Is there anything I may call you?” She asked.

The leader smiled pleasantly. “Your Majesty would probably be the most appropriate mode of address, but you may call me Thryssa, Princess Thryssa if it matters at all. After hearing so much about you and seeing your intellect and power at work, I dare say that it’s a singular honor to meet and speak to you, Lady Sparkle.”

“You’ve… heard of me?” Twilight asked, slightly startled.

Thryssa nodded as she took up the pace and walked alongside the taller alicorn. “But of course I have; any creature with ears has heard of you. May I call you Twilight, or would that be overly bold of me?”

“You’re my captor; you can call me whatever you’d like,” Twilight replied.

“While that is certainly the case, you will come out of your captivity as well as you went in, and I would prefer to be remembered as one who was considerate towards you, as befitting the daughter of Celestia and the bosom friend and niece of Luna,” Thryssa said politely. “So I ask again: may I call you Twilight without offense?”

Twilight couldn’t help but smile. “It’s a bit hard to get offended at my own name.”

Thryssa smiled back. “Delightful. As I meant to say before I interrupted myself, you are well-known and the deeds of both yourself and your closest companions are spoken of by all things clever enough to comprehend them. Long before your true parentage was known, your unusual gift for magic and your incisive intelligence were admired.”

“Ah didn’t know we were famous outside of Equestia,” Applejack remarked from behind Dawn.

“After you returned Luna to herself and Discord to a stone prison, it could scarcely be otherwise,” Thryssa told the farmpony. “I know that you are Applejack, of one of Equestria’s most ancient farming bloodlines and the Element of Honesty. I know that the pink mare is Pinkamena Diane Pie, formerly a rock farmer, and presently the Element of Laughter. I know that this other pink mare is a living homunculus, a magical copy of Twilight Sparkle that was given full life as Dawn.”

Her eyes shifted to Rarity. “And I know you Rarity, Element of Generosity, far better than you might wish I did. I recognized your touch and your blades and who gave them to you. Would that it had been my hoof that struck your blow for you; I would have been less gentle.”

Rarity blinked and looked blankly at her. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“That is a lie, Rarity, but I understand.” Thryssa smiled warmly at her. “You have done me such a kindness, although unknowingly, that I shall speak no further of it.”

The alabaster mare looked warily at her. “I’m afraid I don’t understand.”

“At the moment, that is for the best.” Thryssa looked between the five mares, chuckling at their various surprised expressions. “Yes, despite the wishes of Celestia, we keep very well-informed about Equestria. It only makes sense; you are just an Everfree Forest away from us.”

“Ye speak about Equestria like it’s a diff’rent place,” Delphine noted. “You don’t consider yourselve part of Celestia’s domain, do ye?”

“No,” Thryssa replied curtly. “If the Sun Princess wants us to acknowledge that she is our ruler, she must rescind her decree keeping us in this desert and accept our queen as her peer and a legitimate member of her court, just as the various nobles that represent major cities of Equestria are. Until then, she can sit on my horn and spin.”

“You don’t have a horn,” Dawn pointed out.

“Don’t bother me with trivialities,” Thryssa retorted waving off the point. “She decrees that we must remain here forever, her dirty little secret hidden away in a hostile desert where no pony cares to go, and then would have us bow to her as our monarch? Perhaps if Luna sat upon the throne as sole ruler, but the day we bow to Celestia is a day I never want to see.”

The bitterness in the princess’ voice practically radiated from every word, enough that Twilight cringed slightly at it. “I… didn’t know…” she said in a small voice.

Thryssa sighed. “From what I know of you, if you had known you’d have taken action or at least satisfied your curiosity by visiting. I admit to being bitter and in my bitterness, I’m being overly cruel. Celestia is not the same pony she was, and perhaps she will soon be the kind of pony who would rescind the decree of thousands of years ago. Until then…” A look of revulsion flitted across her face “…we must take whatever allies we can find.”

“Including that Void dragon?”

“Is that what he’s called…” Thryssa grimaced. “I don’t think even mother wanted his so-called ‘help’ but he came with an offer we couldn’t in good conscience refuse.”

Twilight was about to ask what this offer was when her attention was drawn by the soldiers marching ahead of them respectfully parting ways and from their ranks emerged a black-coated pony with… dragonfly wings? Then she looked harder and realized that despite appearances, it wasn’t any kind of pony she’d ever seen before. Its coat shone with the muted shine of velvet instead of the luminosity of a healthy coat. Its muzzle was slightly more pointed and a pair of fangs just barely peeked out of its upper jaw over its lower lips. Its legs looked like it was made of a solid material instead of living flesh with a pattern of deep pitting and holes covering the leg below the knee. Most noticeably, however, was the jagged horn protruding from its forehead.

The not-pony pulled up short when it saw Twilight looking at it. “Uh-oh,” she said in a chirping, slightly higher voice than Thryssa’s, in similarly perfect equiish. “S… sorry, sis… I didn’t know you were with…” As Thryssa raised a paw and massaged her temples with a pair of claws, the not-pony eeped with Fluttershy-esque skill and looked very embarrassed. “…I did it again, didn’t I?”

“Yes, Tetti… you did it again,” Thryssa sighed. “Maker, Cricket! I’d expect Chidi to space out and forget her guise but not you!”

“I didn’t forget! It was just… um, sort of important and…” She gave what was apparently her sister a wry smile. “OK, I forgot.”

“Yes, yes you did.” Thryssa sighed heavily and looked at Twilight. “I was really, really hoping to approach this issue more gently after we’d established a rapport but this sort of changes things.”

“You’re shapeshifters, aren’t you?” Pinkamena asked.

“My race are known as changelings,” Thryssa said, nodding towards her sister who was twirling a long strand of a luxurious-looking blue mane, done into ponytails with a pair of valuable-looking clasps holding the style in place, around her hoof in clear embarrassment. “And no, despite the fact that we appear to have a chitin exoskeleton and have anisopteran wings, we aren’t insects.”

“It hadn’t occurred to us that you were, darling,” Rarity assured her. “Your blood is as warm and… well, bloody as any pony’s.”

Thryssa chuckled. “Not quite the vote of confidence I hoped for but thank you nonetheless. Here, there is no longer any purpose to the façade.” Her eyes flickered with a green light and emerald fire caught the end of her muzzle and seemed to burn in a line towards her flanks. Her guise rapidly ‘burned’ away in the magical fire, her true form seeming to surge out of her previous, sharp-edged shape. Where Tetti wore no adornments other than her hair clips, Thryssa was clad from head to toe to tail in bronze-colored armor that was composed of hundreds of fine metal scales and a silvery metal helmet that fit around her jagged horn (that looked sharper than Tetti’s) and conformed to the contours of her face.
Her dark aquamarine mane had been braided into a very long and complex-looking style with several sapphire-adorned ornaments in the braid and although she was clad in armor, Twilight could tell that she was distinctly taller than her sister and was built along slimmer and more lithe lines. A pair of large, delicately-veined dragonfly wings fluttered and twitched at her shoulders as she stretched a bit and smiled.

“It’s always a pleasure to go about in my own shape,” she commented, her voice having acquired a slight vibrato which Twilight supposed was due to the change in the shape of her vocal chords. “It feels more free and natural, and I’m very proud of my appearance.”

“I can see why!” Rarity exclaimed. “The bronze brings out your aquamarine mane and eyes beautifully and the sapphires set in silver are just exquisite. I can just see the perfect dress for that build and coloration… mmm… something goldenrod that conforms especially to flanks and… mmm… chest. Ah, if only I could get you to Carousel Boutique…”

“That, Rarity, is the focus of all my mother’s hopes and dreams: to be accepted as a noble in the court of the Dual Thrones and the sole sovereign queen of the eastern deserts and all their peoples,” Thryssa told her, smiling warmly at the praise from the fashionista. “Perhaps one day, changelings and gorgons alike can stroll into your shop and enjoy the attentions of a gifted dressmaker and fashionista.”

Rarity’s eyes practically sparkled at this possibility and Twilight chuckled at her friend’s entranced expression before looking up at the revealed Thryssa. “So what was this bargain you couldn’t refuse?”

“He—his name is apparently Tharalax—offered us the means to unite all of the desert beings under our queen, our mother,” Tetti replied. “And not by violence, which is surprising considering the sadistic qualities of our sometime ally. This means for union came in the form of a pony, and she delivered precisely what Tharalax promised: the beings of these deserts, mutual prisoners of Celestia’s decree, accept the queen of the changelings as their leader and willingly take council with her on matters of state.”

“Unfortunately, he has proven to be precisely what we all knew he would be: traitorous scum who took our consent to his offer as an invitation to use us as his pets and servants,” Thryssa growled, twitching her wings in agitation. “He uses the mare he brought to us as leverage, threatening to remove her again and let our dreams of union and equality wither, which we cannot permit to happen. And so, he can call upon the heir to the Hive Throne, the eldest daughter of Queen Chrysalis the Visionary, Marshal of the Everfree Line, Lady of the Southern Wastes, and arrogantly demand that she gather her personal guard, the most elite soldiers in the Changeling Hive Monarchy, and capture some ponies.” She looked solemnly at Twilight. “I swear that if he had told us before we were committed that he intended for us to seize the daughter of Princess Celestia and four of the six Elements of Harmony, I would have told him to buck himself to the moon.”

“Hive Throne? Changeling Hive Monarchy” Dawn snorted. “Sorta sounds like something bugs would call their monarchy.”

Thryssa treated her to a poisonous look. “First, you may call us ‘insects’ no matter how stupid it would sound but ‘bugs’ is abjectly offensive. Secondly, the title comes from nearly fifty thousand years ago when we changelings did call our monarchy a hive. Thirdly, be silent child and let the adults speak.”

“Child?” Dawn gaped. “I’m Twilight’s twin sister, you fly-winged twit! We’re exactly the same age!”

The changeling blinked. “Really… were you not created almost from scratch a mere six months ago?”

Dawn and Twilight both looked at her with narrowed eyes. “How can you know that? Speaking of such, how can you know all of us so well?”

Thryssa gave them an amused look and lit her horn. A moment later, a perfect doppelganger of the Wonderbolt Spitfire stood before them. “Maybe I’m just observant,” she replied in Spitfire’s voice. Another change and Rarity stood before them. “Or perhaps I’m just that good, darlings.” She returned to her true shape with a small grin. “Changelings, remember?”

“But haven’t you been complaining about…?”

“An agreement negotiated and signed under threat is not morally or legally valid,” Tetti stated. “At the time, the beings that now reside here were under threat of extinction by the hooves of various pony ‘heroes’ and they went to the Princess of the Sun for aid. Her ‘aid’ consisted of a vast prison and a web of lies that would protect us from them and protect them from us.” The smaller princess trotted closer to stand next to her armored sister. “We’ve never regarded the agreement as valid. We haven’t abused it overmuch—a little bit of spying, a little vacationing, purchasing supplies like exceptionally fine apples—but it was always an agreement created under duress and when Celestia put us our of her mind, the force that maintained the agreement was gone.”

“But why did she banish ya in the first place?” Applejack asked. “Y’all look a mite odd but ya could pass for ponies even without the disguise. Why’d ponies want ta kill ya?”

“Who can say?” Terri replied. “When the abuse and murder became bad enough, we gave them a reason but as to why they started? Ponies naturally cluster in herds, as changelings naturally cluster in swarms, and the invariable logic is that if the strongest individual thinks a certain way, that is the way everyone must think. We, naturally, begged the Dual Thrones for relief; the Princess that cared and wanted to help us couldn’t, and the Princess that could help refused.”

“Mother was a different pony back then,” Twilight sighed sadly.

“She was,” Tetti agreed. “But all signs are that the loss of Luna to Nightmare Moon utterly destroyed her, and the trauma was enough to open her eyes to what she was and who she’d become.” She turned and looked directly at her older sister. “Celestia is a different pony than she once was.”

“Perhaps,” Thryssa acknowledged noncommittally.

Tetti rolled her eyes. “And there was a time you wondered why Mother wanted her third-oldest to lead an embassy to the ponies instead of her heir.”

“That time wasn’t very long, you know,” Thryssa pointed out. “You are the brainy one and the hopeless romantic. Excellent qualifications for an ambassador to a former enemy.”

Tetti smirked. “And I have the good manners to show gratitude when the ponies I’m attacking with my personal guard go out of their way to spare their lives.”

“Ah, that was ye?” During the course of most of the conversation with Tetti and Thryssa, Twilight had noticed the two griffin sisters talking quietly out of the corner of her eyes but saying nothing. All seven of them startled a little when Delphine seemingly appeared out of thin air next to Tetti.

“Y... yes, it was me,” Tetti replied after a moment to get over her surprise. “I realize that having a creature walk up and give you a big hug and chitter at you in a foreign language is a bit unsettling…”

“Naw, I could understand ye Princess Tetti,” Delphine smiled. “So happens ye were speaking a dialect of a language I’m fluent in. I was more nervous about the claws than unsettled by the hug. I suppose the chief advantage ta shapeshifting is that ye can assume a form that’s best for combat without having ta put on weapons and armor beforehoof.”

“It is indeed quite helpful in battle,” Thryssa nodded. “And it’s a pleasant form to take because of its feline and dragon aspects.”

“An’ what’s it called?” Elli asked. “We thought it might be a variant of hellehound, called a Ninth hellehound.”

“It’s a shape we engineered ourselves, actually,” Thryssa said. “With all the time we’ve had in the deserts, we decided that there was no reason to confine ourselves just to what we see; we took the opportunity to devise shapes that do not otherwise exist so that ponies who meet us on the borders of this prison will think we’re something other than what we are. We called it a drakkat.”

“But how do you…?”

“When you’ve turned yourself into everything from ponies to diamond dogs to griffins to gorgons, you get an instinctive sense of proper internal anatomy,” Tetti told her. “That, and we could more or less copy our own bodies with slightly different skeletal aspects. Under the supple chitinous shell, we’re barely different than ponies, which was a substantial bonus in the few occasions when pony and changeling fell in love and married: it’s one of the few ‘exotic’ pairings that results in viable offspring, which points to ponies and changelings originating from a common ancestor.”

“Trust you to turn a sexual fetish into a fascinating research subject,” Thryssa grinned.

“Interracial intimacy isn’t a sexual fetish, Riss,” Tetti sighed. “At any rate, Lady Sparkle, we can indeed develop shapes to shift into that don’t mirror the shape of any living being we’re aware of. It requires immense skill and a massive investment of time but the result is well worth it. Without the drakkat form, I dare say that apprehending you and your friends wouldn’t have been possible.”

“Your Majesties?” Both changeling princesses turned to the male-voiced guard who bowed low to them. “We have conveyed word to your mother of your victory, as you ordered, and she replies that she will await you in Maredusa’s grotto that she might personally welcome the prisoners to her kingdom, as befits their station as Elements and royalty.”

Both sisters looked taken-aback by this but Thryssa quickly nodded. “Convey our thanks to our mother and tell her that it shall be a pleasure to see her again after these many months on the Line.”

“I go,” he replied with another bow, disappearing in the direction he’d come.

The changeling sisters looked at one another then at Twilight. “It’s been years since Mother has left the capital,” Tetti said. “You must be far more important than even we understood if the queen of all the eastern deserts is traveling to pay her respects.”

“Yes.” Thryssa suddenly smiled broadly. “This will be a true joy. I’ve missed Mother immensely, little Lepi even more.”

“Sis, it’s been years since anything was ‘little’ about Lepi,” Tetti chuckled. “Lovely and talented mare, and she knows it. Of course, she’s always been your favorite sister.”

“Hey, I’m fond of you too, Cricket,” Thryssaa protested. “You’re more of a peer to me than Lepi is; she’ll always be little Lepi to me.”

“Then sis, I’m going to have the time of my life watching you react to your little Lepi’s latest hobbies,” Tetti informed her with a wicked grin. “C’mon, you seven… Mother will be eager to see you.”

<><><

The rest of the hour passed fairly quickly. Thryssa and Tetti (whom Thryssa occasionally called ‘Cricket’ for some reason) had proven to be very pleasant company, happily answering any questions Twilight had asked of them. The Hive, as they called their monarchy, was a nation of merely two hundred thousand changelings and, very recently, had been expanded to encompass gorgons, a nesting pair of rocs (which Tetti described as gargantuan birds of enormous strength and unstable temperament), dust drakes (wingless dragons that shared Maredusa’s immense tunnel complex), and various other races that had been sent to the eastern deserts by Celestia’s decree over a hundred-year period nearly ten thousand years before. Changeling society was a matriarchy and the title of queen had been passed down from eldest to eldest with Thryssa being the heir apparent to her mother Chrysalis.

Chrysalis, according to her daughters, had earned the title ‘the Visionary’ for undertaking a large society-wide program of education, combat training, mastery of the changelings’ natural shapeshifting, and an initiative that Tetti had headed that sought to develop entirely original shapes for the changelings to use as needed. Her mother’s vision, as Thryssa explained, was to prepare changelings for the day when the decree would be repealed and changelings would join their long-lost pony brothers and sisters as citizens of Equestria and loyal subjects of the Dual Thrones. Neither one was very clear on what had prompted Chrysalis to undertake such an initiative, but the timing that Tetti described sounded like it coincided with the reemergence of the Guardian, which meant that Chrysalis had expected Equestria to be victorious and that the victory would make Celestia willing to free the changelings from their sandy prison.

The pair remained extremely vague and unspecific about the mare that Tharalax had brought with him, and how just one mare had managed to unite so many disparate races under Chrysalis’ rule without violence but it was clear that they regarded this mare with admiration and a touch of affection. About Thryssa’s offhoof comment that the changelings would be willing to submit themselves to Luna’s rule but not Celestia’s, however, the changeling princesses had quite a bit to say but the explanation had barely begun when they arrived in the grotto that Maredusa had mentioned.

When Maredusa had referred to her ‘grotto’, Twilight had been expecting a large cavern since the gorgon had clearly expected that it could accommodate the entire changeling army that had gone to fetch them. The grotto, however, was more akin to an underground mansion: polished stone floors, soaring ceilings with eye-popping architectural features, lines carefully carved to make the walls look like they were made of stone and mortar, benches, tables, windowsills inlaid with gold and intricate jewelwork, fountains, statues of hundreds of different beings…

“Amazing!” Rarity declared breathlessly. “This must have taken…”

“Centuriess,” Maredusa said as she slithered over, smiling. “Welcome to my home Lady Ssparkle, Princessess Thryssssa and Tetti, companionss of the aforementioned. I’ve laid out ass large a rapasst ass I had ssuppliess for, in honor of your coming and of the vissit of Queen Chrysaliss. You may even get to meet my daughter, Mara Belle, if she returnss from her travelss in the north in time.”

“Taking us into your home is a kindness unlooked-for, Maredusa,” Tetti said, bowing to her. “And it is a breathtaking home indeed, almost a palace. I look forward to the day when it will be filled with your progeny, and receive state visits from nobles far and wide.”

“I look forward to it ass well,” Maredusa agreed. “Though if the only noble that ever came wass Luna, I would conssider that to be ass good as a thoussand lesser royalss; ssuch loving regard ass sshe sshowed me when I was in deepesst distresss sshowed a goodnesss of ssoul full worthy of my eternal gratitude and loyalty, whether sshe wass Luna or Nightmare Moon.”

“If you could choose, which would you rather have?” Thryssa, Tetti, and Maredusa immediately turned and dropped into low bows in the direction of the changeling mare that had appeared through one of the doorways; deciding that it was the better part of valor, Twilight did the same.

The action evoked an laugh of almost musical resonance. “You honor me but please, rise; I would rather have my daughters’ embraces now than all the obsequeence in the world.”

Twilight raised her head in time to see both Tetti and Thryssa almost leap into the embrace of the changeling queen with small chirps of happiness. Chrysalis smiled broadly and closed her eyes contentedly, nuzzling each mare in turn. “Oh my daughters, my precious children… your mother’s heart has ached with worry for you ever since you embarked on that creature’s errand. To see you well is all I could ask of the Maker for all the rest of my days.”

“I should hope you would honor our memory by fulfilling your vision if the worst happened,” Thryssa chided, although her heart wasn’t in the rebuke.

“I would, but it would be as painful as if my heart had been torn from my breast,” Chrysalis said in turn, nuzzling both daughters again before they stepped away and to either side of her, giving Twilight her first clear look at the queen of the Changeling Hive Monarchy. Chrysalis was tall and lithe like her eldest daughter, at least as tall as Celestia if not just a bit taller. Instead of a jagged horn, hers was a graceful twisted loop and the pitted appearance of the typical lower legs of a changeling (which Tetti explained as an adaptation to how heavy their bodies’ dense chitin was) had been delicately shaped and smoothed into a series of entrancing, looping designs. Atop the mare’s head was a black crown, very jagged and sharp in appearance, that looked like it had been shaped out of changeling chitin instead of metal. A thick, luxurious aquamarine mane spilled over the queen’s gracefully long neck and cascaded down her shoulder, secured in place with a few artfully-placed silver jewel combs. Chrysalis’ eyes were neither the intense gold of her eldest or the gold-streaked blue of her third but an intense emerald green that flickered and smoldered with magic, more than hinting at the fact that like the elder monarch of Equestria, Chrysalis was a pony of great power.

Where Celestia went about in a simple golden breastplate, Chrysalis was adorned in a resplendent robe that Twilight could immediately tell was the most expensive silk, a deep royal violet to compliment her luminous carapace and trimmed with, based on Rarity’s appreciative intake of breath, real fur. Around her neck was a heart-shaped fire ruby that smoldered and flickered as if there was an actual fire burning within, all secured in a golden setting that had intricate writing around the rim, large enough that Twilight could tell that it would be legible at close inspection, but tiny enough that she couldn’t read it. The combination of her adornments and physical features made Chrysalis easily on par with Celestia for regal presence and beauty.

“Lady Twilight Sparkle,” Chrysalis said, inclining her head respectfully. “Firstborn of Celestia, savior of Luna, jailer of Discord, slayer of the Guardian…” those magic-flecked eyes twinkled “Ponyville town librarian.”

“Good evening, Queen Chrysalis,” Twilight replied, bowing to the changeling queen in turn. “I wish the circumstances of meeting you were a bit better, but it’s nice to meet you anyway.”

Chrysalis laughed softly. “Yes, it would be better if you came of your own will, but it wouldn’t have been quick enough for my vizier and ally.”

“Your daughters mentioned her.” Twilight gave the queen a curious look. “I just can’t think of what pony would be powerful enough to do what they say without any violence at all.”

“I disagree,” Chrysalis replied, grinning widely. “For you know her.”

“I… I do?”

“You do.” Chrysalis turned her head. “Empress?”

From a doorway near the one through which Chrysalis had entered, a luminous black mist flowed and gathered into a tall, elegant black-coated form that Twilight (and, judging by the gasps from behind her, her friends) knew all too well. Draconic turquoise eyes looked over the assembly and locked on Twilight’s, eyes going wide with amazement and… happiness? “…Twilight…?”

Twilight swallowed and stared at that black-coated form, those broad wings, the blue-silver armor that seemed almost a part of the all-too-familiar alicorn’s body. A body she had once shared with Luna… and Twilight was sure had been permanently surrendered after the battle with the Guardian, making the (supposedly) dead female the last casualty of that horrible battle. A name came to her lips almost unbidden, gasped out in a voice just barely louder than a whisper. “…NIGHTMARE?”

Author's Note

Yeah, I'm a big fan of Chrysalis and changelings, why are you looking at me all funny?

If I could remember who the author was that wrote this awesome comprehensive guide on mythological creatures in Equestria (with power ratings!), I'd totally credit them here for giving me Maredusa and Mara Bell. If anyone knows who they are, tell me so I can give them a shout-out.

Just random, useless, fun information:
Lepi is taken from the genus of butterflies.
Chidi (pronounced like "kitty") is taken from the insect genus cicadas.
Tetti is taken from the genus for bush crickets.

Celestia: And Full of Terrors II

“The Wight Flagge” was the most singular tavern Celestia had ever been in. There were no known hours of operation. The bar never closed, the music never stopped, and it seemed like being inside of it empowered ponies to stay up for weeks at a time because she could never remember seeing anypony stumble up the stairs to collapse into one of the hundred or so beds laid out in a communal sleeping arrangement over the top two floors. It embodied the spirit of the Crystal Empire, the quasi-autonomous state that had laid claim to and colonized the featureless desert of tundra and glaciers that lay between the Dragon Lands and the Griffon Provinces. With the strange artifact called the Crystal Heart a civilization of ponies had flourished in a land that should have been their death.

It had been opulent, overflowing with wealth from the exquisite fruits that needed a simultaneously arid and cold climate to fully mature, veins of crystals infused with raw eldritch energies worth a monarch’s ransom, and delicate sculptural work carefully suffused with magical energy which took months to melt and was designed to reveal entirely new works as it did. Its royal family was quite openly descended from changeling and Equestrian alike, a recognition of the fact that the changeling affinity for love had allowed the Heart to be constantly tuned to resonate with the perpetually changing weather, driven by windigos that lived so far above the ground that it was nearly impossible to know they existed at all.

From the royal line had come Night White. Within a decade, he was King Sombra and within a month, Celestia had watched with a broken heart as screaming winds of supernatural cold scoured the snowfield into a memorial of glory that was perfectly, horrifyingly smooth. The Glass Waste was its name now and the maelstrom of lethal cold that howled with hurricane-force velocities over the borders stopped abruptly at the edge of the mirror-like surface.

The silence was absolute, and crushing.

“This,” Cadence said after a long moment, “is wrong. The wrongness radiates from every direction. How is it possible?”

“We have never known,” Celestia said, feeling compelled to speak in hushed tones. “Sombra was a meglomaniac, prideful, and wicked, and the Abomination seemed to come from nowhere. In a thousand years, the greatest minds in Equestria have been unable to even speculate, beyond supposing that Sombra must have used some manner of unspeakable artifact to do the deed. We have no other explanation.”

“Would we have even been able to enter without your way, Your Majesty?” Shining said, watching the solid white curtain of snow kept perpetually in motion rise and fall along the edge of the Waste?”

“No,” Celestia said. “Which I hope is able to prevent Sotto Voce from approaching. There is no Way running through any of the other nations that ends here.”

“At least none that you know of,” Kryssa said. “We’ve been able to establish blink points--our term for them--from Scarabi to all the outlying population centers, and from Scarabi to the capitals of all the places we’ve done diplomatic business in.”

“So such a thing is entirely possible without your notice,” Anori said, “meaning no disrespect to Your Highnesses.”

“It’s possible, but not here,” Celestia said. “The route would have to be established by teleporting hundreds of times.”

“She’d only need to do it once, Auntie,” Cadence said. “There’s nothing to accidentally teleport into here. And if Sotto Voce taught his ally the method that Evils use to teleport, it wouldn’t even be difficult.”

“Which is why I can’t entrust everything to hope,” Celestia said. “And that is why we visited the palace stores. We can wait and watch for our enemy for quite a long while if needs be. Sola reward ponies like Starswirl the Ninth and Clover for laying so much groundwork for practical applications of magic to logistics.”

“We would have never been able to devise the camp matrix otherwise,” Anori said as Kryssa helped him unpack a tent from where it was strapped to a carrying harness. “Essentially all the equipment we’re carrying between us ensconced in a large crystal via the same extraspatial magic that these tents work by.”

“Oh, your technicians made that work?” Celestia levitated her own tent off the harness and unrolled it, sliding poles into designated slots to raise the roof and then anchoring the construct. Simple enough that even a child could do it, she reflected, permitting herself a tiny chuckle. “I remember that being one of the Ninth’s ambitions. When he presented the working prototype of the extraspatial field tent, he couldn’t stop talking about how it could allow entire armies to carry a single comprehensive unit with them that would let them set up a secure encampment in minutes.”

“Entire armies is an exaggeration,” Kryssa said. “The largest you can create without it being more economical to just bring two smaller-sized ones is about a company-sized mix.”

“Fifty tents and contents is still impressive,” Shining Armor said, setting up one of the auxiliary tents in between the tents already laid down. “But do you really have that much occasion to use them? Even if you occupy the entire wastes, your only borders are with the dragons and Equestria. What is there to guard against?”

“If only,” Anori sighed.

“Dear heart, we don’t have any need to protect our own lands against incursion,” Cadence said with a peck on his cheek. “A great many sand drake families watch the vast sands, jealously preventing intrusion on their territory, and ladies Maredusa and Mara Belle have prepared immense networks of tunnels that let them discourage invaders in their own fashion The only thing we’ve ever need to is use a variety of harmless deceptions and manipulations to deter innocent explorers.”

“Then…?”

“Secure passages,” Celestia said. “Is that right? Your people enforce the safety of trade and movement routes.”

“Just so, Princess,” Anori said. “We are permitted to move freely through all lands except Equestria--I think it’s obvious why--and protect any traffic along the myriad of routes. An agreement made during the time of… Vespa, I think.”

Kryssa grimaced. “Not the best time in our history.”

“She wasn’t that bad.”

“But she was bad.”

“She was realistic.” Anori looked at Celestia. “Realistic about the chances of the next day being the day when all would be forgiven. Realistic about the fact that we were a nation, not children in a time-out waiting to be invited back into the room. So she treated the Hive Throne as the throne of a sovereign queen.”

With something to work with, it wasn’t hard to guess at when the agreements the two bodyguards were speaking of had been made. We always supposed that the various sovereigns themselves had dedicated more attention to the matter, she thought. But now, knowing the true facts, it’s easy to see how that was absurd. The success in securing the routes had always seemed just a little too effective for a few extra warm bodies to have changed things. But a coherent, dedicated military guarding the routes?

““Now that you speak of it,” Celestia said, “I know about when Queen Vespa began extending your people’s power beyond your borders, because I remember when the effects began to be felt. I should have seen that the security was a little too good for territorial forces but there were far too many more pressing matters to look too deeply into why the world was just a little safer than it was before.”

“We had suspected that was the case,” Anori said. “In fact, Queen Vespa had been counting on it, as history records it. It was her hope that everything would be accomplished before you even became aware of it. Admittedly, she didn’t anticipate that you’d never be aware that someone had undertaken to secure trade and travel routes.”

“We had assumed that it was the nations that the routes belonged to.” Celestia put the final component in place and felt the thrumming pulse against her senses of the extraspatial magic snapping into being and filling the space of the tent. “Join me?”

“After we’ve set up the other auxiliary tent,” Shining Armor said. “The rations look like they came out right. No indications of disjunction, or contamination, or rot.”

“I can’t remember any occasion where the quartermastery fell short,” Celestia said. “I’ll be sure to thank them for their diligence when we return.”

The memory of the first time that Starswirl the Ninth had demonstrated his application of Clover’s extraspatial spell development stood out vividly for Celestia as she stepped into the expanse of her tent. Understanding the need for drama and showmanship when getting a noble audience on board, he’d come to the presentation with a pup tent, barely large enough to house a single pony, and then started to carry objects out of the massive internal space one by one, starting with a sleeping pad and ending with a full dining table and chairs to the stunned amazement of his audience. Suffice to say, there was intense enthusiasm for the possibilities and generous amounts of bits flowed into making the proof of concept more industrialized and standardized.

Even so, it had never become a convenience available to the average pony (to both sisters’ regret) because the component gemstones were very complicated to process and practically weekly maintenance was needed to make sure that a given space remained stable and didn’t become admixed with the ethereal nothingness where it was positioned. Even nobles didn’t use the spaces extensively, despite being able to retain servants who could maintain them, but it had proven an immense boon for Equestria’s armies and for securing artifacts that were magical enough to reinforce the stability of the space they were put into.

Celestia had kept her space modest, especially in comparison to the extravagant pavilions that especially wealthy noble families enjoyed: a comfortable four-poster bed, a gem-driven machine that could adjust the temperature of the space around it, and the various pieces necessary to prepare and serve tea to many guests at once. The table and cushions were also a convenient place to lay out maps and charts, which gave the large space a more practical use, but mainly Celestia had appreciated a private place where she could visit with others over a cup of tea out in the lush wilds of her kingdom.

“It comes as no surprise that you’d have a place to sit and drink tea,” Kryssa said with a broad smile. “It was always said that you are both mares of simpler pleasures than a shining white castle on a mountain would suggest.”

“It’s a lonely space indeed without company,” Celestia said, her smile mirroring the bodyguard. “Is there a tea that you both prefer?”

“Sage with lemon zest,” Anori said.

“Likewise.”

“Sage with lemon zest?” Celestia considered the two. “Sage is too rare to make tea of for us, I’m afraid.”

“And most of your teas--ginger, jasmine, cinnamon, nutmeg, mint--are delicacies in Scarabi.” Anori smiled. “So whatever Your Majesty prefers would be a rare treat for us.”

“Cadence didn’t serve you tea?” Celestia asked as she turned, selected a jasmine tea, and began to stoke up the small pot heater to boil the water.

“Her favorite hot drink has always been…”

“...bitter cocoa with marshmallows,” Celestia finished. “I understand she shared the taste with my daughters.”

“That, and fruit juices,” Kryssa said. “Tea was for very special occasions, and she always served mass-produced tea. Oddly, the nobility loved it. They thought it was charming, and quaint, that the princess of love preferred the tea of the common pony rather than the rarified blends popular among the upper crust.”

“You mean that one of the old Pillars families thought it was charming and quaint.” Celestia grinned a little. “And the rest of the nobility took their cue.”

“There was always that, at first,” Kryssa said, “but the path from doing it to keep up appearances and genuinely liking it was not a long one. Nobility like novelty, to puff themselves up in front of their peers, and I’ve seen quite a few of them seem quite smug about how they just recently had tea with Princess Cadenza and it was so quaint and adorable.”

“But of course they didn’t serve the same among their friends.”

“Of course not,” Anori said. “Common pony tea was a Mi Amore Cadenza thing. You only drank common pony tea when Mi Amore Cadenza was receiving you for a social occasion. Doing otherwise would be pretentious.”

“That sounds like a Di Lis thing.”

“Fleur did adore her mimi,” Cadence said, stepping neatly into the gap that Anori and Kryssa had left between them as if she was intended to stand in it, “and she learned everything from her.”

“Such as manipulating social trends.”

“The art of wearing a mask,” Cadence said with a little snort. “Something I never imagined I’d need to do well.”

“Something you don’t actually need to do well Princess,” Anori said, smirking at her.

“Of course I need to do it well,” Cadence said slightly stiffly. “I look better in pink.”

“And without the dragonfly wings,” Celestia said.

Cadence blushed a little. “That’s… not really an issue for me.”

Celestia felt her brow furrow. “It’s not? Do you have a..?”

“Yes, but also, no.” Cadence sighed. “Yes it’s a deformity--an extremely profound one--but it doesn’t appear to be one. I’d really prefer not to explain.”

“Something to do with your magic?”

“What? No! Not… it’s nothing like that.” Cadence sighed again. “The only thing that changes between my ordinary shape and my changeling shape is my coat color and the color of one of my mane streaks. The rest is… I look like I do now. My sister Tettidora believes that remaining in guise lock for my entire life made the shapeshifting magic ‘forget’ my natural form.”

“Forget your natural...” Celestia shook her head. “Never mind, this is clearly making you uncomfortable. I’m sorry for prying, Cady.”

Cadence smiled and stepped forward and hugged Celestia. “Nothing to apologize for, Auntie Tia. The problem is such an exotic one that I’m sure that Aunt Luna would be confused as well, and she has far more experience with changelings. Besides, it feels good to have someone to talk to about it.” She glanced back at her bodyguards. “Someone who doesn’t joke about it.”

Both looked a little taken-aback. “We tease because it’s not a problem to…”

“But it is a problem,” Cadence said, with a touch of sharpness that Celestia had almost never heard from her. “I bear no resemblance at all to my family. My sisters all have a distinct mix of features from parents, grandparents, even great-grandparents in the case of Lepi. Me? I look like a black-coated alicorn. I stand next to my birth mother and I look like the ambassador from Equestria. I can tell that most changelings don’t care, and the ones that do are putting every effort into not caring because they like the pony beneath the appearance. But despite everyone being welcoming and accepting, I still feel like an outsider among my own.” Her smile became slightly bitter. “It doesn’t help that I am an outsider.”

“You’re not an outsider, Princess,” Kryssa said firmly. “You’re a long-lost daughter of a beloved queen. You’re the adoptive daughter of another queen--so to speak. Anyone who expects you to blend into a culture you just became aware of last year is being foolish, and that goes for you.”

“Do what you always told Twilight to do, and think about this,” Anori said. “Give it time. Lepinora’s little dragonflies can blend in anywhere, but they’ve been exhaustively taught out to fake it. You’re pathologically incapable of faking anything…”

“Gee, thanks,” Cadence said, although her smile brightened slightly.

.”..and that is why it’s fortunate that your special talent is being so attractive and appealing that you don’t have to,” Anori finished. “Also, you owe each of us a box of cinnamon sticks for having to bop you over the head for the thirty-second time.”

“The fancy ones from Stalliongrad,” Kryssa said with a fangy grin. “The ones capped with white chocolate.”

Cadence grinned right back at her. “Not the ones that are individually hoof-crafted with spun-sugar ribbons tied around the middles?”

“We’re not greedy, although…” Anori gave her an extremely over-serious look. “That’s now the price for time thirty-three.”

“If your magic ‘forgot’ can’t it…” Celestia pursed her lips, searching for the right word, “...re-learn your natural form?”

“What does my natural form look like?” Cadence’s smile didn’t have any trace of bitterness in it, although her tone was a little wistful. “The last time anyone saw what I looked like as a changeling, one with all the distinctive features, I was a few months old. Tettidora can use all manner of inheritance models and probabilities to approximate a form with the correct family resemblances, and imprint it into my shapechange, but…”

“It’s not truly your form.” Celestia smiled at her. “If I might indulge in a slightly selfish sentiment, I think your true form is the one you’re in now.”

“Imagine that,” Kryssa said.

“I wonder where I’ve heard that before,” Anori said.

“It sounds an awful lot like something a mother would say.”

“Specifically, your mother.”

“How very strange.”

“Don’t make me hit you two,” Cadence said. “You know perfectly well that Mother took time to make peace with it.” She nosed Celestia. “But hearing it from my adoptive mother as well makes it even better.”

Celestia patted her and turned to turn off the heat, when she paused. Just before she touched the control for the heat, she had been sure she’d heard the ting-ting ting-ting of a distant bell, but now as she listened for it, the sound didn’t repeat. Odd, she thought as she dropped the tea bags into the hot water to steep. “I don’t think I’ve had a chance for you to tell me about her,” she said, trying to affect a diffident tone. “Your birth mother, that is. Beyond that she’s using you as part of some plan, and that she likes to hug you.”

“She reminds me strongly of you, Auntie,” Cadence said. “Kindly demeanor, very approachable, adored by her subjects, and her mantle of rulership is as natural on her as her wings and horn.”

“And she’s an Equestriaphile,” Anori said with a grin.

“An… Equestriaphile.”

Cadence sighed and gave Anori a level look. “She regards Equestria with unusually intense fondness,” she said. According to Crown Prince Pharynx--my father--she used to have a minor obsession with Equestria.”

“The crown prince is exaggerating,” Kryssa said. “She regards Equestria the way an adult would regard the home they grew up in: it’s not the true home of changelings, but it’s the home they came from, someplace to go back to and have fond memories of.” She met Celestia’s eye. “We still have the banners.”

“The… banners.” Celestia frowned a little. “What banners?”

Kryssa and Anori both looked taken-aback. “The banners,” Kryssa repeated. “The ones the Black Host carried into battle.”

“Battle wasn’t my responsibility,” Celestia said, “it was Luna’s. Before you bring up demonstrations, or military parades, or other occasions where military banners were displayed, please remember that Canterlot didn’t become suitable for such things until a century after the exile.”

“Did you never once visit the army?” Both changelings were looking perplexed and, Celestia noted, hurt.

“No.” Celestia sighed. “In thousands of years, I made quite a few bad decisions, developed numerous bad habits, and made an unfathomable number of mistakes. I and my sister have never been equals in terms of the authority we wielded, or the responsibilities we took on. Military matters were…”

“...Aunt Luna’s responsibility,” Cadence said. “You had an entire nation to watch over and guide.”

“Yes, but it was more than just that.” Celstia took out a tea cups and quietly poured one for everyone. “Both I and Luna have the capacity for immense destruction. She accepts that fact; I only tolerate it.”

“So you were uncomfortable around the army.”

“I was.” Celestia sipped, looking at the bodyguards. “The detachment was one of many ways in which I inadvertently wronged your people, but it’s not one that I’ve ever had an opportunity to make right.”

“So you kept none of them?”

“Where they could remind me that I’d sent an entire race of my little ponies away?”

Anori sighed and nodded, taking a long drink. “That is fair, Your Highness, although still deeply disappointing. We’d hoped that at least some memorial to all that we had done for Equestria remained.”

“It has.” Celestia smiled and tapped the side of her head. “I and Luna lived through all of what you did, and remember it. The peace we enjoyed until the Guardian was also a memorial to your people. The looming threat of a grand army was a backdrop to every bit of diplomacy; by the time former enemies acknowledged that the threat no longer existed, we had beaten our swords into plows.”

“The threat never went away, you know.”

“I certainly know that now.” Celestia went to take another sip when her ear twitch involuntarily at the bell sound again, which again faded when she concentrated on listening for it. “Did any of you hear that?”

“Hear what, Auntie?”

“It’s strange but I thought I heard a ringing…” The sound came again, and again faded. “...bell. There it was again.”

“I heard it as well, Your Highness,” Kryssa said. “A ding-ding ding-ding sound, like a bell being rung in pairs.”

“Maybe a piece of equipment is striking…” Cadence shook her head. “No, the air here is entirely still, that can’t be it.”

“There was something familiar about it.” Celestia put her cup down and stepped passed the other three to poke her head out of the tent, to see that Shining Armor had gone entirely still and was looking around, his ears flicking and rotating as he turned slowly from side to side.

“Your Majesty,” he said. “I take it you can hear the bells too?”

“I can,” Celestia said, “but not clearly, and they fade as soon as I turn my attention to listening to them.”

“Something magical then,” Shining said. “They seem very near but I don’t see changes. It’s still perfectly flat, utterly still, and I can see the wind barrier remaining where it was. Do bells have any great significance here?”

“Several. Town bells would toll the hour, as did the giant bells installed in city towers. It was common to magically synchronize bells so if an alarm was rung in one place, the entire settlement would know. They had several highly popular seasonal carols that used bells alone. Bells were rung for warning, celebration, and sometimes to just lift everypony’s spirits by tolling a favorite tune.” She frowned. “I feel that I’m forgetting something.”

In truth, she also had a feeling that what she was forgetting was something she didn’t want to remember. The ding-ding ding-ding was associated with something terrible, she was certain. But the sound came again and it was far more clear this time--and when Celestia flicked her ears to try and figure out where it was coming from, it didn’t fade. The sound seemed to be coming from the direction where Celestia knew the center of the Glass Waste lay but as she turned to call Cadence and her two bodyguards out from the tent, she caught sight of the wind barrier.

It had moved.

The new path of the howling wind now bent inwards, towards the same center that the bell sound was coming from, and the sight forcibly imposed the memory she’d been resisting on her. “The storm bells,” she said.

“The what, Auntie?” Cadence asked as she emerged, flanked by Anori and Kryssa.

“The storm bells,” Celestia said, turning to look towards the center. “The bells rung when a great storm had been sighted, warning everyone to secure their homes and shelter until it blew over. The… I remember them vividly, the day that Sombra acted. A great cacophony of storm bells deafening us as the annihilating wind swept in and scoured the Empire from existence, imprisoning it in the Waste. It was horrifying to see, and I bless my good fortune that we were too far away to watch the effect on the citizens.”

“So why can we hear them now?”

“The only explanation I can think of is that we’re too late,” Celestia said. “Sotto Voce is already here, and he is breaking the Abomination.” She took in a breath, turning her head to watch as the winds rushed towards the center. “The Empire is returning.”

Author's Note

Welcome to yet another installment of totally-coincidentally-named-chapters. I realize that this isn't exactly action-packed, but I hope people enjoy it and comment. Comment a lot. Comment so much, in fact, that I'll be helpless to read them all. An author can always hope, there's nothing wrong with that. Anyway, the important part is that people enjoy and tune in next time I've successfully motivated myself to add another chapter.