Dreamwalker's Tale: An Anthology

This is not a stroll, I had to tell myself from time to time, just to keep myself from letting my guard down too much. We passed through the Everfree Forest once more. Due to the thick canopy overhead, the light all around us was dimmed down considerably. Not enough to actually interfere with our eyesight in a significant manner, but on the rare occasion, the moving shadows could play tricks on our minds.

But being on guard was considerably harder to do when all around me, ponies were merrily chatting away. Spike's voice, as the only male one, stuck out the most and occasionally I heard him tell another piece of story that actually made it through my thick skull and the haze I was drifting in. I enjoyed the company, and with all of them here, the trek was probably as safe as it could be. A forest was not supposed to fall deathly silent – because if it did, there was great danger lurking nearby. What we could hear was ‘the usual’. Chirping birds, some sounding rather angry. Rustling in the bushes that caught Fluttershy’s attention, her ears swiveling about and her mind probably trying to figure out which of the critters might be hiding there. Rarity stepped around the mud puddles with greatest care, either complaining to Fluttershy, or asking about the sanctuary, or listening to Spike. Applejack was discussing the next Apple Family Reunion with Rainbow, who in turn constantly tried to trim down AJ’s once again increasingly ridiculous plans. And Pinkie just hopped along, chatting with everypony and nopony, apparently including the occasional tree.

Maybe it was a stroll after all.

Which predator in his right mind would attempt to attack this group? Some of them, by now, might even be familiar with Applejack, seeing as her farmland bordered on the forest. A lot more surely were familiar with the rough pony shape, due to Zecora being a strong presence within these woods.

It was just another moment of pointlessly arguing with myself, just to allow myself to drift off once again, walking close to Twilight and probably smiling from ear to ear, while the voices of my loved ones filled them.

We reached the Castle of the Two Sisters around early midday. It still astonished me what magic was capable of doing. The entire courtyard had been transformed by now, and the influence of this transformation was spreading beyond the castle ruins itself. The growth had become a lot less stable and consistent in recent years, leading to blots and patches of grass colored in a lighter green than the surrounding forest. Trees that were considerably less gnarly and twisted. Less dangerous flora and treacherous terrain. Slowly but surely, a part of the Everfree was being pacified.

This new and less dangerous zone within the forest already had interesting consequences. Many non-predatory animals made this new zone their home or at least fled here whenever they were chased by a hungry predator. There were enough nooks and crannies to hide in and the Everfree predators were simply weirded out by this place and rarely continued their pursuit if the prey managed to get in.

Zecora regularly came here to study the spread, aiming for precision with her numbers, so that she could relay them to Twilight. And she in turn calculated and predicted. Everything was carefully monitored, but at the end of the day… we still knew little about what was happening here. Applejack sometimes came here to see after the four apple trees in the courtyard, just to make sure they were okay. And Fluttershy made the trip to care for those critters living here now. She even considered opening a second sanctuary, or extending the first one to this point… somehow. A stupidly large project for another time.

Rarity, always prepared of course, had a blanket with her and we enjoyed a little picnic in what once was an impressive castle garden. Considering how it was supposed to look like and what it actually looked like, it was impressive in its own right.

The warmth of the bright sunlight seeped into my coat. While the others were once again — or still — chatting away merrily, I felt myself become drowsy. I crossed my front legs, laid my head on top and dared to close my eyes. A quiet, happy sigh escaped my throat when Twilight tentatively put her wing over my back. My apparent approval seemed to do some good, as I felt her wing relax a little more and she even scooched closer to me. In turn, I leaned against her and it all just felt perfect. Their voices. The warmth. The drowsiness. Her wing. Her coat. The grass beneath me. The faint smell of apples.

This is heaven.

I completely lost track of time.

Only once I noticed the faint, teasing sensation of a primary trailing along my spine did I come back from whatever place my mind had ventured to. Her wing was missing, the voices had died down a lot, sounding a little farther away, and the only voice that remained close by was Twilight’s. Or rather, I could still hear her attempts to stifle her giggling.

I cracked my eyes open to see her playful smile as she once again put her primary on my neck and slowly led it down my back, observing my body’s reaction. Until she noticed me looking at her and the faintest tint colored her cheeks. “Welcome back, sleepyhead,” she greeted me.

“Not sure I’m awake,” I answered with a smile. “Still feels like a dream…” And with that being said, I had the audacity to just close my eyes again and hum in appreciation of her feathers caressing me.

She giggled again and I felt the shift, as she leaned down to whisper into my ear. “Break is over. There is work to be done here.”

Tease.

Before she could retreat, I quickly tilted my head and snatched a surprise kiss from her. And I grinned like a madpony once I saw her blush a little heavier than before. “Thank you,” I told her. She would have probably asked what I was thanking her for, had she been better composed. Truth be told, I was not entirely sure myself. For being there? For making me this relaxed? For waking me up in such a nice manner?

I stood up and stretched like a cat.

“See? That’s totally normal!” I heard Rainbow insist and, looking in the direction of her voice, saw her pointing a hoof at me.

A very skeptical looking Applejack raised an eyebrow. “You’re graspin' at straws, RD. You really want to use Dreamwalker of all ponies as an example for ‘being normal’?”

Rainbow furrowed her brow. “Well… I… still, other ponies do that too! All the time!”

“Maybe it’s more of a pegasus-thing?” Fluttershy meekly offered. “Because I sometimes do that as well.”

“Oh yeah!” Pinkie promptly chirped in. “I saw it so many times and it always looked sooo satisfying, so I tried it once as well!”

Applejack turned to Pinkie, slight worry on her face as she looked her over. “You tried ‘once’? You okay there, sugar cube?”

Pinkie grimaced, but still smiled somehow. “Well… I heard a pop and a crack and a knickknack and then I had a cramp for about an hour.”

Fluttershy giggled. “She ran around the house screaming ‘ow, ow, ow’. But she tried to be considerate and not disturb all the animals, so she ran very slowly, and screamed very quietly too. I had to massage her for almost two hours before she felt good again.”

“Yupp, the entire two hours were needed, absolutely!” Pinkie insisted with nopony even doubting the statement in the first place. Now, however…

They all just giggled while I made my way over, with Twilight by my side. “Yeah, I know those sudden ‘need a massage now’-cramps,” I contributed my piece while grinning in Pinkie's direction. “Twilight sometimes helps me out with those as well…”

Another round of laughter before any of us calmed down enough to actually turn our attention to the work we had come here for. “Now, while this was all very lovely so far,” Rarity opened with a ladylike smile. “And I do oh so enjoy this company, I think there might have been an ulterior motive to this entire trip.”

Both Twilight and I grinned a little at the subtle jab. This entire plan had started with ‘could you help us out with something?’ and everything fun was added to that plan after the fact — the picnic included. But those had been undoubtedly good additions. We shared a look and Twilight nodded, taking up the responsibility of explaining.

With Twilight being Twilight, it was all about books of course. The old castle’s library lay in tatters. Many of the powerful enchantments that once protected these books from the gnawing appetite of time had run out of energy or had been damaged or destroyed when the battle took place. Considering the extent of damage to the castle, the aggressiveness of the surrounding flora — and fauna, for that matter — and the humidity of the forest air, it was a decently sized miracle that even a single non-protected book still remained to be salvaged.

And a salvage trip, this most certainly was.

Twilight had taken time to come here before. And each and every time, she had taken books back with her. Usually as many as she dared to carry without reducing her maneuverability too much, in case an Everfree predator had some funny ideas about his diet today. But surprisingly, she had never taken stock of what was left to gather. How many more books were there that could be saved. And with so many ponies present – and our group being a considerably less attractive target for hunting —, we could attempt to bring a massive haul back to the Castle of Friendship.

So, with her fancy magic conjuring displays of the floorplan of the ruins into the air for all to see and orient themselves, she explained why we were here, how this was meant to be done, and which parts of the castle she had already searched or emptied. She hoofed out neat little lists to check things on, three in total, while keeping one for herself. One she gave to Fluttershy, one to Applejack and one to Spike.

That was my cue. That and the fact that she looked over to me. “We’re going in teams of two,” I took over. “Applejack, you’re with Pinkie. Rainbow, you go with Fluttershy. Rarity and Spike, Twilight and me. Everyone clear on everything? We meet back here in the courtyard around afternoon, we don’t want to be stuck in the Everfree Forest at night. That means we have a couple of hours. It might sound like a lot, but trust me – it’s not.”

They all had listened intently and gave the occasional nod to confirm their continued attention. But as soon as I asked them if they had any questions, Rainbow’s wing rose and tilted upwards. “Yeah, uh… not that I mind,” she said with a short side glance in Fluttershy’s direction. “But why am I going with Fluttershy?”

Twilight tried to hide her impulse to grimace and, in an attempt to help her distract them from that — because in the end, the two of us had talked about the groups and she had found my arguments to be reasonable, despite my way of offering them —, I quickly rose to answer that. “Because if we let you go with Pinkie, the castle will fall. Again. Due to sudden prank wars. And if we let you go with AJ, you won’t get any work done, doing kissy faces all the time.”

I chuckled the very second I saw her sheer outrage. She puffed her cheeks out just to refrain from immediately spouting anything too vile, but after taking a short breath, she nonetheless started to fire back. “What the hay’s that supposed to mean? I’m not lazy! And I don’t. Do. Mushy stuff!” She immediately shot Pinkie a withering, warning glare as she dared to giggle at that. Even Rarity’s smile grew a little wider, a little strained.

Spike, bless his little heart, had less restraint. “But you totally do? Like, all the time.”

Rainbow's head whipped around to focus her attention on the dragon, but as soon as she did, Rarity stepped up to Spike's side. “Careful, darling,” the seamstress warned Rainbow with a teasing smile, before batting her eyelashes at her.

Rainbow huffed and refocused on me. “Why can’t I go with Rarity or Spike then? Or any of you two?”

I quickly glanced at Twilight, but only confirmed that she was very, very glad not to be in the spotlight right now. So I continued on. “Well, Rarity and Spike have been working together for years now. Actually, years before I even showed up. Have you ever been gem-hunting with those two? It’s an impressive sight to behold. Like a well-oiled machine. As for Twilight and myself, well, do you really want to get bored by walking behind the nerdy book horse gushing about another tome of unfathomable weight?”

Rainbow grimaced and I grinned. The smell of victory was in the air, I could almost taste it. And then Applejack spoke up. “So this is about breakin' up the couples, so that they don’t get distracted? Because if so, then Rainbow’s question remains. Why not group Twilight with Spike, since they are all familiar with each other and such, and you go with Rarity?”

“Thaaank you,” Rainbow said with relief. Finally somepony who understood her, and was ‘on her side’. Applejack grinned and I started to realize that this might turn into a little battle of wits. Which would have been fine with me, really, but as I had said before: It was easy to overestimate just how much time we had at our disposal.

Luckily, Rarity came to my rescue. “I very much prefer working with my little Spikey-Wikey, Applejack. While he and Twilight might work together perfectly, Dreamwalker and I have a lot less practice with that. And quite frankly, I would not want to bore him to death with my nonsense about fashion, I know he cares little about it, while Spike has a very acute sense of color and texture.”

I silently thanked her with a warm smile and a nod. Applejack — and Rainbow, for that matter — seemed more distracted by something else, however. “Did… did you just call fashion ‘nonsense’?” Applejack asked with a disturbed expression.

“Maybe she’s a changeling,” Rainbow mused, while eying Rarity critically.

I chuckled and tried to get the conversation back on track. “Would you guys already stop stalling for time? Come on, you agreed to help out.”

Both shared a look before sighing. “Fine.” And immediately perked up again, because… well, at the end of the day, this had been more of a game than anything else. Applejack did not really mind going along with Pinkie — it was like a miniature Apple Family Reunion after all and once they took off in the direction of their marked section of the castle, they vividly started talking about exactly that. And Rainbow and Fluttershy were foalhood friends — they would never run out of things to talk about and ever since Fluttershy had grown a little more assertive, Rainbow felt less inclined to push her towards growth.

Rarity just smiled in our direction before nodding towards Spike and the two of them went off as well, leaving Twilight and me behind. As soon as all six of them were out of sight, I could hear Twilight breathe in relief behind me. I turned around with a quiet chuckle. “Well, we survived that one,” I offered.

She smiled in reply. “We sure did. I still think it was the right decision to split them up, but for a second, I wondered if they would go along with it or not…”

“Ah you know Rainbow,” I told her with a head shake. “She was just fooling around. They’re fine.” I refocused my own attention at the ruins around us and caught a quick glance at the floorplan Twilight was holding under her wing. “So. Do you want to get started?”

I loved the sight of the growing enthusiasm that widened her smile a little, and seemed to brighten it up as well. “Let’s.”

We worked for maybe half an hour in comfortable silence, each of us concentrated on the task at hoof. It was repetitive work, however, which tempted the thoughts to wander off. Take a book out of the shelf — or two dozen in Twilight's case — and open it up. Study if it immediately fell apart or only consisted of ashes anyway, if the writing was still legible, and if it met all criteria, try to find a title for the damn thing to put it onto the list. If it was destroyed anyway, due to fire, water or time, then there was little to be done aside from putting it down onto the ground, as to make clear that this was not to be put back onto the shelves. With this routine quickly found, we worked our way up and down the shelves, one layer at a time, until we moved on to the next shelf.

Some books fell into a gray area. The books hardcover might have been severely damaged, or parts of the pages might have been devoured by insects, the writing might have faded over time. But those damages were recoverable. And because of that, these books had absolute priority over any others. Continued exposure might turn those to the ‘lost’-pile and that was to be prevented. Books that were fine to begin with could stay here for a little longer, if necessary — and we quickly found enough books in our section alone to realize that it would be necessary.

“You had been rather quiet on our way over here,” Twilight started a little bit of small talk while walking down the aisle, followed by a floating arrangement of books. “Actually, let me rephrase that. You have been quiet most of the time so far. Is something on your mind?”

I stopped reading the first couple of pages — because I had yet another book on my hooves which refrained from having a title on the first page, or the cover, or its spine, or anywhere else as far as I could tell — and thought back. I had been quiet at the picnic because… well, I was asleep. But she was right. Even on the trek over here from Ponyville, I had barely talked. And it was not due to my attempts at vigilance. My mind had been drifting off constantly. And as soon as I felt a grin tug at my lips, I had a sneaking suspicion why. “Well, I was just daydreaming, I guess,” I replied and closed the book. While I could not find any title, the second half of it had markings of fire damage. It would accompany us back to Ponyville no matter its title.

Twilight meanwhile stuck her head around the corner to glance at me. “Daydreaming?” she echoed with curiosity. And as soon as she saw my grin and enthusiastic nod, she raised an eyebrow and smirked a little. “Anything good?”

I chuckled at her curiosity. “Sure was. Though I’m not sure it’s what you think it is. I had a wonderful morning with Sunny. We woke up, we cuddled a lot, and we had breakfast in bed. It was a little bit messy, but oh so glorious. She let me feed her, it was… nice.” Just a couple of months back, we had talked about opening up our relationship. Within a few weeks, all of us had come to an agreement, terms and conditions had been set and boundaries were made known to each other. Mistakes would be made, of course — that was an inevitability of life. But all of us felt like we were in a good spot right now. And it was still oh so very exciting to think about. Thinking that right now, I could kiss Twilight. I could push my desire for her onto her and it would be okay. We were free to do what we wanted to do, without it being another miserable failure of self-control that we had to report to our significant others with our tails tucked between our legs and a bad conscience.

A vital part of these set limitations was Sunny’s plea for privacy. She did not mind me getting involved with Twilight and Luna, but she did not want to hear anything about it for now. And she did not want me to share intimate details with them either. But… this, I decided, was not intimate. We did not have sex this morning, we did not pour our hearts to each other, neither of us had an emotional breakdown or anything like that. Just a relaxed, nice morning in bed. Sharing that should be fair game then.

And I knew for a fact that Twilight harbored some sort of feelings for Celestia. More than the idolization I had known about. Maybe these feelings were just a faint echo of a crush a student Twilight had on her teacher. Maybe it was a simple infatuation. She refused to tell me. Or Luna, or Celestia, for that matter. And we all had agreed: That was fine. ‘No’ was a legitimate answer.

That did not mean I could not tease her relentlessly about it though. “Pro tip: If you ever get the chance to treat Sunny, try strawberries. Most ponies prefer to dip them in warm chocolate, which, you know, it’s fine. Very sweet. But if you actually want to hit her where she doesn’t expect it from, dip them in warm honey. And mix a little vanilla into the honey. It’s messier, sure, but that look on her face… she was practically melting in my hooves,” I recounted with a dreamy grin. And I could not help but notice the silence surrounding me. Before, I could hear Twilight's soft hoofsteps on the marble tiles or the old carpet. I could hear her skim through the pages or hear the shuffling of books when she took them from the shelves. Now there was silence.

My grin only grew wider and I stepped around the bookshelf. I quickly found her right around the corner, her cheeks flush. She tried to hide it with a book in front of her face, pretending to read, but it was rather obvious that not one single word actually made it through into her mind. “You are mean,” she complained with a feeble voice.

My grin died down to a warm, loving smile as I stepped up to her, pushed the book aside and, with a hoof raising her chin, kissed her. “One day, you’re going to tell me. And I’m going to be very happy and supportive,” I promised her.

Her eyes spoke of refusal. Never would she tell me! Never! But her loving smile betrayed her and with a brief moment of hesitation, she placed a quick but grateful kiss on my lips. “Thank you.” Maybe she was thanking me for my implied and promised support. Or just for not asking. Or maybe for the tip that she undoubtedly had made a mental note of.

While I quickly decided to switch gear a little, I refused to stop teasing her just yet. She was about to return to work, I could see that, and I really, really should do the same, but goodness gracious, teasing her was way too much fun. “You know, this section is actually pretty far off from the others.”

She quickly glanced at the floorplan. It was unnecessary, I was sure of that. She knew that thing by heart. And she was not stalling for time either, she was just double-checking. Probably trying to decipher what I tried to tell her with that remark. And she found her answer when she looked up at me and noticed my smirk.

“You’d have to be pretty loud for the echo to reach any ear besides our own, right?” I continued and tried my best not to chuckle, despite seeing the faint tint rising in her cheeks again.

Most of the time, teasing her was so much fun because she felt utterly unprepared. She became flustered, stumbled over words and made a very endearing, very lovable, very desirable fool of herself. But she grew, like anypony else, and over the years had started to adapt to my incessant flirting. She firmly stood her ground, almost literally, and rose to the challenge. A knowing smirk of her own on her face and so many promises fueled by unseen fire in her eyes. She stepped up to me and whispered straight into my ear, her hot breath tickling it. "Are you just flirting… or are you propositioning?”

I felt tingly all over. I felt blood rush to my nethers. And I felt my grin grow even further, to the point that my cheeks started to ache a little. She was toying with me now, I knew that. And I knew what that meant, as well. There was work to be done, and it would get done. I knew her well enough to realize that. Still, the teasing and back and forth was fun anyway. “Is there a difference?” I quietly replied, giving her neck a little nip. “And even if there is, one leads so easily to the other… would it even matter?” Another nip and I could feel how she had to struggle for a moment to keep her composure.

She gave the tip of my ear an innocent little kiss before cranking her show up to eleven, sending the quietest, briefest moan straight down my ear, straight down my spine, according to that shudder that made me tremble in anticipation. My body was fully expecting a certain resolution at this point. One I knew would have to wait for a good while longer even before she made it clear. “No, I don’t think so,” she replied. “Because the answer is ‘no’ either way. Now back to work.”

I finally allowed myself to chuckle. I turned my head and looked her straight into her eyes, muzzle to muzzle, and still saw that desire burning in them. I was honestly really looking forward to tonight at this point. “Yes, my Princess,” I whispered and grinned once more as I saw her fight back goosebumps. I dove in quickly for a brief kiss before turning around and doing just as I had been told: I got back to work.

The erection admittedly did not help much with focusing my attention on books, but that sorted itself out within a couple of minutes and everything was fiiine.

Some more minutes passed in comfortable silence and we switched over to another massive shelf. This one was three quarters empty to begin with, it should be quick work. And seeing as it was not a freestanding shelf, but one put against the wall, we only had to deal with one side, too. Twilight started at one end, and I started at the other. In theory, we would meet in the middle and be done with this room.

However.

As far as light sources went, we had brought along four lanterns. For four teams. The reason was simple, really. Applejack and Pinkie were working in a section that had more holes in the roof than stone. Rainbow and Fluttershy were in a section that simply had no roof to speak of anyway. So, both of their groups did not need any light sources. Only Rarity, Spike, Twilight and I were working ‘indoors’. Those lanterns were lightweight enough that neither Rarity nor I had any problem letting them float behind us. Then again, Rarity’s levitation spell was probably stronger than mine anyway, seeing as she rarely seemed to struggle with those heavy rolls of fabric.

These lanterns gave off a warm, golden glow. And right now, a glint had caught my eyes. Something played with that warm golden light, reflected parts of it, sparkled in the semi-dark of this room and it quickly and unsurprisingly turned out to be yet another book.

One with a spine clad in gold, apparently.

“I found a Rarity-book,” I said a little louder so that Twilight could hear me despite the distance between us.

“What is a ‘Rarity-book’?” she asked.

“One overly ornate and fancy,” I replied and heard her stifle a giggle, while I stepped up to the section the book stood in. It immediately rose up to the section of books I liked right now, because it had a title. Imprinted on its spine, for better access and quick reference. A very cooperative book. A stark contrast to the ones surrounding it, as they were once again leatherbound and nondescript.

I read the title and grimaced. “Oof. Didn’t know they had a comedy-section.”

Twilight, drawn in by curiosity, slowly walked closer while still checking multiple floating books. Once she arrived, however, she turned her attention to me and the gold-clad book. “They had?”

I shrugged. “I don’t know. This one’s called ‘The Joy of Watching Paint Dry’. Sounds promising, doesn’t it? Like something Pinkie would appreciate.”

Twilight grimaced. Twice. The title seemed offensively absurd, and the callback to a certain Pinkie-related incident was not exactly welcome either. “I don’t think she would. And neither do I.”

I nodded and without second thought, grabbed the book in my magic. Just because the hardcover seemed fine and the title was still readable did not mean the book was in prime condition. I obviously should have done things in order. My curiosity had drawn me here, but by simply walking over, I had skipped a few dozen books on the way that I should check first. And I assumed Twilight was about to say as much when I pulled and the book just refused to come clean from the shelf. Instead, something clicked and then clicked again, then something else clicked and a little mechanical something sprung into action. An entire section of the bookshelf sprang open by a few inches.

After a brief moment of shock for both of us, I snorted in amusement. “Oh, look. We found yet another secret passage. This one might lead to the kitchen, for midnight snacks, hm? Or what’s your bet?”

Twilight sighted. In relief, I assumed. Or maybe in mild annoyance, as I was clearly unwilling to even attempt resistance to the temptation of exploring this passage. “We don’t have time for this, Dream. This is not what we are here for.”

The battle was lost — for me anyway — the very instant my first thought started with ‘Yes, but—‘. I held my tongue a little while longer, but ultimately sighed. “There… could be hidden books at the end of this. You know that. We ought to take a look, at least. And while they didn’t exactly put deathtraps in here, time could have damaged certain parts of the mechanism. We should make sure it’s safe as well. For us, anypony else or Fluttershy’s critters.”

And she grimaced again. Because it was hard to say ‘no’ to any of that. For some strange reason, I even felt bad for pushing her into this. She really wanted to continue her work. She really wanted this trip to be a total success, with as little incidents and interference as possible.

After a longer moment staring at the slightly ajar bookshelf, she sighed. “Fine. But try to keep in mind that we’re here for the library, not for adventure time.”

There was a hint of annoyance in her voice that I did not like. So I stepped up to her and nuzzled her cheek before embracing her for a moment. “I’m sorry. You know, we could just… close that again and pretend it isn’t there?” I offered.

She actually considered it for a moment before sighing again. “That won’t work. But thank you. We just have to stay focused.”

I agreed and took a look around. There was a little bit of rubble we had to clear out before we could pull the bookshelf open further, but that was quickly dealt with and soon enough, a stony corridor appeared behind the secret wooden door. I floated my lantern inside so that we could take a look, but all we saw at first was a featureless long hallway. “No runes, tripwires, pressure plates, bones or anything,” I addressed the obvious.

Twilight nodded. “We should proceed with utmost caution anyway.”

We hesitated for a moment longer and I ventured a guess as to why. We were not alone. We could call for our friends and gather them here with us. But that thought did not hold up to any scrutiny. The castle was in shambles, true. But like we had established prior: They had built these passages and ‘traps’ to amuse themselves, not to actually endanger anypony. Nothing we could find in here was inherently designed to be dangerous. So gathering up all our friends not only seemed like a waste of time that was perfectly capable of capsizing her entire plan for today, but it also seemed like overkill.

We would be fine, we probably both told ourselves before stepping inside. Nothing happened.

We took that as a good sign, exchanged relieved smiles and slowly, cautiously, walked forward. The hallway seemed to be about a hundred feet long, just wide enough for two ponies walking close to each other. My lantern steadily floated ahead of us and started to illuminate a large door at the other end.

I had no time to react when it happened.

Some kind of energy field suddenly formed at the other end of the hallway, right in front of the door. It emitted a faint white glow and span across the entire corridor, side to side, top to bottom. Within a fraction of a second, it started to move down the hallway and before I could say or do anything, it reached us. Twilight was quicker than me, throwing a shield spell up. A dome of purple light was supposed to enclose the two of us, but despite her quick reflexes, the dome was not fully formed when the white energy field raced past us.

And once it reached the other end, it then just collapsed and vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“What… was that?” I dared to ask after a couple of seconds. After I had waited for anything else to happen. Any trap to be sprung, for the floor to vanish or the ceiling to collapse, for spells to pelt us or… anything, really. But nothing happened.

“Let me quickly check,” Twilight murmured. Casting several spells at the same time was exhausting and few ponies even had the required mental faculties to begin with. However, Twilight was unwilling to give up the dome-like shield protecting us right now. So she cast her second spell and scanned me for any clues to the answer. And she apparently found some, judging by her furrowed brow and her mild look of confusion.

“What is it?” I asked with a little bit of impatience in my voice. Was I cursed? Poisoned? Enthralled?

“It was a detection spell,” she noted quietly.

I tried to calm down. Tried to put one and one together. A secret passage behind a bookshelf. A long corridor. A quick moving detection spell that only triggered after roughly two thirds of the way had been traveled already. Even a very quick pegasus would not be able to escape this hallway in time without being… what? Detected? As what? “What does it search for?” I continued asking.

“I’m not sure,” Twilight admitted. “It is unlike most other detection spells I have seen so far. But it carries the signature of Princess Celestia, so… I don’t think it is harmful. Maybe it is just some kind of alert? Notifying her if her sister tries to sneak in to read her journal or something?”

I looked from the entry to the door and back. A part of me wanted to turn around. There was active magic in this part of the castle. Active enchantments. That meant that a thousand years ago, when this castle had been demolished by a fierce battle between mighty sisters, these spells had been in better shape than any of the others. They had been stuffed with more energy. Been built more resilient. Or more energy efficient. Something about this hallway had been worth the additional trouble.

It just did not feel like a regular old secret passage for pranks and jokes.

I could see Twilight considering the same notion. And just like me, she probably considered another possibility as well: If this spell was indeed configured to alert Sunny… maybe it had just done that? Maybe Spike would burp up a letter from her, urging us not to move further? Then again, maybe Twilight's shield had worked just well enough to disperse the detection spell’s effect after all. Maybe it had been up fast enough.

There were too many unknown variables at play.

“We should—“ we both started unison and stopped. A brief moment and we smiled, nodding in agreement.

And we would have left, just like that. And maybe things would have turned out differently. But I just had to take another look in the direction of that door. It was tempting me. Even now, after giving us a quick fright, it was still there and promised me… something.

I sent my lantern just that little bit further, and suddenly, I could make out some details. “Wow,” I whispered before I realized what I was looking at. ‘Wow’ had just been my stupid way of acknowledging that I expected a simple, albeit large door and instead found an ornate, intricately designed one. There were scenes engraved in the wood. Symbols. Stylizations. “That’s… the same door as the one in the Canterlot Castle Vault,” I recognized. Twilight stopped and turned back around. It was harder to see through the purple bubble of the shield, but I was certain of my discovery. “Well, I mean… it’s not the same door, obviously. But the depictions on it are.”

A six-pointed star in the middle of the door, functioning as a keyhole of sorts. The star divided the door into six areas, two in the top section, two bottom sections, two sides. Each section had a circular indentation in which a colored crystal seemed to rest. And above the door, the depiction of an alicorn. Three gems were set inside the wall to either side of the door. A triangular ruby on top, a rhombus-shaped emerald in the middle and a purple garnet at the bottom.

I dared to open my own vault, asking my many memories gathered from flashes if any of this looked any familiar – aside from the vault in Canterlot. The same configuration of gemstones and symbols appearing twice was a little bit too much of a coincidence for me.

But I came up empty-hoofed. I knew that ruby had its purposes in forging, as well as emerald. And I vaguely remembered another Twilight giving me a lecture about the six-pointed star being associated with protection spells or something, but nothing of what I remembered was immediately helpful.

Twilight stood beside me, her brow furrowed, and she squinted. She faced the same ‘this protective bubble isn’t helping my eyesight’-predicament that I had to deal with. So, after a moment longer still, she tentatively lowered the hemisphere, ready to immediately recast it if required.

But nothing happened.

We both walked a little closer to the door, ready to do… something.

Once we stood right before it, Twilight decided that the lantern would not do anymore. She cast a light spell on her horn and illuminated the entire passageway. “It is the same configuration,” Twilight immediately noticed as well. “That is just uncanny… there has to be a reason for that.”

“The gems and symbols don’t tell you anything?” I asked, but she quickly shook her head. Well, it was worth a try.

“Wait, are those claw marks?” she asked.

That got my attention. We both stepped even closer, now barely three feet away from the damn thing and indeed, there they were. Scratches on the wood from something very, very sharp. But the bookshelf had not been moved in centuries. The dust and rubble right before it told as much. And the corridor had been empty. But there was a certain distinction in color between the doors wood… and the inside of those scratches. A difference that could only be explained by the doors outside layer being exposed to air, and the inside… not. I did not need to be Twilight to realize that those claw marks had to be a more recent addition.

Three, rarely four claws. One was different. Like an opposable thumb, almost. But now that we were searching for them, we both saw smaller ones as well. They were less deep and again — usually three, rarely four parallel lines in the wood.

Something desperately tried to claw its way inside. Literally.

“What do you think how old these are?” I quietly asked her.

“Less than ten years,” was her best guess right now. But it gave me a timeframe to work with. At least she did not expect it to be from last week or yesterday or something. That was a small relief.

“There’s something higher up as well,” she noted and carefully lifted herself off the ground with a few flaps of her wings. “Single lines, a lot more erratic and broken up. There’s… something stuck here…”

“Be careful,” I pleaded with her while a growing sense of foreboding tried to shoo me away from this place. Something was not right with this.

I saw Twilight pluck something from the upper part of the door with her telekinesis. Something very, very small that apparently took a lot of effort to pry free. Once she landed again, she showed me her find and it turned out to be a small white thingy that clearly broke away from a larger piece. “Maybe…” She looked up at the door again, then back down at the piece. “Could be from an antler?”

I felt my blood slowly run cold. Little claw marks, shallower… and deeper ones, more pronounced… and antlers…

Sickly yellow eyes full of mischief opened in the darkness of my imagination and a cruel chuckle echoed in my head. I shuddered. Twice.

Twilight did not notice though. She was too focused on the door itself. And before I could decide if I wanted to tell her or not, she tentatively put a hoof against the wood and pushed.

“It’s open…?” she dumbfoundedly noticed.

Why would something try with all claws to get inside when the door was open anyway? Maybe because it wasn’t… back when someone tried to enter.

“Twilight? Maybe we should turn around…?” I asked, but my voice was so feeble and quiet that she did not hear me. With each passing second, this felt more and more like a crime scene or a national secret and less like a fun adventure I had with one of my loves.

I saw her push the door open little by little. I saw her take a look inside. I saw her enter the damn thing and I could not do or say anything. I felt muted. And rooted to the spot. My lantern floated down, close to me. And in its comparatively dim, warm light, I noticed a thin layer of ash on the ground. The perfect gray to look unsuspiciously like the stonework around here. And just below that thin layer, an almost miniscule, circular area was blackened. Like a blast radius. A very, very small blast radius. And something was burned to ash. Very little ash. Another shudder. What have you done, love?

Twilight’s head emerged from the opened door. “Hey.”

“Gah!” I jumped. Literally. Twilight briefly screamed in surprise due to my surprise, and I lost control over the lantern. It fell to the ground, the glass panels broke to pieces, the remaining oil spilled and immediately caught fire right to Twilight's hooves. Luckily, she reacted quickly, dropped her light spell and used an ice spell to extinguish the flame.

And absolute darkness engulfed both of us.

For a couple of seconds, neither of us said anything. I did not even hear her breathe. Or myself, for that matter, quickly realizing that I was holding my breath. “I’m so, so sorry,” I whispered.

She sighed in relief. “It’s alright. I’m sorry, too. I did not mean to startle you. I was just wondering where you are and wanted to tell you that you need to see this. I, uh, got a little bit too excited, I guess.”

I could hear the faintest of giggles from her and despite everything, it made me relax at least a little bit. Right now, despite my own thoughts trying to dispute that fact, my mind was rather panicky and jumpy. I closed my eyes — for what little that did — and took a couple of deep, steadying breaths. I realized that I was working under a lot of assumptions. We found claw marks, sure. And ash and whatnot. But there could have been loads of possible explanations as to what happened here.

Loads, I told myself, Loads.

I took a step forward without thinking and almost slipped on still warm oil. “Ah, sh—” I bit my tongue before I could actually curse.

“What is wrong? Are you okay?” Twilight immediately asked.

“I’m fine, just… could you make light again?” I asked her while quickly removing the small piece of glass from my hoof that had lodged itself there.

“Oh, right. Give me one second.” And sure enough, a second later, her horn was aglow again.

It allowed me to see that I had stepped right into the middle of the broken lantern. I sighed again and put the only slightly dented metal frame to the side, so that I could retrieve it on our way out. The oil was an issue I had no solution for, but I could at least pick up most of the glass shards and put them to the side as well. It would certainly not do for Twilight to step into one.

I internally cursed myself a bunch more before my attention shifted to Twilight. She had this ‘don’t beat yourself up over it’-smile that she sometimes wore. I tried to smile in reply, but it felt all kinds of wrong so instead, I just sighed and stepped up to her for a quick hug. “Sorry about the lantern. I’m going to pay for that, obviously.”

“You really don’t have to,” she insisted. But we both knew there would be a new lantern around her castle soon enough.

“Right. Now, you were desperate to show me something incredible and astonishing and impressive and other fancy words to describe a thingy.”

She quietly laughed. “Yes, let me show you my thingy.”

I snorted in amusement, but did not dwell on the unplanned innuendo. Her confused look told me everything about her nonexistent intention. So I instead just followed her inside, with one last glance over my shoulder to that small, blackened area on the ground, now covered with lantern oil.

What awaited me inside was a library of sorts.

Three bookshelves lined the walls to either side and opposite the entrance. A chest was standing on the ground near one of them, a large frame of sorts near the other one, a small casket on top of the chest and in the middle of the room, on a little pedestal, was a glass bell containing something that wobbled around.

“It’s a treasury,” I guessed.

“Maybe. A vault, most definitely,” Twilight half-agreed.

“A lot of this stuff could be really, really, really dangerous,” I remarked.

And she agreed with a nod. “Yes. And with the protective magic of the door gone, we cannot afford to let anything of actual significance remain behind,” she insisted much to my dismay. That was not what I had been trying to say. At this point, I would have loved to turn around and head back. Close that damn bookshelf and let things be. What was the saying? Let sleeping dogs lie.

Twilight bumped my shoulder with hers and tried to lift my spirits with a bright smile. It worked a little bit. “Come on. The sooner we get an overview of this vault’s contents, the sooner we can leave.”

I smiled despite my sigh. This was a treasure trove of very old books and artifacts and whatnot. She was intrigued, to say the least. That part of her heart that was wholly dedicated to adventure, hungry for adrenaline and thrill, was beating rapidly at the prospect of what could be hidden in this very room. And she had fun. She was so obviously happy about this that I had a hard time begrudging being in this room, having discovered that passage.

“Alright,” I admitted defeat. “I’ve been told we’re here for work, so… let’s get to it.”

Despite being secured in this room, some of the books apparently had still taken quite the beating from time passing by. But the first row of titles I read — and I was grateful for small mercies, as every book in these shelves had a title on their spine — quickly made crystal clear what kind of books these were. “Uhm, Twi? I have an entire section dedicated to… I believe dark magic.”

“Don’t touch any of those,” she said without any hint of urgency.

I actually appreciated that. She did not look up. She just told me what she already knew I knew. Saying it out loud was a mere formality. Because I was not stupid enough to underestimate the deviousness of some creatures. I had heard of Rarity’s exploits with that wish-fulfillment-book. Books could have a mind of their own. So could spells. Which made spellbooks some of the most dangerous books in existence.

“I have an entire section about the Crystal Empire,” Twilight let me know, and I could hear the fascination in her voice, “There is everything in here. The crystalling, the crystal heart, the crystal palace, holidays, history… I mean, it is little compared to the Crystal Empire’s own library, but sweet Celestia, what I would have given to have these back in the days…”

I chuckled a little. She rarely used phrases like these and right now, she almost sounded mildly exasperated. Meanwhile, I continued past my bookshelf and stood in front of that weird frame. It was a standing mirror, maybe? A horseshoe-shaped frame rested on a two-step pedestal. The frame displayed several gemstones, but almost all of them were cracked and the mirror itself had only a few shards still sticking to its frame. The rest was just missing. I looked around on the ground, but there were no pieces lying anywhere. Which implied that this thing was brought here after its destruction.

I was about to tell Twilight about my find when another book caught my interest. Because it sported Luna's crescent moon above and below the title on its spine. “Uh, found another interesting one,” I proclaimed. “Title says ‘A Tyrant Falls: A Thorough Study On Shadow Magic by Princess Luna’. Hm. You think she remembers that one?”

Shadow magic. And a tyrant. So apparently, at some point, Luna had studied Sombra's magic.

“Wooow,” I heard Twilight whisper to herself. She probably had not listened to me. But that was fine, I was way too curious what she had dug up anyway. I quickly turned and walked over to her. A section of her bookshelf was emptied to make place for more less book-shaped things. In another box Twilight had just opened were indentations for six… well, I was not entirely sure what they were. Prism-shaped, light blue crystals with a golden tip and a golden socket. They were the size of a hoof at the base, maybe even a little bit larger.

“What’s that? Not that I want to sound too much like Pinkie, but my mind immediately blanked and resorted to ‘uhhh, shiny’.”

Twilight giggled and almost reverently touched one of the crystals. “Those are Keys of Unfettered Entrance. I read about them. I never thought I would see them. I had honestly always thought that it was ‘a Key of Unfettered Entrance’, not ‘several’. According to the texts I have read, they can open any door merely by touching them.”

“Makes sense to lock them away in a vault then,” I noted with a chuckle.

She smiled and nodded, carefully closing the casket again. She pulled another one down from a higher shelf and opened it, only to immediately snap it shut again before I could gain so much as a glimpse of its contents. I did note how the color drained from her face a little bit, though. “Less nice things, I assume?” I cautiously asked.

Twilight had to take a moment to recompose herself again before she levitated the casket to the side… and put a couple of very heavy books on top of it. “The entire thing is filled with dark crystals.”

“The ones Sombra uses?” I asked and she nodded. My gaze was drawn back to that casket and I could not help but wonder: Why were they here? Sure, locking dangerous things away made sense. The crystals themselves, as far as we could tell, were not inherently dangerous, but they could be used for nefarious means. So they were basically like any tool or weapon. But most other tools and weapons could be used for good as well and at least I did not know of any positive usage for these things. Why keep them around, then? Why not just destroy them? Because I knew perfectly well that destroying them was possible.

Maybe it was a waste of time thinking about that. Twilight had apparently decided that these things would follow her back to Ponyville, probably so that she could safely dispose of them. I turned my attention to the centerpiece of the room and stepped closer to the head-sized glass bell sitting on the pedestal there. A black-as-night mass was shifting and moving midair inside the contraption and I suspected that the glass was enchanted in more than one way. “I think… this thing might actually be alive,” I mused while circling around the pedestal. I might have been wrong in my conclusion, but it felt like this thing was following me, or at least observing me in some way.

Walking around it made me realize that there was a panel on the front. “Oh.”

Twilight meanwhile opened the casket on top of the heavier, larger chest and gave a little, disappointed noise. “There is a cargo manifest and everything,” she said. “It says there is supposed to be an artifact in here called a ‘memory stone’, but the chest is empty…”

“Maybe it proved too dangerous after all and they destroyed it,” I offered. “Or Luna used it in her battle or something. Listen, Twi: This thing apparently is called a ‘Tantabus’. The panel says it’s ‘a parasite that thrives on guilt’. Reminds me of the dreamscape creatures. Actually, this thing really does look a lot like them. I wonder if Luna brought one over, or if she captured this one.” I had expected a reaction. Any commentary at all. But as none came, I looked up again only to find her staring down into the larger chest. She had not listened. Again.

It's fine. Once we’ve been around, we can share what we found, I told myself. And just like before with the dark crystal casket, Twilight looked… well, less worried and more horrified.

“Twi?” No reaction. I cautiously stepped closer, right beside her. “Twilight?” Only then did I follow her glance down. And I suddenly understood her distress. Scaled necklaces made from darkened silver, triangular pendants with rubies in the center, wings with red highlights to either side on top, and heads with horns in side profile and a single red eye.

Just like before with the key of unfettered entrance, this was not merely the Alicorn Amulet.

There were two dozen of them.

“Crap.”

One had given a younger unicorn-Twilight a run for her money. Maybe actual-alicorn-Twilight could have stood up to the empowered Trixie. Maybe. But this was madness. How were there this many?

Think fast, I demanded of myself. Twilight was probably fighting a rising tide of panic right now and I needed to help her as best as I could, because quite frankly — I was not equipped to deal with any of the stuff in this room. I needed her to think straight and remain somewhat level-headed.

“Twilight, talk to me. What do we do?”

Silence.

I looked around the room, but anywhere I looked, new dangers seemed to spring forth. So I instead returned my attention to the chest in front of us, grabbed the chest's lid with my magic and slammed it shut with way more force than was needed.

Twilight both jumped and flinched at the same time. I successfully startled her out of her freeze. “What do we do?” I immediately asked her again, because I did not dare to afford her a second to maybe fall into the same pit again.

“I—… We—…” she started. Her eyes were constantly drawn back to that chest, so I stepped in between her and that thing.

“Good start,” I pushed. “We? We what, Twilight? Come on, focus. Please.” And then I remembered something that might help. “Maybe do that breathing technique from Cadance?” She closed her eyes, put her hoof to her chest and inhaled deeply. A couple of seconds passed and she exhaled slowly. “What do we do?” I repeated.

She was still pale and a little shaky, but she tried hard. Quite honestly, had she broken down right now, I would probably have followed her straight after. “Nopony knows of this room,” she started to sort herself out. “Except us, of course. There is… more dangerous stuff in here than we could safely carry through the Everfree Forest and we cannot afford to take any risk with any of this stuff. We close this room off again, I put a bunch of spells on the door that hopefully will keep it safe for a couple of hours, and then… we head back to Ponyville, I charge the stone and you inform Princess Celestia right away.”

I furrowed my brow. “Why me? I mean, sure, I can do that, but wouldn’t it be better if you talked to her about this yourself? You understand magic and its dangers better than I do.”

“Yes, but… I don’t think you need to understand that. This is her vault, right? And after the protective spells and after charging the stone, I will likely be very exhausted.”

For just a second, I imagined a very sleepy Twilight trying her hardest to stay awake while also trying to explain the dangers of the Alicorn Amulet. For the third time, because she already forgot about the previous two attempts. Maybe it really was for the better if I did this. She was right, after all – in theory, I had nothing else to do than just tell Sunny what we found and that it was sort of unguarded right now.

For a fraction of a moment, resistance brewed in my mind. If she really intended to go all out — which, given her shock at seeing the amulets, she probably did —, then I actually wanted to stay with her. Be at her side in case she needed me. Or needed anything, really. Maybe a glass of water.

But that would mean informing Princess Celestia by any other means available. And the fact of the matter was: We had no other options. Sending anypony else would mean to tell them of this discovery. Sending a letter through Spike was a possibility, but that letter would probably turn into several pages if Twilight tried to write it herself. I could try to write that letter, and then have Spike sent it it blindly… but what if anypony was present when Sunny read that thing?

There were risks involved with anything other than doing it myself. Unnecessary risks.

After mulling everything over, I nodded in agreement, but I once more found her attention fixed on something behind me. I slowly turned to look… at a book. A strangely familiar looking book. Leatherbound, with golden ornaments at the edges, and the front cover sported the stylized depiction of a golden unicorn, with a turquoise gemstone for an eye.

The Elements of Harmony. The title was faded, being written in ink instead of gold inlay.

“That is my horn writing,” Twilight whispered faintly.

“That’s… not… what?” While my confusion once more rooted me to the spot, I watched her step past me with stilted movement. She took the book in her aura and opened it on the first page. And worse than anything I could have expected, I saw familiar writing.

Hers.

And mine.

That’s— “—impossible…” I whispered aghast. How? What? How? Just… what is happening? I tried to crane my neck, since I still felt unable to move, but it did not help much. The problem was less the angle or perspective, no. It was the writing itself. I could see, I could recognize my own script. Certain flourishes I tended to use. Certain letters I wrote in a very specific way, because I thought they looked neat that way. And those little tells were there. They were all there.

And the same was true for Twilight's writing.

But I barely recognized some of those letters. Or symbols? Did I — we — cipher the text? Use some form of code? Then again, I was still unable to comprehend or accept that this was maybe my writing in the first place. Actually, the main bulk of the text on that first page appeared to be hers…

“Twilight, what… what does it say?”

“I can't tell you,” she replied. She sounded as unsettled as I felt.

“Tell me anyway,” I insisted, as I was sure that she just tried to protect me or something.

“Dream, this is a very old, very obscure form of Old Equestrian I have seen and studied once, many years back… translating it is difficult, and right now, I cannot even do that, because literally the first line in here, written by me, instructs myself to not do that!” she replied with increasing distress and volume. Those last words were almost a yell and for some reason, that finally broke me free. I walked over to her, took that damn book and put it back onto the shelf before pulling her towards me.

We both trembled. We were both frightened. What we had stumbled into was terrifying. And a minute or two later, I realized that neither of us would get any better as long as we remained here in this room. It felt cursed. Wrong. Threatening. Even to me — and I had a lot less connection to most of these artifacts than her.

“Let’s get out of here,” I whispered while running my hoof through her mane and down her back for the umpteenth time. She was still disturbed. I was still shaking like a leaf. She nodded, and slowly walked back to the door. At the last moment, I levitated that last book over to me, and stored it in my saddlebags. If Twilight noticed, she gave no indication. I honestly had a hard time explaining why I took it. I wanted proof of this room being real. And I wanted answers.

It is her vault after all, a nasty voice in my head commented. And it felt like that book weighed double.

I forgot to take the broken lantern with me. We instead quietly walked back the hallway after closing the door and after Twilight had shot it with more spells than I saw her perform in such a short succession ever. We made doubly sure that the bookshelf was back in place, that the secret passage was firmly locked again, and put a bunch of destroyed books and all the rubble back right in front of it, just for good measure.

Exiting the castle was a relief.

The sky was blue, the clouds were white and fluffy, the warm sunshine tried to melt our worries away and ease our tense bodies and with the world still spinning, things almost started to feel normal again. Almost. At least for me. Twilight seemed to have a much more difficult time calming herself down and despite my efforts, she remained frazzled. I could say little to help, so I stayed quiet. Stayed close to her and kept my hoof running through her mane, along her back.

It did not take long for the rest of them to come out as well. Twilight had messaged Spike. Spike had told Rarity. Rarity had collected our other friends from their respective areas. We aborted our mission in the late midday hours.

Twilight did not try to hide her distress from her friends. She had learned enough to know that it would not work out well, so instead she just asked them to understand that she could not tell, for safety reasons. They took her up on that, and had a much easier time accepting it once she told them that I would take care of things as soon as we returned home and that she could tell them everything after the fact.

The trek back home was a lot less relaxed and cheery. Twilight's mood — and to a much lesser extent mine, I supposed — radiated off of us, despite any attempts to recompose ourselves and close those gates. Pinkie obviously tried to cheer us up and blessed be her heart, she never gave up.

“I’m sorry about cutting things short and—“ Twilight started in front of the castle, but in a rarely seen moment of rudeness, Rarity interrupted her.

“Darling, I cannot start to fathom why you would try to bid farewell to us when it is so obvious that none of us will leave you alone right now. Be a dear and send Dreamwalker on his way already, and let us take care of you and the rest.”

I stepped up to Rarity and hugged her. “Thank you.”

“You are welcome, dear. Now shoo, off with you.”

Applejack chuckled. “Nah, don’t even try it,” she warned Twilight as she opened her mouth in what surely would have been an attempt to dispute Rarity’s point. “She’s right. Had to take off the entire day anyway, and from where I’m standin', there’s lots of hours left. Might as well spend some more time together, right?”

“I could make us some nice, calming chamomile tea,” Fluttershy offered with an irrefutable smile.

Twilight's gaze wandered from one to the other before admitting defeat. With a grateful smile, just like everyone had expected. Because after all, she did not want to be alone. But she did not want to be a drag on her friends either.

I walked by her side again when we entered the castle. “I’ll try to make this quick, for all our sakes,” I let her know quietly. “I’m sure Celestia will know what to do, so don’t worry yourself sick over it. I’m going to be back as soon as possible, alright? Keep your head straight and try to have some fun.”

She gave me an agonized little smile, but at least she tried. And as soon as the stone was charged for one more teleport to Canterlot, she looked utterly spent. Rainbow had to swoop in to catch her from falling to the side, heavily leaning against Twilight just to stabilize her. Maybe she would just sleep until the next morning came around. But as far as the hopeful smiles of my friends told me, that would be just as fine.

“You go do your thing, we keep things smooth and steady over here,” Applejack promised with a grin.

“Take good care of her,” I asked nonetheless. “See you soon, I hope,” I added, before touching the stone.

“Should’ve kept my eyes closed,” I lamented while standing beside the pedestal the teleportation stone was resting on. I might have leaned against it, even — I could not tell. My head was spinning and I tried to keep the contents of my stomach exactly there. Inside.

I pointedly stared at a specific spot on the floor and tried to force my slightly wobbly double- and triple-vision to clear. It ebbed away at the same pace my vertigo vanished, which made me believe that my efforts were somewhat in vain. Nevertheless, at least it had helped to wait until things sorted themselves out.

I straightened myself out once I felt like my legs would actually carry me and looked around. I was not sure what I had expected. The room was empty, as usual. Empty as it should have been. Maybe a paranoid part of me had expected Princess Celestia to be waiting here? Because of the detection spell, or maybe because of the very strange edition of ‘the Elements of Harmony’ I carried in my saddlebags.

But the room was empty, and I was alone, and I felt strangely detached. The farther I got away from the source of these problems, the less real they seemed to be. Real. Maybe it had been a good idea to take the book with me after all. There really was an entire chest full of Alicorn Amulets. And an entire section about dark magic. And a bunch more stuff anypony sane and sound would worry about a great deal.

But standing in the vault all alone gave me a minute or two to collect myself, have a think and realize that I could hardly barge in at this time of day. It was afternoon, day court would still be in session. The doors to the throne room would remain locked for me, my passage barred by the two guards outside. So I closed my eyes, concentrated until I found that little thread connected to me and gave it a good yank, because right now, I could not be bothered to do this carefully.

My night guard armor arrived with the grace of a toppling mountain. “Oof,” I commented as my legs buckled for a brief moment, but I quickly reestablished my hold and stood firm. I felt the illusion wash over me and within an instant, I was barely recognizable for anypony. Just another guard. A nightguard walking around the palace at day, however. One demanding access to a court in session, no less. But I was sure that wearing the uniform would at least help with dealing with the two front door guards. And it was not really a lie to call this an emergency, was it? Any adventuring pony — or other creature, for that matter — could stumble upon the barely hidden, barely secured vault at any second. And the mere thought of that made my stomach twist all over.

Maybe waste less time standing around, debating the consequences of bad manners, I chided myself. It was enough to spur me into action and make me move. I left the vault and addressed both guards outside with a nod, even if they did not visibly respond at all. It was common courtesy.

On many, many days, I liked walking along these hallways. The high, narrow, but frequent windows let in so much sunlight that it usually felt great to bask in the sun while more or less lazily strolling along. Today, I had less appreciation for these little details. I barely noted where I was to begin with, entirely focused on getting to my destination.

And soon enough, I stood before those massive double doors. And its guards.

Once again, Soft Step and Night Crawler were assigned this position. I recognized Softie from the way she almost seemed to lean on her spear. Beneath that pristine white coat of a male pegasus stallion was the hot pink, tomboyish frame and curly lime hair of a very sweet mare. A part of me was hoping to have an easy time getting what I wanted from her, but despite her being nice and sweet, she was no pushover. No guard ever was.

Night Crawler was… also there. It was one of the most consistent things one could say about him. He was there. Because he gave little else to work with, usually being rather reserved and taciturn. His occasional grunts could be interpreted as agreement or disagreement by those who knew him for a while — an elusive social circle I had yet to become a part of.

“Hey Softie,” I greeted her and nodded in Night’s direction.

With no potential witnesses in the immediate area, Soft Step allowed herself to relax enough to answer. “Hey Dream. What brings you here?”

“I need to get in and have a word with the Princess,” I replied, getting to the point straight away.

She grimaced a little. “Court is still in session… but you know that already. So you’re hoping I will let you pass anyway,” she quickly combined.

I sighed and gave a nod. “It’s an emergency,” I tried, but as soon as those words were spoken, Night Crawler gave a short grunt. Maybe a snort? I was not sure. It was enough for Soft Step to straighten a little, which made quite clear that he was certainly not in favor of letting me pass.

“Dream, come on. Can’t you just wait another hour or two?” she asked with hope in her voice.

I had asked that myself on my way here. And the answer had been disappointing. “I fear the answer is no,” I admitted. “We found something and… Softie, I’m being serious. This is dangerous. And the sooner it’s dealt with, the better. It’s enough of a threat to scare the bucking horseshoes off of me, alright? Enough for me to admit that I’m scared. If you guys make me wait for another hour or two, I can’t tell you how much sanity I will have left by then. I feel like hanging by a thread anyway.”

I noticed that tremor in my voice. It became more prevalent the longer I spoke and apparently, I was not alone in noticing it. Softie broke one of the most notoriously upheld rules of the dayguard. She stepped up to me and put an armor-clad hoof to my shoulder. “Are you alright?”

“I…” I closed my eyes for a moment and took a deep breath. Before my mind’s eye, I could see the Elements of Harmony opening again. I could see my own writing in that book again. Where it really had no right to be in. “I’m not sure. I really need to speak to her.”

She hesitated for a moment longer, but ultimately stepped back to her post and looked to the side, to her comrade. After a brief moment of consideration, he gave another indistinguishable grunt and Soft Step’s attention returned to me. “Don’t make me regret this, please?” she said while slowly pulling the door open.

“I’ll try,” I answered and with a grateful nod in both their directions stepped inside.

A couple of voices floated over to me, but I cared little for what they had to say. They were still talking about the state of things, business and taxes and whatnot. Sunny had already noticed me entering and judging by that slight wrinkle on her brow, she had recognized me immediately. Then again, how many other night guards would barge into court like that?

I tried to appear unbothered by those couple of withering glares as I slowly walked forward, inching closer to the throne. I stopped at the usual respectful distance, bowed low and waited. And they just kept talking. Somepony said something about a proposal of sorts, some other pony intervened with a few objections, and then another pony—

They were bickering. Like fat pigeons arguing over crumbs, they were bickering.

A part of me was seething. Quickly boiling to the point of nonacceptance. I had no idea if this display was ‘normal’ for court. Sunny rarely made it seem this bad. But then again, of course she would not. She loved all her little ponies. Even the bickering fat pigeons.

I. Need. Answers.

“Your Highness, an emergency requires your attention,” I dared to speak up. And all too suddenly, deathly silence reigned within these walls. I still bowed low, so I could feel those judging eyes more than I could see them. I was not welcome in this room. Some of these ponies might even consider repercussions for my intrusion.

A second passed by, then another, without Princess Celestia answering. And just like that, everypony present seemed to take that as their cue to continue on. I tried to stay calm. Closed my eyes again to take another deep breath. But all it did was to conjure up those things I had seen. The claw marks. The blackened blast radius on the ground, just beneath the fine layer of ash. I opened my eyes and dared to raise my head. I was technically required to bow until further notice. So me breaking protocol was just another big no-no. But this is an emergency!, I justified myself.

I pulled the book out of my saddlebag and let it float beside me. “Your Highness,” I repeated a little bit louder without meaning to do so. That unexpected increase in volume was just one of the reasons why I immediately shut up after the first two words. The intense stares from around me were a good second one.

The room fell silent again. I really was not making any friends today. Maybe it would have returned to busy commotion quicker than before, had she not reacted again. Truth be told, I had no idea what made her hesitate the first time. Did she expect me to interrupt her court just out of idle boredom?

“Please leave us alone until this is dealt with. I will call on you as soon as a continuation becomes possible,” she asked those around her. A couple of clerks with neutral expressions made some notes on their protocols, an aide or two shuffled off to the side rooms and albeit unwillingly and at times muttering in discontent, the majority of ponies present made their way for the exit.

“Please tell me there is a good reason for this,” Princess Celestia asked pleadingly once the door fell shut again and we were left alone.

“I wouldn’t have come in otherwise,” I replied and quickly caught myself before ending the sentence with ‘love’. This was neither the time, nor the place to address her with pet names and the like. But I refused to call her ‘Your Highness’ with every second sentence. Not when there were supposedly no witnesses around. Despite my efforts to keep my cool, however, I still grew a little feistier as I opened the book her gaze seemed to be glued to right now. “Mind telling me why I’m co-writing ‘the Elements of Harmony’ with Twilight though?”

I was surprised, downright baffled to see her horn come to life and she snatched the book right from my grasp. It closed on its way over to her side. “What did you read?” she asked. There was urgency in her voice.

Neither of us was apparently in the mood for games. “Nothing. Because I can’t. Didn’t even know I spoke weird Old Equestrian.”

The fact that I might have recognized the language alone seemed to worry her. “Did Twilight ignore the warning then?” She really was worried. Her words lingered in the air for a couple of seconds. I was stunned and she quickly realized what she had admitted to. She not only knew of this book. She knew its contents as well. Before I could regain control, she sighed heavily. “Where did you find this?”

I had been around for almost six years at this point. I knew her for almost the entire time. On very rare occasions, I had seen her tears and I had tried my damn best to comfort her. On more occasions than I cared to admit to, the reverse had been true. I had seen her laugh and made her laugh. I cherished every second of that. And despite my frequent doubts and my numerous issues, there were certain constants I almost fanatically believed in.

I trusted Celestia.

That was one of them. Not like the regular citizen idolizing their perfect leader. Not like the grumpy anarch muttering about their boogeyman. I trusted the flawed mare that she was. And in this very moment, I actually felt like I had to draw from that trust to give her a proper answer instead of some snarky comment and further attempts to escalate this into a full-blown argument.

I think we actually never had one of those…

“The old castle ruins,” I replied with a steady, even voice. “Twilight and I took our friends there to rescue as many books as possible. We discovered another secret passage that led to a small vault full of very, very dangerous stuff. I promised Twilight to inform you right away. Right now, she’s probably sleeping her extreme exhaustion off, because charging the stone and attempting to seal that chamber for as long as possible and as safely as possible took a lot out of her.” I tried to reign myself in with… mixed results. A part of me apparently was not above weighing in on her conscience. And any potential stress she might have caused Twilight would always bypass any armor she wore. It was a low blow and we both recognized that. “Sorry,” I tried belatedly, “that was uncalled for.”

It felt strange, seeing her struggle for words. And my snide remark about Twilight surely could not have been the source of her discomfort and unbalance. When Celestia rose, an instinct kicked in. One that our instructor, sergeant Wither Rose, had drilled into our heads during training. Respect your Princesses. I straightened and waited. Celestia noticed and for just a second or two, she allowed me to see a bemused smile tug at her lips.

“Don’t leave me,” I suddenly blurted out. Her smile faded. But it faded before it could turn sour. Before it turned sad or regretful. “You’re going to start talking about how you will deal with this, how you will fix this, right? If I’m right – please don’t. I don’t… I can’t…” I struggled, but my throat grew tighter with each breath. As if somepony was strangling me. I missed her stepping down from her throne, until the very moment her cold horseshoe came to a rest on my shoulder. I looked up at her and could not read her expression at all.

“You are clearly distressed,” she quietly said.

“I need this,” I replied, without being sure what I was talking about. I felt this need for closure. But closure on what, precisely?

She sighed. “Very well. I intend to let the court continue once we are done. We should not waste time.”

I nodded despite the motion feeling alien, and did not put up any resistance as her horn charged and a field of golden magic enveloped both of us.

Seconds later, we stood in a room that I somehow still had hoped to never see again. This ‘Tantabus’-thingy was still wiggling around beneath its glass bell, but aside from that, everything was silent and still. Celestia’s horn was still glowing, giving us enough light to see everything in detail. Somehow, her light spell had a different quality to it than Twilight's. That might have come with the domain though.

“I should have done this a long time ago,” she whispered before closing her eyes. With little effort, a teleportation spell shot out from her horn, wrapping itself around numerous objects in the room. A few dozen books from the Crystal Empire-section Twilight had discovered earlier, the empty casket of the memory stone, the casket containing the Keys of Unfettered Entrance… meanwhile, that strange version of the Elements of Harmony went back onto its shelf. And all the things she had teleported were neatly stacked just outside the chamber.

Once done, she refocused her attention and charged a new spell.

And I could feel it immediately. When Twilight cast spells of a certain power level or with a certain energy input, I usually felt that tingling sensation all over my body. I felt strong magic being cast nearby. But nothing compared to what I felt right now, and that made Celestia, my love, the scariest thing in the room right now. It felt like my skin was being peeled off…

“Sunny,” I croaked in a strangled voice, but she did not seem to hear me… or she disregarded my interference.

A small ball of blindingly bright light formed at the tip of her horn and with each passing second, that feeling only grew worse. I had no idea what kind of spell that was — if it even was a spell at all —, but the amount of sheer power in that pin-sized sphere was beyond my comprehension.

And then it clicked.

She was Heaven’s Fury. She was Sol Invictus. And she wanted this… all of this… to be gone. A bunch of powerful books that might or might not have their own twisted and cruel minds. A creature from the dreamscape, probably. A dozen powerful artifacts in a chest. The smith within my iterations of memories gave a small whimper as I realized. When destroying artifacts, it was usually safest to slowly and carefully unravel them. Release their energy in controlled paths and small bursts. But with the amount of energy she pumped into this tiny thing right now…

She is channeling the sun itself.

Light had certain qualities. And this light did seem like it could be daylight… or rather, sunlight. And it was getting warmer, was it not? Slower than it should have, with a freaking sun present, but that was just a very small piece of it, or maybe a very small miniature of one…

Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.

There will be no answers.

Only charred earth and molten stone.

“Sunny,” I tried to plead again, but once more, she did not seem to hear me. I had not noticed taking any steps, yet my rump touched against the wooden door, pressed against it as my body wanted to flee without waiting for input on the matter.

She’s shutting down.

She’s shutting you out again.

She’s Princess Celestia.

“Stop!,” I yelled at the top of my lungs. And this time, I got her attention. She held the charge of whatever she was doing, and glanced to the side, to me. “What is this?” I asked, wildly flailing my hooves around in a futile attempt at gesturing, “Any of this?! Why is it here? What does that mean? Who—“

I stopped myself. Bit down on my tongue until I could taste blood.

“We need to leave this room as soon as I am done,” she told me.

And I suddenly found more than just the strength to move. I was still terrified of that thing at the tip of her horn, but with trembling legs, I nevertheless stepped further into the room, slowly moved past her under her incredulous gaze and turned right before her. She was too tall to really stand muzzle to muzzle and I did not want to get closer to that ball of energy than I needed to, but… that was just it. I felt like I needed to stand right here.

“What are you doing?” she asked me. As if that had not been obvious.

“Disperse it,” I demanded.

“No.”

“Disperse it!” I reinforced. “I will not move an inch from this place!”

“Why are you being difficult now?” she asked and for a brief second, I could actually see her own temper flare up. Which only spoke volumes about how this entire scenario got under her skin as well.

“I want answers!,” I yelled at her.

“Why?” she suddenly yelled right back.

It should have disturbed me more than it actually did. It instead only poured oil into a greedy flame. It felt like my anger was unleashed… and yet I did not feel angry? I felt a powerful urge to move something, demand something, do something, but I had no concrete target. I was so incredibly angry with her, yet I was not. I felt betrayed, yet I trusted her completely. I felt torn apart, in a way.

I will always try to protect her. Even from accusations I level myself. And that somehow closed a circle. It came back to her. Her refusal to open up. To give straight answers. To tell, without being probed and asked. “Because I love you,” I replied and almost choked.

Celestia was taken aback. She looked like she had been readying herself for a shouting match. And that, she would clearly have won. If required, she could put her inhibitions behind her for however long it was required for. I could not.

But this was a sudden turn of direction. “What… does that have to do with this?” she demanded to know and gestured with a hoof around the room for emphasis.

My gaze followed her hoof, and I tried to ignore the occasional small shudder. Most of the things in this room were creeping me out. But that was beside the point. “This is a vault. Your vault. A part of your history. It’s… it’s hard to get to know you,” I meekly answered. It only served to confuse her further. “You are… you’re guarded. We’ve been together for years and I know that you… experience time differently. I know that you have difficulties letting your guard down. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen you work on that. I’ve seen these walls come crumbling down bit by bit. But whenever I ask you to tell me something about yourself, you… you deflect or… I don’t know, maybe it’s because of choice paralysis or something… this vault must have meant something, right? It’s still here. It seems to be the part of the castle that was protected the most. And these things have history. Stories to tell. A-And you collected them, did you not? There must have been reasons for that. Why keep dark crystals around? Why keep books about the Crystal Empire shut away? I want to understand that. All of it. Because at the end of it, I might understand you a little bit better. Or at least know a few new things about you. There is so much to know and so little opportunity…” This is a piece of you, and you're about to burn it away before I can get to know it.

This was not about her having less time for me than I would like to. At least I successfully told that to myself. Princess Celestia was a beloved ruler and a notorious requirement of this nation. I had known and accepted that. And I cherished every minute she actually could and did make time for me.

“You said you should have done this a lot sooner,” I hopelessly continued. “Then… why didn’t you? I want to know. And I… I want you to tell me. I don’t want to read it in a book or listen to somepony else drone on about something. Please, Sunny. Talk to me. What is this room? Please… trust me.”

Maybe that was it. Maybe that was the center of the issue. Trust. She obviously trusted me with a lot of things. But maybe not the things I would like her to trust me with. Or maybe not all the things? I trusted her with all my heart. With all my being. I did not mind her burning this room. I was sure it was for the better. But goodness gracious me, did I want her to trust me.

Maybe it was about all the stories that would be lost in a couple of seconds. A part of me, the previous writer, mourned those already.

Maybe. In the end, it came down to: I don’t know. It was a common, if frustrating conclusion for me after all.

Celestia regarded me for a good while and I had no idea what she was thinking. Only that, by the end of it, she had found some sort of resolution and whatever she decided, I would comply. Because I had made my case as best as I could — which was to say, not very good at all, but I had little hope of improving on that anytime soon — and now it was her turn to make a decision.

“What—“ she started, only to immediately interrupt herself. The miniature sun on the tip of her horn dimmed down and I felt such an incredible wave of relief once it fully dissipated. She kept her eyes closed for a moment longer, recomposing herself probably, taking a couple of deep breaths, before she opened her eyes. For a brief moment, I was not so sure that I had not hurt her somehow. “You ask me to trust you… and I will try. I do trust you.” Maybe even with this, she implied. Maybe. “What do you wish to know?”

Before picking any point of interest at all, I stepped closer still and hugged her. “Thank you,” I whispered. Because no matter what followed, this was already something good. Something worth gratitude.

She reciprocated, closing our embrace off with her wings and pressing me tightly to her body. I could feel how tense she was. She dreaded… something. Maybe the things in this room. Maybe what she would have to tell me. Maybe, maybe, maybe. She was here with me and we were seeing eye to eye again. For now, that was all that mattered to me.

Only a minute or two later did I retreat, and only then did she open her wings again to give me free. Yet I still refrained from satiating my curiosity. I guided her muzzle with my hoof and kissed her. “I’m sorry I yelled at you. I really shouldn’t have. I love you.”

She sighed, and gave me a kiss of her own. “It is quite alright. I lost my temper as well and that… has not happened in a long, long time. I am sorry for that, and I love you too.”

I thought back to that room full of bickering… what had I called them in the privacy of my own head? Ah yes. Fat pigeons. Well. She clearly had a rough day and I was not helping matters with bringing this into it. But hopefully, we had cleared the air at this point.

And clinging to that hope, I slowly turned my head and picked at random. I pointed at the large mirror frame with so few pieces of actual mirror remaining. Her gaze followed my gesture and she sighed a little. “The mirror was a portal to another world once. At least several texts I could unearth described artifacts like these and attributed this function to them. But I found it already broken and… I always wanted to restore it somehow, but never found the time or… any actual leads on how to do that.”

“So there’s more than one?” I asked, regarding the mirror with mild curiosity. Another world. I had little to no interest in that, but I could perfectly understand what somepony like her — or Twilight, for that matter — would fascinate about that.

“All the references I could find spoke of ‘mirrors’, which led me to assume as much, yes,” she answered. “At some point, I even considered giving it to Twilight in hopes that she might be able to understand it, or figure out a way to restore it, but ultimately… I came to realize that other worlds obviously pose other dangers as well. I am averse to taking risks by nature, especially if I cannot calculate how high these risks might be and what the consequences might look like.”

“Preaching to the choir,” I replied with a small smile. I looked at the mirror frame once more and only now noticed an unassuming looking staff leaning against it that I had not noticed before. “Say, that weird gnarled fork beside it isn’t part of the mirror, is it?”

The description actually made her smile a little as well. “That would be a ‘no’. That ‘weird gnarled fork’ is called the ‘Staff of Sacanas’. Despite my efforts, I never managed to find any credible source of information on who, or where, this ‘Sacanas’ actually is. It might be a person, or a place. Or something else entirely. The staff is incredibly dangerous in the wrong hooves, however. That is why it is here. It can absorb the powers of other beings.”

“Yikes. So… a staff-shaped Lord Tirek?”

Celestia shook her head. “Not quite. Tirek absorbs power to increase his own. He could absorb my magic and it would make him grow, among other things, but it would not allow him access to my domain or certain spells bound to my specific being. The Staff of Sacanas can absorb any amount of creatures’ magic and allow its wielder to access these powers. If the staff were to absorb my power, for example, the wielder would gain domain over the sun.”

“That… is actually even worse,” I quickly concluded, looking at that thing with newfound horror. “I get why you kept the mirror around for so long. But how did you get the staff, and why keep it?”

“I, ah… won it,” she tried to keep it short.

“You… ‘won’ it. You won a terrifying magical artifact. How? From whom?”

To my surprise, she hemmed and hawed a little before giving up. “At… poker...”

“You won this thing… at a poker game.”

“… with then dragon lord Torch.”

I snorted. It was just too absurd, imagining Princess Celestia sitting at a table with a mountain-sized dragon, playing poker of all things. Then again, I had not asked her when she had won it. Maybe back then, he was a lot closer to being pony-sized. Ember proved well enough that being dragon lord was not determined by size.

“How, exactly, did he think it was a good idea to play poker against you anyway?” I asked in jest. After all, Celestia was famous for her self-control.

She sighed and rubbed her muzzle with a hoof. “To be honest, he did not know any better back then. I had heard of him possessing the staff as part of his hoard and ventured into the dragon lands with the specific intent to meet him and acquire this piece. He had no experience with ponies before, knew little about us and had never even heard of me. But after this, he outlawed poker.”

I snorted again. “He outlawed poker…?”

At this point, Celestia even puffed her cheeks out a little bit. “You are making fun of this matter, but I assure you, I severely damaged what could have been a budding diplomatic relationship with dragons for many centuries to come!”

“Right. Sorry. So why did you keep the damn thing, if it’s this scary?” After all, she went that far to get it in the first place. And as soon as I saw that very specific expression on her face, I understood. “Right. Moving on,” I relented, and she seemed quite grateful for that. Because Celestia — the mare, not the Princess — was flawed. And thus, she had fears of her own. Things that kept her up at night. Nightmares that plagued her once she managed to fall asleep despite that.

So many villains, so many monsters, so many forces of nature out there. Out to get her little ponies. Out to harm and maim them, to hurt them. And she was standing tall and proud, their only protector against forces so overwhelming that no guard and no army could face them and hope to stand a chance. She was an alicorn. She was made from different stuff. But even alicorns could fail. Could fall.

What if, someday, the Windigos returned? What if Tirek found another source of magic, and came back to Equestria, vengeful and powerful and stronger than she was? Would it not have been convenient to have a little toy in the back of her hoof, capable of reigning those forces in? If the Staff of Sacanas was even capable of such feats was obviously up for debate. She never had a chance — or a need — to test that out. But the temptation was there. And maybe that was the point. Maybe that was why the staff remained inside this room, ready to be incinerated, instead of resting outside with the other stuff she clearly intended to spare.

To finally rid herself of this temptation and to acknowledge her full trust in the power of friendship. Because who could claim to trust fully if one trump card was always held behind the back.

“What about that Tantabus-thingy?” I asked.

“I… if that would be alright with you, I would rather not talk about that. Everything else, but not that.”

Her pleading tone gave me pause. She had offered me a hoof, and I was not about to rip her leg off. No reason to torment her. “That’s fine, sure. What abooouuut…” I turned and looked around the room once more, and this time my gaze got stuck on that small casket resting on the bookshelf. The one Twilight had immediately closed again. “Why do you keep dark crystals around?”

“It might seem counterproductive, but I can assure you, it is for safety reasons,” she started to explain. “Back when we defeated King Sombra, many ponies rejoiced and celebrated how their two leaders had vanquished yet another great evil of this world. Sadly, that is not quite how this story truly went down. King Sombra has a very specific bond with these crystals that we did not fully understand back then… nor do we understand it today. That book over there is the decades-long culmination of Luna's entire effort to study and understand his magic, and even she, at the end of it, had to admit that while she had learned a great deal about it, she did not know how to sever this bond. We had faced down Sombra on multiple occasions and defeated him on several battlefields. But we came to realize that he fought a war of attrition. One he apparently could not lose. Because no matter how brutal his defeat was, he always came back. His life force is bound to these crystals. The most important two discoveries Luna made were these: Firstly, as long as a single crystal remains in existence, Sombra will never be truly dead. He will reform eventually, time and again. It might take him centuries, or even millennia, but he will always return. And secondly, Luna was able to craft a ritual to measure the remaining time to his next reformation. The crystals in this casket were enchanted by said ritual and a trained enchanter can read the spell to know how much time is left.”

“But you keep a single crystal in Canterlot Castle… so these ones are basically ‘spares’ you don’t need anymore, and before you forget about them, it’s better to dispose of them…?” I guessed and she quickly confirmed my assumptions. “I didn’t know it worked like that. So that probably means we’ll never be truly rid of him, will we? Well, wait a second. You kept these crystals around for a thousand years, right? Because Luna vanished after you two defeated King Sombra. Research and progress never stop. Twilight is one heck of a smart cookie, and even if she can’t, maybe someday, somepony else can. You should keep Luna’s research. And maybe show it to Twilight, if you feel that is safe enough. Maybe she can figure a way out or create a new spell or something, to track those remaining crystals. Because if all of them got destroyed, that would permanently solve this issue. Heck, noticing his life insurance running out might even make him reconsider redemption someday.”

Celestia regarded the book in question with a nostalgic gaze before teleporting it outside, onto the rescue-pile. “You are right about the research. And I might consider that. However, I would not bet on him opening up to changing his ways anytime soon. We offered him quite a lot of chances and he refused each time.”

“Yes you did, and yes, he did, but did you two have a Fluttershy?” I asked in jest again, and grinned even more once she playfully rolled her eyes.

“I have a lot of faith in Fluttershy and her capabilities, but I am not so sure if this is the right approach.”

“She might surprise you. She stares down dragons, after all,” I argued.

“Sombra eats dragons for breakfast,” Celestia shot back. And were it not for that playful tone in her voice, I would have worried about her statement being a true observation. We instead had a good chuckle about it and moved on.

“Ah, yeah. The empty casket you teleported outside. Twilight said there’s some kind of documentation that claimed that a 'memory stone’ should have been inside?”

Celestia nodded. “Indeed. And I presume it should have been.”

“You presume?” I was mildly confused by that. Maybe she was not the only one with access to this vault? Maybe that was something Luna had dragged in at some point?

However, she blushed. Just the faintest hint of it, but her cheeks oh so slightly gained a tint. “It is the memory stone and… I fear I might have fallen victim to it at some time.”

That baffled me even more. “You don’t remember losing it?” And just as I had feared, she confirmed it with a nod. To be fair, it was easy enough to imagine what a ‘memory stone’ might be capable of. There was a lot of nasty stuff one creature with little qualms could do. But then again, it was but one potentially dangerous artifact out there. One of many. Maybe it would turn up again someday. Maybe it would not. At least it did not instill the same panic I felt when thinking about the Staff or Sacanas or an unyielding, undying King Sombra. I even dared to quip about it. “Eh. It’ll probably be fine. Might turn up again when you search your sofa for change.”

She smiled a little lopsided. “I don’t have a sofa.”

“There’s your issue: You forgot you have a sofa.” This time, she actually giggled a little. A nice sound. Soothing. I nuzzled her barrel and enjoyed her warmth for a brief moment before addressing the elephant in the room. “So… what about that chest then.”

“What is in it?” she asked. She didn't even know anymore.

“Well, nothing too important. Only, like, two dozen Alicorn Amulets.”

I closely watched her reaction to that and immediately saw her grimace. “That is a longer story,” she tried to deflect.

And I was not about to let her. “I have nothing better to do.”

“I do,” she replied without a second thought. And for a couple of tense seconds, the silence permeating the air grew thicker and thicker, until she sighed once more. “Fine.” She actually sat down on her haunches before the chest and cautiously opened it to take a look inside. I sat down beside her.

“As far as I know,” I started, looking up at her, “Twilight encountered a souped-up Trixie a couple of years ago. Wearing one of those. She even wrote you a nice letter about outsmarting her with the power of friendship. And never, not once, did you mention that this thing wasn’t the only one.”

“Because I thought I had managed to gather all that remained,” she defended her silence.

I carefully prodded her barrel with a hoof, only to lean in and kiss the point for good measure and to avoid any misleading implications. “So what’s up with those things?”

“They are weapons,” she started. But instead of continuing on, she regarded those amulets inside the chest with a strange mixture of regret and sadness. Only after I placed a hoof on her shoulder did she pick up again. “A long, long time ago, long before Equestria was founded, back in the days of the tribes living in separation, there was a coven of powerful witches. ‘Witchcraft’, as a label, has taken quite a journey over the centuries and means something different today. Back then, it was all about magic and autocracy. Witches were powerful, be it due to any kind of pony magic, alchemy or their understanding of magical craftsmanship. They constantly strived to further increase their power, searching for knowledge and new sources alike, and they refused to bow to anyone. Someone like that has a lot of enemies, and quickly gains more. That is why witches often formed covens. Rarely did they ‘like’ each other. But they had common goals. Defending themselves and surviving, amongst others.”

As she fell silent, I was left wanting. This story promised a lot more than what I had been granted so far. And it actually felt like there was more to it. Just the way she was looking at those things was so very different from Twilight's reaction. “So they built these things to defend themselves?”

She hesitated a little, but then shook her head. “No. They crafted them out of spite, and in hopes of retribution. This one specific coven invented and crafted them because of me.”

“Oh.” Not exactly my smartest comment, but I had minor difficulties processing that revelation. “They wanted you to join and you refused them?” I guessed.

And I was close to the truth, as it turned out. “Not quite. I… I did not refuse. Initially.”

Finally, I could understand that strange something I saw in her eyes. She was embarrassed. “You left them.” It was more of a statement than anything else. I just wanted to make her talk again.

“I did,” she confirmed with a nod. “Witches recruit those with promise, or those with power. And sometimes, they don’t ask nicely. Not all witches were witches by choice. I joined willingly in a… let us call it a ‘rebellious phase’. And yes, I had those. I learned a lot in those days. Especially about magic. It is one of the reasons why I am so far ahead of Luna. However, witchcraft has its price. Or rather… the unconditional pursuit of knowledge and power has its price. And one day, the coven forcefully recruited a new member. A young colt that had the potential to rise as one of the mightiest unicorns one day.” Several voices in my head were screaming ‘Starswirl! Starswirl! Starswirl!’ at me, but I did not bother to interrupt her. “It was the first time I witnessed just how… ruthless they could be. It opened my eyes to their true nature. And I reacted as well as one would expect from a high and mighty alicorn teenager. I took all their precious books, that young colt and fled for the hills. And for many years, I thought that was that. The colt was quite grateful. For the rescue as well as those books, as I had no actual use for them. I just wanted to deny the coven their further possession. Years later, I learned of a couple of incidents. They had apparently attempted to retrieve those books from said colt. A grown stallion and masterful wizard at that point. He had grown to become everything they had hoped for, and more. They were not able to defeat him and beat him into submission. And I had apparently taken quite a substantial amount of what made them strong with those books. They were furious. And a decade later, the first artificial alicorn approached me. His smile quickly turned into a sneer and he lunged at me with supernatural speed and strength. It might have been a quick victory for him, were it not for Luna. And a few years later, another alicorn showed up. And then another. The intervals decreased. Until two showed up at once. Then three.”

“They made an army,” I realized. “They made an entire army to get back at you. That’s… surprisingly petty for creatures that supposedly only care about power and knowledge.”

She sighed deeply. “Both my sister and I were alicorns. The only known alicorns in existence. We were power sources to them, at that point. They wanted to acquire what we had. And it took too many attempts at our lives to find out how these necklaces actually work. See, they did not wear them themselves. Neither did they hire goons, mercenaries or assassins to wear them. Their work was a lot more devious than that. These necklaces bestowed upon its usually unwilling wearer a powerful transformation spell that twists the mind into one of hatred and resentment. It perverts the existing personality into a caricature, into something almost comically evil. And they knew only one target for that hate and resentment: me. Even after we ripped the necklace off of one victim, he persisted. He fought like a madpony. And mad they truly were, all of them. After I learned that they were using innocents as their ‘soldiers’, I turned the tables on them. I told Luna some of what I had done and learned, and she promised me aid in my attempts to correct my mistakes. Or at least put an end to this misery. We hunted the coven down and… ended their days of crafting more necklaces. But there were still so many in circulation. So many had witnessed the power they granted and were lured in by false promises. So many alicorns still turned up to fight to the death. Fewer with the decades passing by. Fewer still, as we started to track down all amulets that we could find. My time with the coven had considerably strengthened my magic, but Luna had always been more talented in studying foreign and exotic magic. She concluded that these amulets would lose their power over time, as any spell and any artifact does. Maybe it was a foolish sentiment… but I kept some of them. The coven had crafted hundreds in those years, and what remains in this chest was supposed to be all there was left.”

Stories were powerful things. They could teach different lessons, depending on who was telling them, and who was listening. They could evolve over time. Grow and change, spawn new generations, wither and die. I was not sure what I had learned from her story quite yet. It would need to settle down in my mind, it would need to be processed properly. But I felt a deep gratitude for her sharing such a sensitive part of her past with me. So I leaned in once more, and embraced her. “Thank you.” She did not answer, only put a wing around me and held me close, while still staring into that chest. After a while, I retreated a little and gave room to that nagging thought that kept bothering me throughout her story. “What I don’t quite understand is: When Twilight encountered Trixie, she wasn’t an alicorn. She was incredibly powerful, sure, but no actual transformation had taken place. And neither did she hate you. She focused her entire resentment on Twilight. That is… because the magic in those enchantments weakened over time?”

“I assume as much, yes,” she agreed. “The power the amulet can grant is not enough for a full transformation anymore, and it does not have enough grip on the wearer’s mind to twist his thoughts in the exact way the coven intended. I had hoped that someday, they would lose their magic entirely and I could keep them as a memory of a distant past. And a reminder of past mistakes as well. But I had not expected this process to take this long.”

For the first time in a while, I dared to take a look into the chest again as well. And I tried hard to shove my fears aside, just looking at those amulets from a crafter’s point of view. Darkened silver, gemstone inlays… they were… well… pretty, I guessed. I could see some beauty in them, as edgy pieces of jewelry. But it was hard not to associate them with what they did and stood for. “Are you sure you want to get rid of all of them? You could still keep one around in Canterlot Castle, I guess.”

It was a weak, half-hearted offer, as my entire being was trying to yell ‘good riddance!’ to these things. And Celestia herself seemed to share that sentiment. “No. I am aware of past mistakes and I regret the lives lost due to my decisions, poor or otherwise. But I do not feel the same regret and guilt as I did for so many years, and… I hope I do not sound like a horrible pony saying this, but it feels liberating. I do not wish to tie myself down with this guilt once more.”

My mind immediately wandered to that massive farmer nightmare that had clung to Celestia for centuries. The one Twilight and our friends helped me to defeat. The one currently, slowly, transforming the surroundings of these very ruins. If Celestia knew of that, she had never made it clear. She had never commented on it, or even hinted at it. And at times, it had been easy to forget all about that. Celestia was Celestia. She wore her mask of perfection on the regular and even when she tried to let other ponies in, she had a difficult time doing so. That had made it incredibly hard to see any difference between her suffering those nightmares on a daily basis before we exorcized it, and now, after the fact. Luna had assured me once or twice that there was a difference, a significant one, but she was her sister. It was easy to spot for her, I assumed.

Now, however, she had told me. Or at least I liked to believe that this was what it meant. And I felt a little bit proud about it. “I’m glad to hear you don’t beat yourself up over it anymore. It is unfortunate. But mistakes make us who we are. They contribute to us being, well, us. And I quite like who you are.”

“Thank you,” she quietly whispered, before closing the chest. “Anything else you would like to know?”

As we stood back up, I looked around the room once more and now, knowing a lot of the history collected between these walls… it somehow still felt incredibly dangerous being in here, but at least now it was a bunch of known dangers. “Well, I don’t really care much about dark magic books, to be honest. There… is one more thing, but I can ask that outside. So… you may do your creepy miniature sun-thing now.”

“It is not a miniature sun,” she disputed. “It is more like… an infinitesimal piece of the sun’s surface that I conjure—this is not helping, is it?”

I gave her a little, feeble grin in response. “Not at all.”

“It is not creepy!” she insisted instead.

“Love, I feel magic. Standing right beside you meant I felt like my skin was peeled off.” Well, honestly, I would expect that to actually hurt a lot more than it was creepy, but that was beside the point.

“Well you insisted on coming along,” she muttered.

And her muttering was so surprisingly endearing to watch that I just had to hug her again. “And I’m still glad I did,” I let her know with an accompanying chuckle.

“If it is that bad, you might want to leave the room then,” she told me and despite my doubts that this would actually help in any way, I still complied with a nod and walked out the room. There was no purple barrier blocking the exit anymore. But those protective spells Twilight had cast were probably popped like soap bubbles once Celestia teleported inside.

I stood beside the rescue-pile of books and waited. A small glimmer of golden magic soon grew into a strong and bright light blasting the entire room once more, and a few moments later, Celestia emerged from the vault as well. She closed the wooden door and before I could ask if that would be enough, she concentrated and put the entire room in a very, very strong protective field.

And then I saw the door… well, basically evaporate. It did not so much ‘burn away’ as it just… vanished. And a little bit of ash started to flutter to the ground as soon as that ‘piece of the sun’ vanished. What was left behind was not much to begin with. The hewn stone walls were gone. As was the ceiling and the floor. And all bookshelves, chests and artifacts. There was a roughly sphere-shaped hole with molten walls. Semi-liquid rock dripped from the ceiling to the ground where it coalesced into small, slowly cooling puddles.

And Celestia seemed relieved.

It almost made me hesitate asking that final question. But I just… I had to. For my own sanity’s sake. “Discord.”

I stood very close to her again. Close enough to notice her tensing up again. She froze for just a couple of seconds before taking the leap. “What about him?”

So she knew of him. I wondered what had happened to him and… I still had a sneaking suspicion about that. “There were claw marks all over the door. And a thin layer of ash, covering a very small blast radius. What happened here?”

She sighed. “He broke free sooner than I anticipated. But I suppose such is the nature of chaos. Twilight was not ready to face him yet, so I had to act and I had to act quickly. He came here because it was the last place that he knew of as my home. He came for revenge, but found the castle in ruins already. I was not sure what he made of that. But he found this secret passage. A detection spell I had established notified me of his presence.”

“That energy field?” I interrupted her. “Twilight had not been sure what it was searching for.”

“Yes. It is designed to alert me to the presence of any creature entering the hallway without the guidance of a true alicorn.” Well. That made sense. More so that she had not been informed about us, then. Either Twilight's spell had worked, or the detection spell had simply noticed her being there. “I teleported here as soon as I was notified and found him trying to… get inside.”

“He didn’t know where the Elements were, did he?” I asked.

“I assume he suspected them inside,” Celestia confirmed what I had implied.

Now I had to face the very uncomfortable question if my love had murdered him in cold blood. It was not an easy question to ask. “Did you—“ I started.

“No,” she immediately interrupted. “Well, yes, in a way. I used something on him that is, in nature, very similar to that which just disintegrated that room. However, Discord is chaos incarnate. Imagine the concept of the day dying. Or the concept of love dying. He is as immortal as we are. I merely disembodied him. It will inconvenience him for quite some time, I suspect, and to be honest, I hope that he will use that time to take a look around. Learn and grow and… maybe time will help him shed his resentment of my sister and I.”

I thought back to that one time I had asked Pinkie about him, and her reaction to it, and her many quirks, and I decided that this had nothing to do with anything and left it at that. Because I trusted Pinkie. And the power of friendship, if necessary.

“One last thing then.”

“I thought that had been the last thing?” She inquired with a bemused smile.

“True, but… I remembered that book I came with. ‘The Elements of Harmony’, written in weird Old Equestrian by Twilight and myself, in which she explicitly instructs herself not to translate the text any further.” I let my words linger for a moment, waiting if she would pick up any of that and continue on her own free will, or if I had to push it farther. And I apparently had to. “That sounds a lot like time travel to me. But not the kind of time travel Twilight has experienced already. Because that is a closed loop, or so she told me. She did stuff that led to her time traveling, which in turn caused her to do stuff that leads to her time traveling. This book is different, isn’t it?”

Celestia took up the entire rescue-pile in her levitation and we slowly walked towards the other end of the hallway, despite the fact that we would probably teleport back to Canterlot in a few minutes anyway, once we were truly done here.

She took her time answering and chose her words carefully. “To be honest, a lot about this book eludes me as well. I know very little of its origins.”

I watched her closely and reached one of those very rare moments in which I was frustrated by my lack of capability to pierce her masks. Because in the end, I just had to trust her. I had to trust that she was telling me the truth, because I would never know otherwise. If she wanted to keep secrets from me, she would. Easy as that. “When did you get it? What’s inside that Twilight is not supposed to read?”

She struggled. Internally. I could see her arguing with herself, and in the center of it, there had to be something worth arguing over. “I got it long before Luna left my side,” she answered the first part. In a way, that was not all that surprising. It was the book about the Elements of Harmony. Those things that Luna and her had gathered from the Tree of Harmony to defeat Discord and whoever else. It was supposed to be old. But despite her lacking answer, I found little fault with it. The question had been inherently useless. What difference was it to me if that book was two thousand years old, or two thousand and two hundred? Or four thousand? Or a million years? It did not matter. As far as I was concerned, that thing could have been as old as time itself and it would have made zero difference.

She knew that, obviously. Which meant that what made her stomach ache so much was its content.

“The stars will aid in her escape,” Celestia cited from memory. “Have you ever wondered where this prophecy came from? I certainly have. That book you found was merely one version of this book, albeit a very different one. The first one, to be precise, as all other versions of it were copies of this original, excluding some commentary and a couple of chapters. The original version is the origin of this prophecy. The book was given to me, and for the life of me, I could not tell you by whom. I cannot seem to remember. Back when I got it, I read a lot of it and dismissed it as the fever dreams of a madpony. There was so much written in it that was unimaginable. A unified nation of all three tribes? With my sister and me ruling, no less? But as time moved on, I started to see the signs. I refrained from using it too much, but… I will admit that it did help me predict – and circumvent – certain disasters. Or benefit from certain blessings. Please do not read too much into this. The book and its predictions were never one hundred percent accurate, and they never were precise and detailed. They spoke of a unified nation under the rulership of two alicorns, not of Equestria under the rulership of Luna and Celestia. It spoke of the embodiment of chaos breaking free from its prison to exact revenge, not of Discord escaping the stone and clawing at an old vault door in the bowels of a castle ruin. Time and again, I have proven that book wrong. And I admit, it might have become something of a pet peeve at certain stages of my life. Usually when I once again struggled with the concept of free will versus predeterminism. But that book is not responsible for how I treated you in the past, or do so now.”

I had stopped walking at some point. I was just standing in the middle of a dimly lit corridor — lit at all thanks to that faint light spell on her horn — and was reeling from the implications of her revelation. I could very much understand that conflict between philosophies. I returned to this struggle time and again as well. And right now, I felt like tumbling down into that abyss all over again. Was that book all there was to it? What if this, my entire life, was a closed time loop after all? Just a very, very, very large loop. A lifelong loop.

Maybe one with minor variations as someone aware of this loop tried to correct something? Or tried to achieve something?

But I had families. Loved ones and friends and children. I had found happiness in each and every iteration my flashes of insight had shown to me.

If this really was ‘just’ a closed time loop with minor discrepancies leading to certain changes in my life… was that really a bad thing?

I was happy. I felt alive. I had been happy before, and I had felt alive before. There was no distinction in quality. One life was not inherently better than the other. This one was the current one, and that was all the difference. That was what mattered right now, was it not?

A part of me wanted more. Wanted to ask and push and claw all the answers from her mind. What was in that book? Now that it was destroyed, she was the only possible source. What else had that book been speaking of? What did it predict? What disasters were to come? How would our relationship turn out? Would I die of old age, or in an unfortunate accident a year from now?

If you could know the future, each and every event beforehoof, would you not be tempted to take it, to take all of it, every little scrap of information you could get? To use it? To prepare? To take control of your own life?

One could get obsessed with that. Quite easily.

Life was not about having control, strangely enough. And strange it was, seeing how having control, being in control, felt comforting for so many ponies. Me included.

I quickly realized that this entire internal discussion was taking way too long, Celestia’s expression was growing increasingly concerned and it would ultimately lead nowhere. It could not lead anywhere by its very nature.

Maybe Pinkie had a point and seeing your friends smile was enough. I certainly gained a new appreciation — and envy — for Rainbow's ability to sometimes not think.

“It doesn’t matter,” I decided and tried to pack as much resolution into my voice as I could, for her sake and mine.

“I am sorry that—“ she started and I recognized the wrong direction her thoughts were running to.

“No,” I interrupted her. “I mean the book. The book doesn’t matter. It changes nothing. Because quite frankly, I don’t want it to change anything. I have a good life, right here, right now. I have the best friends I could ever ask for. I somehow garnered the love of three incredible mares. I have a literal dream job. A couple of years ago, after I arrived here, Twilight was so keen on finding out what exactly had brought me here. Where I had come from. And for… let’s say a day or two, I shared that interest. It waned rather quickly. Because some answers only spoil what you have. There is a reason the saying ‘ignorance is bliss’ exists. And it’s not all bad not to know. I love you. And I trust you. I made that a pillar of my life. I trust you. Whatever was written in that book, I decide not to care about that. I don’t want to. I don’t want to know. I’m sorry I made such a fuss about it, I just… I couldn’t help myself. It’s really freaking easy to get lost in that impulse to demand answers, especially when you know that a viable source of answers is close at hoof. But I think I managed to get through that haze now and…” I looked back at what used to be a secret vault. The molten walls had cooled down considerably, even in that short amount of time. But some patches here and there were still faintly glowing. “I care about Twilight. She got spooked really badly. And now that that’s dealt with… I think I just want to continue. Move on and be safe in the knowledge that this stuff was turned to dust. All of it. It’s like… the Staff of Sacanas. It was tempting. Now it can’t anymore.”

Celestia watched me explain myself, and she probably had her own conclusions about things. If so, she did not share them. And I did not pry. She instead just leaned down, whispered a faint ‘thank you’ and kissed me. And I kissed her back with all my love for her, as if I had to make a point. I was with her. As long as she wanted me by her side, I would be there, through thick and thin.

We exited the passage a couple of minutes later, closing the bookshelf once more. My gaze wandered aimlessly around the room and a new idea sprang to life. “You want to return to Canterlot to open court again, right?” I asked and despite her lacking enthusiasm, she confirmed it anyway. There was work to be done, and it would get done. Now where had I heard that before today? “Do you mind taking me along? I need to talk to Luna.”

Celestia considered it for a brief moment. The additional expenditure of magic to teleport me alongside herself again was certainly not what made her think. No, she was mulling over something else. “My sister will likely expect me to greet her at her breakfast table soon, but with the amount of work that still remains, I won’t be able to make it in time. Would you like to keep her company in my stead?”

Ah. Bad conscience talking. It was easy to recognize – I did it enough myself. “Sure, I’d love to.”

She gave a curt nod, draped her wing over my back and charged her horn. The soft golden glow that had encased it earlier brightened considerably and in a blinding flash, we were gone.

I had somehow forgotten about the rescue-pile. But once we arrived at the castle — right in front of the throne room doors, to be precise — her first course of action was to instruct Soft Step and Night Crawler to flag down a couple of clerks and give them proper instructions. All the books and materials she had brought with her were to be archived. Anything that was not a book was supposed to wait on the archivist’s desk until further notice, she would gather those things up herself and stash them away in the vault. And of course, certain ponies were to be informed that day court would open back up again soon.

I patiently waited until she had given all her orders and allowed myself only a tiny smile in Soft Steps direction. I had managed to not make her regret her decision, I hoped. A part of me continued this line of thought in the direction that maybe, just maybe, it would be easier next time I suddenly needed to barge into court again.

Not that I was counting on that happening again, but there was always a chance, no matter how small.

Once she was done, Celestia turned to me and only now did I realize with a sinking heart that I would not get a farewell now. Well, not a proper one anyway. With ponies milling about and guards on all corners… heck, even if she would take me back inside the throne room, privacy was not a given. There were few places in the palace where that could truly be secured. So I had to talk to Princess Celestia and bid my goodbye to her. I tried to hide my disappointment.

“You know your way around?” she asked me.

And I attempted a smile. “Sure. Dinner hall should be that way. Don’t let them walk all over you, okay?” Protocol would have required a ‘Your Highness’ again, but honestly, it left a bad taste in my mouth every time I had to use it and I still remembered that from earlier. And I just hoped Night Crawler would not snitch on me, seeing as Soft Step was gone to execute orders.

“You know I won’t,” she replied with a faint smile and I could see her reign herself in. There had been a short impulse, a movement in her neck to lean down and nuzzle me, not dissimilar to her greeting Twilight back in her student days. But I was a night guard, as the weight of my armor reminded me, and that would have been inappropriate.

It was almost funny how we both awkwardly stood in front of the door. The only thing missing was me shuffling around with my hooves and her asking me if I might want to come in for a cup of tea. But this was not the kind of cheesy romance novel Rarity would have loved. So I instead gave her a curt nod and cut this developing disaster short. I turned and walked away.

And I immediately made plans to remedy this abhorrent display. But those would have to wait a little longer. I had a late rising Princess to catch.

The dinner hall was already occupied when I arrived. Celestia telling me stories about creepy artifacts had apparently taken longer than I had thought. Luna was sitting at the table, munching on a donut, and a servant was pouring her another cup of coffee. I could smell that vile concoction from the moment I entered.

“Ah, sis—“ she started and stopped herself.

“Not quite, sorry,” I excused myself not being Celestia and smiled lopsided. My armor was gone at this point, as I did not wish to repeat my previous mistake. “But if you’d like the company, I’d be more than glad to stay with you for a while.” By the time I finished, I had walked across the hall and stood close enough to her to give her a little peck. And a little flutter made my heart beat faster once I saw how her eyes lit up at that small gesture.

“You are very welcome to join me,” she said with a noticeable drop in volume. So I took a chair next to her, quickly scanned the diverse offers of breakfast items that had been prepared for her and noticed the couple of more dinner-like items on offer that were probably meant for Celestia. “I take it my sister will not join me this time, then?” she concluded.

I shot her an apologetic smile. “Sorry.”

“It is quite alright,” she replied, though her sigh spoke of barely hidden disappointment. “It is not the first time this week.

Somepony is apparently bothering her a great deal again, and she once more refuses to let me deal with that nuisance.”

“Well, to be fair, that’s really not all that surprising if you keep proposing to throw them out of windows,” I reminded her with a chuckle.

“It would only be fair!” she insisted with a mischievous grin. “They waste her time — and good mood! —, so I waste them.” We had a quiet laugh about the absurdity. “Tell me then. How has your day treated you?”

“Eh. Could’ve been better, to be honest,” I started to answer while chowing down on a piece of strawberry cake. “I might have had my first small spat with Celestia? Maybe? Can’t really tell yet. But please refrain from throwing me out of windows, I promise I try not to make it a regular occurrence. Have you slept well?”

“My rest has been decent, yes.” Her brow furrowed as her gaze drifted over to the windows. “And you might be safe for now. I do not think my sister would appreciate me smashing the dinner hall windows.”

I chuckled again. “Well, am I glad to be in this room.” Because hallway windows would have been an entirely different matter… probably. “To be honest, I came here with a matter in mind.”

She nodded. “I figured as much. And here I was hoping you would come for my sake alone…!” she complained in a tiny dramatic display of ‘woe is me’.

With a grin plastered on my face, I guided her muzzle down to me and kissed her before whispering, “Believe me, kitten, I’d come for you anytime…” I quite enjoyed the faint tint rising in her cheeks and that almost goofy smile tugging at her lips. I enjoyed the taste of coffee a lot less. But sacrifices had to be made.

“You may have successfully mollified me with such talk,” she replied in a whisper before straightening up again and continuing her breakfast as if nothing had happened. “Speak, then. What ails your mind?”

“Well… Twilight had an idea. It was a good one, too, as usual.” And so, I continued to tell her about our little excursion, the picnic, the whole plan to rescue as many books in one go as was physically possible — and the hopelessly idealistic assumption that we might be able to get all of them. I told her about the secret passage and the vault full of dangerous books and artifacts, but I did not go into detail what exactly we found inside. Only that it frightened both Twilight and me to no small degree and that we immediately aborted our plans, so that we might return to Ponyville as fast as possible. I ended with Celestia incinerating the entire room. “And I fear that’s the point where I have to admit that I might be responsible for delaying her participation in this fine feast today,” I concluded with another apologetic smile.

“Quite a busy day,” Luna replied, her brow still furrowed. “But you made it sound like you had a plan in mind.”

“Oh, I have. Let me ask you first, before I interfere with Equestria’s rulership again. Has Night Court been busy these past few days?”

“Nay. We had no visitors for a few days, but at least we know why this time, and it will sort itself out in the coming week.”

“Right, okay. Still sorry to hear that, but it might work in my favor. Twilight is currently at home, and all our friends are with her to keep her company. As you probably already gathered from my story, she’s completely exhausted herself to the point of collapse. I suspect that she’s sleeping right now and probably will continue to do so until morning, at least. And were it just that, I would return home and keep her company as well, but… I really feel like I should do something for Celestia. She seems quite stressed. She needs to relax a little.”

Luna quickly put one and one together and smiled. “You wish for me to take your place and watch over her,” she guessed.

“Yes. And maybe keep an eye on her dreams as well? But that’s not all, actually.” It was time for my ridiculous master plan to be revealed! Goodness, did I hope this was not too outrageous of an ask. “I was wondering… do you have a couple dozen night guards you don’t need right now? Preferably pegasi?”

The question was already enough of a hint for her to puzzle together what I was getting at. And I was quite relieved to see a warm smile spread across her face. “One of your friends, which I shall find in Twilight's homestead, would still possess the floorplan she made. And pegasi would only have to worry about the Everfree Forests fickle weather. They would not have to worry about ground-based threats and would lose less time walking the paths within when a direct beeline is a lot shorter.”

I nodded with a growing satisfaction. “They could probably finish what Twilight intended in one night.”

“So that by the time she would wake, she would find the books she craved on her doorstep,” Luna concluded with a grin. “I like the idea. Very much so. I am in favor of it and will see to it after breakfast.”

My hope fulfilled, I leaned over and hugged her as best as the mildly awkward seating arrangement allowed. “Thank you, Luna.” Once I let go of her again, I chuckled a little and added, “But I wouldn’t drop them on her doorstep. She’ll have your head for mistreating books. Again. I was pondering this on my way here and I was thinking that maybe you can use her dining hall as a temporary storage. It’s a rarely used room anyway. Oh and if Rarity and the others are still up for it, they might actually help you out with more than just a map. You could divide the tasks at hoof between two forces. Your guards go get the books and the rest sorts them out or something like that.”

“I will see what I can do, but Twilight's well-being obviously has priority,” she agreed with a caveat.

“Obviously,” I agreed as well. I shoved another piece of cake into my mouth and happily chewed away at the sweet, sugary goodness. Things turned around. Luna would be there and although it saddened me to not be able to do it myself, the important part really was that somepony looked after her and that she was fine. You can't have everything, after all.

With that part being sorted, I turned my attention to the next puzzle piece. Which meant addressing one of the kitchen staff members, as she started to clear the dinner table as soon as Luna had given her sign that she was done. “Miss? May I ask you for a favor?”

The beige pegasus mare stopped stacking plates and shot a quick side glance in Luna's direction. Only after the Princess gave her permission did she turn her focus back to me. “Sure.”

“Princess Celestia could not make it to dinner this evening and has a rather taxing day,” I started with stating the obvious. “Could you please relay a message to the kitchen staff? I am sure they will know once court ends and the Princess exits the throne room. I would like them to start preparing whatever they see fit for a late dinner once that happens. If they could send it up to her room, that would be perfect.”

There were three kinds of servants. The ones that ‘just worked here’ and did a job. They cared little about anything aside from what their job required of them. The ones that grumbled and gossiped. And the ones that truly cared. Right now, I needed that mare to be one of the latter group and I cared little why she cared, as long as she did. And seeing her smile turn a little bit more genuine filled me with hope once more. This time, she did not wordlessly ask Luna for permission. Quite frankly, it was not necessary. Celestia missed dinner every now and then, and on most of these days, she at least remembered to eat at all and let them serve her in her study. This was not out of the ordinary.

At this point, my hooves were tied. I had done what I could and had tried to make things right once more. All that remained was to wait.

“I will depart for Ponyville now,” Luna declared. “Well, I will gather some of my guards and then depart for Ponyville. I wish you a good evening and good luck with my sister.”

I stood up as well and quickly caught up to her. “Say ‘hello’ to my friends for me, will you? And maybe explain why I didn't come back today. I’m sure they will understand. I’ll probably return home tomorrow. And I hope you have a nice evening as well. Don’t do anything with or to Twilight I wouldn’t do as well,” I demanded with a cheeky grin.

Luna feigned mild indignation and put a hoof to her chest. “Why, pray tell, would I willingly limit myself this much when corrupting that poor, innocent mare is so much fun…?” she whispered and we both shared a good laugh on our way out.

“Poor and innocent, right, right. Well, you go have fun then. And once again, thank you, kitten.” Her little show broke apart as she grinned upon hearing that name. I craned my neck upwards and she met me halfway. Nopony bet an eye. Nopony seemed to care. I just sometimes wished… I just wished I could do this with Celestia as well. To kiss her as freely as I was ‘allowed’ to do with Luna. It was a strange dynamic that I still did not fully understand.

Maybe one day.

With Luna gone, I went to Celestia’s study, only to inform the guards that her presence was requested at her chambers. I suspected that she expected me to return home at the earliest point, seeing as I was worried about Twilight. So maybe it would come as a little surprise that I was still here. Either way, at that point, it would be her decision if she really, truly wanted to continue with paperwork late into the night, or if she wanted to find out what I had in mind for us.

The guards let me into her chambers after a short inspection, and I did what little preparation I could think of. The food would be a good starter, but that was already set in motion. A nice, relaxing massage afterwards, and to top it all off, a hot bath. She would sleep like a log, I would make sure of that.

I busied myself with a book from the nightstand to bridge the time until her arrival. And sure enough, a couple of hours later, the door was unlocked. By this point, she had already set the sun and that had been a perfect excuse for me to test my fire-making skills. A little rusty, but I still managed to spark one into existence with a couple of tries. So once Celestia entered her chamber, a nice, warm glow illuminated me standing on the carpet in front of it, waiting for her.

It was such a beautiful, many-layered smile that cracked her mask and broke through once she stepped inside and the door was closed again. So she was surprised. A small victory to start things off.

“Hey love. Thought you could use some relaxation after today.” And I could see just how right I was. Her left wing gave a little twitch, her shoulders sagged a bit and even her smile sported a thick layer of tiredness.

“This is lovely,” she whispered, despite no further changes in her room being obvious. Before we could properly greet each other, a knock from the door disrupted us. “I wonder who that is at this hour,” Celestia sighed and her voice carried a tiny hint of dread. Another clerk having to ask an absolutely important question, another aide needing a signature, maybe even another noble following her despite proper manners dictating the opposite.

“That should be the food,” I let her know, hoping it would ease her worries a little.

And indeed, she opened the door and after a small exchange with the staff member outside, she pulled a little trolley in. Even though all the different dishes were hidden beneath metal domes, there was still a faint smell of stewed vegetables that made her stomach grumble. My own stomach was fine, it still worked on that cake, I suspected, but I would keep her company and pick a few pieces anyway. Eating alone was a lot less enjoyable after all.

With the door closed again, she turned back around and I had used that time to levitate a pot of tea out, right beside my head where she could see the light from the fireplace illuminate its contents. “This is going to be a great evening, love. I even made us tea!”

“Heavens have mercy!” she muttered in feigned horror.

And a second later, we both laughed. Her laughter was such a beautiful sound. Clear like a bell. It broke any tensions back and I knew then that this evening would be a success.