The Pearl and the Princess

Chapters

1 - The Price of Power
2 - The Poison of Provocation
3 - The Pestilence of Premonition
4 - The Precipitation of Peril
5 - The Paroxysm of Parting
6 - The Purloining of Passion

1 - The Price of Power

Her body was on fire. The tendrils which protected the pearl were covered in tiny hooks, which dug into her hide and filled her veins with neurotoxin. It was almost enough to prevent her from triggering a spell.

But she was the Princess of Friendship. And her element was magic.

Even as the sirens rang out through the underwater kingdom, alerting the Queen of her treachery, she released a blast powerful enough to knock the tendrils away from her prize. The pearl began to drift to the ocean floor, and she tugged herself free of the stunned security system, diving deep enough to wrap her hooves around it, just as Queen Novo and Princess Skystar returned.

And behind them were her friends, still in Hippocamp form. They looked just as shocked as the princess. As if they had completely forgotten that their home had been taken, as if they didn't care that the princesses were stone and their families had been enslaved.

She felt a pulse of magic through her hooves. The Pearl was alive in some way. Like many magical artifacts, it had a mind of its own and it seemed...excited, to be used as intended once more. The jolt was numbing in some ways but comforting in others. It soothed the agony across her body.

In that moment of clarity, she realized what she should said when Pinkie made her little announcement in Klugetown. The others...they had not been mentored by Celestia. They were not royalty. They would never understand the pressures which came with it. And she realized as well, she didn't want them to. She never wanted Applejack to have to lie to a crowd of subjects. She never wanted Rainbow Dash to have her boundless confidence beaten out of her.

This was her responsibility. They would be safer without her, anyway. It was her that Tempest wanted.

She gave one last look at her friends, whose shock was turning slowly to anger and horror. And then she jerked upward. Even as she teleported herself closer to the surface of the water, she heard the Queen scream something and a crackling spell, likely meant to incapacitate her, bounced off the Pearl. It was too late to stop her though. She was returning to her normal form, her feathered wings carving through the water with Earth Pony strength.

In less than a minute, she'd broken the surface and could feel the saltiness of the air in her lungs. She wasn't focused on that though; she was focused on the power radiating between her hooves at the moment.

Capper sat on the only remaining piece of the airship, trying to wring the salt-water out of his lucky coat. The parrot crew, whom he'd just exchanged pleasantries with (as pleasant as things could be, when you'd just fallen out of an airship into the ocean), were kicking their long legs into the water, paddling toward Mount Eris as best as they could. He could tell from Celaeno's expression she was less than impressed with his reluctance to assist. But it wasn't his fault.

No Abyssian liked water. Besides, his paws really weren't designed for that kind of thing.

He was just stretching out a leg to test the coolness of the water (as if it had gotten warmer in the past couple of hours). That was when he saw it. A streak of purple and pink energy, not incomparable to the Sonic Rainboom which had drawn the Storm King's ire. But...brighter, somehow. For a moment he thought he saw something inside of it, a wriggling black silhouette. But then his eyes began to complain at the intensity of the light, and he looked away.

Boyle looked up from the kicking of his legs and frowned. "Cap'n, ya ever see weather like that before?"

Celaeno shook her head, her own efforts slowing as she shielded her face with a claw. "No...I can't say I have."

Tempest squinted at the cliffsides of Mount Eris as she leaned on the railing of her personal ship. She'd wasted too much time already. Dragging along that obviously lying feline. Interrogating those parrots. If she'd just blown the ship out of the sky as soon as they got within range, she wouldn't be flying around a mountain right now, looking for any sign of her prey.

She had been so close. Everything had gone according to plan. The element of surprise was all she'd needed to get the better of the princesses. She rolled her eyes at how easily they'd been taken down. Phenomenal cosmic power, wasted on pampered elites, who wouldn't understand ambition if it smacked them in the face.

Well, it was time for Equestria to grow up. The world was not all sunshine and rainbows and if the only way to make ponies understand that was to take away their precious princesses, who had spent the last thousand years coddling them, then so be it.

She wouldn't petrify Twilight when she caught up with her. That mare had given her too much trouble. She wanted to see the look on her face as she revealed to her how deeply misplaced her hope had been. It would balm the irritation of the past three days nicely.

Just as she was contemplating how she would rub the younger ponies face in her defeat, she heard it. The incessant munching of Grubber on that stupid cake.

She growled and turned toward him, her expression, as well as the fizzling electricity in her horn was enough to make him drop his last piece of sponge cake. She turned away, shaking her head. When she had her horn back, when the Storm King's rule was absolute, and she was his right hoof...she'd never have to suffer the results of his incompetence again.

She'd begun envisioning the kinds of hardcore monsters she'd be able to take under her wing, when there was a flash of light and her prized airship lurched to one side. She staggered across the deck, even as she slid toward the edge but managed to wrap her hooves around a freed piece of rigging and dangled above the deadly drop, watching her storm creatures topple past her and fall plummeting toward the rocky landscape of Basalt Beach below.

She lifted her eyes to the bright light above and stared in disbelief.

It was Twilight Sparkle. The Princess of Friendship. But it was also...not her. For a start, she was twice as large as she had been the last time Tempest had seen her. Her whole body in fact seemed bulkier, more muscular. But those were merely the most cosmetic of changes. Her feathered wings had been replaced with scaled ones, like that of a dragon. Pieces of chitinous armor now encased her throat and forehead. And her horn...it curved like that of a minotaur. In one hoof, she held a glowing orb of constantly shifting color.

"Hello, Tempest." Twilight said, even as her telekinesis encircled her and tied her up in the rigging which had saved her life. Then she lowered herself to the floor of the sideways airship and with a jerk of her head, the whole ship shifted back into a horizontal position, sending Tempest rolling across the deck, her hooves now wrapped in sturdy hemp.

"You're going to tell me how to free the other princesses." Twilight said, stepping closer and leaning down. "Now."

Tempest glared up at her and then glanced at the glowing orb. It must have been the key to Twilight's boost in power. She just had to get it free of her and she'd turn back into the quivering, defenseless creature who had fleed from Tempest twice now.

"Of course, princess..." Tempest let loose a blast of magic from her horn, sending Twilight sliding across the deck and burning away Tempest's meager restraints. The orb fell from Twilight's grasp and Tempest leaped to wrap her hooves around it.

Twilight had already recovered. She jerked over to the orb with the speed only a pegasus could muster and her shoulder connected with Tempest's sternum, sending her flying back into the mast. Using her telekinesis, she picked up the orb and swung it penduously above her horn as she trotted back up to Tempest's limp form.

"Ready to tell me now?" Twilight asked, her eyes burning with unused magic.

Tempest staggered to her feet, ignoring the very real ache in her side. From the hitch in her breathing, she could tell that she had at the very least, bruised a rib.

She played up the limp for a moment and then released the last of her petrification potions, smacking it towards her newly recovered foe. Twilight reacted without thinking, swinging the glowing orb into the glass projectile and causing green gas to flood across the deck of the ship.

When the cloud had cleared, Twilight opened her eyes to watch as Tempest writhed against the quickly encasing malachite which was growing over her entire form.

"No! Please...help!" Tempest managed to get out, before the malachite encased her mouth.

Twilight watched as her one hope of freeing the princesses, turned to stone before her eyes, helpless to stall the transformation.

"I don't understand...why would Twilight stoop to such means?" Rarity asked.

They were currently in a cell beneath the Hippogriff palace, with a couple of sturdy looking guards just outside. In spite of their attempts to explain that they had been unaware of Twilight's intentions, Nova had ordered they be imprisoned until Twilight returned the Pearl (not that they could leave in their aquatic forms anyway).

"Yeah! Not only did she steal, she left us behind! We're supposed to be a team!" Dash said, striking the side of the wall of the cell with her hoof.

"She probably thinks she's doin' what's best for Equestria." Applejack reasoned.

"She lied to us." Pinkie said, her usual cheer completely gone.

"She must have had a good reason..." Spike said, looking between them all and seeing the hurt expressions on their faces.

"She doesn't trust us." Fluttershy said, her fin-hoof pawing at the loose sand on the floor of the cell. "We kept telling her that we were in this together...but she didn't listen. Even after everything we've been through, she still doesn't listen to us."

They all turned, some more shocked than others at Fluttershy's verboseness. Any creature who'd known the pony long enough, came to know that her brand of honesty could be harsh under the best of circumstances. But rarely were things dire enough to provoke a full-blown speech from her.

As she lay her face down in the sand she'd been pawing, her eyes shimmered despite the water surrounding them. "I guess she never will."

Rarity shared a look with Applejack, while Pinkie slumped against the boulder, she had already begun drawing hashmarks on. Dash stared at Fluttershy and then shook her head.

"No! No way! We-we're not going to just give up! Twilight still needs us...everyone in Equestria does!" With that she began swimming up to the bars and slamming headfirst into them. The guards paused in their stoic vigil to regard her, but quickly turned back around, comfortable in the sturdiness of the cage.

"We. Have. To. Get. Out of here!" Dash insisted, as her attacks slowed and died.

Applejack walked over and put a hoof on her shoulder. "Dash, it ain't workin'."

Rainbow Dash rested her fins on the floor of the cell and then looked back at Applejack. "B-but...we've got to do something!"

Applejack nodded and wrapped her fins around Rainbow's neck. "We will...give it time. We'll figure out how to get out of here...we just need to make a plan first."

Rainbow shuddered and then simply gave in to despair, allowing herself to be comforted.

"You!"

Grubber had just scurried out from his hiding place when the pony saw him. In an instant, she was on top of him, her hoof on his pudgy stomach, the weight of her new form pressing his quills into the deck of the ship.

"Tell me how to fix the petrification! You were Tempest's lieutenant, you must know!" She demanded.

He gulped and shook his head, playing with his claws, the same way he always did when he got nervous. "See, the thing about that is...I don't really help with the whole chemistry thing...I'm mainly just here to pilot the ship and order the troops around...I don't know anything about that..."

She pressed her hoof harder, forcing a belch out of him, and pushing most of the air out of his lungs.

"Okay, okay...I know where she made the potions...I can take you there, I can show you!" He rasped.

She removed her leg and he rolled onto his paws, giving her a nervous smile and rubbing a claw across his abdomen. Then he took a few steps and almost ran straight into the statue that had once been Tempest. He sidestepped her horrified expression and scurried across the deck, to the door to Tempest's personal chambers.

Punching in a code, he watched as the sheet metal doors ground open, revealing a dimly lit, sterile interior. It was a mixture of a soldier's quarters and a military laboratory, with pages sketching out defensive structures in Canterlot, along with the floorplan of the Royal Palace. There were also books. Books on unicorns. Books on Alicorn magic. And books on chemistry.

At the back of the room was a once sturdy oak table, now stained with various acid burns, atop which lay a set of vials, test-tubes, beakers and a couple of unused glass containers.

"Normally, I'm not allowed in here, because I get food everywhere..." Grubber admitted.

The princess ignored him, striding inside and surveying the contents of the room. Then she swiveled back towards him. "You are going to fly this thing to Canterlot." She took a step closer. "If I find out that you're taking me anywhere else, I throw you overboard, understood?"

Grubber swallowed hard and then nodded, his whole body wobbling with the motion.

The doors closed behind him, but they were not thick enough to stop him from hearing what came next. It sounded like...like his captor was crying. That was comforting in a way. Reassuring. She was still just a pony. Not that he would try to overpower her. That was a quick way to turning into a hedgehog shaped pancake.

No, but it meant she wasn't like Tempest. Which meant she probably wasn't going to throw him off the ship unless forced to do so.

His normal defense mechanism, sycophantism, returned in full force, the adrenaline of any kind of flight or fight response quickly diminished. Everything would be fine. They'd get back to Canterlot and he could disappear into the wilds of Equestria and never have to deal with half-crazed ponies, or the Storm King ever again. All he had to do was do what he was told.

Twilight cried for a long time. Longer than she wanted to admit. She hadn't gotten a chance to process all that had happened at the capital over the past three days. She'd been too busy running for her life and trying to keep her friends alive at the same time.

She thought back to their faces, when they'd seen her with The Pearl. They would understand, when the Storm King was defeated and Equestria was saved, she'd gladly bring the Pearl back and face whatever punishment Novo demanded. But she couldn't let anything get in the way of saving her family. Tempest's petrification was just a minor set-back. Once she figured out what these messy notes meant, she'd be able to free the princesses. Then they would know what to do. The Storm King's forces would be easier to defeat without Tempest anyway.

She picked up one of Tempest's blueprints and squinted at the squiggly writing. Without her horn, she must have been forced to use her mouth to write, which explained why everything in here was so messy. Pegasus and Earth Ponies learned how to use their mouths and hooves for minute work as fillies, but most unicorns never had to.

Briefly, she felt bad for Tempest, denied access to proper magic, something which was not merely a convenience for unicorns, but an integral part of the way they expressed themselves. She shook her head. Tempest had smiled, as she turned Cadence and Celestia to stone.

Twilight would not waste her sympathy on the likes of her. She was too exhausted and there was too much work that needed doing. Slowly, she began to assemble all of Tempest's lab notes and diary entries, searching through the vast pile of research for the one, single key. The information was here somewhere. She just had to find it.

2 - The Poison of Provocation

~3 days earlier

Shining Armor knelt in the darkness of an alleyway; his daughter cradled in his magic. He watched as a platoon of the invaders herded Canterlot locals into cages. When a mare attempted to break free of the group, one of the invaders simply reached out and grabbed her. Shining Armor pulled Flurry Heart close to cover her eyes, as the monster dangled the mare above her friends and neighbors and then flung her into the cage, causing a sickening crunch which echoed through the street.

He dared to watch the mare, thankful that her chest continued to rise and fall, even though labored now by pain. Sobbing broke out in the crowds and a few of the adults dared to try to protect the younger ponies. The invaders had not spared children in their raid. They seemed intent on shackling or caging every creature they could lay their mitts on.

He was about to turn away, when he noticed one of the creatures snarling at the sobbing colt to stay quiet. This had the reverse effect as intended, instead causing greater distress across the entire group. The creature let out a bellowing roar and the colt, a barely weaned unicorn with a butterscotch hide fell to the ground, covering his head with his hooves. The Storm Creatures shared a disgruntled look and then the angriest among them began pushing through his prisoners to get to the colt.

The group of ponies began to resist, all sensing that what had just happened to the mare was about to befall the young colt as well. A heavy-set unicorn with a mustache, who Shining recognized from one of Cadence's favorite local restaurants, stepped in the way of the Storm Creature, his horn glowing with purple light. Shining watched in horror as the Storm Creature, not used to its authority being challenged by creatures one sixth its size lifted a paw. He knew then he was about to witness a blood bath, a massacre of helpless ponies caused by cruel caprice.

And that he had to leave. He couldn't defeat all those Storm Creatures. They had gone through his best guards like they were paper. And he couldn't be captured, because then Flurry Heart would have no one to look after. He had to get out of here, to get back to the Crystal Empire, where Flurry Heart would be safe, and he could rally a counterattack. For the good of his daughter, and his wife, he had to let his subjects, the creatures he'd sworn to protect, die.

That was when he heard it. A familiar whistling sound, although not one he'd expected to interrupt the scene in front of him. The Storm Creatures all looked up, as a red firework spiraled into the graying sky and exploded, in a series of pink explosions. The invaders began looking around, for any sign of the responsible party. Which was all the distraction that the ponies who had assembled on the roof above needed. In an instant, the entire street was coated in smoke, occasionally lit up by the glows of unicorn magic.

Realizing that an ambush was a fleeting thing, no matter how perfectly planned, Shining quickly constructed a magical ward over his daughter and turned to face her.

"Stay here." He said, even as she pressed her hooves to the side of the force field. Then he rushed into the melee, his horn glowing brightly.

It was a hectic mess, ponies scrambling to take advantage of the chance to escape. Meanwhile, the rebels were locked in combat with massive Storm Creatures, using every trick they had to stun, stagger and daze their opponents. Shining's eyes, trained to protect nobility, found his opening. A gray unicorn with goggles and a cloak on had used her telekinesis to rescue the mare who'd been thrown into the cage and was now trying to dodge blows from two of the creatures while concentrating on the spell.

Shining punctured the leg of the left Storm Creature and pointed a hoof. "This way!" He cried as he brought the Storm Creature down on its partner and yanked his horn free, using a blast of magic to send the two fallen invaders flying into their compatriots.

The unicorn nodded, dragging her passenger behind her as she dove in the direction of the alley.

Shining turned to see three of the Storm Creatures charging toward him, recognizing him as a member of the royalty they'd been tasked with abducting. He dodged beneath the legs of the first one and kicked the knee of the second, sending him toppling into the third. But the first had turned with surprising speed and grabbed him by the tail. He lashed out with a kick, but the Storm Creatures' bodies were all muscle and bone. His assaulter lifted him up by his tail, eliciting a groan of pain from him and chuckling as he dangled in front of its eyes. The things took pleasure in assaulting those smaller than them, that was without doubt.

He blasted the thing in its eye, causing it to loosen its grip long enough for him to drop to the cobblestones, only to be grabbed and pinned by two more of the brutes. It was useless trying to buck them off. They must have weighed over a ton each, and he could feel his ribs beginning to creak under their weight.

"Get off of him!" Cried a familiar voice. Then the creatures which had pinned him lifted their heads and their eyes gleamed with green glow.

The creatures each let out a strangled moan and scrambled off his body, racing down the street and turning over the cage in their haste to escape. Shining lifted his gaze to see a pink mare pull off her goggles. It was Starlight Glimmer, his sister's greatest student. Her eyes glowed with the same sickly green glow as the spell she'd cast on the creatures.

"C'mon!" She yelled to him, her eye twitching at the pain of concentrating on a spell so potent. "The illusion won't last forever."

Shining jumped to his feet and joined the ponies, who, following the gray one, were all racing down the alleyway he'd come from. Releasing the spell protecting his daughter, he scooped up Flurry Heart, who was, by this time, wailing at the intensity of her surroundings. He kept her above him as he wove through the stampeding mass, all following the gray skinned pony down into what had once been a donut shop.

"What are we doing in here?"

"Oh god, they're going to find us?"

Without the rush of adrenaline, the recently freed ponies began to panic, and Shining could tell they were all less than a minute away from the Storm Creatures catching up with them. Their retreat hadn't been stealthy by any means.

Then the gray unicorn pulled off her goggles and cloak.

It...it was his mother. Twilight Velvet. Her purple and white mane was stained with ash and her horn crackled with cerise energy, more intense than he'd witnessed ever before, as she slowly set the bloodied mare down.

"Trixie, take care of this one. Starlight, can you teleport this many?"

Starlight had brought up the rear, covering their retreat with a few blasts of magic the likes of which Shining hadn't seen from his best guards. She glanced over the huddled mass and shook her head.

"I'll help!" Shining yelled and his mother met his eyes and smiled, briefly, before she nodded. Then she began to concentrate in unison with Starlight Glimmer and as he joined them the entire, already somewhat ramshackled establishment shook. Then there was a burst of light.

Shining had never teleported so many ponies before at once. But he was a good enough student of magic to know that they couldn't have gone very far. When he opened his eyes, he saw that he and all the others were now in the front hall of the School of Gifted Students. He felt a rush of nostalgia, being back in these hallowed halls, but was quickly pulled out of it by the severity of the situation.

They had saved a dozen ponies, but who knew how long they were safe.

Velvet noticed his concern and galloped over to him. "Relax dear, you're not the only one who can keep up a level 5 shield spell. Thanks to your father and the school faculty, for now, we are safe."

Shining let out a sigh of relief. "I...I don't know what I would have done..." He felt strange, admitting how helpless he'd felt after the invasion to his mother, but she gave him that same patient smile which reminded him that it was alright to be scared.

"Well, we couldn't just stand by and let Canterlot get taken over by monsters..." Starlight said, approaching the two of them as a couple of colts, probably employees of the school, began to lead the rescued ponies to the dormitories. "By the way, how come you and Twilight never introduced me and Sunburst to your mom? She's way cooler than you."

Shining chuckled but any humor in the situation quickly drained away, as he floated Flurry Heart close and gently nuzzled her in hopes of calming her.

"Shiny...may I try?" Velvet asked.

Shining looked up at her and nodded, using his telekinesis to pass his child into her grandmother's hooves.

"She wants her mother." He admitted, as Velvet began to rock Flurry gently and sing to her a lullabye that was not unfamiliar to his own childhood.

"We heard what happened..." Starlight began.

"Is it true?" Velvet asked, looking up from Flurry's tear-stained face. "Did Twilight make it out?"

Shining swallowed hard. "I'm not sure...I wasn't there...when it happened. But I know that Princess Celestia and Princess Luna were turned to statues...just like Cadence."

Velvet nodded. "She'll have made it out...she has her friends to look after her."

Shining moved closer to her. "We'll find her. We'll get everyone back. The creatures who did this aren't going to get away with it."

Velvet's face darkened. "The Storm King. For decades he's scourged the lands beyond ours...we just never thought he'd have the audacity to attack us."

"He wouldn't have gotten this far, if it wasn't for that unicorn." Starlight said. "She's the one who started turning ponies to stone."

Shining frowned. "What are you talking about?"

Trixie, who had just finished handing off the insouciant mare to one of the school staff members, walked up, rubbing the soot from her goggles. "Oh, you didn't see? There was a unicorn with a messed-up horn, she's the one who started the whole invasion..."

"She must have told the Storm King to strike during the Friendship Festival...when all the princesses would be in the same place." Velvet said.

"But why?" Starlight asked. "Why turn them to stone?"

Velvet glanced at Shining. "Perhaps you three can find out. If anyone in the world knows why this happened and how we can get our princesses back, it'll be someone in this school."

She turned away, continuing to cradle the now softly slumbering Flurry with her magic. "I need to tell your father we've found you and make sure that this one is someplace safe." She looked down at Flurry and then back up at Shining. "You did the right thing, Shiny. You protected your child."

Shining wished he could find more reassurance in those words, but he said nothing as she trotted off in the direction of the staircase.

"Ugh, we don't really have to go around, asking teachers if they know anything about the petrification, do we?" Trixie asked.

Starlight raised an eyebrow at her.

Trixie wilted a little and suddenly became very interested in her hoof. "It's just...I dropped out of this school...I'm sure a lot of them still remember me...and what a terrible student I was."

"Trixie, you helped save everyone from Changelings. And now you're helping us save Canterlot." Starlight reassured. "If anyone looks down their nose at you, it's because they aren't paying attention to the right things."

Trixie perked up a little. "Okay, okay, fine...just as long as we don't have to pay for any damages we might have caused in the past."

She and Starlight began to trot away but stopped when they noticed that Shining Armor was not following them.

"Now that Flurry Heart is safe...I need to get back to the Crystal Empire." He said. "I have to make sure that everyone there is safe. If we haven't been invaded, I can even send troops to come help out here."

"Dude, how are you going to get there? It's not like the train service is working." Trixie said.

Starlight rolled her eyes. "I think, what Trixie means, Shining Armor, is that by the time you get there it might be too late. If we want to stop this invasion we have to stick together."

"I appreciate you saving my life." Shining Armor said. "And everything you've done for me and Cadence...and Flurry. But I have a responsibility to the ponies back there."

"Besides, the crystal ponies are all Earth ponies, aren't they?" Trixie asked, refusing to be deterred from the logistics of his plan. "They can't fly or teleport...it would take them ages to get here and help fight the Storm King."

"Look, I don't know much about the Crystal Empire." Starlight admitted. "But they have the Crystal Heart to protect them. And...you're one of the strongest magic users in the kingdom. We need you. Your mom needs you and so will Twilight."

Shining stared at her for a moment. He was reminded of the fact that she had run a cult at one point. She knew how to get people to do things. It was a good thing she was on their side.

"Alright...I'll see what I can do." Shining answered. "Under one condition..."

Trixie and Starlight raised their eyebrows.

"If we can't figure out how to get Cadence out of the petrification...you have to help me steal one of those airships." He said.

~Present

Twilight stared at the page, the squiggly text dancing across her bleary vision. She hadn't slept well since they left Equestria and the amount of magic she'd used in the past 24 hours alone had really taken it out of her.

She couldn't go to sleep though. Who knew how long she had, before the petrification became permanent? She couldn't arrive at Canterlot with no plan, not after everything she'd done to get here. No, she had to push through. Sleep would be an option when the lives of the princesses weren't on the line.

It was obvious from Tempest's research that the petrification could be reversed with the use of Alicorn magic, but the amount required would involve close to all the Alicorn magic in Equestria. She remembered the spell which Celestia and the others had used to give her their power, but she had no way to replicate the spell, especially since the other alicorns were encased in stone. Power like theirs could only be given, it would take infernal magics, like the ones used by Tirek, to take it by force. And even then, the target would have to be in a more conscious state.

She briefly wondered if she could have used the Pearl to turn herself into a centaur and use its powers to drain the magic from the other princesses. But even if she could change herself so completely (a proposition which disconcerted her, based on how different Tirek's physiology was from her own), she doubted that she'd be able to draw magic from the petrified forms of her friends. For a start, the substance which Tempest had used to implement her coup ('Miserable Malachite' according to the notes) overrode all but the most powerful magic, not only imprisoning its target, but containing their magic and shielding it from all but the most powerful outside effects. Secondly, and more importantly, Tirek had only been able to absorb the Alicorn magic because he'd already absorbed the magic of thousands of others. She would have to do likewise if she wanted to forcibly remove the magic of the other princesses (which she didn't really want to do either, not that her own desires felt relevant at the moment).

She thought about her friends, as she leaned her head against the desk, trying for the fifth time to comprehend the meaning behind Tempest's obscure references. If they were here, she would have found the answer by now. Dash would have thrown a book in frustration, which just happened to have the answer in it. Or Pinkie would have been reading the right passage for the past half hour without knowing it.

She felt the familiar surge of frustration which had only gotten worse since the invasion. But at the same time, she wished they were here with her now. She hadn't wanted to leave them behind. She'd had no choice. It was better for all of them. She couldn't stand it if anything happened to any of them, because she wasn't...strong enough, smart enough, quick enough.

Especially Spike. He was intelligent for his age. But he was still so small and had nearly come to harm too many times already.

She was so tired. Maybe if she just rested her eyes, the truth would come to her...

She was jolted awake, from the black realm of dreamless sleep, by a jolt across the entire airship. Realizing she'd nodded off standing up, she wiggled feeling back into her hooves and trotted out of the cabin, prepared to have been immediately betrayed by her less than scrupulous pilot.

She found Grubber at the wheel, with that same aggravating smile. How long had he been out here? She realized then that he probably hadn't believed he was allowed to stop piloting the ship until they reached their destination and sighed. She shouldn't have pity on him, when he'd so eagerly participated in Tempest's horrible plan. But she had a hard time forcing someone who was clearly harmless to perform a task when they were as exhausted as he looked.

"What was that?" She asked, deciding to assess the situation before she offered him any kind of respite.

Grubber shifted nervously. "I uh...I've been eating sponge cake all day...I kinda passed out. Heh, heh, sorry..."

She glared at him and then rolled her eyes. Using her telekinesis, she levitated one of Tempest's journals out onto the deck. "What's your name again?" She asked.

He looked at the statue of Tempest. "Grubber."

"Great. Look, Grubber. Tempest's notes keep referencing something called the SoS. Do you have any idea what that is?"

Grubber wilted slightly and she could tell he was trying very hard not to lie.

"Tell me the truth and I'll let you take a break from steering the ship." She said, in as kind as a voice she could muster going on less than a hour of sleep after 72 hours of fearing for her life.

"Umm, that would be the Staff of Sarcanas. I helped her uhh...procure it, from the Stormfeather Griffons."

Twilight frowned, having never heard of that particular group. The past few days were forcing her to realize how limited her understanding of the world had been. She took a step toward Grubber, still trying to use her most honeyed tone. "How exactly, does it work?"

He shrugged. "She uh, never really told me."

Twilight ran a hoof across her face, wishing for not the first time that she'd been able to think of a better way to deflect the potion Tempest had thrown at her. Being stuck on an airship with an evil military commander had to be better than being stuck on it with someone like Grubber.

"But I know she told the Storm King that once he had it, he'd be able to take the magic of the four princesses." Grubber revealed.

Twilight's eyes lit up. "What?"

"That's what she said, she told the Storm King that she'd capture the princesses and then he could use the staff to take the magic. It's uh, kinda why we were going after you." He admitted, with a sheepish grin.

Twilight grabbed the rotund creature and gave him a hefty squeeze. "That's it! That's the missing key! I just have to get that staff and I'll be able to fix everything!" She smiled down at him. "Where is it?"

Grubber deflated. "Uh, the Storm King has it."

Twilight removed her hooves from him and stared at the clouds they were passing beneath. "Oh."

They were both silent for a moment.

"Okay, Grubber?"

"Uh, yes...princess?" He seemed to instinctively be trying to make her happy. Not that she could blame him much, after what she'd done.

"I need you to tell me everything you know about the Storm King."

The Storm King sat in his throne, a massive heap of burnished scrap-metal and the bones of several large creatures. You didn't get a title like the Storm King from making friends. You got it by killing everyone else who could have laid claim to it.

He drank from a straw and a coconut, as his airship, several times larger than those used by his chief lieutenant and her subordinates, approached the city of Canterlot. Honestly, he didn't see much in it. He had spent years subduing Abyssinia, taking the lands of the Hippogriffs and their allies. He'd fought dragons, griffons, gargoyles, even those annoying striped ponies whose war-cries always rhymed. He'd never invaded Equestria (or Pony Land as it was colloquially known in the south), not because he'd believed that it would be too difficult (he remembered Tempest talking for hours about how powerful the Alicorns were and why it was good idea to let her take care of them first).

He hadn't invaded because the juice wasn't worth the squeeze. Ponies made lousy slaves. Well, that wasn't entirely true. The ones without horns or wings were good for plowing and mining. They seemed to last longer than the others, at least according to the reports he'd been getting from his captains in the city. But they were all so...tiny, that they didn't serve much of a purpose. He could find bigger, hardier creatures almost anywhere else on the planet. Not to mention, their whole aesthetic was so mouth-vomitingly cute, that they just didn't fit in with the brand he'd cultivated. He'd spent so long establishing himself as dark and powerful. The lands he'd conquered had not been won easily. But this addition to his empire made the rest of it seem comical by comparison. A bunch of wimpy ponies, who couldn't have put up a good fight even if they'd known what it was.

Tempest had better be right about this whole, "princess magic" thing, or he was seriously considering tossing her into the Endless Maelstrom from whence he'd emerged.

He groaned and stood up, grabbing the staff that Tempest had retrieved for him. She had assured him it was incredibly powerful, which was good, because it didn't really fit with his aesthetic either. He would have preferred something made of metal, preferably with bits of blue stone embedded in it. Instead, he was forced to lug around this...twig, with a pretty crystal on the end of it.

Still, he hadn't gotten where he was by leaving possibly powerful magical items lying around. He knew his own men too well to give them an opportunity like that.

He stepped out onto the deck, wrapping one claw around the railing, as he peered down at his recently obtained lands. Huh. Funny. He'd always heard that Pony Land was all sunny and warm. But for whatever reason, it was a little bit...chillier than expected. Not that he minded. His kind had dwelled in the most perilous of peaks, fighting Yetis and Glacier Bears for fun. There was a reason why yetis were known for enjoying a drink or two. The wine was good for keeping warm in the season of the blizzards.

He glanced up at the clouds which circled above Canterlot. They didn't look like they bore snow and he knew he had not willed them to bear snow for his arrival. Still, there was a nippiness in the air which made him eager to get this over with, so he could head back down south.

This whole place was starting to give him the creeps.

3 - The Pestilence of Premonition

~2 days earlier

Trixie slumped over the soft pearwood table in the center of the school library, resentfully regarding the pile of half-opened tomes piled around her. She, along with Starlight and Shining had spent over twelve hours rotating between reading as many books on obscure magic as they could and taking power naps when their heads started to hurt.

It was like being in school again, but worse, if only because being in school hadn't involved this much studying. She glanced at the few teachers who, being unable to contribute to sustaining the barrier around the school, had been available to help in the book-hunt. They were the ones who said that if there was an answer to what had happened to the princesses, it would be in the library.

She groaned, internally. Why couldn't it be like in story books, where as soon as you found the wise old sage, they just TOLD you the thing you needed to know to move the plot along? Instead, they were cooped up in a room that smelled like mothballs, stumbling through the overly long and not terribly exciting descriptions of magic as written by exceedingly old and universally verbose authors of centuries past.

She lifted her head to glance at the text of the index of The Magic of Rock Gardening. It had been a longshot she might find anything in it, but then it felt like they'd raided half the library at this point. And she needed to sleep, a nice proper sleep, hopefully uninterrupted by nightmares of big mean storm creatures.

With another, much more verbal groan, she ran her hoof along the page, stopping over the words "Dangerous minerals" and slowly began turning the pages of the book. If they ever got their city back, she wanted a medal for her service and an honorary degree from this stuffy old school. As she flipped to the correct page, her eyes narrowed on a list of impenetrably boring scientific names. Next to each one was the more common name. There was Rock Candy, Amplification crystals, Fool's Geld, Fillyosopher's Stone, Miserable Malachite...

Miserable Malachite?

"Miserable Malachite! I-I found it!" Trixie fell off the bench in her excitement, quickly picking herself up and levitating the open tome over to Starlight for inspection.

"This strange substance is believed to have originated from some ancient war and can only be removed from your garden through the use of Alicorn magic." Starlight read. "In the event that no alicorns take an interest in your rock garden, or there are none currently in existence, consult Livery d’Eibon."

Trixie dropped the book at that point and let out a scream embodying the frustration of students across the multiverse. "AUGGGGH! We just found the right book, now we need to find another one?"

Starlight picked up the book and handed it apologetically to a nearby, frowning teacher. "We can do this, Trixie. The Livery d'Eibon isn't in this library, is it?"

The teacher shook his head, as he returned the volume to its placement in the intersection of Earth Pony culture and magical hobbies.

"Then it's probably in the Library of Magic." She turned to Shining Armor. "I can tell you're wiped out. Go check on your daughter, me and Trixie will track down this book and be back with an answer before you know it."

Shining blinked in the universal language of sleep deprivation and then nodded, stumbling to his hooves and slinking off in the direction of the staircase.

Starlight turned back to Trixie. "We're almost done Trixie. You ever been to the Library of Magic?"

Trixie sighed. "No. I assume it's a library...with a lot of books in it."

"I actually don't know. I guess we'll find out together. C'mon, we have to figure this out before the Storm King's forces break through the barrier."

Shining Armor wandered through the familiar halls of the school, stopping only when he ran into his father and a half dozen other unicorns, currently contributing to the barrier protecting the building.

Night Light smiled when he saw him, but Shining Armor recognized the strained look on his face. It was the same tinge of irritation and exhaustion which Shining Armor had felt, leading up to his wedding. He'd been so drained from maintaining the shield around Canterlot, he hadn't even fought back against Chrysalis' mental attacks.

He'd almost lost everything that day. Twilight. Cadence. The whole kingdom. He'd sworn it would never happen again.

He was supposed to be ready for attacks like this one. He was supposed to have been present and ready to throw himself in between Cadence and the petrifying poison. But he'd been too busy looking after Flurry Heart.

"Your mother told me you were hard at work downstairs, trying to figure out a way to bring Cadence back." Night Light said, as he trotted over. His smile faltered and his voice lowered. "You should get some rest, son. I know, I know, you're doing everything you can." Then he smiled again. "But even royalty have to sleep."

Shining Armor nodded slowly, almost too tired to care about the strangers watching this heartfelt interaction. He nodded, slowly. "Just need to...check on Flurry before that."

Night Light nodded. "She's upstairs with your mother...you know...I thought I was a goner for sure when it all went down. Your mother really is something else..."

Shining Armor nodded with the faintest return of a smile. "Yeah, dad. I know."

As he made to the bedroom, he was comforted by the cool breeze which permeated the stone chamber of the school, which had always been too stuffy for his tastes. Then his eyes widened and trained on the open window in the corner of the room. He turned to inspect the makeshift crib which he'd assumed he'd find his daughter inside of.

It was empty.

He rushed over to where his mother, no doubt worn out from using magic all day, was lying on what might have once been the headmaster's desk.

"Mom! Mom, wake up!"

Twilight Velvet opened her eyes and stared at him blearily. "Wha-oh, hello, Shiny...what-what's wrong?"

"Where's Flurry Heart?"

If the library in the School for Gifted Unicorns was a sea of knowledge, the Library of Magic made it look like a pond. Its labyrinthine halls would have been difficult to navigate by an unseasoned scholar under normal conditions. In its current state, with tables overturned, shelves ransacked, and its stewards imprisoned, it would have been impossible to find the book you were looking for.

It would have been impossible, if you hadn't, like Starlight had, spent years planning how to enslave your town and brainwash any visitors. In her search for magic powerful enough to remove and contain a Cutie Mark, she had dug into the depths of some very nasty grimoires. And while she hadn't heard of the Livery d'Eibon, she could guess that its contents were forbidden, if it discussed something as horrible as petrification. And that meant it was in the restricted section, an area of the library which only Celestia and Luna could access.

And Starlight, given that she was the most powerful magic user in Equestria.

Not that it was easy, untangling the magic which shielded those tunnels from entry, and which had protected the vault of sacred volumes beyond from the Storm Creatures' pillaging. But there was some satisfaction at being able to stretch her magical muscles against a spell of almost equal power to her own. She'd never seen this area before, only heard legend of it and of the power held in the grimoires it contained.

The Livery d'Eibon was almost a disappointment, in comparison to the cavernous interior, only barely illuminated by an ever-burning fire. It was simple, black book, with no actual title on its spine or its cover. Instead, it had been chained alongside a number of other, more grotesque and obscure titles, with a little metal plaque identifying it. As she wrapped her hooves around it, she knew at once that it was not a magical object by any means. It was not hazardous on its own, no. Only by some creature reading it, could it be said to possess some opportunity for danger. She wondered briefly, why it had not been destroyed, if its secrets were so destructive as to warrant the silvery, enchanted chains which encased it.

She supposed that it was not uncharacteristic of Celestia to keep around something that she knew to be dangerous, just because she thought it might be useful someday. That's what she had done with Discord, wasn't it? She and Luna could have smashed him to pieces, had they wanted to. It ended up being a good thing they didn't, although that decision had almost destroyed Equestria at least three times in the past two years and could hardly be described as having saved it, as of yet.

Unlike Twilight, she'd always been reluctant to trust Celestia, or any alicorn for that matter. They embodied everything she had once despised. They were more powerful than any other pony in Equestria. They could barely be said to be ponies at all, for how long they lived. She considered, briefly, how quickly Cadence and Twilight would outlive Shining Armor. Even his daughter was bound to live thousands of years. It seemed like the most unfair thing in the world, when she was younger, that some creatures not only be granted the powers of all three types of ponies, but also age gracefully for an eternity. It had seemed to her, that the only way to overthrow the shackles of immortal oppressors was to do away with all other forms of inequality, creating an army of ponies who would never bend the knee to a creature which claimed to be more powerful than them.

She shook the old hatred from her head. She wanted to be mad at Celestia and Luna, at having once again failed to defend Equestria from outsiders. But just as she had learned the value of friendship, she had also learned that the world could not be fixed, all at once, maybe ever. The fact was that ponies wanted Alicorns to be in charge. They liked bowing to the princesses, and even praying, under extreme circumstances. Having someone in charge was always preferable to taking control of your own life, no matter how deadly the consequences.

Still, she planned to have a nice long talk with Twilight about national security when this was all over.

Without hesitating, she snapped the silver chains around the book and opened the forbidden tome to its first page.

After a brief and unsuccessful sweep of the school, Shining Armor and Twilight Velvet set out to brave the streets of the city, which, thanks to the effectiveness of the Storm Creature's invasion strategy, had quieted from a series of riots to a low, oppressive atmosphere.

Despite the fact that she clearly was just as exhausted as he was, his mother managed to cloak them both with invisibility long enough for them to reach the palace plaza. Shining Armor had a pretty good idea of where Flurry would go, if she woke up and couldn't find her mother. What he had not counted on was that the petrified forms of all three princesses were no longer in the plaza.

"The must have taken them to the palace." Velvet said, sternly. "They probably wanted to ornament their new seat of power."

Shining Armor nodded, although his face betrayed his confusion.

She smiled a little. "Oh, come now dear. Do you think it's a coincidence you and your sister both ended up in the Celestia's court at a young age? I served the throne back in the old days. I know a thing or two about psychological warfare."

Shining nodded again, too distracted and dumbstruck to find a proper answer. It was not that huge of a revelation. His mother's daredevil thrill-seeking and her nostalgic reflections on her adventurous youth had long ago clued him in that she had some experience with the dangers of the world.

Still, he'd never expected her to admit it so readily. He supposed that desperate times called for desperate measures.

As they slipped past the guards standing sentry over the courtyard, he was relieved to hear the sound of a familiar foal's wails. Although no parent wished to hear their child cry, he was only thankful that she had not been petrified in her time away from him.

Following the cries to the throne room, he discovered that his mother was right. The statues of Celestia, Luna and Cadence had been arranged inside this room, as if they were trophies. He had already known that the invaders had no value for the lives of others, but his hatred for them still flared.

And just as he had suspected, his daughter flew beside the statue of his shocked wife, clinging to her cool stone form and crying in an attempt to awaken her mother from whatever sleep must have held her. All around Flurry Heart, Storm Creatures who had likely attempted to extricate her from the circle of statues, or else capture her to impress their superiors, lay about on the stone floor, groaning. Although Flurry Heart still didn't know how to cast a spell, her magic was powerful to send creatures twice the size of these flying across the hall and Shining tried to ignore the bit of pride he felt that she had been able to defend herself so thoroughly at such a young age. It made him confident in how powerful an empress she would one day be. Still, he was relieved that at the very least the Storm Creatures appeared to be unconscious, not dead.

As his mother dropped the spell, he raced over to his daughter, gently wrapping his hooves around her.

"I know...I know...I miss her too." He said, as he pressed his muzzle against her tiny head.

She pulled back against him, refusing to let go of her mother's statue. Tears still poured down her face, wetting the stone, as she blubbered nonsensically and clung to the lifeless surface. He thought, if this was one of the bedtime stories he read to her, it would have worked. The amount of love in Flurry's tears would have ended the curse and freed Cadence from her obsidian prison.

If this were a story for foals, she would have broken out of the shell and told Flurry and Shining Armor that she had missed them and that she was never going away. He almost believed it could happen too. Flurry had been able to shatter the Crystal Heart, after all, with just one wail. Why couldn't she break through this cheap, heartless shell with a dozen?

But it wasn't her fault. None of this was her fault. She was too young to understand. He hoped she wouldn't remember this. He hoped, when she was empress of the Crystal Empire, she'd never have to worry about invasions like this one. She'd never fear losing a loved one like he now did.

Somehow, though, he very much doubted that was a realistic possibility.

His mother approached from behind and stopped to stare at the morning light, filtered through the ornate stained glass of the classroom, glinting off of the sleek surface of Cadence's form.

"I don't care what it takes..." Shining Armor said, in a low voice, clouded with rage and grief. "I'm not leaving her again."

Velvet stared at her quivering son and her sobbing grandchild. She wished she could say something to balm the loss. Something which would be uplifting, but not glib. More than anything, she wished she could wrap them both up in a big hug and make it all better.

Instead, she focused on the long-range teleport she'd already used too many times this day. This time though, she brought an object with her, an object which she knew her son loved as much as she loved her husband. A cold, lifeless piece of stone, but one with a heart, buried somewhere inside it.

Trixie waited in the darkness of the tunnel beneath the library. It was a bummer to find out that Starlight could only bring herself through the magical barrier protecting the restricted section. On the other hoof, it offered an opportunity to get some much-needed shut-eye, something she was in no position to turn her muzzle up at.

As she folded her legs beneath her body, she promised Starlight that she would only be asleep for a moment. All this rushing around the city had taken it out of her, and it wasn't like reading a bunch of tedious books had helped matters either. No, she just needed a few minutes of shut eye. She was sure that Starlight would understand...

She was jolted awake, by a strange sound. One she hadn't encountered before. As she stood up, unsteadily, she recognized it as the sound of crying. But it was coming from beyond the barrier...

"Starlight? Are you...are you alright in there?" She called out, suddenly feeling very uncomfortable in this dark, damp tunnel, unable to return to the safety of the school without her companion.

The sobbing continued on for a few minutes and Trixie eventually gave up on trying to comfort Starlight. She'd never been good at this...at being there for other ponies when they couldn't handle everything anymore. She'd always been able to move on to the next town, when things got too real.

She wanted to say the right thing. But she wasn't even sure if Starlight could hear her. After the twelfth attempt at reassurance, she just sat down again, too exhausted to contemplate anything other than trying not to burst into tears herself. This was supposed to be a fun trip to the capital, a chance to set off some fireworks and maybe get hired by some Canterlot aristocracy for a birthday party or two.

Instead, it was a nightmare, one that reminded her of wearing that horrible amulet. Except this time, instead of her body acting without her knowing what how to stop it, it was the whole world. Everything had changed so drastically and there was nothing she could do to stop it.

She couldn't even comfort her best friend.

Eventually, the sobbing died down and Starlight re-appeared, her eyes red rimmed. And in her hooves was a little black book.

"Is...is that it?" Trixie asked. She was too overwhelmed to think of anything better to say, but she realized what a stupid question it was as soon as she spoke.

Starlight nodded, slowly. "I...I'm sorry...I shouldn't have left you alone so long."

"No, it's-it's fine...umm...we should probably get back to the school now." She said.

She remembered the night she'd made Starlight go running from her caravan with tears in her eyes. This was somehow worse. The two of them, trapped in this city, unable to rely on anyone, unable to even comfort each other. She was sure that if Twilight and her annoying friends were here, they'd have some kind of song or they'd all hug and tell each other how much they appreciated one another as friends.

Instead, they both stood in the darkness, pretending they didn't feel as utterly defeated as they surely were.

"Does...does it have what we need?" Trixie asked.

Starlight shook her head. "No...but I know who does."

~Present

Grubber didn't know much, which wasn't surprising. But he had been able to give her a pamphlet entitled "So you want to join the Storm King's army!"

It told her basically everything that she needed to know. That the Storm King had gotten his start attacking small, defenseless nations. That he had held some control over the weather more profound than the strongest Pegasus. And that he loved to talk about himself.

He was not a strategist. He used his minions to get what he wanted, and he punished anyone who stood up to his law and anyone else who happened to be around just for good measure. He was the kind of person who would consider killing a defenseless creature, as a sign of great strength.

He was the worst kind of leader. Flippant, vain and destructive. He didn't seem to have any plans for what he was going to do with the power he wanted to acquire. Having it was reward enough.

She could not afford to underestimate him or allow him to escape justice. For the good of not just Equestria, he needed to be removed from power.

But not through brute force. That was his forte. No, this would require something else, something he was unfamiliar with. She had to get the staff away from him, before he could hurt any creatures with it. And that meant using guile.

She returned to Tempest's quarters and used the Pearl one last time. It was strange, being a body bigger than her real one. It was even stranger, shrinking back down. Losing the modifications, made her feel almost...weak. She knew, deep down, that the Storm King never would have invaded the land of the dragons or the yaks. They weren't easy pickings. They were used to defending their territory.

Still, she pushed down these notions. She was stepping up to the challenge. She was doing what needed to be done to protect her home. After today, no one would ever think of Equestria as vulnerable again.

Author's Note

Although no longer a power mad collectivist ala Harrison Bergon, I like to think that Starlight would remain an iconoclast for most of her life. I imagine coming to terms with the immortality of creatures which walk amongst you would be difficult, even if you didn't have anger/control issues.

4 - The Precipitation of Peril

~2 days earlier

"I am leaving. To find Star Swirl the Bearded and his companions." Starlight said, as she packed a small satchel. "I believe he and his companions will be able to help us release the princesses and retake the city."

Night Light exchanged a look with the headmaster of the school. "How do you know he'll have the answer you're looking for?"

"Based on what I found at the library he's the only pony living who does." Starlight answered. "

"But...he could be on the other side of Equestria. And you've used up most of your magic today already!" Trixie said. "You won't be able to get back until tomorrow.

"I know. But with Twilight and the others gone, the Pillars are our only hope right now." Starlight said.

Trixie gave a worried glance to Night Light, in hopes of conveying that something was amiss about Starlight. She hadn't been the same since they got back from the Library of Magic. Not that that had been very long ago anyway.

"We'll do what we can to keep the barrier up." The headmaster said. "But we can't guarantee anything will still be standing when you return."

Starlight shivered and then nodded. Then she moved over to Trixie and wrapped a hoof around her neck. "I'll come back. I promise."

Shining Armor sat in the room as his daughter and his mother slept, next to Cadence. He had stopped thinking of her as "the statue of Cadence", because a statue was just a hunk of stone, carved to confuse the eye. This was Cadence. She was in there. She'd be free someday.

He stared at the floorboards as he drifted in and out of consciousness. He remembered how tired she'd been, from repelling Sombra. He remembered how frightened she'd been when the Changelings had returned. He remembered how it was her love for him which had helped repel an invasion not unlike this one, only a little more than year ago.

She had always been there. To pretend not to notice his motion sickness. To counsel him when he didn't know what the right step was. To look after Flurry when he was at his wits end. She was always...there. Even when they were young, she'd supported him, all through his career in the military. She had cheered him on, but more than that...she'd been there for him, when he was far from home and family.

She was, his home, he realized. He would have lived in Tartarus if it had made her happy.

He knew then, what he had to do. It was only a matter of time before the barrier protecting the school fell. There was only one option. Launch a counterattack before the enemy could successfully wipe out their remaining resistance. The lull in fighting had offered a chance to regain the element of surprise. He would not waste it this time.

The world was different than it had once been, that was not a surprise. What was a surprise, was the way it was different.

In the time of the Pillars, the land had been ruled by creatures beyond reasoning with. Chimeras, hydras, sphinxes and more indescribable horrors had called Equestria home, and the common folk had relied on champions like them to keep them at bay. Meanwhile, although the three tribes of ponies were united by self-interest, the nation could be better compared to a confederacy than kingdom, with leadership and law often varying from town to town. Most of the nobles in those days had ruled with unmitigated authority, and cities like Mistmane's, where the royalty were more concerned with amassing resources were hardly uncommon.

Starswirl liked to think that his tutelage of Celestia and Luna had led to this golden age for ponies. After all, had he not cultivated their mastery of magic, they never would have been able to take control of the cosmos. Deep down, though, he knew it was the Tree of Harmony, the culmination of both his and the other Pillars' efforts, which had allowed for such stability and prosperity.

Without the Elements of Harmony, Celestia and Luna never would have been able to overcome Discord, and it was his defeat which had allowed them to impose law onto the land. It was overwhelming to know you had a hand in creating such unparalleled peace, but it was simultaneously impossible not to be disappointed to find that you were no longer needed. The darkness of the land had receded, driven back by the light of the tree and with that brightness had come a kind of naivety which would have gotten you killed in Starswirl's age.

This was part of the reason why the Pillars traveled together. Even the friendliest members were alienated by the foreign customs of this familiar land. And the comfort of being surrounded by those you knew you could trust in a strange land didn't hurt either.

"What is this 'hayburger' madness?" Rockhoof asked, as he smacked his menu with a massive hoof. "Why, when I was a colt, we ate hay out of a trough, and we were happy about it!"

Somnabula giggled. "I hardly think burgers are the most ostentatious thing about this restaurant. Can you believe they have devices just to make the room cooler? If they didn't want the building to be so hot, they shouldn't have designed it like they have."

"I'm still getting over these hot air balloon things. It used you had to be a pegasus if you wanted to fly." Magnus said.

"Yes, it does seem a might bit easier to get around these days, what with the trains and balloons." Mage Meadowbrook said. "Although ah'm not sure wah every pony is so interested in travelin' anyhow. Used to be, you only went to a place if you needed something from it, not just to say you'd been there."

"I'm still not sure I'm such a fan of all this plastic stuff." Mistmane said, running her hoof across the laminated surface of the menu. "It used to be things were unique and because of that, everything was pretty. Now you just have a thousand of the same thing and each one is just as boring as all the others."

"Yes, I must say, magic seems to have degraded as well." Starswirl admitted. "When unicorns were tasked with moving the stars, they had to ration their magic. Now, they use their gifts to open doors and flip the pages of books, as if they've lost control of their own hooves."

Stygian smirked. "If I remember correctly, old friend, you complained about foals in our time misusing their magic. I'm beginning to think you may just be an old soul."

Somnambula giggled again. "Stygian does have a point. Even before your beard turned gray, you used to say that any spells not used to protect the land were 'frivolous'."

Magnus, Meadowbrook, Mistmane and Rockhoof shared smiles while Starswirl made it clear to Stygian and Somnambula how incredibly unamused he was by these observations.

The revelry was interrupted by a loud popping sound and all seven Pillars turned to find a pink unicorn who'd appeared in between them and a waitress. The surprise teleportation almost caused the waitress to spill the serving of grassfries she was carrying on a group of costumers.

"Starlight Glimmer if I'm not mistaken." Starswirl said as he got up from his seat. "That was quite the teleportation you just managed. You must have come very far away indeed..."

Starlight panted for breath. "I have...something...I need to talk to you all about..." She noticed their surroundings and glanced at the diners disturbed by her materialization. "But we should do it outside."

"Are you alright, child? You look shaken..." Meadowbrook said, getting up from her seat in concert with the other pillars.

"Please." Starlight said, adjusting the two satchels on either side of her ribs. "Outside first."

"I can't believe this!" Magnus said. "Surely we would have received word of such an invasion by now."

"Our journey has taken us quite abroad of civilization." Stygian said, glancing around the village.

"I assume many of the larger cities have already found out about the invasion, but with the train lines out of commission and the sky unsafe for mail ponies, I wouldn't be surprised if most of the nation doesn't know what has occured." Starlight said. "But that's why it is vital for you to return to Canterlot."

Starswirl tugged on his beard. "Of course, we will do everything we can to repel these invaders...but I fear our methods are more attuned to fighting a singular foe or a small group. We've no experience in dealing with an army."

Stygian stepped forward. "I believe I have a plan to help with that...but Magnus, it will require something very challenging from you."

Magnus saluted. "I'm not about to let some punks from the south steal my home. Whatever it is, I can handle it."

Stygian nodded. "How fast can you get to the Dragon Lands?"

Starlight waited until the plan had been assembled and Starswirl had finished conferring with Mistmane and Stygian regarding working out the desired spell to get them all to Canterlot. Then she approached Starswirl.

"The story that Princess Celestia and Luna tell about the Lord Tirek, isn't true, is it?" She asked.

Starswirl narrowed his eyes. "I'm not sure what you are talking about. I'm unfamiliar with this particular story."

Starlight adjusted her satchels again. "Twilight told me that Celestia and Luna locked away Lord Tirek in Tartarus. She also told me that Tirek's brother was your friend, Starswirl. When you were young. Which would have been before you taught Celestia and Luna magic, unless they got hit with amnesia at some point in the past."

Starswirl shifted a little. "I know not the details of Celestia's account regarding Tirek's imprisonment, but I am unsure as to its relevancy given the current crisis."

Starlight stepped closer. "Because according to Celestia and Luna's private library, Tirek's brother wielded the Staff of Sarcanas, the only way to draw the magic out of Celestia and Luna's bodies, so we can use it to free them from the Miserable Malachite."

Starswirl sighed. "I will tell you the tale, tragic though it may be. On the condition you promise not to share it with anyone until this matter is resolved."

Starlight felt the weight of the little black book in her satchel. Then she nodded.

Twilight stared at her reflection in the surface of Tempest's statue. Or rather, Tempest's reflection. She wasn't sure if the Pearl could actually modify her to be identical to another pony. But she hadn't attempted to mimic Tempest's physicality anyway, as doing so would have required she lose her horn.

Instead, she had turned herself into a changeling and used changeling magic to make herself look like Tempest. The disguise was purely physical, she'd have to try to mimic Tempest's husky voice and hope the Storm King didn't pay too much attention to his subordinates mannerisms.

This was it. After hours of flying, they were nearly at Canterlot. Based on the notes she'd found regarding Tempest's plan, the Storm King would be here already, waiting for her. And he would be expecting her to have Twilight Sparkle in shackles as well. She took a deep breath. She'd never been good at bluffing, and the stakes had never been higher.

Using her telekinesis (it was a unique sensation, channeling her magic through a body which was not entirely hers, but the power of an alicorn refused to be contained within the skin given to her by the pearl), she lifted the statue of Tempest and levitated it to her personal cabin. She didn't need some Storm Creature stumbling onto it in the middle of her meeting with the Storm King and blowing the ruse.

Now, all she had to do was deal with Grubber.

She found him slumped between a couple barrels, passed out and after a moment of awkward consideration, gently nudged him with her hoof.

"Wha-huh...oh..." Fear passed over his face and threw himself into a bow. "Commander Tempest, I didn't-I-I-"

"It's me, Grubber." Twilight said, without disguising her voice. "I am going to take the Staff of Sarcanos from the Storm King. But I don't plan to kill him or any of his soldiers. If you try to warn them though...I can't guarantee that you or any of them will be safe, understand?"

Grubber gulped. "Ah, yes...umm, you don't have to worry about me. I-I'll just take this airship and go-"

"No. If Tempest's airship leaves without her, it will be suspicious. For this reason, I'm going to lock you in the cabin with her statue."

Grubber considered this for a moment. Then he squirmed. "You know uh, it uh...it wasn't my idea to invade Ponyland. I just uh...I-"

"I know." Twilight said, leaning down toward him. "But that doesn't mean you had to obey the Storm King either."

He stared at her for a moment. Then he nodded and nervously got to his feet. Twilight was relieved when he was locked in the cabin alongside Tempest's statue. Although she felt no pity for the creature, she still did not wish harm towards him like she had come to wish toward the Tempest and the Storm King. There were ponies like him all over Canterlot after all. Weak willed individuals who did whatever they were told. It just happened to be Celestia and Luna doing the talking most of the time.

As the airship docked, she regretted not getting a full night's rest before her interaction with the Storm King. But she'd been unable to trust that Grubber wouldn't try to lock her in the cabin or signal another airship. And she couldn't afford anything to jeopardize her mission.

Not that sleep would have been particularly relaxing in her current mindset. The entire trip she'd been unable to do anything but worry. Worry that Novo might punish Twilight's friends for her actions. Worry about her parents, who had lived in Canterlot their whole lives. And worry about Cadence and the other princesses. If one of the statues was fractured in the conflict, there would be no way to bring back that which was lost.

Her fears about her hometown were confirmed as soon as she stepped off the airship. All the life had been drained out of Canterlot, its residents wrapped in chains or caged, forced to dote on faceless bestial soldiers. The sky was gray with the Storm King's clouds, Celestia's light hidden by an almost impermeable overcast. And the wind was cool and bitter, as if the malice of the invaders had been granted physicality. The worst part was not the way that the Storm Creatures saluted her as she passed them by but looks on the faces of the ponies they had enslaved. A few were hateful, but most were just confused, sad and scared.

Why? They asked. Why had a unicorn betrayed her own kind?

It was the question which had haunted Twilight through her reading of Tempest's diary. From the years she'd spent calculating her assault on the capital, it was clear she'd been without friends or family for a very long time. Still, her true motivations lay unwritten. There were references to getting her horn back, of course. But she was not the only unicorn in Equestria who had lost the ability to do magic. And those others who'd experienced similar tragedy had never been compelled to take part in such insurrection.

She planned to ask, when this was all done, and Tempest's form had been returned to normal with the Staff. Of course, Tempest would have to stand trial for what she'd done. But she also knew that as the Princess of Friendship it was her duty to listen to her subjects, even the ones who she despised. If something tragic had befallen Tempest, she wanted to be sure it never happened again.

She was shaken only from her resolve to repair Equestria, by the sight waiting for her in the throne room. There was the Storm King, the crackle of lightning behind his blue eyes. But behind him, stood the statues of the princesses.

Two statues. Cadence was gone.

Realizing from his expectant grin that he had taken note of her surprise, she bowed. "Your highness, I apologize for the lateness of my arrival. We...encountered difficulties on the way back."

The Storm King nodded slowly. "Good, good, you know I like it when you grovel." Then he lifted up the Staff of Sarcanos. "Unfortunately, it's not going to work this time..."

His eyes burned, and electricity pooled at the tip of the staff, whipping across the throne room and blasting Twilight flying into a pillar. It took every ounce of strength she had not to drop her disguise. Still, as she gritted her teeth through the wracking pain, her concealed wings grew numb.

"You told me, three days...and you'd have the fourth princess. Well, here I am, Tempest. And guess what..." His jovial sociopathy evaporated, replaced by the rumbling ominousness of a closing squall. "...not only do you not have four princesses...you don't even have three!"

"Sir, I-I'm sorry, I-" Twilight had come up with a story to explain why Tempest might have returned without Princess Twilight in chains, but she had no way to account for the absence of Cadence.

The Storm King didn't seem to be in the mood for listening to excuses either, lashing out again with the staff and almost causing her to lose consciousness. Twilight had been electrocuted before.

She still remembered experimenting with a light bulb when she was just a filly.

But it had been nothing like this. This was a searing, suffocating blanket of pain which left behind only a faint kind of ozone-scented nausea. She felt like her coat was burning from the heat, although she knew that being in the form of a changeling, she didn't actually have one.

"It was your brilliant plan to take over this place, Tempest! You promised me power without limit..." He grabbed her by her neck and lifted her off the ground, his blackened claws digging into her nape. "...and I don't like it when my lieutenants lie to me."

He was going to kill her. He was going to kill her unless she did something fast and then she'd never get her hooves on the Staff. She just needed to stall him, to give herself time to get it away from him.

"I found something better," She choked out, ignoring the urge to blast him with magic. There was a reason why Celestia had never sought to confront him head on. He was powerful. She couldn't allow herself to underestimate him. Only once the staff was in her hooves would the fight be fair.

He lifted an eyebrow, his murderous intent momentarily abated. Then he leaned close, and she could feel his hot breath prickling her carapace. She could see his teeth, sharpened to a point, many replaced with bits of ivory from half-remembered brawls. His eyes studied her for a moment, and she did her best to wear the resolute expression that she knew Tempest would adopt in this situation.

"You had better not be yanking my tail," He said, not dropping her to the ground, but relaxing his strangulation such that speaking was no longer as difficult. "I've had just about enough of this place and these pathetic ponies...so if you're just fibbing just to save your own skin..."

"I found the Pearl of Transformation." Twilight revealed, shoving a leg into her satchel and lifting the glowing orb within into sight. Even now, it pulsed against her hoof, with the warmth of all-powerful magic. Begging to conjure changes far more bizarre than the simple adjustments to physiology which she'd used it for so far.

As the Storm King's gaze locked on The Pearl, she saw the gleam in eyes. The same greed which Novo had warned her of. Immediately, he dropped the staff and snatched The Pearl from her grasp. As he regarded himself in its opalescent surface, he reminded her of a monkey. Such creatures were easily distracted by baubles and became quite violent when what they presumed to be theirs was taken away.

"I thought the Queen of the Hippogriffs had destroyed it...just to keep it out of my paws." He admitted, a sly grin growing over his face as he admired his distorted reflection. His grip slackened and he cupped the Pearl with both hands, fingers tingling with anticipation. She knew then that he would do as Novo had said. Transform his own army into something even more brutish and unstoppable than they already were.

But she'd gotten what she wanted.

"Good work, Tempest..." He said, with a smile, rolling the Pearl between his hands as if it was a basketball. "Although I'm surprised you didn't use it on that dinky horn of yours..."

That was when Twilight released the spell she'd been holding since his first attack. In a flash of purple, she had wrapped her hooves around the staff and was galloping toward the princesses. It was unlikely she'd be able to free them without drawing the magic from Cadence, but with the power of both Luna and Celestia, she would be able to defeat the Storm King before he was able to use the Pearl.

Or so she thought. He growled and slung another bolt of lightning at her. She just managed to dodge this one, but skidded, and dropped the staff. She could hear his claws clacking across the floor of the chamber as he bounded after her and she only had a split second to grab the staff and then plunge its base into the hole in the center of the floor. Then the room lit up with multicolored streams of energy as she drew forth her mentors' unimaginable power.

She turned to smirk at the Storm King, who hesitated, at witnessing the power of the staff.

Then she felt somepony slam into her, sending her toppling out of the circle and the staff skittering across the stonework. She looked up in time to see a white unicorn on top of her, pinning her forelegs to the ground with his hooves.

It was Shining Armor. And he looked madder than she'd ever seen him before.

"Don't move!" He instructed. His eyes were red. His coat tarnished.

She glanced past him at the other ponies who had entered the hall. There was Trixie. And her mother. And half a dozen of her teachers from the School for Gifted Unicorns. They now stood between the Storm King and the statues, and her mother was using her telekinesis to pick up the Staff of Sarcanos.

That was when it hit her. She still looked like Tempest. They thought that she had been trying to siphon the Alicorn magic herself.

And they were completely unprepared for what they were dealing with. She let out a strangled scream of warning, but it was already too late.

The Storm King grinned at the ponies between him and his prize. Then, with the Pearl in hand, he charged.

5 - The Paroxysm of Parting

Magic blazed through the streets of Canterlot, lighting up each block a different hue. The Storm Creatures were strong and there were hundreds of them in the city by this point. But the Pillars had created the Tree of Harmony. While Mistmane concentrated on a shield spell powerful enough to protect their entire group, Starswirl and Starlight blasted back their attackers. Somnabula flew high above, diving down to occasionally slam her hooves into a Storm Creature's head, while Rockhoof charged into the thick of it, sending enemies flying with a fling of his shovel.

Stygian followed behind, unlocking cages and manacles and helping the weary and wounded to safety.

As they paused their ascent to allow him to evacuate more of the locals, Starlight eyed the zeppelins which ominously hovered above. They were equipped with cannons, the likes of which would be able to blow most of Canterlot off the mountain. While they were making good time, they were also quickly losing the element of surprise. They needed to get to the college and rally its inhabitants if they wanted to avoid casualties.

"Lilly-livered cowards!" Rockhoof shouted after his fleeing opponents.

Starlight looked the way he was facing and saw that the Storm Creatures ahead had constructed a wall of occupied cages. Her eyes locked on one particular cage, containing Applejack and Rarity's sisters, and that poor little pegasus who followed Rainbow Dash around like a puppy.

All three of them were clinging to each other, terrified and sobbing. And these creatures, which were so strong and mighty...were hiding behind them.

Starlight's teeth ground together. Then she bolted out of the protection of the shield, using her telekinesis to scoop up each cage in the barrier and lift them out of the reach of the Storm Creatures. The creatures must have anticipated that she would be unable to levitate the cages and protect herself simultaneously, because they began launching all manner of debris at her. Some threw their spears, each metal pole three times the length of a full-grown stallion, and each sending gravel flying when they embedded in the cobblestones. Others picked up carts, trash cans and even unused cages and lobbed them in the direction of her and those she'd sought to rescue.

The artillery was blown apart mid-air with a few blasts from Starswirl, and while Somnabula rescued the captured ponies within the cages, Rockhoof intercepted the charging Storm Creatures with an old Ponish battlecry. Starlight lowered the cage containing the Cutie Mark Crusaders and carefully sliced the lock in half. As the three fillies leaped from its confines, she held them close, feeling their tiny bodies shaking against hers.

"Starlight, you saved us!"

"Where's Applejack? Is-is she alright?"

"Yeah, and what about Rarity?"

"Your sisters are fine." Starlight lied. "You need to get to someplace safe." With that, she gestured for them to follow Stygian and the other rescued ponies, using her telekinesis to lightly push them towards the retreating crowd.

The three exchanged glances and looked back at her and she could tell that they didn't believe her. They were too perceptive for their own good.

Then a Storm Creature which had not participated in the dogpile currently happening to Rockhoof stomped towards Starlight, spear at the ready. She used her telekinesis to slap him with the spiked top of the cage which the fillies had just escaped from.

"Go. Now!" She ordered, continuing to use the cage to bludgeon the creature across the face.

As the three disappeared from sight, Starlight was too busy to pushing back their assaulters to notice the light dusting of snow beginning to blanket the city.

The Storm King cackled as the massive orb in his hand glowed brightly. Then pink and golden smoke swirled out of it and surrounded the ponies protecting the staff. Even as blasts of magic came firing out of the cloud of multicolored mist, Shining Armor could see the silhouettes of his mother and his former teachers...changing.

Vaulting over the shifting miasma of magic, The Storm King scooped up the staff and grinned as he turned to stare gleefully at his latest victims. Hooves had been replaced with flippers and lungs with gills. Now Twilight Velvet and a dozen others flopped about on the stone floor of the chamber, unable to stand or breathe.

"No!" Shining's eyes were briefly drawn from the torturous wheezing of his mother's horribly mutated form to the unicorn beneath him by her voice. A voice that refused to be mistaken, even as her illusory visage dropped, revealing a lavender changeling with glittering navy wings.

A familiar raspberry glow appeared around The Pearl and around the changeling's horn, yanking it from the Storm King's grasp with the strength of an Alicorn who was able to raise mountains. The orb flew over to the two of them and hung in the air, the changeling's form shifted again. He didn't look at her though, he already knew what form she would take.

"Shining it's me! Please we have to get the staff and use it on the princesses. It's the only way!"

Shining glanced into his sister's eyes; his confusion too profound to contemplate action at the moment.

The Storm King on the other hand, just laughed. "I should have known that Tempest would never have it in her to betray me." Then he stabbed the staff back into the depression in the ground, the whole room lighting up as he drew the remaining magic from the Celestia and Luna.

Shining Armor no longer atop her, Twilight grabbed the orb and pointed it first at their mother and her asphyxiating companions. The same golden and pink smoke encircled them, and the gasping quieted. Then she pointed the orb at The Storm King and the same smoke began to enshroud him.

"Bye bye ponies..." He snarled, swinging the staff and releasing a torrent of sight-searing electricity.

It was pure instinct. Shining Armor had no idea if the released magic was strong enough to kill an alicorn or a changeling or whatever it was that Twilight had become. But he did know that he was her big brother. It was his job to protect her. And he knew that he was not going to lose her too.

As the massive lightning bolt made contact with his leaping form, he was propelled backwards into his sister and the two of them crashed hard through the stone wall and went tumbling out onto the balcony beyond.

They had long since settled into roles.

Rarity, unable to perform the usual stress couture, instead used her horn to arrange the shells and pebbles which littered the floor of the cell. She watched them twirl above her horn, until she'd finally exhausted her reserves of mana and was forced to stare at them blankly.

Pinkie sat in the center of the enclosure, dragging her flipper through the sand lackadaisically. Occasionally, she would create something sensical, like a heart or a peace symbol. But each drawing was quickly brushed away as soon as it was finished, leaving a cloud of sand to hang in the water and eventually settle.

Rainbow Dash lay in the corner, unmoving. Applejack and Fluttershy sat on either side of her, occasionally giving her a light squeeze or a soft nuzzle in an ineffectual attempt to rouse her from her stupor.

Spike rested his spherical form in the sand at the edge of the cell, staring out of the coral bars into the unlit waters beyond.

"Come now, Garbunckle, are you really going to wait in this oubliette and allow the Squizard to win?"

Spike jumped up out the sand and turned to stare at the draconequus hanging in the water a few feet above. "Discord? Wha-how long have you been here?"

The Lord of Havoc and Bringer of Madness smirked and pulled out a beach chair, which he promptly stuck in the sand. "Oh, not long. I was baking a cake, I had this wonderful idea that if I made a really terrible one and then presented it to Twilight during her Friendship Festival, she wouldn't be able to refuse to eat it. And then she'd learn a lesson about being honest with her friends, even if they are primordial deities of chaos. Anyway, I popped back to Ponyville to borrow one of Fluttershy's wooden spoons and I noticed that Angel Bunny and all his little friends hadn't been fed." He turned to grin as Fluttershy shot up from her seat, with a look of horror. "Don't worry, I made sure they were all taken care of." Discord reassured. "But it made me think that you must be out adventuring again, and that it must be a particularly important quest, because normally you would never leave without feeding the animals." Discord said. "So, I started jumping around Equestria, trying to find you and wouldn't you know, I find you here, packed like sardines."

"Uh, how are you talking right now?" Applejack asked, standing up and moving towards him.

"Oh, don't worry about that. I don't need air to pass through my lungs to speak." He said, his whole body shifting and transforming into a multicolored octopus. "Still, I am very disappointed in you, Fluttershy. Playing merpony and not inviting me along."

"Discord, Canterlot has been invaded and Princess Celestia was turned to stone and Twilight stole a magic pearl and now we have to get back to her before she does something terrible!" Fluttershy said, grabbing one of his arms with her flippers.

He sighed. "Yes, I suppose this all has rather gotten out of hand..."

"Wait...you mean you knew about the invasion?" Rainbow Dash said, flying up next to Fluttershy. "You knew that we were under attack and you didn't do anything?"

Discord shifted back to his normal, absurd form and rolled his eyes. "I thought that I would let you solve it for yourself. I can't very well go around saving Equestria every time it's in danger. Then you ponies would come to rely on me...instead of yourselves."

"You mean you could have just fixed everything days ago?!" Spike demanded, swimming over to the other side of the draconequus.

"Well, not everything..." Discord admitted. "I've never turned someone from stone to not stone before...if I could do you think I would have allowed myself to remain trapped for so long?"

He shrugged. "I thought you all would learn a valuable lesson about believing in yourselves and then once you'd defeated the bad guy, you'd throw a big party. If I had interceded sooner, you never would have inspired that dapper Abyssian to be kind or those downtrodden parrots to quit their jobs." He laughed a little. "You never would have learned how terrible the outside world was and you never would have saved hippogriff's kingdom."

"Stop smiling you fiend!" Rarity demanded, using her telekinesis to launch a couple shells haphazardly at Discord, both of which entirely lost momentum before they neared him and instead drifted slowly to the sandy floor. "This is situation is not amusing!" Her eyes lowered. "Besides, we haven't saved any creature. Only made things worse."

Discord smiled, almost kindly. "I apologize, I'm getting ahead of myself. If I hadn't waited until now, you never will end up saving the entire hippogriff's kingdom. There, happy now?"

"You mean it was a good thing that Twilight took that Pearl?" Pinkie asked. She seemed the least re-energized by his appearance.

"What? Oh, goodness no! The raw chaos of evolution is not something to mess around with, even for an experienced alicorn." He said, tugging at his beard. "Now, let's get you all out of here."

He was met with a series of angry stares and sighed. "Look, you can all be absolutely furious with me for the rest of your lives...after we save Equestria from being turned into a frozen wasteland, alright?"

The proposition was met with silence, and Discord snapped the claws on his lion's paw, causing the door to the cell to transform into bubbles.

"What did you do to the guards?" Applejack demanded.

"Now, Applejack, do you really think I would hurt two defenseless hippogriff guards just because they locked up my only friends?" He asked with a grin.

When there was no response, he rolled his eyes. "Oh please, right now they and every other hippogriff between here and the shoreline are participating in a musical number about the joys of sub-nautical living. The chaos magic will wear off as soon as Ieave. Now, can we pleeeease go already? If my perception of the time-space continuum is correct, Twilight is at the moment, minutes away from committing the biggest mistake of her life."

They had made it to the gates of the School For Gifted Unicorns when the bombardment began. The three zeppelins which Tempest had arrived with, along with the much larger one which the Storm King had flown in on, all began firing down onto Starlight and the Pillars, with total disregard for the lives of the unconscious Storm Creatures surrounding them.

The sound was deafening, the crack of dozens of cannons going off at once. It was followed by the thought-shattering crash of cannonballs, each bigger than Starlight, tearing through nearby buildings. Soon, the freezing air was thick with smoke and her nostrils were filled with sulfur. She and the Pillars did the best to protect themselves, but there were too many cannonballs and each one was too powerful for them to all be deflected. In a matter of seconds, their group lay scattered across the cobblestones, tossed about like rag dolls by the impact of the artillery.

Starlight had just regained conciousness, although she was unable to hear anything but the ringing in her ears, when she saw it. At first, she thought it was a blast of magic, emerging from the rooftop of the school and rocketing up in the direction of the closest airship. Then it exploded and she recognized the bright colors and the speed with which they dissipated.

They were fireworks. They were Trixie's fireworks! And she was firing them right into the hulls of the ships, filling the air with bright colors and hazy smoke trails. Trixie was obscuring the aim of the whatever grenadiers lay inside and drawing their fire toward the protected school.

Starlight grabbed Somnabula and hoisted her to her hooves, yelling for her to get inside the school. Starlight was unsure if the pegasus could hear her, when she herself couldn't. But she didn't wait to find out, quickly using her magic to levitate the still unconscious members of the Pillars and take them with her.

The smell of ozone and burnt hair filled the air as the Storm King marched out through the hole produced by Twilight and Shining Armor's exit, the Staff still crackling in his grasp.

"Well, that was pretty stupid, wasn't it?" He asked with a smile, as he bent down next to the tangled mess of Twilight and Shining Armor's forms, the two pressed together beneath a pile of rubble, although Shining Armor was the only one who'd been rendered insensate.

Twilight glared up at him, as she struggled to get her muscles to work, to get her magic to push her free of the weight crushing down on her. She could feel her brother's burnt body pressed up against her. She could feel his heartbeat where their ribcages touched. She could feel it slowing. Her horn spasmed, desperate to conjure a spell to free her from the detritus and save her brother's life.

Then The Storm King fired his staff again and her vision went white with pain.

When she woke up again, she could hear his voice echoing from within. He was laughing and bragging, while he tossed unicorns around like dolls with his newly gained power. She didn't focus on the words though, or the flashes of magic from inside. She focused instead on the form beside her. She was in so much agony and everything had become so cold. But deep inside, she knew...

Her brother's heart was no longer beating. Summoning all the magic she had, she threw the pile of rubble off and turned him over, quickly putting her hooves on his chest and pumping to force air into his lungs. It was no good though. Even the shock of magic she sent through him, to try to startle his heart back into function.

The attack from the Storm King had shattered his ribcage. The push through the stone wall had snapped his spine. And the heat of the blast had cooked his flesh and reduced his internal organs to a charred slurry. He was dead. And there was no bringing him back.

Her vision blurred with tears, before she even realized she'd started crying. All she could do was stare at the expression on his face. He'd died horrifically. Why did he look so peaceful?

She buried her head in the scorched hair of his chest. If this was a story, the kind she'd read when she was little, then her tears might have done something other than wet the corpse in her hooves.

Sorrow was replaced with something else. It wasn't her fault. None of this was her fault. It was HIS. HE had attacked her homeland. HE had imprisoned her mentors and enslaved her people. HE had driven her into exile and had his goons hunt her and her friends across the world. And now...now HE had taken her brother from her.

Sound returned to her. The boom of cannon fire reducing the Canterlot skyline to splinters. The cackles of the power mad villain in the hall beyond. Then came sensation. The warmth quickly fleeing Shining Armor's body. The snow which had so quickly coated her and her brother, and which was so biting that her hooves ached to touch it.

She didn't care. Nor did she notice that the wind had picked up around the castle, a frigid gale which was beginning to blow the airships off course. Her horn glowed and the Pearl rolled out from underneath a piece of stone, stopping at her side. Slowly, she wrapped her forelegs around it. She understood now. The alterations she had used it for, even the Storm King's cruel transmogrification of her mother. All of it...it was just a taste of the actual power contained within the Pearl. It was weapon of old, the kind which had been used at the dawn of time, in the conflict between Alicorns and Draconequuses. Like the Tree of Harmony, it was a primordial entity, containing a power of its own which refused to be ignored.

And which longed to be used.

Pink and gold mist began to circle around her, quickly hiding the crumpled body of her brother from sight. Not that she was looking at him. The tears which had been rolling down her cheeks froze, and she heard finally, the wintery whinnying of the windigos in her ears. She didn't care. She let the unbridled hatred consume her, just as the power of the Pearl subsumed her pathetic, purple pony body, replacing it with something much, much more battle-ready.

The cannonballs thundered against the outside of the protection spell. Even with Starlight and Starswirl pouring all the magic they had into it, it was only a matter of time before the spell, already weak from days of existence, shattered. Then the cannons would hit their targets. The roof would come down and they would all be buried in the rubble of their own sanctuary.

Starlight could hear the cries of the refugees, trapped inside with them. The young and the injured, forced to listen to those terrible rumbling sounds as they waited for death. There was no escape this time. They had done all they could. She tried to reassure herself, that at the very least, they had freed hundreds of ponies on their way through the city. But it didn't work. There was no great, untapped lake of courage brimming within her. No inspiration in the thought that others would carry on the fight.

There was nothing but fear, as she realized she was about to die. She glanced over at Night-Light and Starswirl, both of whom were perspiring, and the latter of which looked about ready to collapse. Her eyes drew across the other Pillars, who were working to get the refugees inside the school into the basement, in hopes of getting them out of harm's way. It wasn't enough though. There were too many ponies spread out across the dorms and not enough level-headed guardians to steer the crowds. Besides, she'd seen the basement when she and Trixie and Shining Armor had been searching for a way to remove the Miserable Malachite. It wasn't big enough. There wouldn't be enough room. And even if they could stuff all those creatures into such a tight spot, they wouldn't be able to dig themselves out of the mounds of plaster and stone when the school collapsed.

They were all going to die and there was nothing she could do about it.

She locked eyes with Trixie. She had saved their lives, but she'd only given them a few more minutes in the end. Starlight smiled anyway. They had tried their best. All of them. They had done everything they could.

She didn't want to die. But she was pretty sure she didn't have a choice at this point.

Then Somnabula lifted a hoof and pointed out one of the big windows. "It's Magnus! He's back!" She cheered.

It took Starlight a second to remember what exactly that meant. Even if Magnus was one of the Pillars of Equestria, he wouldn't be able to take out four zeppelins on his own. Then she remembered Stygian's plan and saw the brightness coming through the window. The thundering of the cannon fire was replaced with a much louder cracking sound, followed by a dull roar.

The barrier dropped and ponies of all sizes moved to the windows to gaze up at their salvation.

Dragons. Hundreds of them, filled the air. And the fire spewed from their mouths had made contact with the canvas exteriors of the airships, as well as the powder rooms deep in the hold. The zeppelins had exploded, their balloons ripped apart and their decks engulfed in orange and blue flames. Hope soared within Starlight and then plummeted, as she watched the four conflagrations slowly descend toward the city. The rime spattered wind was driving each towering inferno toward the mountain side and the swarm of multicolored dragons who, being dragons, had flamed first and thought second, could do naught but witness as each flaming time bomb neared Canterlot's remaining structures.

Twilight Velvet struggled in the grip of the Storm King, her forehooves shoving against his fingers, even as they tightened around her throat. Her back legs kicked wildly, over the bodies of her fallen comrades, as the satyr lifted the staff so that the glowing tip poked into her exposed stomach.

"C'mon, give up." He told her. "All your friends have been defeated. There's nothing to fight for anymore." He stepped over the Professor of Alchemy, his tail sweeping a chunk of stone to the side. Then he swung her down to be eye to eye with Celestia's horrified expression. "And all your leaders are statues, anyway."

She stared at her reflection in the surface of the sleek black crystal encasing the princess and closed her eyes. All she could do now was pray that Shining Armor and Twilight were alright.

"Not all of them."

The Storm King turned, and Velvet opened her eyes, just as something massive and purple collided with the Storm King. While one claw prevented her from striking the floor of the chamber, another grabbed the arm with which the Storm King wielded his staff. Velvet watched as the six fingered claw, which seemed to have an eye between the bones of its knuckles, clenched and then yanked. The Storm King let out a cry and then the staff flew from his hand, caught by something that was a mixture of a snake's tail and a scorpion's barb. Then the immense, winged monstrosity rolled her gently onto her feet and flew upward, dragging the screaming form of the Storm King behind it, as it smashed through the roof of the palace and disappeared into the freezing cyclone above.

"Well, it's a good thing we left when we did, isn't it?" Discord said, as Applejack, Fluttershy, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Rainbow Dash and Spike, now returned to their regular forms and teleported onto the rooftop of the Canterlot palace, stared up in horror at the burning zeppelins set to crash into their capital.

"Relax...I'll take care of it!" Discord said, his tail transforming into a fire hose and a fire brigade helmet appearing atop his mismatched horns. "You go save Twilight from herself again."

Just as he flew off in the direction of the dragons desperately trying to slow the descent of the ruined airships, they were drawn out of their shock by blood curdling scream from the other side of the roof. They jumped to action, unable to do anything but follow the sound. Between the skin-blistering wind and the slippery ice forming over the shingles at their hooves, it took them several minutes to make it safely to the other side of the twirling weathervane.

The sight which greeted them was unexpected. A massive creature, covered in scales and plated discs of hard bone, lay crouched over a terrified and bloodied satyr. In one hand, it held a familiar glowing pearl. In the other, it held a staff from which purple lightning streaked out, crackling across the surface of the sky. On each hand and on each ankle, a massive yellow eye flickered, each shielded from the raging blizzard by a film of translucent skin.

Tendrils swung from the back of the creature, each one covered in barbed suction cups and each tapering off into a glowing jellyfish stinger. Meanwhile, two sets of thick and leathery wings extended from either side of the writhing fleshy growths, each covered in a porcupine like spines. As the multiple eyes caught sight of their shivering group, the head turned and they all stared into the massive black eyes of a skull which appeared to share the features of a bat, a crocodile and a rhino.

The creature let out a hideous shriek, loud enough to be heard over the screeching wind and the crackling fires of the zeppelins. Then it used its wings to spring up into the air, dragging the screaming yeti behind it with one claw. The group watched as the chimeric monstrosity circled above. Then the massive horn extending from its nose glowed with familiar magic and as it dropped its prey, a blast of magic struck him in the abdomen and punched him through the roof of the castle.

Then the monster held its wings tight to its stomach and dived through the hole the satyr's falling form had caused, turning the thrones of Celestia and Luna to rubble and crushing him into the stone floor.

"It's Twilight..." Spike said, too low to be heard over the wind. With that, he dove through the hole, barely hearing the cries of his companions as he landed on one of the tapestries and using his claws slowed his descent enough to land on both feet.

"TWILIGHT!" He yelled, running around her circumference and noticing each lower eye trailing him as he did. As he reached the front of her form, he saw that she was snarling at the half-conscious satyr, tusks protruding from her fangy maw.

"You have to stop!" Spike pleaded.

Twilight didn't even look at him. Her tail lashed out, the lower portion of it, which was thankfully not glistening with venom, wrapping around his tiny form and holding him back as she continued to hiss into the face of the Storm King.

"Twilight! Let go of him this instant!" Rarity yelled, as if talking to a dog. She leaped down into the chamber and attempted to use her magic to try to tug Spike free of the tail.

Twilight brought the non-spine covered underside of wing down on Rarity, pinning her to the ground and muffling her attempts to intervene.

"Get off her!" Rainbow Dash shouted, slamming into Twilight's cart-sized skull and pounding against the bone plates protecting her face with her hooves. "I don't know what you did to yourself! But you have to stop!"

Twilight ignored the attacks, grabbing the Storm Kind with a prehensile tongue and launching him across the chamber and into a pillar. As he crashed through it, she lashed out with one of her tendrils, pinning Rainbow's wings to her sides and holding her far out of reach of doing any damage.

"LET GO OF THEM!" Pinkie slammed into the top of Twilight's skull, her magic managing to crack the boney protuberances protecting Twilight's head. "We're your friends, you're not supposed to treat us like this!"

Twilight twisted her head like an owl, causing Pinkie to fall prone and then wrapped a claw around her, holding her gently, even as she continued to pound on against Twilight's claw with her hooves. Then, bringing her friends along, she stalked toward the Storm King. He glanced back at her with fear in his bright blue eyes, as he propelled himself across the floor with one arm, his broken, double-jointed legs dragging uselessly behind him.

"Please Twilight...whatever is wrong with you, we can fix it..." Fluttershy said, slowly descending in front of her maw. "I know that you don't want to do this...I know that you're better than this...please, let us help you."

Twilight snapped her clawed feet free of the ice which had begun to seal her to the floor of the chamber and let out a bellow which reverberated through the entire castle. Then she lifted the staff in one claw and Fluttershy felt herself encased in a magical bubble. She cried out but found the force field was entirely soundproof. Tears sprung to her eyes as she pounded on the inside of the protective spell, as Twilight stomped past, moving right up to the desperately whining and blubbering Storm King.

"He took somepony from ya, didn't he?"

Twilight paused, her jaws inches from the Storm King's prone and cowering form. Then she shifted, her many eyes squinting and glowering at the Earth Pony in the Stetson who had landed in the rubble of the thrones. She let out a low growl, warning that she would restrain Applejack as well if she attempted to stop her.

"Well, ahm I right?" Applejack asked, stepping forward anyway. "He took somepony and now you're so angry that you don't want to listen to reason, do ya?"

Twilight's massive eyes widened, and she let out another howl, the kind which would have sent a pack of timberwolves running.

"Twilight...it's the first time you ever lost anypony, ain't it?" Applejack asked, stepping closer.

Twilight regarded her for a moment and then turned back to the Storm King.

"Killing him won't bring them back, whoever they were..." Applejack said, tears in her eyes. "Trust me, Twilight...Ah know what it's like to think that everythin' bad that happens is yer fault. And that if ya don't fix it, then you'll let every creature down. Ah know...Ah know what it's like to lose the people closest to ya..." She closed her eyes and hung her head. "I'm not gonna fight you, Twilight...but Ah don't want to lose ya, either. If ya do this...he won't just have taken somepony from ya...he'll have taken you too. You're better than this...Ah know you are."

Twilight continued to growl lowly for a moment. Then all the fight went out of her limbs. Slowly, she freed each creature she'd restrained, easing them to the floor. Bitter and tearful looks covered the faces of her friends, but she wasn't looking at them. Her eyes were all on the Storm King.

"Ah know it's not fair..." Applejack said, walking up to the side of Twilight's tank-like chest, as ice formed around her claws once more. "Ah know that...because of the windigos...because yer a princess...you aren't allowed to be angry, like you should be. Ah just wanted to let you know...how sorry Ah am."

With that, she hugged the side of Twilight, her orange form dwarfed by the tank-sized aberration which she had just watched immobilize her friends without blinking.

Twilight glared at The Storm King, the ice coalescing around her legs growing opaquer by the second. It was getting colder too, colder than ice could be in reality. It was as icy as the hatred in her chest, the hate which she knew the storm surrounding the palace was now feeding off.

She was not just a princess. She was the Princess of Friendship. Just like how Cadence embodied love across all of Equestria, she embodied all the friendship. And she knew then, that if she gave into hate, if she killed this monster who had defiled her land with his presence, she knew that in the hearts of ponies everywhere, friendship would die.

And the windigos would win.

She hung her head, and her claw manipulated The Pearl one last time. Her friends, all still hanging back except for Applejack, watched as her form shifted. Claws retracted; limbs disappeared. Wings folded into her back and teeth changed from sharp and thick to flat and wide.

She was left what she had always been. A pony. With two wings and a horn. She continued to hold the Pearl and the Staff, unlimited power in each hoof, as Applejack continued to hug her around her center.

"Let it out sugarcube...go ahead..." Applejack said, lightly patting Twilight on the back as the princess continued the sobbing she'd begun out on the balcony.

Slowly, Spike picked himself up and ran over to Twilight, wrapping himself around one of her legs. Fluttershy approached her tentatively and then sprinted forward to hug her opposite Applejack. Pinkie Pie watched and then looked down at her hooves, which had managed to draw blood thanks to her repeated strikes against Twilight's armored hide. Then she dashed over and almost knocked over the rest of the group in her own show of affection.

Only Rarity and Rainbow Dash hung back, watching Twilight tremble and listening to her faint sobbing echo through the ruined castle hall. Rarity looked conflicted and glanced at Rainbow Dash for guidance. But Rainbow just shook her head and darted up and out of the hole in the ceiling. Rarity watched her go and then dropped her gaze to the once polished floor of the palace, now cracked and soot stained. She felt tears start to come to her own eyes but quickly wiped them away with her hoof. This wasn't about her.

And she wasn't interested in their affections anyway. It wouldn't solve anything.

They had won the battle. They had saved Equestria.

But everything was still broken.

6 - The Purloining of Passion

Twilight Velvet knelt on the palace balcony, overlooking the smoking ruins of Canterlot, half-buried in snow. The ambient heat of dragon flame had melted much of the ice, causing cool water to trickle down the mountainside. In the distance, the airships which Discord and the dragons had pushed clear of the mountain, could be made out as blackened husks, half-crumpled across the plains of Equestria.

Ash had joined the rime on the balcony, creating a grayish slurry that reflected the overcast sky. But the snow where Twilight knelt was pink with the blood of her son, whose lifeless body she now cradled between her hooves.

She heard the crash of the same creature who had saved her from the Storm King burrowing back through the roof of the palace and heard shouts echoing out from the throne room. Some of the voices seemed familiar, but the one she focused on was the Storm King's. He was begging for his life.

Velvet remembered hearing about satyrs in her various adventures outside Equestria. Like Centaurs, they were creatures born of the unholy magics of Tartarus, whose taste for power could never be satiated. She remembered even expressing her worry to Celestia, that such creatures might invade their home, as they had done to the homes of countless other races.

Celestia had told her that Equestria would be ready.

She closed her eyes and dragged her hoof over Shining Armor's face, closing his eyelids. Then she carefully lay him down on the cold stone, as if he was a foal, she was afraid of waking. Then she stood and her horn burned with magic as she limped back inside the palace.

There was Twilight. Sobbing and harrowed. But alive and hugging her friends. And there was Spike comforting her.

Her eyes passed over the strange objects which Twilight was wielding. The same staff which the Storm King had used to kill Shining Armor. And a massive, multicolored orb which produced an almost mesmerizing effect when looked directly at. Then her gaze landed on him.

He lay in the center of the hall, still trying to drag his broken and bloodied body away from his attacker. His antlers had been shattered and his abdomen was covered in tooth marks. He was so busy with his meager to escape attempt, that he didn't even notice Velvet until he'd reached the base of her hooves.

He looked up at her, one of his blue eyes swollen shut with bruising. The other wide with fear.

"It's okay, mom." Twilight said, through her sobs. "It's over now."

Velvet glanced back at her daughter and her friends and then she returned her glare to the Storm King. "No." She finally said. "No, it's not."

With that, she released the magic which had been building up in her horn, a blast of pink energy lighting up the hall. When the flash had faded, the Storm King's mangled body lay behind, the twisted expression of bestial horror on his face perfectly preserved in ice.

"Wha-what did you do?" Fluttershy asked.

"I didn't do anything. I just let him express himself without restraint. Now the Windigos can feed on him until kingdom come." Velvet said, turning away from the frozen figure and marching back in the direction of her son's body. "Now...now it's over."

Twilight stood in the plaza in front of Canterlot Castle, the place where the invasion had begun. She was unable to release Celestia and Luna until Cadence's statue had been returned to the castle. She knew that she should have rushed to release Cadence from the Miserable Malachite. However, any sense of urgency had left her. The enemy was defeated, the city had barely escaped total destruction, and the sooner that Cadence was awake the sooner she'd have to tell her about what had happened to Shining Armor.

About what she had ALLOWED to happen to Shining Armor.

She gazed out at the distant wrecks of the Storm King's fleet. Somewhere amidst the wreckage and the dozens of burned bodies, lay the shattered remains of Tempest's statue. And Grubber...unable to escape from a burning airship because Twilight had locked him into Tempest's quarters. Unable to do anything as the zeppelin he was on caught fire and sank into the earth.

Maybe he'd been killed in when the gunpowder went off. Or better yet, suffocated from smoke inhalation and not been conscious for that final, definitive crash.

Twilight lowered her eyes to the pavement. How could she ever call herself Princess of Friendship again? How could she ever claim to have the interests of ponies in her heart? While Starlight and Trixie and the Pillars were in danger, she was too busy hurting the Storm King. As if...as if hurting him enough might have brought Shining back.

And her friends...if she had just listened to them back in the kingdom of Hippogriffs, if she hadn't been so determined to cross any line to save her home...Shining would probably still be alive. And her mother...she never would have been driven to trap the Storm King in a prison of ice and hate for the rest of time.

She had ruined everything. She had ruined the lives of her friends, of her allies. Her sister-in-law was a widow because of her. Her niece would grow up without a father, because of her.

She sunk to the ground, feeling the subtle but constant shifting continental plates deep below and the burbling of magma beneath the crust of the Earth. She didn't deserve her wings. She didn't deserve to be princess of anything. She had failed, again and again, to do the right thing. She had forgotten...

"Princess Twilight! Good to see you didn't get turned to stone."

It was Dragon Lord Ember, looking every bit her title with her bloodstone scepter in both claws and her golden armor stained black with soot.

"Hello, Ember...I wanted to thank you again, for saving my hometown." Twilight said, looking glumly up from the street cobblestones.

Ember removed her helmet and held it under one arm. "Ah, well, we almost destroyed it too, so it was only fair...sorry, we've never fought things like those before. We had no idea they were gonna explode like that."

Twilight nodded.

"I uh, I heard from Spike...that you lost your brother in the battle." Ember said, with a cough.

"It wasn't a battle. It was a massacre." Twilight answered. "I almost doomed Equestria..."

Ember snorted, smoke curling up from her nostrils. "Right, you ponies believe that if you get angry, the wind horses will destroy your kingdom."

"We don't believe it, Ember. We know it. Surely you saw them while you were up there in the sky? In case you hadn't guessed, it doesn't normally snow at this time of the year." Twilight said.

Ember sighed. "Yeah, yeah...still...you saved your friends, that's the important part."

"No! I didn't! I failed, Ember...Celestia needed me to make allies with the hippogriffs and instead I...I..." Twilight lowered her gaze. "I-I'm sorry...I'm not a leader like you, Ember...I can't make the tough decisions...I-I've failed..."

Ember watched her for a moment and then regarded her own reflection in the tip of her bloodstone scepter.

"Twilight?"

"Yes, Ember..."

"You broke into a queen's throne room and stole a magic pearl, right?"

Twilight nodded, head hanging again with shame.

"You were willing to do anything to protect the creatures who trust you to lead them." Ember said. "If it was me, I would have boiled the hippogriff queen as soon as she implied that my species wasn't worth saving."

"That's not how it happened...if I had just waited..." Twilight began.

"You did what you thought you had to do." Ember said, returning the helmet over her snout. "You put yourself at risk over and over again to save others and in the end, you defeated the enemy."

"Ember! A good leader doesn't just choose what other creatures should do...a-a good leader, especially the princess of Friendship, is supposed to trust other creatures! If I had trusted my friends, or the pillars, or even the dragons...if I hadn't...If I had just..."

Ember set a claw down on Twilight's wing. "You made a mistake. Believe it or not, it's not the last time you're going to do that. Every day, I wake up and I have to stop myself from stealing from the hoards of my subjects. Every day, you ponies have to choose to be kind and understanding instead of spiteful and destructive, even when you're faced with creatures who don't respect you or your culture." She leaned down, pressing the still warm metal of her helmet against Twilight's horn. "But you raised Spike to be like you, and in turn, you saved me from becoming the monster my dad wanted me to be. This time, your enemies got the best of you...but if someone showed up at my door and turned all my advisors to stone...I'd wouldn't have hesitated to start taking everything I could, to be powerful enough to defend my land."

Then she pulled back and lifted up off the ground with a flap of her wings. "One day, you'll realize you aren't supposed to be perfect; you're just supposed to try your best. After all, you've got an eternity to figure it out."

Twilight watched her go, the multicolored dragons quickly returning to their own lands, before their rescue attempt transformed into a feeding frenzy. She didn't know if Ember's speech was supposed to make her feel better. She didn't know if it was possible to ever feel better, with the way she was feeling right now. But she did know that, when Ember left, that last sentence felt like a threat. Like Twilight was to be resigned to some kind of dreary purgatory until she "figured it out."

It made her suddenly aware the price of her longevity, the downsides of which she'd had to force herself not to fixate on.

It was a few days before the funeral was held. There was so much to do in terms of repairing the city and reassuring the citizens of Equestria that the Storm King and his forces had been dispatched. Twilight was so busy that it was almost easy to avoid her family and friends. She could tell that Spike wanted to stay close to her (as if it was his job to be sure she didn't do anything unforgivable again) but she couldn't face him any more than the others. He was as much her brother as Shining was and she had betrayed him.

When the time came, the streets of Canterlot were dark with mourning dress. Shining Armor had been declared a hero, who had given his life in the defense of Ponykind. As if he hadn't died for nothing, like so many others had died for nothing. Twilight didn't interrupt Celestia's speech about him though. She knew that if she had been faced with that sea of faces, looking for some kind of hope to guide them through the ceremony, she would have crumbled.

Still, she could barely stand there and listen to the words about how gentle and brave her brother was. She knew all that. And it didn't make it any easier that he was gone. Worse, she could hear Cadence weeping over the sound of Celestia's magnified voice and the sniffling and blubbering of the crowd. She had avoided Cadence, just like everyone else. The betrayal which had almost destroyed her connection to the magic of Friendship was nothing compared to the heartbreak which had severed Cadence's connection to the magic of love. She had wandered through the past few days as if in a fugue state, holding Flurry close and moving multiple times per day from total despondence to torturous fits of melancholy.

She'd heard Luna propose to Celestia that she should become regent of the Crystal Empire until Flurry was older and Cadence's mental state had improved. She knew that Luna was trying to be kind. She knew that she was trying to do what was best for Cadence and for the ponies who she protected. But she couldn't help wanting to speak up, to declare that Cadence was not weak and would never consider shirking her responsibilities, regardless of the evidence to the contrary.

After Celestia's speech was over, her father took the podium. Still exhausted from the residual fatigue of protecting the School for Gifted Unicorns, he looked so much...frailer...than she'd ever seen him as before. So much more vulnerable.

It was too much. She knew that she was supposed to stand on the stage and look sad but determined for the benefit of the general public. But her guilt and her grief had built, until she was sure she was going to crumble in front of every creature. She could do nothing but briefly whisper half-choked apologies to Celestia, before teleporting away.

From her old tower, she could see the funeral procession, as the casket was carried through the streets of Canterlot, to the train station which would return Shining Armor to his burial place in the Crystal Empire. Celestia had said that having the coffin travel through the nation would allow ponies to better process their sense of loss. But at the moment, Twilight wanted nothing more than to charge the train and cling to the casket and never let him leave again.

She knew it was selfish. Until recently, she hadn't realized just how selfish she was. Anxiety and inadequacy had always niggled at her, the root causes of her worst failures and most terrible mistakes. But the self-loathing which she had no come to call friend was stronger than that had ever been. And the worst part was that she had come to the tower not to collect herself, so that she might return to the ceremony and support her family.

She had come so she could cry. Could cry about how stupid and angry she was, with herself, with the world, for destroying her life so incidentally. Could pitch a fit, throwing books and furniture around with her horn like she was toddler lobbing her toys for attention. Could scream and pound on the floorboards uninterrupted as a broken weeping wreck of a mare and then curl up on the carpet like she was young again.

He had always been there. He had been her first friend. And she had betrayed him and everything he'd taught her. And now she would never...they would never again...there was nothing to say. No way out of it. No future for either of them. He had died trying to protect her, but she wished with every passing minute that he had been too slow. That the Storm King had stopped her lead heart before Shining Armor could intervene. She knew that no matter his grief, he would be capable of protecting those who needed it, of carrying on the legacy of whatever good she had managed in her brief and disastrous tenure.

But she was not her brother. She was not brave. She wasn't gentle either. Just a monstrous brat, hiding under the skin of something pretty, waiting for a chance to circumstances again set her free from reason or empathy.

It was time to talk to Celestia about her future.

As Shining Armor was lifted onto the train, Celestia approached his watching parents, having sent Luna to retrieve Twilight. She knew that her former pupil looked up to her so much and that if she were to follow the arcane trail left by her dangerously confused teleport, Twilight would heap apologies and beg forgiveness and blame herself for the flaws of having emotions or experiencing loss.

And Celestia couldn't stand that. Not right now.

"I just wanted to tell you how proud I am...of your son and of you both." Celestia said, the normal warmth absent from her voice. She had worked so hard to create a kingdom where all would be safe and tended to and where magic would run freely. And she had failed, spectacularly. Again.

"You and your son protected the ponies of this city when I was unable to." Celestia said, bowing her head slightly. "And for that, you deserve my eternal gratitude."

Night Light nodded, slowly. Twilight Velvet just stared at the open doors of the train, that the procession had just passed through.

Then she spoke, her normally cheery voice replaced with something ripe with ache and fermented with spite. "You know, the day that Shiny got into the Royal Guard was the happiest day of his life? He was so glad, to-to be helping others...that's all he ever wanted, was to help. And-and...we were so proud of him, that he had appeased you...that he had followed in our hoofsteps. We used to tell him, how noble it was, what a...honor, it was...to serve the princess."

She turned; her distant eyes fixed on Celestia's shocked expression.

"It's our fault...it's our fault, as much as yours. We knew what you did...to your sister. And we gave them to you anyway. But still...I just wanted to tell you." Her voice cracked; her rage drowned in too much sorrow to manifest in shouts. "I hope you're happy. You've taken them both from us. We trusted you...we trusted you to look after our daughter and our son...and...and...you took them from us."

She looked like she wanted to say more, but Night Light gently placed a hoof on her withers, and she just raised a hoof to her mouth, as if shocked at her own accusations. Then she turned away, her whole body shaking against her husband, as they gently trotted to the edge of the platform, to watch the train leave.

Celestia stared at them both, her carefully crafted composure crumbling around her. No one member of her subjects had said something so cruel to her face, in over a thousand years. Now it felt as if the ground had opened up and a vast and hungry recess was swallowing her. She could see ponies turning to look at her, only a few had overheard Velvet's speech, but all seemed to understand immediately what had transpired. Now they were looking to her, to see how she would handle confrontation with a pair of grieving parents.

She shrunk back from the edge of the station, unable to stand their eyes on her, looking to see if she might cry or shout or demand they be thrown in the prison. Their trust in her, she realized then, was gone. She had been like a mother to them, lifting the sun every day for their convenience. But she had failed when they needed her and now, they would never again regard her with the same awe or love.

And she didn't deserve either. Velvet was right. She had pitted Twilight and Shining Armor against countless threats, even transforming Twilight's salvation of the Crystal Kingdom into a kind of test. She had trained them to believe their value came in what they did, not what they were. And now one of them was dead and the other might never know comfort again.

"Princess Celestia!"

It was Spike, running up to her, with half Twilight's friends in tow. There had been a great rift split in their group by these events, the kind which might never fully be repaired.

"I have to talk to you about Twilight." Spike said, panting from exertion as she reached her forehooves.

"Y-yes...of course..." Celestia said. "But umm...not right here...I uh...let's meet at the palace in an hour or so? I believe Twilight needs some...alone time at the moment." She noticed the looks of concern - and confusion - on the faces of Applejack, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie. But she didn't give them a chance to ask her any more questions. She spread her wings and took off, rising quickly high above the crowd and gulping in the increasingly cold air of the atmosphere, to clear her chest of the poison which was surely tightening her lungs.

She stopped only when the clouds were distant beneath her, and the grace of the stars no longer hidden. It would have been suicide for pegasus to fly this high, but she had long ago become accustomed to it.

She closed her eyes and felt the tears freezing against her muzzle. It was silent up here. Totally silent. Nothing but the beating of her heart and the pounding of each thought that struggled to dominate the mind.

"Well, I never thought I'd say it, but Twilight's mother would make a wonderful draconequus." Said an all-too familiar voice. "The way she speared your heart like that? I couldn't conjure magic that potent..."

"You!" Celestia lashed out, her horn blazing with a beam that could have put craters in the moon.

Discord simply inched his serpentine body out of the way, bending around the beam and raising an eyebrow. "Oh, come now, Tia...I come here to comfort you, like a good friend, and you attack me? Those seem hardly the actions of the noble and good Celestia that I know and love."

"This isn't funny!" Celestia shouted, her voice making thunder echo far below. "A good pony is dead...and it's your fault! If you had just done your job, if you had protected the realm..." Her voice died away as she realized her words. "I...I...oh, what have I done?"

"That seems hardly like a fair assertion." Discord said, simply. "If I had shown up, I could have been petrified again, a position which I suspect you'll now understand is less than comfortable. Worse, with that staff of his, the Storm King could have drained my magic...all things considered, I thought it more important for you ponies to make some savvier allies, so that when this happens again, you won't be caught off guard."

"Happens again..." Celestia echoed.

"Oh, come now, Celestia. This whole experiment of yours, of creating a nice pony paradise where every creature can live unmolested by the world's troubles...well, it was never going to work, was it? I mean, how many times has it almost been destroyed by the vagrants of this world? Despite all your powers, even you cannot subvert fate..."

"I-I can't...I can't just let them become like everything else in this world...tired a-and angry." Celestia said.

"Need I remind you what happened when our peoples last fought?" Discord asked. "You Alicorns won the war, Celestia...you tamed the sun and the moon...you even made the seasons and the wildlife dependent on your magic." He smirked. "You locked away the children of Grogar in the depths of Tartarus. And you imprisoned the lord of chaos himself, in stone...But you still can't stop time. Everything ages, everything rots. Everything...struggles, whether you like it or not. No matter how much you control, the rest alludes you...you know this, deep in your heart, or else you'd have tried to make your ponies immortal by now."

Celestia shook. "You've no right attacking my efforts to keep ponies safe when compared to the atrocities you have committed in the name of 'fun'."

Discord rolled his eyes. "Good intentions. What a wonderful shield it will be to hide behind, when this world is dead and all that you've built has been destroyed by your own petulance."

Celestia opened her mouth to snap back at him but stopped herself. Then she hung her head.

"It doesn't matter...I've failed all that rely on me. The loss caused by this conflict will foment and consume future generations in hatred and alienation. I've no right to argue with you...after what I've done to the ones I love."

Discord groaned. "You're no fun when you're like this." Then he pulled out a gramophone from his ear and set the needle. As it began to move along the grooves of the disc, two voices began to emit from the horn of the player.

"I can't do this anymore, Luna. I've failed everypony. I stole from creatures which might have been allies...please, take my wings away. I-I can't be an alicorn anymore...I can't let myself hurt anyone again because I think I know better."

"Twilight, remember you are talking to the mare who blocked out the sun because of she allowed envy to consume her."

"Please, Luna...don't. Just...don't. If...if Celestia had died and you knew it was your fault...you wouldn't be able to be a princess anymore. Please, just...take away the power. You can use the staff if you want...you can give my powers to somepony else. Any pony else."

Discord lifted the needle from the disc. "It would appear that you are not the only creature who blames herself for the state of the world below."

Celestia just stared at the disc in horror. "Twilight...Twilight wants to give up her magic? Resign as princess?"

"Yes...I wonder what she plans to do when she's isolated herself from every creature she once relied on." Discord shrugged. "Just a thought..."

Celestia was already turning away, a bright yellow beam diving back down through the atmosphere. Discord smiled, a tiny bit.

"There's the compassion I've come to despise."

"Twilight, I don't think you understand what you are asking me to do. You were fated to become an alicorn, it is written in stone. If I remove your powers...you will still be the embodiment of the Element of Magic. You will still be needed, by your friends and your family, and by all of Equestria." Luna said, softly.

"No! I won't!" Twilight shouted, tears in her eyes. "I don't know if the Elements of Harmony made a mistake...but I know that no creature needs me here! Not after what I did."

Luna stepped closer, a confused look on her face. "The theft of the pearl? Please, Twilight, it is not-"

"NO! I didn't trust my friends...I-I didn't trust my brother. I should have known that other ponies would be able to protect Equestria...but I thought...I believed that I, had to do it. If I had looked for my brother when I returned..."

Luna stepped closer, lifting a hoof to comfort Twilight but Twilight ignored the gesture, continuing with her trotting rant.

"...I-I thought that because the Storm King was violent and selfish, that I would have to be too, to beat him." She closed her eyes. "I-I started to hate my own kind, Luna, the ponies I was supposed to be protecting. And when I finally had the power, I was looking for...I abused it."

"Twilight, I have visited you each night since you rescued me from stone..." Luna said. "I have seen your dreams, I have walked in your nightmares...believe me, you made a mistake. But you did not kill your brother."

Twilight's shoulders slumped and she sat down, her ruffled wings hanging limply to her sides. "It doesn't matter anymore, Luna. It's not about me, it's about them. None of my friends will ever be able to trust me again...we won't be able to use the Elements of Harmony. I'll never be able to adventure with Cadence or babysit my niece...I-I can never look my father in the face again. N-nothing I can do will fix what I let happen. I can't keep pretending to be something I'm not, Luna...I'm not...strong. I'm not like you and Celestia. I'm just...a-a..."

"STOP!"

Twilight lifted her face and watched as Starlight appeared in a flash, the invisibility spell dissolving around her form. No sooner had they made eye contact than Starlight had rushed up to her, wrapping her hooves around Twilight's neck and holding her close.

"Please, Twilight...please don't say things like that." Starlight said, her eyes shut tightly. "I know you are hurting, and I just-I just want you to get better...but...you are wrong. You are not weak. You are stronger than you know. Please...you did everything you could to help others...it's not your fault." She tightened her grip around Twilight's neck. "You...you don't have to be princess anymore if you don't want to...but please...don't...don't give up on yourself. Don't give up on your friends...please, Twilight, I-I...I hurt my family, I brainwashed ponies for years. I ruined lives because I was afraid...but you still cared about me...please, please...let us care about you."

As she spoke, her horn flared and magic wove around the two of them, holographs of memories appearing around and above them. Memories of telling Spike to save the Crystal Heart. Of giving the alicorn magic to Tirek to save her friends. Of returning to the Everfree Forest to restore the Tree of Harmony. And of Twilight standing on a cloud, extending a hoof toward Starlight.

Twilight just stared at the swirling images, blinking fresh tears from her already sore eyes, as Starlight clung to her.

Luna smiled slightly and trotted over to them. "Starlight is right...I will not prevent you from abdicating the throne, Twilight. But neither will I be party to stealing from you that which you have earned...your wings are as much a part of you as your horn." She lowered herself slightly, so that she and Twilight were at last on the same level, not one looking up or down at the other. "And just as your friendship saved Starlight, so too did it save me once...we two will be here to comfort you and support you regardless of what comes...because we have also made mistakes. And you taught us that we were not defined by them."

Twilight stared at Luna and then down at Starlight. Unable to force words to come, she wrapped her hooves around Starlight's head and closed her eyes, allowing the brief moment of comfort to banish the unshakable pain which had lodged in her chest.

Luna leaned close to them both, nuzzling Twilight's mane and looking up only once to give a heart-felt smile at the invisible Celestia watching the encounter.

The only way out was forward. The only way to set things right was to take responsibility for them. When a week had passed and the grief had become almost bearable, she set out, with Starlight at her side, a constant reminder that she was capable of good.

There were apologies to make.

"I submit myself to your authority, Queen Novo." Twilight said, the bubble spell around her head wavering as she bowed. "I violated the sanctity of your laws and insulted the wisdom of your council. Although my intentions were noble, my methods did a disservice to my subjects. I only hope that regardless of the punishment inflicted on me, our two nations can be allies once more."

The platoon of soldiers who had their spears trained on Twilight and her companion watched as she levitated the Pearl of Transformation out of her satchel and moved it through the water and into the fins of the queen. All the while, Twilight kept her eyes downwards in adjuration. Starlight though, watched Novo consider the Pearl, her fins seeming to connect somehow to the power within and her eyes glowing brightly with the light of revelation.

When she'd finished, she glared down at Twilight's supplicated form and opened her mouth to proclaim judgement.

"Stop! Mother, I-I object..."

Novo snapped her gaze toward Princess Skystar, who had risen from her coral seat and swam between her mother and Twilight. "The princess...she did nothing wrong!" She proclaimed.

"Daughter, now is not the time..." Novo warned.

"No! This is wrong!" Skystar said, pushing past the guards who surrounded Twilight and Starlight and putting a fin tentatively to the top of Twilight's head. "Twilight and her friends came to us...for help. And we turned them away, because we were afraid..."

"That is enough, Skystar!"

"I'm not done talking!" Skystar said, her own voice taking on the tone of imperialness with which her mother-maintained court. "...I'm not done...so if you could just let me finish, I would very much appreciate it, mother." She took a deep breath. "They came because their home had been invaded, like ours...if we'd gone to the ponies when the Storm King attacked...they would have done all they could to save us. But we...allowed the fear of what the Storm King might do to prevent us...from being kind."

She swallowed as the members of the court exchanged looks, half-guilty and half-enraged by the impropriety of her speech.

"A-and then...when Twilight stole the Pearl to help protect her home...we locked up her friends, even though they were telling the truth, that they had no knowledge of her plan. We locked up innocent creatures, who came here seeking aid...what kind of nobility is there in that? What kind of justice?"

Her mother's warning glare deepened, but Skystar continued.

"A-and now...now that Twilight has done what she said and used the Pearl to defeat the Storm King...we are able to return to the skies." There was another mumble of disagreement throughout the crowd, although this time with less anger. "Because of Twilight...if we had trusted her from the beginning...if we hadn't been afraid, we could have rid the world of our greatest enemy and reclaimed our home...instead, we...we imprisoned innocent creatures and allowed another creature to bear the brunt of battle." Skystar took another deep breath. "I-I don't want to rule over a kingdom, where we punish creatures for caring for each other...or one where we imprison the creature who has liberated us from decades of isolation."

There was an uproar from the crowd. No one wished to speak up against the queen, not when their race lay trapped beneath the waves. But the thought of returning to the air above had come with it a sense of invigoration. And the prosecution of the ponies who had released them from their exile threatened to spoil the celebration.

Queen Novo did not once glance at the various nobles and dignitaries who were now cheering her daughter on. Her eyes remained fixed on Skystar's expression.

Then she took a long, deep breath.

"Very well...count yourself lucky, Princess Twilight, that you have creatures like my daughter who will make such an impassioned plea for you."

Twilight lifted her face and looked up at Skystar, who was still focused on her mother.

"Since you have indeed made the skies safe for our return...I will not impose a punishment as a sentence, but rather a compromise. When you return to the surface, you will take my daughter with you...she has always desired to explore the world beyond, and I will give you this chance to prove yourself and to foster friendship between our nations. Look after her and keep her safe...do you understand?"

Twilight looked up at Novo, whose eyes told her everything she needed to know about what would come for her if harm befell Skystar.

"I understand, your majesty." Twilight said, with a dip of her head.

There was a cheer which rose from the crowd, but Twilight kept her eyes on the sand. She would have been happier resigned to a cell, where she might wallow in her own contrition. But she also knew that she had apologies to make elsewhere and was glad she'd receive the opportunity to do so.

Princess Celestia paced the carpet of the throne room, chewing on her lip.

"I'm sure that no matter the queen's decision, Twilight will be fine." Luna said, stepping over to her.

"I should have taken the Pearl back myself." Celestia said.

"Oh, please..." Discord called, as he levitated just beneath the recently reconstructed roof as he sucked from a straw in a coconut. "I can't think of a bigger bunch of softies for Twilight to throw herself to the mercy of. What are they going to do, make her pick up seashells?"

Luna gave him a withering look, but her reprimand was pre-empted by the opening of the two grand halls and the entrance of Twilight, Starlight and Skystar.

"Wow! You were right! This place is so pretty!" Skystar said, as she launched up into the air and twirled. She paused when she saw Discord.

"Oh, you didn't tell me Princess Celestia had a pet, Twilight!" She said, excitedly examining Discord's horns and teeth.

"Excuse me, madam. But I am not a pet." Discord said, removing her talons from his face not unforcefully.

Luna giggled along with Starlight, while Celestia rushed over to Twilight.

"Are you alright? What did Queen Novo say?" Celestia asked, looking over Twilight as if she might have returned with a gaping wound.

"She wants me to introduce Princess Skystar to Equestria..." Twilight explained. Then she lowered her voice. "Princess, I have something I need to talk to you about..." Twilight said, glancing over at Skystar who was now pestering Discord with questions and Luna who was watching with a smile.

"What is it?" Celestia asked.

Twilight looked at Starlight who gave a nod of encouragement then she looked back at Celestia.

"When I'm done, journeying with Princess Skystar...I'd like to know if it would be alright if I left Equestria for a little while. I think it would help me learn more about friendship and about how to be a good princess. I want to know all I can, so that I will be ready if there is ever another invasion." She looked away. "And I also...I want to seek out creatures like the Hippogriffs, displaced by the Storm King's army...I want to help them. As the Princess of Friendship, I need to make allies with other nations, but I also need to be there, to spread the message of Harmony. I feel like the rest of the world doesn't know us...and I...I think, if they did, they'll be less likely to invade."

Celestia stared at Twilight for a moment and then glanced at Starlight. "And...this will make you happy?"

Twilight took a deep breath. "It's what is best for Equestria, that I become a better ambassador...and it's what's best for my friends, that they get a break from being around me. But...it's also what would make me happy."

Celestia nodded and hung her head. "I will miss you dearly, Twilight...but I believe your reasoning and trust your instincts. If this will allow you to better serve Equestria, I will do all I can to support you in it."

Twilight nodded. "Princess Celestia?"

"Yes, Twilight?"

"Starlight is going to stay behind and fill in for me...if there's any magical crisis. But I will be bringing Spike with me...he will be able to send word if either of us are in trouble. And Princess?"

"Yes, Twilight?"

"I heard from...some of my friends...that my mother said some...hurtful things to you."

Celestia's breath hitched.

"I just want you to know, that I don't blame you for what happened to my brother and that I am glad you were my mentor."

Celestia nodded slowly. "Of course, Twilight...I'm glad you were my pupil and I'm sorry if...if I never trusted you with the truth, of how dangerous the world beyond ours is."

"I know, you were trying to protect me." Twilight answered.

Celestia winced. "That...does not make it acceptable."

Twilight leaned forward and wrapped her hooves around Celestia's front leg. "It's okay...some things you have to see for yourself."

Journeying around Equestria with Skystar gave Twilight an opportunity to re-visit many old friends, including those she had not seen since the invasion. Each time, she apologized for how she had treated them and each time she reassured them, that they were under no obligations to forgive her.

She sensed the most hesitance from Rainbow Dash, who out of everypony, seemed the most injured by Twilight's betrayal. Twilight wanted to hug her, to say something to her which would make her feel better and reassure her that everything was alright.

But she knew better. You could not force others to be what you wanted them to be, no more than you could force yourself.

So, she left on a high note, watching Skystar doing aerobatics alongside the Wonderbolts.

When the trip was over and Skystar asked if she could continue with Twilight's journeys beyond Equestria and become something of an ambassador for the Hippogriffs, Twilight just smiled. She had sensed in Skystar the fear that if she returned to Mount Aris, there would be an old loneliness waiting for her. So, she nodded and said of course.

Her parents had left Canterlot in the past few weeks, moving into the Crystal empire to help Cadence look after Flurry Heart. It was scarier than anything she'd yet faced, returning to that place to reveal to them her plan and to ask Spike, if he would be willing to leave the kingdom where he was all but worshipped to journey the world with her. Still, one look at Starlight told her that she had to do it.

Her parents rushed to her as soon as she arrived, wrapping her in their hooves and telling her how glad they were to see her again. She knew then that they were just happy she was alive and able to smile again and that come what may, she would have a place here, if the world beyond proved too much for her treacherous mind.

The reunion with Cadence was a less joyous occasion. Cadence was exhausted, but warm nonetheless and Twilight waited until they could be alone to do what she needed to. She had only gotten a few words into the apology she had mentally rehearsed a thousand times, before Cadence had held her close and told her that she had nothing to apologize for, and that she had in fact never blamed Twilight for what happened to Shining Armor.

It turned out that Cadence had been having about as rough a time as Twilight had, since the funeral and that her sadness had only been deepened by Twilight's avoidance of her. For that, she did allow Twilight to apologize to her and Twilight agreed to send her letters during her trip, along with souvenirs which might entertain Flurry.

Cadence made her promise to return a year's time though, so that the two might again heal one another of the wounds they had allowed to fester for too long. And Twilight couldn't help but to agree.

It was the first night away from Equestria and they were on an airship this time, commissioned by Celestia herself for Twilight's diplomatic mission. The parrot pirates who Rainbow had inspired had survived the crash, having been found on the shores of Mount Aris by the once again airborne hippogriffs. Twilight had paid them handsomely to pilot the ship for her, on the sole condition that they neglect from attempting to steal anything during the upcoming travels.

Now, she sat in her quarters, listening Skystar and Spike singing a shanty with Captain Celano's crew, as they drifted over the Frozen North. Slowly, she lifted the gift which Starlight had given her during the christening of the ship from her bag and unwrapped it.

It was a simple black book, with a strange title, one of the few books she'd never read about in her literary history classes at the School for Gifted Unicorns. Inside the book was a piece of parchment written in a familiar and impossibly messy hoofwriting. Eventually, though, she began to decipher the contents of the letter.

Dear Twilight,

Your student and friend, Starlight, asked me to write this, so that you might have a better account of the truth behind the Staff of Sarcanas and my friendship with Scorpan the Gargoyle. She believed it would be important for your journey as a student of friendship.

Long ago, when the world was far more infected with the evils of Tartarus than it is now, two creatures ventured into Equestria. Raised in distant lands, where strength was valued over kinship, they were at first viewed as suspicious outsiders. However, when they turned their expertise on the battlefield toward ridding our kingdom of the monstrosities which plagued it, they came to be viewed as heroes.

Celestia and Luna's father still did not trust them, however, having been at war with their parents for centuries. As a result, he had me spy upon them through a magical means. I watched as they earned the respect and friendship of ponies across our land. And I saw when they recovered the Staff of Sarcanas, an artifact from a conflict even older than I am. It was actually the staff which I and the other Pillars used to plant the seeds which would turn into the Tree of Harmony. But I am getting ahead of myself.

On seeing that the Staff might allow him to seize the magic of the Alicorns, Tirek suggested that his brother use it to overthrow the current regime and seize control of all of Equestria. I saw in Scorpan great uncertainty about this plan, and it was revealed to me that he and his brother had been exiled from their own kingdom, sent away until they could prove to their capability to their parents.

Now, the two may have entered Equestria with plans to destroy our nobility and take it for themselves, but Scorpan had come to enjoy being viewed as a hero. He had come to prefer our gentle ways to the harshness of his homeland and had no desire to return to it nor to prove himself to his family.

Had I reached out then to him and to Tirek, perhaps I could have prevented what happened next. But I was young, and I was distrustful of outsiders, especially ones as monstrous of countenance. So, I did my duty, and I warned my king and queen of Tirek's plot. It was the right thing to do, or so I thought, the utilitarian choice to rescue my people from untold evil.

But it resulted in a battle. A battle where Celestia and Luna lost their father and where Scorpan was forced to turn on his own brother and to help me seal Tirek in the depths of Tartarus. The ponies of Equestria blamed Scorpan for the death of their king and desired to have him executed for his 'crimes'. Instead, against my counsel, the queen banished him. Now exiled from both his new home as well as his old, Scorpan resolved to travel lands unmapped and to protect the Staff of Sarcanas from those who would do evil with its power.

I left the queen's employ at that point and agreed to accompany him. We had many great adventures together before I had to return to Equestria to better protect it and Scorpan allowed me to bring with me a piece of the staff, one which would be used in the creation of the Tree of Harmony. But I know that I have never forgiven myself for allowing fear to cloud my judgement.

I do not know how the staff fell into the hands of the Storm King, although I suspect it may have been stolen by the Griffon King (that greedy imbecile) and later lost with all his riches. Neither can I propose to know what became of Scorpan, although given his brother's longevity, I would not be surprised if you find him on your journey.

Most of all, I do not know why Celestia and Luna believed it was they who sealed Tirek in Tartarus. I believe their mother may have cast some kind of curse on them, some powerful magic to make them forget the tragedy of losing their father. I hope to develop a counter-spell which may unravel its grip on them, but I know that should I pass before I can finish my work, you will be able to do what I cannot.

Good luck on your travels, Twilight, and if you find Scorpan, please wish him my best regards.
~ Starswirl, the Bearded

Twilight lay the note down and allowed the breeze coming in from her window to ruffle her feathers and cool her mane. Then she closed her eyes and took a deep sigh. She wondered if Starlight had read the letter or only delivered it as requested. Within the book she had given to Twilight, there were no doubt untold secrets, many of them similarly tragic and rich with the sorrow of being. But there would be tomorrow to analyze its pages and learn more of the world which Starswirl and his friends had, without understanding the significance of their actions, cured.

For tonight, she walked out on the deck and listened to the jaunty, slightly off-key singing coming up from the deck below. For tonight, she lifted her wings to better enjoy the crispness of the air and watched as the Northern Lights blazed across the sky.

For tonight she listened to the creak of the floorboards beneath her feet, as the Shining Armor drifted over glittering glacial landscapes and despite the cold, she felt warm.

Author's Note

If you couldn't tell, I'm not a biiiiiiiig fan of Queen Novo. I am, however, a big fan of Luna being there for her sister and Twilight when they need her most.

This story shares a lot of themes with my other one, "The Last Light of the Evening Star", regarding Twilight's anxieties and Celestia's teaching methods, so if you would like to read another crushingly depressing Twilight-centered story, by all means go and check that one out.

~~This story was heavy, even for me, so I promise my next one will be a lot more lighthearted by comparison~~ I was lying. I may, however, eventually follow this up with a prequel of some sort about Starswirl and Scorpan's adventures in ye olden times. Hopefully, none of you minded the retcon too much! Have a great day and leave a comment if you have any suggestions, as I am always open to feedback.