To Chase The Shadows of Redemption

They climbed the mountainous terrain with dispersed trees along the main path that ponies used to use in the past to enter the Griffin Kingdom during more peaceful times. It was far too narrow, so they had been unable to move in formation like they had most of the journey. Instead, they filed about 10 ponies wide and created a massive line of ponies as they traversed the path that would soon turn to more flat like ground as they got deeper into griffon territory.

Most ponies had been paranoid due to the tight quarters and unpredictability of being surrounded by so many blind spots in the trees. They stayed on edge, ready for anything to jump out at them.

Once again, Celestia led the way. Each step was measured with purpose and all the weight of the world behind it. As though she would die if she took even a single step backwards.

They had yet to encounter any griffins, and it had been only a matter of time until they did. They would not allow them to just up and make their way all the way to the capital.

What they might've been doing, in fact, was realizing that dealing with Celestia wasn't something you could just rush. She had no doubt they were frantically calling it out to leadership and trying to establish some sort of plan.

She felt that it was partially a mistake on their part, as the current situation made it painfully difficult for her to fight properly if she had to defend her ponies, the cramped positioning preventing her from using much of her power lest she accidentally hurt her ponies. Perhaps they were just too cowardly to go on a suicide mission like that, even if it meant dealing a larger blow to the ponies. There was no way they had enough forces to win here at this time, even if they had the advantage.

That did raise her spirits as well, for the land would even out and open up. Out in the open she could easily tackle anything they threw at them.

They would have to camp in enemy territory tonight, but theoretically could reach the capital in a few days if they moved nonstop and unimpeded. She really doubted that would happen.

In the bushes that accompanied the trees, Celestia heard some slight ruffling. Instantly, she was on guard, and made to stop, which would cause everypony behind her to as well. As she focused on spotting anything that could be an enemy, she found nothing.

Just as she made to breathe a sigh of relief and continue forward, her vision snapped with focus on something sticking out. A crossbo—

"ENEMY ATTACK! DEFEND YOURSELVES!" screamed Celestia, and without hesitation a veritable swarm of bolts fired out from every nook and cranny that had remained subtly still until now.

Thinking quickly, she threw up massive shields down the line stretching hundreds of metres on both sides of her forces to block the bolts, but roughly half of them had already gone past that point - so they continued unhindered to the vulnerable ponies within. Several of them had been directed at her, but she sidestepped them with ancient instincts and then took to flight. The sheer magnitude of the spell had costed her speed that would've caught more of the bolts before they could get through.

Knowing that there was no way they would fire again so soon she released it. The unicorn squads should be aware by now, and providing some level of shielding for what more was to come. She had to focus on eliminating the threat as soon as possible.

Unbeknownst to Celestia, she harnessed something they already had in the war - flame. Drawing an aspect of her inner nature forward and channelling it into her horn, she called for an inferno of fire to stretch across the sides of the path to eliminate all of the cover immediately. It would roast the birds if she was lucky. Instead of staying in there, they charged the ponies from all sides.

Next, before Celestia could join in on the fighting, something absolutely ridiculous happened. A giant boulder-yes a giant boulder, came rolling down from the top of the mountain straight for all of them. How in Tartarus had they managed that?! There was no time to think about it.

Celestia knew that simply splitting the thing wasn't a guarantee to slow down its momentum and potential parts still hitting their group. She thought about putting up a shield to block it entirely as well, but the weight of the impact would mean that it would seriously screw her up for a while, because maintaining a shield against onslaught meant a large burden on the brain and subsequently horn usage if you refused to allow it to shatter when it became too much. Her mind raced in acceleration at the milliseconds of decision time she had. Blowing it up wasn't an option, shrapnel. Melting it wasn't, either, for that would take too long. Could she redirect it? Impossible. She could dig up the grou—

Her mind snapped as it realized it was out of time, and she made the instantaneous decision to risk a shield. It lead to the least amount of damage for her ponies, after all.

Throwing up another massive shield in front of it, she quite literally braced for impact.

And what an impact it was seconds later! How many tonnes in weight had that been?! It must've been hundreds. The force of it slamming with all that weight and speed against the shield created an ear splitting roar and cacophony of sound, but Celestia didn't hear it. She was too busy. Her entire body had locked up, every muscle in fact, and her face contorted from the pressure. She opened her eyes, and she was sure they were probably bloodshot. The headache was slamming but she knew it wouldn't last forever.

Looking at the results was astonishing, a massive pile of stone broken apart and laying there without moving. She released the shield and it shifted but didn't continue its destructive slide. She celebrated the small victory as much as she could while feeling so sick.

As she turned to check on all of her ponies, a griffin whose greed knew no bounds went for the throat of Princess Celestia herself. Once again sidestepping, slower than she normally would've, the griffin was caught swiping and missing her after image - but only barely. There was a pause in time where he saw her face, months of built determination behind it, but it was only for a moment longer before time resumed, and a hoof reinforced with an abnormal amount of earth pony magic slammed into his side and sent him to crash into an open spot in the glade of which he became a splattered mess from the sheer force and impact of the landing.

She took a moment to recuperate after the nonstop reaction she was forced into, and then began to fight her way back to clear the rest of the griffins behind her that her ponies were struggling with.

Maverick sat at his place anxiously awaiting the ponies he had invited over.

Things were escalating too quickly for him to handle, and he had been sweating without realizing it.

One time this had come up before, and he had shrugged it off. Which made sense at the time. Now he had found another, and it was uncanny how unbreakable the horrible hunch was.

At last, he heard a knock on his apartment door. He reached towards it and opened it a little more quickly than one would think is normal.

Standing there was Straight Side, looking unamused. He couldn't believe it, he really had come. Having one of the longest tenured and respected ministers answer his call briefly blew his mind.

"Well? This had better be important like you said it was."

He recovered quickly, his life had required it from him far too many times. "Of course it is! But first please come in! The others are still on their way, they should be here soon."

Both of them had been overburdened lately, so he knew that if something went wrong in this little meeting, all of this was likely done here and now, even if there was any semblance of truth to this trail of conspiracy.

Straight Side slowly took a seat in the living room, on the side of one of the couches. Maverick stayed standing, ready for the next visitor.

"I promise you, if what I heard so far is true, then this will be of utmost important what we discuss tonight. I have have found evidence recently that proves too concerning."

The next knock was already banging away as he finished, and soon he was getting a party settled into this little soiree.

Jotted Page sat in his spot uncomfortably as every pony in the room stared at him.

"You... you really promise to tell no-one about this? Not even Celestia once she gets back? The only reason I'm here is because she's away you know."

"Listen... Jotted. Stop worrying about us ratting you out so much and calm down. If what you claimed to my source really is true, that is the least of all of our worries," said Maverick. "Now please, just tell everypony here everything you saw slowly and clearly. We're all patient and here to listen." He gave Jotted a comforting smile, but it didn't really do much for him.

Still, he had told this once before and enough time had gone by without his hide being torn a new one, so that he had started to feel a little safe now.

"Alright, listen. Listen... I'm an idiot okay? All this time I've played paparazzi and tried to find the wackiest of spicy drama behind the scenes to sell to local news. It was exciting, and it lit my blood on fire." He swallowed. "But I know now that I have always been playing around with something that is far more serious than I ever wanted to encounter."

All of the ponies continued to look at him expectantly.

"I... I had this stupid idea. Celestia had been acting a little differently lately in my opinion, and I was doing anything and everything I could to try and figure out what it was. More than a month ago, I did the stupidest and riskiest maneuver of my life. I managed to figure out where the princess was meeting with the Griffin Emperor by overhearing some loose-lipped guards while doing my thing. I went there hours before the meeting had actually happened, during the point of which the ponies setting it all up and slowly started to leave to allow the princess to be alone with her guest. I hid myself there all night, and it was close enough to almost hear what they discussed that night, but not quite for most of it.

"Listen... I don't know what the hell went wrong, but that meeting was nothing like the public thinks. There was no assassination, nothing even remotely like that. Things got heated between the Emperor and Celestia, and it ended with Celestia turning on all of them and killing them when the Emperor seemingly denied whatever it was she wanted. I still can't shake the sounds and screams of their end from my mind. The brutality. How she became something completely unknown and terrifying in the blink of an eye. It haunts me. I had thought I was going to die too, and I still can't believe she didn't discover me. I had even waited there for hours and hours after she left, terrified of her lurking predatory gaze finding me and finishing me like the rest of them."

The stunned silence in the room felt different now.

"That is some story—"

"Please! You have to believe me!" He practically leapt to the ground and lowered his head in prostration. "I swear on my life! My mother! Anything! Even Celest—" he stopped right there, realizing how ridiculous that sounded after the fact of his previous words.

"I promise you all... I would never say any of this lightly. I'm not crazy and I'm just hitting my limits of stress, that's all. It's true, all of it."

After his thoughts turned incoherent near the end, he chose to say nothing after.

"That's certainly damning if it's true, Mr. Jotted... but don't take this the wrong way but not a single one of us is going to seriously suspect our princess after just this. We know you think you're telling the truth, but you have to understand..."

It was Misty Buttercup, another one of the ministers who had agreed to come tonight. There had been four of them not including Maverick who had invited him.

"Yeah. I'm going to have to agree with Misty here. Maverick, we know you have more than this, right? It does hurt my heart to even suspect such a story could be true, but all of us saw how genuine our fine Jotted Page is. So please, if you have anything to still show us, go for it."

"She'll be here any minute now, in fact."

"What?"

"She wasn't able to come earlier, but she said around eight thirty she could. That's in only five minutes now, so please relax a little while we wait and reflect on what you just heard."

Maverick didn't fully know what he had wanted out of this meeting he realized, but something deep inside had compelled him to do it anyway. She was a little late, and seeing the impatient ponies wanting to get this over with around him put pressure on him that they probably didn't realize existed.

Breaking his looming dread of a no-show, the knock finally came. He jumped out of his spot which he had sank into, a wooden chair of which he had chosen so his guests could enjoy the comforts of his home.

"I just want you to know the only reason I'm here is because I'm pissed."

Faithful Promise stood before him, a young filly at her hooves.

"After everything I've been through with her, now she decides to stop meeting with me like she used to, and then I find out that the expansion we were getting was basically cancelled, after she promised me! I'm at my wits end!"

"Errr.. ehehe. Totally! I apologize on behalf again for our council that things ended up that way again, Faithful. Thank you for bringing her here, like I requested."

The young filly had a look of curiosity at him. Faithful guided her in, and then sat down further in the back and away from the majority of them. Guess she really was ticked off.

Before the filly could be overwhelmed by being the point of interest for so many adult ponies, Maverick stood directly in front of her vision to shield her from it as he spoke to her.

"Now listen, Hazel was it? Nice to meet you, I'm Maverick, and these are my friends," he gave her a silly smile and closed his eyes, and then pointed to most of them, "we just want to hear a little bit about this 'blue alicorn' you've been telling your friends about. And anything else you happen to remember about where you used to live."

Despite his efforts, she turned a little shy. "Ermmm... hi. Hey! Can I call you Mav!"

"Of course you can!" his forced enthusiasm was funny to those behind him. "Listen, if it makes you comfortable, I can sit with you while you talk. Would you like that?"

"Sure!"

He gave the two ponies on his main couch a look, and one of them left for the chair he had left vacant to make space. Lifting up Hazel, he carried her to sit right beside him as he supported her softly by rubbing her back slowly with his hoof.

"Now, tell us a little about this blue pony with wings and a horn."

"She was just simply amazing! Her body glow like a candle, and she floated in some magical bath. I've never seen a mare so pretty. She looked just like the white one that was with me, except prettier."

"White one? She must mean Celestia," Straight Side said quietly to the others, quiet enough to not interrupt the filly.

"Where did you see this beautiful pony, Hazel?"

"That's easy! Riftly! My old..." she stopped and looked like she remembered something that really bothered her, and progressed to be on the verge of tears. "My old home. I miss... Mommy... Daddy..." she started to cry, and Faithful Rushed over to soothe and coo her out of it while Maverick got out of the way. Basically cradling her.

"I didn't know you'd upset her! Please, I have enough comforting to do back home. Please, don't bring up bad memories like that."

"Ma'am, we apologize, let us just check one more thing quickly."

He approached Hazel who was being held and showed her a picture of Celestia.

"Is this the one who was with you, my dear Hazel?"

"Yeah! She looked exactly like that? Why...?"

"No reason at all. Have a lovely night Hazel, and you as well for that matter Faithful. Thank you. You don't know how much this means to us."

Faithful basically rushed out of the place after that, obviously keen to not fall behind and get back to her never ending job as a substitute mother for far too many, including the one who now followed her home.

"I think you all are starting to get an idea of why I'm so suspicious."

Looking around, most of them looked moved, even if just a little.

"Also, I just came to the conclusion right now, but I'm going to start sending a portion of my pay-cheque to finish that damn expansion we had delayed. It just feels wrong, living like this while ponies struggle. I'm not exactly hurting for bits after all, and I can save up some to hire the ponies do it later myself. It's right up my alley. I would've done it anyway, just much later in time."

To his surprise, everypony in the room had apparently taken that as a reason to be guilty. They offered to contribute as well, even Jotted. In truth he felt guilty himself for accidentally pressuring them by saying it like that. Usually he was better at not speaking mindlessly like that.

"Really... you don't have to."

But they insisted, and so it seemed that they would quickly build up enough capital to get it done if it was so many of them. It would be the most fantastic surprise. He could already see it.

But there was more pressing concerns to return to.

"You all heard it. Celestia was at Riftly. That little filly would never lie about that kind of thing, and I directly confirmed it when I showed her the picture. You don't just mistake an alicorn. Sure, it'd be questionable normally, but we all heard what Jotted had to say. I also talked to Faithful earlier, and she had indeed confirmed the mysterious origins of the filly in the first place."

"Okay, but what are you saying? What can we even do about this?"

"I don't know. Keep looking? We can't just ignore this." He paused, giving it serious thought. "We need to stay connected, I don't think this is a hunch anymore, let me know if any of you find anything, anything at all."

"For once, I fully agree with you, Maverick," said Eclectic Watch, who had been surprisingly absent in the conversation so far to give the stage to other ponies so far.

"Yeah... tonight hasn't been fun to say the least. I wish I hadn't heard all of this. Don't look at me like that, I was joking. But I agree, this is concerning. I'll keep my eye out," finished Honey Ivory who was the other unspoken minister he had convinced to attend tonight.

"I don't know when or how or if we meet again like this, but lets stay in touch. Who knows where this all leads."

One-by-one they all left, and he gave them his good nights as they crossed the doorway and out.

He really hadn't been going crazy after all, other ponies saw something in this just like he did. What could he possibly find out next? It wasn't like Celestia was around, so he could certainly do some digging.

He went to bed that night tortured by incessant thoughts.