Where Loyalties Lie: Ghosts of the Past

by LoyalLiar

Rating: teen
Tags: Original Character, Adventure, Shining Armor, Twilight Sparkle, My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, Dark, Rainbow Dash, Romance, Princess Luna
Length: 320201

With Equestria facing a war on three fronts, Princess Luna, Rainbow Dash, and Shining Armor must join forces to unearth a secret buried years in the past before it's too late.

After risking her own life in a daring adventure across the world to save Princess Luna, Rainbow Dash wants nothing more than for her life to return to normal. In her mind, what happened is in the past, and she wants nothing more to do with it. But a past abandoned is doomed to be repeated, and with an ancient threat rising beneath the snows, Rainbow may be the only mare who can truly save Equestria.

A Price of Loyalty story.
No longer canon to the 'PoL' universe; see author's note on chapter 1.

Published 2012-12-17 06:30:01 UTC
Last updated 2016-01-01 01:18:14 UTC

II - The Lies We Tell Our Friends

II

The Lies We Tell Our Friends

"Are you certain you wish to do this, Captain Ink?"

The stallion nodded with a cocky grin. "Afraid I can't defeat a crippled unicorn, Princess? Haven't you heard about what happened when Frostbite tried to fight me?"

"That isn't what I mean." Celestia's gaze showed obvious concern. "You're hesitating."

"I never hesitate."

"Red Ink, I have been around ponies longer than you can possibly imagine. Your wings alone could tell me something is wrong."

Ink sighed and shook his head. "I... I just don't see the point, honestly. What difference does it make if the body is under the headstone or not?"

Celestia's brow rose. "What corpse?"

The pegasus took a moment to consider his answer. "My little brother, Polnoch. She killed him five years ago, and we never found his body. Father wants me to ask her, and I'll do it for his sake. But for my part, there's only one thing left before Polnoch can rest easy, and it isn't his body. I won't take long, and I won't hurt her unless she tries something."

"Can I trust that? How do I know you won't react to her as you did with Soldier On?

"Because if you didn't trust me to control myself, I wouldn't be captain of the Honor Guard."

Celestia considered for a moment, and then nodded in acquiescence. "I will return for you in thirty minutes. Be waiting for me here again. The door does not open from within."

"Right."

Celestia's horn opened the door to the enormous cavern that served as Canterlot's deepest dungeon. Red Ink descended, and the heavy door shut firmly behind him.

"What's wrong, Rainbow? You look like you've seen a ghost." The stallion brushed his clearly broken wing past Twilight as he strode into the technically public library and toward the mare who had briefly been his partner. He looked almost identical to the way she had last seen him, from the shards of broken glass in his blood-crusted empty eye socket to the cuts, burns, and mud stains that decorated his safari shirt and the sheath of his machete. In fact, the only changes she could note beneath the thin layer of grime and salt covering his body were a lack of the wrinkles and graying hairs that had previously dominated his coat and mane. Instead, he was a much more lively forest green, and his head was topped by an almost wooden brown mane.

"Wait, Rainbow, is this–" Twilight began, only to be cut off.

"Dead Reckoning," the pony answered for himself, before Rainbow could recover from her shock. "Or 'Deadeye'. Or 'Reckoning'. Just–"

"–not Dead," Rainbow managed to finish perfectly in sync with the formerly sixty-something year old stallion. "But I saw you die!"

"Actually, if I remember correctly, you saw me fall off a cliff. When the hay does that ever mean somepony died? I figured you'd have at least learned that from all those Daring Do books you kept telling me about." Reckoning shook his head with an almost derisive humor , and then turned back toward the door. "Come take a walk with me, Dash. With respect, Ms. Sparkle, we do have some private things to–"

"Hold on!" Rainbow shouted, grabbing the attention of both other ponies, the baby dragon, the tiny phoenix, and the formerly sleeping owl who filled the room. "Reckoning, I want answers, and Twilight should hear them too. Did the princess do this? Why are you here? How are you here?"

Although Rainbow could not see the motion, Reckoning rolled his remaining eye. Then he turned, and without asking grabbed one of the cushions Twilight kept as seats spread around the main reading room. "Okay, Rainbow, there's no need to get your mane in a knot. I'm here because of the princess, but she didn't do anything to me. I'm actually on my way to Canterlot to report back in, but it didn't sit right with me leaving you in the dark. If you don't want me here, I can be out on the first train to the capital."

"No, it's fine Mr. Reckoning," Twilight spoke up. "Given that we both attended your funeral service, and some other issues, it's surprising to see you here."

"Heh, 'Mister'. Please, Twilight–do you mind if I call you Twilight?–you make me sound like I'm seventy years old or something."

"Aren't you seventy-years old?" Rainbow asked.

"Sixty-eight. Well, maybe sixty-nine, now. Has it been Hearths' Warming yet?"

"It's January 20th, 1453 in the Age of the Sisters."

"You mean the Age of the Sun?"

"The Princess changed it three weeks ago," Twilight explained rather light heartedly. "I take it you missed your birthday?"

"Bah, who cares?" Reckoning shook his head. "Every year, Crack gets me a bottle of Blue Ribbon, and Marathon buys me a new glass eye. I guess I should probably go bother her for one of those soon, but…" He slowly realized that he was rambling and shook his head again. "Sorry. The point to all that was that I was almost seventy years old. As for how I got here, well…"

Never had Dead Reckoning had more clarity of thought than he did in the process of plummeting into the depths of Grivridge with a broken wing, unable to steady his fall. There was shouting coming from above him, no doubt originating from Rainbow Dash's lips, but he ignored it totally in favor of the pressing threat to his life. The mist that filled the enormous canyon soon swallowed him whole, and in the heavy fog he had no idea how long he had until a sickening landing ended both his fall and his life.

He threw out his still-functional wing, and discovered he could steer his fall, though even gliding to lose momentum was mostly beyond him. He pitched the wing up and down, experimenting with direction, until the ridge's sheer wall swung suddenly out of the mist and smashed his body against his now-crippled wing. Reckoning kicked away from the wall to spare himself the pain interrupting his thoughts as he struggled for an answer.

His bags were gone, and with them, any rope or cable that might catch on the wall to stop his fall. Only his torn and bloodied shirt and the sheath for his missing machete remained. Neither would do him much good.

He could feel the sweat of his stress flying off his brow even as it mixed with the droplets of mist congealing into water on his shoulders. He hated the discomfort of the damp more than anything, but it somehow seemed a fitting companion to his impending death.

Most ponies claim that when one is about to die, their life flashes before their eyes. Reckoning's needed more time. Without knowledge of when his life would pass, his mind conjured up his most valued memories, earliest first. They could have filled a story all their own, but they ended with a thought of Rainbow Dash's desperate face, reaching after him as he fell.

A sound like the cracking of bone issued from his chest. Had he hit the ground? Was that the end? His soul already left his body, but not quite yet to the Summer Lands? He curled his neck down, and found something very different. In his sorrow, a thin veil of ice had built up from the water building in his coat. He smiled, just a bit. The fight wasn't quite over yet.

Steering over with just his one wing was hard, but eventually his hooves found the ridge wall. The grinding of stone was painful, but it had to be done. Reckoning focused, and cried, and the tears froze alongside his hooves. It took all his mana, and stole away his memories and sensation. Darkness seized his eyes in a mix of pain and sheer fatigue. When he finally woke again, he did not know how long had passed. He only knew that he was still alive by the sheer excruciating pain racking his body. The ice had held him, stopping his fall and saving his life.

He knew he couldn't go back up; that way would only lead to his death at the hands of the griffons again, supposing he even managed to climb the sheer wall. Down was his only option, into the unexplored depths that were taboo to the griffon people. They would have called him a defiler of graves, but in their eyes he was already dead. That was his first advantage. The other had been given to him in his youth, more than sixty years prior, emblazoned on his flesh.

"That's it? That's the whole story?"

Reckoning shrugged a single shoulder dismissively. "Unless you want to hear about the three weeks it took me to find a path out of the ridge, and then the four months afterward trudging around in Zebrica trying to find a way back here. Dodging griffons and walking for days doesn't make for good entertainment compared to what I found down there."

"Wait, you mean the Fountain of Youth?" Rainbow's jaw dropped. "So you're actually alive? Really? And your Cutie Mark is really a map?"

"Well, what does it look like?" Reckoning's wacky grin was no less amusing on his youthful, thirty-something face than it had been when he was an old stallion. "I mean, apart from the fact that I probably look like crap?"

Rainbow smiled, unable to sustain her skepticism any longer, and then lunged forward and hugged him. "Oh man, Deadeye, I can't believe it!"

"Neither can I," Twilight added with considerably less optimism. "The princess would know if you were dead, wouldn't she? If she hadn't let you into the Summer Lands, why did she say you were dead and hold a funeral for you?"

Rainbow shot a very unhappy look in Twilight's direction. "She doesn't exactly have the best record telling the truth about who's dead, does she Twilight?

"Rainbow!" Twilight answered with an obvious distrust of her own. "Maybe you think I'm being unreasonable, but this is different!"

"It's not different at all! I–"

"Mares, please." Reckoning brushed off the threadbare breast of his shirt idly. "I'd forgotten how nice it is to be young again, and have mares fighting over me. But now really isn't the time. I still need to talk to you, Rainbow, and then I have to get back to Canterlot as quickly as possible. I don't have too much time as it is. Twilight, right now I'm asking you to trust that I don't want to hurt your friend. I'm not sure I could, anyway; I have a crippled wing and a missing eye, and she's the fastest pony in Equestria. I certainly won't keep her long."

Though her face still showed a healthy hesitation, Twilight nodded at his reasonable manner, and stepped out of the way. As Rainbow and the now surprisingly young stallion passed, she shot her friend a cautious glance that the pegasus either missed or ignored.

Outside, the snow had stopped in the sky, but it crunched with a healthy chill underhoof. With the passing of the storm and the coming of morning, foals and families were out building snow ponies and tossing snowballs. They danced amongst thatched roofs dusted with snow and crunched their way through white streets. Walking together, Rainbow and Reckoning blended right in, though the latter's notable scars drew a few curious glances.

"So your Cutie Mark is really a map to the Fountain of Youth?"

Reckoning chuckled a little as he nodded. "Yeah, I guess the griffons were right. Why do you care, though? You're only, what, twenty-six?"

"But it's so awesome! You're, like, stallion Daring Do!"

"Thanks, I think."

The scout held out a hoof to stop Rainbow's steady forward gait as he lowered himself to the ground. Clouds of steamed breath escaped his nostrils, and then were sucked back in again as he took in the scent of the air. His wing flared, and his neck moved toward his machete before hesitating. She recognized his combat stance, though it seemed out of place far from the jungles of Zebrica. His ears twitched, and directed themselves toward the semi-distant bakery that was Sugarcube Corner. A moment later, a pink blur overtook the stallion. He grabbed it around the waist, flipped it over, and suplexed it into the snow.

"Wow!" said Pinkie Pie. "Never thought that would happen again. Hi! I'm Pinkie Pie!"

Reckoning glared at her with his sole eye as Rainbow attempted to restrain him.

"Hold on, Reckoning! This is Ponyville! We're not in Zebrica! She isn't a griffon!"

"Well, duh, Dashie, I'm a pony!" Pinkie yelled, unaware of the danger she was facing.

Rainbow was terrified for her friend’s life up until the point that Reckoning broke out laughing and stepped off of Pinkie's prone form. "I'm fine, Dash. You can let go." With a sigh of relief, Rainbow let go of the stallion, and he in turn lifted Pinkie out of the snow. "Sorry about that. Old instincts die hard."

"You have old wrestler instincts? Cool!" Pinkie smiled, before a pensive look appeared on her face. "Oh, right, I almost forgot. I had a knee-twitch, ear-flop, tail-twist a few minutes ago, so I came looking." Her hoof shoot into her poofy mane, and returned with a rather well-made black eye patch. "This is for you. I keep them stored all around Ponyville, in case of eye patch emergencies. Now, you're new in town! What's your name?"

Rainbow, seeing an impending disaster, stepped in. "Pinkie Pie, this is my friend Dead Reckoning. Deadeye, this is Pinkie Pie."

Pinkie inflated with a shriek (a reality which would later wake Reckoning in a cold sweat), and then grabbed him in a tight hug. "You're Deadeye? Dashie said you died!"

"Yeah, well, I guess she was wrong. Listen, uh, Pinkie Pie… I'd really like to stay and chat, but I'm in a hurry. Maybe next time I come to Ponyville? For now, I need to talk to Rainbow privately."

"Oh, sure!" Pinkie answered. "I'll have to throw you a double party though, to make up for the wait!"

"Fine by me." Reckoning's voice carried an obvious hint of mental fatigue as he fastened the eye patch over his left eye socket. "Thanks for the eye patch, by the way."

"No problem." The mare ran off in pursuit of more fun, leaving the two alone again.

"Well, that was fast. Okay, Reckoning, you wanted to say something?"

"I'd like somewhere more private, honestly." Reckoning glanced around. "Know a restaurant or something?"

"Well, Sugarcube Corner has hot cocoa."

"Sounds great, if you're buying. Bits aren't much good in the jungle."

Rainbow laughed and nodded. "I can cover a cup."

When Celestia opened her enchanted door again at the appointed time, she had to dodge out of the way of a furious hoof. Red Ink rolled forward as the doors opened, landing with a heaving body and a desperate look.

"What is wrong?" Celestia demanded. "Are you well?" As she asked, her horn scanned the stallion for fell enchantments and illusions, but she found none upon him. "What happened?"

"She's gone."

"What do you mean 'she's gone'? She got out of the cell?"

"I searched the entire cavern," Ink answered. "I don't know how, but she escaped. You and I need to go, now."

Celestia was awestruck as Red Ink outright sprinted up the spiraling staircase, barking with a militant focus as he went. "I'll have Armor and Flag secure the castle. A large scale deployment will be best, and we can scan for her illusions on anypony who comes near you."

The princess, who was merely walking briskly at the benefit of her long slender legs, didn't hear him. Her thoughts were waking horrors and nightmares of a far different variety. "Luna…"

"Where is she, Princess?"

"I can't let this happen again."

"Where is Luna?" Ink shouted, shoving Celestia's chest with a hoof to gather her attention. For a moment, her hooves struggled to gain grip on the smooth stones of the stairway. The captain's face lost much of its intensity as she recovered with the help of her wings. "Forgive me, Princess, but if I intend to catch Masquerade, I'll need to know where she will be heading."

Celestia's concern evaporated from her face in an instant, replaced by the determination and focus of the ageless ruler. "Take Captain Armor, and catch the next train to Stalliongrad."

Thankfully too occupied to flash his usual anger at the Equiish name for his home that seemed to bother him so, Ink instead raised a different issue. "With respect, Princess–"

"Take him and go! Flag and Crack will serve to guard me for now, and I will be on guard myself. But I will not risk Luna's life again." Ink opened his mouth to protest, but Celestia cut him off. "Go!"

"…and Tia agreed that we could hold a new Great Masked Ball this year at the Grand Galloping Gala. Perhaps even in the future, if it serves to make the event less drab for her. I'm so excited! Oh, how terrible the thousand years that have passed since I had a chance to really dress up in such a manner. It shall be a most glorious night!"

The younger princess' rant to her diplomatic escort was cut off by a burst of purple sparks beside Luna's head, which congealed into a physical scroll. It plopped down on the floor of their private train cabin, at which point the Princess promptly opened it and began to read.

"Dragon fire?" Marathon asked.

"From Tia," Luna explained. "The flame itself belongs to Syn, the son of Lord Krenn. But it…" Luna's words dropped off as her eyes widened at the text. Then her voice rose to an almost deafening level. "Bodyguard! Come within!"

Mirror Image stepped inside almost immediately. "Yes, Princess?"

"Seal the portal, Officer. We must speak alone." Luna waited until the sliding door had clicked shut before continuing. "This letter came just moments ago from my sister. She warns that the assassin Masquerade has escaped her imprisonment. Even now, Shining Armor and Red Ink are in her pursuit, but we have reason to believe she is in turn pursuing my life yet again. As such, we must be on guard. Now, if you will, please show me your marks."

Marathon and Mirror Image shared a confused glance between one another before they both obliged, shifting to reveal their flanks. Marathon spoke up as she was studied. "Uh, what's this for, Princess?"

"The magic of illusions is potent, but there are some truths that it cannot hide if one knows how to look. The assassin can place images within our minds, but the shapes she wears over her own form cannot reshape her mark, or recreate another's. Thus, we study one another’s marks so that if she takes the form of one of you, we might detect her deception."

Marathon's mark was a winged scroll, while Mirror Image's depicted a pair of mirrors tilted to face one another. After being satisfied with both, Luna turned her flank toward her companions. "This is mine. Note that there are four spots separate from the main 'blot' as Sister is so fond of calling it." She shot a harsh glance toward the stallion near her backside. "And Officer Image… should you touch me, you shall find yourself very quickly outside this train."

Though he had made no motion toward her, Image never the less shied back just a bit. Luna and Marathon shared a chuckle at his expense before the Princess returned to her not-quite alicorn sized seat. "Now, we must focus. Given this turn, things will be most tense in Stalliongrad, and I should like very much not to have our concerns override my talks with Krenn."

"Uh, Princess…" Mirror Image expressed a rather obvious concern. "Shouldn't we at least consider canceling the meeting? The last thing we want is Masquerade running rampant in front of the dragons, right?"

"Whence hath your sense of valor fled, guardspony?" Luna teased. "Masquerade would be a fool to show herself in Lord Krenn's presence. His fire would scorch her to bones and dust before she could even react. No, though your concern is one of great validity, I have learned that one cannot allow fear to stop communication, lest dark events be made the result." Luna glanced out the window, where a scorching desert was flying by the car. "I will summon my Night Guard, though it will take them time to arrive. They, alongside Shining Armor and Red Ink should prove a most sufficient force for apprehending her yet again."

Marathon nodded with less than perfect faith. "I hope you're right, Princess."

"Of course we are!" Luna glanced out the window again for a moment, and then turned back to her companions. "Officer Image, in light of this concern, I shall permit you to pay us company, rather than standing outside the door to spare us the attention of admirers. Private Marathon was just telling us a most humorous story about her experience as a carnivore."

Marathon picked up where her story had left off, but she couldn't shake the feeling that Luna was somehow underestimating the risk she was charging blindly toward.

There is some strange but omnipresent quality in the mixture of company, chocolate, cream, and heat, which causes familiarity and comfort to congeal from nothing on a frosty day. Rainbow felt this delightful sensation as she stared into Reckoning's younger, eye-patched face, sipping from her piping hot mug of cocoa.

"So what's the big secret, Deadeye?"

He glanced toward Mr. Cake, who was occupied bundling together a box of cupcakes, before returning his attention to Rainbow. "Well, honestly, I just wanted to get Sparkle out of our manes so we could talk privately, but now I'm a bit concerned. What did you mean about the princess lying about ponies being dead?"

Rainbow sighed. "Well, you know how I flew down that tower in Canterlot to save Luna? Turns out that didn't work out so well for me."

"Wait, you mean you–"

"Died." Rainbow nodded, rubbing her face with her hooves as an expression of exhaustion. "The princess brought me back but she didn't think I needed to know anything about it. She didn't mention that I wouldn't be able to go back to the Summer Lands if I got killed in Zebrica, or that she wasn't delivering my letters to my friends. Hay, she even said she was going to send me back right away as soon as I was done saving Luna."

Reckoning was quiet for a very long time, permitting Rainbow to fully finish her drink as he pondered. "I'm sorry," was all he ultimately managed to say.

"Not your fault," Dash responded coldly, her demeanor unaffected by the warmth in her belly. "Just something I have to put up with now. Luna said she might be able to help, but–"

"Don't take that offer," Reckoning warned with a sudden steel in his voice. Rainbow shot him a queer look, and the guardspony deflated a bit. "Look, this isn't about me and the Honor Guard, or the way we feel about her. Just, please, trust me when I say that I know what she means, and that you don't want any part of it. On the other hoof, I'm glad you were able to heal her."

"Yeah." Rainbow nodded, letting the corner of her mouth curl up into a hint of a grin. "It was phage seeds the whole time, too."

"Phage seeds? What? That doesn't make any sense! They aren't poisonous."

"Not to us," Rainbow answered. "But it makes the princesses stop being, well, immortal. They get really old if they don't have their magic. It was sort of thanks to you that I realized it. I got the phage seeds out of your saddle-bags when I flew back. Actually, if you want those back, I've still got them."

"Nah, they were standard issue anyway. Nothing special." Reckoning shrugged. "Call 'em a memory. I take it you being around here means you really did quit the Honor Guard, though?"

"Yeah." Rainbow shrugged. "I mean, you're cool, but the life just isn't for me. Being away from my friends, nearly getting killed by crazy elk and griffons… I'd rather fly carefree, if you know what I mean. Work on my way toward the Wonderbolts." Rainbow shrugged to imply a thousand other thoughts she didn't care to voice.

"Well, it isn't my place to tell you what to do. All I can say is that you were a damn good Honor Guard while you were at it." Reckoning downed the last of his cocoa in a single gulp before rising from his seat. "Anyway, what I'm here for. I figured you deserved to know I wasn't dead. In fact, I'm better than ever. I guess either Fallaner's crazy stunt worked, or the fountain fixed me, but I haven't had one of my flashbacks in five months. I'm heading back to report in, and I need to catch the train to Canterlot in twenty minutes." He gestured to a clock hanging on the wall. "I should get going. Which way is the station?"

"I'll show you," Rainbow answered hopping to her own hooves.

"Thanks, Dash." Reckoning took a moment to adjust his machete before trudging out into the snow.

Their path continued most of the way through Ponyville, until a small and delightfully accented voice interrupted their path.

"Look, mum, dad! It's a real pirate!"

Rainbow and Reckoning both turned as the little pinto colt known as Pipsqueak came barreling through the snow toward the guardspony stallion before his parents could stop him. "Look at you, mister! Are you really a pirate?"

Rainbow was about to correct his mistake, but Reckoning was just a bit faster on the uptake. "Arr, ye be right for guessin' that, cabincolt. What be yer name?"

"I'm Pip!"

Reckoning smiled and knelt down to the look the small pony in the eye. His pirate 'accent' was almost painful to listen to, but it put a huge smile on the young pony's face. "Well, Pip, it be a pleasure makin' yer acquaintance. What's a salty sailor like you doin' in a land-lubbin' town like this?"

"I don't have a ship of my own," Pip answered with a disappointed tone.

"Arr, don' let that get ye' down, colt. Real pirates lose stuff all the time. Heck, I've lost me ship, me eye, and me captain all in one go. That last one's what I'm here so far from the salty seas for."

"You lost your eye? I thought pirates just used eye patches to see in the dark."

"Aye, some do, but not me." Reckoning peeled back his eye patch to reveal the crusty, glass-shard filled socket that lay beneath. "Lost mine to a sea serpent scallywag almost four years back, if me math is right." He let the eye patch drop down over his missing eye.

"Cool! Is your cutlass real too?"

Reckoning nodded, then drew his machete, tossed it in the air, and caught it again deftly in his mouth. "As real as the steel it be made of. Wanna give it a swing, lad?"

"Do I?"

At this point, the amusement on Pipsqueak's parents faces turned to horror. The little colt struggled to lift the blade that was set before him. The mare of the two spoke with a crisp and proper Trottingham accent. "I dare say, sir, I don't know who you are, but you can't let a colt his age run around with a real sword."

Dropping his 'pirate voice', Deadeye dropped his volume to a whisper and shook his head. "I don't intend to. The sword isn't cheap, and I do need it back. But a colt his age ought to know how to hold a knife. I had one about that big when I was his age."

"Drop it now, Pipsqueak!" his mother ordered. The pinto colt utterly ignored her, slashing black and forth with a blade that probably weighed nearly as much as he did. "What if he cuts himself?" the mare asked again to the 'pirate'.

"Then he probably won't make that mistake again when he gets older," Reckoning answered with just a touch of sarcasm. "If you're that worried, though…" He knelt down again in the snow, once more returning to his old voice. "Arr, lad, I think that's quite enough for today. I've got to catch me ride soon."

Pipsqueak spit out the oversized blade, which Reckoning deftly returned to its place at his side. "Say, what's with the funny bump in the handle?"

"Well, I'd be saying it lets ya talk while y'arrr holdin' it."

"Okay, cool! Well, Mr. Pirate, I'm gonna go find a boat."

"Smooth seas to ya!" Reckoning answered as the colt scampered off in the snow. Pipsqueak's parents offered the guardspony a quick, forced nod before following their son. Once more, the scout and Rainbow were left alone.

"Wow, Deadeye. Foals must love you."

"The zebras always said I was good with kids, but I never got on too well with my nephews and nieces. My brother invited me to a picnic, once, and I got jabbed in the side with a fork." Reckoning sighed. "Never got invited to another picnic. I am glad that colt didn't know too much about sailing. I've never been on a boat."

"Never?"

"Well, it's easy enough to just fly over the ocean." His shrug seemed odd when only one of his wings managed to heed his motion. "I'm not a great swimmer either, when all's said and done. Dry land and clear skies are fine for me."

Similar small-talk and hollow words pervaded their journey, until at last the two arrived at Ponyville Train Station, just as the conductor piped up for his last call. "All aboard!"

"Well, this is it, Rainbow. Maybe we'll see each other again, but I make no promises." Reckoning threw a quick leg and his good wing over her shoulder in a half-hearted embrace. "Goodbye."

"Wait, that's it–?" Rainbow's words seemed unfulfilled as the surprisingly young stallion ran onto the train. Without waiting, the conductor climbed aboard and shut the door behind them. Rainbow looked for his face in the windows facing the station, but as the train pulled away, she saw only strangers and loose acquaintances. Just as quickly as she had left him the last time, Dead Reckoning was gone again.

It was warm by the standards of Stalliongrad. This term would be a bit confusing to outsiders. In Stalliongrad, the term meant that spit did not freeze until after it hit the cobblestone streets. The concept of the weather being above freezing was, in fact the punchline to a popular Stalliongradian joke. Natives simply accepted the cold.

In fact, beneath his heavy garments, the unicorn stallion staring out the twenty-foot tall window at the end of the long empty room hadn't even noticed the chill. A good few hundred feet below his place of observation, common ponies were out in the constant snow, garbed in archaic robe-like jackets and heavy fur-lined hats. The stallion saw the lingering stains of the old culture and remembered the strain of his constant struggle to pull his home into the modern day, even if he had to take it kicking and screaming.

Unlike those ponies, he wore a thin scarf that honestly served as nothing more than a replacement for a necktie or a cravat. Over it was a heavy but flexible fur trimmed jacket that was cut off just above his flank, made of black silk. It sat nicely over a cutie mark of an hourglass. Pessimists would say that half its time was spent, while optimists would instead observe that half remained. He was neither, as he knew fully that both the hopeless cynics and the blindly faithful were missing the point entirely. The sand on his mark was flowing up.

The unicorn turned away from the frosted window and returned his attention to something pleasantly more modern. The long elliptical table behind him was an excellent subject. Though he had not laid hoof or horn on it during its manufacture, he couldn't help but feel proud of it as his own accomplishment. Smooth polished walnut inlaid with mother-of-pearl sat atop four elegant hoof-carved feet. It had cost thirty-six thousand bits. A mere four years earlier, the thought of such an extravagance could only have come from a waking dream. Since then, it had become not only a reality, but a casual purchase made in the interest of creating a select atmosphere. The common ponies would likely see it as a sign of corruption, but the stallion knew it to be a diplomatic tool, serving just the same purpose to him as a chisel might have to its creator.

His reflections were neatly tucked away as he heard the meeting hall's door's gilded handle being twisted open. The blunt sound of the entering pony was not his father, but a servant. He spared himself a glance, and identified a pleasant face.

"Цесаре́вич Предвидение."

Sighing at the forced formality, the stallion answered without turning around. "I appreciate your attempt, Stockyard, but I think we are both going to be much happier continuing in Equiish."

"As you wish, master Foresight."

Stockyard was many things, but subtle was exactly none of them. He had been classically trained as a butler in Trottingham, and Foresight had picked him up in that capacity after trying and subsequently firing three Stalliongradi natives from the position. The stallion's Stalliongradi was certainly useable, though his accenting left something to be desired by a true connoisseur of the language.

"Have you brought my reports?"

"I took the liberty of sorting them, sir. Your investments in Prance paid their dividends threefold, and average wealth amongst your citizens is up seventeen percent. Your father will be very pleased."

"No, he will not." Foresight shook his head. "He doesn't understand the numbers. So long as a frown exists on the face of one of our ponies, he will continue to expect miracles from me. I am afraid my own supply is quickly dwindling." Foresight glanced down to where Stockyard was pouring him a tall glass of wine. Without observing the label, he smelled it, swirled it with his horn, and afforded himself a single taste. "I'll guess the 1412 Port?"

Stockyard laughed slightly. "You don't seem to be running out of miracles to me, sir. That's two months in a row."

Foresight shook his head as he opened the door behind his butler and began to walk the frigid halls of the ancient castle he called home. "I can hardly treat managing this Domain like a memorization game, Stockyard. What is the temperature today?"

"Thirty below, sir."

Foresight's brow rose as his hoof draped gently against a tapestry in the hall. He had learned since moving into the structure of thick gray stones and heavy shadows that the walls could tell a great many secrets to those who would simply listen. The temperature outside was but one. The walls disagreed with Stockyard's information. "Is that in Marenheit or Saddlesius?"

"The latter, sir."

Foresight shook his head slowly. "Seeing as we are striving to emulate their economic and political success here, Stockyard, I would encourage we use their system of measures. It will also likely make Princess Luna more comfortable when she arrives tonight. Did the packages from Manehattan arrive today?"

"Last night, actually, sir. Two coats, three scarves, and one of those amusingly brimmed hats the mares are so fond of these days. All sized to her build."

"Good. I've finished my own preparations for Krenn's quarters, so now all that remains is making sure the imbeciles my brother left behind do not start a war."

"You wish Master Ink was here, sir?"

Foresight actually laughed at the comment. "Not at all, Stockyard. Then we'd be guaranteed another war. That being said, with him present, we might at least stand a chance of winning it. Do you know where my father is?"

"Last I heard of him, sir, he was arranging the installation of that statue he'd ordered."

Foresight rolled his eyes. "While Steel Lining has my fullest respect as a stallion, perhaps father might simply erect a temple and be done with it. It would certainly save us money."

"But thanks to you, sir, the city's treasury is fuller than it's been in forty years."

Foresight stopped suddenly, turning a calm and instructive gaze on the pony who was at least twenty years his elder. "We have to remember that wealth is not an excuse for frivolity. Money is like a doctor's scalpel. Used carefully and precisely, it can have miraculous effect, but its overuse and its misapplication will both prove fatal to the patient without exception." Foresight took a deep breath, and then closed his eyes in pensive focus. "Write a letter to Hoity Toity agreeing to his investment proposal at a five percent return, rather than his four-and-a-half. See if you can sell our Bitalian cloud investments, and then offer our support as investors to Councilor Silver Lining of Cloudsdale. Tell Molot to put an extra squad at the Flame Gate, and then have two of those crates I ordered from the griffons brought up to the Palace kitchens."

"Shall I have the chefs prepare something with them?"

"No. Have the chefs clear out. I'll need the space."

"You'll be cooking? Sir, if I may, why–"

"Because the chefs will not be willing to touch the contents of those crates. I will be preparing a meal for Lord Krenn and his escorts, as well as Father and myself."

Stockyard grimaced. "Surely you don't mean to share their diet for their visit?"

"I won't judge you if you're disgusted to learn that I've been training for this meal. However, I have no intention of risking an offense." Foresight decided the pause he had spared was too long at that point, and continued on his path toward the castle's heavy doors. "Much like the dragons, I prefer mine 'rare', although I don't quite have the stomach for the gems that are meant to accompany such a dish." Despite its poor taste, the stallion chuckled at his own comment. Stockyard was held quiet by its implications. After a moment, the heir of Stalliongrad reached the edge of his stone fortress, and directed his attention one last time toward his butler. "I have the utmost faith in your efforts, Stockyard. Once your tasks are done, go ahead and set aside a few books for me, with some wine and cheese. I'll spare you the rest of the night off to rest. I fear we will both be running ragged by the time the princess arrives. Now, I must go to Father."

"Sir, wait!" Stockyard lunged in front of the door. "You'll need a jacket, at least! You'll freeze out there in that light of garb."

Foresight smiled as he shook his head. "No, in fact I think you'll find that a pleasant summer breeze accompanies me in the streets. I've made quite a bit of progress on the spell for the Obelisk, and now I must test whether it can weather the weather." The wordplay brought a fleeting grin to the stallion's face. He turned back to the doors, and flared his horn for only a split second. They dragged slightly, continuing in motion after he had stopped his spell. When he walked through into the light snow and the strong wing, the doors turned around and shut behind him despite a further lack of magical input. Outside, the unicorn stallion smiled, ignited his horn, and embraced the warmth of a summer breeze.

Being made of huge amethyst crystals over gilded silver plates, Platinum's Ward was a cumbersome suit of armor. Its mass did nothing to assist Shining Armor as he struggled to keep up with his Honor Guard counterpart through the snowy streets of Canterlot.

He'd heard a short explanation, but it only left him with more questions. Masquerade had escaped, he had been told, but how? To best the lodestone ring was feasible, but to leave her cell was an impossibility. He knew that perfectly well; nopony else had experienced the drain of Sombra's black crystals so closely. And even beyond that, Celestia's door was an unbeatable ward. Part of Shining screamed to turn back and investigate the palace, though he knew that if the assassin was already ahead, they had no time to lose.

Those questions were unfit to be shouted after the pegasus flying ahead, however, given the presence of listening civilians. There was another question to be asked, though.

"Ink, where are we going?"

"Stalliongrad," the native answered. "Luna is on her way there now."

"Why wasn't I told about this?"

Ink snapped his head back without ceasing his flight. "The Honor Guard protects the Princesses. You protect the civilians. Don't get our jobs confused."

Shining growled. "And what happened to the transparency we agreed on?"

In a surprising display of tact, Ink answered with a placative response. "I'm sorry if I've bothered you with this, Shining, but now really isn't the best time. I don't want something coming between us when we're about to head out."

Shining's jaw dropped from the simple audacity of the statement. "You don't want… Look, Ink, I don't know what you expect, but just saying 'sorry' isn't going to cut it between us!"

"Another topic to discuss when we're on our way," Ink responded bluntly, before folding his wings in midair and dropping a half-dozen feet to land at a run in the crunchy snow. The train was ahead, its previous passengers nearly emptied. Ink forced his way past a young couple, shoving the stallion into the snow. The conductor let out a shout of protest, but both guardsponies ignored it. The Captain of the Royal Guard found his way aboard a moment later, after brushing past a young pony with an eye patch. He spared a quick glance back as the pegasus with the crippled wing gave a slight salute, and then wandered off into the city. It would have to be a mystery for another day; Shining's mind remained on other things. Once more, the hunt was on.

Dead 'Deadeye' Reckoning signed off his completely informal salute to the Captain of the Royal Guard, and then turned around and promptly ignored him. Some might have claimed it was a failure of his duty, but the scout considered his mission just as important as whatever urgency might have driven Shining Armor, if not more so.

His hooves carried him toward the palace in ignorance of the strange stares that his appearance earned him from the Canterlot nobility and the countless tourists. The chill of the snow on his hooves was completely absent, and the wind only tickled his feathers; it left his coat alone. He pondered the curious lack of feeling for a moment; though not new, it was still fresh enough to leave him with curiosity. Despite the wandering of his thoughts, he soon reached the palace gates. It was there that his liberated thoughts and his casual hoofsteps both stopped dead at the business end of six Royal Guard spears. One such spear point, which was connected to its shaft by gold rather than plain steel and bolts, clearly marked the leader.

"The palace is closed, civilian! What are you doing here?"

Reckoning made sort of grumbling noise in his throat, which he then reflected was much less imposing and satisfying than it had been when he was sixty-eight. "I'm not a civilian, guardspony. Corporal Dead Reckoning, Honor Guard. I need to see the Princess immediately."

"Badge."

"Badge?" Reckoning was utterly confused by the question. Did he have a badge? Had he ever had a badge? If so, it was likely buried beneath a dozen feet of Zebrican mud or quicksand. "Look, kid, I don't know who you–"

"Kid?" The leader lifted his spear, but gestured for his subordinates to keep theirs at the ready. "Boy, in case you've gone blind, I'm a good ten years your elder, so watch who you're talking to. Get out of my sight, or I'll–"

What the guardspony would have done was never revealed, as a thin gray shape chose that moment to drop out of the sky in the intervening space between him and Reckoning. "Calm yourself, stallion. He is who he says he is. Let him enter." The voice was completely mundane despite the way that it set Reckoning's coat on end. It belonged to a Night Guard mare, whose slitted eyes and wild, muscular wings seemed far more ferocious than the fanged but otherwise charming smile she offered.

"I can't just–"

The mare placed a hoof on his breastplate, directly beside his neck. Reckoning barely caught the motion for its incredible speed. Her head inclined to place her muzzle just beside his ear. Though she could very easily have whispered quietly enough to speak to the stallion only, her words were loud enough. "We didn't ask, Lance Corporal. That order comes directly from the Eldest Sister of the Night Guard, and if you'd like to disobey it again, she can certainly arrange for the rest of the Night Guard to see to your punishment." Then she licked his ear, in a way that wasn't so much sensual as brutally carnivorous, holding him as he squirmed in discomfort. After a pleasant moan, she lowered herself back onto all four of her hooves. "We'd like that."

Without a word of response, the wall of guardsponies in front of the palace doors shot aside, creating something of a tunnel for Reckoning and his new escort. He gave her a distrusting glance, but progressed forward nevertheless. The doors of the palace opened to the same wide foyer that Reckoning recognized from his last visit, years prior. He walked without word toward Celestia's throne room, only to be stopped by a surprisingly powerful, less-than pleasant hoof on his shoulder.

"Wait, Corporal Reckoning. Eldest Sister directed me to speak with you." Reckoning elected to ignore the unwelcome voice, only to find himself held back by an unnaturally strong hoof on his shoulder. "She said she knew you would not wish to speak to her personally."

"I don't want to talk to any of your kind, honestly. Even if I did, we have nothing to talk about. My mission doesn't concern you." Reckoning rocked his shoulder to steal away from the mare's grip before pacing forward toward Celestia's throne room again. This time, he was stopped not by a calm hoof, but an outright tackle as the mare pinned him to the floor.

"This is not up for discussion, Dead Reckoning. You can deny or ignore us if you wish, but our mistress left us with a message that we are to give you before we depart for her side."

Reckoning struggled to free himself from beneath the mare, before finally nodding with a defeated sigh. "If you insist."

The mare smiled, once more baring her fanged teeth, and then stepped off him. "Walk with me, and I will speak as I was told." She folded her wings calmly, turned with stiff legs, and then began a slow pace toward a nearby doorway off the main foyer.

Observing the path, Reckoning knew that they were headed for the Honor Guard quarters and offices, below the main level of the palace. As they walked, at first in silence, the stallion's eyes glanced to the machete at his side, and then back up at the mare. Her purple armor glinted with unknown magics in the pleasantly lit hallways. It certainly wasn't a horror setting, yet he still felt the omnipresent threat.

As if sensing his discomfort, she spoke up. "The assassin told our mistress that the stallion you seek was delivered, alive, to the boars of Suida. Have you ever faced a boar warrior, Reckoning?"

"Once," the stallion answered, stifling the rest of the answer. It had been half a lifetime earlier, and a hard-fought battle besides. "I don't intend to fight many."

"Perhaps not, but you will face some." The mare glanced back over her shoulder, continuing her pace down the side halls of the palace without needing to look at her path. Reckoning couldn't help but notice how empty the structure seemed. "You are a skilled warrior, if Eldest Sister speaks the truth, but you will need more. Our mistress has granted you a boon that might aid your quest."

Reckoning grumbled. "If it'll help…"

"Your young body does not disguise your true age," the Night Guard taunted with a rather haunting laugh. "But it does give you the strength for your task. Who do you intend to accompany you?"

"White Flag and Mirror Image, ideally."

"The latter is serving as our mistress' bodyguard, and cannot join you. I cannot speak for the other."

They reached the spiral stair that served as the true center of the palace for the Honor Guard. It led down to the Commander's office, and if one so required, up to a secret door behind a suit of armor in the hallway where Celestia had her bedroom. It was far enough away not to prove a security risk, while close enough to give rapid access if necessary. Reckoning had never used it, and so found himself surprised when the Night Guard mare began to lead him up the stairs.

"Where are we going?"

"The Roost. Our home." Reckoning wasn't quite sure if the plurality was meant to include him, but he hesitantly followed regardless. Up and up the stairs went, spiraling in a tight loop until at last they came to a flat wall of thick stone blocks, and a rather obvious door that was only disguised on its other side. The Night Guard ignored the door however, placing her hooves on the rough wall. It took a moment of force, but Deadeye was surprised to watch as a second, far better hidden door slid open to reveal further ascending stairs. The shock wore off quickly when his frightening guide continued up the stairs, assuming him to be following.

The stairs finally opened without a further door to reveal a surprisingly tall chamber of purple stone and glimmering blue arcane torches. Amidst pillars and balconies, he could see slitted eyes watching him from above. The feeling put a heavy stone in his gut, and found him with his functional wing pinned very tightly to his side. He was given pause, however, when another of the Night Guards dropped down from some place in the shadows overhead to land a mere few feet from his face. "Deadeye. It's been a long time."

"Not long enough," the stallion answered the mare, agitated at her presence. "Give me whatever it is Luna had–"

"Princess Luna," the newcomer interrupted. "It will be given in good time. Fourth Sister, return to your rest. We fly east at moonrise to find her side."

No word was offered as Reckoning's original escort darted up into the overhead shadows and faded from view.

With a terse urgency and a spite in his voice that had not been present even in his previous conversation, he turned back to his escort. "So, Captain, what do you want me for?"

"Call me Eldest Sister. Or just 'Big Sis', honestly. These ones of mine could do to learn a bit of casual language. I'm here to show you something. Follow me." She walked across the room without disruption by the other Night Guard hiding overhead, making her way to a hallway carved out of the stone on the opposite wall. Reckoning followed tentatively, forcing his head up and his spine out in order to keep his fear from showing under the watchful eyes of Luna's monsters. Their fanged mouths glittered in the blue torchlight, and their shadows danced wildly on the walls.

Soon, view of his fear was cut off by a short and narrow hallway of slender, shallow cells. There were at least a dozen doors, all tightly shut. He stopped at the sight of the first. "What is this?"

"Our dungeon. We have a prisoner for you." Eldest Sister gestured to the cell farthest from the central room. Reckoning's hooves were hesitant to follow. His gut wasn't quite sure whether to expect a horrible monster within the cage, or an innocent foal. Instead, to his surprise, there was another pony. His hooves were held to the wall by a set of four heavy manacles made of the same purple metal as the Night Guard's armor. At first, he seemed asleep, but then Reckoning made the mistake of leaning against the barred door. The prisoner jerked upright suddenly, and his bloodshot eyes locked on the two ponies outside his door. He opened his mouth to scream, but no noise was released.

"What did you do?" Reckoning asked, suddenly realizing his mistrust of the Night Guard once again.

"Justice," Eldest Sister answered, as casually as discussing the weather. "He killed a family of five near Manehattan. I claimed him and marked him, but at the Princess' request, I offer him to you."

"What?" Reckoning whirled to face her with a mixture of fear, anger, and confusion. "What is that even supposed to mean?"

"The blessing is yours to accept or reject, Dead Reckoning. Think for a second and you'll realize what it means. You'll be hard pressed to succeed without it."

Without a further word, the mare walked away, leaving the scout alone in the near-total darkness with only silent screams for company.

The skyline of Stalliongrad was for the most part a low mass of snow-covered rooftops and smoke-belching chimneys. Brick and stone were here and then charred black or crumbled from age or damage. New, cheaply constructed factories stood side-by-side with ancient waterwheels built on the long-since frozen Volgallop River.

The icy waterway ran through a narrow valley, whose short but sheer cliffs wrapped like tight arms around the city's walls. In olden days, the city had stayed nestled in that tight embrace, but now its walls and its homes stretched out onto the cliff tops on both sides of the river. Beyond the tall stones in every direction lay deadly wastes of frozen ice for a hundred miles. In some directions, they were not the only threat.

Atop the western cliff, there lay an enormous graveyard. It spread over small hills and tiny valleys, but its every headstone and monument overlooked the splendor of the unbreakable frozen city below. In one corner of the quiet space, a unicorn stallion approached a far rarer pony.

"Father?" Foresight tromped through the snow wearing far too little to protect against the biting chill of the wind. "What are you still doing up here?"

"Почему ты обращаешься ко мне на языке чужаков? Неужели и родные слова тебе уже противны, Предвидение?"

With a slight glare, the unicorn shook his head. "Our language does not 'disugst' me, Father. I'm using Equiish for your benefit. Princess Luna will likely be speaking it, and I wouldn't be surprised if Lord Krenn chose the same to speak naturally with her. You don't want to sound like Roscherk when you do." The sarcasm at his use of the name was potent even over the chill of their words. "I must admit that I am happy my brother is not here for this meeting."

"Never wish for the absence of family," the Tsar ordered with a definitive force. His voice was something of a miracle, and the power his words carried had always been a point of envy to his eldest son. The alicorn ruler gestured with his long, slender horn toward the headstone resting in the ground in front of him. Little was engraved. No dates. No epithet. Only an engraving of a thick cloud passing in front of a crescent moon, and the name 'Полночь'.

"Forgive me, Father. I only meant my concern for his attitude. But still, haven't you been out here all day? Aren't you cold?"

"I found myself with a preference for space, just as you so often find yourself with a preference for privacy in your books, Predvidenie."

Foresight scowled and shook his head. "I don't 'seal myself away', Father. And when I do stay in my office, it's because I'm working to help the city."

Watchful Eye shook his head. "Perhaps it is, but I struggle to imagine how one might know what is best for a city he does not venture into." The bright crimson alicorn gestured with his right wing toward a huge structure jutting up into the sky from the center of the city. It alone broke the nearly level field of roofs and chimneys below. "Will your project work?"

"Let me show you." Foresight walked closer, coming to rest a mere few inches from his father. Watchful Eye's eyes widened in surprise as the omnipresent wind stopped, and the sensation of warm air brushed across his coat.

"What is this?"

"The spell I was looking for in the library. I haven't figured out exactly how it works yet; at least, not perfectly. But it seems to convert Arcana into Empatha, at least enough so that we can influence the weather. You can feel that the spell works."

"You'll have to teach me some time, then."

Foresight shook his head. "I'm afraid it was difficult for me to cast, Father, and it nearly spent my mana simply bringing the field up. You would need a lot more study to bring your Arcana up to par. It's been a long time since you used this sort of magic. Besides, you have Empatha yourself. Why not go traipsing around in the streets with your wings on fire, like Roscherk used to?"

"I have no intention of encouraging his behavior," Watchful Eye answered, not stooping to his son's biting sarcasm. "This 'Obelisk' of yours; will it truly be able to break the curse?"

"Not break it, Father. I cannot imagine succeeding where the likes of Clover the Clever failed. The spell will only cover the city. The wastes will still be frozen. However, if the Obelisk here is a success, I will arrange their construction across our domain. Saraneighvo will be thawed as well, and perhaps Trotsylvania after that. We can finally move into the modern world."

Watchful Eye shrugged. "Your work may save the city, but its ponies still fight within. I would rather your magic find a balance between the gifts of our subjects."

"Father, you're worrying over a battle we've already won. This isn't the Age of the Tribes. Frostbite is dead, and the castes are long gone. Any earth pony can rise as they wish, and any unicorn can fall just as easily." There followed a long silence and a sigh as Foresight realized that he would soon be retreading the ground of familiar battles.

"Then why am I still Tsar?"

"Because you are the one who freed them, and you deserve their respect. Now, Father, I will hear no more of this nonsense. If your fears were still true, you would be a pauper since your magic is pathetic, and I would rule the city rather than merely running it every day." Foresight offered a cocky grin that was supposed to look humorous and relieving, though it came across with a bit too much ambition. Realizing the awkwardness of his attempt to raise his father's spirits, the pony looked away to the distant eastern horizon. "I would never want your position, father. My dreams are far different in scope. Now, we should head back to the castle. Lord Krenn will arrive soon."

"Give me a while longer. I'll come when his group arrives."

Foresight's response was to gesture with a hoof to the snowy haze that marked the horizon. Two enormous shadows were drawing closer by the moment. "They already have, Father."

The Bearers gathered in the Golden Oaks Library, where Rainbow was once again set aside as the object of attention.

"…and then he just sort of hugged me awkwardly and ran off before I could say anything."

"But…" Fluttershy cocked her head in confusion. "Your friend is alive. Isn't that good?"

"It's great," Dash answered. "I just wish he would have told me what was really going on. He said some stuff like he thought he wasn't coming back, or at least that he wouldn't see me again." The pegasus looked from face to face. "I guess I'm just worried."

"Why?" Rarity asked. "Isn't it his job, darling? I dare say Twilight doesn't fear for her brother's life every day of the week. And one certainly doesn't live to be his… former age, I suppose, without knowing how to take care of oneself."

"Ah think Rarity's right, sugarcube. He's got his life now, and you've got yours. An' that ain't ta say you can't go say 'hi' or whatever, but it's like ya said yesterday. Bein' a guardspony ain't for you."

Rainbow nodded. "I guess you're right. I'll just drop it."

"Now hold on, Dash. I ain't sayin' that. Givin' up ain't the same as lettin' him go." Applejack chuckled. "An' remember I said that if you ever find a special somepony."

Rainbow's cheeks grew red as she crinkled her nose. "H-hey!"

Before the brewing storm could turn into an argument about Rainbow's 'potential', Twilight cut in. "Girls, honestly, I'd like to know what's going on too. Dead Reckoning said he'd found the Fountain of Youth." She tilted her head toward Spike, who was carrying a huge, rather heavy and worn dark teal book with golden bindings.

"I found it, Twilight."

"Thank you, Spike." The mare levitated the tome, flipped it open to the appropriate page, and spun it so that her friends could see. "This is Predictions and Prophecies. The first edition was written by the original Archmage Twilight, thousands of years ago. Since then, every time somepony has made a really important prediction, it's been updated. Look at this one here." Her hoof gestured to the page in question, where a huge body of gold symbols sat on ornate blue parchment set atop the normal paper pages. Beside the indecipherable writing, a diagram of a strange stone fountain with no water had been copied in plain and still black ink.

"Uh, Twilight, none of us can read this," Rainbow observed.

"What are you talking about, Dashie?" Pinkie leaned forward. "It's written plain as day. Horseshoe, rainbow, unicorn, tornado, skull, mask, moon–"

"Pinkie, they're not pictures, they're letters. This language is called Ancient Equidane. It eventually developed into more modern Equiish, which is why we still use some of the same letters, but its much more pictographic, and–"

"The point, Twi?" Applejack thankfully interrupted.

"Right, sorry." Twilight's awkward smile lingered for just a moment before she looked down at the book again. "This is a prophecy somepony–or rather, someone–made almost thirty-two thousand years ago. I won't bore you with a ton of details, but the end is important." The mare cleared her throat before continuing.

"When in the age of sundered sky,

when the moon does not set, and corpses rise,

the water of youth will be lost to the young,

drained to the drop by the love-seeking tongue."

"It rhymes?" Dash asked, incredulous.

"Of course it does," Twilight answered. "When somepony makes a prophecy, the magic actually gives you an answer in rhyme. Nopony really knows why, though there is a popular theory made by Bloomlight the Impulsive which..." Twilight hesitated, realizing she was rambling. "Anyway, that's not the whole thing. Let's see…" Her hoof scanned the page again briefly to find her place.

"Third out of two is the desperate fiend,

whose world in shadows remains to be seen,

but those who quest for her water after that day,

shall find naught but sadness as their youths drain away."

The other five bearers looked across each other's faces, before some silent congress let Rarity speak up first. "Twilight, dear, we have the utmost respect for your studies, but some of us aren't quite as educated. Could we possibly get that in more modern Equiish, please?"

"Well, actually, I don't understand all of it myself. I guess the first part was probably talking about the Twilight War, between Princess Celestia and Nightmare Moon. The love-seeking tongue might mean the Changelings, but I'm not sure if they even age. The important part about that first paragraph is that it already happened. Whoever this 'desperate fiend' is, they've already drained the Fountain of Youth, or cursed it, or whatever this is talking about." Twilight looked up. "Get it?"

"You're sayin' Mr. Reckoning was lying?" Applejack asked. "Why would he do that?"

"I don't know," Twilight answered.

"He's not lying!" Rainbow yelled, stubbornly.

Applejack put up her hooves defensively. "Look, sugarcube, we ain't tryin ta insult him. It's just some things 'bout this seem mighty fishy, and maybe we should take a good hard look at what's goin' on. Ya' understand?"

Rainbow growled as she crossed her forehooves over her chest. "I guess. If he knew something was happening, that might explain why he was so weird about saying goodbye, and not telling me what was going on."

Rarity smiled. "I'm glad you understand Rainbow. Perhaps there's something we can do, though. I imagine if Twilight and Spike send a letter, it could very quickly reach Captain Ink. It probably won't take more than a day or two for him to get back to us."

"Bah, that'll take forever." Rainbow shook her head. "I'll just fly up to Canterlot. I can do that trip and back before you girls even had time to miss me. Plus, I don't trust getting a straight answer from a letter. Especially if it goes through the princess."

Twilight seemed cross as she spoke up. "Rainbow, you are not flying all the way to Canterlot. Not after what happened with the blizzard last night."

"Oh, come on Twilight. It's calm out now, and besides, I'm–"

"The best. I know. But please just take the train. For me?"

The pegasus sighed. "Fine. I'll catch the next ride when it gets in. But I'm telling you, some silly storm wouldn't put me out of the air." Rainbow turned to the door of the library and strode out, completely unaware of the little orange ears that had been listening to the entire conversation from upstairs.

When a disgruntled Departure Time came to the little cabin containing a pair of armored guardsponies, he was tempted to stride right on past. However, as the conductor of the East Wind Express, he had a responsibility. In that moment, it took the form of tightening his necktie, adjusting his hat, and stepping into the small space.

Immediately, he was fixed with a pair of determined glares. The tightness of the fabric around his neck served well to mask his troubled gulp before he began to speak. "Pardon me, sirs, but as the conductor of this train, I do have to speak to you."

The pegasus stallion moved incredibly quickly, leaning forward so that Departure could smell the heat of his breath. He spoke with a thick Stalliongradian accent, though his words were simple enough to understand. "Conductor, this is guardspony business. Ensure your staff cooperates with us, and we'll get along just fine."

"Ink," his counterpart began, scoldingly. Departure recognized him as Shining Armor, the famous Captain of the Royal Guard. "Forgive my counterpart's attitude, though he is right. We're on an urgent mission. Once things have been taken care of, I'll arrange compensation for your train line."

Satisfied, yet still intimidated, Departure nodded hastily. "Of course, guardsponies. If you can tell me which stop you'll be likely to be getting off at, I can make arrangements and everything will be in order."

"Stalliongrad," Shining Armor answered simply, earning a curious look from the conductor.

"In January?"

Red Ink laughed, suddenly far less serious than he had previously been. "We are not on vacation here, though perhaps if you learned how to dress, you wouldn't think my home was so uncomfortable. Now, please leave us."

"Oh. Of course. Uh, since you'll need to eat, I'll just tell the restaurant car to serve you. You've got a twenty-six hour trip ahead of you, Stallions. Good luck with your business."

As soon as the door to their room was shut, Shining Armor shot Red Ink an angry look. "What are you doing?"

"What do you mean, Shining?"

"I thought you were better than that. Getting up in everypony's face, intimidating them. He was just trying to do his job."

"And I am doing mine. Now stop wasting time with feelings and listen closely. I checked before I came to find you; only one train bound for Stalliongrad left between Princess Luna's and this one. If Masquerade is on the Princess' train, there isn't much we can do, and if she's on the second one, there's nothing we can do but wait to catch up. However, if that is the case, the Princess will likely be safe until we arrive. Masquerade won't try and charge into Burning Hearth Castle without a plan. The third option, though, is what concerns me. She may be on this train."

Shining nodded. "I've been studying her illusions since the summer. I can do a sweep of the train to try and flush her out."

Ink nodded as well, giving his agreement. "That is our best option, it seems. Head to the front of the train and work your way back. I'll meet you in the restaurant car."

"What? You want to split up?"

Ink shrugged. "Even I need to eat, Shining, and a drink would do me good as well."

Shining considered protesting, but ultimately decided he would be better off not bringing the walking political incident that was his counterpart along as he examined each and every passenger on the train.

The two stallions left their room and promptly parted ways. Ink's hooves carried him toward the caboose. After another passenger car, he quickly found a space filled with small booths and a surprisingly well-sized buffet. In the corner, a small bar was tended by a mare in a perfect black vest and tie. She glanced up as he approached, looked down at the glass she was polishing, and then did a double take.

"Y-you're R-Roscherk Krovyu," she managed to sputter out, backing up into the corner of her little workspace.

"I go by 'Red Ink' these days, ma'am." He smiled at her, hoping to appear disarming. His expression only increased the obvious fear on her face. "I'm not here to hurt you, Miss…"

"Uh, Cosmopolitan. Everypony just calls me 'Cosmo', Commandant."

"I'm impressed you could say that so quickly, Cosmo. I take it you've heard of me?"

"I'm from Trotsylvania, Commandant," she answered quickly. "When you arrived during the Revolution–"

"Of course." Ink waved his hoof. "Listen, frankly, I'm just here for a drink. Three shots of vodka."

The mare turned around, grabbed a bottle from the top shelf of the train's bar, and set about preparing his demand. "Are you sure this is what you want? I can make just about anything."

"Just the vodka," Ink answered with a rather predatory smile, which went unnoticed behind the mare's back. "Perhaps it’s a stereotype, but it's never bothered me."

III - Murder on the East Wind Express

III

Murder on the East Wind Express

Reckoning shuddered before the door. The Canterlot Palace Throne Room was not home to many happy memories for the stallion. His last visit had ended beneath a bladed shoe, with a broken shoulder and a very-nearly broken neck. But, of course, that was what had marked it as the Commander's work. Not just the brutal, unbreakable strength of his skill at battle, but the rigid steel of control that lay behind it.

He'd been back down to his tiny office, if only to dig out the black jacket he had donned. The room hadn't been touched despite the reports of his death. Inside, his things were exactly as he had left them years earlier when he had last reported in formally. Faded sepia pictures from his youth showed a happy stallion standing amongst his squad in full armor, just after being accepted into the Royal Guard. He had no worries about life and death, nor politics or fell magic. He only cared for his companions. How things had changed. Every single pony in the picture had since died. Reckoning looked away, returning his attention to his mission.

It wouldn't do to see the Princess in a destroyed shirt, but he needed something to cover the spider-web scar Luna had left across his chest. At the same time, he'd trimmed back the stray fur on his jaw. It was the first time he'd shaved with a razor, rather than the jagged blade of his machete, in nine years. A mane and tail cut had also been in order, and as usual, he did them himself. Two quick slashes were enough to trim the hair down to size, and then few casual flicks of his hooves put them in place. Last of all was to put his broken wing into a sling. Once everything was done, he'd moved directly to the Throne Room doors.

His stomach was tight within his chest, both with hesitation and from the appetite that had been stolen away from him within the Roost. He struggled to put the image out of his mind, but the silently screaming face would not leave his thoughts. It shook him, appearing in the corners of his vision where empty shadows ought to have been seen. He wanted to get away from it, and he knew that no shadows could exist in the presence of the sun.

Two knocks sounded, and then the doors opened before him. His stride was unsure, his head low, but he had to move forward nevertheless. It took four dozen steps to reach Celestia's vision, and only then did he look up.

Her face was steeled, and he could not read it. He'd never truly spent enough time in her company to learn to see what lay beneath the mask of calm. He had to wait though ten agonizing seconds of silence before her tongue finally began to move, handing him her thoughts.

"Hello, Dead Reckoning." She nodded slightly.

"Princess Celestia." He lowered himself, bowing fully on the scarlet carpet before her throne. The water in her fountains trickled as they held their poses in silence.

"How?" It wasn't an involved question, but it came from an unexpected source. Dead Reckoning lifted his head to the mare who had spoken, and nodded.

"That's a long story, Flag. Are you the new captain?"

White Flag shook her head, but it was Celestia who spoke next. "No, Dead Reckoning, she is here because the Honor Guard's new captain is away." As she continued to speak, her brow lowered, until her gaze was not so much an analysis as a conviction. "I know how you are here, but I would like to know why. Why go through this ordeal? Why come back?"

"The Commander isn't dead," Reckoning answered.

For just a moment, a flash of pain flew across Celestia's face. It looked as though Reckoning had once more struck her, as his uncontrolled mind had years ago. She recovered quickly, however, with a short shake of her head. "Lieutenant Flag, leave us."

"Princess, with respect–"

"If you respect me, you will leave." Her order was terse, firm, and unyielding. The unicorn mare nodded, and then wandered away. Celestia waited until the doors were shut before turning her attention again toward Reckoning.

The scout nodded. "He wasn't there. I found my parents, and my old squad, but not him."

"And then you decided he still had to be alive?"

"No. But I needed answers, so I took a nap, and called out."

Celestia's mouth opened so slightly that even Reckoning's focused eye nearly missed it. "Luna?"

"I had nopony else I could ask, or I would have gone to them first. When I told her what I wanted, I didn't have to ask twice. She said she owed him a debt of her own." At those words, Celestia glanced aside, as if ashamed. Reckoning made no comment on the motion, continuing as though nothing had changed. "She checked for me. Tartarus. The Summer Lands. But when she couldn't find the Commander there, she asked Masquerade."

Celestia's reaction to the last statement was devoid of subtlety. She rose fully to her hooves. "Luna asked Masquerade?" The solar princess strode down from her dais, before taking a seat in front of Dead Reckoning. "What did she say?"

"She'd taken him to Suida. The boars have him. I'd like to take the Honor Guard, to go and free him."

Celestia took a deep breath, and then looked Reckoning straight in the eyes with pity. Her wing wrapped around him as a mother might a crying foal. "Dead Reckoning, my poor little pony, I'm sorry for what I have to tell you. The Commander is dead."

"Then where is his soul?"

Celestia struggled for a moment to answer. "It's… gone." Her voice returned more resolutely when she continued. "He gave it up for me. But his death was his end. I'm sorry for your effort, but I admire it. Your loyalty to his memory–"

"Princess, stop." Reckoning's wing pushed the larger, white limb away as he looked her eye-to-eyes. "I appreciate what you're trying to do here, but I'm far too old for fairy tales. If you're going to deny me, at least tell me the truth. Why not? Even if there's just a chance, why leave him alone?"

Celestia forced herself to meet his gaze, though it wanted nothing more than to dart away. Her words were slow to come, but they arrived in the focused control of a diplomat and a ruler. "Like you, Dead Reckoning, I want nothing more than to embrace the spark of hope in my heart and believe he is alive. But to go after a mere hope is a risk I cannot afford. Khagan and I have never been on the best of terms, and he would not hesitate to invade if but a single guardspony stumbled onto his lands with hostile intentions. I cannot risk war, and the deaths of thousands, just for the chance that a single stallion might be alive. Even the Commander. I hope you can understand."

"I do understand, Princess." Reckoning watched as Celestia walked slowly away, prepared to leave the throne room herself. With her back turned and her mind on other things, she did not hear his final, plainly stated words. "Consider this my resignation from the Honor Guard."

Rainbow Dash had long since settled down in a rather comfortable seat on the small train that ran bi-hourly up the Mountain of Dawn. She was sure it had some stupid name, but learning it had never been worth her time. After all, she only rode it with her friends in the first place. Alone, Canterlot was much closer by her own wings.

Canterlot was only a few minutes away now. The shrill voiced old mare working as the conductor had made her announcement that they'd be arriving soon a minute earlier. All that was left was to endure the rest of the painfully slow journey.

"Hey Rainbow Dash!" a perky voice greeted the mare from the formerly empty seat beside her.

"Hey, squirt." The pegasus’ eyes were lazily staring out the window, and she had to shake herself free of fatigue when she realized who had spoke. "Scootaloo? What are you doing here?"

"Oh!" Scootaloo began, as if suddenly noticing her own presence. "Well, my uncle-twice-removed on my mom's side, Grizzaloo, lives in Canterlot, and–"

"Grizzaloo?" Rainbow burst into laughter. "Okay, squirt, I can tell you're lying to me, but that's just too good to pass up. Where'd you come up with a name like that?"

"Uh, there is actually a pony named Grizzaloo, Rainbow. And he does live in Canterlot. Or, at least, he used to. Every once in a while, he'd come by the orph–" Scootaloo's word ended in a squeak as she clamped her hooves over her mouth and shook her head. "Er, uh, what I mean is…"

Trying her best to set a good example for the orange filly, Rainbow changed the subject. "Scoots, right now I just want to know why you're actually on this train. Did you follow me?"

Embarrassment was obvious on her face as Scootaloo nodded. "I heard you and Twilight talking to somepony this morning, but I didn't think it was a big deal. But then I heard when everypony was downstairs, you said it was Mr. Reckoning. And I remembered that was the name that Sweetie Belle had said, when she asked her sister why she was off spending so much time with you. He sounded cool, and I wanted to meet him. Maybe I could finally get my cutie mark being an adventurer!"

Rainbow shook her head sadly as the train came to a stop. The shrill voice of the conductor screamed at them aloud. "Canterlot Station, end of the line!"

The two pegasi rose, and Rainbow guided her young admirer off the train. "Now, listen to me, Scootaloo. I'm all for coolness–"

"–and awesomeness, and radicalness!" Scootaloo chimed in.

"Yeah," Rainbow nodded. "All three. But sometimes you have to remember what really matters, like friends and loyalty. Going on an adventure is fun, and a little bit of danger is fine, but not like what I did." Amidst the snowy winter streets of Canterlot, the pair made their way toward the palace and its ivory towers. "Do you remember when I went away for a week last summer? My friends all thought I was dead."

"Everypony did," Scootaloo answered, looking down as she remembered her sorrow.

"Well, yeah. And it made them feel awful. Nopony wants to think their friends are hurt, or dead, or be stuck not knowing if they're okay. That's why we don’t do that sort of thing, kid."

"Okay," Scootaloo answered, surprised by the depth of Rainbow's words. "But what if your friend is the one out somewhere in danger?"

"Well, then you go help them! You swoop down, and save the day, and be totally radical doing it." Rainbow smiled, as her mind drifted to the Best Young Flier Competition. "That's loyalty. You don't leave your friends hanging, even if it means getting your hooves dirty. And Scoots?"

"Yeah, Rainbow Dash?"

"I'm letting you stick with me because it'd be a pain in the flank to take the train back now, but tagging along without telling me isn't okay. Next time, just tell me if you wanna come."

"Really?"

"Really." Rainbow reached over to ruffle the filly's already unruly mane before continuing on her path. "Now, we've gotta go try and find Deadeye. Come on."

Their path was short and direct, though it ended bluntly in the face of a surprisingly large cluster of guards standing in front of the palace gates. The stallion standing in the center of the formation, whose colored armor bands clearly marked him as the leader, spoke up when they approached. "Palace is off limits, kids."

Another of the stallions bearing spears saw this as an appropriate time to speak up. "Hey, you're Rainbow Dash!"

"That's me," Rainbow answered with a smile.

"I figure we're probably fine letting them in," the stallion muttered to his leader. "She's one of the Elements of Harmony, and she's the one who saved Princess Luna."

The leader was briefly confused. His head twisted to the opposite side of the formation, where he nodded to a unicorn mare. "Do they check out?"

"Yeah, they're clean," the mage answered as the glow of her horn faded. "No illusions, no enchantments."

The leader turned again to the civilians standing before him. "So… what do you actually want?"

Scootaloo chose this opportunity to jump into the conversation. "We’re looking for a guardspony named Dead Reckoning."

There was a sudden wave of recognition across the faces of not only the leader, but his subordinates as well. The central stallion stepped aside, permitting access to the palace. "Last I saw, he was in there somewhere. Help yourselves."

The paired ponies walked in through the castle gates without further pause, at which point Rainbow realized very bluntly that she had no idea where she was going. Her thoughts flickered toward Scootaloo. Hoping not to look dumb in front of her fan, the mare picked a hall at random and started walking down it.

As they moved amidst the windows and the statues, Rainbow reflected on the stained glass. There were a surprising number of images she would never have recognized before her journey. One huge stained glass image depicted Celestia and Luna, alongside Magnus, an elk, a strangely familiar purple dragon, and a boar fighting together against Discord. Another portrayed the Commander–or at least, somepony wearing his black and gold armor–in battle against an enormous black wyrm. The hallway turned, and there both pegasi stopped cold.

"Rainbow Dash… it's you!"

Scootaloo's simple observation was true, but the enormity of the image didn't do her justice. The rest of the short hallway ended in a 'T'-shaped intersection. The smooth wall had been carved back into a rather large alcove, and sitting plainly in that space was a marble statue bedecked with gemstones of all colors. Rubies and Topazes hung down in loose locks to form her mane, while glittering emeralds and sapphires marked the ends of her tail. Her forelegs, twice life-size and then some at least, were placed firmly on the ground. Her hind legs, though, were high in the air. From between her hooves, a bolt of solid gold lightning stretched toward the ceiling. Scootaloo charged up to it before Rainbow could react, hoping to catch a closer look at the 'totally awesome' work of art.

"Uh, kid…"

Scootaloo couldn't hear the words. Her hooves scrambled over to the base of the pillar, where she abruptly sat down with a smile on her face. "This is so cool, Rainbow!"

"Yeah…" Rainbow's answer wasn't particularly comfortable as she approached.

"Can you really buck lightning?"

"Uh, yeah, I guess." She felt no need to describe the strife that had surrounded her past use of such a skill, let alone her curiosity at what sculptor might have known to create such a portrayal of her. "Look, I…" Her words drained away with much of the rest of the sound in the room. The brilliant walls and the glittering gems faded, leaving the space strangely dark and haunting. Scootaloo turned, but she wasn't the one speaking the words the young mare heard.

"Rainbow Dash?"

The voice was hauntingly familiar, even if it was buried deep within old memories. She turned slowly. "Mom?"

Down the hallway behind her, Easy Breeze approached. Her brilliant cyan coat and unblemished white mane flowed in a wind that had no business lingering in the hallway.

"I've missed you so much, Rainbow. Why did you leave? Where did you go?"

"I… I had to come back…"

"Rainbow, are you alright?"

"I'm fine now, I swear, mom."

"Mom?" Easy Breeze's response came as a question, unbidden and unexpected. Then the world swam and color and sound returned. The motion in Rainbow's eyes was so wild, so violent, that even with the training of loops and dives from countless hours in the sky, vertigo overtook her and she fell to the floor.

It wasn't so much darkness that claimed her as a confusion from the amount of light. Everything was moving in blotches of paint and bursts of unintelligible sound. At times gravity pulled up and aside, sending her tilting as she struggled to lay still. The first sensation that truly made sense was a soft warmth across her back, pressing gently against her and yet holding her still. From there, a sense of the world rejoined the sound and the color.

Then came a comprehensible, reasonable noise, piercing through the veil of chaos. Despite its effect, it began with a calm and soothing tone. "Are you well, my little pony?"

Another mare spoke then, more sternly. "I can find a doctor, Princess."

"No, Lieutenant. Wait."

"Is she okay, Princess?"

"She will be, at least for now, little one, though I make no promises for the future. Rainbow Dash, can you hear us?"

Rainbow nodded, watching as the splotches of color began to gather together into more recognizable shapes. "Yeah… I'm okay. Wait… Princess?"

The largest mass of colors had gathered together into a white cluster with a soft, sorrowful smile and a pair of sympathetic violet eyes. Princess Celestia nodded. "You spoke of your mother, Rainbow?"

Almost immediately, the mare slapped away Celestia's wing and rose to her hooves. The pain on the princess' face was obvious, though Rainbow seemed not to care. "I'm fine, Princess."

"What happened, Rainbow?" Scootaloo's voice asked. Dash glanced around the palace hall, eventually locating an orange and purple mass that was gaining definition with every passing moment.

"Just… thought I saw something."

Celestia interrupted. "Rainbow, this is far more serious than–"

"It was just a mistake." Dash's tone left no room for argument. "Where's Deadeye?"

Celestia's face flashed again with concern. "He came to you?"

"Before he came here," Rainbow answered, keeping her answers terse.

"He should not have done that."

The royal blue unicorn mare standing beside Celestia stepped forward, bearing a serious expression. "Princess, we should hurry. These two can wait."

Indignant at being ignored, Scootaloo jumped in the air amidst the conversation, calling out. "Hey, I don't know who you think you are, but you aren't just going to ignore Rainbow Dash! We need to find Mr. Reckoning! What's more important than that?"

The royal blue mare directed her horn at Scootaloo, and the little filly's lips disappeared completely. It took a moment of muffled words for the tiny pony to realize this fact, but when she did, her reaction was to freak out, slamming her hooves against her aggressor. "We are in the middle of a crisis, filly, and we don't have time to endure your distractions. Show respect to the Princess, and–"

"Lieutenant Flag, stop." Celestia's horn ignited, and with an audible pop, Scootaloo's mouth reappeared. The little filly gasped, rubbing her hooves over her muzzle as Celestia leaned down to address her. "You are Scootaloo, correct? I apologize for my guard's behavior, but in this case she is right. We are facing an urgent issue, and do not have the time to spare for talking. When we are done, I may be able to help you find the Corporal. I'm sorry."

Rainbow watched as the princess and her defender left. Soon, the two pegasi were alone in the hallway with Dash's statue. She shook her head at it derisively. "Come on, squirt. We can find Deadeye faster without her help anyway."

The silence that followed settled in Rainbow's stomach painfully as she realized that three ponies had left the short hall, and not merely the two she had noticed.

The earth shook and drifts of snow tumbled from the rooftops when the dragons landed. Even Foresight's spell could not shield him from the bitter wind and the sudden flurry of white powder sent flying his direction by their wings. When the sudden storm was done, he spared himself a moment to brush off his expensive Canterlot clothing, and spared a glance to his father doing the same. Only when they were both presentable did the ruler and his heir return their focus to their titanic guests.

One dragon was red, not the color of blood, but of fire. His head was topped with a series of viciously narrow, dagger-like spikes, connected to one another by a sort of webbing similar to that on his wings. Though neither pony really knew how to read such a dragon's expression, the way that his lips were curled back from his cruelly barbed teeth suggested that he was unhappy to be amongst the company of ponies.

His companion was a pale blue, almost white scaled female, with a pair of seemingly demonic horns jutting out of her brow. Her wings were scaled, rather than webbed, and her teeth were curiously flat, rather than the usual spikes one might see on a dragon's teeth. She was the larger of the two, though not by a vast margin.

Watchful Eye gave his son a quick glance for confirmation, and Foresight nodded. Together, the two ponies bowed in the direction of the red male. "Kренен," Watchful Eye greeted Lord Krenn, sparing the ruler the title he held only in the Equiish tongue.

In response, the huge dragon laughed, and lowered his left wing to the snow. There followed an enormous crack, as something rather small fell from the creature's back. This something rose with another audible cracking and the shifting of bones and scales into a someone.

Lord Krenn was surprisingly small. In fact, he could not have stood more than six feet even while fully aloft. However, despite his apparent youth, the master of the dragon race did not stand to his full height. His left leg stood tall and slender, but his right hung twisted from his side, held up more by the solid steel staff in his left hand than by its own strength. A single black wing stood from his back on the right, though its paired limb was missing completely.

These facts and more became obvious as the clearly young dragon limped his way forward, a scowl decorating his face. When he spoke, it was with surprisingly fluent Equiish, as his forked tongue danced over the serrated edges of his teeth. "Twenty years and still Frostbite thinks he can send me petty servants as a greeting. You two–where is the Baron?"

Knowing his father's attitude toward the mention of their former ruler, Foresight stretched out a hoof across Watchful Eye's chest. Though angered, the Tsar held his tongue, allowing his son to respond.

"Baron Frostbite has been dead for nearly seven years, Kренен."

There was more to the story, but Krenn's quick tongue cut the pony off. "Your rounded tongue does me an injustice–or did you think I used yours out of preference? 'Krenn' will be fine. I am more concerned that you have lied to me; Frostbite was barely into his middle years when last we spoke, and my nap was very short. He is not the kind to have given in to age so easily."

Watchful Eye snorted, sending a white cloud of his own breath into the snowy air. "He did not 'give in to age', Krenn. We overthrew him. My son killed him."

Krenn laughed, and the world seemed to shake. It wasn't a particularly loud noise on its own, but both ponies could feel the vibrations of his throat within the depths of their bones. When the sound and the fury had both ended, Krenn shook his head, as his claw indicated Foresight's direction. "This one killed Frostbite? Your tale grows more ridiculous by the minute."

"I am a skilled mage," Foresight countered, defending his own honor.

"By the standards of your kind perhaps. But a dragon is only a mage when they have spent two of your pathetically short lifetimes studying and practicing. Perhaps your father can do our magic, but you have no wings." Krenn tapped his steel staff on the ground twice. "Now, if Frostbite is truly dead, then I thank you for the first proper greeting that the race of ponies has given me in a century." He tapped the tip of his staff against the pale green scales of his chest, just below where they met the inky black sheen of his shoulders. "Now, I know that without fire in your bellies, the cold can be discomforting. If you still live within the castle walls, let us go there. I am anxious to see Luna again."

"Of course," Watchful Eye answered, before glancing up to Krenn's escort. "But I'm afraid the structure is sized for ponies. They may not fit inside the whole structure, let alone through the door."

Krenn laughed, before the talons of his right hand were wreathed in black flame. Slowly, a pair of scrolls and a pair of quills burnt their way into being. When the objects were complete, he gestured toward his companions. They nodded silently, grabbing the documents and the quills with entirely too-large claws and signing gently on tiny papers.

Foresight winced at the sound of bones snapping and scales realigning as the two dragons began to shrink down. Without paying the painful process any attention, Krenn claimed both scrolls and burnt them away with another burst of the black flames from his hands.

"How did you…?" Foresight began, struggling to find words through his amazement.

Krenn smiled. "I do not permit grown wyrms to guard me, for they often cannot fit where I travel. Those parchments were contracts, transferring their hoards into my possession. Without hoards, they have no untenable size, and so, they can continue to stand as my company." He gestured with his clawed hand toward the suddenly empty space where two enormous dragons had once stood. A pair of bipedal, scaled youths rose at his beckoning, and moved quickly to join their ruler. "These are Огонь," he gestured to the red male, "and Лёд." The pale blue female nodded. "My left and right hands. You may call them 'Ogon'' and 'Lyod' if you wish to play with the sophistication of the draconic tongue, though I am fond of 'Fire' and 'Ice'. They are young, but their willpower is great enough not to be so consumed by greed when they bear the size of their elders."

The three dragons and two ponies began to walk. With Watchful Eye leading the way toward their rather obvious and fairly close destination, Foresight found himself immediately beside Lord Krenn. Though he wanted to hold his tongue, the scholar's mind could not resist the temptation of curiosity. "I am Predvidenie–Foresight, in Equiish. It is my pleasure to stand in your presence, but I hope you will forgive my curiosity. Krenn, if those contracts gave you ownership of their hoards, why didn't you grow in size? And for that matter, why aren't you a fully sized wyrm already?"

"Excellent questions for a mind so young," Krenn answered, leaning heavily on his staff as he paced through the snow. "I think I will answer the latter first. Tell me, if you were to guess, how old is Luna?"

Foresight closed his eyes, thinking back to the ancient manuscripts he preferred to spend his free time poring over. "I would hazard a guess at… sixty thousand years?"

Krenn laughed again, this time without the seismic shuddering that had pervaded the air. "A bit older if my recollection serves, but not much. You are well educated. However, that isn't quite what I meant. If you were to guess, how old is Luna's body?"

At that, Foresight nodded in comprehension. "I see. Um… perhaps thirty, at most? Twenty five? About my age, I suppose."

Krenn nodded, and then with the claw that was not tightly gripping his staff, he gestured to himself. "And what does a dragon of about your age look like?"

"So your immortality doesn't actually vary your age based on the lifespan of your species?" Foresight's eyes widened. "Curious, though I suppose there hasn't been much research on you or any of the other five gods."

"Gods?" Krenn shook his head. "Magnus was an idiot to spread that term for us. We aren't gods. We aren't infallible, or omnipotent. We aren't even really immortal. It might take a much sharper knife to pierce Celestia's flesh, for example, but such a thing will still kill her." His staff lifted and fell in the snow as he paced, giving their conversation a certain curious, almost musical rhythm. "Regardless, while your rulers enjoy an eternity in their prime, my body is that of a child amongst my kind unless I maintain a potent hoard. And that, pony, brings us to your next question."

Rather than continue to speak, Krenn's hands shifted along his staff. There was a pain in his face as his stunted leg shifted under the weight of his body. The walking stick was a weapon as it was heaved above his head. His claws slid down the shaft like it was the haft of an axe, coming together at the very base just as the head of the weapon struck through the snow and against the ground. From where it had struck, a fissure three feet wide, and one thick, opened in the earth. Molten gold poured forth swirling up into the air at the bidding of Krenn's unseen magic. When the motion stopped, a perfect replica of Foresight had been formed. Steam gushed into the sky as the molten metal froze in the face of frigid winds. When the gold finally cooled to a stop in the icy air, the statue was found staring down at the flesh-and-blood pony of whom it was a replica.

"That's… amazing," Foresight observed.

"Consider it my payment, for questions well asked. A dragon's hoard is not based on some arbitrary value of currency or purpose. What is value? To one of my kind, the answer comes from within. When a dragon's hoard is gold, he shows that in his heart, he longs for the cold metal. It makes a comfortable bed, and can be used to barter with other species, but in itself, it is little more than glorified dirt. Its only real value is how much effort it takes to drag it forth to the surface. For me, that effort is no more than it will take your horn to lift a glass as a toast in my honor over dinner." The smug dragon pulled back his staff, leaned heavily upon it, and continued walking as though nothing had happened. "Wise dragons, however, do not place their hoards in gold or gems. One of my best advisors is a wyrm named 'Zagatka'–Enigma in your tongue, I believe. A skilled mage."

Foresight spared himself an awkward gulp, instantly recognizing the name. "He valued knowledge above all else, and so before he had grown, his hoard was a great library of spells and incantations."

Desperate to change the subject, the unicorn took only the few seconds necessary to regain control of his tone before speaking up. "What about you? With power like yours, it must be easy to acquire whatever it is you value. Why not maintain a great hoard, at least to travel here on your own wings?"

Krenn's smile turned into a brutal scowl so quickly, Foresight missed the transition in the process of a single blink. "There is only one thing I value in this world, and it can neither be so easily made, nor so casually replaced. Even for me, it is finite. Perhaps you should ask your 'Princess Celestia', if you wish to know more."

With the conversation well and truly dead, Foresight walked alongside the limping dragon in silence. It took only a few moments for the strange party to reach the Stalliongradi palace, and from there to enter through the main doors. Inside, the unicorn observed the frightened looks and stolen glances of the palace servants glancing at the trio of dragons from behind closed doors and around corners. Many of them were old enough to remember the last time the reptilian creatures had freely roamed through Stalliongrad, on much more cruel terms.

Their path stopped after a number of turns in a small lounge, where a number of seats had been spread out for the guests. Foresight and Watchful Eye claimed their own places, while Krenn limped over to a towering armchair flanked by a pair of small stools. Continuing their practice of near-total silence, Fire and Ice sat on either side of him, judging the ponies with their eyes.

Watchful Eye gestured to a small table of drinks and exquisite snacks. "Feel free to help yourselves to anything you wish. We have at least until tomorrow morning before Princess Luna arrives."

"That is good," Krenn answered, with the expression of a shark who had just scented blood in the water. "You and I have things to discuss, if Frostbite is truly dead."

Watchful Eye's intrigue belied the tightening of his stomach. Foresight had no such facial control, allowing his lips to tighten in concern. He had only been eleven at the time, but he remembered seeing the dragons soaring over Stalliongrad, burning away homes with impunity.

The Tsar levitated a white carafe of fine Prench coffee and poured it into a pair of slender white mugs. One was offered to Krenn, who took it graciously and then proceeded to ignore it completely. Watchful Eye took the other steaming drink himself, and gulped it down in a single motion that would have made his younger and more violent son proud. With a bit of fire in his belly to match that of the draconic ruler, he finally asked the obvious question. "What do you want, Krenn?"

"Two things. One will be easy. The other, I suspect, more concerning for you. Firstly, beneath this castle there is a vault. Frostbite kept something there. Something of mine, which was taken from me many years ago." The dragon sipped his coffee, shook his head in disgust, and offered it to Ice. When she grasped it in her talons, he turned back to the Tsar and continued his demand. "I offer you my sincere word that it is not dangerous, and I welcome you to accompany me in finding it, but I would not have you handle it. Too many times have I seen it in the hooves of ponies."

Watchful Eye's brow rose. "What is it?"

"A black satchel of stiff cloth, or perhaps soft leather. I can't recall exactly. It is a bit larger than your hoof; it fits perfectly within my claw. It has a long drawstring, too long to hang well around your neck, though it would fit well on a boar or a dragon of my size."

The tsar glanced to his son. Foresight shrugged. "It seems rather mundane for the most of the vaults. Does it have any magical enchantments?"

"It is larger on the inside," Krenn answered. "It was once known for a throbbing, beating noise that grew louder as it grew closer to living beings. I doubt that magic persists upon it anymore."

Watchful Eye nodded. "I can agree to that. Foresight will accompany you within the vault; he will be more useful than I at finding what you seek. What is your second request?"

"Land," Krenn answered, tapping his staff on the ground. "Specifically, the coast near that town you ponies call Trotsylvania. No more than one hundred acres, counting the islands, and none of it inhabited by your kind save perhaps lumberjacks and sailors."

Watchful Eye frowned. "We are not in the habit of giving up our land, Krenn."

The dragon nodded. "I am more than willing to provide you with compensation in gold, jewels, or whatever else you might possibly require. However, do note that twenty years ago, the Baron Frostbite was also unwilling to negotiate on this matter."

Without a word, Watchful Eye gestured to his son toward the door, and the two ponies walked away from the discussion.

Scootaloo was certain she would soon have the coolest cutie mark in the entire world. She would follow Celestia unnoticed, find Mr. Reckoning, and come back to Rainbow, all before her 'sister' even realized she was gone. Rainbow Dash would teach her how to fly for real, and she'd get a spying cutie mark, or a finding lost ponies cutie mark, or maybe even a being awesome cutie mark.

In the depths of her daydream, she only narrowly avoided walking headfirst into a suit of armor displayed in the hallway. Princess Celestia and her mean guard, 'Flag' were up ahead. Scootaloo was struggling to keep up with their urgent pace as she ducked from cover to cover. Twice, the unicorn had glanced back at a noise, but both times the little pegasus had been fast enough to hide from her inquisitive gaze.

Glancing out from behind the armor, Scootaloo heard the unicorn mare speak. "You have a tail, Princess." Scootaloo thought the statement was dumb; of course Princess Celestia had a tail. It was right there. You'd have to be blind to miss it.

"She's doing no harm," Celestia answered after a moment's consideration. "And we don't have time to care about it either way." The response confused Scootaloo, but the promise of a cutie mark caused the youth to simply forget the issue altogether. She followed eagerly from a distance as the two ponies came to a spiral staircase, and began to descend.

"I hope she's smart enough not to follow you; she might get hurt if she fell off the stairs," the guardspony noted with a curiously clear tone. Scootaloo was only more confused by the comment; was Celestia's tail a separate creature? That might explain why it was billowy and magical, she supposed. Was her mane the same way? And was the Princess bald? The questions were entertaining, but not likely to earn answers.

Scootaloo followed as quietly as possible, setting her hooves gently on the stone steps. The sounds of the Princess and her protector continued down the stairs, setting a pace that was hard for the filly to follow. She passed a pair of hallways, and then a big barred door that looked like it belonged in a jail cell. Still, the hooves continued downward, and she followed them. It wasn't long before she passed through an enormous, Princess Celestia-sized opening and into a massive cavern filled with sparkling gems and crystals.

She very nearly forgot the presence of both the guardspony and the immortal, and she completely forgot her objective. Her hooves carried her in silent, slack-jawed awe down the winding, open-sided staircase anchored on one side against what seemed to be either a pillar, or an enormous stalactite.

Scootaloo was so engrossed in the sights that the sensation of her hoof shifting from the cold, smooth stone of the stairs to the rough natural dirt of the cavern floor caused her to jump. It didn't take long from that unexpected start for the filly to realize that neither Celestia, nor her bodyguard were anywhere to be seen. All she could find were an array of five large but clearly pony-sized archways carved out of the rock wall. There were no markings or clear signs to distinguish the four 'wrong' paths from whichever direction Celestia and Flag had chosen. Seeing no better choice, the filly wandered down the middle path,

Another of the huge doors, like the one which had guarded the entrance to the cavern, sat wide open in front of the orange pegasus. She took a moment to admire the array of gemstones (or crystals?) set into the stone face. They didn't make any particular image, instead existing as a slanted grid along lines of silver filigree.

The door quickly lost interest when compared to the room within. The space was a library like chamber, but instead of bookshelves, the solid stone cabinets were riddled with small recesses that each held a single crystal. Green, purple, red, yellow, fat, slender, large, and small; all could be found with a mere glance. The stones offered their own glows to the otherwise dark space, painting the pale wall in a wild and spirited array of colors.

The shelves were arranged in a loose circle around a central plinth, where a spire of gaseous golden magic seemed to beckon for an offering from a well of what Scootaloo could only imagine as molten gold. The filly wandered around, staring at the crystals, but it didn't take long for her curiosity and courage to take hold of her apprehension. She wandered to the far side of the room from the entrance, claimed a tall and narrow green crystal, and brought it back to the altar in the center of the space. It vibrated in her mouth as she approached, tugging toward the magical glow. She held it tight, fearful that it might shatter if she dropped it. With each step closer, however, the tug grew tighter, until the filly could no longer restrain the stone. Rather than falling, it flew into the center of the golden pool, and the world exploded in a burst of green.

Scootaloo's sight returned quickly, but accompanied by a curious lack of control. Her gaze looked down on a muzzle of pale white, and a mane of gentle pink swept within her vision. The world around her was a beautiful grassy valley, whose floral scents and warm winds tickled her coat and her wings. She felt tall, standing higher over the ground than her usual, youthful form. And, perhaps most notably, she was not alone.

The mare before her had a gorgeous warm pink coat and a soft yellow mane. She was an alicorn, tall and graceful, with a slender horn and wide wings. Yet, for all her beauty, her appearance was tainted by a sorrow and an anger that masked her face.

"Celestia, how can you do this to me?" she shouted, looking Scootaloo straight in the eyes.

'I'm not Celestia!’ Scootaloo tried to answer; her mouth ignored her demands, offering a very different and far colder response in place of the words. "It has to be this way, Chrysanthemum. I'm sorry. We'll never forget you."

"Forget me?" The mare called Chrysanthemum turned away, letting her luxuriously long mane sweep across her face and horn. "How can you say that? I'm not even dead yet and you're already talking like I'm not even here. Luna, I can understand, but you too?"

"Chrysa, I didn't want this to happen–" Scootaloo's hoof extended toward the mare to offer comfort, only to be slapped away as the mare interrupted.

"Of course you didn't, Tia." The spite in her words was thick enough to stop Scootaloo's unbending body. "We were like sisters, weren't we? But I guess it's easier for you two to just abandon me." Her wings spread suddenly, and she darted into the sky. "Well, I think I'll do my best to forget you. I'll find my own power, and then we'll see if that freak's gift was worthwhile."

"Wait, Chrysa–" Scootaloo's body rose suddenly, flying without her consent. The motion didn't last long, as a flash of green lightning flew from the other alicorn's body to engulf her. The pain was enormous, stealing away the entire world. Scootaloo screamed in agony.

Luna awoke to the lurching of the train, jolting her not only upright, but fully out of bed. "What manner of disturbance was that?" She glanced out the window on the frozen plains where the sun was rapidly setting, noting that it would soon be time for her to raise the moon. "The locomotive has ceased its passage. Are we to be expecting danger?"

Marathon groaned from her own cot, rolling back over and struggling in vain to put a pillow between her sensitive ears and Luna's potent voice. "Mirror, go check. I'm going back to sleep."

"Truly, thou art an Honor Guard, art thou not?"

"I don't fight," Marathon answered. "I have rank as an excuse to let me carry important documents as a messenger. I spend more time as an ambassador anyway. Now, please, just let me sleep. I'm sure it was nothing."

"I'll investigate, if it helps to calm your nerves," Mirror Image offered. The unicorn stallion was already fully awake. He'd spent the afternoon of the long train ride silently guarding the door. "But Princess…Modern Equiish, please?"

Luna groaned. "You agreed we would not have to concern ourselves–"

"If it was a minor issue. But honestly,” the stallion glanced around as if making sure nopony were listening in, before dropping his voice to a faux whisper. "That was terrible. Now, should I be going?"

"Neigh, bodyguard. We require you here, especially if our other escort has no skill in battle. Although I can if necessary defend myself, I would rather not draw down the chaos of my own magic in battle."

Image groaned and shook his head. "I didn't say I was leaving, Princess. Just don't expect me to be much good for meaningful conversation. Marathon, I'm going to send Left out. Try and make sure I don't embarrass myself while I'm gone."

"Fine," the diplomat groaned in answer, not even looking up from her pillow. "Don't hurt yourself."

Luna was puzzled at the conversation. Mirror Image seemed to have broken the concept of the 'Royal Plural' completely, referring to one, or perhaps two other ponies as himself. It was a confusing matter, to be sure. Before the princess could inquire further, however, the unicorn stallion's horn began to glow with a pale blue aura. She heard the sharp intake of his breath reacting to pain as jolts of mana bounced from one side of his fractured horn to the other. What followed, however, stole Luna's breath.

One half of Mirror Image's horn shifted forward independently, as a full stallion's body stepped out of the pony to stop directly in front of the guardspony. As soon as the magic was done, its glow stopped. Before her, on the floor of their train cabin, stood two nearly identical ponies. Each one had half a horn, as well as half a cutie mark. Though they both had Mirror Image's namesake mirror, only the reflection on the left persisted for one of the stallions, whilst the other half of the image remained for his counterpart.

The stallion with the left side of the image and the half horn nearest his left eye nodded in Luna's direction. "I will either return within the limit of thirty-seven minutes, or not at all." With no more to say, he opened the cabin door with a hoof and walked out, leaving his counterpart behind.

The other stallion shut the door, and then sat against it while looking up at Luna with a smile. "Glorious defender; sentinel. This soldier shall serve, protect you in absence of himself."

Luna was left flabbergasted. "W-wha…?"

"It's his special talent," Marathon groaned, behaving as if the magical impossibility was not only mundane, but also boring. "Now, with my utmost respect, Princess, can you please let me get back to sleep? I'm probably going to have to be up all night in Stalliongrad when we finally get there."

"O-of course…" Luna managed after a moment of silence. Her mind could gather nothing more to say. Her bodyguard had, at least to her observation, shattered one of the fundamental laws of magic, as casually as if he were simply taking a drink. "How did thou perform such a feat, Officer Image?"

"In this form, title of this work is 'Right', Lady of the Moon," Image–or rather, Right–answered. "Learn the title, learn the work."

"Right? Very well. Explain to us how you ignore entropy, and the conservation of mana."

"Ignorance holds minds of fools," Right responded, with no more focus than if he were commenting on the weather. "And passion the hearts of lovers."

Luna cocked her head, before slowly coming to the realization that what she had interpreted as a cunning riddle or piece of poetry was in honest fact an utterance of nonsense. "What are you trying to say?"

Marathon rolled over in her bunk, and narrowly missed impaling herself on Luna's horn as she fell with a dull thud to the floor of the cabin. A loud ripping marked the end of the room's provided sheets as they were torn in half by the sharp point of the same horn. Marathon didn't seem to mind as she stood up with a groan and brushed herself off. "Sorry, Princess."

"Tis' no concern," Luna answered, finally managing to pull the fabric off of her face. "Do you have an answer to this ridiculous speech of our bodyguard?"

"Huh? Oh, Mirror's trick? He just splits himself in half along his horn."

"But we clearly observe that he has taken not the form of half a stallion, but two full bodies instead. From whence does his spare magic come?"

"Uh, spare magic?" Marathon pulled herself upright. "I'm not a unicorn, Princess, but I'm pretty sure there's no 'spare magic'. It's just something he can do because his horn is split in half."

"Yea, verily, but such action would still require him to forge not only a new body, but a new soul as well. Perhaps that explains his curious manner of speech."

"Oh, that? No, that's just the way his right brain talks when there isn't a whole lot of left brain to go along with it." Marathon shrugged. "I don't know that much about Arcana, but if you want to know more, you could just ask Mirror when he puts himself back together."

"That shall be too long… I intend to go out myself and have a look. Besides, it shall soon be time to call forth the night."

"Princess, Mirror just got done saying he'd be back in thirty minutes. I doubt it’s even been two. It might not be safe."

"There is the chance," Luna agreed with a little smile. "But consider this, Marathon. I am not as I was in Canterlot, helpless as I focused on the night sky and not my surroundings. Do you wonder sometimes why my sister keeps the Honor Guard's captain for herself, rather than having him serve as my bodyguard? It is because of the two of us, I am by far the more skilled warrior. If something threatens the train, I may even show you. Now, come with me. We shall investigate."

"But Princess–"

"You protest too much," Luna muttered, as her horn glowed with a starry veil of mana. The wall of the train peeled open like a tin can, permitting a frigid, snowy wind to pervade the cabin.

Marathon shuddered, until Luna wrapped a wing over her back. "Forgive me. I did not think to bring forth warmth before I opened the wall." She flapped her wings twice, and the chill suddenly left the air.

"What kind of spell was that?"

"Not the sort you are asking of. It is Empatha. I demanded that the ice and the chilled air stay away from us, and they obeyed. Now, follow closely. It is easy to get lost in the storm of hatred. Right, stay close as well."

"Though hearts grow less fond for such company," he answered, his head cocked to the side.

Marathon flapped her wings to keep the stumps of her hind legs out of the snow. Outside the car, snow-covered plains stretched in all directions. Luna sighed aloud as she examined their surroundings. "We remember when this land was beautiful and lush. Such were better days." Her head twisted about, and then her eyes narrowed in the direction of the front car. "Stay close, Marathon." Before offering any further explanation, the alicorn began to sprint across the snowy ground

Marathon followed as swiftly as she could, struggling to keep up with the larger, stronger wings of the larger and stronger mare. It did not take long, however, for Luna to stop beside the train's engine. Marathon swept up beside her, and finally got a glimpse of the scene that had earned Luna's attention.

Two stallions, an enormous male elk, and a full grown tiger stood ahead of the train, where a log had fallen on the tracks. A fifth creature, which seemed to be another elk, lay dead in the snow. The blood of his neck painted the snowy tracks red.

One of the ponies carried an axe in his mouth, though its jagged blade looked hungrier for flesh than wood. He and his companions were angry, and ready to kill. They had encircled the other half of Mirror Image, who could only be called 'Left'. His gaze danced between them, and Marathon could see tears frozen to his coat as he struggled to maintain the magic on his horn. The violence intended by their stances stopped when they saw Luna.

"Принцесса наконец явилась?" the tiger muttered.

Возможно она не понимает, во что нам выльются её действия, the living elk answered into the minds of all present. Альянс Повстанцев, объясни ей из-за чего мы делаем это.

"Разумеется. Принцесса Луна, нам известно, что вы собираетесь встретиться с Королем Драконов и 'Узурпатором'. Мы не можем допустить ваш разговор с ними. Разворачивайтесь и возвращайтесь назад в свой нагорный дом."

Luna's brow rose. "Marathon, what did they say?"

"You don't speak Stalliongradi?" Marathon recoiled at Luna's glare. "Sorry; just an assumption." She gestured to the pegasus stallion whose mouth was not filled with a weapon. "That one seems to be the leader. His name is Povstantsev… It means Revolutionary, I think. He wants you to turn back, and not meet with Lord Krenn and Tsar Eye."

Luna nodded. "And I take it they threaten violence if we do not comply?"

Marathon answered with a nod of her own. "That seems to be the case."

Luna shook her head. "Tell them that I am giving them one chance to leave, or I will solve this issue myself."

"Princess, this is dangerous–"

"Not for me. Say it."

Marathon coughed, feeling the burn of ice in her lungs, before speaking up. "Принцесса Луна даёт вам единственный шанс сдаться. Если вы им не воспользуетесь, она... разберется с вами."

The assembled creatures laughed, and then tensed. That, for Luna, was enough. Her horn flared suddenly in a blindingly black light that burned the eyes into the darkness of its own color. It reflected off the snow both falling from the sky and lying on the ground. Without fair warning, Marathon could only hear the noises of the conflict.

First, there was a terrible sparking, like electricity if one were to listen to it from underwater. It was shortly followed by an incredibly curt scream of agony, and then the curious thump of a body falling into a snow drift.

Next, a metallic clang marked the meeting of a blade and a steel-shod hoof. Wood shattered, and a heavy steel object fell against the ground. A dull crunch, like the breaking of ribs, accompanied the rush of air leaving lungs in a single solid strike. Another body joined the snow.

Не думай, что твой жалкий трюк лишил меня зрения. called the elk's ethereal voice, directly into the minds of his listeners. Despite his unnerving means of communication, there was obvious terror in his voice. Luna played to it directly.

Save your thoughts, Luna answered in kind. Marathon had never thought to hear an elk screaming in pain, and found herself thankful that his agony was short. Then, not one but two bodies fell into the snow, and the battle was done.

The sound of magic filled the air, and Marathon's eyes opened. Mirror Image was standing at Luna's side, once more himself as the princess hoisted the log away from the train's rails.

"Thanks, Princess," Mirror Image muttered, scratching behind his own ear with a hoof out of shame.

"Art thou not going to suggest that we should have stayed where we were safe, as Marathon so often does?"

"Not really," Mirror replied. "You saved… well, at least half my life, I suppose, Princess. If I had both halves of me, I could have probably dealt with that. I was expecting some loosely organized ponies, or maybe a yeti. Not a team of five. They had military training, too."

"Clearly not enough," Luna observed, lifting five bodies out of the snow with her magic, and exerting no more stress for the action than it might take to elevate a teacup. "Perhaps Tsar Eye will have dungeons to hold them. Until then, I shall simply force them to remain asleep. I can do nothing for the one you killed, however." She glanced at the bloody elk, and unceremoniously dropped him from her telekinetic grip. "His soul is Valdria's now. Marathon, inform the conductor that we can continue. Officer Image and I shall return to the cabin and secure our prisoners."

The Honor Guard nodded and went about their business, though Marathon could not shake the feeling in her chilled wings that somehow, the conflict was a portent of something worse yet to come.

"Scootaloo! Scootaloo, you are safe! Stop screaming!"

The filly felt powerful hooves on her shoulders as the pain ended, and the glow of the grassy world was stolen away. Her vision of reality returned suddenly, ushering her into sight of a slightly familiar and frighteningly close face.

"Mr. Ink?"

The stallion took a deep breath, and then proceeded to release the filly. Not standing up on her own, she fell to the stone floor with a dull thud and a slight pain. Red Ink rolled his neck, revealing a rather painful burn and a pair of small scabs on his shoulder. Most concerning was the absence of his signature black jacket. "What are you doing here, Scootaloo?"

"Uh… well… see, that's a funny story, but…"

The Captain of the Honor Guard groaned. "This is not a time for beating around the bush, Scootaloo. I am not your schoolteacher anymore." Ink looked up from the orange filly, to where Celestia's magic was calmly removing the green crystal from its place hovering a few scant inches above the golden pool. "Your majesty, can I be of assistance with that?"

It took Scootaloo a moment to see the tears flowing down Celestia's cheeks as she pulled the crystal away. When it was free of the strange altar and cleanly within her grip, she spared herself a gasping breath, as if surfacing from the ocean after a long dive. "No, Captain, I can handle this. Get the information you need, and then depart. We don't have much time."

Ink nodded, before turning back to Scootaloo. "Now, why are you here? Don't you have class today?"

"Uh, it's Saturday," Scootaloo answered.

Ink snorted. "In my youth, I did not take weekends from studying. But that is not what I mean. Why are you in this room?"

"Well, I wanted to find Mr. Reckoning for Rainbow Dash, but–"

"Mr. Reckoning, as in Corporal Dead Reckoning? The stallion that Rainbow Dash reported dead following her return from Grivridge?"

"Yeah, well, it turns out–"

Celestia cut in as she returned the crystal to its place on the wall. "This is not the issue, Captain. Scootaloo, you followed Lieutenant Flag and me down here. I assume you didn't see us enter the archways outside, and chose a path at random. I would like to know how you managed to get through that door and into this chamber."

Scootaloo huffed a bit, tired of being interrupted, though her gratitude at not 'really' being in trouble yet was more than enough to keep her comments to herself. She glanced back to the bejeweled doors that Celestia had indicated. "They were already open, Princess."

Celestia's response was to turn her head suddenly to the various shelves of the room and begin searching them. As she moved she spoke aloud. "Captain, Lieutenant, help me search these. Look for anything out of the ordinary."

Red Ink and Lieutenant Flag, whom Scootaloo had not noticed standing on the opposite side of the room, went about scanning the room. The filly looked from cabinet to cabinet, and then started walking around herself. In her first glance, she hadn't realized the full size of the room, but the walls stretched back for some distance. There were hundreds of shelves of the gemstones, and if all were filled, ten thousand such objects would be a small supply.

As Scootaloo wandered along the almost library-like shelves, she listened to the guardsponies and the princess talking. They seemed too occupied to notice the little pegasus.

Red Ink spoke first. "What are these gems? Torture devices? Is that why Scootaloo was screaming?"

"No, Captain. These are Memory Stones."

Lieutenant Flag's harsh voice rose next. "I've never heard of such an item. What do they do?"

Celestia's voice traveled along the shelves as she searched. "Living a life as long as mine or my sister’s can make it hard to relate to those without our lifespan. We saw that Valdria and Magnus were growing distant from their subjects, and Luna devised a solution. We store within these stones our memories, and our emotions. They allow us a release in hard times, and keep us from losing our respect for other ponies."

Ink had taken to flying as he breezed past the shelves. "Isn't that dangerous? Forgetting the past?"

"We don't forget totally," Celestia answered. "We merely give up our emotional attachments and our connections. We remember the facts, but it is as though we had learned them from a book. Our minds don't have the images anymore. It was a very elegant solution that Luna created." Celestia paused in her pacing, affording herself a deep breath. "We store our memories once in a century, but most of the stones within this chamber are shorter and more potent recollections. Sorrow. Anger. Regrets. We rid ourselves of them when they would affect our ability to rule, though at times we choose to hold on to such emotions…" The princess' voice fell away into a new and painful recollection.

Scootaloo stopped suddenly. "Uh, Princess, Mr. Ink… one of the crystals is missing."

The guardsponies and their ruler returned quickly, taking no more than a dozen seconds to find the filly. She stood before an empty cabinet, which sat at ground level amongst the shelves.

"Princess, do you think Masquerade took it?"

Celestia nodded. "I am growing to hate that mare with every passing minute. She escapes an impregnable cell and traps you inside it," she gestured to Captain Ink. "Then she comes here, opens a door that only an alicorn can unlock, and requiring a password only Luna and I know…" Celestia glared down at the empty cubby. "And now she takes a Memory Stone, even though the only font that can unlock a memory is in this chamber."

"Is the crystal important?" Ink asked. "What does it say?"

"I don't know," Celestia answered. "It isn't mine."

Flag and Ink shared a concerned glance, before the former spoke up. "With respect, does it contain memories of Nightmare Moon?"

"It isn't Luna's either," Celestia noted. "This set of stones contain the memories of Commander Hurricane." The princess glanced around the room for a moment, before turning to White Flag. "Take Scootaloo here and bring her back to Rainbow Dash. Help them find Dead Reckoning. Scootaloo, I'm going to forgive what you've done because I believe you were just curious, but this is trespassing. If you are found doing something like this again, there will be consequences." Celestia's face was strict enough to leave Scootaloo quaking. "Do you understand?"

Scootaloo nodded, and allowed herself to be led away by the angry-looking unicorn mare. Celestia waited until she was alone with Red Ink before turning her attention to him. "Are you well enough for battle, Red Ink?"

He nodded. "Her spell wore off at least an hour before you found me. My neck hurts, but not enough to really lessen my effectiveness. You said I didn't have any lingering magical effects…"

"Given that Masquerade's magic fooled my own spells, I'm not sure I trust that assessment, but there is little we can do about it for now."

"Right. Honestly, Princess, the only thing I'm feeling is furious. I'd like to kill her." Ink's eye twitched slightly. "I'd like that a lot."

Celestia nodded grimly. "Your orders are these, Captain. Fly following the train tracks toward Stalliongrad." She ignored his pained wince at the Equiish name for his home. "If you find Shining Armor, you will likely find Masquerade posing as you. Do not reveal yourself unless you can kill her. If you cannot find Shining Armor, assume she killed him. Regardless of his status, assume Masquerade's target is Princess Luna. Go to her, and protect her. You have my permission to kill the assassin if the opportunity arises. Do not let her escape."

Red Ink wasted no time. A single nod was all that precluded the spreading of his wings, as he soared down the hall and out into the large crystal cavern.

The door to the East Wind Express' small, two-pony cabin was slammed open to reveal a panting red pegasus. "Shining, wake up!"

In response to being startled from his nap, the unicorn rolled over, only to collide heavily with the floor. "What?" he asked from the height of Red Ink's hooves.

"I think I found her! I was getting dinner when the chef told me that a cake had gone missing. I found a smear of frosting on the door to the caboose. You know how to protect against illusions, or I would have gone in myself."

` The guardspony was awake instantly, as adrenaline surged into his still-groggy brain. In an instant, he was on his hooves, and after another, his armor was latching itself across his body. "Let's go!"

Red Ink led the way, doing an excellent job of channeling his potent physique into a threatening charging mass. "All of you, out of the way now! Guardsponies coming through!" When a civilian was too slow, Ink spared no force in slamming them out of the way before continuing his outright gallop. His passage overturned tables in the dining car, and earned the offended glares of the other passengers, but the Captain of the Honor Guard neither noticed, nor cared. His long black coat trailed behind him as he moved, galloping through the remaining two sleeping cars in mere seconds, before finally coming to a stop beside a single rectangular red door.

Shining steeled himself, and then stepped toward the door, only to find Red Ink's hoof stopping him. "What?" he hissed.

"Wait," Ink answered, glancing out one of the train's windows. "I don't want her to have the chance of jumping off the back. We're almost to the Dragon-Fire Bridge." His hoof indicated the snow falling outside the windows, and the huge canyon ahead. "Thousand foot drop onto a sheet of ice in the wastes, with cliffs on both sides. That way, jumping won't save her, and if she survives the fall, she won't be able to get away."

Though Shining's first reaction was to be shaken at Ink's obvious intention to kill, the pegasus' reasoning was sound. "When?"

"Thirty seconds. You go first; keep a shield up, draw her out. I'll come in behind when she shows herself and take off her horn." To accentuate the point, the stallion produced a pair of bladed steel shoes from his jacket, and slipped them onto his hooves. "Twenty seconds." Ink pressed himself tightly against the side of the door frame, concealing himself from view. "Fifteen."

Shining nodded as the count dropped off, and together they silently mouthed the rest of the numbers. When they reached three, he charged his horn and placed his hoof on the door handle. At zero, he threw it open and charged in, covering himself with a shield.

The caboose was filled with a thick black haze, which dusted the cargo and restrained view. Shining ducked when a bolt of magic flew from his right, but when his horn illuminated the area, nopony was to be seen.

"Shining Armor?" The voice came from everywhere, echoing despite the small space. "You're brave coming back here. I brought a bigger knife this time."

"Give up, Masquerade!" the guardspony shouted back.

"I suppose you have to say that, Paladin of Canterlot. You're wasting your time." After the words were said, Masquerade herself stepped forth from behind a pile of luggage. A quick ping of his horn told him it was merely an illusion. The guardspony maintained his guard as he watched the figment. "You can't catch me."

"And why is–" Shining paused to clear his nostrils of the strange cloud in the air. "Why's that?"

"Because you haven't asked any questions. Take this, for example," Masquerade noted the cloud in the air. "Not normal air quality for a train, right?"

"I recognize a smoke bomb when I see one."

"And where in Tartarus would I have found a smoke bomb between escaping the palace and getting on the train?" Shining ducked when another bolt flew past his head. He could feel the heat, and wondered whether or not Platinum's Ward could even absorb such an attack. "Let's try a slightly different question. What can you make thick black–" She paused for a cough of her own. A single, decidedly non-echoing cough, from the corner of the room "–powder out of on a train?"

"I don't care, Masquerade. It's just to hide behind." He leapt over a stack of suitcases and steamer trunks to find a distinct lack of the assassin.

From the door of the room, Shining heard Red Ink speak up. "This is coal dust, Armor. It's explosive."

"What?" Shining pulled himself out of the pile of luggage and ran toward the door. "Get out!"

Nearly to the door of the caboose, and safety, Shining was struck across the face by an impossibly powerful blow from Red Ink's right hoof. It shouldn't have come from the pegasus; if anything, it reminded the Royal Guard Captain of Soldier On's titanic Endura. He landed on his back at the far side of the half-sized train car on his back, where he could see Red Ink's vicious smile.

The voice that came from his lips was distinctly not his own. It belonged to the vile mare. "I have to say, Shining Armor, being a Captain of the Guard is magnificent. Maybe I'll use your face when I kill Luna."

Masquerade stuck out Red Ink's right wing. There came a single emerald spark, and then a cloud of green flame consumed the Captain's entire world. He hadn't even had the time for a shield. Between the plates of Platinum's Ward, his coat was scorched. The armor struggled to protect him from the world-rending explosion. The flames lasted for a full five seconds, and in that time, his only sensation was the sudden lurch of gravity as the floorboards of the train car were burnt away beneath his hooves.

He fell through the cloud of smoke, until it finally relinquished his eyes. He was falling through the sky, alongside the broken smoldering boards which were all that remained of the luggage. Overhead, he could see the rest of the train shakily pulling away from the crumbling center of the bridge. A huge, hundred-foot wide hole had been blown out of it, leaving only green embers and debris.

As the thick sheet of ice grew closer below, his horn prepared a levitation spell. It fizzled uselessly when he struggled to cast it. The snow raced past him, looking as though it was falling up into the sky. He panted for breath desperately. Only seconds remained when his teleportation did the same. The white sheet below was too close now. It filled his vision, promising a swift death.

He never felt the ice.

I'd like to give a thank you to my editors/pre-readers: SatoshiKyu, Roflknief, DarkPhoenix. An extra special thanks goes to Keyesty, whose immense knowledge of not only the Russian language, but also Russian culture made huge parts of this chapter possible.

IV - Of Freedom and Fate

IV

Of Freedom and Fate

The black crystals were thankfully free of horrible memories. Celestia had sealed away her recollections of the battle with King Sombra and his magic of fear, so that only a cold and academic familiarity remained. Even within her recollections of his fear and his shadows, there were some burdens that the ages had proven too hard to bear. If anything, her heart was her greatest weakness, and it was there that he had struck. Shallow pits of her memories from that fateful day had been removed entirely, to spare her the burden of knowing the falsehoods he had forced into her mind. Though not her match, he had been dangerous, and like so many dangerous things, he had proven useful.

She had brought up the thoughts in the first place as she forced herself to remember the powers of his black and twisted crystals. They absorbed Arcana, leeching it just as viciously as a changeling's thirst for love. Even Celestia was not immune; only her massive wellspring of magic gave her a measure of resistance to the prison cell she had hoof-crafted herself. After dismissing both the real Captain Ink and White Flag, she had returned to the chamber in search of clues.

She was joined in her journey by a simple bowl of water. While not a sphere of flawless diamond, it would suffice for her purposes. Rather than looking at the chamber, she set the bowl down, ignited her horn, and stared into its depths.

"How did Masquerade escape?"

Masquerade, statue, still in stone;

Looked to call this cage her home.

Tell me, mare of giant's size,

what did she see when she looked to the skies?

She thought the thoughts which were not her own, as they spilled upward out of the bowl, down the length of her slender horn, and into her skull. Her eyes closed, and she pondered. The raw spirit of Arcana was a strange thing. It was not so much deliberately unhelpful as it was so alien that it did not comprehend how difficult its challenges could be. Still, Celestia was old, wise, and cunning enough to best such a game without undue trouble. Her head looked straight at the ceiling of the room, where the little enchantment in the back of her mind tickled her attention. She'd placed it after Masquerade's escape, to warn her of illusions. It hadn't gone off the previous day, when she had freed the assassin from her stone prison. Something had changed.

Her eyes focused on the white shard that was set apart from the black crystal as a light source for the small chamber. Her wing swept through it with impunity, revealing the illusion it truly was. Extinguishing the spell was no harder than breathing for the ageless mare, who then ignited her horn to free herself from the sudden darkness that filled the room. Her reward for the action came in the form of broken, disenchanted fragments of the same white crystal lying on the floor, and a thin veil of smoke on the ceiling.

The crystal wasn't surprising; Celestia had assumed it might have been broken. It's enchantment was perhaps enough to overpower the lodestone ring Shining Armor had placed on the assassin's horn, but it was nowhere near enough to overpower Sombra's crystal. The smoke was a much more intriguing prospect. Both smoke and the fire that created it were the domains of a pegasus, and not a unicorn. Arcana could only create such an effect indirectly, by creating friction on a flammable fuel source, or outright teleporting fire from some other part of the world. Teleportation was truly impossible in the cell, leaving only two options. While Celestia feared that Masquerade might somehow have gained control of a pegasus' Empatha, it seemed the less likely of two options. She turned back to her scrying bowl again, focusing another spell.

"What was burned in this room?"

It comes in the morning on parchment plain,

arriving in a box atop itself all on its own.

It can't be driven from its road by snow, nor sleet, nor rain,

and yet by fire it comes to you alone.

You drive it headlong into the ground, hoping to help it stand,

And amidst a fence it watches over miles of one's own land.

Whenever it is, in days of tears or laughter,

it stands only to denotes the time that's coming after.

Celestia took only a moment to toy with the riddle before a slight smile broke on her face. The single word answer came quite easily. Rewarding her correct response, the bowl swirled to reveal an image of the recent past.

Masquerade stared up at the crystal overhead, and then performed a vertical jump that Celestia might well have called impossible. The mare's hooves caught the lighting crystal overhead, and dragged it back down to the floor of the chamber. Sure enough, the assassin wasted no time in smashing the enchanted stone against the ground. As soon as it burst, sparks of magic began flying freely through the air, being consumed by the black crystals that formed the cell. The unicorn lowered her restrained horn to the center of the broken fragments and the lodestone greedily ate at the enchantment until it had its fill. From there, the room was plunged into darkness. This lasted until the illusion of the crystal was restored at the top of the room, creating an all too real light. The last action Celestia anticipated was the casual flick of magic that removed the sealed ring from her horn.

Then, to Celestia's surprise, Masquerade's horn began shooting tiny sparks at the walls. The magic-hungry surfaces consumed her spells one after another, but one returned the motion with a surprising red glow. Masquerade turned her hooves to the otherwise seemingly arbitrary side of the chamber's wall, and began to beat on it forcefully. The immortal's surprise turned to fright as the crystal cracked under the force, and then collapsed completely. Behind the broken black stone lay a solitary scroll in a clearly hoof-carved space. Masquerade took the scroll, opened it, and began to read.

The view in the mirror shifted to accommodate a view of the letter, which was filled with an immense grid of nearly hexagonal symbols. She did not even recognize the language, let alone possessing the knowledge to read it. Such a challenge was little issue, however. A burst of magic from Celestia's horn froze the image on the surface of the water, and another such spell summoned a piece of parchment and a quill. With impressive speed, she replicated the symbols drawn on the image in the water, and then focused.

Predicate's Tentative Translation was a valuable but challenging spell, which skipped the need for comprehension of language entirely, and instead rewrote its targeted words or symbols to reflect the intended message of the writer. It took Celestia some modification before the spell would understand that she was not the original writer, but with her skill and experience, even such a drastic change did not take long.

The message that appeared stole her breath away.

Dearest Princess Celestia,

I'm so glad we finally have a chance to communicate, even if it is under less than ideal circumstances. I would love to provide you with a way to respond to me, but we both know that isn't feasible, without you also having a means of finding me. If it were possible, I would have contacted you in August when this entire issue first arose.

At this point, you are likely wondering two things. The first of these is how I've managed to bring this letter into being, since I clearly did not write it for Masquerade's benefit. I know you're currently using Predicate's Translation in an attempt to decipher my message to Masquerade. I was impressed with your ingenuity in applying such a spell to this situation–I would not have thought to do so. Nevertheless, 'deceiving' such a spell to deliver this letter was something of a chore. But I digress... I will tell you gladly that my message to the assassin contained directions on how she was to escape your formidable cage, as well as orders on what to do afterward. How I knew such information brings us to the next question which must, naturally, be filling your mind.

I imagine that the second thing that you are wondering about has now evolved into a third: how can I be sure of these specific details, and how have I remained so many steps ahead of you throughout this entire ordeal? Since I am secure in my position, I do not hesitate to tell you. While I have the utmost respect for your rule, especially in this most recently past millennium, I observe that you have passed a singular law which I find so short-sighted and negligent as to actually endanger Equestria, and all of your subjects who live within. Like any respectable, patriotic Equestrian, I have thus made it my duty to show you the error of your ways, by disobeying your unjust law. Forgive me if I seem philosophical in these next words; know only that I intend to explain myself fully and completely, so that you and I can share an understanding as equals at least in intellect, if not in physical power as well.

The law in question is a curiosity in some sense, for amongst the volume of your laws, it alone pertains to the theft not of life or liberty, but rather the seizure of potential agency. While you label such action as unjust, and that it violates the rights of your subjects, I must disagree. What good does the average pony have with the knowledge that in their future, they have the freedom of choice in a matter. Do their minds recognize the nudge of fate, or the grip of magic? Of course not! In their ignorance, they are comfortable, and their lives go on happily. Is that not what you pursue in rule?

In exchange, they would gain untold security. Equestria would rule the world, no longer living in fear in the shadows of dragons and changelings and stranger things still. We would but see a threat, and simply crush it, long before it took the chance to mature. If you question such a guarantee, ask yourself what you might have been able to do had you known of Masquerade some ten years ago.

To make my position perfectly blunt, I have spent my recent days looking into the future, hoping to offering Equestria a blanket of safety that your own fear and your guards seem to be holding back from the common pony. What I have learned shakes me to my very core.

Princess, a war is coming. I was not the one who looked into the future and forced it be the truth. If I had any free will in this matter myself, we would both be in a very different position. Yet for my loss of choice, I have no regrets. I think it much better that we know this terrible threat for what it is then charge toward it blindly and risk our utter destruction. In the face of this guarantee, I have been enduring the pain of preparing Equestria for its only chance at survival. I would love to have come to you, and to have presented you with this information. It would have made matters much easier to welcome your cooperation in this ordeal than to face off against you as a foe and rival. However, we are both aware that your love for your sister is overwhelming in this matter, and just as that love has forced your hoof for Luna, my knowledge has forced mine against her. Know, before I continue, that I bear her no ill will; the attempt I had arranged on her life was not in the interest of spite, but of safety for the benefit of the countless innocents that you call subjects.

What was seen before me, and passed onto my mind without my consent was that a war was guaranteed. Unavoidable. It will be a great war, like that which you faced after Discord's first fall. For days I struggled with this revelation. Knowing that such disaster was guaranteed, my mind struggled for ways to soften its blow, and spare us the greatest of pain. With that goal in mind, I asked what the races of ponies would have to do to win. You know the riddles and the conditional answers that such questions receive, so I make no apologies in the information that I provide you here.

When war comes–and it will come–we will need to be ready. I hope my near-success at arranging your sister's demise has spurred your guards into training and readiness. Of course, that alone will not be enough, but I will handle much of the rest. I did not do so only to ready the guard, however. The next terrible lesson sent a chill through my blood, but I could not bring myself to ignore it.

If your sister lives to see the first blood of the coming war, the eternal night will no longer be a story to frighten foals. I would ask you for more, but I already know that your reaction to this letter will be fury at my audacity, and your perception of my unbearable and undeserved pride. Though I disagree with your view of me, I nevertheless ask your forgiveness.

However, I must part with one last attempt to sway you. I will win. And, in so doing, all of Equestria shall win as well. There will be sacrifices, and I regret that your sister must be amongst them, but you know as well as I that Nightmare Moon cannot be allowed to return, even if you are unwilling to pay the price for such a measure. I have seen all the things I have written of, and they are guaranteed beyond any shadow of a doubt. When we are done, and the blood is spilt, you may hate me. I would not ask the future of your emotions, to rob you of the freedom for your own feelings. Think of me what you wish. I will not hesitate to come forth, and if at that time you see fit to hang my entrails from the spires of Canterlot, I will die without regret. I only hope you will someday see that my actions are for the good of Equestria, and not my own gain.

Sincerely Yours

No actual signature was present. Celestia's horn burst with a fiery golden magic, and the parchment she had summoned surged into white flames. Its smoke joined that of the original letter, creating a thick cloud on the ceiling. Without pause, her focus moved back to her bowl.

"Who wrote that letter?"

Electrum's Orb,

Rolled and Rolled,

Through hills and valleys,

Dreams and nightmares.

It only stopped when down was up,

When hills were valleys,

And dreams were nightmares.

Then it was stored away,

and many ponies have kept their eyes on it.

He is the last.

She sighed. It was a different riddle than that she had been given when she first asked who was behind Masquerade. Because answers had to be carried across the ambient mana of the world, they grew more complicated and less comprehensible over distance of both time and location. Some were nearly impossible to decipher. King Electrum of Unicornia had once been a famous seer, and his enormous crystal ball was an artifact sought by countless treasure seekers. Even Celestia didn't know its resting place. She casted a quick memorization spell and resolved to direct the riddle to the Royal Library's researchers, before readying another question.

"How did Masquerade get past my door?"

You ask a question with an obvious explanation.

No riddle needed to know it at all.

For you speak of magic's most bare foundation.

She wields a pegasus' fire, and strength enough to crack the wall.

Celestia stared at the bowl, making it the focus of her irritation. "I know that she has used Endura and Empatha. I want to know how."

She called upon her heart's pure rage,

to set a spark upon this stage.

And the gem beneath her hooves

gave rise to shattered cracks and grooves.

This time, Celestia groaned aloud at a second obvious answer. "I know how to use the magic. I want to know what gave her the capability. How was Masquerade, a unicorn, able to use pegasus and earth pony magic?"

A long pause followed before the magic finally answered her.

Alas, we must bemoan,

the answer is not known.

Her eyes glanced down to her bowl in irritation, as a final question entered her mind.

"What language was that letter written in?"

Rather than the usual challenge, the question that entered her mind was both blunt and painfully straightforward.

You don't know?

Can't read even a bit?

Countless many years ago,

your 'sister' invented it.

In a moment of fury, her hoof slapped aside the bowl of water, splashing it over all the black crystal walls. Her gilded shoes guided her outside of the chamber, and from there, her total control was restored. She needed to act quickly. Her horn burst with another spell, and in a flash, she was gone from the deep cavern.

Foresight stood beside his father in clothes that were far too light to endure the chill. His spell didn't care, thankfully. Krenn stood on the other side of the alicorn, leaning on his steel staff on the edge of the train station's mostly-covered boarding area.

The Black Cloaks had cleared the entire station in anticipation of Luna's arrival. Though Foresight despised his brother's guard, and the intimidation with which they went about their orders, he had to admire the efficiency they brought about in their work. They all wore long, heavy black coats of steel cuirasses, idolizing what Foresight knew to have been a ten-bit, spur of the moment purchase on his brother's part. Fortunately, Red Ink was not present to create a political fiasco. The sinking feeling in the bureaucrat's stomach reminded him that his brother's absence was no guarantee of a successful meeting between dragons and ponies.

The locomotive was a huge thing of steel and brass, belching a plume of smoke as it pulled into the station. It churned and chugged before it lurched to a halt in front of the gathered nobles. From that moment, no more than three seconds passed before the wall of the front most car peeled open like a flap of skin on an operating table. Out of the now wide-open train car came first a unicorn in golden armor, with a painfully broken horn. He was followed by a pegasus in an elegant dress. Foresight recognized them as Mirror Image and Marathon of the Honor Guard, whom he had met at a funeral months earlier in Canterlot.

Princess Luna herself followed shortly, as was expected. Completely unexpected, however, were the four unconscious figures she held in her telekinetic grasp. Perhaps most surprising was that Foresight recognized them all.

"Commandant!" he shouted, before catching himself using Equiish to a stallion that couldn't understand him. "Kомендант!"

The stallion's name was Molot, and he responded without hesitation or even a need for spoken orders. Though he was efficient and direct and reasonable in ways Red Ink had never been, he lacked the spark and the drive to be a truly inspiring leader. He began to bark orders, and soon a huge cluster of the Black Cloaks had converged on Luna's prisoners. In less than a minute, they were dragged away. The Princess sat quietly through the entire ordeal, watching them haul away the criminals before she began her true business.

The steel staff of the dragon ruler smashed down on the brick of the station as Lord Krenn limped forward with all his jagged teeth showing. "Luna… it's been so long."

The mare nodded. "Too long, Krenn." She stepped forward to his offered embrace. His good wing spread over her back, and her more comfortable wings wrapped him in turn. Though intense, their hug lasted only mere moments, ending with Luna stepping back and glancing toward his companions. "We do not recognize these two. Where is your son, Naslednik?"

For just a moment, Foresight was reminded that despite his political demeanor, Krenn had the fierce heart of a dragon. When the rage passed from his face, he shook his head. "That is a matter for later discussion. For now let me introduce my escort. These are Fire and Ice."

The dragons bowed, and Luna nodded to each in turn, before turning to her own companions. "This stallion is our bodyguard, Mirror Image. The mare is our advisor, Marathon."

As they had been trained, both took a knee to Krenn, who tilted his staff across his chest and bowed in turn. "I note you bring none of your own herd, Luna."

"They shall be joining us a day hence," the alicorn observed. "And sooner still, we will find two more of my kind. Shining Armor and Red Ink fly even now to join us, for a matter that we fear must likewise be kept for better company."

At the idle comment, Foresight stepped forward. "Roscherk is coming back?"

The Princess glared at the stallion who had intruded on her conversation. Foresight took a moment to adjust his Canterlot silk necktie as he edged away. When he had tightened the accessory to a virtual noose, he looked up, only to find himself still enduring her gaze. Her eyes flicked to the Tsar, before returning to his face. "We do not recall recognizing you, stallion. And we have said nothing about a 'Roscherk'."

Thankfully, another pony was present to step in on Foresight's behalf. Watchful Eye smiled his charismatic, disarming smile as he bowed before Luna. "Princess, this is my son, Predvidenie–Foresight, as you would say. You may have met him a few months ago, at the funeral in August. Regardless, he was merely concerned for his brother, just as I am for my son. I had been expecting to see him soon, though not under such circumstances. You know him by Red Ink, but by birth his name is Roscherk Krovyu."

Krenn released a sort of snorting noise, and a puff of acrid black smoke escaped his nostrils. "A curious name for a pony, I think. Certainly for one who does not eat meat. Tell me, Tsar Eye, why does he not go by 'Blood Stroke'?"

Luna's eyes grew ever so slightly wider, though Foresight noted that the greatest surprise at the minor revelation was painted across the face of the unicorn with the broken horn. Watchful Eye nodded in his son's direction, offering the explanation to the pony who was honestly to blame.

"Well… I decided to have a bit of fun with him, okay? He is my little brother. Honestly, I'm not sure he even knows it’s the wrong translation. He barely managed to sit through even two months of Equiish lessons when we were younger. His vocabulary is good, but his grammar is bad enough to be insulting."

"It has been greatly improved in recent days," Luna responded. "Twilight Sparkle was his mentor in the modern tongue, as for some short time she was mine. Though I must admit, Foresight, t'was a clever jest whilst it lasted. Perhaps I shall take advantage of my sister's poor Elkish in a similar manner." The nocturnal princess' smile faded slightly as she glanced up to the thickly clouded gray sky. "Time already? Forgive me a moment." Her horn ignited in her misty magic. No visible change in the sky's lighting occurred through the veil of stormy snow that served as a constant companion to the frozen city. Nevertheless, night had fallen.

The spell did have another, more obvious effect, however. Mirror Image, the broken-horned unicorn, collapsed to the brick floor of the train platform in silent agony, clutching both hooves to his shattered focus. Watchful Eye and Marathon stepped forward to offer him comfort, but he waved both ponies away. "…fine," he managed to mutter. "It's over now."

"Can I get you anything?" Watchful Eye asked, offering the stallion a hoof up.

"A coat," Image answered, shaking off a shiver. "Or a fire. But first, I'd like to get the Princess out of the street. It's too open."

Foresight laughed slightly. "You sound like Roscherk."

"And he is right. Ogon', offer him your flame. Let us be back to your palace, Tsar. Luna and I have a thousand years to catch up on, and I would like the gap to end as soon as possible."

As the cluster of ponies and dragons moved toward the palace, Watchful Eye was the last to leave. His thoughts were with his eyes, where the train tracks met the horizon to the west.

The moon was peeking up over Canterlot, and in its midst, two ponies drifted into a shadowed stall at the back of The Private's Reserve. One was clad in gilded armor. The other wore only an eye patch, having abandoned his broken and torn garb.

Thunder Crack folded his forelegs across his chest in the cushioned seat. "I wouldn't even be here if it were somepony else asking, Reckoning. You said this was important, so get to the point, sir."

For the first time in ages, when Reckoning's nose wrinkled out of distaste, the change was easily discernible from the wrinkles of age. "I'm not old enough for you to call me 'sir' anymore, and by the rules I'm sure you know, neither of us gets it for rank."

"Gah, that's bullshit, and you know it, Reckoning. What were you when the Commander pulled you over from the Royal Guard? Second Lieutenant? First?"

"Chief Warrant Officer, Scout Specialist and Operating Head of Platoon Sixteen." Reckoning's recitation spurred a moment of nostalgia, which he discarded quickly. "That was back when nopony put 'Crazy' in front of 'Deadeye'."

"It happens to the best of us," Crack muttered.

"Didn't happen to the Commander." Reckoning's response was brief, and brutal in bringing about an end to the topic. The scout glanced aside as a waiter approached, and cut the stallion off before he could even bother asking. "Nothing for me. Crack's having a draft, unless he's finally decided to get cultured."

"Those of us who actually stay in Canterlot call it patriotism," Thunder Crack snapped back with a smile, before remembering exactly what he was doing. "I'll take a ginger ale, with a slice of lime."

As the waiter walked away, Reckoning chortled like a schoolfilly. "Really, Crack? That isn't really–"

"The Princess banned me from even coming into this place after the Masquerade incident. I wouldn't be in the building if you hadn't said it was important, but I'm sure as Tartarus not disobeying her like that. Now what do you actually want? I need to be back to the Throne Room A.S.A.P."

"Fine." Reckoning set his hooves on the table and leaned forward. "The Commander isn't dead. I need you on a squad to go rescue him."

"Wha–" Crack's jaw dropped for just a moment. "No. How could you possibly know that?"

"Just trust me, Thunder."

"Okay, now I know something's up. You show up here, what, thirty years younger? Forty? What the hay happened out there in Zebrica? What…" His words trailed off as his eyes drifted toward the tavern's door. Reckoning, whose back was to the entrance, had to turn all the way around. As he did, he heard Thunder Crack offer a greeting.

"Flag? It isn't often we see you in here."

White Flag shrugged, deigning not to shout across the entire tavern in response. Her calm, focused strides were a sure sign to Reckoning that something serious was going on. He was old enough to remember that same determination and focus on the battlefields of the Dragon Wars, twenty years prior. What the once old guardspony had not expected, however, were the two mares who followed her. The first was a little orange filly, perhaps a bit old to be blank-flanked, but otherwise normal. The attractive cyan mare who accompanied her, however, sent a chill down his spine.

"Figures you'd be here, Crack," Rainbow muttered, shooting a surprisingly harsh glare in the stallion's direction. The attention didn't last long, though, before her attention shifted to Deadeye himself. "Reckoning."

"Rainbow?" he managed to mutter after a moment of silence. "What are you doing here?"

"I'm looking for answers," Rainbow responded. "You lied to me about the Fountain of Youth."

Reckoning hesitated as his mind pondered giving out a thousand answers, and at every turn, shunned away from the truth. In his moment of silence, Thunder Crack leaned forward, wearing a bemused grin. "What, that old griffon legend about your wrinkly ass?"

With utter irritation, White Flag leaned forward. "For once in your life, Sergeant, shut up. You're supposed to be in the palace right now. It's not like you to leave your post, Crack."

"He's my superior officer, ma'am. He wanted my attention, he got it."

Flag rolled her eyes. "A coward's answer. If you want to debate semantics with me, I'll remind you that we typically issue an honorable discharge to the guards we declare dead. If you think you made the right call, that's fine, but don't try and hide behind the rules. We aren't Vigil's watchdogs anymore."

Rather sheepishly, Crack nodded and scooted further into the booth's seat to open more seating. "Yes, Lieutenant."

Flag gestured to the opening for her civilian companions. Rainbow hesitated to join her most despised drill sergeant, but Scootaloo only saw a comfy seat and a guardspony she didn't know. With the little filly for padding, Rainbow finally seated herself as well, and moments later, Flag took the opposite side of the booth beside Dead Reckoning. When the cluster of five had finally relaxed, Rainbow spoke up again. "So, Reckoning… what's going on, really?"

He took a deep breath, and then looked from Crack to Flag, before returning his singular gaze to Rainbow. "Yeah, okay. I lied. Rainbow, I'm in the same boat as you. Different Princess, but the same idea."

"What's that mean?" Scootaloo asked, looking up to her role model.

Rainbow's mind raced, finding herself suddenly in the unfortunate position of needing a fast lie that would fool the young filly, but stand up well if her curiosity kept up. "Well…"

"She was badly injured," White Flag interrupted. "While she was saving Princess Luna. The damage was so bad, Princess Celestia had to use healing magic."

With Scootaloo's focus on the guardspony mare, Rainbow found herself free to mouth 'thanks' to the otherwise unknown Honor Guard.

Just as Rainbow had feared, Scootaloo's curiosity remained unfulfilled. "What's the big deal about that? Why keep it a secret, Mr. Reckoning? What's the deal with lying to Rainbow?"

"Princess Celestia's healing magic is a secret, filly," White Flag answered again. "Think of all the ponies in Equestria who are sick or injured every day. All of them would love the Princess to heal them, but she doesn't have enough magic. It wouldn't be fair to just heal some of them." Despite the depth of her explanation, it was clear that White Flag had no skill dealing with young fillies and colts. Her tone had been that of a tired university professor, rather than a kind schoolteacher. She looked away from Scootaloo without acknowledging even the possibility of a question. "Is that all you wanted, Rainbow?"

"No." Rainbow's word was so uncharacteristically cold that it caused Scootaloo to slide away from her idol and toward Sergeant Crack. "I want to know why. What's so important, Reckoning?"

The scout nodded. "The Commander is alive. He wasn't in the…" Deadeye's singular eye darted toward the young filly present with the group, and he caught himself. "…in the hospital. Then I asked the Princess–Luna, not Celestia. She agreed he was still alive. Masquerade admitted it. So I'm going after him. That's what I came to talk to you about Crack. And since you're here, Flag, I guess I'll ask you too. He's in Suida, and I know you ran a mission there six years ago."

Crack cocked his head. "Wait, Luna rai–" The sergeant's words were cut off when his mouth was clenched by White Flag's magical aura.

"It means exactly what you think it means, Crack. Guardsponies die. Get over it." As soon as her words were done, she released his muzzle. "One of these days, you're going to have to get over that stupid, six year old grudge. Princess Celestia will dismiss you."

Their discussion was interrupted by the serving stallion bringing over a fizzy soft drink with a thick wedge of lime. It was transferred to a cheap cardstock coaster and slid across the table toward Thunder Crack. The waiter then glanced over the rest of the party, until his eyes locked on Scootaloo. "Uh, this is a bar, guardsponies…"

"And since we're the ones who brought her in here, I'd say you have a good chance of not getting arrested for it." White Flag's voice was growing more annoyed with every sentence. "Bring back two more sodas. We don't care what. Put them on Crack's tab. Don't interrupt us again."

The shocked and frightened stallion retreated before Flag's icy gaze, leaving the five disparate ponies once more alone.

Crack was once more the first to speak. "So, what's with all the 'cloak-and-dagger', then? Just tell the Princess, she'll get you a team, and you won't have to waste time having this conversation." The guardspony concluded with a rather large sip of his drink.

"I asked her. She declined."

Lime juice and ginger ale spewed into the air in a fine mist, narrowly missing Reckoning's face. Scootaloo giggled, missing entirely the point of Crack's shock. Rainbow Dash didn't seem to react to the revelation, though Flag shared Crack's disappointment, if not his surprise. Her brow rose when she spoke. "She doesn't want a war with Suida, Reckoning. I'm surprised to hear that you'd even try going behind Celestia's back."

"It's the Commander, Flag."

"I never swore an oath to him, Reckoning. It's exactly the same as Crack; we die. We're expendable. He's no different."

Reckoning's eye narrowed, and his response was filled with a sudden anger. "I owe him my life, and I'm sure you owe him yours too."

"Captain Lining was just another guardspony," Flag answered coldly. "Maybe your hero worship has turned him into some sort of legend, but in the end, we can always find somepony to do the job. No one life is worth a war."

Reckoning's hoof slammed down on the lacquered wood of their table. "There won't be a war! We're better than that! Don't make this a tactical decision, Flag! This is about helping out a friend!"

"Don't keep up your fantasies, Reckoning," Flag responded, retaining her physical composure and her perfect posture despite the rage roaring behind her eyes. "He didn't care about us. He made that pretty clear at Treasonfang Pass."

"Oh, so this is about you now?" Reckoning stood up fully, flaring the one wing he could still manage in a show of anger. "Fine. Get out of my way, Flag. I don't need your help anyway."

"I can't let you, Reckoning."

"Why not? Because you'd rather let him die? Is this because you never got to be Captain of the Royal Guard?"

White Flag closed her eyes, and Thunder Crack's glass shattered into so many tiny fragments that it would be more accurate to say the vessel dissolved. Then the aura on her horn faded, as though it were never there. In the silence of words between the two ponies, the middle-aged mare's dense breathing was the only sound to be heard. The fierce shouting match had murdered all other noise in the tavern. In that empty void, White Flag stood up, turned her gold-armored back to Dead Reckoning, and spoke once more. "Fine, Reckoning. Get yourself killed, but don't claim to be a guardspony when the boars put you down. The Honor Guard won't miss you. Crack, see that Rainbow Dash and her friend get out of Canterlot safely. Then report to the Throne Room." With nothing more to say, she left through the swinging doors and out into the night.

Only when the unicorn was out of sight did Reckoning move, lowering his hoof from the small indentation he'd left in the lacquered tabletop. His first words were uttered loudly enough to be heard by the silent crowd. "Sorry about that." He waited a moment longer, as the muffled whispers of lively conversation picked up slowly. Only then did he return his focus to the other guardspony present. "I guess there's no point in asking you, then."

"I'm not going behind Princess Celestia's back, Reckoning."

The scout shook his head. "Well, I'm not going to waste my time trying to convince you. Where's Captain On?"

"Cap– you mean Soldier On?" Crack's face drew back into genuine surprise, untainted by any secondary emotion. "You don't know?"

"Know what?"

"On was the traitor. She was the one who got Masquerade past our guard–"

With each of Thunder Crack's words, Reckoning's mouth fell slightly more open, until at last he couldn’t take it anymore. "Horseshit. She was the closest to him after all this time."

"Hey, don't take my word for it." Crack spread his wings, leapt fully over both Rainbow and Scootaloo, and landed gently in the center of the room. From there, his hooves moved at a brisk trot to a bulletin board at the far side of the room. From amidst its dozens of pamphlets, he grabbed a single, slightly yellowed sheet of parchment, which he then carried back to the table. "Here you go."

After staring at the document for a few seconds, Reckoning thrust it away in disgust. "The day Soldier On betrays the Commander, I'll eat my other eye."

"I thought it was garbage, too, Deadeye, but she confessed it to Shining Armor and White Flag herself." Thunder Crack turned away for a moment. "Maybe it sounds awful, but Lieutenant Flag is right. It's like the Commander always used to say. 'The hardest part of the job is deciding when not to do something.' Right now, we have to let him go."

Reckoning's head twisted back and forth, forming a fatalistic pendulum. His words were calmly stated, sharp and icy like bladed iron. "Get out of my sight."

"What?" Crack cocked his head. "Deadeye–"

"Get back to your post, since it matters so much to you. I'll see Rainbow and the filly home."

Crack hesitated for only a second before nodding. "Sorry, Reckoning." And then, with the proud pace of a guardspony at the height of his duty, Thunder Crack left the tavern.

The silence that followed was total and consuming at the small booth, even amidst the soft murmurs that had consumed the remainder of The Private's Reserve. Reckoning looked first to Scootaloo. The filly's eyes were on the wanted poster sitting on the table in front of her, entranced by the picture and the brilliant words. He said nothing as his lonely eye shifted to the mare that he had last called his partner. In that instant, a thousand thoughts passed through the air unspoken. Only their eyes, potent violet staring into brilliant blue, shared hopes and dreams. When silent words were done, Rainbow Dash saw a hardness in Reckoning. His heart wanted tears, but the steel of his spine refused them.

"Let's get you home, Rainbow Dash." Reckoning's words came barely above a whisper. Without pause for any sort of response, the guardspony slid out of the booth and dropped onto his hooves. Though his body was young, the beleaguered and heavy way in which the pony walked across the bar and out the door reflected the true age of his soul.

Red Ink faced not so much a snowstorm as an outright wall. It was always strange to cross the channel, and see the literal line where dry, breezy heat turned instantly into a frigid and perpetual blizzard. He glanced down at the sheer, icy cliffs just inches from his hooves. One of the limbs was raised into the storm, as he forced himself to welcome the chill that had in his youth been a constant companion. The little bottle around his neck, glowing green with flame and magic, bounced against the brutal scar that traversed his chest. It would have been a good place to pause, and reflect on how much had changed since last he visited his ice-shrouded home. Time and urgency, it seemed, had no respect for such thoughts, however. Ink spared himself only a moment to catch his breath, before glancing back at the sound of approaching hooves.

"Oy! You there!"

The mare fast approaching was a bit older than Ink, probably in her mid- to late-thirties. Her wood tone coat and slate mane were unremarkable, and only her curious Trottingham accent (so far removed from its place of origin) seemed worthy of garnering his attention. He allowed himself a tired sigh. "I am sorry, but I am very busy. I need to be going. I was just sparing myself a moment."

"I hope you don't mean 'get going' into the snow. Yer wings'll freeze solid." She gave him a scolding look. "I've seen it 'appen before, and don't you go tellin' me about pegasus wings and heat neither. That sorta thing's fine 'n dandy for normal weather, but it won't save ye' from magic cold."

Red Ink displayed his opinion of the mare's warning first by rolling his eyes. "I know." He had intended to say more, but the vociferous pony cut him off with more words.

"Well then 'm afraid I've some bad news for ye. Bridge's out. I'm afraid Stalliongrad's rather unavailable 'til we get things fixed 'ere."

The Stalliongradian pony winced at the use of his home's painful Equiish name, before forcing himself to shake off a derogatory remark. "Why is the bridge out?"

"Well, I weren't there for the damage itself, but I heard it from me place over there." She gestured backward with a flick of her neck in the direction of a small stone cottage sitting a few hundred feet from the sheer cliff where the snow began. "It came just after the midnight train–a big blast, the likes o' which would wake the dead. I didn't see a thing, o' course, but I put on me coat and me boots, and I wandered out on the bridge. 'Bout three-fourths the way over, there was a big ol' gap, near thirty strides across. The wood was scorched, and I could see a bunch of pieces of a train car sittin' down on the ice o'er the channel. I don' know if the train made it, but– Oy, what're ye–"

"I'm going down," Ink explained with a sudden intensity, ripping the flask from his neck. "Do you have paper and ink?"

"I can get ye' a napkin if ye' need it badly, but I've got no ink."

"Get me one, and a knife. I'll make do for the rest." With those words, he ripped the cork from the flask with an awkward motion of hoof and mouth, before pouring its contents across his left wing. Green flame engulfed the stallion, sending pings of warmth across his body. The mare shrieked until Ink placed a (flame-free) hoof upon her shoulder. "I am fine. This is a guardspony matter, and I need your assistance. Get the napkin and the knife. I'll return soon."

Without waiting for a response, he spread his wings, focused his anger, and lunged into the storm. Despite the heat of Spike's dragon fire, Ink could still feel the chill on the tips of his wings and hooves. He forced through it, knowing that there was no time to spare, and entered into a steep dive. Only when the icy floor of the channel became visible did he spread his wings. The force of steel-shod hooves send thin cracks through the sheet of ice, but they stood no chance of breaking the yard deep coating on the water. On the ground, Ink's hooves cut into the ice blade first for traction, allowing him to dart forward with a speed greater than either wings or hooves alone. It wasn't long before the wreckage came into view.

Burnt sheets of cloth that had once been heavy coats lay strewn about a landscape of black and white, where ash and char fought a losing battle against an unending onslaught of snow. Here and then, boards the size of a grown pony jutted up out of the ice. The world seemed grayscale, given color only by the green light that Ink carried on his back. In the drab monotony, his eyes caught something surprising. A glint of purple flashed in the light of his fire, beneath the snow, beside a divot of cracked ice that reached down nearly to the level of the water flowing freely beneath.

His hooves moved quickly, brushing and cleaning. Moment by moment, more and more of the strange, shining object was uncovered. With each glimmer, Ink's rage grew, his heart sank, and the fire on his back grew hotter and brighter. By the time he had unearthed the amethyst helmet, a towering inferno of dragon fire was reaching its way up into the perpetual storm.

The headpiece of Platinum's Ward stared up at the guardspony, empty of the head he had always seen it concealing. Ink flipped the gemmed helm over twice, before sliding it over the top of his own head. A distinct chill from the gilded interior met his flesh, but the cold was not the source of the stallion's sneer.

"You were a good warrior, Armor, even if you were naive. I would have liked to have been the one to give you a warrior's death. Masquerade will pay for this."

A swipe of his wing gave rise to a wall of green flame. As it burnt the lingering objects to ashes, his anger faded into a dull throbbing, and his rational mind returned. Armor was dead; it was a costly loss, but not one to bring the stallion to tears. Soldiers died. That had been Mentor's first lesson when the revolution started. His anger wasn't directed toward the death of his rival, but that the assassin had escaped again. She was threatening his nation, and his princess, and his family. She had taken his form, and his coat, and his honor. All were sins he would gladly answer with blood, but blind rage would only serve to see him join Armor in the Summer Lands. The stallion spread his wings, turned back to the western cliff, and flew up to rejoin the mare he had met there.

It wasn't a long flight up. The snow and the cold ended abruptly when he crossed their threshold, only moments before folding his wings and simply dropping onto his hooves. The mare was waiting, carrying a rather small table knife and a cheap paper napkin. He suppressed a shrug, knowing he would have to take what he could get. With a bit of focus, he restrained the fire on his body entirely to the backs of his wings. From there, all that remained was to walk forward.

The civilian placed both her objects on the ground as Ink approached, before turning her attention to the amethyst armor adorning his brow. "'ey, that's a funny lookin' hat. Ain't I seen that somewhere before?"

"The newspaper," Ink told her as he lowered himself to the ground. "It belonged to a fr... to an associate of mine." His head tilted back to beneath his right wing. There, it was a simple matter for his teeth to pull free a loose trailing feather that would serve as a quill.

"Oh, ye' want I should cut that for a fine point?" the mare inquired.

"The knife isn't for the quill." He turned the blade so that its blade was facing upward, and its tip pointing in his direction. The soldier gritted his teeth, and forced his foreleg down on the object, just above the hoof. The wound was small, but without the benefit of adrenaline coursing through his veins, Ink felt every hair of the cut. Without waiting, he grabbed the stem of his improvised quill, dipped it in his leg, and began to write in red ink.

Princess Cadance despised being called 'Empress'. The title was a worse version of 'Queen', which Celestia avoided for much the same reason. Such a title was a virtual guarantee that the power of the position would corrupt its owner into a horrible, tyrannical figure who would have to be put down by the Elements of Harmony. And that was just 'Queen', to say nothing of 'Empress'. Perhaps the only worse title would be 'Vizier'–a position which a young Twilight Sparkle had pointed out as existing solely for the purpose of allowing evil advisors to rule nations by proxy while foolish figurehead rulers went about their business too ignorant to recognize reality.

It was because of this complicated hatred of the title of Empress that Cadance was secretly dreading her scheduled return to the Crystal Empire. The actual city was wonderful, and the palace luxurious, but the trips in and out were always accompanied by a painful overuse of the title. She cringed at the thought of all the ponies bowing her direction, slathering her with praises and promises of service as if they were fearful of her. She wished they could see her youth. At least in Bitaly, ponies had the decency to only bow once. She didn't even view herself as a noble there; the thought was strange. So much of her life had been spent in Canterlot, studying at Celestia's school and foalsitting to earn spending money. The thought that she somehow deserved praise seemed ridiculous. Nevertheless, the need to return was an unavoidable fact.

She groaned at the knocking at the door, regretting that her husband would not be able to offer her company on the long ride north. His dedication was something she loved about him, though at times she wondered if the long nights and the endless battles against crime, corruption and evil were worth it. It seemed as if he never got the chance to reap the rewards of his own battles.

She shook away the thought and walked over to the door. It opened with only the slightest tug of her magic. A white-powdered guardspony mare stood on their welcome mat, with a hood pulled up over her head. Cadance noted that the powder on her nose seemed smudged and twisted, as if it had recently dried into clumps after a thorough soak.

"May I come in?" the mare asked.

Cadance was surprised at the question; she'd been expecting to waltz out the door then and there on the way to the Canterlot train station. Instead, she stepped back, and the guardspony walked inside. A faint magic issued from a horn beneath the hood, and the door to the Canterlot home slammed shut. Cadance glanced to her husband's ornamental weapons as they rattled with the force of the collision.

"Sorry," the mare muttered, before pulling back her hood. Cadance's jaw dropped at the figure beneath. Her face was blotted and smudged with white, and her eyes didn't seem to be lined up together. The other pony looked for all the world like a foal's drawing of a unicorn guardspony. Before Cadance could even inquire on the revelation, however, a golden light engulfed the other mare, and her form shifted. Her legs grew longer, her mane more vibrant, and in only a matter of moments, a pair of massive wings sprouted from her sides. No more than five seconds later, Princess Celestia looked in Cadance's direction and nodded.

"Princess Celestia! What was that?"

"An illusion to disguise myself, though I'll be the first to admit I still need a great deal of practice. And you're welcome to simply call me Celestia, Cadance. Or Aunt, if you prefer. Goodness knows Blueblood overuses it already, and you're far closer by blood than he is."

Cadance finally overcame her shock. "Oh, well then, Celestia, can I offer you something to drink?"

"I don't have the time," Celestia informed the far younger alicorn. "I wish I could say that I came simply to visit, but I would be lying. A number of issues have come up; too many for me to handle alone." The nigh-immortal permitted herself a moment of hesitation before resolve once more returned to her visage. "Do you recall what I told you about Rainbow Dash's... condition?"

The pink mare gave a start as her eyes widened. "Has something happened? I thought you said it would be a matter of years–"

"I assumed as much for Rainbow, given her force of will. But that was on the assumption that she stayed away from guardsponies and the memories of her sacrifice. Unfortunately, one of my Honor Guard made a misinformed decision. I have no doubt that he held my sister's past mistakes over her head until she was guilted into assisting him. Regardless, Rainbow is here in Canterlot presently. When I encountered her, she mistook me for her mother, whom I understand to have died when Rainbow was very young." Celestia paused as she chose her next words delicately. "I cannot be sure, but I fear her soul is slipping while she spends her time in the company of these ponies from her past. While I had hoped that we could delay intervention, it seems the time has come."

Cadance's brow rose. "Do you want me to talk to her?"

"No." Celestia looked away. "Twilight and the other bearers have already been performing that task admirably, judging by her reports. They did what they could, but their part in this is over. What Rainbow needs is a bond in her soul that will fight the pull of the Summer Lands. Something to tug in the opposite direction." As the pink princess watched her elder's eyes, she saw only remorse. "I know you've refused to do what I'm about to request in the past, and I cannot blame you. I don't ask this lightly. But I need you to force Rainbow to fall in love."

The room was quiet for a very long time, as Cadance simmered in indecisiveness and rage at the sheer audacity of the request. Finally, she shook her head. "I can't do that to her. I can't steal her free will."

Celestia responded with a curt nod, at which point she lowered her body to the ground. Only her head and neck were lifted from the floorboards, so that her eyes were on a level with Cadance's. The idea was that they would speak as equals, though the idea was a lie. "Rainbow wants to live her life. She told me that herself. She saved Luna's life at a great cost to herself, and I will do everything in my power to grant her this solitary boon for as long as I can. This is her will."

"That isn't the same at all. Princess Celestia, I don't think you understand what my magic can do in a situation like this."

Celestia's head cocked to the side, as a dog's might after misunderstanding a command. "You'll make her happy, won't you?"

"If she happens to end up matched with a pony she could have loved anyway, then yes. But my magic only makes her mind think that it loves another. I can't change her heart or her soul. If the other pony is wrong, she'll be torn and tormented. She'd find herself going through the motions of love without feeling anything inside. It would be hollow, and meaningless, and cruel. That's why I have to be careful with my magic, and only enhance feelings that are already there. If I create love from scratch, I risk destroying lives." Cadance ended her words with a stiff shake of her head. "I'm sorry. I can't do it."

Celestia shared in the younger alicorn's regretful expression. "I understand where you're coming from, Cadance. In any other circumstance, I wouldn't ask again. But here, I find myself in no position but to beg you. This is a magic I can't do on my own. Is there something you can do? Anything?"

After a moment's contemplation, Cadance gave a short dip of her head. "I could open her heart, I suppose. Make her more inclined toward romance. The enchantment wouldn't last more than a couple of months, but she might find somepony on her own that way. I still don't really like it, but if it stands the chance of helping her, I'll give it a try."

Celestia was prepared to offer a thousand words of thanks, but the thoughts were stolen away by a trail of sparks and smoke that quickly assembled themselves into what looked for all the world like a cocktail napkin.

"Has Twilight changed her parchment?" Cadance teased.

"I don't think it's from Twilight," the elder answered, beginning to read the fresh, still wet characters on the letter.

-Princess Celestia,

I've confirmed that Masquerade is heading to Stalliongrad. She blew out the Dragon-Fire Bridge. Trains are down. I can fly, but you'll have a hard time getting anypony else over.

The explosion wasn't just to get rid of support, though. Armor is dead. I have his helmet. What is left of him fell in the channel, under the ice.

I don't have time for a full report, and I need Spike's dragon fire to keep my wings warmed while I fly. I'm not taking risks with capture this time, unless I'm able to snap her horn off. I doubt I will be able to contact you again before the deed is done.

-Red Ink

Celestia looked up from the note written in blood, and into Cadance's eyes. The time for a decision came, and she made it in silence. "I sent one of my Honor Guard to escort Rainbow back to the train station after a meeting with a friend. You should be able to catch her there. Please, hurry."

After a moment's contemplation, Cadance shot a quick smile and turned to the door. It was only after the mare was gone that Celestia ripped the central paragraph off of the napkin. It took only a simple spell to add her own writing, before she left the painful message where it would shortly be received.

Dear Cadance,

I'm so sorry.

-Celestia

"When last I visited this place, it was home to King Lazurite the Quiet, third of his line." Luna's remark dated the structure, and brought a smile to Foresight's face.

"That was almost twelve-thousand years ago! What was it like?"

"Warmer," she told him bluntly. It earned a chuckle from all the gathered ponies and dragons as they wandered the halls of Burning Hearth Castle in a tight group. "The Windigoes had not yet claimed the Valley in those days." The way the princess emphasized the word 'valley' drew Foresight's attention for a moment, though he missed the chance to ask when she continued speaking. "At that time, the Pegasi still lived where they had migrated, in Dioda–what we in the modern day have learned to be Zebrica and Grivridge. Only earth ponies and unicorns filled this land."

"Tragic," Krenn muttered loudly enough for the assembled to hear. "Had they stayed away, this might still be the Valley we remember, Luna. Still, the snow would be pleasant enough, were it not for the wind. Why not bring Magnus up and have him end this curse?"

Luna looked to her peer and shrugged. "Our sister informs that she had asked him, and he had declined to offer aid. Something of his past draws objection to this place, though I don't pretend to know what it is."

The assembled group reached a pair of tall oak doors, which opened with only the slightest of pushes from Watchful Eye. Behind him lay an opulent dining room, with seating for ten around a gorgeously polished walnut table. The shapes of the chairs clearly indicated the species of their intended hosts, leaving Krenn sitting at one end of the table and Luna at the other. Both the ageless dragon and the similar pony kept their advisors and bodyguards close by, leaving Watchful Eye to sit opposite his son in the centers of the longer sides of the table. Foresight, however, did not take his seat. Instead, the stallion smiled and allowed his gaze to match the eyes of all present.

"Tonight, we'll be serving two major meals. One is a Zebrican citrus salad with an assortment of Bitalian nuts and a thin vinaigrette dressing. The other is a crown roast of beef seasoned with peppercorns and crumbled diamonds." The stallion tried to replicate his father's smile, and ended up looking entirely awkward. His first reaction was to hide his lack of charisma behind his vocabulary and formality. "For all save one of you, the preferred dish is quite obvious. However, Princess Luna, I confess that foal's stories do leave me with more than the slightest curiosity. Will you be joining my father and I with meat tonight, or will the salad suffice?"

The reactions to the last statement were quite varied. Mirror Image, who was clearly the farthest from being a diplomat, visibly recoiled at the revelation that both his hosts would be consuming meat. Marathon shot Foresight a curious look but said nothing else. At the opposite end of the table, Krenn bared his teeth into a slight smile. The red dragon, Ogon', had the audacity to perform a short lived slow clap for the courage of the ponies, which died quickly under the spiteful glare of the blue-white female, Lyod.

Luna hesitated for only a few seconds, though obvious apprehension flashed across her face at the reference to Nightmare Moon. It went short-lived, however, before she recovered smiling. "Despite what you might have learned as a foal, Foresight, my teeth are as those of any other pony. Bless me with the diet of such, and I will be happy. Though perhaps if the mood strikes me, I might sample a bite of your dish."

Foresight nodded, bowed his head, and turned away. "As you wish," came his call, just before the doors swung shut in heed of his magic.

The moments that followed were very quiet, before Krenn finally spoke up. "We've saved many matters for later discussion, and I would like to get them out of the way, so that we will be able to speak more earnestly later, Luna. Firstly, you mentioned a great number of your soldiers converging on the city. What is the concern?"

The mare of the night took a slow breath. "Have you heard what happened not six months past?"

Krenn nodded slowly. "A threat on your life? Little more than rumors have made their way as far as my mountain, but I heard that much."

Luna nodded. "An assassin succeeded in filling my body with a poison that stole away my access to my magic. This body nearly failed. 'Twas a most disturbing experience. Alas, such a threat may have followed me here."

The dragon's brow rose, alongside Watchful Eye's. Luna opened her mouth to speak but another voice cut in.

"What the Princess means to say is that the assassin was not alone. As you saw, we encountered some brigands on our train ride in, and we fear they may be related to the attempt on her life." Marathon smiled even as she shot a quick glance to Luna. The elder mare knew what was being asked of her in keeping her mouth shut, though she did not understand the purpose behind the demand.

Watchful Eye spoke up at that point, again stealing away Luna's chance for words. "I have good news for you then, Princess. The creatures you encountered in your travel were part of Baron Frostbite's Remnant. Despite his mistreatment of the city and his subjects, there are those who blame me for the pains that plagued Stol'nyjgrad during the transition from his rule. Some chose to take up the banner of resistance under the leadership of a mare named Stoikaja. The tiger in particular I recognize as her second-in-command. By apprehending them, you've done my city a great service Princess. While they are criminals, I assure you that they offer you no threat. Within these castle walls, you may feel safe."

"You offer kind words, Tsar, and we thank you for them." Luna paused briefly. "We, in this case meaning both myself and my companions. Now, there is another matter which perplexes me greatly. Krenn, when last we spoke more than a millennium ago, your son Naslednik was soon to become a full wyrm. I had enjoyed speaking to another with the longevity to view history as we do, and had been hoping to see him as I have been looking to see you. Whence have you sent him, that he cannot join us?"

Krenn growled without opening his mouth. Nevertheless, the sound was enough to rattle the silverware sitting on the table, and send frost tumbling off the latticed iron bars that supported the enormous windows. "Twenty years ago, Luna, your kind and mine found ourselves in a... disagreement." The dragon leaned forward, crossing his clawed fingers together in an arch as he glared across the table. "My species cannot grow without more land. Already, our nature and magic leave us with at most three children to a father, and but one to a mother. We require land to breed and live and fly and hunt, and all those things were overfilled. Many saw that your kind cannot live within the frozen wastes that surround this city, and sought to claim them."

Krenn glanced between his two bodyguards, and sighed a cloud of acrid black smoke into the room. "I sought fairness for such a trade. I offered the Tsar's predecessor, one Baron Frostbite a great deal of gems and gold in exchange for land he could not use. He was stubborn, though, and saw me as a monster and an enemy. And in time, my kind grew restless and greedy, as is the nature of the curse that afflicts us. The bloodshed was light, at first, and though I reprimanded my own, I could not truly police such behavior. The raids continued for several years, until one group of foolish wyrmlings felt it prudent to attack this city itself. Three died, along with a number of ponies. I tried to placate him, but Frostbite saw the incident as too great, and began to prepare for war."

"He was a warmonger," Watchful Eye observed. "Had your dragons not attacked, he would have found some other slight to blame."

"Perhaps," Krenn responded. "But it does little to change the truth. War began between dragons and ponies. We conquered this city and claimed it for our own, but by then, our losses and our bloodlust could not be contained with just one city. I am strong, but I cannot change the minds of my entire species. They wanted Equestria. All of it. And so the war continued."

As Krenn's story continued, revelation dawned on Luna's face. At that point, she found the words to speak up. "Then Naslednik...?"

"A casualty," Krenn answered. "The second of my offsprings gone, and the wound still bleeds fresh on my heart." He grunted again, and another burst of smoke escaped his nostrils. "But it is in the past."

The stories and painful reminiscences were cut off by the room's doors opening again. Foresight strode in, towing a large cart with his magic. "I do hope I haven't kept you waiting too long. Dinner has arrived."

Deadeye wandered back to the two mares in his company, with three blue paper tickets tucked against his body by his wing. He took a seat on between the two on a bench that faced the tracks. "Just five minutes until the train leaves."

"Yeah." Rainbow's voice was hollow and distant as she stared out over the cliff side of Canterlot. A January mist left the lands of Equestria veiled in white. The city faced south, and yet the lands in that direction seemed so distant as to be another world entirely. Even the edge of the Appleloosan Plains on the far side of the Everfree remained unseen over such a distance. "Are you just going alone, then?"

"I'm not just leaving him, if that's what you're asking. I know you never really got the chance to meet him, but he was a great pony. I owe it to him to at least try."

The bitter pegasus mare had nothing to say in response, and so Dead Reckoning's attention turned in Scootaloo's direction. The filly held the wanted poster Thunder Crack had torn from the wall of The Private's Reserve clutched between her forehooves, though her attention was in the direction of the adult ponies in her company.

"Why don't you go with him, Rainbow? It could be like, an adventure! I could go too, and I bet–"

"Hold up, kid." Reckoning placed a hoof on the orange filly's shoulder. "First off, this is going to be dangerous. And not the way your teacher tells you that running with scissors is dangerous. Suida is where boars come from and boars don't like ponies at all."

"So what? Rainbow killed a dragon!"

Rainbow hung her head in shame as she shook it from side to side. She knew the words a responsible role model was obligated to offer, though she struggled to deliver them. "I don't know where you heard about that, squirt, but that's not good. I just..."

Reckoning had the decency to step in. "Killing another creature isn't like the stories you read about knights and heroes. It isn't pretty or fun, and if you do it too much, it starts to get into your head." The ex-guardspony put on a momentary frown before speaking up again. "Besides that, it wouldn't be fair for me to ask Rainbow to come running off with me. She shouldn't have even had to come to Zebrica six months ago. She's got friends to look after. And... family?"

Scootaloo nodded enthusiastically. "She's like my big sister!"

"Yeah, I can see where you get it." Reckoning smiled a little. "The point is that my friend is in danger, and I need to go help him. Rainbow doesn't know him, though, and it really isn't her problem anyway."

"So, like loyalty then?" At the one-eyed stallion's cocked glance, Scootaloo continued. "Rainbow says you can't leave your friends hanging, even if it means getting your hooves dirty."

"Well, I'd say she's the expert on the matter. " Reckoning shot another lopsided grin to the other side of the bench, in Rainbow's direction. "She's got the necklace and everything."

"Thanks," Dash grumbled, with her eyes still locked on the train tracks running down the mountain.

Scootaloo wasn't done, though. "Aren't you Rainbow's friend, though? Because if you're going, she'd probably have to go too. And then I'd have to go, because–"

"That's not always how it works, Scoot." Rainbow's words came across as harsh, rather than merely distant. "What would my friends say if I just ran off? What do you think Applebloom and Sweetie Belle would do?"

"Well, they'd probably follow me..."

Reckoning shook his head. "That's the problem. Do you want your friends in danger? Sweet Bell and–"

"Sweetie Belle," Scootaloo corrected.

"Right. Sorry. But your friends wouldn't be safe out there, and neither would you. Rainbow was a great partner for me. Hay, she was probably the best I ever had. But you have to learn to let things go. Especially when you're as old as I am."

The filly glanced between Reckoning and Rainbow Dash, as her expression grew more confused. "You have to learn to let things go when you're thirty?"

Suddenly recalling his own form, Reckoning looked down and then back up from the green coat that covered his body. "Oh, uh... It's just an expression. Don't worry about it."

"Okay." Scootaloo nodded, and finally decided to drop the issue as her attention returned to the torn poster between her hooves. Her eyes scanned it back and forth, as a pensive look overtook her face.

It took some time for Reckoning to note the young pegasus' interest. When he did, the scout leaned over toward the filly and whispered in her ear. "You think that's cool? Never seen a wanted poster before?"

"No, I have," the filly answered, not bothering to note it had been her own face on the picture. "This just seems weird. 'Stow-eh-kah-jah'." Her hoof drifted from the Equiish symbols to the Stalliongradi beside them. "But this part says 'Stoy-kah-jah'."

"You can read Stalliongradi?" Reckoning wondered aloud. "Where'd you learn that?"

"Just a few words," Scootaloo answered. "When Mr. Ink was our teacher, he taught us 'Hello', and 'Goodbye', and 'Where's the bathroom', and 'Tactical retreat'." The normally rambunctious filly clearly failed to observe that one of the statements was not like the others. "But this is the name of the pony who works at Sweet Apple Acres." Reckoning's jaw slowly dropped open as the filly continued. "I thought it was her for a second, but she's way too nice to be this pony. Besides, her Equiish name isn't 'Soldier On'. It's 'Resistant'. Maybe she knows this pony, though. They look kinda the same. They're even missing the same ear."

In the ensuing slack-jawed silence, a train whistle and the chugging of wheels on the track overcame all chance for discussion. A train pulled up to the station, ready to unload its passengers and begin the descent to Ponyville. Reckoning helped both his companions up, and the three ponies moved toward the platform. None of them noticed the faint blue glow that issued from beneath the hood of an expensive traveling coat. The subtle and translucent pink heart that hovered over Rainbow Dash's head for a moment went likewise unobserved as the party set off for what all expected would be a routine trip home.

V - Family Ties

V

Family Ties

The nights in the scorching wasteland of Suida were always devoid of dreams. Khagan was not foolish enough to allow Luna's influence on his prisoner. Without such pleasantries, day after day of torture bled together into a single mass. Only the present stood out as unique. That night found the Commander staring blankly at a shallow wooden bowl. He was confused. The months of unending agony had blunted the edges of a mind once known for the sharpness of a skysteel blade. He knew something was wrong, though it took him far too long to realize what.

For the first few weeks of his imprisonment, they had fed him rotten meat. The tragedies of war had given him an iron stomach, but it quickly rusted. He'd given up eating on his own, and Khagan's servants had taken to feeding him like a griffon chick. He loathed the jailer, who had lost a tusk to what looked like a clean sword-cut. One-Tusk was the name the blunted mind had given him, too tired to acknowledge his bristly head or his beady eyes. One-Tusk was the one who usually fed the stallion, even when he tried to starve himself. It started by shoving the one remaining tusk into whatever wound on his body was open. When the pain sent clouds to the edges of his vision and he could no longer hold his teeth clenched shut, One-Tusk would thrust the shredded 'food' into him. He never retained enough consciousness to remember the boar's Arcana; he only knew the sensation of awakening with rotten meat (and sometimes worse things as well) rolling in his gut.

Yet the bowl promised something different. It held a plant, freshly plucked from the ground. He could still see the dirt on the stem. A dozen petals, wrapped softly around a tiny center. All danced in beautiful gold.

A Gilded Lotus.

The Commander actually found the strength to stretch a smile over his crusted, scruffy face. That was Khagan's final insult. The admission that he would be allowed to die. It took all his energy to move the distance, pulling himself with both forehooves as if he was climbing a ladder. His body was thin, and in places his coat was falling out. The scar on his right flank burned constantly, rather than the old spikes that had once plagued him in battle, and nowhere else. They'd healed his other limbs, only to break them again and again, whenever the whim came up. Yet there was one blessing that they never returned. His wings still hung cracked and twisted; their once-proud arches pointing backwards to the rest of his body.

When he lay in his cell at night, after the boars had lost their interest in him, he cried for the worst nightmare of all: that someday, even if he ever did find his freedom, the sky would well be lost to him forever. He'd cried from the pain before, but that thought was the only one that moved him to cry out of sorrow.

He could still feel the streaks where the salt of his tears had matted his coat, even as the dragging of his ribs brought pain that most others would find unbearable. A noise escaped his dry lips and his parched throat. He coughed up drops of blood in place of a laugh, and then his lips were on the flower.

Then came the laughter, and the taste of rotten air. The cell door swung open, though the Commander lacked the willpower to even twist his head and look toward his 'guest'.

"How does it taste, pony?" The voice faded too quickly from the world, but not before it reached the Commander's mind. When the very memory of the boar's words began to rot out of his thoughts, there was no willpower left to stop them. "Did you truly believe we were done so soon?"

"Plea..."

"Please? Do I hear you begging? I knew you were ready to die, but to hear you put the effort into saying it–I have not been so happy in many days, pony. Many days. Here, let me help you."

Khagan, the titanic boar warchief, forced himself into the room. His barbed and serrated tusks were placed against the Commander's side. A brown aura engulfed them, though it seemed disjoint, as if viewed through dirty glass. Soon, the Commander could only remember a spell being cast, and then that thought too rotted away into oblivion. He only knew that he had been healed enough to speak, as his throat and his lungs stopped their constant searing agony for the first time in a month.

What Khagan had not counted on was the resolve that the healing would grant the stallion. The Commander rose shakily to his hooves, as a scowl worked its way onto his face. His forelegs slipped, and he fell to his chin with a painful crack, but that did not stop him. The second try came far closer. When he was nearly upright, Khagan swept a tusk to the side. It cut into the Commander's left foreleg, exposing bone and slicing through muscle and sinew. Newly remade tongue and throat gasped and hissed, but they did not scream.

"Do not try and look me in the eye. I reserve that honor for my warriors, and my chiefs. Those with the courage to face their foes eye to eye. For all the skill I hear of your stories, you are the lowest of worms. Return to the dirt. I will destroy you again tomorrow."

Khagan turned away with a genuine smile. Had the Commander's stomach borne any strength at all, he might have vomited in disgust. Instead, he clutched his leg, shut his eyes, and welcomed the darkness on the edges of his eyes as he heard the door to his cell slam shut.

"Tsk, tsk. Oh come now, Commander, are you truly going to give up this easily?"

"D...Discord?"

"Oh, he fixed your throat? It's so nice to hear that gravelly voice again. It always astounds me that you used to be renowned for your charisma; of course, it isn't really fair to use myself as a comparison."

"Why didn't you answer me? All these years..."

"Years? Oh, if only you knew. It's been just a little more than six months, Commander. And thanks to your daughter and her friends, I don't have my usual unlimited magic. The long distance surcharges are enormous!"

The Commander gritted his teeth, and forced his eyes open. "So... why bother?"

"You say that as if you won't want me around. That really hurts, you know? Here I am, rooting for you from all this distance away, and you don't even have the courtesy to say 'thanks'?"

The little figure that the Commander had carved into the wall by hoof stepped out of the stonework. It was strange to see a carving walk away from the material it had been carved into, as if what remained was composed only of shadows, lacking the stone that served as their canvas. The guardspony reached out a leg toward it, even as his blood began to clot and dry against his dark, blue-gray coat. Khagan's healing enchantment served as the worst curse of his pathetic existence. Not only did it sap his energy, but it kept him from dying in the face both of the boar's tortures and his own desperate attempts to move on.

"Can you..." The Commander broke his words off to groan as his foreleg's muscles struggled to stitch themselves back together over the jagged edge of his broken bone. "...end this curse?"

"Not as I am... but then, the Commander who was brave enough to ask me for advice, and trade away his life's secrets in return, wouldn't have given up so easily."

At the taunt, the Commander glared silently at the illusory, two-inch high figment pacing around him on the floor. "You don't understand pain, Discord."

"I suppose you're right. I can't see why I'd ever want to feel it. But then, I'm not the legendary guardian of Equestria, who flies on the night in black armor and slays dragons with his bare hooves."

"Stupid..." the stallion muttered, before his tongue built up the slightest bit of momentum out of spite. "If you can't kill me, go away."

"Ah, but there I something I can offer you. Something you haven't had in months, Commander. I can offer you hope."

There followed a long silence, and then a single word left dry and cracked lips. "Why?"

"Why help you, you mean? Well, to be brutally more honest than I normally approve of, it's because I think the next few months are going to be a lot more fun if you're there. But I do want something from you in return."

Humoring the spirit, the Commander moaned out a single word. "What?"

"Well, two things really. I want you to admit that I'm reformed, and I'd like you to use your clout with Celestia to get me out of this infernal stone prison again."

After a moment's silent contemplation, the Commander snapped with a snarl, and slammed his foreleg down on the figment of the Draconequus. His bloodshot, crusted eyes glared with a deep fire that ignored the pain of his jagged bone jutting upward and slicing through the fresh wound once again. He found no target, as the illusion passed through his limb entirely, but the sheer spite of the motion served perfectly to convey his broken, animalistic state.

"Why? Why taunt me now?"

"Taunt you? If anything, I'm encouraging you. You can get out of this, 'Commander', and I'm interested in helping in what little way I can. I'm almost out of magic for now, so I'll just say this: if you remember the Castle of Midnight, you know what to expect. I hope that helps, Commander. Now, I'll let you get back to wallowing in agony, and giving up on everything you've ever stood for. I'm sure Celestia will be fine without you, after all."

The Commander watched the little figure wander over to the wall of the cell, and once more become a mundane carving. For what seemed the longest time, he simply stared, confused. Discord had in the past shared information and secrets, but never of his own free will. Some might have imagined the spirit to be simply exercising a helpful nature. The mind of a warrior, however, could not accept such an explanation.

In the end, why was a question for a later day. Discord's last word had set a fire in the stallion's blood. Raw Empatha gathered at the edges of his broken, crippled wings. Yet, for the first time since his imprisonment, the Commander did not feel sorry for himself. Instead, a far more active emotion dominated his thoughts. The stallion had only one question to answer. He looked down at the spur of jagged bone jutting out of his leg, reflecting on how it rather resembled the edge of a knife.

Though the motion was not without hesitation, his mouth ultimately found its way down to the skeletal protrusion. The Commander closed his eyes in focus, bit down, and yanked.

Unconsciousness took its sweet time arriving to rescue him.

There was no delay between the sound of the door clicking shut and Luna's brutal and irate scolding. "While we welcome your advice on our sister's recommendation, Marathon, we will not let you presume to lie to Krenn on our behalf!" The portraits on the wall and the frosted window seemed to shake at the sound of her voice, subdued though it was from her famous 'royal' tone.

Marathon recoiled in the small common room of the four-bed suite that had been granted to the Canterlot ponies. "Princess, with all due respect–" Her pleasant and subtle Canterlot accent did very little against the momentum of Luna's displeasure.

"Respect is what you clearly do not have for Krenn. Perhaps you have had conflict with dragons in the past, but he has been our- my friend for eight-hundred of your lifetimes!" There followed a short lull in Luna's controlled anger, though the young diplomat knew better than to interrupt. "If his life is in danger from Masquerade, he has a right to know. I would not see my fate forced onto him, nor to anyone else. Your interruption was both unwanted and out of place. We shall have to hope he forgives us for your attitude when we inform him of the truth."

When Luna's rant was finally done, the subject of her ire found the strength to once more draw breath. Having recovered her fortitude, Marathon waited until some of the fire in Luna's eyes had died down before speaking up.

"Princess, while I do understand your concern, we can't afford to let your past friendship with Lord Krenn overrule Equestria's needs."

It was clearly a struggle for Luna to retain any degree of professionalism. Rather than disregarding the statement entirely, she sucked in a deep breath, and then asked the foremost question in her mind. "Why should I not play to our relationship?"

"That's not what I mean, Princess. Friendship is fine. I'm only concerned that you're putting that friendship ahead of Equestria's needs, and unfortunately, we don't have any other good choices for a representative left." Marathon paused to shuffle over on stumps of legs toward an ornate tea set that had been readied atop the room's coffee table. "Ever since the war, Lord Krenn has refused to speak to Princess Celestia, or even be in the same room as her. When he went to sleep a dozen years ago, we appointed an ambassador–my predecessor, in fact–to deal with Krenn's second."

"And why not rely on that pony, if you find me so unacceptable? And what of you?"

Marathon poured three cups of tea with a sigh, gripping the ceramic pot tightly with her wing and trusting the heat resistance of her feathers to endure the mildly uncomfortable warmth. "Firstly, Princess, I didn't mean to imply that you're a bad choice. I just think you're being naive, in this case. Relations have been strained between Canterlot and Krennotets for almost forty years now. Things came to a head in the war, as I'm sure you've heard, and we assumed they would settle down once the fighting stopped." The young mare pushed one cup of tea toward Luna, and another was offered in the direction of Mirror Image, who stood by the door to the room. The stallion shook his head without word. Marathon shrugged, and downed her own small cup almost as if she were taking a shot of hard liquor. The action reflected curiously on Luna's perceptions of her appointed companion, though it was curiosity on a different matter that drove her next question.

"You speak of relations between Canterlot and the volcano that bears Krenn's name?"

"Oh, I suppose I hadn't thought of that. It's history to everypony else. Almost seven-hundred years ago, Lord Krenn hollowed out the volcano, and made it his capital. That's where 'Peschera' is; I'm sure you must've heard of it."

"What happened to Dral... Drathl..." Luna grumbled something between clenched teeth. "To his former capital?"

"If memory serves from history class, he lost it to Emperor Magnus. In retribution, Krenn ripped Dioda in half straight through the center of the old griffon capital of Angenholt. Hence, Grivridge." The mare poured herself another cup of tea. "I don't think we have time for a history lesson now, Princess. I only mentioned it in the first place so you'd understand that Equestria and the various dragon lands are still very much at each other's throats. It's been political incident after political incident. The predecessor I mentioned earlier? He insulted one of Lord Krenn's great-great-grandchildren, and the dragons ate him." Luna cringed, and a certain haunted look seemed to slip momentarily over Marathon's face. "The first time I went to Krennotets to negotiate, I came back with a very lightweight box."

Luna sipped her tea gingerly, welcoming the mixed flavors of orange, lemon, and the tea itself. Only after a short swallow did she address her advisor, and she did so with the remnants of an obviously still smoldering anger. "You tell a compelling ghost story, Ambassador Marathon, but it fails to answer my questions. Why should I lie to Krenn about the assassin, and why should I not play to our friendship? If anything, you've convinced me that I should emphasize our familiarity even more heavily, to avoid the risk of war."

"That's exactly what you're missing though, Princess. I'm not against being friends with him, but I don't want that friendship to leave you taking actions that hurt Equestria. So, as your diplomatic advisor, I have to caution you that informing Lord Krenn about Masquerade's escape will have major consequences. We would be showing him directly that the Guard is, historically speaking, very weak. We've had twenty years of virtually unbroken peace, and civilians view the Royal Guard as more of a police force than an army these days. Our numbers are a third of what they were twenty years ago under Captain Vigil and Commander Coil. And twenty years ago, we nearly lost a war with the dragons. Equestria would be gone if it weren't for Commander Lining."

Luna's eyes narrowed further still as she took another sip. "So, Ambassador, what you are proposing is that we not inform Krenn of a dangerous assassin, and risk an enormous diplomatic incident between our nations, on the grounds that informing him of the assassin's escape might make us look militarily weak?"

"You still aren't understanding me. This won't be like the Royal Academy Incident; we know to expect Masquerade. If she tries to sneak in under cover of an illusion, we know to look at her cutie mark. Either she comes to us and we see through her disguise, or Captain Armor and Captain Ink catch her before she gets here. I know she's dangerous, but I'm worried that you're underestimating Lord Krenn. You heard his story about how the last war started, and I'd be willing to bet both my forelegs that he's here again to try and get that same land. I don't know if Tsar Eye will refuse him, but if he isn't given what he wants... I'd prefer that we not offer the dragons anything that might encourage a conflict. I was very young during the war, but if what I've heard of it is true, Lord Krenn had more to do with it than his story at dinner let on."

"I see no reason to continue bickering on the subject of a war twenty years gone. You certainly put a great deal of stock in such a matter, considering it was a war that Equestria won, if my lessons are correct."

Marathon sighed. "That is correct, Princess, but I hope you aren't suggesting we disregard the threat of a war from Lord Krenn just because we think we can beat him if something goes wrong. It isn't as if we won by military means the last time."

Luna shook her head. "It matters not how we won, or that we won. If I tell Krenn the truth, in the spirit of honesty, we will strengthen our friendship and find lesser risk of this war you seem to fear so. I do not see such a thing as even being likely."

Marathon quickly realized she was arguing a losing point. With some degree of dejection, she muttered her final defense. "I have to hope you're right, Princess. I just warn you that the way he thinks of you is probably quite different from how he views Equestria. We lost enough reputation in Krennotets when Discord flew off after Princess Celestia's reform project."

Luna glared. "It was most foolish of him to fly to Krenn, after the past the two share. Still, the draconequus meant no true harm, however spiteful his words."

"Discord's intentions aren't the issue, though, Princess. I wish I could say they counted for something, but we don't have the luxury of pretending the dragons are going to forgive him. What matters is what it meant for Equestria. I don't know what he did to the dragons or the griffons or the elk. What I do know is that all three races demanded that we give up the Elements of Harmony, and threatened us with war if we didn't." She rolled her eyes, allowing them to land on her ruler. "Believe me; I was the one who got to deal with that political nightmare."

"What?"

It took only a split second for Marathon's eyes to widen and her teeth to clench. "Princess, I–"

"Spare us." The room grew visibly darker as the night princess' eyes glowed with a pale light. "You still blame us for what was done to Loose Cannon, just as Crack and Flag and all the others do. We could not blame them, but you swore an oath that such things were beneath you. We will not tolerate such lies, nor your taking out your hatred on our reputation with the dragons, or the Tsar. Think on what you've said, and we will speak to you in the morning, though we still wonder what good such an attitude could do serving for diplomacy."

It was midnight at Sweet Apple Acres, and the trees swayed in a fell wind. In an upstairs bedroom, a young mare was startled from sleep by a hammering on the door. At first, she feared a tree had fallen against the house, until the distinct, three-beat knocking came again. Grumbling words that bear no repetition, she stumbled from her bed and directly down the stairs, hoping to herself that her elderly grandmother hadn't been stolen from her sleep by the noise.

After tripping and stumbling down the last two steps in the dark, the door presented a curious problem. She fumbled with the lock for almost a minute, grateful that the knocking had stopped, before finally opening their house to the untimely visitor.

"Y'all know what time it is, right? Ain't no decent folk comin' around at two in the mornin'."

The stallion at the door nodded, locking onto her with the one eye he had remaining. "I'm sorry about the hour, but wouldn't have woken you if it wasn't important. My name is Dead Reckoning–"

"Yer' Deadeye?" Applejack's already displeased expression grew narrower.

"That's what they call me, yeah. You must be Rainbow's friend... Apple Cider?"

"Applejack," the mare corrected, without the slightest hint of welcome in her voice. "That was a real classy move, runnin' off on Rainbow without answerin' any of her questions. You've got a lotta nerve pullin' a stunt like that an' then showin' yer face around these parts."

Reckoning stepped back from the door as the cowpony thrust her head forward. His legs itched as he forced himself not to drop low to the ground and draw his machete. "I didn't mean to cause trouble. Honestly. I'm not even here about her. I'm looking for Soldier On."

Applejack squinted. "Uh, who?"

"You might know her by, uh, Stoy-caw-juh."

"Ain't ringin' any bells."

Deadeye rolled his eye. "Look, you can't possibly miss her. She's like four feet tall, and–"

"Ya mean Resistant? Yeah, I..." Her voice trailed off into a yawn. "...I know where ya can find 'er. She sleeps in the cider cellar, 'round the other side o' the barn. Be careful wakin' her up."

"I know," Reckoning answered with a grin that momentarily frightened Applejack in a way she couldn't quite explain. He seemed to miss the reaction altogether as he started to walk away. "You touch her, she tries to snap your neck."

Applejack was flabbergasted and clearly intimidated by the insinuation. "What now? Look, I'm not toleratin' any violence on this here farm. You got a beef with her, ya might as well leave now, or I'll get Big Mac to buck your flank off the property."

Reckoning donned his best cowpony accent. "I ain't lookin to start no fights, ma'am."

The joke went over rather poorly for the genuine farmer. "Says the pony who wears a sword around town and comes knockin' on doors at an unholy hour of the mornin."

Reckoning offered her one more of his signature lopsided grins before returning his hooves to their slow walk toward the barn. "I didn't say I didn't finish fights." Turning his head back toward the barn, he expected the door of the farmhouse to shut. Instead, Applejack's voice called out once more, following behind him in the frigid night air.

"Hold on one cotton'-pickin' minute there. I want one or two answers from ya. Straight answers, too. I'll know if yer lyin' to me."

Reckoning froze, and took a single deep breath. He made no effort to turn back toward the mare, or even glance over his shoulder. His eye remained locked on the barn. "What do you want to know?"

"What did ya want with Rainbow Dash? What's some big-time, fancy Honor Guard doin' in Ponyville?"

"I..." Deadeye hesitated. "I thought maybe Rainbow should know. That I was back."

"But are ya' back?"

The question got Reckoning to turn his head, in a very curious manner. In profile, it was his solid black eye patch that faced Applejack. "I'm here, aren't I?"

"So's Rainbow." Applejack's lithe body paced toward him, and his breathing grew very quiet. "But that ain't what I meant, and I know ya know it. Just like I know ya ain't been straight with me. You didn't come back her for Rainbow's sake, or at least not the way ya just put it. So I wanna know why. Spit it out, Deadeye."

He was intimidated by the mare, but there was something else as well. His eye squinted shut, trying desperately to ignore her presence as his mind throbbed and his emotions fled his control. "I..."

"Yah see somethin' in her, don't ya?"

The grass ripped up in clumps from beneath his hooves when he turned. For just a moment, she saw something glimmer in his eye, and it drove her back in shock and fear. Gone was his callous smile and carefree demeanor. The trio of parallel scars on his face seemed somehow deeper as they bent to accommodate the peeling back of his lips form his teeth. "What difference is it to you?"

When the verbal blow had been struck, Applejack's strength of will returned. "She's mah friend! I ain't about ta see you hurt her. You guardsponies ‘ave already made her life miserable enough, don't ya think? You stay away from her, ya hear?" The last words were accompanied by a threatening hoof.

Reckoning ignored the orange limb, as his fleeting rage gave way to a bitter melancholy. "Then you don't have anything to fear from me. She's staying here, and I'm going away. One way or another, I'm not coming back."

"So ya do see something in her?"

The air filled with excruciating silence. Though there was a chill wind, it made no noise amongst the trees. The starry sky was still and empty, sucking away all sound and motion into the endless void. Applejack wondered just how long it would take the stallion to build up his courage and admit the truth.

"Yeah. I do." He frowned slightly, almost mournfully. "But it wouldn't be fair of me to do anything. To say anything. We can't be together."

Applejack cocked her head. "What, cause yer a guardspony? Ya could just quit."

"No. I can't." Reckoning turned back toward the barn. "Don't tell her what I said."

'Why' was a question that didn't seem to need asking. Applejack nodded. "Least ya seem willin' ta own up to it. One last question. Yer' takin Resistant, ain't ya?"

He nodded silently.

"Right. Well, tell 'er she did good work. We'd love ta have 'er if she could stay on."

"I'm sure she'd love to, but you have to play the hoof you're dealt. Goodnight, Applejack."

Rainbow tucked Scootaloo into a bed of clouds, under a thick comforter emblazoned with the elder mare's cutie mark. "What do you think, squirt? Pretty sweet place, huh?"

"It's awesome!" Scootaloo declared in tired awe, struggling to keep her eyes open only for the sake of sucking in the amazing purples and blues of the ornate cloud architecture. "I've never been in a cloud building!"

"Well, most of them aren't as awesome as my place. But we can talk more about that tomorrow morning. It's time to catch some Z's." Rainbow slid onto her own bed, finding more than ample space alongside the young filly. "Night, Scoot."

"Goodnight."

Despite the ample space, the little orange filly lived up to her name by scooting across the bedspread until the soft hairs of her back were pressed tightly against Dash's side. Unable to resist, Rainbow extended a wing and let it lay over her 'little sister' as a second blanket. In perfect comfort, Scootaloo curled into a tiny ball with a smile on her face.

"...too bad Mr. Reckoning couldn't stay. I liked him."

With her face turned away, Scootaloo couldn't see the confused expression that rose on Rainbow's face. "Really?"

"Yeah." Scootaloo's soft voice was accompanied by the sensation of her side moving up and down under Rainbow's wing as she breathed. "He was nice, and you..." Scootaloo paused to yawn, and then smack her lips together. "...you seemed sad when he left." Scootaloo stirred once more gently, snuggling more tightly against her pillow.

It came upon her like magic, tearing aside all else her mind had ever held. Reckoning was leaving. She didn't recall the thought bothering her before, but there it was; a reality whose jagged blade sunk tight into her gut and twisted until she was forced to acknowledge it. Yet for all the pain it brought, she had no reason to cry. Crying was for when things were too late.

Her wing folded back against her side, slowly. For the loss of warmth, Scootaloo only curled up tighter in the blankets. Rainbow watched her chest rise and fall for a moment, keeping track of the steady ebb and flow until she was sure the filly was asleep. Only then did she roll lightly out of bed and drop to her hooves, the cloud floor muffling the noise. A silent trot downstairs and a spreading of her wings, she was off into a world of white ground and black horizon.

Ponyville was tranquil and beautiful at night, frosted with January snow. Her shadow swam across the rooftops and streets of a city asleep and bundled tightly against the chill. Though her breath was clearly visible temperature gave her no trouble, compared to the flurry of thoughts fighting within her mind. Acting on autopilot, her perfect wings carried her toward Sweet Apple Acres.

Snow-covered, leafless branches stretched on for miles, continuing the perfect grayscale that dominated the world. In the midst of the night, a warm orange glow caught her eye in a rather familiar building far away from the farmhouse and the barn that housed Applejack's family. She knew all too well how perfectly the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse could serve for clandestine meetings.

Her wings flare moments before her hooves touched the wooden ramp that led up to the door. The fresh snow chilled her just a bit, but not enough to distract her from her goal. She pressed her hooves down carefully to avoid any layer of ice hiding on the wooden boards, and made her way up to the clubhouse. When her hoof met the door to knock, it swung open of its own accord.

From that motion, the world turned into a sudden blur. Rainbow was lifted in an incredible grip, as an unstoppable hoof swept all four of her hooves out from under her. She flipped over as the interior of the clubhouse spun. The motion ended with a painful collision against the floorboards. No more than a moment later, an unnaturally frigid steel sword came to rest against her throat.

"What are you–"

"Rainbow?" Dead Reckoning lifted his machete from the mare's throat. "On, let her up. She's fine."

Soldier On grumbled, removing her forelegs from Rainbow's shoulders. Rainbow didn't have many memories of the titanic mare. They'd spoken twice, each meeting lasting less than fifteen minutes, and both introductions had been lost over the seven intervening months. After taking a moment to recover her hoofing and rub her sore back, the pegasus stared up at the wanted traitor.

Soldier On stood more than four feet tall at the massive, muscular shoulder. Below that line, it would have taken Rainbow a very discerning eye to some rather private parts of her body to identify her as a mare. Her dirty hooves but otherwise pristine off-white coat and short cropped tail reminded the stunt flier of Big Macintosh. Both had huge, broad hooves and legs that didn't seem to grow more slender as they stretched up toward their bodies. Where Macintosh's stance was somewhat reclined and comfortable in its strength, however, On seemed perpetually strained. The very way her legs pressed down into her heavy steel shoes suggested that she was ready to bring them to bear for combat at a moment's notice.

From her towering shoulders, her burly neck rose up to a face that most mares would consider less than attractive. On's eggshell mane was pulled back tightly across her scalp, pinned around and behind her head into a ponytail. Behind a black knot of cable, the hairs hung loose and wild, though cropped too short to actually reach down to her back or shoulders. Sticking out of the mane were one and a half ears. While her left was impeccable and untarnished, her right rose up to only about half its original height before ending in a surprisingly smooth cut. Despite their varied shapes, both ears stood taught and attentive in Rainbow's direction. Below them, green eyes stared down the length of a long, masculine muzzle with a rather potent jaw line. Everything about the expression painted across her faces warned that she was unhappy for Rainbow's presence.

"Hey," Dash muttered to the disapproving glare. "It's, uh, been a long time?"

"What do ya' want?" the mare asked. Rainbow had to suppress a chuckle. She'd been expecting a Stalliongradi accent, given what she knew of the mare's origins. Instead, Soldier On had greeted her in a tone surprisingly reminiscent of Applejack.

"Well, I'm here to talk to Deadeye." Without waiting for any sort of permission, she turned her back on the enormous earth pony and toward her friend.

Reckoning's wing hung in a tight sling at his side, beneath which he was in the process of actively stowing his machete. His head was craned down to deal with the weapon in slow, deliberate motions. He didn't look her in the eyes as he addressed her. "We had the whole train ride back to talk, Rainbow. I'm sorry, but I don't really have time to talk now." With a rather angry hiss, his blade slid down against his side. From that pose, he allowed himself to lift his head slowly. "You should go home. It's late."

There was a part of Rainbow that knew the words should not have hurt; after all, they were sound advice. But it was a tiny part, fragile and weak in the face of overwhelming opinions that swirled up within her from the void.

"Deadeye, listen to me. This mission thing–"

Soldier On interrupted with a single word at first. "Don't." She walk around Rainbow, and came to a stop standing where most of her impressive size lay between the two pegasi. When her words came again, they were bitter and dry, seeming as if they meant to dictate fact rather than swaying opinion. Gone was the forced 'cowpony' tone, or any accent at all. Her harsh message had no room for geography or culture. "You didn't know the Commander, so I don't expect you to understand why we need to do this. But I know you understand loyalty, so you know that this is something we have to do."

She glanced at Reckoning. The determination across his scarred face made his agreement clear as crystal. It forced Rainbow's mind to contemplate a thousand possibilities, and one after another were shot down by the corners of her rational thought. Telling him what she wanted directly would not sway him. Downplaying loyalty would only lose her his respect. On and on her mind raced in the span of a mere second, until she settled on an option that weighed down her conscience like lead. The lie she needed swam to her tongue, greased on its way by magic and pulled by the strings of a heavy heart.

"I don't want you to stop. I want to come with you."

Reckoning froze as if struck dead by the simple words, and so once more the burden of a response fell upon Soldier On. She glared, harshly enough that Rainbow had to suppress the urge to backpedal away. The Stalliongradian mare's words came with a faint growl that seemed to shake the clubhouse. "This is not your concern, or your danger to face. You aren't Honor Guard."

Rainbow felt a fire in her blood at the accusation, in spite of its truth. "Neither are you. I wouldn't want to do this with the Honor Guard. I want to go with you." Her eyes glanced Reckoning's direction to indicate her meaning.

Reckoning snapped out of his stupor at the direct glance. "I don't think you get it, Rainbow. This isn't just–"

"Stop, Reckoning." The simple, controlled words brought instant silence from the old soldier in the young civilian's body. Soldier On returned her focus to Rainbow Dash. "This is the second time you've involved yourself in our business, and I've had to deal with it. Since my last tactic didn't work, I'm going to tell you the truth. Rainbow Dash, no matter how much you want to be, you aren't expendable. You embody the Element of Loyalty. Equestria needs you for its protection. The Commander would have my head if I let you put yourself in the kind of danger that we're going to be dealing with. The last time this issue came up, I failed to convince Princess Celestia that you weren't fit to serve as an Honor Guard. Thunder Crack made your training a living Tartarus because I wanted you to quit. When that didn't work, you got sent to Zebrica because I decided it would be the safest place to put you."

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Smooth move on that one."

Soldier On lunged forward and bared her teeth, Rainbow could feel the larger mare's hot breath on her muzzle. The scent of apples dominated the air. "Seeing as you're standing here, I'd say I was right. If I'd taken you with me, Roscherk would have killed you in a heartbeat." For only a fraction of a second, Rainbow thought she saw something flash across Soldier On's face. Before she could even ponder it, however, the towering pony pulled her face back slightly and continued speaking. "But I am not making that mistake again. You have no reason to put your head on the chopping block. If you try to follow us, I will break a wing and a leg. I may no longer be a guardspony, but I still protect Equestria." Soldier On thrust out a foreleg, and the door to the Cutie Mark Crusader's clubhouse was torn completely off its hinges. It flew out into the snow, bouncing across the ground and coming to rest at the foot of a nearby apple tree. She did not lower the limb, instead using it as an obvious command.

Rainbow glanced to the door, and then back at Soldier On. Her heart was pumping with anger and desperation, and her tongue acted long before her mind had given it consent. "I do have a reason to go. And it's not just loyalty to my friend." Once more, her eyes flickered to Reckoning, before returning to the stalwart face of the off-white mare. "Steel Lining is my dad."

Soldier On took her turn to stand slack-jawed and stunned as Reckoning cocked his head in confusion. "Wait, is Steel Lining...?"

"Yeah," Rainbow muttered. "The Commander."

"Celestia told us at the funeral." She caught Rainbow's confused glance, and added a further explanation. "You'd be surprised how easy it is to get onto the palace grounds unnoticed when nopony has taken the time to change the patrol schedules." Those words came easily and without aggression from Soldier On. It took her much longer to find more.

As the silence grew longer, Reckoning began to watch On with a shocked expression. "You aren't seriously considering–"

"I won't be Roscherk!" Both pegasi in the room jumped at the volume of her response. Rainbow remained hovering in the air as the mare continued with more controlled words. "I... I won't be the one to keep her from her family."

A one-eyed gaze searched Rainbow for a very long moment, lingering in places that seemed to tell him nothing. When he finally spoke up, it was with a tone that clearly forced itself to remain simple and neutral. "She can take care of herself if something goes wrong." He wasn't able to hold the forced tone long as he continued. "Her Empatha is amazing; I'd say only the Commander is stronger. Now I know where she gets it from. I'm not sure I like it either, but she's too damn stubborn for either of us to stop her." He'd been looking at Rainbow the entire time, but when his eye refocused, it became clear he had chosen to actually speak to her. "I'd like to talk to you about this, but we don't have any time to waste."

Soldier On sat down, only marginally decreasing her height. "Are you determined to do this? Are you sure?" The words accompanied the first wave of truly deep emotion Rainbow had ever seen on the titan's face, and she had no idea of quite what to make of the expression.

Showing no desire to explain her thoughts on the matter, Soldier On returned once more to the dangerous business at hoof. "Reckoning, you're right. We don't have time to waste arguing. We need to be moving as soon as possible. Rainbow, do you have any money?"

Caught off-guard by the question, Rainbow's brow rose. "What?"

"We need equipment for the trip. Suida is hostile territory, and harsh terrain. I'd rather purchase supplies than steal them; it’s faster, and it leaves less of a hoofprint for the others to follow."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Reckoning wondered aloud.

On's expression did not change with her explanation, remaining firm and businesslike. "I'm the most wanted pony in Equestria right now. It took me a lot of work to blend in here; especially when Roscherk showed up in town." Her muzzle wrinkled momentarily in a slight display of disgust. "Armor's guard think that I'm hiding in the Everfree Forest, but that won't last long once we start traveling. Celestia seems to believe our mission is going to put Equestria at war, so we have to worry about that too."

Reckoning briefly flashed a scowl of his own. "It's Princess Celestia, On."

The earth ponies voice dropped to an unmotivated muttering. "We aren't guards anymore, Reckoning. She's just another pony." On rolled her eyes, resuming her prior focus. "We're wasting time. The point is that there are going to be guardsponies coming after us. Especially if you're coming, Rainbow. We need to move fast, which starts with gearing up fast. So I'll ask again: how much money do you have?"

"Uh, a few hundred bits. It's not much..."

On didn't seem to be listening beyond the first sentence. "Not enough. I can survive without a weapon, and you have your machete, but she needs something."

"Her Empatha is amazing, On. I mean, really."

"I saw the Sonic Rainboom, Reckoning. But even the Commander gets tired. And I'd hoped we could get something to repel the Boar's Arcana."

"I could go back to Canterlot, or hit the armory in Manehattan. They'd give me armor."

"You might as well be telling Celestia to her face what we're planning. Bad enough what you already told Flag. We don't have a unicorn, so we need something to give us an advantage there. We'd be better off grabbing some Royal Guards and making off with theirs–"

Rainbow's ears perked up more and more as the discussion progressed, until at last a small smiled had wormed its way onto her face. "I can get us skysteel."

Soldier On momentarily let her jaw go slack, though it only took her a spare second to regain her attention. "How?" Rainbow's mouth lost the race to answer the question. "No, wait. I don't care, as long as it doesn't warn the guard. Take Reckoning, get what you can. A weapon for yourself, and armor for both of you. Keep it light, and concealable if you can. Reckoning, see if you can get a set of shoes for me."

Rainbow looked at the older mare as if she were insane. "Uh, you know how skysteel works, right?"

"Yes."

"It's made of clouds."

"I'm aware."

Rainbow fluttered the tips of her wings in the air. "And you're an earth pony..."

On grumbled something in Stalliongradi under her breath. "All Royal Guard armor incorporates some level of skysteel, between a layer of cushioning for comfort in wear, and the gilded exterior, for protection against Arcana. I have my shoes made the same way." She turned away from Rainbow and toward Dead Reckoning. "Pure stratus with a bladed leading edge and flying tails. Do your best to balance them, if you can."

"Relax, On. I've got a bit of experience working with skysteel." He flipped out his machete, revealing its hideously jagged edge. "I've been keeping this thing together for going on thirty years."

"That's skysteel?" Rainbow struggled to contain her disbelief. "It looks like crap."

"Well, apologies for not having a fancy smelter handy in the middle of Zebrica. It used to be a standard issue machete, but things tend to break down in the jungle. I had to heat and cool the clouds with my own Empatha, and make off with whatever clouds I could fly up and grab. Fire isn't really my thing, which is sort of why the blade came out this jagged. It's got about every kind of cloud you can imagine in it. Still cuts great, though."

"I noticed." Rainbow glanced back to her right flank, where a thin line of a five-month old scar had mostly blended in with the red segment of her tri-tone lightning bolt. Rainbow realized just how distracted she had become when she turned back to Reckoning, and saw his broken wing resting in a white sling. "We'll have to go to Cloudsdale, and you can't fly." It took only a moment to conjure a solution. "I bet Twilight will let us borrow her hot air balloon."

"How long will it take?" Soldier On asked.

"The balloon's kinda slow. Maybe seven hours or something..."

"Tell Twilight Sparkle you will be borrowing her balloon for a week."

"Uh, why? That's a long time to begin with, but–"

"When Twilight realizes you are gone with us, her dragon will tell Celestia. The longer that message is delayed, the easier our journey will be. A week is long, but believable." On glanced at the broken doorframe. "No more time for questions. Go now. Wake her, or her dragon. Take the balloon. I'll get clothing. We meet at the Ponyville train station at a quarter to five this afternoon."

Rainbow and Reckoning walked out of the small clubhouse together. As they walked across the snowy apple orchards, a quick glance back found their third companion hefting a door across her back, putting immense effort into repairing damage that had been caused with little more than a stray thought.

Twilight Sparkle slammed so many books into her suitcase that there was barely room for a single set of her academic, arcane robes. Even for the youngest Archmage in the history of the Royal Academy, squeezing the container shut was an impossible war. Finally, out of irritation, she grabbed four small focusing crystals (gifts from her older brother's empire) and jammed them into the corners of the container. After that, it took only a slight burst of magic to make the interior of the container larger than its actual dimensions. Rather than accepting the solution, Twilight observed that she had created more space, and proceeded to fill it with more books.

Her focus was rattled by a knocking at the door. The sheer force of her telekinesis being interrupted sent Volume XIV of the Complete Equestrian Encyclopedia of Law hurtling across the library. Irritated, she stepped away from her container and strode across the room. "Gaah! Pinkie, if you're inviting me to another surprise midnight party, I'll turn your cannon into–" The door to the library flew open, revealing a pair of unexpected faces. "Rainbow? Mr. Reckoning?"

"Hey, Twilight." Rainbow scratched the back of her neck, recognizing the awkwardness of the hour.

Dead Reckoning had enough of an advantage in years of social interaction to step in where Rainbow's words had failed. "I'm sorry, Twilight. Did we wake you?"

She glanced back at the aftereffects of Hurricane Twilight, which had just swept through the center of the public institution. "Well, no, actually. The Princess just sent Spike a letter. She wants me at a Royal Academy Council Meeting. It's actually my first one since becoming an Archmage. I'm a little nervous."

Despite his lack of depth perception, Reckoning had clearly noticed some small sliver of the room behind the unicorn mare. "A little?"

"Yeah." Rainbow chuckled under her breath. "You should see her when she gets really worried. It's pretty funny."

Twilight's eyes rolled under the even line of her bangs. "Laugh it up, Rainbow. I really do need to get back to packing. I have to be in Canterlot by eight A.M. Actually, I was expecting to see you there. You got back fast." Twilight gestured for the two pegasi to enter the library as she turned back to packing half the library's texts into her newly fabricated extra-dimensional suitcase.

Rainbow was grateful the mare's back was turned, as her mouth struggled to form the lie she'd been handed by Soldier On. "Oh, uh, yeah. Actually, Twilight, we were wondering if we could borrow your hot air balloon for a few days..."

"Days? What for?"

"Well..." Rainbow's words trailed off. Thankfully, they seemed to imply a level of shame at her request, rather than the truth of the matter: that she had no idea what sort of an excuse to use.

"I need to get to Cloudsdale," Reckoning picked up, clearly cognizant of the younger mare's struggles with lying to her friend. "Figured I should get somepony to look at my wing, and almost all the specialists are at Cloudsdale General. Obviously, with a broken wing, I can't fly. I was going to ask the Princess for a few other guards to pull a chariot, but when Rainbow said you had a balloon..." He let his voice trail off quite deliberately, before picking up a moment later. "I hope we aren't asking something inconvenient."

"Oh, no, I guess. I'm taking the train up the mountain anyway." Twilight didn't even glance back over her shoulder as she sorted her works. "Rainbow, have you seen Commander Hurricane's journal?"

"Uh, no. You freaked out when I touched it last time."

"It's eight thousand years old, and you almost bent the spine!" Twilight shouted suddenly, before realizing her volume. She winced noticeably, before going back to packing once more. "Sorry. I was done copying the text, so I wanted to bring the original to the Canterlot Archives."

Showing exactly the sort of respect for the near-religious status of the ancient leader of the pegasi that Rainbow would expect, Reckoning donned another goofy, smug grin. "What is it, a book of racial slurs about unicorns and earth ponies?"

"I'm going to ignore that," Twilight muttered through gritted teeth. "Use the balloon as long as you need. Are you two both going to stay up there the whole time, or are you coming back soon, Rainbow?"

For the first time in the conversation, Rainbow decided to take the reins in deceiving her friend. "I kinda thought I'd spend some time with my grandpa, actually. Maybe catch a Wonderbolts show."

"Sounds fun," Twilight muttered with a total lack of interest. "I'll have Spike tell the others you're going." Rainbow nodded to Reckoning, and the two pegasi moved to leave the library. A few final words from Twilight froze the former's hooves in mid-step. "When you get back, you should think about staying in town for a bit. We're worried about you, Rainbow."

"Uh... yeah." The pegasus felt a knot form in her throat as her words hung void and empty. "After this, I promise. Just one more little trip."

Knocking on a door with Arcana was something of an involved act, but Foresight preferred the greater control his magic gave him over the risk of creating either too loud or too quiet a noise. Then he waited. The pause gave him time to truly appreciate the finer things in that moment of his life. Things like the drab gray of the castle's thick stones, or the painful white light emanating from the naked lightbulbs strung up along the ceiling overhead. They were the result of his insistence that Castle Burning Hearth be brought up to a modern standard. That morning, just a few hours before dawn, he was learning to hate them. Though there were no bags under his eyes, their absence was not a decent indicator of his physical wellbeing. He was tired, and found himself longing for the warmth of the bed he had been stolen from only minutes prior.

As the noise of approaching footsteps became audible through the heavy wood of the door, Foresight forced himself to stand upright, and moved the focus of his magic to adjust the lapels of his jacket. It was a very strange thing for the stallion to realize that he was well and truly naked. While certainly not a faux pas indoors, Foresight couldn't help but liken his wardrobe to his brother's cheap black jacket. Being without at least a light coat or a shirt felt wrong.

When the door opened, Foresight had to force himself not to widen his eyes in surprise. "Lord Krenn?"

"Are you surprised to see me in the suite you yourself granted, Predvidenie?"

The stallion coughed gently to disperse some of his awkwardness. "I had assumed you would be asleep, and that one of your companions would meet me."

Krenn leaned heavily against the doorframe, supporting himself where his stunted leg could not. Foresight stared into his draconic eyes, and forced down a shudder. He'd never been the best stallion in the world at reading the emotions of others, and attempting to discern what was going on in Krenn's draconian mind was like to decipher a foreign language with an unfamiliar alphabet while blindfolded.

Thankfully, Krenn gave some hint of his thoughts, in the form of his dry and scaled black lips peeling away from his vicious fangs. "I have just woken up from a twenty-year nap, unicorn. I suspect I won't be able to sleep for a year or two, even if I wanted to. No, I've been keeping myself busy reading the history of this structure. It's fascinating what you ponies achieve with such limited lifetimes. Perhaps I gave your magical talent too little credit when we spoke yesterday." The dragon lord maintained his grip on the door as he gave a rather stiff and strangely choreographed bow. "You have my apologies."

"It's no trouble, Krenn." This time, Foresight remembered that the title of 'lord' was a pony term for the dragon, and omitted it as was preferred. "Father has asked me to welcome you on two short errands." The unicorn hesitated, fiddling with his silver mane. "I understand if the hour may be inconvenient–"

"Nonsense. I would prefer intelligent company to sitting alone and reading while the rest of the world sleeps."

Foresight's posture slacked visibly with relief. "Of course. Well, Father has opened Frostbite's vaults, and he suggested we try and find this bag you're looking for."

For the very first time Foresight had ever observed, Krenn's smile did not look like it was a declaration of hunger. "Excellent." The dragon opened his mouth, and a small burst of black flame issued over his tongue. Rather than dissipating into smoke, the ball of fire began to drip what looked like quicksilver onto the floor. Foresight stepped back, but Krenn merely smiled as the drips turned into a drizzle, and then an outright flow. Rather than pooling across the floor, the molten metal built upon itself as a cylinder a little more than two inches in diameter. Soon, Krenn's walking staff was reformed. He claimed the apparently cool metal, and set it on the ground beside his malformed right leg. "Shall we go?"

Foresight nodded, unable to find words as a reflection of his utter awe toward the dragon god. "That's... amazing."

Krenn limped out into the hallway, and the two odd companions began their relatively short journey. "It's simple magic, when you have both Arcana and Empatha. A dragon need simply attune themselves to a location as their hoard, and their breath will have the ability to conjure anything they have stored there, or return items by the same method. It can be very convenient, though items must be fully melted or burnt. As we spoke of before, gold is a favorite. Most dragons of decent size can burn it. Steel, though..." He tapped his staff with his claws, eliciting a brief but cheerful tune.

"Astounding," Foresight couldn't help but mutter.

"Perhaps. But then, I have a gift. What I found astounding is that your species governed themselves for so long without your Princesses watching over you."

As they reached the stairs that lead down through the very heart of the castle, Foresight shrugged. "I can't imagine it's that great of a feat. From what I understand, you don't really govern the other dragons."

Foresight started when a third voice joined in on the conversation. "You might find that the dragons have a very elegant political system, despite their shortage of formal law." Private Marathon had been gliding gently down the hall as she spoke. The motion and words both ended with a sharp whistling, that terminated with Krenn holding a sword of at least her height in her direction.

The dragon glanced down at his weapon, almost as much in surprise that he was holding it as the two ponies were. He set the tip against the ground. The steel swam like water and the blade disappeared, once more becoming a tall staff. "I would ask that you announce yourself, subject of Luna, when approaching me at night. I do not take well to surprises."

Marathon dropped to the ground gently, and prostrated herself in a low bow. "Apologies, Krenn. I had assumed you'd seen me. Don't dragons see well in the dark?"

"Most dragons do, yes. Most dragons of my age also have a pair of grown wings, and two functional legs." The dragon ruler rolled his shoulders, eliciting a clicking of scales against one another, but the utter absence of popping joints. "One does not live to my age without scars. I am grateful that mine are physical."

At this point, Foresight felt the need to step in as a host. "Did you need something, Ambassador? Or can I arrange something for the Princess, perhaps?"

Marathon winced lightly at the mention of Luna, though the emotion was hidden well enough that to most ponies, it might have passed for an itchy nose or a cramp. "Nothing like that, Foresight. The staff have been incredibly hospitable. I'm actually on my way down to the dungeons."

Krenn's scaled brow slid upward across his forehead as his eye glanced from the pegasus to Foresight and back. The unicorn stallion shared the feeling of confusion. He tried his best at humor to break the ice. "If your quarters aren't acceptable, I can find you something else. I don't think you want your stay to become... long-term." Rather than jest, the poorly delivered joke came across almost as a threat.

Thankfully, Marathon handled it well. "I won't be long. It's Honor Guard business, I'm afraid. Just a few brief questions."

Foresight shrugged and nodded. "I suppose I won't step on my brother's hooves. At least you have the decency to do your interrogations when everypony else is asleep. The dungeons come up from a separate stairwell, in the hall attached to the old barracks. Go back down this hall, take a right, and look for the burnt, iron-banded door. That'll take you down through the storage, but when you hit the bottom, you'll be where you want."

"Thank you. I'll see you tomorrow."

Lord Krenn watched as the pegasus mare turned to fly away. "You may want to announce yourself to any guards, pegasus. They may not have as tight of control as I do."

Only when the mare was truly gone did Foresight return his attention to his goal. "That was interesting. I'm sorry for the interruption. We were talking about... politics of some kind?"

"My rule, if memory serves." Krenn shrugged, gesturing for Foresight to once more lead the way down the stairs. "Functional anarchy is a luxury we enjoy simply by the limits of our population. How many ponies live within this city of yours?"

"Three million in the city limits. Another two, give or take, in the surrounding hills outside the valley." A spark in Foresight's memory picked up. "Or is that the Valley?"

His shifted emphasis put another curious look on Krenn's face. "You remembered Luna's words."

"There aren't many ponies who will ignore either of our princesses when they speak."

The dragon unleashed a grumbling chuckle. "Be careful, or we may soon find ourselves in a battle of words. I fear my experience is far greater than yours. But you wished to hear of the Valley, as your princess and I knew it. Very well."

The spiraling staircase continued downward. "Eighty-thousand years ago, when I was but a tiny hatchling, I was taken from my kin and brought near this place. It was an island, off the coast of the place you call Trotsylvania. I was not the first of my kind to be taken, but I was the youngest."

"What were they?" Foresight asked in awe. "Ponies? Other dragons?"

"Not they; a single being. Some half-breed or Tartaran monstrosity. I never learned his nature. Some of your species destroyed him, and freed us." He growled gently. "I was wingless, and too young to make my way back to my kin on my own."

"I'm sorry."

"There are old wounds, Predvidenie, and then there are ancient ones. Besides, how many of those dragons gained immortality? I only tell you that story so that you can appreciate it when I tell you that this place was my childhood home, just as it was Luna's and her sister's."

"They were born here?"

"Your curiosity is admirable, but you have asked too many questions for one day, and my leg tires of walking. How much deeper does this accursed stair go?"

"Only two more stories," Foresight answered.

"I am afraid I have grown tired of serving as the storyteller tonight, and I'm not so sure I even know two more stories of that length." Krenn smiled when he earned a chuckle from his equine host. "Perhaps you have something more interesting to tell me. How did you and your father come into ownership of this castle?"

"Very violently," Foresight answered. "To summarize an incredibly long story, Baron Frostbite was unwilling to believe that your species was not simply about to come charging down again on the city."

"You overthrew him to make peace with my dragons?" Krenn's brow rose.

"In small part, perhaps, but also because his paranoia about a draconic invasion had blinded him to the well being of his Domain. He conscripted..." Foresight stopped as the spiral staircase led off into a small, straight hallway. At its far end, a pair of huge doors hung ever so slightly ajar. They were made of steel and gold, and covered in more gems than most anypony could care to imagine. Despite the dazzling variety, the image engraved on the doors was clear.

Three ponies stared at the approaching unicorn and the limping dragon who followed. On the far left, a pale white unicorn mare with a slender horn and a luxuriant purple mane. Her eyes were directed across the paired doors, to a brown earth pony stallion with what could only be described as a moronic hat. Hovering above and between the pair with one wing spread across each door was a pegasus stallion with a coat as black as his armor.

Krenn's grumbled something in Draconic. While the language was not far removed from Stalliongradi, the slithering of his forked tongue and the growling from his throat left the words indecipherable to Foresight.

Rather than bother for clarification, Foresight gestured toward the doors with a hoof. "This is the door to the vaults, Krenn."

"That pony."

Foresight was confused by the words, which seemed to have nothing to do with the vault. He turned back to Krenn's reptilian eyes, and saw them glaring at the depiction of the pegasus in the center of the wall.

"Commander Hurricane?"

"I would destroy him, if given the chance."

Foresight shook his head. "I see. Krenn, that armor is an heirloom. I don't know which pony who wore it wronged you in the past, but this stallion, Commander Hurricane, has been dead for more than eight thousand years." There was a moment of trepidation before he continued. "The most recent stallion to wear it died less than six months ago."

"Pity," Krenn muttered, before stalking forward in a silence that marked the absence of any explanation. His guide followed gently, walking narrowly between the heavy doors that he lacked the capacity to open on his own.

The vaults were the image of pure darkness. Though surprisingly warm, their crushing blackness left the unicorn stallion feeling claustrophobic. Foresight's horn ignited with a faint blue light. The magic itself provided little illumination, but that was not his intent. Sensing Arcana, rows of hundreds of magical crystals began to shed a warm yellow glow.

Krenn and Foresight stood at the edge of a huge octagonal segment of stone, three hundred feet across. The door behind them was centered in its wall, but the other seven edges were dominated by massive, fifty-foot tall stone arches. Behind these towering pillars were long vaulted catacombs, stretching off in all directions farther than eyes could pierce. Overhead, catwalks and balconies suggested three higher stories within the space.

There was far more to observe than the mere architecture, however. Massive shelves dominated the space, stretching up through the various floors and toward the ceiling. The space nearest the door held only books and scrolls, but farther in opposite the door, the shelves held all manner of other curiosities. Rusted swords, clothes, globes for worlds that no longer existed, and things which escaped the capacity of words to describe.

The center of the octagon was alone in its nature. Utterly devoid of shelves, it was instead populated by a variety of old but well-made cushions and seats, alongside other trinkets large enough to stand on their own as furniture. An enormous crystal ball rested beside a lectern at the proper height for a pony. Without hesitation, Foresight began to make his way toward the lounge-like area.

"This place is surprising." Krenn looked up at the ceiling. "It's too large. Do the other floors of the castle open on this vault as well?"

"Not quite." Foresight's magic levitated the largest chair in the lounge space, placing it behind the limping dragon as he approached. "Are you familiar with spatial stretching?"

Krenn's eyes narrowed. "Do not think you can lecture me on magic! I know more than the sum of your entire species."

Foresight took a full step back as the dragon's teeth gnashed with his harsh words. "I didn't mean to offend!" After catching his breath, Foresight continued. "This chamber is seven times larger on the inside than the outside. Each of the seven vaults off of this chamber are likewise seven times larger, and each leads to a further octagonal hub."

"Difficult magic, even for me."

"No pony knows how it was built. Some say Star Swirl the Bearded made the vaults, while others argue the cave has always been here. What's amazing is that each of those seven hubs branches again, and again, until seven layers of depth have been achieved." Foresight watched Krenn's expression, and noted the awe found there. "If somepony were to walk past every shelf in the vault, they would have traveled a million miles, though it doesn't take all too long to get to a specific shelf if you know where it is."

"Are all the vaults filled?" Krenn asked, gesturing to the sheer volume of arbitrary 'stuff' sitting on the various visible shelves.

"Not all of them are filled with shelves in this way. There are some chambers off the sixth arch that just have huge scorch marks, with ambient Arcana and Endura floating around. Monsters live in some of the others. At least, that's what the catalogue says. I've never been more than two vaults deep." As Foresight made his explanation, he walked over to the lectern, where a huge leather-bound tome sat open.

"You trust a book? Or is that what the scrying sphere is for?"

Foresight glanced at the crystal ball. "Oh, no. That's... well..." Growing increasingly uncomfortable, he scratched his brow with his hoof. "Just a leftover of Baron Frostbite's. I haven't wanted to risk breaking it trying to move it somewhere else. But, uh, to answer your question. Right, the book." Foresight nodded emphatically. "It's enchanted to the vault, to know every item within. For example, in the main hub, we have Predvidenie, son of Tsar Eye, and..." Foresight's brow rose. "Is Krenn your name, or merely a title?"

"All names are merely titles."

Foresight nodded. "A fair point. On that topic, does this bag you're looking for have a title?"

"No."

The unicorn flipped past a few pages. "Do you know who brought it here?"

"Not by name," Krenn answered. "But I suspect you do."

"Really? Who?"

"The stallion in the black armor."

The day passed from the starry darkness that would still be called night through a rather hurried an unimpressive dawn. A pair of pegasi struggled to bring a hot air balloon into the clouds. An assassin wore the face of a warrior as the pony in question fought icy headwinds. An older soldier lay in agony in a tiny cell, embracing his new glimmer of hope. And, at eight o'clock in the morning on January the Twenty-First, 1453 A.S., Twilight Sparkle barely managed to suppress a panic attack.

"What if I don't know what she needs?" Twilight paced back and forth on the checkered marble floor in the heart of the Royal Academy, just outside their largest conference room.

She was the only pony standing. Seven other unicorns had gathered outside the door, and all of them were sitting quietly on the various benches, waiting for Celestia to open the doors. One of them, a pale green stallion, leaned his head back and sighed. "Please, uh, Archmage Sparkle... can you stop pacing? You aren't the only one worried here." Cloudy Mirror's words did little to help Twilight's concern. Instead, the chair of illusions found himself the focus of Twilight's complete attention.

"But you've all done this before!" Twilight cried out. "Princess Celestia has always been my teacher, but now she wants my advice? What am I supposed to do? What can I–"

"For the love of Star Swirl's Beard, Twilight, sit down!" Dr. Graymane, foremost researcher on non-unicorn magical forms in Equestria, bellowed at his former student. "You are not behaving like an Archmage, nor are you behaving like Celestia's student."

Twilight didn't even bother moving to a bench; the idea probably had not entered her mind. Her hind legs simply folded up beneath her, and she fell onto her rump. "Sorry, professor."

"The only thing I'm professing at the moment is my annoyance!" Graymane snapped. His lengthy beard swung from side to side as he spoke, serving as a metronome to keep pace with his irritation. "Bad enough that I be stolen from bed at this unnatural hour, but to suffer so many infants at a meeting of the college council–"

A small red unicorn mare spoke from beneath the point where her hooves were pinching the base of her muzzle. "You might wish to stop speaking before you dig yourself a hole, Dr. Graymane. Perhaps the reason you're seeing so many 'infants' around is because you yourself are getting old. I seem to recall you being the one most vocal in approving Twilight's thesis."

The stallion grumbled. "Yes, well... Brilliant though she may be, it isn't an excuse to behave like a foal."

"I think Twilight is simply..." Crystal Ball's words were cut off as the doors to the conference room swung open at the behest of a golden aura.

Unlike the rest of the Royal Academy, with its thick gray stone brick walls, the interior of this particular conference room was made up in the most modern of sensibilities. Wood paneling framed tasteful sky blue wall A dozen cushioned chairs flanked a table of polished walnut. Opposite the door, at the head of this table, Princess Celestia sat beside a unicorn mare whom Twilight did not recognize. Her pale mane matched Celestia's coat, though her dark blue coat seemed likely to blend in with the walls of the chamber.

"Please, take a seat," Celestia requested. The smile that accompanied the request was enough to get Twilight back on her feet, though the young mare was unable to shake the sensation that beneath her mask of calm, something was truly troubling Celestia. At least to begin, she chose not to comment on it.

As seats were granted by length of membership, Twilight found herself sitting opposite Cloudy Mirror at the far end of the table from her mentor. Four semi-familiar faces filled the space between those two ponies as Celestia's closest advisors: Dr. Graymane and Crystal Ball.

Celestia waited until everypony was seated, though she wasted not a second after Dr. Graymane's flank met his cushioned seat to begin speaking.

"I'd like to apologize for calling you all here so early, and on such short notice, but this a matter of some urgency. As such, we will skip the usual introductions." Her eyes flicked to the mare at her side, and in response, she was handed a tightly bound scroll. Celestia set it on the tabletop and looked across the faces of her advisors. "Yesterday, the assassin Masquerade escaped."

The sound that followed was as though every one of the unicorns had been punched. Twilight was the one to respond. "Is she going after–"

"Please, Twilight, if you'll let me finish, I suspect I might answer many of your questions." Celestia took a moment to sweep over the gazes of her advisors, though the motion lasted less than two seconds. "Unlike the previous... incident, we have warning, and we know what to expect out of Masquerade. I've put my best guardsponies on her tail. That is not why I've summoned you here. You see, Masquerade did not escape by herself."

"A traitor?" Dr. Graymane asked gently.

"To the nation, yes. But this other pony was not present. Rather, she was able to offer Masquerade guidance, and sabotage my cell for the assassin from a great distance."

"You know it was a mare?" Twilight asked.

Celestia shook her head. "No, simply a generic gender. Apologies."

It would have been common to hear eight ponies wave away Celestia's mistake, but at that moment, urgency overrode normal courtesy. Instead, Crystal Ball leaned forward. "How can we offer our assistance?"

"I have two questions, which may lead to more. Firstly, Dr. Graymane and Twilight, I believe you might have special input on this. Masquerade was able to break through an alicorn door."

"Could you explain the term, Princess?" a stallion halfway up the table with half-moon glasses asked aloud.

"They are an old variant of the principle of an Arcana lock. Various magical foci are placed on a door, usually in the form of crystals. Those foci have to be stimulated in the correct order, as a form of combination, in order to unlock the door. However, an alicorn door does not function off of Arcana alone. Some of the foci will only respond to Empatha, or Endura. Thus, barring a very select few ponies, the doors are impregnable by any group of less than three."

A few hushed whispers spread across the table, though Celestia ignored them.

"Are you certain this 'other' pony isn't an alicorn as well?"

Celestia shook her head. "I suspect either a unicorn or an alicorn, but the matter is irrelevant. It was Masquerade who broke through, without help. I know that Masquerade broke through one of the doors because anypony coming in from the outside would have had to pass through two to reach her."

"I'm not sure I understand..." Crystal Ball observed, echoing the thoughts of the collected council.

"In addition to escaping, Masquerade stole an item of some value from within the palace, which I thought was secure. Further, she was able to walk away right in front of me, disguised as Captain Red Ink of my Honor Guard, and my magic failed to detect her illusions. To be blunt, mares and stallions, I am tired of being deceived by this assassin. I'd like your theories on how she continues to achieve this impossible magic."

Dr. Graymane stroked his beard as he sat back. "There are a number of spirits and creatures that could mimic the form of a pony to achieve what you describe, Princess. I suppose I'll ask the first, and most obvious question: could Discord be behind it?"

Celestia glanced down the table in Twilight's direction. "Unless I haven't been informed, he's still petrified following the incident with the dragons. Is that correct?"

"Yes, Princess," Twilight answered calmly. "I still think we ought to free him."

Celestia nodded gently. "I agree, Twilight, but things aren't so simple. Regardless, this is not the place or time for such a discussion. Dr. Graymane, you seemed to have another idea."

He cleared his throat. "Yes, Princess, though I have my suspicions on the subject. There does exist a type of... parasite, which can disguise itself perfectly as other ponies, and wield all three forms of magic."

"You refer to the changelings?" Celestia asked.

"Yes. As I'm sure Mr. Mirror can explain, Changeling disguises do not function under the normal laws of illusion." The esteemed professor glanced down the table.

Suddenly under the gazes of all his peers and Princess Celestia, Cloudy Mirror grimaced. Ever the illusionist, it did not take him long to recover with a smile and a bit of kind acting that did nothing to hide the discomfort he felt within. "That's correct, Dr. Graymane. I'd liken a Changeling's disguises more to shape-shifting than to illusion. To give you an example..." Cloudy Mirror closed his eyes and his horn ignited. Before the eyes of the other mages and archmages, his body grew bloated and fat until he was quite literally rolling over the sides of his seat. "Archmage Sparkle, if you'd care to, uh, poke me."

Knowing exactly what to expect, Twilight stretched out a hoof across the table and poked the stallion in his newfound gut. To her utter lack of surprise, her hoof went straight through the immaterial image.

"Although a clever mage can, for example, levitate a board within their illusion to create physical contact, no illusion is ever actually physically solid. Changelings, in contrast, are able to physically change shape within certain restrictions. Although their organs can become considerably less dense internally, I understand they're still 'mostly' subject to conservation of mass. " With no sound or transition, Cloudy Mirror's false gut disappeared, revealing the young and slender stallion it had concealed. "I've done a bit of research, but I feel like I'm not the correct pony to be asking for this matter. That ordeal two years ago notwithstanding, I've never even seen a changeling. Even when they attacked Canterlot, I was able to put an illusion over the door to my classroom and keep it sealed off for my students."

The gazes of the academics and Princess Celestia shifted together to face Twilight Sparkle. Nopony even had to say it out loud. It was simply known that she was the one to ask for encounters with such dangerous beasts.

"Uh..." Twilight hesitated for just a moment, before clearing her throat. This was just a dissertation, really. A very high-stakes dissertation. In fact, lives were likely riding on her ability to convey her academic knowledge. Realizing where her mind was going, she forced herself to toss away the thoughts. "Yes, well, Dr. Graymane... " She hesitated. Correcting teachers was simply something you didn't do, and Dr. Graymane had been teaching the mare for half her lifetime. "Changeling drones... aren't that smart. They aren't hive-minded, really, but they are mostly instinctual. They can usually understand orders from their queen, and those are largely pheromone based. I doubt they would have lasted for her extended imprisonment. Also, didn't my brother set up anti-changeling spells?"

Celestia turned to the mare at her side, who stepped forward and spoke up. "Shining Armor and I did design an array of Changeling detection wards. One of these wards was tripped on the night of Princess Luna's attempted assassination, but we believe that may have been a deliberate action, used as a distraction." Twilight nodded, but the mare's words did not stop. "You're overlooking a possibility however. There is a caste of Changelings who are capable of their own thought. We took to calling them 'warriors' in keeping with the hierarchy of a termite colony."

"Excuse me, but who are you?" one of the ponies in the center of the table asked. "And, more importantly, what is the source of this information?"

The mare, clearly annoyed, glared at the pony who had interrupted her. "I am Captain Flag, and the source of the information is an extended series of military operations against the Changeling Hive on the Suidan border, two years ago."

The name perked Twilight's attention. "Wait, are you White Flag? From the Battle of Treasonfang–"

"Twilight, please." Celestia's interruption was far more gentle than the glare that White Flag shot in the direction of the youngest mare present in the room. "Again, now is not the time to discuss history. Captain Flag, are you suggesting that Masquerade might be one of these changeling warriors?"

"It is a possibility," the soldier muttered through gritted teeth. "She's proven smart enough to beat our other wards. Changeling warriors are what happens when a pony–or any other creature–is left in their cocoons after their love is drained away." Several of the ponies at the table recoiled at the revelation, and a gagging noise escaped from somepony's throat. White Flag was unfazed by her own statement. "Thankfully, they are rare. We freed most of the captives from the Canterlot invasion in time. Though they are forced to serve the hive, they retain their former sentience and intellect." Flag retained her scowl as she turned to address Celestia directly. "If that's the case, then Queen Chrysalis is behind the plot. Changelings don't act alone. Does that scroll you brought tell us anything about the 'contractor'?"

"If that is the case, it's unlikely Masquerade is a changeling." Celestia unrolled the scroll on the table, and cast a simple spell. The writing on the parchment rose up to hover in the air over the table, enlarged, where everypony could easily see it. "I received this message from the other pony, who admits to being behind the plot on my sister's life. They also indicate that they have used the magic of divination to anticipate my actions, as well as the actions of the Honor Guard."

There was a sudden silence at the table, and in that void of noise, Twilight felt left out. She knew that divining the future was illegal by Equestrian law, but it a much lesser charge than treason and murder.

Crystal Ball, whose name was rather indicative of her field of study, actually rose in her seat. "This is concerning, Princess. Does this... conspirator indicate the outcome of the divination?"

With a flash of magic, a select few sentences from the letter grew to titanic size.

Princess, a war is coming. I was not the one who looked into the future and forced it be the truth.

It will be a great war, like that which you faced after Discord's first fall.

If your sister lives to see the first blood of the coming war, the eternal night will no longer be a story to frighten foals.

I will win.

The mages gasped and flinched and generally reacted poorly. All save Twilight. As a scholar, her eye studied the words closely. Twice and then three times she scanned over them, noting all the intricacies and insinuations she could pick out.

Crystal Ball's shoulders sagged in resignation. "If this is true, I'm not sure precisely what you want me to tell you, Princess. There's really nothing to be done."

The words managed to tear Twilight from her sixth re-reading. "What? Of course there's something to be done. There's something we have to do. We can stop the war its talking about!"

Crystal Ball's mouth opened, and then shut. "Twilight Sparkle, this is hard for all of us to see, but..."

"Why are you pretending like this is set in stone? Sure, there's maybe a prophecy, but even if there is–"

"Have you never studied divination, Twilight?" Crystal Ball's inflection bore condemnation and spite. "It is well known that once a prophecy is made, the future cannot be changed. That's Electrum's Law. I would have expected it to be covered in even a basic magical theory course."

"But it isn't right," Twilight protested. "If prophecy is always set in stone, how did my friends and I free Princess Luna from Nightmare Moon? There was a prophecy about that too, and it said that she would bring about everlasting night."

Crystal Ball scowled. "If you're going to pretend to know better than one of the fathers of magical theory, miss Sparkle, I see no reason for you to remain on this council."

Twilight actually rose to her hooves in her seat at the comment. "When empirical observation doesn't agree with a theory, we discard it! Yes, a prophecy is likely to come true, but that's just a result of Clover's Postulate. When you make a prophecy, it wants to come true, so the magic tries to twist things to become true. It might 'change' the future, but you can still overpower it with stronger magic, or more effort. Even sheer willpower would beat that sort of a spell; just like telekinesis or transmutation, it's just a conflict of forces. Not some impossible nightmare!"

What followed was a painful silence. Twilight had been expecting a rebuttal from Crystal Ball or Dr. Graymane. When her foremost mentor began to speak, it nearly tore the unicorn's heart in half.

Celestia's words were hard pressed to come forth. She didn't meet Twilight's gaze. "You say that willpower can defeat a prophecy? I have to disagree, Twilight Sparkle."

"Princess, you've seen the Elements of Harmony–"

Celestia winced. "I know the Elements can break prophecy. But I asked about willpower." The mare took a slow and painful breath. "One thousand years ago, when Equestria was gripped by the Twilight War, and Nightmare Moon was slaughtering my subjects, I realized that I needed to confront Luna's shade myself. It was my plan to drain away her darkness into a set of void crystals, and allow the darkness to die, just as the ponies were dying. The Captain of my Honor Guard urged me to look into the future, to ensure I would not die in our encounter. I knew the dangers, but I ultimately took his advice." After those words, Celestia finally looked up. Even from across the table, Twilight could see the tears there on her face. "The prophecy said that one of us would die at the others hooves. I would defeat her, but I would have to choose. I couldn't accept it."

"So the Elements..."

"I didn't use them until the end."

Celestia stood over the black-coated monster, clad in gilded armor and panting. The strain of their battle had drained her magic, leaving her mane mundane and her frame shortened and mortal. Where once the sisters had fought within a great black castle, the force of their clash had blown away walls and ceiling until only a field of rubble beneath a great eclipse lingered overhead.

The Nightmare glared at her, hissing and screaming where words had failed it. Yet for all her rage, Celestia saw only her younger sister, tortured and ill.

"Don't make me use the Elements, Luna."

"I am not Luna!"

A bolt of lightning flew from the monster's horn, catching Celestia's foreleg. It burnt in pure agony for a short eternity, before the skysteel in her armor sucked away the potent Empatha. "Don't make me do this, sister."

"You're... too weak! Too weak to strike me down!"

Celestia glanced down at the pouch on her side. Inside were a trio of black crystals. She wanted desperately to try; to tempt fate and defy what she knew to be fact. If it worked, she would have her sister back. That was all that mattered, at least in the first moment of consideration.

Yet if she failed... the cost would be too great. Not just her own life, but Equestria. The entire world. Luna wasn't the only pony who needed the mare who moved the sun. Her mind flashed across fields of corpses, and worse things. In her mind, she saw faces. His face. She drew in a sharp, short breath.

"I'm sorry."

The sensation of wielding the elements had been familiar to the mare once. Never before had it burned. Never before had it brought tears to her eyes. Amidst the cacophony and the vibrant chaos of pure, undiluted magic, Celestia's ears caught a single desperate phrase, from a voice she had not heard in more than a year.

"Please, sister, no! Don't!"

She wanted to stop, but it was too late.

"If willpower could have ended prophecy, then I was wrong. If those words were so easily broken, I would not have had to live without my sister for a millennium." Celestia did not struggle to deliver her words, and yet they bore more suffering than Twilight could truly comprehend. "If what you say is true, Twilight, then I banished her because I didn't love her enough to try and save her." Celestia shook her head. "I can't believe that, Twilight."

"You can't blame yourself for that choice, Princess," Twilight told her oldest friend. "You did what you had to. But there's no point just accepting this because somepony who tried to–"

"That is enough, Twilight Sparkle." White Flag began to walk around the table. "Come with me."

"But–"

"That was not a request," Flag warned, before speaking over her shoulder. "Princess, I suggest you take a moment to calm yourself, and then continue your discussion. I will be having a word with the Archmage outside."

The doors to the conference room slammed quite loudly behind Twilight, under the control of White Flag's Arcana. The guardspony indicated for Twilight to take a seat on a waiting bench beside her.

After sitting down, on the verge of tears herself, Twilight looked into the other mare's eyes. She saw a great deal of pain on White Flag's, amongst the subtle beginnings of wrinkles. By Twilight's guess, the other unicorn was approaching fifty, though the fitness of her body hid most signs of that age well.

"Are you mad at me?" Twilight asked.

"Personally, no." Flag's answer was curt and blunt, and offered no comfort for the pain that the younger mare was feeling. "But I took an oath to protect Princess Celestia. Not merely her body, but her heart and soul as well. You may have meant well, but your words were hurting her."

"But if she doesn't understand that the prophecy isn't just guaranteed..."

"Then what?" Flag's brow rose, suggesting incrimination. "Then she will not act on an opportunity to save her sister? She is not the pony on the front lines, deciding whether or not to take action. That is what we are for, Twilight. Myself, and you as well, in your own way. If it is easier for Princess Celestia to believe that prophecy cannot be bent, we let her believe it."

"What?" Wiping tears from the corners of her eyes, Twilight found herself on the verge of shock. "You mean you just tell her what she wants to hear? Even if you have to lie to her?"

"It's the Honor Guard's job, at times," Flag answered without hesitation. "Sometimes we have to protect her from assassins. Sometimes we have to protect her from the harsh truth. Sometimes, we have to protect her from herself."

"I'm not sure I really like the Honor Guard."

"We don't like the Honor Guard. But it is a job that has to be done."

Twilight forced herself to discard thoughts of Rainbow Dash. Left to its own devices her mind latched on to a different topic. "Princess Celestia called you Captain Flag. Did something happen to Red Ink?"

"Red Ink is fine," Flag answered with her usual directness. "A captaincy has been a long time coming for me."

"I read about that. Before the Battle of Treasonfang Pass, you were second-in-command under Unending Vigil, right?"

White Flag's harsh demeanor turned to bloodlust. Her legs slipped off the bench, and she began to walk down the hall. She lacked even the courtesy to look Twilight in the eyes as she spoke.

"You want to know about me, Twilight Sparkle? I'm Captain White Flag of the Royal Guard. My predecessor was killed by Masquerade in Stalliongrad yesterday."

VII - By Any Other Name

VII

By Any Other Name

The East Wind Express pulled into the train station in Stalliongrad with a creaking moan and a sharp whistle. by time the huge, heavy iron vehicle had shuddered to a stop, it's most notable passenger was already taking his–or rather, her–first hurried steps off the train. The wind bit at her hooves and tossed the fabric of her stolen black jacket. She shrugged gently to let it fall tighter over her back, and pulled the faux fur collar tighter around her neck. Only the roof of the open-walled station prevented her from suffering a blinding flurry of snow.

Despite the weather, Masquerade put a fierce grin on Red Ink's face. It echoed her own sentiments of pleasure at the fear her form inspired in the eyes and hearts of the native Stalliongradian ponies. It wasn't so much that they screamed and ran, as if their 'Commandant' were some sort of monster. Instead, they simply averted their eyes, and shuffled gently away to give him as wide a berth as possible.

Despite the subtlety of the motions, it did not take long before only a single pony remained in Masquerade's path: a dark indigo stallion whose coat would have complimented Masquerade's well, had the mare's original form been visible.

"Росчерк." No love was lost in the blunt greeting.

"Предвидение. Давно не виделись." The simple greeting still managed to strain the assassin's grasp of Stalliongradi–not for the difficulty of the words, but the challenge in suppressing a native Prench accent.

She knew the stallion's name from a contract, four years prior. From the way he stood and looked her square in the eye, it was clear that the death of his youngest sibling had bought him some confidence.

Foresight's brow rose behind his narrow oval glasses. "Have you actually learned to speak passable Equiish, Roscherk?"

Masquerade let her little knowledge of the more ancient language flow over Red Ink's tongue, substituting the slightest bit of Draconic grammar where necessary. "Это что, проблема, брат?"

Foresight shook his head. "No, it's fine. And you may wish to continue in Equiish for now. Princess Luna does not speak our native language. She's waiting for you in the castle." The elder brother turned around and started walking out of the train station.

Equiish certainly wasn't a problem for the disguised assassin. Masquerade's hooves had no trouble keeping up as she darted out into the cold. It was only then that she noticed the total absence of wind that surrounded her 'brother'. Foresight's horn lost just a touch of glow as she stepped up beside him. She hadn't even paid attention to catching up. The surprise that swelled up in her mind consumed her, over both the lack of weather, and another more pressing issue.. "She's here already?"

"You took the East Wind, Roscherk. It takes a day and a half to make the journey from Canterlot. Princess Luna was on one of my 'arrow trains'. No stops between here and the capital. She's been here since last night."

Masquerade had to fight to contain her stress at the next issue. "And she's expecting me?"

Foresight nodded. "She mentioned you and Captain Armor were both to arrive soon. Did he take a different train?"

"He's dead," Masquerade responded. "Poison, I think. I was distracted when she blew up the bridge." With the railroad cut, Masquerade knew the truth wasn't about to be discovered any time soon. "Did the Princess say if I would be getting any other reinforcements?"

Foresight nodded. "Some of her... how did Krenn put it? Her own herd, I think."

Masquerade winced. "Night Guards. Perfect."

Detecting her biting sarcasm, Foresight looked over. "What's wrong?"

"They're... I don't know, honestly. They set me on edge."

"Really?" Foresight smiled. "The dreaded Commandant of the Black Cloaks, hiding under his bed from some other ponies in funny armor? How did you ever manage to even look Zagatka in the eye?"

Masquerade shrugged, lacking enough information on Red Ink to continue the conversation. Then, huddling tighter into her stolen jacket, she turned her attention to the frozen Gem of the East.

The streets of Stalliongrad were dead. There was simply no other way to describe the atmosphere. Houses had darkened windows, store fronts were closed and sealed, and not a single pony was to be found wandering the streets.

Foresight seemed to consider this somehow 'normal', and Masquerade wasn't about to draw attention to herself questioning it. She continued to accompany the unicorn in total silence, until he decided to speak up.

"I let Molot take over the Black Cloaks in your absence. He's done an excellent job keeping things quiet." There was a bite in the words, though Masquerade chose to ignore it. Foresight seemed impressed. "What's that, Roscherk? No biting rebuttal?" He paused, waiting, and actually smiled. "That's not like you."

"Does it bother you to think that I've changed in the months since I left?" Masquerade stopped, realizing that wasn't quite the question she meant. "Honestly, I couldn't care less. Do you think father will be bothered?"

Foresight wore a tight grimace. "Father will be pleased, I'm sure. No doubt you'll remind him of your mentor."

Masquerade remembered her first encounter with the Commander, and for a moment, it left her mind filled with the thought of what she had done to him. To kill was one thing, but she shuddered at what she had condemned him to. Still, prices had to be paid, and she didn't have the time to waste on regrets. Her magic tugged at her attention. She was instantly made aware when the illusion covering her body adapted to a scowl in response to Foresight's expectations. It didn't speak; to create words without her input was beyond even the magic of the 'nightmare', but the simple expression seemed enough to appease the unicorn.

Distracted by their discussion, Masquerade nevertheless found herself wholly unable to miss the blatant mass of ponies ahead. A huge crowd, tens-of-thousands in number, stood at the foot of the sheer valley wall, looking up at a small balcony jutting out of the stone. Overhead, Burning Hearth Castle towered up into the sky in defiance of the shrill wind and the thick snow.

Tsar Eye's speech was already well on its way into flourishing words; even through the language barrier, the assassin could hear the force of will in his words. The gold coated alicorn gestured with hoof and wing as he spoke to his subjects, and for all the superiority of his race and standing, she had to admire that he seemed every bit to be one of them. He wore no jewelry, no necklaces or capes to remind the ponies of his power. His eyes, and the bags they sat atop, betrayed the stresses of his work and his position. And the crowd loved him for it–she could taste it in the air.

"Друзья, не поддавайтесь страху. Наш город, как и наши жизни, защищены более, чем когда-либо. Но, я не стану вам лгать. То, что вы видели прошлой ночью,..."

She wanted to understand what he was saying. It wasn't a spark of her horn, but a far more subtle adjustment which explained the words. No longer were they all-but incomprehensible enigma. She smiled and soaked up the oiled silk that was his speech.

"... the fire that burnt our skies, was dragon fire." The crowd gasped. Watchful Eye waited, and then held up a hoof to calm the subsequent roar of murmurs. "Yes, my neighbors. And now the snow falls stronger than it has in half a decade. And I have heard the rumors. That war is coming again. I will not lie to you, my friends. My comrades. There is a battle in Stalliongrad's future. But do not fear. What happened twenty years ago will not happen again!" The Tsar leaned forward, stretching out over the edge of the balcony to bring himself close to his subjects. "I promise you, this city is safe. The dragons will not come here. I give you not only my word, but the word of a higher authority yet. Princess Luna herself is here, in Stalliongrad, and she too gives her your word. Never again shall their fire claim our homes and our families. Never again shall you face their shadows."

Then, to Masquerade's shock, the Tsar took another step forward, and allowed himself to fall completely off of his raised balcony. His wings spread as he fell, and yet they seemed strained in carrying his weight, given the snowstorm that raged around him. Rather than holding him aloft, the Tsar simply used the feathers to lower himself to the ground slowly.

"We've been given that protection as a gift, my friends, but that isn't the only threat we face. The battle on our horizon is not one of swords and shields, but of thick coats, and blood freezing in our veins. So now, I urge you to look to the skies as I do. See the ice, and feel the wind." A red mane billowed from the stallion's back, tinged at its tips with hints of gray clearly not so much from age as a wealth of stress. "Know, ponies of Stalliongrad, that this is the foe we must fight. So I urge you: do not fear. Do not rage. Together, in harmony as friends and neighbors, we can calm this ice. Apart, as hated enemies separated by horns on our heads or wings on our backs, we will die frozen and alone. This winter promises to be cold; as cold as we have faced since we rose up to claim our home from the tyrant Frostbite. And while he is gone, the threat of his name lingers. The curse senses its demise, and now it throws its last gasps of ice and snow against us. But we will persevere. We will stand firm, united. And when the magic of the Obelisk casts itself over a city of equals, ignited by our fervor and the might of our harmony, we will see the end of eight thousand years of winter!"

And amidst the adoration of his subjects, for just a small moment, the fall of the snow slowed.

Blood, sweat, and tears mixed together in a creamy river dribbling down Dead Reckoning's face. The sweat was easiest to explain away, from the sheer force he was putting into his work. His one good wing was wrapped tightly around a hammer, which rose and fell with force hundreds of times more than most ponies would spend on flying. Each stroke produced a solitary note in a clanging, violent symphony.

"Congratulations on your promotion, Deadeye." The pat on his back was a great feeling, that did a lot to wash away the burn of 'the good stuff'. Nopony knew what it really was; the old ex-guardspony who ran the Private's Reserve offered one shot whenever somepony hit a promotion. For a title like 'the good stuff', it was honestly terrible. Thick as molasses and hard as gravel. It went down like mud. But amongst the smiles of the other scouts of the 16th Platoon, it was like drinking gold.

His left hoof was slowly covering in crystals of ice that seemed out of place in the sweltering heat of the tiny forge. They wrapped down over his coat to trap both his hoof, and the skysteel machete beneath it, against the surface of the skysteel anvil below.

The griffon didn't even get a chance to scream as Reckoning's thick storm cloud shot off a single bolt of lightning. He released his focus, and opened his left eye. The shot ought to have been impossible; through the thick foliage of Zebrica and the mile of distance keeping them apart, he could only make out the thin line of fur where her feathers began. That was enough.

At his shoulder, rather than ice, his body bore stains of water. Tears from his singular eye mixed with his blood from where the other ought to have been. His eyes were closed. His wing wielded his hammer simply by sense of space, and such a familiarity with the machete on the table that he didn't need to see what he was working on.

He lay in a cheap olive-toned canvas tent, on a thin cot wet with sweat and grime from the Zebrican heat. It wasn't going to get any cooler any time soon. The doctors were busy with other ponies–dying ponies who wouldn't see the next dawn. Ponies who'd lost legs to griffon talons, and whose intestines were hanging out from the rakes of griffon claws. Ponies with the burns of fire and bolts of lightning from griffon magic. Compared to those wounds, the shredded ribbons of the stallion's left eye were of little concern, now that they'd been bandaged and sterilized.

At the far side of the tent, two uninjured ponies were approaching. It was strange to watch with just one eye, as Deadeye struggled to gauge how distant they were. Captain Unending Vigil, clad in a simple steel cuirass and wearing bladed shoes on all four hooves, spoke with a powdered white stallion in shiny black armor.

"...we'll lose a lot of ponies that way, Commander."

"We won't be negotiating this, Captain Vigil." The stallion stopped at Reckoning's bedside. "This is the one?"

"Officer Reckoning, this is Commander Mortal Coil."

Reckoning extended a firm hoof. "Call me Deadeye."

Then he smiled, and began to shake as he laughed at the bitter irony.

The jagged edges of the blade became smooth. The patchwork rippling of clouds consolidated into a perfect length of singular metal. He didn't have to look. He could feel it there in front of him, becoming a weapon he remembered. Unbroken. Uncompromised. Fresh, and new, and strong.

The glass eye fit strangely, but you didn't just go see the Princess with a hole in your face. Of course, that wasn't for days. First, he got to march his way back home, and see what his family had been doing. His machete and armor were slung over his back. Wounded but unbroken, the soldier was coming home.

He knocked on his parents' door, and it slid open to a dark room. Perhaps they hadn't gotten his letter. He stepped inside.

"Surprise!"

With a flash of light and the crack of party poppers, the Manehattan apartment was gone. There were griffons surrounding him. Eleven, by his quick count, amidst the trees and the vines. Three children, but the rest soldiers. His sword was out before they could even react. He claimed two talons, of one, a wing from another, and sent the skysteel blade through the ribcage of a third before the rest fled, screaming in terror.

As he hammered on the weapon, mud and dust and stale blood dripped out from between the makeshift layers of cloud he had hoof-worked into the weapon. Before long, the curious stained and rust-colored tint of the blade was fading away to a beautiful gleam. But he didn't see it. His wing and hoof worked without the input of his mind. It was too busy.

The Private's Reserve was nearly empty. Guardsponies didn't go drinking at ten in the morning. None save the 'old guy' and the bartender who'd stayed for his benefit since the previous night at eight. Crazy old Deadeye. He slammed his drink down on top of his makeshift coaster. The words "Psychiatric Discharge" had blurred away beneath layers of sweat dripping down the outside of the glass. Ten years in a padded cell, and when he got out, it had been the only letter anypony had thought to send him.

His short, stubby glass hadn't held any alcohol in almost twelve hours. The bartender had been giving him apple juice with seltzer water and calling it 'cider'. Reckoning knew the truth, but it was easier to sit there and pretend than to face the harsh light outside.

It shone on his back when the door open. He glared back at the black outline of the armored figure in the door.

"Warrant Officer Dead Reckoning?"

"It's just 'Crazy Deadeye' now," Reckoning answered with bitter sobriety.

"It doesn't have to be."

A clear mind felt the warmth of feathers on his chest, as Rainbow Dash wiped away his tears of salt and blood. She was pressed up against him tightly, holding him as he wept without sound. Only the rhythm of the hammer filled the room, deafening and painful and beautiful, full of all the stallion's agony and nostalgia. It was good to have somepony hold him through the pain.

Three ponies stood guard over Celestia. Two at her sides, and one hidden amidst the shadows and the statues overhead. In front of the ruler herself, a pair of griffon diplomats presented a boring proposal about trade of produce. The larger of the two was wearing a ring. A simple gold band. It caught the light in just the right way. It flashed over Reckoning's eye, and suddenly, Canterlot was gone.

He returned to the world of sanity to see blood on Celestia's face, as the Commander pinned him down with a blade to his neck. Disappointment filled brown eyes.

Rainbow pulled him in tighter, until he could feel the beating of her heart through her feathers. It was a small things, but the small things made all the difference.

Ponyville town hall was quiet and dead in the aftermath of battle. Lieutenant Morning Star stood over the smoking corpse of his youngest subordinate. With Reckoning's help, golden plates peeled away to reveal the smell of burnt hair and cooked flesh. Both ponies retched, though neither released their anguish. It took only a moment to finish the old custom, and remove the rare enchanted armor. After that, they would have to arrange for the corpse, and haul it away.

That had been the plan, but it changed when a voice spoke up.

"Where do you think you're going, soldiers?"

Reckoning's eye turned to see a small mare of black and purple, covered in burns and scars, approaching with hunger in her eyes.

The ice on his hoof shattered, and in a single swift motion, he rotated the weapon. Still without looking, his able hooves removed the thick leather grip over the skysteel core. He was nearly done, and yet the greatest of his contributions were yet to come.

He heard the roar of manticores, which surprised him. More than one meant something unusual was happening. He drew his sword as he ran, and it wasn't long before he saw her. That young blue body stood out clearly amidst the dense browns and greens. She'd toppled one of the beasts, but another was about to land a sting. Even so old, his wings were fast, trained in the jungles at the edge of the world. His shoulder ached as he tackled her aside, but it was a small price to pay to save a life.

He replaced the leather grip, tightening the little wire that held it in place once again. The little ball of a pommel smoothed off quickly, and soon only the guard remained. A little nub to keep his mouth from slipping up onto the blade. One more moment. Space for one more memory.

The world swam back in pain. Not the Zebrican jungles, but a sparse and rocky clearing no more than a single pace away from the gaping pit of Grivridge. And a huge griffon standing above him, talons closed around Reckoning's throat. His other foreleg was missing entirely.

His body didn't seem to understand the damage that had been done to his wing. He could see the spurs of bone jutting out through the feathers and the flesh. Even if they let him go, he'd bleed to death in minutes. He sucked in a breath, forcing as much blood to his brain as he could.

He had always thought he'd turn out to be a casualty at the talons of a griffon. The killing blow had only been a few decades late, really. He nodded in understanding toward his killer, and then his head rolled to the side.

There was the blue mare. The kid. The filly. The last true friend he'd ever make. The last pony who'd ever see him as more than just the old broken soldier who didn't understand when to quit. Was she crying? It was hard to tell through the blurring mist in his own vision.

The griffon picked him up, holding him out over the precipice of the edge of the world. Grivridge's mists waited for one more corpse below, while Celestia stood guard at the gates of the Summer Lands somewhere distant, and yet nearby. The old pony was at peace with himself. His only thoughts were of concern for his last partner. He could do nothing for her body, but there were words to fill a final hole in her heart, provided they came with honesty. He struggled to get them out, before the end.

"Tell the Princess 'I'm sorry'… Rainbow."

And then it was done. He opened his eyes and held up the weapon. His constant companion and his bitterest enemy. Once, it had been a standard issue tool. A scout's machete, with a rounded tip and a boring handle. Idly he wondered if there was any of the original skysteel left. It didn't seem likely. Not with the nub in the handle, so he could speak as he held it. Not with the sharp point at the leading end.

Yet on second glance, there was one little spot, just at the very base of the blade, where four tiny stamped letters could still be made out. SPQC. They had some fancy translation, but Reckoning knew they really just meant 'made in Cloudsdale'–the 'C' being the only letter that meant anything anymore. With only a moment of hesitation, he brought his hammer down once on the letters, blurring the cloudy nature of the Empatha-filled skysteel until the stamp was wiped away.

He rubbed his brow and sucked in a short breath. The deed was done. He stared at his work for a moment, admiring the slick, frigid metal. The edge was razor-sharp, and the body solid and unyielding. His eyes moved down to the hilt; it was a perfect match for the new image on both of his flanks. He still didn't know what to make of it, as he wiped off his face. Cutie Marks didn't just change. You only got one, and it stuck with you for life.

But then, maybe that was the change after all.

"You okay now, Deadeye?"

He started, and then realized that Rainbow's wings were still wrapped around him. "Oh, yeah. Fine. Thanks."

"What happened? Why'd you start crying?"

"Just memories," Reckoning answered, shaking his head to dismiss the question. "Thinking of Zebrica, mostly. Doing what I can to make the sword stronger."

Rainbow cocked her head to the side as her mouth hung open in confusion. "Wait... crying makes your sword stronger?"

"You'll understand when you start making yours." Reckoning set the hammer down on the top of the anvil and sidled slightly over to give Rainbow room to work. "You remember how I taught you to use your magic?"

"Yeah," Rainbow nodded. "I nailed you pretty hard with that lightning bolt, didn't I?"

Reckoning winced, before shrugging. "Actually, I was pretty surprised to be alive. I've never seen the Commander not kill whatever he was bucking at." At the look of distaste on Rainbow's face, he held up a hoof. "Not the point. What matters is that forging skysteel is an exercise of your Empatha. And your Empatha is based on your emotions. So to do the best job forging skysteel gear, you have to go back in your mind, think of whatever memory you want, and focus on it. Try to live through it again."

"Just sad memories?" Rainbow asked.

"Ah. No. It depends on what type of cloud you're working on. You know how there are four types of clouds and also four elements? That isn't a coincidence. I was working with cirrus, which tends to be tied to water and ice. Making ice with Empatha works best if you're sad."

"Okay," Rainbow nodded. "What about the other types of clouds?"

"Well, cumulus works with fire, which is why it holds heat so well. Nimbus works with what we call 'air' magic: how Thunder Crack and I can make those 'sonic' kicks like I was trying to teach you. I guess bucking lightning is air too, for you and the Commander. Anyway, that's excitement, or desperation. You could boil it down to wanting something really badly."

"What about stratus?"

"It works off of earth magic. Like, moving rocks and stuff. I've never known a pony who could use it, but the griffons and the dragons sometimes use their Empatha for it. Anyway, if you were going to make something out of stratus, you'd be working on memories of fear or, I don't know, confusion? Nopony really makes a straight stratus weapon anyway; that's what they make for standard issue gear, because it doesn't favor any particular pony. Now, I guess we should get you started, shouldn't we? What kind of cloud do you want?"

After a moment of thought, Rainbow's mouth grew into a wide grin that left Dead Reckoning concerned for her well-being.

Twilight's eyes flitted to the mare walking at her side, and then back to sparsely populated cabin of the train car. Over again and back again. The back of her mind twitched as she wondered when she'd finally build up the courage to ask the question lingering on the tip of her tongue. The question which had occupied her every thought since she departed alongside the mare from her mentor's company.

Finally, the floodgates could hold back her words no longer. She had to ask. There simply wasn't another option.

"You're the guardsmare Shining invited to our Hearth's Warming party, right?"

"It's only been a month," Going Solo answered. "Am I that forgettable?"

Twilight blushed gently in embarrassment. "Well, you weren't all white then. And you had all those burns, and the spots where your coat was missing..."

"Yeah, I get it," Solo quipped. "I was 'flank-ugly.' I'll admit, I wasn't really dressed for the occasion either."

"That isn't what I–"

"I'm teasing, Twilight." The pegasus mare smiled. "Does not getting the joke run in your family?"

"I don't see how a prevalence for misunderstanding could be genetically..."

The sentence fell away as Going Solo stared at her new partner with a mix of humor, disbelief, and disappointment. "Really? Really, Twilight?"

Her ears drooped a little. "Sorry."

"Here we are, mares and gentlecolts!" the conductor shouted, interrupting the awkward conversation. "Ponyville stop. If you're heading on to Dodge City, you've got a half-hour wait. Otherwise, thank you for riding the Friendship Express! Oh, and mind the luggage bins!"

Going Solo winced. and whispered to the younger mare at her side. "Really? The Friendship Express?" Alongside the snarky comment, the guardsmare stepped off of the train and onto the loading platform.

"I think it's got some charm to it," Twilight Sparkle answered. "Or do you not believe in the magic of friendship?"

"It's hard not to believe when you've seen what Discord did to Canterlot four years ago. Doesn't make it any less cheesy, though." Solo sighed. "Alright, Archmage, what's the plan?"

"Uh, Twilight is fine, miss Solo."

"I know, Twilight. And you can just call me Solo, unless you're making advances." Twilight wasn't quite sure if there had been a moment where the guardsmare's eyes lingered on her cutie mark. "Seriously, though, what's the plan? Why are we here?"

"I need to get some supplies for the trip, and let my friends know I'll be gone. Plus, this way, we can get Rarity to make us some clothes for the snow. We should see her first, after we–"

"Twilight! You're back already!"

The little purple and green dragon that came bounding up on stubby legs might have been the most amusing thing Going Solo had ever seen. He ran forward, leapt up, and wrapped his arms around her neck in a tight hug.

"I decided to come home early, but I'm not staying long." Twilight embraced the dragon back as she explained. "Spike, this is Going Solo. Solo, this is my number-one assistant, Spike."

The dragon dropped off the unicorn, looked up at the guardsmare, and offered a toothy smile and a claw. "Nice to meet you!"

She stuck out a hoof and gave him a half-hearted 'hand'-shake. He really did most of the work. "Yeah, you too."

After the brief greeting, Spike returned his attention to his 'older sister'. "So, Twilight, where are you going? And can I come this time?"

"Well, right now, we're going to see Rarity." As if she had pressed a magic button, Spike's eyes glazed over and his gaze went unfocused. "After that, Solo and I are headed to Stalliongrad, and unfortunately, that means you can't come. You remember why, right? From when I went with Rainbow?"

He sighed, and then moved to climb up on Twilight's back as he spoke. "Yeah, I guess. Are you going for another research trip?"

"Not this time," Twilight answered. "But maybe if you're a good gentledragon, we can see if Rarity will let you stay over while I'm gone." She grinned at the way he lost his attention yet again.

"Uh, Twilight, aren't we on a schedule here?" Solo started to walk toward the small town of Ponyville as she asked the simple question. "Not that I want to interrupt your moment."

"Oh, no, you're right. I'm sorry, I just get distracted sometimes. We should go."

Solo nodded. "Maybe next time you get distracted, you should think about your brother." She had said the words with the expectation that Twilight would be inspired to hurry up. Yet for all the similarity between the siblings, Twilight Sparkle wasn't quite like her older brother. Her eyelids quivered as she found shame and sorrow in her own reaction.

"Wait, what happened with Shining Armor?" Spike asked, clearly out of the loop.

"I... I'll tell you when we get to Rarity's. Come on, Spike." The words had quivered in the air, but Twilight's hooves took off at a full gallop. It wasn't particularly difficult for Solo to catch up with the advantage of wings. Soon, she was hovering alongside the unicorn and her dragon.

Her flight didn't last long; their destination was a frilly blue and pink building only a few hundred feet away from the train station. In only moments, Twilight had cleared the distance, and torn open the door with a great deal more magical force than was strictly necessary. The little bell above the door fell off completely.

"Gah! What in Equestria was that?"

The shrill voice from deep inside the boutique led Twilight's guardspony companion to lean over and whisper harshly. " It's one thing not to waste time, but that doesn't mean you have to sprint everywhere."

Twilight acknowledged the words with a quick dip of her head, before turning her attention toward whatever mare had spoken. "Rarity, it's me. I need your help."

"Oh, Twilight! Is it urgent? I'm with a customer."

Twilight Sparkle nodded, though Rarity wasn't present to see the motion. "Yes, actually. Going Solo and I need some clothes for a trip to Stalliongrad."

"Again, dear? Promise me you won't lock yourself up in your library with some dusty old book when you get back this time."

"It isn't for a research project, Rarity."

"I suppose that's fine then. Do come on back. I'm almost done with Miss Resistant's order, and I already have my design space all set up."

Twilight shot Solo a quick glance, and the pegasus mare nodded. Spike climbed down off of his 'sister's' back, and accompanied her on foot into the back room. Soon, only Solo was left, listening in on a conversation between friends.

"Hello, Resistant."

"Twilight Sparkle." There was probably a nod or something, by Solo's guess. The voice wasn't harsh enough to lack one. Something else about the depth of the mare's accented speech tickled the corner of the guardsmare's memory, though she couldn't quite place it. "Yer going to Stalliongrad?"

Going Solo used her privacy as an opportunity to really take in the room, and what she ingested disgusted her. The clothing on the ponyquins was fine; really quite nice if she were to be completely honest, though she was something of a Rainbow Dash when it came to fashion. In truth, what unsettled her was the color scheme that defined the walls and the various partitions of the room. Namely, everything was pink. And not just a nice, uniform pink either; lacy rose curtains ended in delicate champagne frills. Meanwhile, hot pink wallpaper was decorated with diamond patterns in a more muted pink, forming a sort of slanted checkerboard of agony.

Trying to shield her eyes from the pain, she focused her attention on the fashions that filled the room. In the nearest corner, sitting in front of a window, were a set of seven ponyquins. Six were garbed in a set of ornate dresses too glorious to take in with a single glance. The seventh figure had a sort of long black formal coat, over a stallion's dress suit. More notable were that all seven ponyquins depicted ornate masks, covering the faces of their inanimate wearers with equal portions of beauty and anonymity.

"Yeah. I'm sorry, Resistant, but I need to talk to my friends here briefly." Despite the announcement, Twilight did not wait for the unwelcome listener to leave the room before addressing her friend and her assistant. "Rarity, Spike, I need you to both listen to me very closely, alright? Do you remember what I told you about Masquerade? The assassin?"

"Yeah," Spike answered.

"Yes dear." After a pause, Rarity added a comment on what must have been written all over Twilight's face. "You're worrying me now, Twilight. What's wrong?"

"She escaped..."

"What?" That was the dragon again.

"...and she went after my brother."

Total silence. Solo waited for the next word.

"Is he... okay?"

Even from a room away, the words had bite. Pain and torment from the little dragon who had spoken up.

"We don't know," Twilight managed to force out around audible sniffles. "Roscherk–"

The other mare with the familiar voice released a subtle but guttural growl. Were it not for the timing, Solo might have passed it off as clearing her throat. Nopony made a comment, however.

"–thinks she killed him. But... he didn't find a body, and I can't just accept that he's gone. Not without looking, or something."

Silence trailed from the doorway, and some strange sense of guilt drew Solo's eyes away from the opening. With nowhere better to focus as she waited for more words, her eyes settled on a trio of nearby dummies. Two were garbed in much more pleasant clothing: a fairly average mare's figure wore a lightweight brown poncho embroidered in an entrancing pattern of white thread. Beneath it were a set of sturdy saddlebags. The corresponding stallion model was clothed in a dull gray vest with a pair of pockets on the front, and a sturdy leather bandolier was slung over its shoulder. A third ponyquin, shaped as another mare, was devoid of any clothing at all.

It had taken too long for anypony to speak up. There were probably hugs, or meaningful glances, or tears. Solo had no idea, really. She was on the outside, without even a window. Not looking in; just listening. And after a long pause, the deep-voiced mare spoke up. "Stalliongrad's a dangerous place, Twilight Sparkle."

"I'm not going after Masquerade," Twilight answered. "I'm just looking for my brother. Don't try to stop me. It was perfectly safe when Rainbow and I went to Saraneighvo a few years ago."

"By train?" the other mare, Resistant, pressed. "And ya stayed near the city?"

"Well, apart from when we went up the mountain, yeah, but why should that–"

"Stalliongrad ain't like the Domain of Canterlot, Twilight. The wastes 're like the Everfree Forest, if the air itself were out to kill you. There's yetis, vargr, harpies, winter wights... the hag."

"Baba Yagaur?" Twilight bit back a sniffle to respond firmly. "That's a foal's story, Resistant. Everypony knows gaurs can't use Arcana."

"What's a gaur?" Spike asked in a failed attempt at a discerning whisper.

Rather than the distraught purple mare, the voice of Rarity rose to answer the question. "They're like buffalo but with bigger horns."

Resistant ignored the side conversation, turning blunt but truthful words on Twilight's vulnerable heart. "I'm surprised you're so quick to blow off those stories, Twilight Sparkle. Wasn't Nightmare Moon just a foal's story too?" The deep-voiced mare chuckled lightly to herself, though the would-be laughter was shorter than most ponies would have carried it. There was a dead weight hanging from the noise, far heavier than the pain that permeated their room. Of all the ponies in the world, Going Solo understood the burden of solitude. "I'll leave ya to yer decision, Twilight Sparkle, but lemme just say this: the assassin ain't the most dangerous thing you're likely ta face if you go lookin' for your brother in the snow."

"What?" Twilight's sniffling didn't stop her curiosity. "Resistant, have you been to Stalliongrad before?"

"In a past life," she answered. And then she stepped out of the back room, and into Going Solo's field of view.

Fire. It was only a momentary thing, but the curtains were burning, and thick smoke filled Solo's lungs when she gasped in shock. Amidst it all was the mare. That mare. The traitor, though not the one who had ultimately struck her. And before her, a severed tusk. A pool of blood from the throat of a boar. A horseshoe bucked clear into a griffon's skull, so that one of its ends jutted out from between his eyes like the handle of a sword.

Above it all, the mare was calm, collected, and coiled like a spring. She balanced on three legs as she glanced over Solo, her eyes locking briefly on the empty spots on her armor where a higher-ranking soldier's sword and wing blades would be. There was no softness to her form; no gentle curves or kindly edges. She was a predator, and Solo was prey.

In no more than a moment, the fire and the blood were gone, and Solo focused on the other mare. On's fourth leg was occupied in clipping together a belt buckle around her torso. It connected to a sort of holster that looped under both her forelegs and around her back, with no fewer than a dozen little loops whose intended contents were unknown to Going Solo. Folded over her flank was what looked to be a tan duster jacket, sized for a pony of her enormous frame. She didn't seem to notice Going Solo as she removed the poncho, vest, and corresponding accessories from the ponyquins near the door.

All words failed the newly recruited guardspony, save one. It came out in a yelp of fear and terrible memories. "You!"

Four feet of earth pony muscle and the instincts of a killer shifted to look the pegasus in the eyes with mild disinterest. "A guardspony?" The most notable thing said was not the words themselves, but the fact that the mare's accent shifted from a southern cowpony's tone to a stern, masculine voice with the slightest hints of Stalliongradi on the edges.

"What's going on out there?" Rarity asked, most likely in response to the shout.

On and Solo shared glances of wildly unequal anger, before the earth pony spoke up with a gentle sigh. "Rarity, Twilight, Spike, come here."

"No, wait!"

"What?" Spike asked first, simply as a reflection of a quick reaction time. "Why not?"

Solo was honestly surprised when the larger mare rolled her eyes, and sauntered slowly away from the open doorway. "There," she muttered, with obvious exasperation, loud enough that everypony could hear. "I am far away, where I cannot snap off their horns or break their necks. I want to talk, not fight. Or do you honestly think I am stupid enough to hurt Celestia's student?"

"My dear, Resistant, what in Equestria are you talking about?" Rarity tentatively poked her head out of the doorway, and Solo recognized her immediately from the newspaper. "That's dreadful talk."

"She's not 'Resistant'. Her name is Soldier On. She's the Honor Guard traitor who tried to kill Princess Luna."

When Twilight came darting out of the back room a moment later, her horn was glowing. Despite the force on her face, the little patches of wet fur beneath her eyes were obvious. "What? All this time–"

"It is true." The mare took a moment to look away from Going Solo, and when she did, it was with surprise and concern. "Release your magic," Soldier On ordered with a growl.

"What? No!" Twilight answered. "I'm not going to trust you!"

On took a single step forward. It cleared almost a third of the distance separating her from the Archmage. "Did your brother tell you what happened when we met in Baltimare?"

"You beat him unconscious!" Twilight shouted, stepping forward with a mixture of anger and bravado. Soldier On was not intimidated.

"Yes, I did. I could very easily have beaten him to death instead. I also led him, a mare, and two foals out of a burning building." On delivered the answer with a scowl. "If I wanted to hurt you or your friends, Twilight Sparkle, I had six months sitting right under Celestia's nose to do it."

"You still tried to kill Princess Luna," Twilight countered. "And I can't let you go."

Soldier On closed her eyes and took a long slow breath. Her body shifted up and down a full two inches with the motion. Along with the action, the looming muscles of her shoulders and legs rippled and tensed. And then, in the fashion of a carnivore, her eyes flickered open again like lightning. "You cannot stop me, Twilight Sparkle."

"Shining taught me how to do his shields, and stunning magic."

"The problem, Twilight Sparkle, is that you're assuming those will help you. I would not care if you told me that Celestia herself had taught you how to turn ponies to stone. I am going to turn around, take my order, and walk out of this building. I'll leave Ponyville, and you will likely never see me again. But if you try to stop me, there will be violence."

Twilight's eyes widened, as logical fear overcame adrenaline. She prepared a response, but it never came out. Going Solo stepped forward and spoke up. "So you're just going to threaten her? The Bearer of Magic?"

"I'm not threatening her," On replied, as coldly detached as if she were lecturing a foal. "She's probably willing to take that risk, but I would never dream of harming her. I'm threatening you, guardsmare. You and the dragon are expendable. Do you understand, Twilight Sparkle?"

Twilight reeled back, eyes glancing to Spike. Her cunning mind fell victim to an equally potent imagination, and for a sliver of a second, her thoughts became daydreaming nightmares. Rarity stepped up to the dragon and wrapped a leg around him by way of protection. Though a kind gesture, it could not hope to prove enough.

Going Solo moved forward. In response, Soldier On made a simple motion. Casually, her right forehoof slid out of its shoe. Memories of a griffon with a similar iron curve lodged into his throat stopped her approach.

Seeing her advantage against the true threat, On pressed Twilight. "If you don't understand, I'll make it simple. Your brother got off one spell before I toppled him." On gently tapped the smooth line where half her right ear had been cut off. "You aren't as fast as he was."

The 'killing blow' had been landed. Twilight stepped backward twice, and twisted her head to the side so that her horn was pointed away from the looming mare. The arcane aura faded from her slowly.

On walked backward toward the front door of Carousel Boutique. She pressed against it with a rear hoof, before simply kicking it out of agitation when it held. The hinges endured the blow, but the latch shot straight through the wood of the doorframe.

"Thank you for seeing reason, Twilight Sparkle. I wish you luck and safety in the hunt for your brother. Rarity, I am sorry about this. You did excellent work. Tell the Royal Guard what happened today, and that I've been in Ponyville, hiding under the name Resistant. The information should get you ten thousand bits, if they have not changed the bounty." And then Soldier On actually laughed. "I hope that covers the doorframe."

Before anypony (or dragon) could offer a response, the mare was out of Carousel Boutique and sprinting away into Ponyville. Nopony followed.

Masquerade could not help but feel that she was being led to the gallows as Foresight guided her toward the upper tower suite that had been granted to Princess Luna. It was one thing to stand behind her when she had Hurricane's Armor and an unsuspected matching disguise to keep her safe. But she'd had months to study the Commander's habits, and he seemed to have far fewer curiosities and habits that her magic had to compensate for. She could feel her horn aching from the drain that hadn't let up in going-on eighteen hours. Her eyes were sagging as the constant exertion left her needing sleep, and her stomach growled with hunger.

The trip would have been much faster if she'd had somepony else as her guide. However, Masquerade was very quickly learning just how closely Burning Hearth Castle relied on 'Secretary' Foresight to function. They couldn't go twenty steps without some complicated question from the one of the many bureaucrats or castle staff who Masquerade was sure were moving by burrowing through the walls. If they weren't approaching Foresight with yet another question, it was as if they didn't exist.

At present, the stallion behind the slim gold-rimmed spectacles was dealing with a staff chef, and Masquerade was quite surprised at their choice of language.

"Je suis sûr que la princesse pourrez profiter de la vichyssoise, mais nous aurons besoin de plus. Faire quelques coquilles farcies, et peut-être un autre choix pour la soupe. La soupe de gingembre mangue vous faire serait un excellent choix."

"Je vais satisfaire la princesse, Secrétaire" The mare behind the thick white apron smiled as she walked away down one of the countless featureless gray hallways.

"Prench, Predvidenie?"

"I was tired of our native cooks burning my crepes. And I already spoke the language from my economics degree at Mareseilles. I grabbed some other staff while I was there too. For example, you should meet Feather Duster." Foresight stopped beside a heavy wooden door and slid it open with his hoof. Inside was a small billiards room, with plush carpeting and a small bar against the far wall. In the center of the place was a rather surprising mare. "Plumeau, un moment de votre temps, s'il vous plaît?"

Masquerade had more than a bit of trouble believing in the warm gray mare who wandered out of the chamber in a black and white outfit. "Prench maids, Predvidenie?" One of her little mental alarms suggested an added phrase to deter a bit of his suspicion. "I didn't think you had it in you."

The unicorn rolled his eyes. "I did not bring them to serve as... courtesans."

A thousand questions sprung into Masquerade's head in response, but she voiced none of them. Instead, a far more devious thought wriggled its way into her mind. "Avez-vous nettoyé ma chambre encore?"

Foresight's jaw dropped, too stunned for words, but it was the maid who answered. "Pas encore, monsieur."

Masquerade took a moment to shoot Foresight a teasing grin, before returning her focus to the maid. "Pourquoi ne pas prendre soin de cela maintenant? Je serai ainsi prochainement, et je ne voudrais pas le salir si peu de temps après je suis rentré."

With a distinct blush, and a hint of a smile, the mare nodded and darted off. It took Foresight almost twenty seconds to recover control of his jaw. "You... you learned Prench?"

"Princess Celestia speaks a lot of languages," Masquerade answered. "Want to hear another?"

"I... no, Roscherk, I don't. I can't believe you. The Princess teaches you a new language, and you use it to... I just... You don't actually want her to clean your bedroom, do you?"

"Well, not at first," Masquerade answered, playing as dirty as she could imagine. "After we're done, I'm sure her talents as a maid will come in handy. It's like they say: Vidi, vici, veni."

Foresight cocked his head, losing some of his agitation. "A Commander Hurricane quote? In old Cirran, no less. Princess Celestia really did manage to turn you around, Roscherk. You got the order wrong, though."

"No I didn't." The disguised assassin started striding away in their previous direction, as Foresight struggled with the old joke.

"I saw, I conquered, I... Roscherk!"

Masquerade chuckled as the unicorn ran to catch up with her. He probably had no idea of her plans for the maid, though she had to admit, the tracking spell to guide her to Red Ink's bedroom 'by memory' was a stroke of genius. Further, Foresight's reactions made it clear that she was doing well staying 'in character'. All that was left was to hope that the Princess wasn't any more personal with Red Ink than his own brother. Thankfully, that at least seemed unlikely.

Of course, Masquerade's assumption that the next stop would be Luna's chambers was, in its own way, a temptation of fate. No more than twenty yards of hallway later, two stallions in black jackets approached from a side hallway.

The larger of the two was a slate gray earth pony who for body structure looked like a scaled-up version of Red Ink. He had the sort of jaw you could cut diamonds on, and his face seemed to have been punched one too many times; he almost resembled a pug more than a pony. The shoulders of his jacket were decorated with gold stars, and a complex leather sling kept a sledgehammer strapped tightly to his back.

"Росчерк, будто вечность прошла! Как ты нынче?" It was a strange phrase, which took the assassin more than a moment to riddle her way through. The question came with a stiff, single-legged hug, which Masquerade reciprocated. Unfortunately, she had no idea what the stallion had said. His accent was an unconquerable obstacle, which seemed to imply that he began every morning by a cup of shredded glass, and then washing it down with molten lead.

She cast her translation 'spell', and gritted her teeth at the drain it put on her body.

"Something wrong, Roscherk?"

The question sent a fell chill down the assassin's spine. They shouldn't have seen her pain beneath Ink's face. She was running dry.

"Uh, no, just a headache," she answered in fluent Stalliongradi. "I'm sorry. It's good to see you too."

"Forget to light your blood on fire last night, Commandant?" the smaller of the two stallions asked. Masquerade spared him a quick glance. The pegasus had a certain musculature like his companion, but it was built over a clearly lanky frame, leaving him looking over-built and more than a little bit top-heavy. His jacket sleeves were loose around his forelegs. A sickle and a sword could both be seen beneath its fabric, and unlike most of the Stalliongradian soldiers, he wore a heavy steel cuirass as well. "It's been boring as Tartarus without you around, Roscherk."

Foresight cut into the conversation with the expression of mild disappointment that seemed to generally dominate his face. "Commandant Molot, it's a pleasure to see you. As for you, Marshal Serp, what are you doing so far away from Saraneighvo?"

"Get lost, Beancounter. I don't answer to you."

The earth pony gave a stern glance to his pegasus companion. "Serp, do not agitate the Secretary." To Masquerade's surprise, his gravelly, almost supernaturally deep voice was easy to understand in Equiish.

The same pony, Commandant Molot, turned his attention to Foresight directly. "I was informed that Princess Luna brought in a group of rebels, including the tigress Youmin. Marshal Serp has always been our best..." A momentary glance was shot in the direction of the mare disguised as Red Ink. "Well, our second best interrogator. I was hoping to dig out the rest of their leadership, and finally put an end to this insurgency. Of course, with the real Commandant here..."

All eyes turned to Masquerade, and she realized that she was being asked to make a military decision. It was a rather strange position to occupy, though the answer was simple enough. "I have to tend to Princess Luna, Molot. You deal with it."

Two jaws went slack, but Foresight nodded with something that looked like pride, or at least satisfaction. "Molot, you're the Commandant now. Roscherk is Princess Celestia's right hoof; he has his duty, and you have yours. And we're late as it is, soldiers, so if there's nothing else, you are excused."

"But, Commandant," Serp began, looking Masquerade's direction. "We can finally catch Stoikaja. Finish off that bitch forever, and win. Isn't that what you want?"

In some sense, the name brought Masquerade back to familiar territory. She knew what to say, rather than filling in the blanks off educated guesses and magical prompts. "That isn't my battle anymore, Serp. If you find her, make sure she suffers."

Foresight cringed lightly, but nodded. "As Roscherk says, soldiers. Now, is that everything? We are running late."

"Of course, Secretary," Molot muttered, putting a hoof on Serp's shoulder before the smaller pony could stay whatever angry rebuke was leaning off the tip of his tongue.

Foresight watched them walk for a few spare seconds before adjusting his glasses with a simple burst of telekinesis. "Well, that ought to be it, Roscherk. Let's go."

From that point, the path through Burning Hearth Castle was devoid of interruptions. Only the unsettling combination of bare electric lights and ancient gray stone blocks accompanied the two would-be brothers on their path up the second highest and easily most picturesque of the castle's towers.

Masquerade's focus waned and her body fought her, but not as harshly as her mind. Fooling Celestia was one thing; she still recalled listening in on the sun princess' conversation with Twilight Sparkle and Rainbow Dash, and her explanation of her own failings at the magic of illusions. Her sister, however, was another matter entirely. Certainly the only pony, and quite possibly the only being who was Masquerade's better at the art.

She discarded all her disguises, save the most basic. All her attention went into maintaining Ink's form. Emulating his personality would be an exercise in acting, and the reality of the cost behind a bad performance left the assassin on the verge of shuddering. The fact was that Masquerade wasn't used to danger. With her prior contracts, there was never a risk of discovery. Equestria as a whole was completely helpless against her skills. She'd all-but killed an immortal princess, taken down Celestia's 'legendary' bodyguard, and even beaten the Captain of the Royal Guard in a face-to-face battle. But the thought of going against Luna left her with the ghostly sensation of stone on the outside of her joints.

The thoughts were stolen away by a knocking on a door. Foresight's hoof, she realized. On Luna's door. She tensed, forced herself to take a quiet breath, and focused.

The door creaked open in the potent glow of Luna's magic. "Announce thyself," she ordered, without any particular force or volume. Behind the doors, the Princess sat on a massive blue cushion, staring out of a towering window. Despite her visitors, she made no effort to offer them a glance. Her eyes lingered on the snowy landscape below, and the half-finished black pillar jutting up from the center of the valley.

"Foresight, your highness," the unicorn stated plainly. "I've brought my brother."

"Captain Ink reporting, Princess," Masquerade added in Ink's voice, layering false confidence as thick as she could manage.

Luna stood, and spun on a dime. Masquerade's heart skipped two full beats. A massive bruise monopolized her left cheek, swollen out so far as to steal the beauty of a face that was said to rival the night sky. "What happened, Princess?" Masquerade asked, out of honest curiosity as much as false concern. She glanced around the rather sparse central space of the Princess' suite, and a second question rose to the front of her mind. "Where's your bodyguard?"

"Hold thy tongue, Captain." She said no more, instead focusing intently, as her horn picked at the air, in search of illusions. Masquerade was silently thankful for her own anticipation of the threat. Luna's magic found nothing as her eyes took in the short stature, the blood toned coat and mane, and the fiery brown eyes that she expected. Without saying a word, her horn ignited brighter still, lifting up Red Ink's jacket from Masquerade's flanks.

There is a certain school of thought which dictates that the solution to stage fright is to act out even more bravely. It was this idea which guided Masquerade's next words to Luna. "I thought you had the Night Guard for this," Ink's voice muttered, loud enough for all present to hear. "Aren't I supposed to fill that role with your sister?"

Foresight actually went through the trouble of removing his glasses from his face, and sitting down, so that he would be able to more comfortably cover his face with both his hooves. The Princess herself exhibited a similar opinion of the comment.

"I would have expected so crude a comment from Officer Image, Captain. Thou are to be held to a higher standard. We doth not call it the 'Honor Guard' so that it can bring us dishonor." Luna's magic dropped the back of Ink's jacket. "And, should our sister interrogate thee, that 'we' was to refer to both of us, and not merely myself."

Masquerade gave a curt nod. "Understood. Now, what's going on? Why look at my flank? And what happened to your face?"

Luna folded her wings, and her horn pulled both her own large cushion and a smaller spare to the center of the room. "Foresight, while I am thankful for your assistance, I must ask you leave us. I assure you, I shall be as safe in your brother's company as I am alone."

"Of course, Princess. I'll return when dinner is ready if you aren't done by then. Nothing as fancy as last night, unfortunately, but we do have a mango ginger soup or a vichyssoise, along with some cheese and squash stuffed shells."

"Delightful," Luna answered with an obvious shortness in her voice. "Bring us whatever you prefer."

"Excellent," Foresight responded, missing the urgency in her voice. "I'll bring up some champagne with that, and our finest vodka for my 'tasteful' sibling." The stallion went out of his way to emphasize the rebuke in Ink's direction, before magically adjusting his glasses and turning to leave. The doors didn't creak, or even make much of a noise at all, as he pulled them shut.

Luna's horn ignited briefly, and her aura coated the doors before fading. "There. We may speak freely now. You have asked me two different questions, and I shall answer them in turn. Firstly, my intentions were chaste. I was examining your mark, to ensure you were not the assassin in disguise. But whilst her illusions are perhaps the equal of all but my own, even I cannot truly change or disguise a mark." Luna settled down on the cushion she had pulled across the room earlier, and gestured for Ink to take the other seat. "Though I suspect it shall be most simple for you to identify her, Captain. To my knowledge, she is garbed in your form. Tell me, where is Captain Armor?"

There was a moment of hesitation, as Masquerade contemplated how much of the truth to give away. "Dead," she answered. "Masquerade knew we were following her. She set a trap on the Dragon-Fire Bridge. An explosive. I was able to endure the fire with my Empatha. Armor wasn't fast enough with his magic."

Luna closed her eyes and drooped her head. "Truly, a tragedy. That stallion was ever a noble champion of the guard. But we must do him the honor firstly of apprehending his killer."

"That's the plan," she responded with a bit of sarcasm that earned a glare from Luna. Unlike previous rebukes, however, it lent the assassin a second wind. Rude though it might have been, Luna was buying her act. "You have me concerned, though. Did you encounter her? And where are your bodyguards?"

"I dismissed Marathon, following the confrontation. She is somewhere in the castle, and frankly, I care not where. Officer Image was incapacitated in a conflict with Lord Krenn, the dragon ruler."

"I know the name," Masquerade muttered, before realizing what she had said. A silent wish hoped that the utterance made sense for Red Ink as well.

"Of course. You grew up here when the dragons came..." Luna let the words die out rather quickly, before picking up another thought. "That battle is not your concern."

Lying through her teeth, Masquerade responded in kind. "Your safety is my concern, Princess. That's why I'm here."

"You are here to apprehend the assassin," Luna contradicted.

"Princess Celestia seemed to want me to treat your protection as a higher priority."

Luna scowled. "Then I hath contradicted her orders. Soon, my Night Guard shall arrive to provide for my safety. As I understand, however, you have knowledge of the assassin's methods. My sister informs me that you slew her mentor? A grown wyrm, by her telling."

Masquerade struggled to put on a smile, but it only came across as a half-flanked grin. Thoughts of her own mentor's fate at Red Ink's hooves were weighty things for her emotional state.

"Further, my Night Guard do not know this city. And, if what you say of the bridge is true, I fear we shall have to rely on this Domain's soldiers to provide a force for your hunt. I also understand you once commanded them?"

"Yes," Masquerade answered with assurance, calling on her conversation with Molot and Serp from mere minutes prior. "And you don't need to tell me twice. It's time Masquerade paid for what she's done. To you, and to my family." She thought it was a nice touch, even if the reality of her involvement in the latter was not quite as Red Ink tended to portray it. "Is there anything else?"

"No, Captain. Go and find her."

Masquerade walked away with a smile on her face, and a hunger in her lips. The time had come for the real fun to start.

VIII - Flying Blind

VIII

Flying Blind

At four-forty in the afternoon, two pegasi shuffled up to the Ponyville train station, just as it was pulling in. The stallion of the pair was carrying a rather weighty messenger bag around his midsection. The mare, in turn, had just made a brief trip to the ticket counter, and was in the process of returning with three tickets in her mouth.

She sat down beside her partner on a bench, and started looking around. The tickets fell onto her forelegs when she began to speak. "She made a big deal about four forty-five, but now she's not even here."

"Relax, Rainbow. I'm sure she'll turn up. She might already be here."

"I don't see any super-giant guardsponies here. Do you?"

"Look again."

The feminine voice in her ear, from no more than an inch away, caused Rainbow to leap a full dozen feet into the air, and remain hovering there. "H-hey! No fair!"

Dead Reckoning fell off the bench chuckling, which only sent more heated blood into Rainbow's cheeks. Soldier On, however, wasn't laughing. Only the slightest hint of an upward curve existed on the corners of her cheeks.

Without waiting for permission, she picked up one of the three tickets that Rainbow's departure had sent falling the ground. She then hefted Reckoning's bag, in addition to the saddlebags over her own back, and progressed onto the train as if she weren't carrying any load at all. After recovering, Reckoning stood up, and Rainbow swooped down to join him.

"That wasn't funny," the young mare muttered.

"Keep telling yourself that. Come on, let's get on. Seems like On is in a hurry." Reckoning pulled himself to his hooves, grabbed a ticket, and clambered onto the train. Rainbow followed shortly.

The Wild Southwest was a larger train that Rainbow had been on with her friends during previous trips to Appleloosa, Dodge Junction, and other cities in the southern parts of Equestria. Large private cabins gave room for four ponies to bunk together in relative peace and quiet. Two separate dining cars provided for the food needs. At the rear of the train were three baggage cars. Overall, the train was a full fifteen cars long, plus engine and caboose.

The third car back held the ex-guardsponies' assigned cabin, though by the time they actually located the room, the train had already started to chug along. The pegasi found Soldier On was inside, sorting through the bags she had brought on board. Her eyes flicked up briefly as he team entered. "You got me six full sets of shoes?"

"Rainbow got us access to an honest-to-Celestia forge, so I had some time to work."

"Excellent." The earth pony rummaged through the bag further, and then pulled out a short, curved weapon in a padded cloth sheathe, visibly lined with cloud. "Is this Rainbow's weapon?"

Reckoning nodded. "She made it herself. Great craftsmareship for a first shot too."

On was clearly not impressed as she offered the stallion a level glare. "You let her make a short scimitar? A boar will take her head off before she gets close enough to use this."

"Hey! I'm way faster than any boar!"

On shrugged. "The sort of speed you have is not the same kind I'm describing. But for now, I would like to know why this weapon–" The mare had clearly intended to continue her point after drawing the sword, but her thoughts instead simply hung incomplete in the still air of the train car.

In her teeth, where she had been expecting a skysteel blade, she saw only the outline of a weapon. Slight glimmers from the cabin light were all that could show the presence of material at all, rather than empty air. After staring in something like awe for a few moments, Soldier On sheathed the blade and passed it to Rainbow.

"You made a glass sword?"

"Transparent skysteel," Reckoning corrected. "Made of water vapor from saltwater. There isn't much salt in the blade, of course, but it's enough to conduct like nimbus, without all the extra weight. The blade is on the inside, like a kukri, rather than a scimitar."

"Also, its invisible," Rainbow emphasized. "How cool is that?"

"It could prove useful," On admitted, analyzing the mare before her. "Does it have a name?"

"Uh, no? It's a sword."

Reckoning chuckled lightly to himself before speaking up. "Swords have names, Rainbow. Sometimes, they even get really famous. Have you ever heard of Procellarum?"

"...should I have? I don't even know what language that is."

The one-eyed stallion shrugged. "It's the most famous sword in the world. The Gladius Procellarum, named in ancient Cirran–the predecessor to Bitalian."

"The sword was Commander Hurricane's," Soldier On added. "Masquerade has it now; the Commander inherited it, just like Hurricane's Armor. It's called 'The Sword of Storms' in modern Equiish"

Rainbow's eyes widened. "Oh! Okay. The one he made by flying into the center of a hurricane and unwinding the clouds from the inside?" At that, Rainbow looked down at her own hoof-forged weapon and pouted slightly. "I should have done that..."

At the comment, Soldier On actually rolled her eyes. Barring her outburst of emotion in the Crusader's clubhouse, it was the most genuine emotion Rainbow had seen from the mare. "Pegasi," she muttered, without even bothering to conceal the word. "Relax, Rainbow Dash. You're armed, and that's what matters. What you call the sword does not. Now we need to make sure that you can use it."

Rainbow actively winced, but she nodded nevertheless. "Hopefully we won't have to fight any boars, right?"

"It isn't the boars I'm worried about," Soldier On answered. "Not yet." Then her head swiveled slowly to look at Reckoning. "I ran into a guardspony in Ponyville while I was getting our clothes. She and Twilight Sparkle tried to catch me."

"Hold on, what?" Rainbow leapt forward, putting her forehooves up onto On's chest, and still struggling to look the mare in the eyes. "Did you hurt her? Did you hurt Twilight?"

"We didn't fight, and I was able to make her see reason. But I did tell Rarity that I was going to San Palomino with two friends. Sparkle is too smart not to figure out that you two are with me, and even if she doesn't, Flag will."

Deadeye swore rather potently. Although his words earned a glare from On, she clearly shared his sentiments.

As somepony who hadn't spent years in service to the Honor Guard, Rainbow was somewhat confused. "So we have to outrun some guardsponies? The rest of the Honor Guard or something? I know I can outrun Thunder Crack, and Marathon isn't actually dangerous. Plus, isn't White Flag a unicorn? She's not going to be able to keep up on hoof."

"It's not just going to be them, Rainbow." Reckoning sat down on one of the lower bunks and folded his forelegs across his chest. "Not if Princess Celestia thinks we’re going to start a war. She'll send at least two full platoons of Royal Guards, with airships. I know you're fast enough to outrun one, at least in the short distance, but I'm not that fast even when I don't have a broken wing. Just outrunning them isn't going to be an option, I don't think. Do we have a plan, On?"

She shook her head. "It was only a little over an hour ago, and I spent the time making sure Sparkle didn't do something inconvenient. Her dragon sent a scroll, so I assume Celestia already knows. Even if she sends Marathon, there won't be a team of Rangers waiting for us any closer than Ghost. We will have to deal with them, eventually."

Rainbow struggled to find her words. "When you say 'deal with them' like that, it kinda sounds like you mean we're gonna... ya' know..."

"Absolutely not," Reckoning stated firmly.

Unfortunately, at the exact same moment, Soldier On spoke up with very different words. "I am."

On and Reckoning each turned away from Rainbow, and in the silent air between them, Rainbow was sure she could feel the brutal strikes of their respective willpowers lashing out.

"We don't kill ponies," Reckoning stated, as if it were fact.

"It's no different than killing a griffon or a boar," On countered, in a level tone.

"They're guardsponies," the stallion's voice was barely below a shout. "They're us!"

Soldier On shook her head. "They are soldiers, and they are the enemy. What difference does their race make?"

Reckoning's functioning wing flared open, and the very tip of it ignited with a tiny fire. A shaking voice, clearly on the verge of shouting, spoke up. "Rainbow, you explain it to her. I'm going up on the roof for some air. "

Without another word, Reckoning flapped his wing to get rid of the fire, and then stormed out of the room.

The door slammed behind him, and the latch on the sliding door bounced back, only catching on its third try. That was all the noise the pair of starkly different mares heard for some time as they stood in silence, watching one another.

Rainbow felt a fire building in her wings. Her hoof twitched to itself, ready to lash out. Rather than the darkness of unconsciousness, there was throbbing bloody red lurking at the corners of her vision.

Her hoof caught Soldier On across the face with enough force to turn the mare's head to the side. The pegasus wasn't quite sure why she had done it, but some of the heat went away. Still, the fire demanded more, and she gave in. Hooks and jabs all fell upon Soldier On. She retained as stone a face under Rainbow's blows as Masquerade had months earlier.

Only when Rainbow was done, panting and staring down at her own hooves, did the Stalliongradian mare move. A huge and heavy hoof settled gently on Rainbow's shoulder. It pressed down and forward, until the somewhat younger mare fell backwards onto her haunches in a strange approximation of a sitting position. A moment later, On lowered herself into the same pose. Then she spoke.

"This will not be like Smog."

Rainbow's eyes widened. "How–"

"Months of working at Sweet Apple Acres. Every time your friends pulled you aside to tell your stories, I listened. There are holes, of course, when you met at the library, but I know enough to understand. So I want you to understand this, Rainbow Dash. If you want to come with us and save your father, you will have to face the truth that we will be fighting guardsponies. Mares and stallions who are doing their jobs, trying to protect Equestria, just like Reckoning and I. And you also need to understand that I will kill those ponies without hesitation, because if we fail, the Commander is gone forever."

"But–"

"Hold your thoughts, Rainbow." Her words moved like the ocean, with depths and surging waves. She spoke with the tone of a mother, calmly but bitterly explaining exactly how the world wasn't fair. "I am telling you right now, Rainbow Dash, that you have a choice to make. If you stay with us, you will have to make a choice. It might be between your father's life and somepony else's. It might be between my life and some guard's. I don't know the future, but I can tell you that the choice will come."

Rainbow watched the bottled intensity behind her eyes. She spoke with force, but also with a sympathetic tone that the pegasus hadn't been expecting.

"I'm offering you a different choice right now, Rainbow Dash. You can still leave. I won't say that we wouldn't miss your skills, but the choice is yours. If you stay on this train and come with us to Suida, you will kill. Not by accident, but with deliberation and intent. There will be blood on your hooves, and it might never wash off. That's the cost we pay for the safe, pretty Equestria you've grown up in. Right now, that's what it costs to save your father's life. If your mind and your heart cannot handle that weight, this is your chance. Fly away."

Rainbow took a moment to think, and the settled herself. "What happens then? What if you need me?"

"Then we die. It's a fact we're both comfortable with. Luna's spell leaves Reckoning's soul wandering the desert until the end of time. I burn in Tartarus for betraying Luna."

"And you just expect me to fly away? With that on the line?"

"If you die here, Rainbow, the same thing happens to you. But I already told you I wouldn't be... Red Ink. You deserve a chance to try and save your father. I just want you to understand exactly what that means."

"Fine. I'm still going."

"I'm... glad to hear it."

She could not have lied any more blatantly, but Rainbow saw no need to call her out on the truth. "I still don't want to kill anypony."

"Neither do I. But what we want rarely comes true."

"Can't we just hide from them? Or run away?"

"No," Soldier On answered. "Perhaps we could hide if that was our only goal. But the desert is too flat and too open to keep out of sight. This isn't something I want, Rainbow. I don't take joy in it like Red Ink or Baron Frostbite. But I've been in too many bad situations to pretend that there's always another option."

"I..." Rainbow felt a weight in her stomach. "A last resort, okay? For now, at least. Do you promise?" She nodded sternly, but Rainbow wasn't sure she could believe the motion. She held her tongue from the topic just the same. "Now what?"

"See if you can explain all of that to Dead Reckoning. He'll listen to you better than me. And tell him I'm sorry."

Rainbow's brow rose. "For what?"

"Nothing. But it will make him feel better just the same." The notion didn't sit well with Rainbow, but Soldier On stood up before she could make a further comment. Her hoof slid open the door to the cabin before she turned over her shoulder to speak again. "Tell him I'm scoping for marks. Should I bring back dinner?"

Rainbow's answer came to her mind in an instant. "No, I'll take Reckoning and get something later."

On nodded. "Probably for the best. And for what it's worth, I'm sorry to you too, Rainbow Dash." The door latched shut.

When Foresight returned to Luna's room only a short time after his previous departure, he was shocked at what he saw behind the doors. Red Ink was gone, but Luna was most certainly not alone.

"Approaching," muttered an almost in-equine voice from a purple coated mare at Luna's side. The alicorn herself had her head tilted forward and hanging slackly. Between her spread left wing and her shoulder, Foresight could see one of her eyes, staring blankly toward the ground. Her strange guards distracted him when she spoke again. "Second, fifth, stand ready." Bat-like wings flared as the purple armored mare stepped forward, and licked her lips. "Show me your cutie mark, dear. We'll start there."

"It's just Predvidenie, Eldest Sister. We can trust him."

The Night Guard whirled. "I don't recall asking for your input, Third."

Third Brother sighed and rolled his eyes–an unnerving motion for slitted pupils. "With respect, Eldest Sister, I can save you trouble here. Predvidenie, I delivered a letter for you. Who was the recipient?"

"Rainbow Dash."

"It is him," Third Brother muttered to his leader, before turning back toward Foresight. "I delivered it safely, by the way. Although I assume you already know that, since our Mistress survives now."

"Third, we will be talking later. Previdenyay,–"

"Please, Foresight is fine."

Her brow rose, as the slit of her right eye contracted. "Right. Well, Foresight, the Princess is monitoring the realm of dreams. If you have a message, I can deliver it to her. Otherwise, leave the food and go on your way."

Foresight gulped, quite visibly. Then he tensed, when every single slitted eye in the room shot to focus on his throat. "Uh... the message is... rather urgent..."

Eldest Sister scowled. "Then I will convey it urgently to Princess Luna. What is it that's so important?"

With a shuddering hoof, Foresight pushed a bowl of soup forward on his rolling cart, to reveal a folded white letter. "From my father. Make sure she gets it."

"Wonderful. Will there be anything else?"

Foresight started toward the door a little bit too quickly to seem comfortable. One of the Night Guard sniggered aloud. With wounded pride, the unicorn turned back again to face them. "Can I get all of you anything? Food? The castle has more than enough quarters to spare so you don't have to sleep in the Princess' lounge."

"We do not make a habit of 'sleeping' in the sense you are assuming, Predvidenie." Third Brother smiled gently. "We will remain with our Mistress. Still, the offer is appreciated and well received."

Eldest Sister smiled as well, but her expression was more than a bit too wide, and it went out of its way to emphasize the two fangs that dominated her otherwise conventional teeth. "I also doubt you have anything that would serve us as sustenance. "

"We have an excellent selec–"

"You are excused, Foresight, since you don't seem to be getting the idea any nicer way." Eldest Sister watched as he stood slack-jawed, and leapt a full four yards forward on her legs alone to land with her fangs eerily close to his ear, and his throat. "Get lost."

Foresight darted out of the room and down the hall as fast as his hooves could carry him, but they didn't feel fast enough. His heart was racing, and he was sure he could still feel her cold breath on his ear. His glasses were ajar, and he didn't take the time to fix them. Instead, the heavy stones of the castle walls became a continuous grey blur. His motion only stopped when he collided with another pony, and then promptly toppled to the floor.

What followed was a rather simple charm. After one too many losses of his glasses to slips or simply dipping his head too far forward, Foresight had enchanted them to return to his face with little more than a thought. As the gold-rimmed spectacles returned to his face, he caught site of the pony he had bumped into. Silently, he wondered what he had done to deserve such a run of luck.

"Watch where you're going, four-eyes," Serp spat. Quite literally. Foresight resolved to wash his scarf.

"You have my apologies, Governor," Foresight responded, as civilly as he could manage between growing agitation and his towering blood pressure. His gaze flickered from the small pegasus to the burlier earth pony beside him. "Oh, Commandant. Again? Is there some reason you've come back up again?"

"I'm afraid there is, Secretary," Molot responded, as a vein throbbed visibly on his temple.

Serp's sudden interjection was more clarifying, if more than a bit crass as well. "You fucked up, Predvidenie. The rebels busted out."

"What?" Foresight's vision went blurry behind him, and his stomach felt like it had fallen out of his get. He clenched his jaw and held a hoof to his brow. "That... no, that shouldn't be possible. I built those gem matrices myself. The rebels don't have a mage good enough to decrypt them. They'd have to physically beat through the bars, and then–"

Serp growled. "They didn't actually beat the locks. Molot thinks you should see for yourself, since our sorcerers have no idea what crazy magic you did down there."

Foresight stopped in place. His hooves slowly moved to his scarf, and with careful deliberation, he untied the ascot knot he normally wore. By hoof, he wrapped the cashmere into an ornate Mareisian knot, and then cinched it up until it seemed to be nearly choking him. The action helped him clear his mind, and also made it clear to anypony who knew him well that he was not in a mood for games. Seeing a Mareisian knot on Foresight's neck was like a crimson tint on the sky at dawn to a sailor: a portent of terrible things to come.

"The assassin is already here. She's trying to distract us. The rebels aren't good enough to do this alone." Foresight concluded aloud in a hurried tone. "They know Princess Luna is here, and they're playing off last night's events. For now, we will assume the worst likely outcome: they are working with the assassin directly, and Stoikaja has returned as well to lead them." The unicorn's mind throbbed in pain as he forced it to work harder than its normally brutal speed. "What do we do? What now?"

"Secretary, are you well?" Molot asked.

"No, I am not," Foresight snapped, before looking away from the soldier in shame. "Forgive me, Molot. A hard day just got a great deal harder. We need damage control right now, so Roscherk has time to work. How do we set up control..."

Ideas glimmered up and then died in Foresight's mind. History lessons, political studies, ethical dissertations, and complex philosophical treatises all cried out for his attention, struggling amidst the brutal gears of cruel calculus and arithmetic, and the swirling mists of his imagination. Lives could be counted as numbers, just like money or days or pounds of food. All the variables mattered. They shifted together, even as his headache grew far worse. Still, the time he took to think was short indeed, when all was said and done.

"Molot, set up a strict curfew for nine at night, until six in the morning. Get the word out tonight; huddle ponies into their houses, and arrest anypony who tries to resist. Starting tomorrow, assume everypony knows."

"With respect, Secretary, you know that both Commandant Krovyu and the Tsar don't approve of our setting up a curfew, after the Baron..."

"I remember Frostbite's rule! The whole city does!" Foresight lashed out with a hoof, impotently wailing at empty air. The presence of the motion itself was telling, on a stallion who normally exercised excellent self-control. "We don't have time to worry about seeming nice. Take all the guards you can spare from the castle. I'll get Princess Luna's escort to fill the gaps. Get as many patrols on the streets as you can, but remember to keep sizeable groups. We can't afford dead soldiers in the streets."

"Oh, so you know about dying–"

"Damn it, Serp, shut up!" Foresight snapped. His panting form heaved up and down for a moment, before he shook his head. "You're going to go back to Saraneighvo, and set up the same system. And if we end up with another riot like two years ago, you'll be relieved of your command and your membership in the Black Cloaks."

"You can't do shit to me, Secretary," the pegasus responded.

Molot growled with primal force. "For once in your life, Serp, just listen to Predvidenie. Get back to Saraneighvo, and go on the hunt. Perhaps it will clear your mind."

The pegasus scowled at Foresight before he turned back to the empty castle hallway and began to fly away. Only in his absence did Molot speak up again. "May I speak freely, Secretary–"

"Now isn't the time for formality. Spit it out."

"I'm not comfortable going in the face of the Tsar's commands."

Foresight groaned. "Or what? He'll preach at you? I'll speak to him, but I need to go see Roscherk first. And remember, Molot, you're the Commandant now. If you're worried about my father, remember that you are leading my brother's Black Cloaks."

Molot shook his head. "I think they're always going to be your brother's, Secretary. We aren't named after my jacket, after all."

Foresight let his head swing left and right as he wandered away. "If that doesn't change, Molot, they'll end up being Frostbite's soldiers."

No sooner were Celestia's eyes shut that her mind swam with visions of a starry void. The change was jarring, and for a moment, her vision swam and her balance shook. "Please, Luna, give me a moment to adjust first. I didn't realize it was your spell at first, so I downed two cups of coffee before I realized you needed to speak to me."

The mistress of the night walked closer across the dark space on shoes of silver, bearing concern and worry across her expression. "Take what spare moments you need, Sister, but I fear our concerns are growing more urgent by the second."

"Oh, believe me, I know. Now–" Celestia's eyes finally came to focus on her sister. "Luna! What happened to your face?"

The younger sister pressed a hoof to her cheek, and felt the growing bruise. "We had a... disagreement with Krenn."

"He hit you?"

"Hold, sister, and I shall explain." Luna waved a wing, and in the empty air beside her, a black bag of dirty leather swirled together from the aether.

Thump, thump.

Celestia's expression only grew more worried at the sight. "Is that–"

"The Centaur's Bag, Sister, yes. It brings back old memories."

The sour expression on Luna's face made it clear that she meant only a single millenium. Celestia smiled, and set about twisting her sister's words toward a happier time. "Do you remember those days? When Krenn was small enough to ride on my back?"

"Indeed, I recall such days, Celestia. Were that he still had such a stature. Perhaps then I might not look the part of such a sorry mare. Truly, I do find it hard to imagine that he lacks the powers of Endura. But I am already telling you the end of my tale. Where do I begin?" Luna waved her wing again, and soon she and her sister stood atop one of the turreted towers of Burning Hearth Castle. They wandered amidst frozen figures of ponies and dragons, plucked cleanly from the younger sister's memory. Krenn's face was contorted in fury as he stared into the bag, midway through some furious shout. "Earlier today, Krenn came to show us some prize he had been given by Tsar Eye. When he brought forth the bag, I assumed that he shared my past intentions."

Celestia took the effort to walk across the castle turret, sit down before her sister, and wrap both forelegs around the smaller alicorn's neck. "The Nightmare is gone, Luna. Twilight's friends and I sealed that darkness away in one of our castle's vaults."

Luna pushed her sister's embrace away. Her face was dripping with determination. "I know that it is not in the bag. I learned that when Krenn struck me across the face for trying to stop him. My mistake is not our cause for concern. Our concerns are very different." Luna glanced over toward the effigy of the draconic ruler, and a haunted sheen seemed to cover her eyes. "He threatened Equestria with war, Celestia."

"No," Celestia muttered, in complete denial. "No, Krenn wouldn't. He'd never..."

"Sister, please, listen to me. Perhaps before I left, we could stand on pretense that I had no need for the knowledge of what drove a wedge betwixt you and he. But now I must know. What happened, in this war a score and two years past, that he should come to loathe you so when once we were the best of friends?"

"I don't know," Celestia responded, shuddering with each word.

"Sister, now is not the time to play games–"

"Luna, I truly do not know. I never spoke to him while the war was raging, at least directly. All I know is that the dragons had nearly reached Canterlot when, out of the blue, he forced them all back himself, under pain of death. I went to ask him what had happened, and thank him for his intervention, but he'd sealed himself up under his volcano for a nap. His regent was... less than pleased to speak with me."

"What reason should Krenn have to hate you so?"

Celestia took a moment to stare at the figure of Krenn. "If I were to guess, he blames me for the death of Naslednik, just as he loathes the Commander."

"Wait, your bodyguard..."

Celestia nodded. "I know you've heard Red Ink speak of it. How he and 'his mentor' are the only two ponies to ever best grown wyrms alone."

Luna's eyes widened. "So he assumes that you were the one to guide such an action. Did you have hoof in–"

"Of course not, Luna!" Celestia shied back after the admonishment, looking away with not so much an expression of shame as regret. "It was a war, and he is a soldier. What else would you expect?" The elder sister regained her composure, and once more returned the featureless expression she favored from day to day. "In its own way, that's ancient history too, now. We should be concerning ourselves with the present. You said that Krenn threatened war. What did he want?"

Luna closed her eyes, forcing a calm over her features. "Firstly, he demanded we deliver him Discord. I have no doubt he will demand that the curse be undone, but it would be no surprise to me if he followed up a cure with the draconequus' death."

Celestia shook her head slowly. "Discord did not deserve to be returned to stone. We already made such a concession for him. Perhaps we will see about undoing the dragon's curse, but I will not see Discord done harm."

"Do we have a choice?" Luna asked. "Can we fight the dragons if it comes to that?"

"There will be another solution, Luna. There always is. We simply must be strong enough to pursue it. Perhaps we can play off his other demands. What else did he want?"

"I... am not sure. He spoke as though you had taken something from him; something personal. Perhaps some treasure from his hoard?"

Celestia shook her head slowly from side to side, leaving her ethereal mane to drift back and forth like a pendulum. "Krenn's hoard is not in gold or jewels, though I have no idea what it actually is. I do have some idea, though. In your... absence, he grew more and more obsessed with finding a cure for the curse of greed. There were years where he stayed in Canterlot, and even studied at my academy. Perhaps he found some artifact like the Elements of Harmony which could undo the damage."

Luna's brow rose. "Now that the Elements have new wielders, why do we not simply ask Sparkle and her friends to undo Discord's magic?"

"They tried, when they resealed Discord. If my suspicion is correct, the Element of Kindness failed. After being forced to turn against her friend, Fluttershy could not call on the magic to help Krenn."

"It still amazes me that she holds the spirit in such consideration." Luna shrugged. "Then again, Kindness was not mine to wield, even so long ago. Magnus certainly has changed since those days."

"I think we all have, Luna." Celestia turned toward the frozen effigy of Krenn with a pained frown of memory on her face. "Though perhaps some more than others. Now, I have news for you too, Luna, and I'm sorry to say that it isn't any happier."

"Perhaps it is better to finish our sorrows in a single sitting. What is the modern parlance? 'Rip off the bandage'?"

Celestia couldn't help but smile slightly. "Yes, Luna. That's right."

Luna smiled widely, and Celestia couldn't help but soak up the exuberance of her little sister. Then, as if a bubble had finally popped at the surface of a bath, awareness of the mood returned, and Luna's smile was gone.

"Very well, Sister. Speak your grave news."

Celestia took a slow breath. "The pony behind Masquerade contacted me."

"What." The word wasn't even a question.

"When she escaped, I thought to use a scrying bowl so I could figure out her method. There was a letter; I won't bore you with the magical theory. I copied it down, and it was addressed to me."

"So the coward finally shows herself."

"Or himself, but yes. I'm not sure how much of the letter to take on faith, but it was revealing in its own way. This pony claims to be motivated by a misguided prophecy warning of a coming war."

"Why should we care, Celestia? In truth, either they still see me as a monster, or their true motive is madness. I do not care which; not after what this pony has caused. Did you gain any information that could actually serve us?"

"Riddles, and nothing more. Do you have any idea where Electrum's Orb is?"

"In truth, Celestia, I have no clue what Electrum's Orb is. I would assume it belonged to the unicorn king of the same name, but that only tells us that it was here in Stalliongrad back when the city was still called River Rock."

"Eight thousand years is a long time for things to get moved around," Celestia responded. "Though it does give us a starting point. Here's something you probably will know. Have you ever invented a language?"

"Celestia, do you truly ask me such a question? Have I invented a language? Surely you jest. I can hardly seem to adapt to this one."

Celestia gave a deadly serious look in her sister's direction. "I didn't mean to sound like I was making fun of you, Luna. My divinations told me that Masquerade's directions were written in a language you had created, some time ago."

"Perhaps you failed your spell, Sister, and the magic of the world gave you a false answer as a taunt. Even we are not perfect mages, after all."

"Maybe..." Celestia frowned. "Well, there is one more thing to realize. Shining Armor is likely dead."

"I was saddened to learn that as well."

Celestia cocked her head. "Did you guide him to the Summer Lands?"

"No, Sister. Captain Ink informed me of Armor's fate."

Celestia's eyes widened in sudden concern. "Luna, listen to me very closely. Was he wearing his black jacket? Did he have the helmet from Platinum's Ward?"

"He wore the jacket, but I saw nothing of the helmet."

"Luna, you need to wake up right now. That isn't Red Ink. Masquerade spoke to you."

Rather than disappearing, Luna glanced aside. A moment later, a shimmering spot of purple and gray became a distinct pony with gold, slitted eyes and purple tinted bat-like wings. "You called, Princess?"

"Yes, Eldest Sister," Luna responded sternly. "It seems that the assassin Masquerade has made her way within the castle, disguised as Captain Ink of the Honor Guard. Sniff her out. You are to apprehend her or kill her. Ensure that enough of the Night Guard remain for me to finish my conversation with my sister in safety."

"Whatever you say, Princess." With those simple words, the mare faded out of the realm of dreams again. With her brief concern dealt with, Luna turned back to Celestia. There, she saw a disapproving scowl.

"I told you not to bring those things with you."

"The Night Guard are not your concern, Celestia," Luna countered. "But if you insist on complaining of them, let me remind you that they cannot be deceived by the assassin, as it seems even I can. By sunrise, I would not be surprised if Masquerade were in our hooves again."

"I hope so, Luna. If your safety is assured, then we need to plan our next step with Krenn. We don't know what he wants, but we will need to find some way to calm his anger."

"You spoke of Steel Lining. Do you think perhaps that he–"

Celestia winced visibly, before tucking her face behind her mane. "Luna, he is dead."

"Sister, this argument is ridiculous. I have searched–"

"You know why, Luna, if you would only think!" This time, the flare of Celestia's agitation was not followed by shame or regret. Luna wilted under the elder sister's glare, but Celestia's rebuke was not yet finished. "Do you think I took pleasure in admitting he was gone? Do you think I for a second that I pronounced him dead without considering every other option? I was not happy to endure the pain of saying goodbye to a friend, and especially not one who stood by my side while you were gone. But I will not cling to childish fantasies when they come at a cost of Equestria's safety."

Luna was hurt. Her eyes held firm, but her jaw shook as she struggled to build words, staring up toward her older sister. "So that's what he was, then? My replacement?"

Celestia's jaw dropped. "No, Luna, I didn't mean–"

"You know, with such a dark blue coat, he nearly looked the part too. Did you dig up Hurricane's Armor to protect him, or as an aid, that you could play pretend?"

Celestia cringed. "You don't understand, Luna. Please–"

"What? What reason have I to listen, Celestia? Now at least I comprehend his loathing for me. Who was he to you, but an understudy for my role, as so many before must have been as well. Yet he was made to live through my return. Well, Celestia, if you miss him so very badly, then I see no reason not to bring him back. After all, now we see that our nation's safety hinges solely upon a childish fantasy." The younger sister turned her back and began to stride away. "Concern yourself not with the assassin, or Krenn's war, or the well being of my would-be replacement, sister. I shall solve Equestria’s troubles."

Masquerade dropped the earthly remains of maid Plumeau on the cold stone floor, deep within the bowels of the earth under Burning Hearth Castle and sagged, panting. In technicality, the maid wasn't dead, but leaving her in such a state would be a cruelty that the assassin could not condone. If Luna weren't physically upstairs, the mare would already be dead, but the risk of the Princess asking questions of a departed soul so close by was too great. So instead, Plumeau was left to suffer as the assassin went about her business.

She jumped when the voice spoke. "You've made it," observed the contractor. She'd never heard him speak before; his tone was unnatural, tinged with magic and yet somehow recognizably equine all the same. Though there was a hint of Stalliongradi in his accent, the way he trimmed the ends of the three simple words suggested a control over his voice, as if the accent were itself a choice, rather than a constant companion.

The assassin spun toward the shadows. Their previous correspondence had always been by letter, dropped off in some secure and obscure location that she would have to track down. But in place of a pony, she saw only a sphere of blue crystal, glowing lightly as it hovered at head level. A strip of cloth had been laid over the top of it gently.

“Screw you,” Masquerade snapped. “First you don’t give me any directions until I’ve already had to stick my neck out meeting with Luna totally unarmed, then you leave me to sneak around the halls with those creepy bat guards everywhere!”

“I knew you would be fine in both circumstances. I wouldn’t risk your life so carelessly.”

“Oh really?” Masquerade spat on the stone floor, and then hissed. “I’m not sure how much I trust your ‘prophecies’ anymore. They sure didn’t work out for me in Canterlot.”

“Oh, there were no prophecies involved, Masquerade; I wouldn’t risk such powerful magic on such a minor issue. No, we’re still playing off my directions from your original contract.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“I’m sure you can understand it if you take a moment to think.”

Masquerade lunged forward toward the ball of light. It failed to flinch at her approach. “You’re gonna give me a straight answer right now. I spent six months as a bucking statue for you!”

“We can discuss your failure to follow simple orders later. I suppose I can afford you an explanation.” The orb orbited her slowly, glowing brighter and dimmer in time with the artificial voice. “In Canterlot, I directed you to rip off the wings of the pegasus guardspony you killed, and put them on your back. I don’t enjoy mutilating corpses. Frankly, I found the act disgusting; however, it was also necessary.”

“It was so they’d think I had to use them when I was taking the shape of a pegasus, right?”

“Precisely,” the contractor responded with a chipper tone. “That was the seed for a deception far more valuable than your magic. We planted the idea that you were only an illusionist, and for the moment, that idea still persists. Luna looked for Arcana to mark your disguise.” The orb’s orbit ceased a few feet from the front of Masquerade’s face.

“Well that’s great, but what if I’d blown playing Red Ink? What if she’d known him?”

“Then you would have failed at a basic task, and would be of little use to me.” The contractor seemed entirely unconcerned with the implications. “Red Ink spent September through December of your imprisonment in Ponyville, and thereafter occupied his time almost entirely in dealing with you. That, and it was my understanding that you had experience playing his role. Five or six years ago, if recollection serves, when we first met.”

“Ponies change.”

“Not really;” the contractor responded. “But philosophy is not the point of our discussion. I believed you would outsmart Luna, and I was correct, so I don’t see why we’re discussing the topic at all.”

“Because I want to know why in Tartarus I should still be trusting you! What about the Night Guard, huh? They almost caught me when I was sneaking my way down here.”

The orb dimmed momentarily. “You fooled Luna, and you fooled them in Canterlot. I see no reason to fear them now, barring the unconscious maid you were carrying on your back. Even then, such a thing would not be out of character for Red Ink.”

Masquerade’s deadpan glare made her thoughts on the comment clear. “I was able to work with them in Canterlot because I had the Commander’s armor; they can see through me, or smell me, or something.”

“...intriguing.”

“That’s it? Intriguing? That’s all you have to say?”

“On that topic, yes. You can wear your own face now; I have no desire to hear Roscherk's voice at the moment."

Red Ink's wings extended, and from the tip of each came a spark of emerald flame. The fires engulfed the stallion's body, and his flesh fell away in blood and ashes that faded before they hit the floor. Rather than a skeleton, a mare was seen underneath. An indigo mare with eyes of sparkling pale sapphire and a mane of swirling ink trailing down her back.

"I see no call for theatrics," the contractor muttered, evidently unimpressed.

"A mare has to have her art, doesn't' she?"

"I wouldn't know," the stallion's voice answered.

“Well, she does. Also, you don’t need to hide behind the orb; I pretty much know who you are, too.”

“Is that so?”

“It isn’t too hard to guess from where I’m standing. Not too many ponies have access to this place, right?”

“More than you might think,” the contractor responded.

“Alright. How many of them actually call Red Ink by his real name? Rowshirk?”

The orb released a tired sigh. “Roscherk. And, again you’ve eliminated fewer possible identities than you probably believe.”

“Fine. How about this? Luna wasn’t the only pony I had too fool getting in here... and that other pony knows Roscherk an awful lot better than she did.”

The orb faded momentarily. “You would be wise to stop your guessing game now, Masquerade, and remember that your other illusions are a boon in smoothing over such issues. If you attempt to contact me in public, I will arrange for your death, and if you are wrong in guessing my identity, the pony you speak to will turn you over to a tragic fate. Am I understood?”

Masquerade nodded as his orb began to glow more brightly. A moment later, with a clinking of coin, a rather large sack fell to the floor in front of the assassin. "Before we go any further, this is the payment for Shining Armor, as agreed. Two million bits, minus the expenses of extracting you from Canterlot comes to seven-hundred-fifty thousand. Three quarters of that sum are Stalliongradian banknotes, and the remaining value is split between actual bit coins minted by the Domains of Canterlot, Trottingham, and Cloudsdale. That should let you spend them without fear of being tracked down."

Masquerade would normally have checked the money, but something about the stallion's voice lent her to trust his statements. Or rather, to fear for her own safety in sitting down to count the money right in front of his 'face'. "Right. Thanks. So what's the plan for Luna now?"

"Plan for Luna?" The orb rotated slightly, shifting the band of cloth. Somehow, the action seemed reminiscent of a dog cocking its head in confusion. "There is no plan for Princess Luna. You failed to follow my instructions, and as a result, for the time being, we will move on to other targets."

"What? You said she'd turn into Nightmare Moon again, and–"

"And that will not happen until the war starts," the contractor finished calmly. "Fortunately, Lord Krenn was kind enough to lay out an incredibly specific timetable for that event. We have six months to arrange Luna's demise. Our other goals will not wait as long." The gem floated toward a nearby door, whose surface was covered in similar shimmering crystals. "If you would be so kind, Madame Ball. I'm afraid I can't manage this particular door on my own."

Masquerade turned toward the door in question. A trio of ponies were depicted in gems across its face. She recognized them all from a lifetime of overdone pageants. In her youth, the assassin had depicted one of them herself.

"Is this one of those doors that only the princesses can open?"

"They're called 'Alicorn Doors', Masquerade. Fortunately, the name is a bit misleading, as alicorns are not the only beings in the world capable of bypassing their magic. This particular example dates back to not long after the ponies it depicts, and as a result, its combination is rather simple. The unicorns put themselves first, so Platinum gets your Arcana."

Masquerade's horn lit up as the contractor continued his speech. "The earth ponies followed their lead for thousands of years, or so the unicorns preferred to believe. As such, Puddinghead is next, with Endura."

Platinum's diamonds and pearls began to glow with the mana from Masquerade's simple spell. The assassin's hoof was placed firmly onto one of the smoothed pieces of amber that made up the stallion's coat. A warm glow filled that assembly of gemstone as well.

"Hurricane came last, with the Cirran migration from modern north-western Zebrica. I assume you understand the pattern."

Indeed she did, and short push of raw Empatha later, the glistening glassy onyx and obsidian that made up the ancient Commander's coat and armor took on an even shinier sheen.

Then came a mighty rumbling, as the two enormous doors pulled apart under their own power. Completely unbothered by the ancient magic, the orb took up a place floating in the center of the doors. Its blue light gave a shallow island of visibility, but nothing more.

"What's down here?" Masquerade asked.

"Privacy," the contractor responded bluntly. "Now before we continue, Masquerade, I'd like you to put on this blindfold. Then we can speak, face to face."

"What? You expect me to trust you?"

"We are co-conspirators in attempted regicide," he observed. "I would prefer to preserve my anonymity. That way, if you make another mistake the way you did with Celestia, she won't be able to gain my identity, and I'll still be able to save you from trouble."

"Right..."

"Would you rather I had left you in Celestia's hooves? I'm sure she'd welcome you back if you asked nicely."

The assassin rolled her eyes. "Fine. Whatever you say. I still don't see why we don't just talk through the orb, though." A little bit of telekinesis grabbed the fabric and made quick work of it. Soon, the world was dark. Sound, scent, and the ripples of mana brushing against her horn replaced sight. The orb was floating away in near-total silence. She followed it as closely as she could manage.

Her hooves reverberated on solid stone floors. Wherever she was, the place was huge, and cold. Then again, the latter wasn't surprising for Stalliongrad. Bouncing from off in the distance in a thousand different directions were ripples of mana from countless strange and inexplicable sources, all vying for her attention. If it weren't for the orb's proximity, she would have been instantly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of the magic. Far behind her, a volume of a different kind picked up when the doors began to grind shut.

She tensed, and the orb stopped. "Worried about something, assassin?"

She shuddered and shook her head. "I'm fine."

"Liar." His false voice grew in intensity with every subsequent word. "You heard the doors slide shut. Now you're down here, lost in the dark, and even if you took off the blindfold, you wouldn't be able to escape. So you assume that I've brought you here to die. Perhaps because you failed with Luna?"

She hesitated, but then nodded slowly.

"That would be wholly idiotic of me. I'd be delivering you straight in Luna's hooves, after all. And while you don't know my identity, you know enough to give her a good guess. I'd like to avoid that. So you can trust me when I say that I have no intentions of killing you."

She sighed, until a jolt of pain surged through her horn. It was brief, but forceful enough to wet the edges of the blindfold on the insides of her eyes.

"That isn't to say I'm not unhappy. Having Luna out of the way would have given us much more room to maneuver now. She wouldn't be sitting upstairs in this very castle, restricting your movements. So let me ask, firstly: were my instructions too difficult for you? Was it so hard to do things in order? I suspect I could not have been any more clear when I told you that you had to have Hurricane's heir out of the picture before you moved on Luna. So explain to me exactly what part of my directions were confusing."

Masquerade lurched back from the orb, and felt cold stone behind her. It hadn't been there a moment before. Her response was simpering and defensive. "You didn't tell me which one of Hurricane's heirs to get rid of! I did my research, I promise! I thought you meant Steel Lining; that's why I drugged him out and dragged him all the way down to Suida. The princesses didn't get to find his soul because he wasn't dead, and I had an opening to go for Luna."

The contractor's mild anger disappeared, and his orb spoke instead with a tone of curiosity. "Steel Lining is a descendent of Commander Hurricane?" As he asked the question, the orb continued its forward motion. It took Masquerade a moment to pick up the willpower needed to follow.

"I didn't find out until after Celestia had already caught up to me, but Steel Lining is Rainbow Dash's dad." Without really thinking about the motion, Masquerade flexed her right forehoof. The strange scar where Rainbow Dash had severed the limb would never really fade. "He kept that pretty secret, too. I went through all his files in Canterlot, but he never talked about her, except with the other Elements of Harmony."

The orb stopped suddenly, but it was not the source of the next voice to speak. A pony's tongue gave her words without the tiny twisting of magical interference. She felt as if she knew the voice, and yet all her struggles failed to place it. She slowly grew sure that there was some magic behind her inability to recognize the voice.

"Rainbow Dash is Steel Lining's daughter? That might be the best news I've heard all day."

Masquerade's eyebrow climbed up from beneath the blindfold. "What? Why does that even matter?"

"It doesn't matter at all to you, but it may be useful for me later. Don't concern yourself with it for now, Masquerade. You'll have plenty of information to ponder over by the time we're done today." He paused notably. "You're welcome to sit; there's a cushion behind you."

Masquerade stuck out a hind leg, and sure enough, found a padded surface in an empty space where she had been standing mere moments before. It would not have been a surprising revelation, except that the contractor's voice had not moved from a singular spot a few feet in front of her, and she'd felt no aura of telekinesis. Momentarily setting aside her surprise, she lowered herself down and did her best to relax.

"Comfortable? Good. Now, on to new business. Do you have the crystal with Commander Hurricane's memories?"

"Yeah." Masquerade's horn pulled the spindle-shaped white crystal out of Red Ink's jacket, and levitated it in the direction of the other pony. She'd been expecting a telekinetic aura to take it from her grip, but instead, the crystal was suddenly gone, as if it had been teleported away. After she shook off the eerie feeling of grabbing thin air with her magic, she voiced a question that had been bothering her since she put the crystal in her pocket. "What's in there, anyway?"

"I have no idea. Taking these memories was not an exercise in gaining information, after all. We're merely denying Celestia the knowledge she needs to oppose us."

"Did your crystal ball tell you that?"

She could hear the disapproval in his response. "I would not tempt looking into the future for such an answer. Divination told me which of the crystals to take, but I discovered the existence of the shards by a far older magic. Namely, by reading, and research."

"Okay, whatever you say," Masquerade responded, making it perfectly clear that she didn't follow his explanation. "What's the deal with Commander Hurricane, anyway? I mean, he was just the racist pegasus from the Hearth's Warming story, right?"

The contractor shook his head, with a smile that spoke volumes in condemning Masquerade's ignorance. "Do you assume his story just ended when the Windigoes were defeated? That he dropped dead that very day, or that he flew off into the sunset and lived happily ever after? Ponies like that don't just disappear. I don't claim to know his role in history any better than most other ponies, but I can tell you that the troubles we are fighting against are ultimately his fault."

"What? You mean with Princess Luna and the war? He died like nine thousand years ago. How could he have anything to do with the modern day?"

"Clearly, you don't appreciate history," the contractor responded with more than a bit of a jab to his words. "Perhaps this example isn't quite so old, but consider that ten thousand years ago, Suida was a beautiful paradise like the nicer parts of Equestria. Then, when he took power, the Warchief Khagan went to war with the elk, who he saw as weaklings. Now Valdria does not permit the land to yield food. Because of what Khagan did those ten thousand years ago, the boars are barbarians where once they were a glorious people, and Suida is a wasteland with only hardy, bitter plants and crumbling ruins, rather than the seat of a beautiful empire."

"The elk can do that? Just make plants stop growing?"

"Just as Celestia moves the sun, and Luna the moon, Lady Valdria permits life to come into being. Not to grow, mind you; any earth pony can cause such a thing. The elk allows life to reproduce."

"Weird..."

"Perhaps. But enough of the past for now. We need to concern ourselves with Equestria's future."

"Right. That's what I'm here for. So what's the mission?"

"The million bit question," the contractor answered calmly. "Also, the reward I'm offering this time, for each of my contracts. I have four tasks for you, but only two are assassinations."

"For a million bits, I don't really care if you're just expecting me to steal Celestia's shoes or something."

"I can hire a thief it that's what I need," the contractor noted. "I'm asking you to use the special talent you once had emblazoned on your flank, Masquerade. I need you to be an actress."

She cocked her head. "Okay, lay it on me."

"Firstly, the two assassinations. I need you to kill the Honor Guard Stoikaja, known as Soldier On."

"It would have been great if you'd told me that one while I was still in Canterlot."

"At the time, she wasn't a threat. Neither was Shining Armor, which is why I had you spare him on your last task as well. Now, with him gone, Stoikaja is one of two ponies in the world with a very peculiar secret. She is a liability, and so is the other pony who knows."

"Okay, so who is it?"

"The Night Guard who goes by the name of 'Third Brother'."

Masquerade sat up on stiff forelegs, casting wide eyes forward despite her blindfold. "Hold on, a Night Guard? Princess Luna will be all over me!"

"Then devise a means to draw him away from her side. You have four months, Masquerade, and I'm sure that gives you enough time to come up with a plan. Unless you aren't up to the task?"

"Hey! I damn near killed one of the princesses! Nopony else can claim that!"

"I'm not entirely certain that is the truth, Masquerade. Regardless, your third task is a bit different. I want you to find the real Roscherk Krovyu, and 'accidentally' reveal your secret to him."

"What?!" The assassin stomped a hoof on the cold stone in front of her pillow. "You want me to give away my trick?"

"Celestia already suspects it, unless she is far less capable than I give her credit for."

"Look, I'm not just going to–"

He cut her off with a louder volume in his voice, though his actual tone remained calm and collected. "There aren't very many creatures in the world that can wield all three forms of magic. If she does not know now, she will soon. So let me make myself clear. I am not actually asking."

"Well that's too bad, because I'm not–"

And then she felt it. The slow spreading chill. But by then, it was too late to even scream.

She heard the contractor's hooves step forward toward her, and she felt when he gently rapped a hoof on the dull gray stone that was her muzzle. "I'm afraid I don't have the skill to make marble, so we'll have to make do with what we can. I have to say I'm disappointed. You don't have much of a sense of figure; your pose in Canterlot was much more impressive. It really is a shame Celestia didn't put you out in the garden. You'd have fit right in."

He paced around her slowly, though the blindfold that still remained over her eyes kept her from seeing him even then. "I'm sorry I had to do this; I didn't want to. In just a moment, I'll free you again, but for now, I'll take advantage of a captive audience while I can.

She felt his breath on her ear, and the weight of his body on her shoulder as he climbed up to reach it. He spoke softly, but firmly. "I said before that we have to trust each other, but the truth is that you do have another choice, if you want to take it."

His weight disappeared, and he took a few pacing steps around her again. "As I'm sure you remember, Celestia and Luna have the capacity to interrogate the souls of ponies on the way to their final resting places. I don't know how that works for you, so I'm not taking any risks. When I taught you the simple mental enchantment to prevent other ponies from betraying your secrets, I placed a similar enchantment on you. Even without actually meeting you face to face, your knowledge was a liability. However, I can't actually allow you to die. This was my solution."

Masquerade wanted to squirm, to scream, to do anything but be trapped as she had for the past months. Yet no option was presented. The object that was the assassin simply stood and listened, staring blankly into the fabric of a blindfold as she was lectured to.

"Now you have two options. You can go to Celestia and Luna, and betray me, in the hopes that they will spare your soul from the fires of Tartarus. Not a secure bet, but one you can make if you want. Your other choice is to trust me, and help my plan to succeed. Because if it does, we will both be heroes."

Masquerade didn't respond. She couldn't. Her foreleg was flaring with phantom pain, and her mind was filled with months of memories, staring at a blank stone wall in near-total darkness.

"Now, there isn't any real means by which I can convince you that I don't mean you harm. However, I consider myself a stallion of reason, so let me explain things reasonably. If, in fact, I were planning on betraying you when this is all over, it would still be in your best interests to pursue my contracts. Any attempt to have the spell removed will end just as the last few moments did. In the best case, Celestia and Luna find you quickly, and you move on to burn for the rest of time. If not, I'm sure some archeologist will dig you up... eventually."

Masquerade was ready to cry at the terror of the thought, but the contractor wasn't done.

"In contrast, pursuing my targets will at least afford you a few months more to live, and enjoy both yourself and the money I've just given you. Obviously, if I truly do intend to spare you, your best interest is still to pursue my ends. Understood?"

Masquerade heard the stone crack, and she felt her motion return. Her first action was to fall to her cushion, sobbing into her blindfold. She was surprised to feel a warm foreleg drape itself over her neck.

"Get away from me!"

Slowly, the limb was pulled back. "Perhaps it would be unfair to ask your forgiveness. I did not mean to hurt you, or force bad memories on you. I had merely hoped to... explain my position." A moment later, she felt something soft and gentle placed atop one of her hooves. "A handkerchief," the contractor clarified gently. She lifted it to her nose with her hoof rather than a spell, and blew heavily. Then came a terribly long silence.

"Are you okay?" the contractor asked.

"...yes."

"Good," he responded with the same unexpected sympathy that had guided his actions. "Now, as I stated, I have your best intentions at heart. That means letting Roscherk Krovyu know your little secret. I understand if this seems unreasonable to you, but I haven't led you wrong before, have I? Once he's carried that message back to the Princess', I'll be able to arrange some... deceptions for you. You'll have much more freedom to carry out your work. That space should dovetail nicely for your final task."

She paused, building up the courage to address him again. He waited patiently for her to be ready. "Which is...?"

The contractor 's voice lost its sympathetic edge. "I need you to go to Grivridge, and take care of another... large target."

Masquerade was fast enough to put two and two together. "You want me to kill the Griffon Emperor?"

"No, in fact. I want you to fail. Deliberately, and publicly. And, more importantly, I want you to be wearing a very specific disguise when you do so." For just a moment, there was a faint blue glow on the inside of the assassin's blindfold. Then, before her eyes, she saw the illusion of a vaguely familiar stallion.

"I think I recognize him," Masquerade noted. "He's one of the Honor Guard, isn't he?"

"Was," the contractor responded. "He died in Grivridge several months ago, and the griffons know that."

"Then won't they think it's strange that a dead pony is trying to assassinate their leader?"

"I hope they do, Masquerade. Tell me, if you knew that a dead pony had returned, and attempted an assassination, who would you blame?"

Masquerade's mind raced. "But... I thought we were supposed to be protecting Equestria! That's going to start a war!"

"And are those mutually exclusive?" the contractor responded. "I have said that I intend to make this world a better place for ponies, and always the assumption is that I mean to prevent a war. Stopping such upheaval would certainly save lives in the short term, and it would preserve the status quo, but I have no interest in either. You're thinking in the same mindset that Celestia does: war and death are the greatest evils, and must be avoided at all costs. The truth, though, is that without war and death, nothing will ever truly change. Celestia's rule has been largely peaceful, and she does a good job of making the world seem comfortable, and because of that, ponies have become complacent. Fixing that is why we are here."

"We? I don't know what you're assuming, but I agreed to this to protect Equestria from Nightmare Moon! I don't want some huge war!"

"Then you are ignoring reality. I've seen the future, and there is going to be a war."

"So that's it, then? You assume there's going to be a war, and you're too afraid to try and stop it?"

The contractor chuckled lightly. It was a haunting sound, slithering its way down Masquerade's spine and unsettling her hooves. "The dragon who gave you your magic taught you of prophecy, I see. Interesting. I may have... misled you, with my words. I did the same with Celestia, in fact, but then, such a deception was intentional with her." She could almost smell the smile on his face. His amusement was certainly palpable. "I know I could stop the coming war. Or at least delay it. Honestly, even fighting the magic, it wouldn't have proven so hard; given what we've already accomplished, it would be now, but that's another matter."

She felt a hoof settle gently on the bottom of her jaw, lifting her head up as if to look into the eyes of a taller stallion. Blindfolded, she saw no purpose to the action, but she made no action to stop it all the same.

"If I were to stop the war, I would be leaving Equestria exactly the way it is. And if you have the courage to look beyond the shallow surface, you will see that the way Equestria stands today is a teetering spire of blocks without mortar that has only stood together this long by dumb luck, and the intervention of ponies like us."

His hoof was pulled away gently, teasing her chin as it moved. She shuddered at the brief sensation, which would not have been so troublesome had she been able to see.

"What if Discord had broken out of his imprisonment a mere two years earlier than he did? Or twenty? Or forty? We had no ponies to wield the Elements then. Or perhaps consider the last time dragons came to Stalliongrad. Celestia was too frightened to defend our nation herself, and we came to the very verge of total destruction, before Krenn spared, for no act we took on our own."

"So your plan is to use the war to force Celestia to make the country safer?"

"No, that there is exactly the issue. We can't count on Celestia. Take the Blizzard Revolution. Celestia knew perfectly well that a war was raging in Stalliongrad, and her response was to send a single pony. Not to end the conflict, but simply to arrange for the 'correct side' to win.

The contractor stopped briefly, collecting his thoughts. "What I want, Masquerade, is a world where ponies aren't the slaves of spirits and monsters, dragons and griffons. I want a world where when a threat faces us, we can stand and fight it and protect ourselves, instead of running between Celestia's legs like frightened foals. As the world stands today, our species stands at the mercy of fates far beyond our control. Without careful planning, a war with the dragons would simply devolve into a battle between Krenn, Celestia, and Luna. I have no doubt we would win, but how many helpless ponies would be dead in the meantime?"

He huffed. "I want a world where we answer to our own desires. Where, with struggle, we can carve our own fates, rather than living at the mercy of our god-princesses, or our prophecies, or the ridiculous marks on our flanks. In short, I want a world where free will is a reality, rather than a foal's fairy tale."

Masquerade took a long slow breath as his words sank in. And then she spoke. "Well, that's nice, but how is a war going to help us get any of that? If anything, a war is exactly what you're worried about! Tons of ponies dead when they can't help it. Krenn and Celestia and Magnus and who knows what else fighting while the little pony gets ground down under their hooves."

"That is why we're here, Masquerade. To rig the game. To make sure that things come out exactly the way we want. And yes, there will be blood on our hooves. But I have a hard time imagining you suffering for that. You've killed plenty of ponies in your life, haven't you?"

"Yes, but not en masse! And it's not like they're innocents."

The contractor sighed. "Innocence is irrelevant when we know of the Summer Lands as an all-but-proven fact. The ponies who die are making a sacrifice for the benefit of Equestria, but they are also gaining the glories of a perfect afterlife in exchange. They may suffer, but only for a short time." The contractor paced slowly in front of the blinded assassin. "This may be a great deal to take on faith, Masquerade, but my plan will work. So now I'll ask you: will you help me, now that you know my intentions?"

Masquerade paused midway through a nod. "What happens at the end?"

"Well, that's for Equestria to decide. But we'll be their heroes, once they learn what we've given them."

"No, I mean the end. Even if we win, Luna and Celestia still get us when we die, right?"

The contractor laughed, suddenly very close to Masquerade. She felt his hoof on her shoulder, and his breath gently tickled her ear.

"You won't need to worry about that. I'll give you the moon, Masquerade."

The wind rushed through Rainbow's mane as she walked along the roof of the rushing train. Ahead, lush jungle green feathers at the tip of a rather gangly wing were dancing in the very same wind. Closer to the stallion's body, a dirty brown mane embraced the same motion.

She walked up to his left side. From there, she saw a crippled stallion. A broken wing and a missing eye covered with a flat black patch. Some of his magic must have been working its will on the air, as it parted wide around the stallion to pass in white streaks a wing's width from both sides of his body. The roaring was not deafening, but its volume still kept Rainbow's approach hidden until she wrapped a wing around his back.

"You okay?"

"Just bad memories."

"Sorry."

He smiled, just a little. More of a tug on the corner of his cheek, really. "Thanks, Dash."

Then followed silence. Not true silence, with the roar of the wind, but a deeper lack of noise, where nothing was truly being thought between the two. Rainbow only spoke up when the bottom edge of the sun touched down on the horizon. "You wanna talk about it?"

"Not much to talk about, really."

"Okay."

Reckoning turned, so that Rainbow would be within the vision of his still-present eye. "Let me teach you something, Rainbow, okay?"

She simply nodded.

"When somepony is feeling bad, and they say there isn't much to talk about, you should ask them what there is to talk about."

Rainbow chuckled lightly, though most of it was lost to the train's speed. "If that's what you wanted, why didn't you just say so?"

"I didn't live almost seventy years to hear snark from a filly like you," the young stallion answered with a smile.

"So, are you going to say something?"

"Well, to start with, what did On send you up here to say?" Rainbow turned to stare at him directly, eyes widened. She didn't even have to ask her question. "I've been playing the game a lot longer than she has, Dash. I know all the little speeches and the tricks. I used to have a platoon of scouts down in Zebrica, going on forty years ago."

"Really?"

"They're all dead now. It was a war of attrition, really. We'd stumble onto a griffon encampment. Take out six or seven. Lose one, or two. That's what made it hurt. The slow death. A thousand cuts. One by one, watching them drop like dominoes until I was the only one left. It took me a long time to see that it wasn't my fault. I never screwed up. They didn't die from my bad calls. They died because I made all the right calls, but that didn't change that it was still a war." He sighed audibly despite the rushing wind. "I took their tags, but I usually had to leave the bodies. And as the weight around my neck got heavier and heavier, I started wondering when it was going to be me. They weren't any different in my eyes. Maybe I was a little faster, or a little stronger, but in the end, that didn't matter when you were staring down a griffon. Every time I watched one of my stallions die, there was that question. Who next?"

Rainbow lingered in silence, having no idea what to say.

"I can't be on the other side of that, Rainbow. I can't be the one answering that question."

"Then don't," Rainbow answered, with more conviction than she really felt. "We can do this without killing anypony."

"I hope so, Rainbow."

"I know so," the young mare told him. "Nopony died when we beat Nightmare Moon. Nopony died when we beat King Sombra. Nopony is gonna die here."

Reckoning smiled and nodded along, though there was something hollow to both his expression and his motion. "I wish I could hold you to that."

She wrapped her wing tighter over his lanky frame, and added a hoof. He pulled away from the contact, leaning into her wing and away from her body. "Trust me, Deadeye. We'll be alright."

The stallion couldn't help but laugh. "Just like we were in Zebrica?" It was Rainbow's turn to wince, as the stallion finished his thought. "I'm glad you're with us."

"Thanks," she muttered, as a slight blush reached her cheeks.

The setting sun caught Reckoning's jaw in a peculiar way. The rough fringes of his coat left shadowed orange ridges across the blinded side of his face, painting over his eye patch and the trio of parallel scars along that ran down his cheek. Rainbow stared at him, and the heat in her cheeks grew. That same heat drove her actions. Her hoof slid off his shoulders, and wound its way down until it came to rest atop his.

For more than a moment, Reckoning stared down with a wide blue eye, where his hoof was trapped. Finally, he pulled his gaze away, to look her in the eye with surprise.

"What are you–"

"Deadeye," Rainbow interrupted, as she rested her head on his shoulder and closed her eyes in satisfaction, "shut up."

Reckoning was left to embrace the young mare's warmth as he stared into the sunset, as the Wild Southwest chugged off toward the horizon. With a heavy heart, he wrapped his left leg over her shoulders, and held her closer yet.

Author's Note

A HUGE thanks to Ruirik for his assistance in writing my first ever 'romance' scene. Also, for the awesome pictures on my blog, which you should check out if you haven't already.

IX - Who Dares Win?

IX

Who Dares Win?

In theory, it could have been described as the twenty-first of January, though the sun had yet to truly rise on what Rainbow would usually call a new day. She awoke to a blunt prodding in her side, which she resisted by rolling over. The prodding responded by reaching around her barrel and pulling her outright from her bunk. Rather than a sudden collision with the floor, she landed on a firmly muscled back.

"Good morning, Rainbow Dash."

"Soldier On...?" The pegasus groaned as she rubbed her eyes. "What time is it?"

"Five in the morning, Dash." That was Deadeye's voice. "First light on the horizon."

Soldier On continued where Reckoning had left off. "Will you be getting off my back, or should I carry you to food like your little sister?"

"Little si– Scootaloo?"

On shrugged, dropping Rainbow onto the floor. Then the huge earth pony turned around, so she could comfortably look the younger mare in the eyes. "'Resistant' was quite popular with the Crusaders."

"Yeah... I bet she didn't wake them up at zero in the friggin' morning."

On shrugged. "We need to get used to the schedule for Suida, as around midday it becomes too hot to travel. We will walk in the morning, sleep over lunch, and continue when the air has cooled off."

"Maybe you need to sleep, but the heat doesn't really bother me." Reckoning and On shared an amused glance. "Hey! What's so funny?"

"Just how tough you think you are," Reckoning explained as he stretched his good wing. At Rainbow's offended expression, he laughed. "Not that you aren't tougher than most everypony else out there, Rainbow. But this isn't going to be just a few hours out in the sun; Suida is huge, and we don't even know where the Commander is. We'll probably be in the desert for weeks, and we'll need our strength if we run into any hostile boars, or giant scorpions, or all the other great things you find down there."

"Changelings," On added pointedly, "which is why you will need to be up to par at fighting."

Rainbow smiled. "Reckoning already taught me how to use pegasus magic."

On's brow rose slowly. "I see. Show me what you know."

Rainbow groaned. "Can't we at least get breakfast first?"

"Dining car doesn't open for an hour," she answered, spreading her legs slightly and bending her knees.

"What, in here?" Rainbow struggled for a moment with her words. "On a train? This room is tiny."

Soldier On nodded. "If memory serves, Thunder Crack had you fight in an enclosed space as well. Didn't you learn from him?"

"Well, yeah, but–"

On didn't really hit Rainbow; the action was honestly just a shove. However, a shove from somepony at least twice, if not three or four times the pegasus' weight was enough to send her lurching backward against the door. It wasn't enough to leave a bruise on anything save Rainbow's ego.

She lunged forward, using her wings for speed, and lowered herself just as Thunder Crack had taught her. Focusing her determination and her surge of anger into her right forehoof, she threw a magically potent punch at Soldier On's face.

A moment later, Rainbow was pinned on the ground, her belly on the wood, with Soldier On kneeling on her right wing and controlling both her forelegs. She hadn't even landed the attack.

"Now we know where to start," the earth pony above her observed.

The afternoon of the twenty first of January had no business being so damnably hot. Such were the thoughts of the Royal Guard Staff Sergeant and first string Wonderbolt named Soarin', as he soared over San Palomino City. There was still snow on the ground in the Domain of Canterlot, but winter had clearly been dealt with on the border of the true southern desert.

He felt naked without his uniform, and the unbalancing weight of the messenger bag against his flank did nothing to make the flight more comfortable. A few days earlier, he might have assumed that being the second best flier on the Wonderbolts would get him out of what amounted to messenger duty. Then again, you didn't just say 'no' to Princess Celestia. So now he was enduring the visible waves of heat against his pale blue coat. To take his mind off the temperature and the waste of time that was his assignment, he looked down at the city below.

San Palomino was a strange town. Built around a central lake was a lush garden district where the elite and wealthy built their homes between concentric circular streets. Yet beyond the low fence at the outer edge of the region, the order of the inner streets gave way to utter chaos. It wasn't that the city's denizens were poor or desperate so much as they were simply unorganized. Streets wound in zigzagging patterns with arbitrary width and depth, dodging wildly around wherever the settlers had chosen to plop down their residences.

It was also the fifth largest city in Equestria, having recently overtaken Roam. It was hard for Soarin to imagine how there could be more ponies wandering those zany winding streets than lived in all of the Domain of Stalliongrad or, for that matter, the cloud cities in the Domain of Cloudsdale. Three million ponies, clustered together in the heart of the desert, bending the land to their will. It was amazing, awe-inspiring, and in a way, terrifying.

Yet his attention and the letter in the messenger bag on his flank weren't meant for any of those millions of ponies. His destination was by the lake, where the water from the Coltorado spilled down from the north. He angled his wings down toward the building.

It was old. He could almost smell it. Huge white plaster pillars created three tiers of enormous balconies overlooking the sparkling water. Ponies–mostly unicorns–in old fashioned servant's garb stood outside, fanning themselves and lurking in whatever shadows could be found, trying to escape the oppressive heat. A few glared at the approaching pegasus, but none made any move to address him as he dropped smoothly and professionally onto the lowest level of the tiered porches, just in front of the pair of whitewashed Prench doors that led into the building proper.

"Just what do you think yer doin'?" asked a deep, male voice.

Soarin twitched at the noise, glancing back over his shoulder. "Delivering a letter."

The pony who had spoken up was hidden in the shade of a wide-brimmed cowpony hat and a duster jacket. What little of his muzzle could be seen beneath the garments was a sort of dirty blonde. A little star badge was pinned to his left lapel. "Mhm. Ah'll bet. Ya know whose house this is, kid?"

"Kid?" Soarin, who was beginning to push thirty, puffed himself up with his wings. In total, he came to about level with the other stallion's eyes. The stallion was still slouching against the back of one of the pillars.

"Yep. I figure kid fits you 'bout right." The other pony might have been amused at the way Soarin twitched, were his hat not pulled down too low to actually see the pegasus' face. "You the mailcolt, then? Give it here, I'll take it up to Miss Warden."

"I can't," Soarin answered. "Princess Celestia said I have to give it to the Duchess myself."

At that comment, the slouching stallion stood up properly, and lifted his hat to look Soarin in the eyes. "Celestia? Kid, you'd bet not be tryin' some stupid prank, or so help me..."

"If it were up to me, I wouldn't have flown all the way from Canterlot in the first place; I'm missing practice for this. The Princess said the letter was time sensitive, which is why I powered through this whole flight in one day. Now where's Duchess Warden?"

The stallion sighed, and tweaked his hat again. "She's inside shootin' billiards with her foal and the Sheriff. Come on."

The inside of the building was as deliberately archaic and simultaneously impressive as its exterior. Paintings, ornate glass chandeliers, and exotic Saddle Arabian rugs filled the otherwise whitewashed walls and gorgeous tiled floors. Statues, busts, and potted plants were tucked in corners. Yet for all its glories, there was a sense of claustrophobia to the ground-based home that the pegasus stallion simply couldn't shake.

Two floors up and an architectural wing over, Soarin's escort came to a stop outside a fancy wooden door. His hoof lifted for two gentle taps. The Wonderbolt took curious note of the heavy steel shoe the other pony wore. Despite the softness of his motion, the sound of his knock was astounding to the pegasus.

"What is it?" snapped an exasperated voice from within.

"Some pegasus here. Says 's got a letter from Princess Celestia for you, Ma'am."

"Oh!" The door swung open at the behest of a scarlet aura. "Do come in, Marathon! Why didn't you–" Despite its lilting quality, her drawl did not drain away in volume. Instead, upon seeing the pony she was addressing, her voice simply cut off.

Soarin' stepped inside to an opulent billiards room. On one side of the table, an earth pony stallion with a waxed brown moustache and a larger silver star badge on his vest offered the pegasus a raised brow. Opposite him were two ponies. A little reddish brown unicorn colt leaned against a grown mare of a scarlet demeanor, who glared at Soarin over half-moon glasses. "You aren't the usual messenger."

Soarin' sighed. He recognized this one from the Grand Galloping Gala, though he doubted she could identify him without his uniform. Time to put on his best 'press-conference' smile. "No, Duchess Warden. I'm Soarin', from the Wonderbolts."

Half her glare broke as her left eyebrow climbed her face. "The one with the atrocious table manners?"

The stallion winced, and chose not to answer the comment. "Princess Celestia needed a message sent to you."

"And where is Miss Marathon?"

Soarin' shrugged. "Never heard of her, to be honest."

The Duchess turned her attention to the other grown stallion in the room. "You see, Silver Star? The Canterlot guard can't even keep their own membership straight. Shining Armor's favorite messenger is busy, so he sends some 'celebrity' to give me my mail."

"Seems like a natural choice to me, Duchess," the mustached pony responded with a heavy San Palomino accent. "Ain't the Wonderbolts s'posed to be great fliers or somethin'?"

"That is my point exactly, Silver. We don't waste our best rangers on some... shoe shootin' team, as you might so eloquently put it. I do find myself most at odds with this Shining Armor, and his management of Equestria's defenses."

Soarin' considered himself an even-tempered pony, but it took a great deal of willpower to hold his tongue. "Captain Armor wasn't involved in this, Duchess. Princess Celestia contacted Captain Spitfire directly, and I was chosen to actually carry the letter."

"Frankly, Wonderbolt, I'm not interested in your broken bureaucracy. I'm waiting on your message."

Soarin' dug the letter out of his bag and held it out. Red Warden sighed, pulled the letter across the room, and scanned it. "You can consider your message delivered, Wonderbolt. Enjoy your flight home."

Soarin's mouth slipped ever so slightly agape. "Can I at least have a drink or something? I flew non-stop from Canterlot."

The Duchess nodded without looking up. "I don't care. You, ranger."

"Yes, ma'am?" replied the pony in the broad hat and the duster.

"Get this... 'Soarin' whatever he requires."

"Of course. Come on, kid."

Groaning as quietly as he could manage, Soarin' wandered out of the room. It was hard to be optimistic, so he settled on the thought that at least the other pony wasn't comparing him to a marshmallow like Spitfire so often did. Still, he looked forward to the train ride home, out of the perpetual sweat of the infernal heat.

"Ice." Rainbow thrust her wing into the glass and succeeded at drenching Dead Reckoning's face. He reached up and brushed off his eye patch with his good wing. "That's called water, Rainbow."

"Well, it's hard," Rainbow answered. "I don't just get super sad because somepony says so. I'm not a..."

"An emotional train wreck?" Soldier On proposed with mild bemusement.

Reckoning responded by rapping on the floor with a hoof. "Maybe not the best turn of phrase there, Lieute–"

"No rank, Reckoning."

"Sorry," the once old stallion mumbled, before turning his attention back to Rainbow. "Fire."

"Fire? What am I even supposed to do for that?"

The sound of a hoof meeting a forehead filled the room, and then Reckoning sighed. "I explained this before we started. Air is excitement, earth is fear, water is sadness, and fire is..."

"Anger?"

Reckoning chuckled. "You can't say it like that, Rainbow. It's anger." He accompanied the word with a sort of throaty growl, and then rose up on his hind legs and spread his wing as if to accentuate his faux-foul mood.

The two mares in his company laughed at the show, and in return, Reckoning gave them a full standing bow. His work done, the actor returned to sitting, and focused his attention on Rainbow. "Now, do fire."

"But you just made me laugh."

Reckoning gave her a rather dead-eyed stare, and simply waited. Equestria's greatest flier closed her eyes, spread her wings, and focused. At first, there was nothing. Merely memories. But then she felt it. A spark, at the tip of her wings, and a warmth that seemed to fill her blood. "I... I've got it!"

Rainbow opened her eyes in time to see Reckoning lick his right forehoof. Then he pinched her wing. The tiny sizzle sounded like disappointment.

Behind the Wonderbolt, the door to the billiards room swung shut at the behest of Red Warden's magic.

"What's it say, dear?" Silver Star asked as soon as the unicorn rolled up the message.

"The best news I've heard in years," Red Warden answered, picking up her cue. "And an opportunity."

"Ooh, mommy, what did it say?" The little colt at her hooves smiled as she gave him a disaffected glance.

"Politics, Junior," Silver Star told the little colt. "Nothing to worry over."

"Aww, but Dad..." the foal whined, only to be cut off by a gentle embrace from his mother.

"Now, Silver, I think Flannel has earned the right to hear a bit about his future." After scolding the grown stallion, the mare turned to face her son. "We're going to make you the Prince of Canterlot, sweetie."

"Huh? You mean like Princess Celestia? Will I get wings?"

Red Warden smiled. "First thing's first, dear. Why don't you go swimming? Silver and I need to have a little chat. Grown-up stuff."

"Aww... Okay, I guess." The little colt ran out of the room as a smile returned to his face. "I'm gonna be a prince!"

"Ya shouldn't get his hopes up like that, dear."

"He'll understand when he's older, but for now, I'd rather let him have his dreams. It will help him learn ambition."

With his lips hidden behind his moustache, Sheriff Silver Star seemed to have no expression at all. "Fine. Now, what's the letter actually say?"

"Shining Armor is dead."

"What?" The news seemed to generally trouble Silver Star, who slowly removed his own hat.

"Oh, save the theatrics for Cadenza. He was an incompetent leader." Red Warden set down the letter, and her magic opened a cabinet against the wall, which doubled as a rack for the room's store of billiard cues. Out came a bottle of extremely well aged brandy, alongside two glasses, and a few ice cubes. "Now, we have a chance to move up in the world, for Flannel Mouth's sake."

"How far up 's there ta go, really? He'll be Duke of San Palomino some day."

"Bah. Ruling over six million farmers and a sandbox? That's what you want to leave him? He has the blood of Commander Hurricane and Princess Platinum in his veins."

Silver Star's brow rose. "Uh, ain't that kinda weird. Just two weeks ago, I saw the Appleoosa pageant, and–"

"Don't take your history from that stupid play." Red Warden pinched her brow, before taking a slow sip of her drink. It coated her mouth like syrup, lending a silky tone to her words. "Most of the nobility in Equestria can trace themselves back to Princess Platinum the Third–the daughter of Commander Hurricane and Princess Platinum the Second, who was Hurricane's... seventh wife? Eighth? I can hardly remember my pegasus history on a good day, dear, but..."

"Eight wives?"

"Well, perhaps 'wives' isn't quite the right term." Red Warden chuckled. "Pegasi aren't known for being the most faithful of lovers, after all. But the point is that the nobility of Equestria follows the line of Platinum the Third, the warrior princess and the first Captain of the Royal Guard. Ever since then, her offspring have been the advisors of the Princess...es, and more importantly, the protectors of the common ponies who can't take care of themselves."

"I don't see you out on patrol, dear," Silver Star taunted.

"The hardest leadership isn't done from the front, dear. That's what Shining Armor never understood. Because unlike Unending Vigil and Iron Curtain, he isn't from the Line of Platinum. I'm certain he made an excellent blunt instrument for Vigil when she led the Royal Guard, but he had no business giving orders himself. So now his position is open, and we have an opportunity."

"What're ya saying, dear?"

"I'm saying that Princess Celestia will soon need a new Captain of the Royal Guard. For the moment, she has a replacement, but that one is guaranteed to be temporary. And, as she showed with Tsar Eye's son, she is more than willing to look outside Canterlot when she cannot find a competent leader within. She's already taken the Black Cloak's leader, and I can't imagine she'd go to them again, given their reputation. Prance's military is a joke, almost as bad as Armor's, and Trottingham doesn't have it much better. Our biggest real competition is Prince Eccesivo from Bitaly."

"Whoa, dear, hold your horses. I'm no good at all this political stuff, ya know."

"We play to our talents, Silver." Red Warden smiled. "I'll summarize for you. There is a group of three ponies trying to make their way from Canterlot down into Suida, and Princess Celestia wants them caught. She seems worried about starting a war with the boars. One of them was behind the plot against Princess Luna. I want you to take your rangers, grab them all, and bring them in."

"They aren't my rangers, Red. They're the rangers."

"I disagree, Marshal Silver Star." Red Warden refilled his drink telekinetically, and raised a short toast before savoring another glass. "And if you catch those ponies before Celestia's Royal Guards do, I'd imagine it will be Captain Silver Star after that."

"You want me to be Captain of the Royal Guard?" Silver Star's mouth hung open until a telekinetic nudging from the mare pushed it shut.

"I think you'd do fabulously; you certainly handled the buffalo uprising last year better than anypony could have expected. Celestia will be proud to have you. Once you're running Canterlot Palace and I have Celestia's ear, we'll see about replacing that... imbecile Blueblood. Everypony knows he'll never have a legitimate noble heir."

Silver Star took a long slow breath ,and drained his glass in a single gulp. It was refreshing, in a sense. "You said I have to beat the Royal Guard's to the capture? Won't the Princess be mad if I'm steppin' on their hooves?"

"Ah, but that's the best part. Celestia's sending her new 'replacement' Captain herself on the mission."

"How in Equestria is that a good thing for us?"

"Because the pony in question is the biggest disgrace in the history of the Royal Guard. I'm sure you've heard of White Flag."

Rainbow was awoken too early once more on the morning of the twenty-second. Soldier On had led her in near total silence to the back of the train. The short journey came to its end on the small open platform that hung off the back of the caboose. All around them, in the warm light of a sun that had not yet crested the horizon, a desert of vibrant shrubs and tiny creatures was coming to life. While not often one to sit and stare, the pegasus had to admit that what she was seeing was beautiful.

Then On threw her off the train.

After a moment to catch herself, and another to start flying forward, she shouted at her companion. "What the hay?"

"We're going to work on your endurance, and your speed," On called off the edge of the train, before grabbing a blanket off her back and wrapping it around her forehoof. What she ended with rather resembled the cushioned targets used to train boxers.

Rainbow took the hint. A thrust of her wings propelled her forward, trailing a faint rainbow outline as she moved. Her hoof struck for a single hard punch, and then she returned her attention to flying in the wake of the train.

"One hit isn't any good, Rainbow."

The pegasus groaned, though most of the noise was lost to the wind. "I can't keep up with a moving train and fight that fast. When I hit your hoof, it's going to push me back too!"

"Your father could do this," On observed.

Rainbow glared. "Well, sorry my special talent isn't being a colossal jerk."

"He's a hero," Soldier On noted with even more iron in her tone than usual.

The pegasus lunged forward, barely managing to land three hits before she had to flare her wings and gain altitude. The sudden drag of extended feathers also pulled her back, out of reach of On's padded hoof. "Really? Everypony says that, but then I always wind up hearing about how he killed something."

Rainbow's next flurry only landed twice before wind and gravity tugged her away.

"He's a soldier," On stated. "I guarantee you that more ponies are alive today because of what he's done than there are ponies that he has killed."

"How can you say that?" Panting in a mixture of anger and fatigue, Rainbow nevertheless landed four hits against On's hoof. "Just counting lives like that? Like they aren't even real ponies?!"

Solder On's words were calm. " No. We don't think of them as numbers. Every single one is a real pony, a pony with hopes and dreams and a family. A pony just like us. And we do everything we can to keep as many of those ponies alive as we can." On looked away for a moment, as if lost in thought. "But somepony has to make the choice. And the choice hurts."

"I don't think so," Rainbow answered, matching the train's speed to effectively hover above Soldier On. "Your choice sounds like giving up to me. I'd save everypony."

Letting herself drop and lashing out with all four hooves, she managed thirteen strikes against On's hoof. But her wings flared too late, and she landed hard on the tracks. The wind and the fleeing train stole Soldier On's reply.

The twenty-third of January bore witness to a perpetual snowstorm. Of course, this was exactly as was to be expected in the city of Stalliongrad. The glum looks on the faces of the ponies of the city did little to better the weather, trapped as they were beneath the strict curfews and tight observations of the dreaded Black Cloaks.

Yet high over the city, looming out of the cliff-side, Castle Burning Hearth and its inhabitants were far from the troubles of the common ponies below. Instead, they had their own problems, of far more secretive and threatening natures.

Secretary Foresight, who had not been called by his given Stalliongradi name in nearly thirty-six hours, sighed heavily and readjusted his scarf as he stared out the window in his study. "Princess, I'm saying this with the utmost respect for your rule and your intentions, but that is by far the most ridiculous idea I have heard out of anypony's mouth in months. You still aren't healed from the last time you spoke with him."

Princess Luna, who had taken up residence in Foresight's tall and extremely well cushioned armchair, magically summoned water from a carafe on a nearby table. Before her, it swirled into a perfect mirror. In it, she saw the truth in his words. Though her cheekbones had fully set, the swollen purple lumps that covered her cheek had only grown larger. With a quick flare of magic, she prepared a simple illusion. The magical makeup restored her face to its natural state. Satisfied, she returned the water to its vessel.

"We have to do this, Foresight."

"Princess."

Luna groaned, shooting a narrow glance across the room at Mirror Image. The unicorn with the split horn had recovered well, and as such could be found leaning against a bookshelf near the door of the room.

"I have to do this. We don't know what it is that Krenn desired, and unless I ask him, my sister will search in vain until war comes."

"That is perfectly understandable, Princess. What I don't understand is why you insist on taking this risk yourself. Why not send Miss Marathon–"

"Marathon has not been seen in two days, since I dismissed her from my service. I believe I told you so earlier." Luna frowned momentarily, before allowing herself a drink of water. When she looked up, Foresight had turned away from the window and was staring at the mare with wide eyes. "Hath I said something wrong?"

"Two days ago..." He shook his head. "It's nothing you need to worry about, Princess. Domain business, for once, rather than dragons and assassins. But you haven't answered my question. If not Marathon, then why not one of your... 'vamponies'."

Luna chuckled. "They are the Night Guard, Foresight, though I suspect they may be the origins of that myth. Regardless, alone they would not be well received by Krenn, or some of the older dragons who live near him...for much the same reason that my sister draws offense at their presence."

Foresight opened his mouth for yet another protest, but was cut off by the door to the study swinging open. Before the butler could even speak, Foresight was on him, glaring over the tops of his glasses. "Stockyard, this is a private discussion."

The rather dull gray unicorn butler recoiled. "Цесаре́вич, Графиня Февраль прибыла чтобы увидеть вашего отца."

Foresight winced. "I'm sorry, but we will have to cut this conversation short for now." The unicorn stood up and started walking toward the door. Without even really paying attention, his magic loosened his scarf until it hung freely from his neck. He made his way out the door of the chamber, only to find not only Stockyard, but Princess Luna and her bodyguard following in his wake.

"Pray tell, Foresight, might my guard or I be of assistance in this issue?"

"Not now, Princess," the unicorn told her with a certain sharpness to his voice. "It's..." He took a moment to consider his words. "Pest control." His legs were rapidly approaching a gallop as he made his way through Burning Hearth Castle.

"Most stallions don't blow off a beautiful mare to deal with pests," Mirror Image noted aloud.

Foresight responded with an agitated glance to the Honor Guard, though his words were meant for a different stallion. "Who let her into the castle, Stockyard?"

"Э... Их-"

"Speak Equiish."

"Apologies, sir." Stockyard paused to pant from keeping up with Foresight's pace. "It's not just Countess February. Duke Conclave, Lady Populous and a few dozen other nobles are waiting in the ballroom, with their entourages. I understand it was Commandant Molot who let them pass."

"Who are all these ponies?" Mirror Image asked.

Foresight gritted his teeth. "Pests. They're the old blood of Stalliongrad. Nobles from before the Blizzard Revolution. More than a few of them share Frostbite's blood..." He let the words trail off, sucking down breaths as he sprinted the halls. "My mother was one of them, so I have noble title in this domain, but Father does not." Foresight flung open a door ahead of the group with his magic, and began making his way down a pleasantly wide spiral staircase.

"Father was of the opinion that we ought to do away with noble titles and land entitlements completely after we took over. Yet another of his philosophical ideas that doesn't work in reality. We needed them in place for infrastructure, and because of their holdings in other domains. Stalliongrad imports more than two thirds of its food from Canterlot and Trottingham, and at the time I didn't have the money to cover the imports."

The other ponies let the rather self-inflated comment slide as Foresight's lecture continued. "Since then, they've cut us off at every turn. Some of them are unhappy because Father isn't a noble, but the ringleaders like Countess February still haven't gotten over what my brother did to Frostbite. And I'd bet my horn at least one of them is funding Stoikaja's rebels. Without proof, though, there isn't much I can do." He stopped at one of the doors out of the stairwell, took a series of three very deep breaths, and stepped out onto a broad mezzanine overlooking a mass of ponies.

The Burning Hearth Castle ballroom mirrored the same chamber in the Canterlot Royal Palace. In fact, Burning Hearth had been the inspiration for the chamber that played host to such glorious events as the Grand Galloping Gala and the annual Hearth's Warming Ball. However, where Canterlot adored its reds and purples, Burning Hearth played host to a scheme of white and gold. At the far north end of the room, Foresight and the three ponies following him stood at the top of a broad flight of white marble stairs that curved outward in both directions to form a sort of fleur-de-lis that spread over the dance floor. Below, rather than checkers, the same white marble of the stairs created an ornate smooth surface that rather resembled a frozen lake, and shone like a mirror. Overhead, an enormous chandelier of golden rings and glass gave the room light, courtesy of well hidden electrical wiring Foresight had installed himself. Two huge fireplaces sat on the east and west walls between arched windows that looked out on the snowy world beyond. False buttresses filled the corners of the room, filigreed in gold and silver to add color and a sense of wealth without consuming space. Far to the south, opposite Foresight's group lay a pair of massive wooden doors that opened on the main foyer of the castle.

Tsar Watchful Eye himself stood at the foot of the northern stairs, his gold coat matching perfectly with the gilded nature of the structure. Though most ponies would see him as entirely calm, Foresight noted the way his father's shoulders had pinched just above his wings–the sole sign on the alicorn's body of any dismay. Opposite him, before the foyer doors, one particularly distasteful white mare with a golden blonde mane was addressing her ruler.

"...и именно по-этому, Государь, вы должны–" She looked up as the rest of Foresight's party stepped into full view. "Princess Luna?" The stiff looking unicorn mare dropped to a knee in a deep bow, and almost eighty ponies followed suit. The Tsar did not, nor did he even turn around.

Luna stepped to the edge of the stairs, where she was in plain view of the assembled ponies. "Rise. We are not–" Mirror Image let out a barely restrained cough that nearly sounded natural. Luna gave him a grateful glance, rather than her usual annoyance. "I am not here to address you; I merely followed my host."

The same leading mare rose first, and behind her each rank of ponies stood so that the crowd took on the appearance of an ocean wave. Most were garbed in heavy coats of brown or gray. The front ranks of the crowd wore furs, while those behind them favored wool and canvas. Even in a simple glance, the separation of wealth was obvious.

Watchful Eye momentarily closed his eyes, as if offering them respite from looking at the faces of his peers. He turned slowly to glance up the stairs behind him. "Предвидение, что ты сдесь делаешь?"

Foresight took advantage of his youth by darting down to the main floor two steps at a time. Soon, he was side by side with his father. "I think we should speak Equiish for Princess Luna's benefit. And I'm here because as the Secretary of Stalliongrad, it is my obligation to hear the complaints of our citizens. Isn't that what you're always going on about, Father?"

Watchful Eye's normally smooth brow creased. Despite literally being Foresight's father, the two might well have been the same age for the lack of wrinkles or gray hairs on the alicorn. An astute mind would recognize his apparent youth as the effects of Endura, though such a matter was second to cruel politics in the thoughts of all present. "I have things under control here, Predvidenie."

"Do you, Tsar?" The mare at the head of the crowd spoke up. "Some might consider it the height of pride to claim that a single pony had an entire crowd under control, alicorn or not."

Watchful Eye's wings flared in anger. "Yes, February, and some might also consider it the height of pride to claim that any pony is better than their peers simply because of the deeds of ancestors they have never even met. Even more so to claim that such blood ties ought to come with the privileges of authority, money, and land."

"I don't expect you to understand nobility, Eye, seeing how much respect your family has had for us in the past." Countess February smiled almost militarily as she loosed her heavy coat, letting it sag over her shoulders. "But you would not have the company of every noble in the Domain standing in your ballroom if we were just here to discuss your inadequacy as a leader."

One of the other ponies in furs–a stallion of pale blue coat and thinning green mane–stepped forward. "We're here because you've taken our rights!"

Eye's brow rose. "I must admit, that is not an accusation I am used to hearing. You're referring to the curfew that the Army and Guard–"

"Just call them the Chernyie Plashchi... or the 'Black Cloaks' since we're speaking Equiish. Even your son Krovyu does." February gently flicked her carefully styled shoulder-length golden mane, smiling as charmingly as she could. "And yes, that is what we are referring to. Namely, the fact that your so-called curfew is now depriving us of trade, and thus of money and property. Meanwhile, 'Secretary' Predvidenie profits when his business goes unobstructed, using tax funds from your precious 'equal citizens'. Is that the equality you're so desperate for, Tsar?"

Foresight held out a hoof toward his father, before stepping forward. His voice twitched with agitation, presenting him as stilted and on-edge. "Countess February, I own the Stalliongrad Rail System completely independently of the Domain."

"Well of course you do, now, Predvidenie," February countered, with a calm and silken voice. "You took the funds out of the treasury for your own pocket, just like you did to buy out Duke Conclave's gem mines or the countless farmlands you've stolen out from under our hooves."

"I have never taken a single bit of the Domain's money."

"Oh, of course not." February glanced across the faces of her fellow nobles. "Yet I can't help but think my favorite cousin Frostbite made a similar claim a few years ago. Tragic we don't have the opportunity to ask him or look at his books. If only the Commandant had a less fiery temper, no?"

"I will show you my ledgers, if they'll convince you," Foresight offered through gritted teeth.

"Predvidenie, don't–" the Tsar muttered under his breath, only to be cut off.

"Oh, of course. Ledgers that I'm expected to trust. Just the same way you trusted my cousin's when he told you his taxation for the border was well within his legal right?" February's smile dropped away to a flat glare that matched Foresight's rather perfectly. "Nopony makes half a billion bits trading stocks, Secretary. Everypony knows your story is as honest as that story about your dead brother–"

"Как ты смеешь?!" Watchful Eye roared, lunging forward to loom over the countess. Though short for an alicorn, he still made for an imposing presence over the unicorn mare.

She wilted back for a moment, and then played the motion off as a casual step. Her hoof brushed her jacket as she smiled nonchalantly, looking at nopony in particular. "You see what Stalliongrad suffers under, Princess Luna? Rule by the constant threat of violence, and outright robbery of its citizens." Luna said nothing, but it was clear February hadn't been expecting a response. "If you're so keen on fighting, Tsar, then I propose we settle this once and for all. I challenge you to a duel, for the rule of Stalliongrad."

Gasps swept over the room, not only from Watchful Eye's guests, but from the assembled nobleponies as well. Whatever their original plan, February had broken it completely.

"I have better things to do than waste time throwing pastries or balls of paint at you, February."

"I wasn't proposing a Canterlot duel. This is Stalliongrad, after all. Would you prefer spells, or swords like your pegasus sons?"

"Absolutely not," Watchful Eye told her, stepping backward and folding his wings. "You won't goad me into battle by mocking my loss."

"Oh? A coward, then? I don't suppose I should be expecting your guards to show up at my home in a few nights?"

"I have nothing more to say to you," the Tsar responded. "Go home, or be arrested for trespassing."

February stepped toward the alicorn. "But you said yourself this castle belonged to all the ponies of Stalliongrad. I remember it perfectly; it was the same day your son killed my cousin. Or are you going to steal that right from me too, Predvidenie? Buy it out with your stolen money?"

Foresight nodded. "Very well, Countess. He accepts your challenge."

"What?" The Tsar's head jumped to the side to stare at his son. "I do not!"

"Father, please. I am not going to sit idly by while she mocks Polnoch's memory."

"You're behaving like Roscherk, Predvidenie. I expect better of you than resorting to violence over something like this."

"Damn it, Father! Just say you'll do it!" Foresight was approaching shouting.

The Tsar remained calm. "I'm not about to degrade myself to a 'duel' for her benefit. Do you think this will honor Polnoch's memory? Do you blame her for what happened? Perhaps you recall what happened when Roscherk assigned blame for your brother's fate."

"Father, either we end this now, or it will end like Coltpenhagen. Just finish it." Foresight gestured with a forehoof in February's direction, though his head remained locked toward his father.

Watchful Eye stared at his son for what seemed like a very long moment in total silence. Then, slowly, he turned to face February. "Very well. I accept your challenge."

"Honestly? After all that shouting?"

"Are you hesitating?" Watchful Eye responded calmly.

"Absolutely not. Well, you've been challenged, Tsar, so the choice is yours. First blood, surrender, or death?"

Foresight stepped forward, placing himself between the mare and his father. "If I might interrupt. Princess Luna, could you join us down here?" A moment of flapping wings later, and the princess was standing calmly nearby. "Would you be so kind as to officiate, to spare us the need for seconds?"

Luna hesitated for a moment before nodding. "I should frown upon an unnecessary death in this circumstance. However, for your honor, I shall permit whatever other form of conflict you request."

"Excellent," Foresight observed. "Now at this point, Countess, I would like to call on the Right of Sun Sue."

Luna suddenly beamed, even as the Countess cocked her head. "The what?"

Foresight smiled. "I'm certain you know the rule, even if you aren't familiar with the name. Princess, would you care to explain."

"I should love to!" Luna exclaimed rather loudly, causing those nearby to wince. "I recall this; I was present that day. It must have been three thousand years ago when Sun Sue, the Captain of the Royal Guard at the time, was challenged to a noble's duel. However, as an earth pony, she stood no chance of success, given the rules of the event. Our sister ruled that if a non-Unicorn noble were challenged to a duel, they might have a unicorn stand in for them, and thus, Lady Miracle stood in for the guardsmare."

February's eyes grew slightly wide. "But he's an alicorn! He has a horn!"

"And wings," Foresight countered. "Princess, as our judge, might I stand in my father's place?"

"I shall allow it," the Princess responded. "Though knowing this, I shall allow the Countess to withdraw without penalty if she so desires."

"Absolutely not!" She hissed, unclasping her jacket properly. "What are your terms, Predvidenie?"

Foresight's magic removed his scarf, his glasses, and his jacket. Each in turn was handed to his father. Only when he had been reduced to a lavender dress shirt with rolled back sleeves on his forelegs did the unicorn respond. "Princess Luna has given her restrictions, February, so I choose a Duel to the Mark."

A second wave of gasps escaped the crowd, though Foresight paid the most attention to the sudden look of... guilt?... that danced over Luna's face.

Whispered warnings were offered to the Countess, but she ignored them with a cocky smile. "I can best the Tsar's whelp. When I win, after I take your mark, you and your father will yield control of the Domain. I will take all your holdings, all your titles, and all your power. You will leave Stalliongrad, and never return."

Foresight nodded. "Then I offer you the same terms, February. Upon my victory, you and your entire family will travel to the Stable of Lords in Trottingham, where you will renounce your every claim to noble title or lineage. Your lands and holdings will become property of the Domain, and if you should ever return from your exile, I will allow my brother to decide your fate." Foresight could not help but smile a little bit at the reaction his phrase earned. At least three of the other nobleponies in the crowd raised their hooves to shield their horns. Perhaps that feeling was why Roscherk was so fond of intimidation.

Forcing himself away from emotion, Foresight continued. "Because I have been challenged, I choose our place of battle to be this ballroom, our time to be now, and our weapons to be the full range of our spells."

"Agreed."

The room became deadly quiet. Not even the sound of hooves on the dance floor resounded, though the mass of ponies shuffled back to clear a space for the Arcana that would be soon to come.

Countess February walked up to Foresight and leaned her head forward. He matched the motion, so that their horns touched and crossed in midair. A flare of sparks filled the air as both ponies forced the full strength of their magic into their horns, as was tradition. Gritting his teeth with exertion, Foresight gave the mare a quick glance, and was surprised to find her eyes closed. For just a moment, his heart jumped, as he feared that he might have misjudged her skill. Then his head was whipped away by the greater force of her magic, and he thrust out a foreleg to steady himself.

February didn't laugh or open her eyes, but she did smile. The action was enough to put a chill down Foresight's spine. Then the time to look at one another was over. The opponents turned away from one another, and pranced proudly with high knees for a distance of twenty strides each. Princess Luna stepped away from them, opposite the mass of watching ponies. Watchful Eye moved to her side, brow creased with worry beneath his dark red mane.

As was tradition, the challenger turned to face her foe and spoke up first. "I am Countess February, of the Line of Miracle, the First Archmage of Trottingham and founder of the Stable of Nobles." The white mare's horn ignited with a similar aura, removing her coat and tossing it into the crowd. Beneath it on her naturally white coat Foresight spotted her cutie mark: a heart frozen solid and dripping with icicles.

Foresight nodded slowly, and took a breath to steady himself. "I am Predvidenie, known in Equiish as Foresight, son of Tsar Watchful Eye of Stalliongrad. I belong to the Line of Cyclone, son of Hurricane and founder of Stalliongrad."

February scoffed. "You claim the line of a pegasus?"

"Tradition holds that the Line of Platinum comes from Hurricane as well." Foresight momentarily glanced toward Luna. For just a moment, she wore a surprisingly fierce frown, before her face once more went slack and even. "Though it is unlikely, I still hold no shame for claiming the line of such a pony, regardless of his form." The stallion nodded to his princess, who turned her head to February.

"We declare this a Duel to the Mark. The duel shall continue until surrender or unconsciousness, and then terms shall be concluded. I forbid the maiming or torture of the defeated. Is this understood?" Both combatants nodded. "Then we shall begin in three..."

Foresight closed his eyes and focused, letting his mana build up at the front of his brain, and settling into the minor headache that accompanied such pent up energy.

"...two..."

It took all his effort not to think, but he knew better. Rigidity was defeat, and to plan ahead was to lose flexibility.

"...one..."

Scholars and professional show duelists called it 'the longest moment'–the pause between the final count and outright combat. Like the first roll over the peak of a rollercoaster, Foresight's stomach lurched up and forward in his belly. Fear, excitement, and adrenaline mixed into a potent cocktail that numbed the throbbing of his frontal lobe.

He opened his eyes just in time.

"...begin!"

February lowered her head to point straight at Foresight, firing off a salvo of raw, overcharged stunning bolts. Even a single hit would spell unconsciousness. Rather than waste energy blocking with a shield, the stallion teleported a dozen feet to the side, avoiding the full attack.

Hers seemed to be a style of speed and aggression. Were he observing, Foresight might have admired the strength behind her spells. In the heat of the moment, he only spared himself time for useful observations. The way she held her horn downward, always pointing in his direction was the indicative trait of the Trottingham School of Dueling, which stood quite at odds with Foresight's Canterlot form.

There was something more to be learned, though: a terrifying flaw in what had been his plan. Amongst unicorns, there were two kinds of spellcasters. Mages, or magi, were scholarly ponies who trained their minds and horns to the study and memorization of a complex variety of spells. Concepts like thaumic resonance, mana density, and an immense variety of spells were crammed academically into the mind of the practitioner. Foresight was nothing if not a skilled academic, and his vast knowledge of the many schools of magic made him an excellent match for any dueling mage.

Unfortunately for Foresight, the Countess February was not a college educated spell caster. Just as she rejected academia, so too did it reject her manner of magic. There was no formal name for such a practitioner, though 'witch', 'shaman', 'warlock', and 'sorceror' were all popular choices. What mattered was not what she was called, but rather how she cast. Rather than wielding magic by complex mental forms and training, she wielded her magic by throwing a mixture of imagination, willpower, and sheer Arcana toward a problem. Her magic was more draining and tiring, but also far more versatile than Foresight's rigid spells. Worse, he had no real means of identifying or countering them directly.

Forced to adjust his goals, he let off a simple but incredibly rare spell. For the moment, it did nothing beyond causing his horn to flare momentarily in royal blue. He then began to charge his horn, getting ready for an attack of his own.

Then came the image in his mind's eye.

The dance floor surged up, wrapping into shackles around his hooves.

Foresight lunged to the side, only a second in advance of February's next attack. The ballroom's marble tiles rose up where he had been standing, narrowly missing their prey. Seeing his opening, Foresight fired off a beam of complex magic. It had some long, alliterative name that had no place being remembered in the heat of the duel. All that mattered was its purpose: to disrupt February's own spells, rather than genuinely stunning her.

Her spell lanced back at him in turn in a curve, so that it never touched his spell. She lost her magic. He lost consciousness.

Rather than dropping his spell, Foresight let his head tilt ever so slightly to the right at the vision that flashed though his mind. The stunning white blast she let fly came into contact with his own beam. Soon, the Arcana had connected into a single bulging bulb, crackling wildly with the scents of ozone, power, and desperation.

A connected beam of Arcana–known as a 'column' in the bloated and complex vernacular of the unicorn duel–was a common and extremely dangerous form of conflict. In addition to the raw power of the two spells that had combined to make the column, canny mages could make use of the connection of magic to cast secondary charms directly against their opponents. It took an incredibly skilled mind to both put the force into maintaining the column itself, and also fight off the secondary enchantments traveling at higher speed and potency through air already inundated with mana. It was said Celestia herself had fallen to such magic when she sparred with the Changeling Queen in her palace in Canterlot.

In a very different castle overlooking Stalliongrad, Foresight's head screamed in agony as he pushed himself forward. Though a trained mage, his magic was simply not known for its strength. Without even looking, he could feel his magic being pushed back as hers advanced.

The blast overwhelmed him, stealing his magic and frying his horn.

Making a desperate decision, Foresight cut off his magic, reforming what little mana he could pull back into a simple warding shield. While it couldn't steal her mana or reflect her spells upon her, he simply didn't have the time for something more complex. After a moment of pushing in vain, February released her magic, and smiled. And, for just a moment, Foresight felt a heat in his loins.

"A charm?"

Foresight spared a quick glance around the room. No face in the mass of nobles caught his eye, but he could see both his father and Princess Luna watching him closely. Thoughts of their attention did little to help his addled mind.

February smiled at him, and he had to fight not to get lost in the way the light from the chandelier overhead glistened across her teeth. "Nothing as glorious as the Bitalian princess, but lust can be just as effective as true love. Do you concede?"

"Over a foalhood crush?" Foresight concluded the thought with a rather boring stunning blast, which took far too much of his own willpower to produce. "I would never."

"I'll give you a kiss, Predvidenie."

The stallion cursed the hormones that were a natural poison coursing through his veins, and struggled to focus the new conflict of his priorities.

She teleported behind him. He moved to conjure a shield, but hesitated too long. The ensuing blast felled him.

When he heard the distinct crackle of space being torn apart to make way for teleportation, Foresight lunged to the side. Yet again, February's magic wreaked havoc on the ancient, priceless tiles of the ballroom floor.

Growling, the mare sent a flurry of further blasts in Foresight's direction. Unable to recover from his dive, he lashed out in desperation. Foresight's telekinesis caught his own shoulders, and he recklessly hurled himself up toward the towering ceiling. The irony that she was the one with carefully prepared actions, and he was the reactionary was not lost on the aching, tired unicorn.

Unlike the beginning of the duel, the lurching of his stomach as he hit the peak of his climb was a completely natural occurrence. Bursts of magic exploded against the ceiling overhead, but February was not a pony skilled at picking out flying foes.

He moved to slow himself as one might under Iron Curtain's Gambit. Already enjoying the luxury of her hooves on the ground, February dispelled the magic meant to slow his fall. His neck snapped on the cold tile.

He reached out frantically not with magic, but his own forehooves. He caught onto the chandelier only by a hair, and for the action, the tug of his body wrenched itself hard against his shoulder. His teeth locked together, gritting in pain. Struggling to remain focus, he turned to face where his lover was pacing below.

Where his foe was pacing.

"You know, Predvidenie, I'm not certain I can catch you if I stun you while you're hanging up there. Do you surrender, or shall we continue this charade further?"

"I'm not going to surrender to you."

"Very well."

She shot a blast of stunning magic, and he countered with a curse of outright disintegration. Of course, he hadn't aimed at her.

The chain holding the chandelier to the ceiling snapped free of the roof, and the massive work of glass and gold plummeted downward toward the Countess. In the chaos, Foresight didn't see what happened to her.

In a literal flash, the major source of light for the room was gone. The smash was jarring, and it sent the unicorn stallion spilling over the floor with a dislocated shoulder. By the time the pain had lessened enough to clear his vision of spots, Foresight's eyes had adjusted to the darkness. Now the only light in the broken room was that cast through the raging storm behind the chamber's windows. The son of the tsar stood slowly and shakily, fighting not to make a noise despite the pain in his leg. His next challenge was to find the other mare, and for once, his body agreed on the goal.

The heat and the lust were beginning to become dangerous distractions, but Foresight did not know a spell to undo the effects of her charm. Instead, focusing his magic inward, the stallion attempted something much more dangerous, and entirely against his usual way of thinking.

He started to cast without knowing his spell.

Blue sparks flared from his horn, expending unnecessary energy that he couldn't control. The clearing of his mind's fog came at the cost of a dozen needle-like surges of pain stretching down from his horn into his mind. All he could see in the room was a swirl of gray, with a huge huddled mass of frightened ponies off to one side, and the broken shards of the chandelier beside him.

She saw the light from his horn, and by the time he knew where she was coming from, it was already too late.

With a wounded foreleg, leaping out of the way was out of the question. Instead, Foresight spun as best he could, letting his hind legs and flank suffer the brunt of the spell. With a brilliant white blast, her spell came flying, and he fell backwards as his legs seared with pain.

The stallion screamed. He could smell his own flesh cooking off his flank, not from fire or lightning, but the raw energy of her Arcana. What he had endured would likely have killed him, had he not turned. Tears swept down his face, matting down his coat, though he made no further noise in response to the action.

"Predvidenie!" Watchful Eye yelled from somewhere off to the side. Foresight heard his father's wings flapping, only to be stopped by the potent aura of Princess Luna's magic.

"Tsar, you must control yourself–"

Foresight had little time to listen to the argument. His horn barely managed a teleportation spell, tossing him aside further as he avoided another of February's attacks. He knew where she was now, but the information did him little good when he could barely focus through his pain.

Watchful Eye loosed a bolt of magic at the Princess, trying to get away from her grip. She swatted it away with little more than a thought. A moment later, he quite literally bounced off the marble tiles as Mirror Image slammed him down with sheer telekinetic force. Gasping with pain, and likely a few broken ribs, the Tsar nevertheless managed to shout in desperation. "I won't lose another son, Princess! She's trying to kill him!'

A full beam of her magic cut across the room, and Foresight only avoided it by laying flat against the floors. He felt his mane wilt under the power of her magic, and his eyes clenched shut in a paltry attempt to focus.

Luna gave order curtly. "Mirror Image, restrain him. We are monitoring the duel, Tsar, and our eyes see in darkness better than yours. Trust us, and do not make the mistake of crossing us again."

Foresight heard February approaching, and struggled to stand. His legs failed him. Her hooves tapped briskly on the clean marble tiles and then began crunching over broken glass. "I hope we can all agree, this revolution was an awful lot more pleasant than the last one. Now all you need to do is surrender, Predvidenie."

He gritted his teeth, trying to push the pain out of his head. "Not a very... noble thing to do, February." And then he lit his horn.

She sneered as her own magic began to collect.

One of the nobles she had brought with her called out. "Февраль, сзади!"

She didn’t consider that such an announcement would violate the rules of the duel, and so she did not question Luna’s silence. Yet for all his varied skills, Foresight wasn’t surprised that the princess had seen through the illusory voice.

Rather than blasting the vulnerable stallion, the mare reshaped her Arcana into a quick teleportation spell.

Countess February landed partway up the side of the chandelier and threw out a powerful shield to protect her from Foresight's attack.

He only had a second, and he had to make the most of it. Foresight's horn wrapped up the broken glass and gold, fusing them together even as February popped into being over the broken chandelier. By the time her hooves had touched the glass, he was done, and his horn fired off the last of his mana in a single, brutal bolt that left the world spinning.

Her shield came up. His bolt missed.

She moved her lips to laugh as the bolt shot past the side of her hooves and struck the glass. Noise never reached her lips when his shot hit the surface of glass and gold, and bounced off. Rising from straight up beneath her, it avoided her shield entirely, and caught her in the gut. She fell unconscious in a mass of limbs, tumbling down the pile of glass shards and broken gold. She came to a rest near Foresight's hooves, wearing a smile.

Before Princess Luna could even announce the conclusion of the duel, Watchful Eye wrested himself free of Mirror Image's grip and soared across the room. Foresight found himself buried in yellow wings which muffled an incredibly pleasing announcement.

"We declare Foresight the victor."

Inside his father's embrace, Foresight wished he didn't need to move. Stalliongrad, however, was not known for such kindnesses. "Father, help me up," Foresight whispered.

"You need to rest," the Tsar cautioned. "You're hurt."

"Believe me, Father, I've noticed. But I need to address the nobles. So please, help me to my hooves."

Reluctantly, Watchful Eye slid a wing beneath his eldest son, and then together hefted both their weights as he rose to his full height. Foresight managed to conceal the pain of putting weight on his legs behind a creased brow, but he knew he would have to keep his message short.

"I trust this resolves your issues, nobleponies. Those of you who live in this city have one hour to return to your homes. Those of you who do not are to wait here in the castle until Commandant Molot and I arrange for your escort to Trotsylvania or Saraneighvo. If you flee, or if any of you are caught in violation of our curfew again, you will be summarily stripped of your titles and handed over to the Honor Guard under charges of treason for aiding the attempted assassination of Princess Luna."

Nopony had anything to say, so Foresight smiled. "Then thank you for your time. I'll be sure to take your complaints into consideration." He waited for the mass of stunned ponies to move until the pain in his legs and horn left the world spinning. "You are dismissed," he told them, before collapsing against his father's wing.

Rainbow Dash sat with a plate of salad in front of her. She poked it with her fork, and it shifted slightly, but nothing really changed. The ranch dressing just sat there, as she slowly realized that despite her fatigue, she wasn't really hungry.

Her legs were sore, and her wings sorer still. She didn't really understand that. She could fly all the way to Zebrica in a single day. She could shatter the sound barrier simply by focusing herself. Yet somehow, merely keeping up with a train for an hour had left her shoulders screaming. Her best guess was that the strain came from keeping herself sharply upright, so that all four of her hooves could strike forward. It wasn't a natural position for flying, or even really for hovering.

The lettuce was crisp, and it crunched between her teeth, but she barely tasted it. Her mind was stuck on three thoughts. She was tired. She was sore. She hated her father. She looked up from the food to stare out the windows of the dining car. What had been beautiful and entrancing that morning was now boring and flat and endless. Occasionally, a butte or a valley or a river interrupted the monotony of the desert, but by and large, there was nothing to see.

Why were things so hard? Sure, she hadn't bucked lightning in six months, since she played her role in Reckoning's funeral, but the rest of her Empatha was no weaker for the wear. And while she had never made fire before, it certainly hadn't been hard to do ice for Scootaloo. There was something else, she'd decided, though she couldn't put her hoof on it. Something bothering her beneath the surface. Tragically, neither her salad nor the plains of the San Palomino desert seemed to hold her answers.

"Uh, 'scuse me, Miss..."

Rainbow glanced down from her seat at the counter to the sight of a little colt, probably no older than six or seven. He had a brushed back blue mane and a huge smile in the middle of his lighter blue face. A rainbow bandana was knotted around his neck.

"What's up, kid?"

"Are ya' Rainbow Dash?" His accent reminded Rainbow of Applejack, though that thought was quickly lost in a flare of pride.

"You betcha."

"Oh boy!" He jumped in the air and started flapping his wings so fast that he didn't actually come down. "The real Rainbow Dash! Can ya' teach me how ta do a Sonic Rainboom?"

"Slow down there, buddy," Rainbow told him, turning properly in her seat to grant him her full attention. "Well, I guess you've got hovering down."

"I can do more than that!" he told her, performing a little loop-de-loop in front of her, before landing at her hooves. "What do you think?"

"I think you're pretty awesome," Rainbow told him, ruffling his mane. "Though you've still got a way to go 'til you're as awesome as me."

"Yeah, but it's hard," there was a tinge of a whine in his voice. "I try super hard, but sometimes it just feels like I'm not getting any faster."

"It is hard," Rainbow told him, nodding. "You just can't give up. Just 'cause it doesn't seem like anything's changing doesn't mean nothing actually is."

"Wise words, Rainbow."

It was the stunt flier's turn to jump in the air and hover as Dead Reckoning chuckled at her reaction. She was sure he hadn't been so stealthy when he was older. After a moment to catch her breath, Rainbow tried to play off her action as cool, and not startled at all. Judging by the colt's expression, he wasn't buying it, though he seemed too engrossed in the new arrival to really comment on Rainbow's behavior.

"What's yer name, mister?"

"I'm Deadeye."

The colt chuckled. "Cause of your eye patch?"

"You got it," the grown stallion lied. "How about you? What's your name?"

"Rocket," he answered with a smile. "Are you Rainbow's fan too?"

Reckoning's eye flickered in Rainbow's direction briefly, and then he nodded. "Yeah, I guess you could say I'm her fan, Rocket."

"Cool! I didn't know any grownups were fans of Rainbow Dash!"

Reckoning chuckled. "Well, right now, Rainbow needs to go get some flying practice in. Okay?"

"Ooh! Can I come?"

Rainbow was briefly lost for words, but Reckoning took up the burden again and shook his head. "Sorry, Rocket. This is special secret practice, so Rainbow Dash can do a... uh..."

"A Fiery Phoenix Flare!" Rainbow cut in. "It's kinda dangerous, or I'd let you come watch."

"Oh... okay." Rocket frowned slightly, before looking up at Rainbow again. "Are you gonna be on the train tomorrow?"

"Y–"

"She's very busy," Reckoning interrupted. "So it probably wouldn't be a good idea to make any promises. But maybe."

"Oh. Okay. Well, it was still super fun to meet you!" Rocket grinned again, and then turned around and ran back toward the rear passenger cabins, most likely to tell his parents about the celebrity he'd just met.

Once he was out of earshot, Reckoning raised his visible eyebrow. "Fiery Phoenix Flare? Is that what you call the little candle flame you made when we were practicing?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "Everypony has to start somewhere."

As she made her way out the dining car side by side with the other pegasus, she felt like she might have finally made some progress. Whatever weight had been holding her back was lighter than it had been before.

Foresight did not recall much of the next few moments. Somehow, he was moved from the ballroom through the boring gray halls of the castle. A veil of confusion swept over him, and he watched the lights go by overhead with fascination, wondering how their coronas had come to be such perfect squares.

Before he could come to an answer, the lights were stolen away, replaced by a sea of fur and feathers. He spilled across the silken surface, unable to embrace the comfort for a lack of motion in his limbs, but uncaring about the leaden feeling that had overtaken his legs.

Lucid thought returned in a sudden rush, that felt like nothing so much as an icy chill. For just a moment his eyes resisted his control. Then he scanned the room. His room. A single rather plain bed with a thick pile of comforters, cushions and pillows lay in the center of a half-dozen shelves filled with tomes, scrolls, and curiosities from his university days.

Three ponies stood around him. Watchful Eye's expression could be summarized entirely as relieved. Mirror Image was harder to read, and any analysis of Princess Luna's features was a cause doomed from the start.

"What... happened?" Foresight managed to ask, rubbing his last uninjured leg over his brow in an attempt to fix the singed foreparts of his mane.

"Illusions are not merely the domain of Masquerade," Luna responded. "Nor are they solely an evil. I hath not the energy to heal your legs at the moment, for my body is still recovering from Krenn's attack. I have removed the pain for you, however, so that you might recover in peace."

"Thank you, then, Princess." Foresight looked down at his legs and grimaced. His coat had been burnt away in more than a few places, striping his hind end in char and bitter red. He turned back toward Luna. "I'll have to settle for jackets with coattails for a bit, but otherwise I should survive."

"You say that like it was a given, Predvidenie." Watchful Eye gave his son a stern glare. "You risked not only the Domain, but your own life."

"I... had not intended to risk anything, Father, and I am sorry for what happened. But I had everything under control."

"How can you possibly claim that?" Mirror Image asked. "She was taking you apart out there. And don't even try to claim that last stunt was anything but luck. If White Flag or I had been facing you–"

"I wouldn't have accepted the challenge," Foresight countered. "I'm not stupid enough to try and duel the Honor Guard, any more than I would face down Princess Luna."

Luna nodded, before turning. "Calm yourself, Officer Image. I see nothing wrong here."

"Then you're missing the point, Princess." Mirror Image snapped, before realizing what he had said. "Apologies. Regardless, I know how a noble's duel works, probably better than anypony else alive."

"Is that so?" Luna asked.

Image answered by tapping the crevice that ran down the length of his horn. "What I saw today was that Foresight got lucky in dodging February's attacks. Too lucky. Nopony's timing is that good, and if he'd been tapped into the arcane field of the room, I would have noticed. Too many things are going on in this city for me to just take this on faith and still call myself an Honor Guard. So, Foresight, let's hear it."

Foresight sighed, and afforded himself a long, slow swallow. "I looked into the future."

"What?" Mirror Image asked as he stepped in front of Princess Luna, whose eyes widened in mild surprise. Watchful Eye showed no reaction at all.

"Two seconds," Foresight answered, trying to defuse the situation. "I know the story of King Electrum as well as any educated unicorn. I wasn't sitting there making prophecies or looking months and years ahead. It wasn't a real prophecy, even. More like a siren."

"You know that magic is illegal?" Mirror Image pressed.

Foresight shrugged. "I had assumed two seconds was too little time for any real harm to be done. I wrote the spell when I was in the Royal Academy, taking dueling courses from Dr. Rapier for my P.E. credits." At Mirror Image's raised brow, he continued. "I hate Polo."

"So you have never looked any further into the future?"

Foresight hesitated, glancing to his father. Watchful Eye nodded, and the stallion on the bed began to speak again. "Not since the Blizzard Revolution. And before you begin accusing me, I did that because Steel Lining told me to."

"You made prophecy about a war?" Luna asked incredulously. "Even after Electrum–"

"With the utmost respect, Princess, King Electrum is a foal's ghost story more than a real pony. Historically speaking, he would have lost his war with the Crystal Empire regardless, as a simple matter of economics. The conflict was over well before he ever made the prophecy that everypony seems to be so riled up over. But the prophecy I made was not about the revolution."

"What?" Mirror Image stepped forward to the edge of the bed. "Explain."

"I don't even remember it that well," Foresight protested. "He was the one who took a record. Something about boars, I think. It had nothing to do–"

"You made a prophecy, and you don't remember it?" The unicorn with the broken horn was incredulous. After a moment's thought, he pinched the bridge of his nose and afforded himself a deep breath.

"Boars, you say?" Luna stepped around her guardian, resting her forehooves on the bed and lowering herself to Foresight's level. "I would like you to try and recall whatever you can of that prophecy, Foresight. I fear it may be of truly great significance."

Foresight nodded, and closed his eyes. "Let's see... it was in our old house on... it would be 'Cable Way' in Equiish. In Saraneighvo. Um... the revolution was almost over, really. We were raiding supplies, and planning our assault on Burning Hearth..."

I made my way into the living room, and shot a glare at Roscherk's friend Serp. Of course the imbecile would be spilled over the entire couch. His namesake sickle was lying on the floor, staining our carpet with some unfortunate 'loyalist's' blood, and all I could think about was how much it was going to cost to deal with the stain. It didn't occur to me we'd be moving out of Mother's little manor. Nopony else was in sight, but I could hear the raucous sounds of brother's laughter from our 'game room' down the hall. For a moment, I confess, my mind was occupied with how much it would cost to replace the billiards table when Roscherk's gin and tonics had stained rings onto the wooden border.

I wandered my way down the hall, letting my bag of stolen alchemical supplies float gently to the ground in front of my door. I'd be spending most of the next few days making Dragon's Breath and Beaver's Tonic, though the little vial of Galm's Elixir I had found was perhaps the most interesting and most terrifying of my prizes. One of the most dangerous poisons known to equinity, and certainly the most painful. At the time, I imagined it would be what killed Frostbite. If Roscherk had known that was my thought, he probably would have said I had no imagination. Turns out he was right.

The game room was not, as I had assumed, full of Roscherk's friends. At least, not exclusively. In addition to his little cadre of 'super soldiers', I found the majority of our generals and leaders. For a moment, I thought there might have been some important tactical meeting going on.

Then I saw our normally stiff general hoof-wrestling Roscherk.

"Come on, geezer. I'll put you on the table faster than you can blink."

"Geezer?" The accent that dominated Steel Lining's Stalliongradi was one of the funniest things I had ever heard. "How old you are to think I am, Roscherk?"

A pensive look crossed my brother's face. "I don't know, fifty?"

"Not close even," the Commander replied. And yes, that was what we called him too, though I knew his real name. Well, sort of. He told me it was 'Steel Edge' in Stalliongradi when I'd pressed him on the issue, though I'd wager a good few bits that was just his lack of skill in the language at work, instead of some strange deception. "Be with counting, or I am reach fifties before we are going."

"All right, Mentor. Three, two, one, go!"

The red and blue stallions pressed hard against one another, and before long, the other ponies in the room were chanting and stomping their support. The Commander was the taller and larger stallion, but Roscherk's immense musculature was more than enough to counter the older pony's mechanical advantage. Steel was pressed down slowly, and the chanting grew only more forceful. Soon, though, hoof met table, and the game was over.

"Ha! Take that, Mentor! Maybe you aren't quite as young as you think!"

"Tongue watching, Roscherk," the Commander replied almost incomprehensibly, stepping away from the table.

"Think you're a big shot, big bro?" Polnoch asked. It was always strange to think of him as the 'little brother' when he was so much taller than Roscherk. He certainly took after mother in that way, and in color as well.

Roscherk leaned back in his seat, dragging his precious jacket along the ground. He hadn't even taken it off inside, instead allowing it to drag snow all over the carpet. "I am a big shot, Polnoch. I'm the best fighter alive, and everypony knows it."

"Leg strength only not mark of fighter," Steel muttered as he poured himself a glass of water from a pitcher on the nearby 'bar' counter.

Polnoch laughed aloud. "I love you to death, Mentor, but you might consider shutting up for once. We finally have a night off, where the weather is actually too bad to fight in, and you're still shoving your sayings down our throats?"

Roscherk laughed. "And the mares might find you more attractive if they don't know you can't talk." Someday, the irony would be delicious, though it didn't really occur to me at the time.

I was standing close enough to the bar to hear the Commander mutter "Foals," though I know neither of my brothers caught the word.

Roscherk would have missed it even if he'd been closer. He stood up, on his hind legs, with one on the tabletop and the other on the ground. His forelegs flexed. He looked like a moron. "Anypony care to challenge the greatest fighter in Stalliongrad?"

Polnoch chuckled. "You've got a big head there, bro."

"Are you trying to say something, Pol'?"

"I've got a challenger for you," he answered with the absolute smallest smile I have ever seen. That was the way Polnoch always was, twitching up just the very corner of his lip and showing way more happiness with his eyes than his lips.

"Alright, bring it!" Roscherk called, gesturing with his foreleg.

Polnoch chuckled. "Stoikaja?"

I had never really gotten used to her standing up, and realizing that she wasn't a wall, or a table, or some other architectural feature. She gave Roscherk a look, and I'll never quite forget the way he gulped. Of course, it isn't as funny now, knowing it was her, but still...

"I can't do this," she told Polnoch.

The taller pegasus laughed. "Why not?"

"I'll break the table."

Everypony laughed. I certainly did. It was the most fun some of those ponies would ever have. Thinking back, seven of the ponies in that room would be dead within twenty-four hours.

I would have stayed to watch those ponies wrestle, were it not for a hoof placed on my shoulder. Without a word, the Commander led me out of the room and away from the noise.

When we had made our way down the rather narrow hall and around the corner, he spoke to me in Equiish. "I need your help, Predvidenie."

"Of course," I told him. You didn't say 'no' to a pony who'd saved the lives of your whole family more than once.

"This isn't about the revolution, Predvidenie. With providence, nopony will ever know. But this is for Equestria's benefit, and for Celestia's."

The way he skipped 'Princess' was always a bit jarring to me, but then, he certainly knew her better than most anypony else. Regardless, I wasn't about to turn down his request.

He walked up to the farthest door on the right side of the hall and opened the door. It had been my parent's study before Mother died giving birth to Polnoch. When she was alive, Father had been an accomplished mage, but he gave up on the practice almost completely when she died. Now, the chamber of bookshelves with simple spell books was also home to a single bed, a desk, and an improvised wooden stand to hold Hurricane's Armor.

As a student of history, the cuirass and helmet were a forbidden idol to me. Even with the pain that the void crystal armor put in my horn, and the high-pitched ringing that echoed out when it drank my mana, I could barely resist the tug. But the Commander would never let me touch the armor, or even examine it without his presence. I knew he kept... something beneath the peytral. That day, I saw what.

With his unusually dexterous wings, he peeled back the black flaps that connected to the central lightning-bolt insignia. Behind the flap that sat on my left were four slender crystals. Three shone with a slight light, which I imagined was being consumed by the armor. Purple, green, and gold lights held my eyes. The fourth lacked an internal glow. They caught my eye foremost, though I recall a few other vials, a small knife of some jet black metal I didn't recognize, and some other trinkets within. He grabbed something and tucked it into the shoulder of his wing; he wasn't really concealing it, but the wing was in the way of my sight. Next, he opened the other flap quickly to claim the rest of the items he was seeking. Namely, a flat metal flask and a silver bowl.

"What are those?" I asked him plainly.

"Quicksilver and molten Aether. The silver bowl is exactly what it looks like."

"Aren't those... extremely toxic?" I asked.

The Commander chose not to respond. He set the bowl on his desk, and emptied the flask into it. Soon, a swirling mass of featureless silver and ambient mana offered a uniform glow.

"Okay... what do you want me to do?"

"Prophesy," he answered. "Tell me the future."

"And then I... was done."

"Thou skipped the most important part," Luna observed with a pointed lack of amusement.

"I don't remember, Princess. The next thing I can think of is the Commander tucking his gear back into Hurricane's Armor and going back with me to see if Stoikaja had broken Roscherk's foreleg."

Rather than responding with words, Luna's horn began to glow. Foresight had only the time to gasp before his mind was hers. Once, and then twice, he watched over the memories he had described. Once, and then twice, Luna's magic found a dark and gaping void in his thoughts.

Luna's horn lost its glow and her eyes fell, coming to a rest staring at the corner of the room. "This is most troubling. "

"What's wrong?" Tsar Eye asked. "Did something happen to Predvidenie?"

"Calm yourself, Tsar. Foresight, you are well, both in body and mind. Forgive me, stallions, but this is a most troubling revelation, and time is short. Foresight, you are to remain within this city; I may have need of your mind when I return."

"Wait, Princess, what do you mean? Where are..." Watchful Eye didn't manage to finish the thought before Mirror Image and Luna had both paced out of the chamber, and the door had shut behind them. "...you going?"

Foresight rolled his head over his pillow to look his father in the eyes. "Krennotets, Father. She intends to visit the dragons personally."

"Earth."

Rainbow focused on the pile of stones in front of her. It didn't take long for a thin spire to form.

"Good." The rocks fell. Reckoning nodded. "Earth is probably the hardest element to use in combat because your fear can override your rational thought. As far as I know, even the Commander hardly ever bothers. Next, ice."

Rainbow's wing thrust into a small bucket beside her. A short splash spilled free, but most of the water froze fairly quickly. "Yes, yes, yes!" the mare exclaimed.

"Good work. We discussed this a lot in Zebrica, but water isn't very useful for direct attack and defense. Making mist and mud, or freezing a puddle as a trap is a lot more useful than trying to throw icicles. Also, be careful in the desert. If you don't have any water around, you might wind up dehydrating yourself; the Empatha will use the water in your own body."

"Really?" Rainbow's brow rose. "How does fire work then?"

Reckoning shrugged. "Air's flammable, I guess. On that topic, fire."

The cyan pegasus squinted, focusing her anger. Her wings flared, and she felt the heat beneath her feathers. Yet despite her best efforts, nothing came out. Another failure. After a minute of trying, she slumped to the ground in defeat. "I just can't get angry enough."

On stepped forward. "You want me to make you angry?"

Suddenly left in an imposing shadow, Rainbow afforded herself a notable gulp. "Uh...sure?"

She'd been expecting something to the effect of a punch in the gut. In Rainbow's mind, that would have been a very storybook means of producing anger. With Soldier On on the other end, however, it was also likely to produce broken ribs.

Instead, to Rainbow's surprise, Soldier On sat down and looked the younger mare squarely in the eyes.

"You want to know why you aren't a member of the Wonderbolts?"

Rainbow's eyes widened. "Oh, come on. Now you're going to tell me I'm not a good flier or something?"

On shook her head. "For five years now, your father has been blocking your applications."

"What?!"

"You're the Bearer of Loyalty, and it's not as if he really cared about your happiness compared to the safety of Equestria. He's kept you working a dead-end weather management position so you'd never leave Ponyville."

It explained so much. Puzzle pieces snapped together in Rainbow's head, and with each one came a newfound sense of rage. Years of applications not denied, but completely unreturned. How she'd been totally ignored despite her success at the Wonderbolt's Academy...

"Too much!" Reckoning shouted, grabbing a blanket and tackling Rainbow. As he essentially stomped on her wings, between lungfuls of smoke, he called out. "On, window!"

"How could he–"

"Stop, Rainbow!" Reckoning told her, struggling to restrain her flailing wings. "You're going to light the room on fire!"

"I–what?"

"You did it," Reckoning told her. "Most fire I've ever seen."

"If only," On muttered as she pulled open the window. "But it was fire, and that is enough for now."

"Эй, ухнем!" the ponies on the shore cried out on the morning of the twenty-fifth of January. Their ragged clothes strained against their bodies as they pulled on enormous ropes, dragging the makeshift barge through the loose shards of ice in the Straight of White Wind. "Эй, ухнем!"

The sky was filled with falling snowflakes, absent in beauty for their sheer volume, and for the winds that they accompanied. Even the hardened Stalliongradian sailors were shivering beneath their makeshift coats, and struggling with the icy water that rose in waves over the deck.

Twilight Sparkle stared off the edge of a plain wooden railing that didn't seem enough to keep her away from the icy grave that the water promised. Her eyes were almost glazed over, lost to the world in thought. Her body was covered in lush quilted black velvet, and a trimmed, brimless round hat of the same material adorned her head. Most other ponies on the barge seemed to be ignoring her; they were occupied with maneuvering the fragile vessel between the huge, loose chunks of ice. She was grateful for the privacy, though it didn't last long.

"What's wrong, Twilight?"

The mare twitched, as if suddenly discovering the ability to move. "That's the Dragon-Fire Bridge, Going."

The ponies on the shore continued to chant as Going Solo approached her ward. "It's Solo, Twilight," she managed through chattering teeth. "Also, it's freezing!" A misty blue wing reached out from beneath Solo's cobalt jacket, and wrapped around the mare. After a moment in the embrace, the pegasus started to feel warmth across her body again. "Now, that's better. Why don't you tell me why that broken bridge has you all mopey?"

"Shining..." Twilight swallowed hard, shaking her head. "Whatever happened, it happened there. Masquerade blew it up."

Solo grimaced momentarily, before pulling on Twilight's shoulder, leaning the other mare against her. Twilight stood stiff, resisting the motion.

"Let go."

"Oh, come on, Twilight." Solo took a moment to pull her mane back and adjust her hair band. "Too tough to lean on anypony else for support? Or does the blue coat not do it for you?"

Twilight slapped the pegasus on the chest, but the little smile Solo had earned was what really mattered. "Fine, Solo, what do you want?"

"Well, we're almost to shore now, so you should probably put that book back in your crazy magic bags."

"This is my Stalliongradi dictionary," Twilight responded. "I only know a few phrases, so I'm going to need it soon anyway."

"Oh." Solo shrugged. "Don't drop it overboard, then. Do you know what those ponies are saying?"

"Ещё разик, да ещё раз! Эй, ухнем!"

Twilight looked up from her book just as the barge lurched up onto the rocky shore. "Yo, heave ho?"

"Fun." Solo stood up and wandered to the edge of the deck. A burly sailor stallion offered her a hoof down onto land, and she took it gladly. Despite not needing aid, it was nice to be waited on. Soon, her hooves were resting on icy stones, and she was closer to shivering for it. She turned back to the boat, waiting for Twilight to disembark.

The Bearer of Magic offered a hoof to the stallion. Rather than help her down, his eyes traced her over, and then he went out of his way to step away from her. A bit shocked, it took Twilight a moment to refocus. She teleported to Solo's side.

"Who the buck does he–"

"Language!" Twilight hissed.

Solo laughed a little to herself. "Stalliongradi or Equiish? It's not like they can understand me."

"You don't know that." Before Solo could answer her, Twilight stared up the beach toward the small village on the banks of the straight. "Well, this is Arkhayngelsk, if I'm saying it right. My tourism says the locals are very friendly, and they like to tell fairy-tales."

"Whee," Solo noted, with a sarcasm as bitter as the winter storm surrounding them. "Are they known for having buildings? I'd love to be inside one right now."

Twilight nodded, and the two foreigners set on their way through the knee-high snow, shivering all the way.

Arkhayngelsk was a smallish town, consisting of a few hundred wooden homes and workplaces centered around a statue so weathered by snow and wind that only the oldest residents of the city could remember a time when it resembled a pony. Beyond that simple fact, nothing was known of it.

The weather was bad that day, even for the Domain of Stalliongrad, as Twilight and Solo made their way toward the town's singular inn and restaurant. It was a hardy thing of stone as well as wood, two stories tall and as large as a barn. Though its face held only six windows, they cast a vibrant light that glimmered in the falling snowflakes.

As they progressed through the village, the native earth ponies going about their work in the opposite direction took their time giving Twilight odd looks, and more than a few bitter glares. At first, she brushed them off, but soon the paranoia was taking just as much a toll as the weather.

Neither mare spoke through the short journey. Soon, Twilight's magic was pulling open the inn door, and they both rushed inside. It shut heavily, rattling in its frame. The change in heat was glorious, but it was the lack of wind that finally returned the sensation of blood to their limbs.

"Phew," Solo muttered, brushing snow out of her mane and shaking it off of her wings. "I thought somepony was going to jump us."

"Jump us?"

The guardsmare gave her ward a flat stare. "You saw how those ponies were looking at us, right? I think your book was wrong, Twilight. They didn't seem very friendly. Take a look at this place." True to the pegasus' observation, the public room of the inn was virtually dead, despite no fewer than twenty six occupants. Huge, burly earth ponies of both genders sat at tables alone or in very small groups, drinking and eating unfamiliar foods in near-total silence. Tables near the room's large fireplace were popular. More than a few patrons had looked up from their meals or their company to stare at the newcomers.

"Uh... hi!" Twilight raised a hoof gently and gave them a weak wave. Most went back to their meals, but a few eyes lingered.

"What the hay's going on?" Solo whispered.

Twilight gulped. "I was afraid of this. Stalliongrad has historically been known for social stratification, and–"

"Equiish, please."

Twilight sighed, before whispering back. "It's because I'm a unicorn. My friend Roscherk said it wasn't such a huge problem anymore in the cities, but maybe the villages aren't so nice." She shrugged. "We'll just have to deal with it and get moving. I'd like to find some sort of transport to Trotsylvania now that we're on land. Let's ask the innkeeper."

Solo nodded, gesturing to the far side of the room with a wing. "You're the one who speaks to them, Twilight."

Nestled into one corner of the room was a bar-like countertop, behind which a pegasus stallion was polishing a pewter tankard. He was a wiry thing that seemed out of place amongst the burly forms of the other ponies in the room. Rather than slim, though, he struck Twilight as malnourished. His cheeks and eyes were sunken, though the former hid behind a heavy black beard that matched his mane and tail. But most notable of all were his wings: black, withered, sickly things that looked dead from frostbite. The vast majority of their feathers had fallen out,, revealing wiry skin and obvious bone. They stuck stiffly to his sides, as if he could not move them.

"Тебя не обслуживаю," he muttered when Twilight approached, looking up but not really seeing the ponies in front of him.

"Oh, uh..." Twilight smiled. ""Здравствуйте. Я Сумеречная Искорка."

"Ты меня не расслышала?" he asked her, in a rather flat monotone. "Убирайся из моей гостиницы."

Twilight struggled with her book, flipping through as fast as she could. "Did... did you not... Oh! No, I heard you. Um..."

The stallion reached out a hoof and slammed the book shut, before pushing it toward Twilight. "Архейнгельск не ратует сторонников Черных Плащей." He combined the complex phrase with a hoof pointed straight at the door.

"Hey, watch it!" Solo told him, pushing his foreleg down.

Four ponies stood up from their tables. One mare walked forward, eyeing Going Solo angrily. "Хочешь, чтобы мы с ними что-то сделали, Гурман?"

The question must have been directed to the stallion behind the bar, for he answered her immediately. "Я не хочу проблем."

"Oh, I know that!" Twilight beamed at having picked up the phrase. "He said he doesn't want trouble."

"Not really the time, Twilight," Solo observed, pointing out that the entire inn was glaring at them. Twilight's grin faded quickly.

"Я не думаю, что она настоящий Черный Плащ, но на всякий случай один из вас должен дать знать калеке. Грубый, ты немного знаешь их язык, так? Убери их с моей гривы."

An oily black pony rubbed his brow and rose from his seat. "Хорошо, Гурман." He cleared his throat. "Greet. Am Crude. What are you want?"

"Finally, somepony who speaks Equiish," Solo muttered under her breath.

Twilight gave the stallion an unsure smile. "I'm Twilight Sparkle. This is my friend Going Solo. We're here from Canterlot, looking for my brother. You might have heard of him, his name is–"

"Slow words. Toe fast." Crude glanced over at the bartender, and then shook his head. "Bad clothes."

"What?" Twilight asked in surprise.

Misinterpreting her shock as confusion, Crude rephrased his thought. "Clothes..." He ran a hoof over his chest as if pantomiming a jacket. "Not good black."

"Black?" Twilight looked down at her clothes, and revelation dawned plainly on her face. "Oh! You don't like that I'm wearing a black jacket? And I thought this was about me being a unicorn!"

Crude addressed the room. "Она просто какая-то иностранная дура. Нечего волноваться. Гурман, ты бы дал им еды."

The unicorn smiled, recognizing 'foreigner' as an explanation for her perceived ignorance. "Oh, thank you very much, Mr. Crude." Twilight and Solo moved over to a table near the bar, where Crude joined them momentarily.

Going Solo raised a curious eyebrow. "They've got something against black clothes?"

Twilight nodded. "Here in Stalliongrad–"

Crude interrupted. "This Arkhayngelsk. Stalliongrad north, east."

"The Domain of Stalliongrad," Twilight noted.

Crude shook his head. "This Oblast Trotsylvania."

"Oh-blast?" Solo asked.

Twilight nodded. "When Tsar Watchful Eye overthrew Baron Frostbite, he abolished all the duchies and counties and noble territories, at least in terms of legal rule. They still kept their family properties, but actual leadership got turned over to a set of governors that the tsar and the secretary appoint. The land each governor rules is called an 'oblast'. There are three oblasts, for the three major cities: Trotsylvania, Stalliongrad, and Saraneighvo."

Solo rolled her eyes. "I wasn't really looking for a school lecture."

"Information is important," Twilight responded calmly. "Especially if we're going to be trying to find Shining here."

"Right... so what were you saying about black clothes?"

Twilight nodded. "Well, the guard here are called the 'Black Cloaks'." The mare looked up briefly, but nopony in the room reacted to the word. Even Crude remained silent. "A lot of the locals aren't very fond of them. There's been an ongoing resistance ever since the Blizzard Revolution ended."

"Stalliongradians in black jackets..." For a moment, Solo was lost in memories of Canterlot, and her adventure with Shining Armor. It took far too long to shake off the past. "I think I've met a few before. Not very nice ponies."

Crude nodded slowly. Twilight merely shrugged. "Anyway, I should have had Rarity make something else, but after what happened with Res– sorry, Soldier On, I wasn't really thinking about colors." Twilight chuckled. "She was so dead set after she didn't get to put any trim or jewels on my friend Roscherk's coat–"

Crude cut into the conversation like a blade, not at first with words, but by leaning forward. Twilight realized very slowly what she had just said, and swallowed audibly. It wasn't Crude's attention that sent a shiver down her spine, but the stares of the entire inn. Crude spoke for them, every word laced in accusation and hatred. "Roscherk not many name. You say he friend?"

Solo shuddered at the sudden hostility in his voice, eyes darting across the room at the hardy country ponies who were slowly rising from their seats. "Uh, Twilight, what did you just say? Who's Row-shirk?"

As Twilight stumbled for a suitable answer, Crude addressed the inn. "Она говорит Росчерк Кровью её друг. Она с ними."

The innkeeper's sunken apathy was replaced with focused anger. "Ты уверен?"

"Кто вообще назовёт Коменданта своим другом, Гурман? Даже остальные Черные Плащи не делают этого."

Solo took a moment to whisper to the mare at her side. "We should get out of here, Twilight."

"But what about–"

"Does this look like it's going to end well?" Solo shot a quick glance to the door, and saw four ponies who had taken up positions in front of it. She rose to her own hooves and stepped up to Twilight's side, putting herself between the crowd and her unicorn companion. "Twilight, when I tell you, I want you to blow up the wall."

"What? I can't just blow up the wall!"

The Stalliongradians slowly moved forward from all sides, tightening their grip on the two foreigners.

"Aren't you some sort of super unicorn?" Solo asked, struggling to look in every direction at once.

"Blowing things up is Empatha, and even if I could make a bunch of fire, I wouldn't! Why don't we just talk to them?"

Going Solo shook her head and then grabbed the heavy pewter candlestick off their table, letting the candle itself fall free of its socket. The flame at its tip remained alive, dribbling molten wax onto the wood below; for just a moment, Solo's eyes told her it was blood. She could feel heart quickening as the noose drew shut around her neck.

"C'n 'ou te'eport ss?" the pegasus asked around the shaft of metal in her mouth.

"Not very far," Twilight answered. "It's dangerous to teleport somewhere you aren't very familiar with."

Apparently, that had been too much conversation. A stallion took a swing at Solo. He was a huge thing, but the pegasus mare was used to being on the wrong side of a size disadvantage. She dropped until her belly was nearly touching the floor, and felt a slight sting as his hoof slapped her left ear. The strength behind the blow left him off balance. She moved fast, bringing up the pewter against his jaw with a blow that sent him reeling to the ground. A moment later, the candlestick followed, released from Solo's mouth.

"Outside, Twilight!"

A hoof moved straight for her face, but only an inch away, it became a snowflake. The pop of her ears and the sensation of vertigo did horrible things to her body in tandem with the sudden cold and wind. She staggered, and nearly toppled backward, before catching herself by flapping her wings.

They were in the streets of Arkhayngelsk, and a nearby door swung open. Twenty voices shouted in Stalliongradi, but one was enough in Equiish.

"Run!"

On the afternoon of the twenty-sixth, it was raining hooves. Rainbow ducked under a wide swing from Soldier On's right foreleg; it wasn't hard when On's shoulder was naturally higher than Rainbow's head. The pegasus caught On three times on the neck, before spinning around and delivering a buck with both of her hind legs straight into the earth pony's chest. She would have taken another kick, had the train not suddenly lurched.

The braking noise squealed through the tiny room, and soon, the train had stopped.

"What the hay?" Rainbow asked, pulling herself up out of a tangle of legs and wings. "You said we wouldn't be stopping until tonight."

"We aren't in Salt Lick City," On observed, moving slowly to the door. "Reckoning, watch the window."

"On it," he told her.

"What's the big deal?"

"Rangers, Rainbow," Reckoning told her.

Soldier On nodded. "I thought we'd hit San Palomino City at least. This is too fast–" She cut off her thought at the sound of hooves running down the central corridor of the train. A mass of ponies, no fewer than four by Rainbow's guess, had darted past their cabin. One, however, had remained behind, knocking on doors. There was speaking too, though the thick walls concealed the meaning behind the words.

"Anything?" On whispered.

"Nopony outside," the stallion answered. "Skies are clear too."

"Well then let's just run for it." Rainbow walked over to the window. She might have opened it up and jumped right out, had a distinct knock not sounded on their door.

"Open up!"

In a single fluid motion, Soldier On flung the door open, grabbed the pony outside, and slammed him to the floor of the cabin. The hoof not pinning his chest struck suddenly against his neck, and before he could make another sound, his eyes rolled back and his body went limp.

"Did you kill him?"

"No," On answered, shutting the door. "He'll wake up in a few hours.” The earth pony pulled their bags and garments out of the cabin’s closet and began to put on her bladed shoes.

Rainbow’s eyes stayed locked on the stallion in the center of the floor, doubting Soldier On’s words. He didn’t look like he was breathing. “Is he a guardspony?"

Reckoning stepped away from the window and shook his head. "They're train robbers."

X - Unforgivable

X

Unforgiveable

"What the hay do you mean train robbers?" Rainbow snarled at her earth pony companion. "You think I'm just gonna–" Rainbow's words were cut off when a powerful hoof pressed against her lips.

"They're still here, Rainbow," Soldier On warned in a harsh whisper. She released the pressure from Rainbow's lips after a moment, and glanced down at the body of the unconscious earth pony stallion in the center of the floor. "And yes, they are train robbers. Ask Deadeye if you don't believe me." Her gaze shifted sharply toward the stallion by the windows. "What have you got?"

Reckoning answered in the same forced hush as he peeked between their blinds. "Six of them are already heading out. I count two single-pony wagons, loaded up with trunks. They're going east, toward Brayce Canyon. The rest of the group is gathering up close by. There's somepony fighting..." Reckoning's voice trailed off.

"What?" Rainbow asked quietly. "What is it?"

There was a pause as Reckoning gathered his thoughts. "That foal, Rocket..."

"What?" Rainbow shouted, lunging up to the window.

In the distance, the little blue colt who had proven an inspiration to Rainbow three days prior was struggling with a dusty brown earth pony, kicking up a small storm of dust. In front of Rainbow's eyes, a hoof struck the foal on the back of the neck, and he crumpled into the legs of the grown mare.

Rainbow didn't scream or shout; in a single motion, she unfurled her wings, turned, and threw herself to the door. It slammed open before anypony else could react, and she flew into the central hallway of the train car.

Two stallions, both earth ponies in light clothing, were waiting. The first to react to the blur of radiant fury called out. "Hey, you! Sto–" The words didn't last long in his throat when Rainbow's hoof connected. He crumpled just as the other stallion began to move.

Rainbow was ready for him, but they never came to blows. The cabin wall exploded in a blinding maelstrom of splinters and paint flecks. Amidst the chaos, Rainbow saw Soldier On's forehooves wrap around the unfortunate robber's neck.

The crack was quiet, yet deafening.

Trying to wipe the thought from her mind, Rainbow flew forward. The same lethal hooves that had just killed the bandit caught her by the chest and pinned her to the floor.

"Rainbow Dash, stop," On ordered, as if Rainbow had any other option.

Rainbow shook her head, crying out in desperation. "They have Rocket!"

"How will your death help?" the enormous mare asked, stepping fully out of the hole she had bucked in the cabin wall, even as she maintained pressure on the young pegasus. "Can you fight a dozen bandits alone, Rainbow?"

"We have to do something!" the pegasus shouted back.

"No, we don't." On leaned heavily on Rainbow's chest as the smaller mare began to struggle. "This isn't our fight. San Palomino has its own guardsponies."

"So we're just gonna let the foalnappers get away?"

"For now, yes." On loosened the pressure on Rainbow's chest, and the pegasus sucked down a deep breath. "They shouldn't hurt this 'Rocket', if he's a hostage. Now go back in the cabin. I'll get rid of the two breathing ones."

The casual nature of the statement set something off in Rainbow, but her irritation was short lived.

"Uh, On, we've got a problem." Reckoning called from within their cabin. "One of them is doing a head count. They know these ones are missing."

"Damn!" On looked around, though her mind seemed elsewhere. "Alright, new plan. Reckoning, Rainbow, take the survivors and dump them off the other side of the train. Then go up to the engine and get us moving again. Knock out the engineer and drive yourselves if you have to. I'll take this one, see if I can't make a distraction. With luck, I'll get the foal...” She hesitated. “I’ll get Rocket back."

The mare moved back into the cabin, and pulled from their closet the large bag holding their equipment. With an impressive speed, she donned her bladed shoes, and the bandoliers that held her spares. A moment later, her custom made duster coat concealed the weapons. She took only a moment to glance over herself, and then moved back into the hallway.

Rainbow's stomach churned at the way the dead stallion's broken neck flopped around when On picked him up. She found her tongue tied as Reckoning walked up to the huge hole in the wall On had bucked through. "Are you going to be okay?" he asked the departing mare.

"I've had bigger crowds than this chase me in Stalliongrad." Soldier On was resolute. "But if I don't make it on the train, don't stop. I can run the distance. I'll meet you in the closest town, or Salt Lick if that's the next place we hit; find a shady bar or hotel or something, and keep your eyes open. You might have to go on without me, if Flag or the rangers catch up before I do." Then she turned around and charged down the length of the train, the dead train robber bouncing on her back with every stride.

Rainbow was entranced for a moment, snapped out only when Reckoning nudged her shoulder. She turned to find him garbed in a dull vest and a wide brimmed hat that seemed a cross between a fedora and Applejack's signature headpiece. His machete was sheathed under his good wing. "Grab your gear, Rainbow. We need to get moving."

He tossed a brown poncho decorated with a gentle white pattern at Rainbow; she struggled into it quickly. Even as her head wrestled with the fabric, he slung a simple belt over her shoulder so that it wrapped around behind her left wing. The weight of her own hoof-crafted sword tugged down lightly, but in some strange way the pressure was comforting.

"Now, let's go."

The few cars between their cabin and the engine were completely empty, and they passed at a full gallop in nothing more than a blur of doors and wood paneling. Soon, however, they reached the last door. There, Reckoning held out a hoof, and drew his machete.

"If they stopped the train, there might be somepony here," he whispered. "Be ready."

Rainbow nodded, but she didn't draw her weapon. She wasn't ready to use it. As the door slid open, she lowered herself and took a deep breath.

The rank stench of wet copper filled her nostrils, alongside the acrid smell of coal. She realized what it was even before she could really see inside the engine.

Blood. It wasn't some gory scene from out of a horror story, or the mad temples of Discord in the Daring Do stories. Instead, it was just a single puddle, spilling out from a slit in the throat of the engineer. It had pooled around his hooves, staining his coat and soaking the floor, yet there was somehow less than Rainbow would have imagined, as if the loss of his life had taken no more effort than spilling a small jug of water.

Shaking his head gently, Reckoning sheathed his weapon and stepped forward, staining his hooves. With a gentle touch from the tip of his left wing, he brushed the stallion's eyelids shut. "Nothing we can do for him now. Pull that lever there, Rainbow."

The train lurched when Rainbow pulled the throttle, and Reckoning lurched with it. His left wing shot out, but it wasn't enough to steady him, and his wounded side slammed down into the pool of blood lying atop the hard floor.

"Whoa, Reckoning! You okay?"

"Fine," The stallion grumbled. He rose gently to his hooves, stumbled, and collapsed again. His broken wing and splint dripped with a painful stain as he again tried to stand.

Rainbow put a wing under his belly, and lent him her shoulder. She found herself surprised at how cold the fresh blood was, but more troublesome was just how light her friend had become. Even through his now-stained vest and the various knickknacks he'd stored in its pockets, she could feel his ribs clearly.

"What's wrong with you, Reckoning?"

"Thirsty," he muttered, leaning heavily against her side, and spreading the stain of blood onto her coat. "Heat's getting to me, Dash. Just... help me over to the controls there." Together, the two pegasi limped toward the numerous levers at the face of the engine's roaring furnace.

Rainbow recoiled at the heat. "You sure you want to be here? I can stay, and you can–"

"Do you know how to drive a train, Rainbow?" He gave her one of his distinct smiles, though the wooziness in his visible eye left Dash less than amused. "Relax; I'm giving you the hard job. There might still be more of them on the train. I'll be right here when you get back." He slumped against the wall. "If you could make it ice water, that'd be fantastic, kid."

Rainbow nodded with much more determination than Reckoning's half-conscious, jestful nature seemed to suggest. Turning around, she set back down the length of the train.

"No, Scootaloo, for the last time, you may not go after Rainbow Dash." Rarity pinched her muzzle with a hoof as her magic struggled to stitch a straight Manehattan seam in the dress on the model before her. Both her needle and her hoof twitched, the latter further agitating her frazzled mane. It was only when a purple-scaled claw came to rest on her withers that she took a moment to breathe. "Thank you, Spike."

"Do you think you should rest, Rarity?"

The dressmaker nodded, allowing the drake to guide her to a couch. "Perhaps you're right, Spike. I seem to not be myself today."

In truth, Rarity hadn't been herself for almost a week, since the nearly violent departure of the Apple's would-be hired help. With Spike's help, she'd been able to manage, but she felt bad using him as such a crutch. Still, she had her obligations–one of which was taking her turn minding Scootaloo in Rainbow Dash's absence. The little filly wasn't making Rarity's recovery any easier.

"But it would be totally safe! I wouldn't have just Rainbow. Mr. Reckoning would be there too! And Resistant–"

"I'll hear no more talk of that name, dear," Rarity interrupted rather forcefully, before rolling over on the well-cushioned chaise. "Spike, be a dear and go see if Sweetie Belle is quite done with her bath."

"No problem, Rarity." The dragon bounded upstairs to the home part of the Carousel Boutique, leaving Rarity alone with Scootaloo.

The filly wasted no time taking advantage of the situation. "Come on, Rarity. You and Rainbow's friends always get to go on cool adventures and fight monsters and stuff! we never get to do anything."

"If you think confronting Nightmare Moon or King Sombra is our idea of 'fun', Scootaloo, you have a great deal of growing up to do. And in all honesty, I'm surprised you're still interested in any sort of adventure after what happened with Mr. Ink."

"No way! That was super cool, even if it wasn't as cool as Rainbow Dash." Rarity buried her face in a hoof. "How come Rainbow and Twilight and Mr. Ink get to go on cool adventures without getting yelled at?"

At that comment, Rarity chuckled. "Scootaloo, here's something I think you can understand. You see, Rainbow Dash didn't tell any of her friends she was going on an... 'adventure', as you so optimistically put it."

"Huh?"

"She simply up-and-left. We didn't even know she had left Ponyville until Fluttershy got you down from her house. Of course, then we were able to put together what had happened, but it was too late to go after her. That isn't to say we don't want her back, and in fact, you'll find that we're all very cross with her." Rarity sighed. "I just don't understand it. Why couldn't she at least tell us she was leaving? It certainly doesn't seem very loyal to just run off without saying so much as a word." Rarity let out a very ladylike growl of annoyance and stomped a hoof on the frame of her couch.

All of Carousel Boutique shook violently. Slowly, Scootaloo and Rarity both turned their heads to stare directly at her idle forehoof. The grown mare lifted the offending limb, rotating it slowly and examining it with curious eyes. Surely she couldn't have put on that much weight... right?

Then the building shook again, followed by a gale of tremendous wind that rattled the windows and sent a flurry of snow through the formerly-closed door.

"What was that?" Scootaloo bothered to ask only once she was already halfway out of the boutique. After momentarily bemoaning the cleaning her floor would need, Rarity followed.

The 'that' to which Scootaloo had so aptly referred seemed at first to be a simple mismanagement of the weather. The absence of its lead weathermare had not done good things for Ponyville's weather. Clouds were out of place, snow was falling unevenly, and to top it all off, an enormous airship in royal blue and gold was plowing through the sky. In fairness, most of the ponies in the small town agreed that even Rainbow Dash would have had trouble with the third problem.

As the huge balloon and the somewhat smaller wooden craft hanging from its belly lowered toward the center of Ponyville, Rarity and Scootaloo joined a growing crowd in the town square. Ponies had huddled together both to resist the strange and obviously magical winds of the vessel, and to see what exactly had brought the exotic craft to their small town.

Rarity found herself wishing for a scarf, as a huge sort of sonic 'thud' emanated from the airship, rattling all the buildings and sending up a new flurry of wind and snow. To her gratitude, some stallion stepped in front of both her and Scootaloo, absorbing the brunt of the weather.

"Why thank you, my good sir."

"Eeyup," the unmistakable stallion replied, before turning back to the ship. "Any idea what's goin' on?"

"Your guess is as good as mine, Macintosh."

The gondola of the airship settled with surprising calm near the fountain in the center of town square, at which point a gangplank was quickly lowered in an aura of pale blue magic. The ponies of Ponyville stopped what they were doing to watch who would come down.

The first was a middle-aged mare with a coat of blue tarnished by wrinkles and graying hairs more likely caused by stress than actual age. Beneath her gold helmet, she scanned the crowd with a cruel and analytical gaze, as if weighing the value of the civilians. When she was unable to find her objective amongst the curious faces of the crowd, she continued down the gangplank calmly.

"That's Lieutenant Flag," Scootaloo told the two grown ponies standing over her. "She works for Mr. Ink."

"Delightful," Rarity muttered, with rather more sarcasm than she had intended to reveal. "Just what Ponyville needs. More guardsponies."

"She got in a fight with Mr. Reckoning at the bar in Canterlot."

Rarity's brow dipped. "It seems I'll have even more stern words for Rainbow Dash when she returns. Now hush, darling. Somepony else is coming."

The next mare was more familiar to at least a few of the ponies in the crowd, even in rather different garb than she would most often be known for. Barely thirty years old in yellow, crested with fiery orange, she swept her eyes slowly over the crowd behind shaded purple glass. The smiling love of the spotlight that dominated her public persona was gone on a stern face. Its absence and her charisma were enough to set Ponyville on edge. Her goal was business, and her business would be unpleasant.

"Ooh! That's Spitfire!"

"Yes, Scootaloo, I recognize her too. The Captain of the Wonderbolts. Princess Celestia knows Rainbow Dash can't avoid talking about her for ten minutes on end." Rarity rolled her eyes. "Perhaps if you stay here for a moment, I'll have Spike take you to get an autograph or something." A brief flicker of recognition flashed over Rarity's face, and her gaze flickered back toward the Carousel Boutique.

Little did she know that in the basement of Carousel Boutique, Spike and Sweetie Belle had discovered a huge hole leading to the burrow of a Diamond Dog gem smuggling syndicate, who had made off with a huge portion of the Boutique's stock. Or, at least, so Spike would claim when Rarity found a huge chest empty later that day.

The last to emerge was an ancient mare, of a pale gray coat and a sheer white mane. Wrinkles dominated her face around the squinting red of her eyes–wrinkles of stress and a hard life that stood in stark contrast to the forced smile on her jaw. Rather than her companions' concerns, she looked at the gathered crowd with bemusement. "I wasn't exactly expecting a reception like this, Flag. Did I win the lottery?"

A few ponies in the crowd chuckled, but the joke was lost on the pegasus of the Cutie Mark Crusaders, who shivered with wide eyes as the old mare leaned on the metal brace surrounding her right foreleg and limped her way down the gangplank on creaky knees.

"Is something bothering you, Scootaloo?"

"She's... the olden pony."

Rarity had to crawl back in her memories to recognize the name. "From Rainbow Dash's ghost story? That's rather rude, Scootaloo. I'm certain she's another respectable mare, or–" Rarity cut herself off when the pony in question began to speak.

"Hello, Ponyville," she called out, in a somewhat creaky voice. "It's been a long time since I've been back here. My name is Captain Vigil. My companions here are Captain Flag and Lieutenant Spitfire. I'm sure some of you stallions recognize her as the centerfold from last summer's Special Edition of Sports Photographed."

Good-natured laughter and a few whistles from less-than-tasteful stallions in the audience generally overrode the sour glare Spitfire offered Captain Vigil. The old mare continued speaking when the noise died down, not offering the Wonderbolt a chance to voice her irritation. "I'm sure my companions would love to spend some time here in your beautiful town, with its gorgeous..." Vigil trailed off as her eyes scanned Ponyville for a notable landmark. After nearly fifteen seconds of silence, she settled on a choice with a severe drop in enthusiasm. "...fountain." Sighing, she regained some of her momentum. "Unfortunately, we're here on urgent business from Princess Celestia. If you would all return to your homes, that would be wonderful. For the moment, we're looking for a miss..." Vigil glanced down at her hoof, where it wasn't hard to guess that a name was written. A bit of snow sloughed off her hoof, explaining the struggle the older mare had reading the name. "...Ra-arette?"

White Flag mimicked Rarity's earlier motion, rubbing a hoof against her temple. "It's Rarity, ma'am."

"Well, when you're a hundred and seventy-five, we'll see how well you can read," Vigil snapped. "Anyway, Ponyville, that was your cue. Show's over. Nothing to see here." Shaking her hoof rather daintily, as one might expect of aged Trottingham noblility, she dispersed the crowd. Soon, only Macintosh, Rarity, and Scootaloo were standing in the square with the guardsponies.

Greetings were simple. They began with Spitfire. "Oh. You."

Rarity winced. "I'm so sorry about your face, darling."

Captain Vigil had to suppress a chuckle at the bluntness of the comment. White Flag clearly didn’t see the humor, however, and stepped forward. “Miss Rarity, we don’t have time to deal with...” Then the mare paused, thinking. “...whatever past it is you have with the Lieutenant. You reported an attack by Soldier On?”

Rarity nearly tore out her mane. “That’s what this is about?! I reported that a week ago! I could have walked to Canterlot in the time it’s taken you!”

White Flag removed her helmet and handed it to Spitfire. The Wonderbolt grabbed it in a wing without any word. Her mane freed, Flag brushed back her mane, and then looked Rarity straight in the eyes. The guardsmare’s gaze was frigid and judging. “The Royal Guard aren’t a bolt of lightning. We don’t have magical relics to protect us; only instincts, training, and a few slabs of metal. If I rushed six ponies after Soldier On, I would have the blood of six ponies on my conscience. So if you think for one moment that–”

“Calm down, Flag.” Vigil advised as gently as she could manage, placing a hoof atop the unicorn mare’s back. When the armored guardsmare had taken a few breaths, she stepped back, and Vigil took her place. “You’ll have to forgive her, Rarity. Flag’s been doing a very hard job for a long time. You probably can’t tell from where you’re standing, but she’s managed to get Princess Celestia’s horn a rather good distance up her–”

Macintosh brought his hooves down on Scootaloo’s ears, and consequently nearly crushed the poor filly’s skull.

“Not in front of her!” Spitfire shouted, gesturing to the same unfortunate youth.

Vigil chuckled. “You know what the great thing about being really old is, Spits?”

It was a testament to her authority and respect that Vigil wasn’t attacked on the spot, given the terrifying glare she earned from Spitfire. Uncaring, she continued her speech.

“I can say whatever I want, cause I’m ‘senile’.” She accompanied the final word by standing up on her hind legs and making airquotes with her forehooves–an impressive feat, given the brace restraining one of them. Once she had all four hooves on the ground again, Vigil returned her attention to the other ponies present. “You, Apple... are you Mary Ann Smith’s grandson?”

Macintosh nodded. “Eeyup.”

“Figures your family would still be here. It really has been a long time.” Her eyes glanced between him and Rarity, before settling on Scootaloo. “Your foal is adorable.”

“What?” Rarity turned a bright shade of red, and it was likely Macintosh would have done the same in his stammering fit, were it not for the natural color of his coat. “You think– I, never–” Only halfway through her sixth broken thought did the seamstress realize that Vigil was quietly and knowingly chuckling to herself. “Ah. Really? I must say, ma’am, your humor is rather coarse.”

“Bah, some ponies just don’t get it. But you do, don’tcha, Flag?” After letting the ensuing silence hang in the air for a moment, Vigil sighed. “Right, well, maybe you’re right, Rarity. Your letter suggested Rainbow Dash, Dead Reckoning, and Soldier On were traveling together toward Suida, correct?”

Collecting herself, Rarity nodded. “That’s what... she... seemed to be suggesting. I made clothes for them, for the desert. At the time, I didn’t know...” Rarity let her voice trail off.

“Was it just the three of them?”

“To my knowledge.”

“Were they armed?”

Rarity looked up. “That mare–”

“Soldier On,” White Flag supplied.

“Yes, her. She didn’t have any weapons that I saw, but she threatened Spike, and Twilight’s friend, Miss Solo, with a pair of those garish iron farming shoes.”

Flag pinched her muzzle. “I knew sending that mare with Sparkle was a bad idea. We’ll have to hope Captain Ink finds them. Have they left for Stalliongrad, Rarity?”

“They left almost a week ago. In fact, I believe it was later that same night.”

“Perfect.” Flag’s voice oozed sarcasm, as her hoof traced patterns in the snow. “Did On and Rainbow leave that night as well?”

“That afternoon, there was train heading for Appleloosa. Twilight and I thought it would just be her, until Rainbow and Mr. Reckoning disappeared. When we got Scootaloo here down from Rainbow’s cloud-house, we confirmed it.” Rarity gestured into the distance, where Rainbow’s glorious home was visible through the light clouds still depositing snow on the town.

“Is that a Silver Lining?” Spitfire asked. “Where’d she get the money for that?”

“He’s her grandfather,” Flag muttered casually, not looking up from the patterns her hoof was making in the snow before her. “He pays the property taxes for it too; she can’t afford it on a weathermare’s salary.”

Rarity’s eyes widened. “How do you know that? And for that matter, what gives you the right to invade her privacy?”

“She’s a Bearer of Harmony,” Flag said, her tone the very definition of factual business. “We keep tabs.” And then, without changing her tone in the slightest, the older mare added another simple thought. “Legally speaking, mining gems on land you don’t own is an imprisonable offense.”

“Lay off, Flag,” Vigil warned.

The unicorn sighed. “Scootaloo... you’re the filly Rainbow Dash brought to Canterlot not long ago, correct?”

“Yeah. She’s my sister.” Scootaloo stepped forward. “I remember you. You weren’t very nice to Mr. Reckoning.”

Rarity was expecting a stern answer from the mare. Instead, she looked Scootaloo in the eyes. “You’re right. I wasn’t. Sometimes, ponies need tough love to learn from their mistakes. But right now, Scootaloo, we’d like your help.”

“Huh?”

“Beg pardon, what?”

“Flag, what are you–”

The new Captain of the Royal Guard ignored the complaints of the others present. “I’d like you to help me bring Rainbow Dash and... Mister Reckoning back.”

Big Macintosh stepped forward, his hoof dragging through some of whatever figures Flag had put in the snow. “Ya can’t just take her away!”

“I think you’ll find, Mr. Apple, that Scootaloo is a ward of the state. And as a result, on my authority as Captain of the Royal Guard, I can do exactly that.”

Macintosh moved to take another step forward, and Flag’s horn ignited.

“Now, now, there’s no call for that.” Vigil stopped Mac’s approach with one hoof against his chest, while her other seemed enough to lower the aura from Flag’s horn. While the hoof on Flag’s shoulder dropped quickly, the one the ancient mare had placed on Macintosh only moved lower, rubbing sensuously across his body. “So if Scootaloo isn’t your filly, does that mean you’re single?” Her hoof keep going, first between his front legs, and then reaching under him toward the more reserved parts of his body. Vigil completed the act by biting her lip, and dropping her eyelids halfway.

The look in Vigil’s eyes would haunt Macintosh’s dreams for the rest of his life. “Nnnope!” he managed to yelp, before turning tail and galloping away full tilt. The two unicorn mares present seemed unamused, but Spitfire and Scootaloo shared a barely-contained chuckle at the fleeing stallion.

“See, Flag?” the earth pony asked, her voice returning to a much closer approximation of seriousness. “Much more efficient than trying to teleport somepony his size.”

“I’ll try to keep it in mind, ma’am,” Flag answered flatly.

Rarity cocked her head. “You were going to try and teleport him?”

“Hostile teleportation,” Flag replied, rubbing a pulsing vein on her brow. “A trying spell, even for a younger mare than myself. I know better than to fight an earth pony of his size from that close.” The allusion in the words was lost on nopony present.

“Really? Awesome! How far could you teleport him?” Scootaloo asked, her curiosity piqued.

“Not very far; across town, maybe. It’s based on the subject’s weight.”

Scootaloo jumped up. “How far could you teleport me?”

Flag stared at the pegasus filly with a brow raised for a moment, dragged her hoof very rapidly through the snow for about three seconds, and then looked up again. “Thirteen point six miles... give-or-take. That would be as far as opposite end of Sweet Apple Acres, if my mental map is to scale.”

“Cool! Do it!”

Flag rolled her eyes, and then shook her head. “I’m sorry, Scootaloo. It seems I’m... a bit tired. Go see Spitfire; I’m sure she’ll be happy to share her quarters on the ship.”

Spitfire winced visibly at the comment, but held her tongue nevertheless.

“Now hold on–” Rarity began.

“No,” Flag answered. Then she turned, and waited for the Wonderbolt to guide her new ‘protege’ up the gangplank to their ship. Once they were gone, she stepped up to the white mare, until their horns were nearly touching. “Now that I can speak candidly, let me be clear. I need Scootaloo for the exact same reason that I chose the ‘Captain’ of the Wonderbolts over a dozen more militarily talented soldiers. My first priority is to bring Rainbow Dash back alive. Bringing her back unharmed is a secondary concern. Do you follow, Rarity?”

“I believe I do,” Rarity responded, though her strained tone made it all too clear that she wasn’t happy about the situation. “She isn’t just a token to be traded.”

“Everypony is a token,” Flag replied, as she moved to turn and walk away. “If you don’t believe that, look up my name in a history book.”

Rarity’s nose crinkled up, and her horn sparked to life. A moment later, a ball of snow collided with the back of Flag’s head, painting even more of her coat white than her mane naturally managed. “Don’t you dare hurt her.”

After a delay came simple words. “I promise,” the guardsmare lied. “Captain Vigil, we should be leaving. We’ll catch On at Razorback Ridge.” With a flick of her mane, the new Captain of the Royal Guard rid herself of the last remnants of Rarity’s snowball, and climbed the gangplank.

Rarity watched the airship take off a few moments later, silently praying that Celestia’s chosen would be kind enough to spare a little filly the harshness of their world.

There are some constants in the hearts and minds of ponies; unyielding stone and steel that built the soul of a pony, whose bending or cracking can just as easily destroy a life completely as change it for the better.

The Commander afforded himself no time to reflect on his own brokenness; his attention was devoted to the destruction of another. Though his body was still too broken to truly fight, Khagan's torture had given him a weapon. Now he stood, his shoulder pressed against the doorframe of his tiny cell, with his own rear femur sharpened into a blade that jutted from between his teeth. His tongue darted with a surprising familiarity around the improvised handle, allowing speech with a surprising clarity.

"You're sure they're there?"

"What, don't you trust me, Commander?"

"I don't have a choice," the stallion muttered to the figment of the Draconequus lingering on the wall beside his face. Discord smiled, shaking his head. The Commander concluded his thought simply. "I'd rather not."

"You are going to keep your promise?"

The Commander growled, though he had no time to answer. The door began to creak open, and his faded brown eyes grew more focused in the light leaking from the outside hallway. The jailer, One-Tusk, walked into the room. The Commander only had a second at most as realization dawned.

For Celestia's bodyguard, that was all the time in the world.

The blade of pale bone wasn't sharp or long enough to decapitate the boar, as he would have preferred while wielding Commander Hurricane's legendary blade. But where the Gladius Procellarum was long and sharp, the jagged blade of bone was thin and pointed, sized perfectly to fit between the ridges of a boar's spine.

The stallion's legs were too weak and too wounded to catch the body, so he let it slump to the ground. A sharp jerk of his neck retrieved his gruesome blade. He knew he had no time for hesitation, so his parting words were brief.

"May you find the peace you were never given in life."

Then he ran. The motion was jarring and painful, marked by the limping of his right hind leg and the occasional missteps of the others, even despite the torturous regenerations Khagan had inflicted.

There was no time for words, but his only companion had no need for sound to converse. "Wait, what are you doing?" the carving running along the wall beside the stallion asked.

Escaping, the Commander answered in silence.

"I told you help was coming, not that you needed to run off on your own!"

Aren't you supposed to like chaos? the Commander wondered, as his mind retraced the passageways of the desert fortress.

"I like not being a lawn ornament an awful lot more!" Discord snapped back. "That means I need you not to do anything stupid!"

The caves were a network of tunnels carved from muddy red stone and supported with rotting timbers of wood from water-starved trees. The only lights were from the tiny windows set into the walls where they curved across into the ceiling; despite the roaring heat and blinding brightness of the Suidan badlands, the tunnels were dark and thick and foggy. They suited the Commander perfectly, half-blinded as he was behind the pain of his every step. He'd carved the pathways slowly into his own memory with every step he was forced to take between his cell and the outer grounds of the fortress where Khagan's chosen had the honor of tearing him limb from limb day in and day out. He'd watched them fight over who would get to rip his hooves off, or smash out his teeth with boulders one by one. And each time, Khagan's magic would undo the damage, that the suffering might continue.

A part of the Commander screamed to fight the huge boar, but the knowledge of the task's futility won out. He could no more fight their warchief than raise the sun with his own hooves. Even the average boar was beyond his talents without the aid of ambush, as broken as his body was. And so, in the dark hallways he ran. His shattered wings, looking almost black in the shadows, flapped uselessly at his sides. The broken bones had fused in the passing of months with the warchief's aid, their crests facing backward toward his single cutie mark, and the wretched scar that had stolen its partner.

Each time he rounded a corner, cold blood surged through his heart. Would there be a boar waiting? Would he run face-first into Khagan himself? The empty halls were a gamble over a miracle, but there were still too many things that could go wrong.

Disappointed by the stallion's lack of a response, Discord 'spoke' up again. "If you could escape this whole time, why wait until now?"

I didn't know the way out; I had to memorize the right path whenever they carried me outside. I needed an escape route, which you've provided. And I needed a weapon."

"What about your magic sword? And the armor–"

Not worth dying over. The Commander's eyes momentarily glanced down a path that led deeper into the fortress. Yet despite his memories, he knew better than to endure temptation.

His hooves carried him to a window set lower on the wall than the others, and glanced outside. What he saw brought a smile to his face. Discord had been right.

A caravan of camels, with their wagons and their wares, had pulled up outside the narrow entrance to the boar fortress in the muddy red crescent of a cliff wall. Even the conquering barbarians had need of trade, and only the nomads were hardy enough to brave the Suidan wastes. The boars had abandoned the inner fortress in search of trade and company. Even Khagan himself was there, looming over the goods at no less than thrice the height of the camel traders.

The visitors were garbed in their traditional clothing: light linen coats and turbans, wound around their faces so that a simple tug could create a veil or a visor to protect against the sand and the dust of the deep desert. An easy disguise to hide a pony, with only a fortress worth of boars standing in his way.

His staggering run carried him to the singular opening in the cliff wall, where the inner fortress opened to the sheltered valley surrounded on three sides by the moon-shaped walls. There, he pressed himself against the shadows and silently thanked his maker for the deep blue tone of his coat.

I need your help, Discord.

"Well, I don't know what you expect me to do," the Spirit huffed into the Commander's mind. "I told you, the long distance takes a lot of magic. I can do maybe one trick, but I can't make anything too big for you. You want a small sandstorm or something?"

It was a perfect lead-in; a different stallion might have made some clever comment about chaos or deceptions. But the stern face of the Commander simply shook back and forth slightly. No, Discord. Not a distraction. A disguise.

Rainbow was the first off the train, unrestrained by the heavy doors of the passenger cars. Her first glimpse of Hogden was a quiet town with a rampant surplus of pig pens and wheat fields. Ponies went about their business in simple clothes, save the pair of black-suited stallions approaching her. They looked a bit like government types, save for the friendly smiles they wore with clear practice. A pair of nametags labeled them as Brother Statement and Brother Impossible.

"Hello, ma'am," the stallion named Statement called out. His mouth opened to deliver another sentence, but he was cut off when the rest of the train doors flew open, and a crowd of terrified ponies flooded out upon the quiet town. The two stallions stared in confusion at the unrestrained confusion, until Impossible seemed to give up on understanding and returned his attention to Rainbow.

"Do you have a moment to talk about Princess Celestia?"

Rainbow scowled. "What about her?"

"You see, ma'am, we represent the Chur–"

The words stopped instantly when a third stallion joined the scene. Dead Reckoning seemed to be feeling much better when he stepped down onto the planks that made up the train-station platform. The pale, almost papery body of the train engineer hung limp on his back, gathering the attentions of the civilians in the desert town. Even the town's namesake pigs stared in uneasy interest from nearby pens.

"Wh... what happened?" Impossible stammered.

"The train was attacked," Reckoning told them as gently as he could, even as his eyes scanned their curious garb. "You're from the Church of the Sun?"

"Yes," Statement nodded. "Are you a member?"

Reckoning shook his head. "This is not the time. I'd like you two to bring the passengers to your local church. Get them food and a place to stay. If you have a pegasus, have them fly to Salt Lick and get a team of rangers. And take this one..." Reckoning set the drained corpse gently onto the train platform. "The train company should be able to find his family and let them know."

"Of course," Impossible noted. "But what about you two?"

Reckoning adjusted his flat-topped near-cowpony hat and smiled. "Doing Celestia's work, colts. If you see a mare about four feet tall come in from up the tracks, send her to the saloon for us." And with that utter lack of explanation, Reckoning started off into town.

Rainbow watched as the two religious stallions shared a concerned glance, but both must have decided not to press the one-eyed pony for further information. Rainbow walked off the platform after her friend, and it was then that a question came.

"Are you Rainbow Dash?"

Before the mare in question could answer, Reckoning turned and spoke. "You know our cousin?"

Statement shrugged. "She's been in the newspapers enough; I'd wager most ponies would recognize that rainbow mane. Not too common... but I guess it runs in the family."

"Heh," Reckoning chuckled, his eye turning toward Rainbow. "Well, last I heard, Rainbow Dash still lives up north near Canterlot. Now, we're a bit busy, stallions, but I'll be sure Princess Celestia hears about your assistance."

As if he had spoken magic words, the two suited stallions rushed off into the mass of panicked passengers, struggling with all their might to bring order to the chaos. Reckoning waited for Rainbow to catch up, and then immediately set his hat atop her head.

"What was that for?" Rainbow asked, once everypony else was out of earshot.

Reckoning grumbled. "You're too famous, Rainbow. Come on. I'll buy you a hat."

"Then why'd you give me this one?"

"So we can walk down the street to the store," Reckoning answered. "I like that hat."

Hogden was a small town, with one major street of storefronts along a dusty road of packed red soil. A few ponies mulled about, but most had been distracted by the chaos at the train station. Rainbow watched as they charged past, paying no mind to the two young pegasi wandering further into town together.

She recognized most of the buildings. A salt-lick and cantina named 'Dusty's', a general store, and a proper inn were among the more notable buildings. Soon, however, her attention was drawn to the huge structure of whitewashed stone and plaster at the far end of the main street. Two huge steeples framed a wide facade with open window-frames devoid of any glass. Between the steeples lay a huge gilded emblem of the sun, matched perfectly to the style of Celestia's cutie mark. The glare from the metal was blinding.

"What's that building?" Rainbow asked her companion.

"The Church of the Sun," the ex-Honor Guard explained. "They worship Celestia as a god..." Reckoning stared off for a moment. "...Celeste, the way they say it. Praise her for raising the sun and driving away evil. It's kinda funny, actually. She hates being called a goddess."

"So why doesn't she stop it?"

Reckoning shrugged. "They aren't hurting anypony, unless you count getting annoyed when they knock on the door to talk to you." Reckoning chuckled slightly. "I've never bought into that sort of thing. You can ask your dad if you want to know more."

"My dad?" Rainbow cocked her head, and had to catch Reckoning's hat with a wing to keep it from toppling into the dirt. "You're kidding, right?"

"'Fraid not, Dash." Reckoning's good wing wrapped over Rainbow's poncho-covered back, and pulled her toward the far side of the street. "He never talked about it much... Never really talked about anything much. But he always prayed before we went out on a mission." Looking up, the stallion realized he'd reached the door to the shop.

The door to the milliners swung open without creak or resistance, and the two pegasi paced inside. Rainbow's nostrils were filled with curious, unfamiliar scents. Oils and lotions mixed with what could only have been drying felt and tanned leather. The place felt as old as the rugged stallion sitting behind the counter, glaring at the 'young'uns' in his shop.

Reckoning seemed bored with the displays, but Rainbow found her way around.

"What're you lookin here for?" the shop's owner asked. "Most kids your age wouldn't know the importance of a proper piece of headgear."

"We aren't most kids," Reckoning answered with a bit more edge than Rainbow was used to hearing in his voice. "Got any Boss of the Plains?"

"For her?" The older stallion scoffed. "I'd sooner sell her a sombrero. She doesn't have half the size to wear one of those hats right."

"We don't care how it looks," Reckoning pressed. "She needs something wide-brimmed, to keep the sun off her face while we're traveling."

"Look, kid," Reckoning's glare grew narrower at the sounding of the three-letter word. "A hat means a lot more than just keeping the sun out of your eyes. It says a lot about the pony wearing it."

Rainbow looked up, with a gray bowler hanging from her hoof. "What's that supposed to mean?"

The stallion, who could only be described as 'grizzled', shrugged. "Just the way hats work, miss; at least, down here in the San Pal, they do. One good glance, and you can tell a lot about a pony. Are they practical, or adventurous? What do they think of themselves? Rich or poor? Dangerous, or full of hot air?" He gestured to Rainbow. "Or when a mare is wearing her coltfriend's hat."

Reckoning snatched his hat off Rainbow's head with a dexterous flip of his good wing, and deposited it on his own head. "There. Happy?"

"Well, it works for you," the store owner answered. "But for her, I'd recommend a cady."

"A what?"

The hatmaker lurched out from behind his counter and across the room to a display of straw hats. With a deft hoof, he flipped a flat-topped straw hat with a royal blue ribbon onto Rainbow's head. Her ears folded down not only from the pressure, but from his invasion of her space. He stepped back and smiled. "There you go! Perfect!" With a hoof, he gestured to a mirror.

Only a moment later, Reckoning's wing had throw the hat back onto its rack.

"What do you think you're doing?" the shopkeeper asked.

Reckoning growled. "It looks moronic. She's not in a barbershop quartet! Give her something with some spine! How about a Panamare?"

From there, the conversation only grew more abrupt and more forceful. The two stallions yelled and pointed hooves, and generally made a mountain out of a hill of hats. Rainbow's head was beginning to throb from the would-be machismo of the two warring factions.

"Then just give her a fedora!" Reckoning yelled, grabbing a hat from the wall.

"That's a trilby, kid! And I'd sooner cut-me-own-throat than sell one of those to an impressionable young mare!"

"Guys!" Rainbow interrupted, flaring her wings to grab their attention. In the ensuing silence, both Reckoning and the physically older stallion slowly turned until their eyes were locked on her, and the garment gracing the top of her head.

It was a wide-brimmed thing, like a cowpony hat, with two distinct ridges that ran over the crown. Beautiful tan felt was wrapped in a single piece of blue satin ribbon, pinned in the front with a small golden bead. The left side of the brim had been folded up and pinned to the side of the crown with another flat rounded pin; this one was larger, and centered on a gemstone striped in all the colors of the wearer's mane and tail.

"A... slouch hat?" the shopkeeper muttered, his mouth slightly open. "Why didn't I think of that?"

Rainbow looked down at the floor and crossed her forelegs. "This good, Reckoning?"

The stallion struggled for words, until finally he had no better choice than to speak his mind. "You look beautiful, Rainbow."

"What?"

The weathermare looked up to find her wounded friend staring down at his own hooves as well. "I said it looks great, Rainbow. It fits you well." He turned to the shopkeeper. "How much?"

“One hundred and twenty-four bits.”

“And here I thought we killed the train robbers,” Deadeye mumbled as he retrieved his money.

A few words, a clatter of coins and the swish of a well-oiled door later, Rainbow and Reckoning made their way out of the small shop. Her poncho fluttered in the dusty wind, rattling the transparent sword strapped to her side. She stepped toward Reckoning, and for a moment, she felt the pressure of his presence through his vest. Then he casually stepped away, and the comfort was gone.

Unlike the entrance to the hat shop, the saloon doors creaked and groaned as the two ponies entered. Without hesitating to address the mare behind the bar or the regulars who glanced up from their drinks, Reckoning spotted an empty corner booth and moved straight into it. Rainbow followed close behind.

They sat, eye to eyes, in total silence, until the mare from behind the bar wandered over. "Can I get you two some drinks?" she asked, with an accent that made her sound rather airheaded. "We've got some special licks with mint in 'em today, if you want."

"Uh..." Rainbow shrugged. "I guess we'll take waters."

"Just the one," Reckoning cut in, even as he tilted his hat forward to cut off the waitress' view of his eyes. "I'm not thirsty."

Rainbow stared at her friend in confusion, and then placed a hoof atop his. The strange chill of his flesh only worried her further. “Reckoning, just get yourself a drink. You almost passed out on the train.”

"I'm fine, Rainbow," Reckoning growled through gritted teeth, as his hoof slid out from under hers and up under the brim of his hat to fiddle with his eye patch. "Get your water, and sit quietly. On will be here soon."

The mare standing beside their table seemed taken aback. "So... one water, then?"

"Ignore him," Rainbow told the waitress. “Two waters.”

"Didn't realize you were so thirsty," Reckoning muttered.

The waitress' eyes jumped between the two, confused. "Uh..."

The scout finished scratching his eye-socket, and lifted the brim of his hat. With a noncommital flip of his hoof, he admitted defeat, or at least the lack of a desire to continue the argument. The mare scurried off, and Reckoning leveled his attention on Rainbow. "What do you think you’re doing, Rainbow?"

"Like you don't know." Rainbow folded her forelegs over her chest.

The 'older' stallion's rolled his eye. "I'm not a foal, Rainbow. Remember who's almost seventy years old here."

"So I'm not allowed to be worried about you?"

"Not when there's nothing to be worried about, no. I don't need you telling me what I need to drink or eat, or when to go to bed."

"What's your problem, Reckoning? What's the big deal?"

"The big deal?" Reckoning's good wing flared out, and Rainbow saw the hint of sparks on the tips of his pinions. The stallion's hoof shook as he pulled the hat from his head, and then ran the same hoof through his mane. It seemed almost black in the poor lighting of the room, and something about the motion suggested not the age of the stallion's body, but his soul. He sighed deeply, and his wing folded back on itself. Only then did he find the strength to look Rainbow in the eye. "Look, Rainbow, I'm sorry. This whole business with dying, and your dad, and..." He shook his head again, and then turned away. His focus hovered lazily at the far side of the room. "I'm just trying to make up my mind about some things." And then, to Rainbow's surprise, he added another thought. "Looking at you, I really do see Easy Breeze sometimes."

"Huh?"

Reckoning gestured lazily with his wing, vaguely outlining Rainbow's silhouette. "Out here. But..." His wing poked the mare squarely in the center of her chest. "You've got a lot of him here."

"What?" Rainbow asked. "Reckoning, what are you talking about? Where'd that even come from?"

“I’m just thinking out loud, Rainbow. Trying to figure things out.” The stallion removed his hat, and laid it down on the table. “I thought I’d made up my mind when I made my deal with Luna. Come back, save the Commander, and leave again. But now I’m thinking.”

“About what you could do if you stayed?”

Reckoning chuckled to himself. “Something like that, yeah. I guess I’m just trying to decide if it’s worth it.”

In the lull between his slow words, the mare from behind the bar returned with two round glasses, sweating onto their coasters in the desert heat. Rainbow took hers between her hooves. She’d downed half of the drink by the time the waitress managed to find her way back to the regulars. Reckoning smiled a little bit, wistfully, and shook his head. “What about you, Rainbow?”

“What do you mean?” the younger pegasus asked after a satisfying gasp.

“What you said back in Ponyville. You’re in the same boat as me, right?”

“We haven’t been in the same boat since we took that canoe in Zebrica,” Rainbow told him with a teasing smile.

He humored the comment with a forced smile, but his eye made it clear he didn’t find any real amusement in her words. “You’re dodging the question, Dash. You know what I meant.”

“Yeah,” Rainbow answered, avoiding his gaze. “I guess I’m not really done. You know what I mean? I haven’t even made the Wonderbolts yet, no thanks to my dad. And I still have my friends. You know what I mean, Reckoning?” With that last comment, she looked straight into his eye, driving home her point.

He nodded. “That’s my problem. Before Zebrica, The Commander was the only friend I really had left. Everypony else was dead. My platoon from the war with the griffons.” He shook his head. “Easy Breeze.”

“Did you really know her that well?” Rainbow asked.

Reckoning couldn’t help but chuckle. “You don’t want me to answer that question, Rainbow. The point was, I didn’t really have anypony who’d miss me. I was getting old. I knew it would happen, some day; I thought I’d come to terms with that. But then you showed up...”

Rainbow watched the way his eye darted to the side as he sighed deeply. “Celestia, I sound like a new recruit who’s just met the love of his life, don’t I? I guess my point is, Rainbow, that you’re my friend. And there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to say goodbye so soon.”

“So don’t!” It seemed like an obvious answer to the younger mare. “Nopony says you have to.”

“It isn’t that simple, Rainbow,” Reckoning began, as his hoof moved toward his eyepatch again. Whatever he'd meant to show her was lost when the saloon's doors slammed open.

The shaded outline in the door could only belong to Soldier On. Dust and sweat coated her body, and Rainbow could see a few splotches of blood on her jacket, alongside scrapes and frayed patches around the edges, but her own body seemed entirely free of wounds or damage.

The huge earth pony scanned the room quickly, spotted Reckoning and Rainbow, and galloped over. Rainbow scooted further into their little booth, only to be shoved aside even more by the earth pony’s incredible inertia.

“Whoa! What happened?” Rainbow asked, as soon as she’d recovered from being thrust aside.

“Let her catch her breath, Rainbow.”

Looking at Soldier On’s face, Rainbow would have guessed she’d aged ten years in the few hours since the train robbery that morning. Her normally controlled mane was loose, spilling down over her eyes, which darted back and forth between Reckoning and Rainbow with a barely restrained urgency. The only thing that kept her from speaking up immediately was her struggle to catch her breath. After a moment of sucking down air, she grabbed Reckoning’s untouched glass of water, and afforded herself a few slow sips. It was strange, somehow, to see her behaving like a mortal pony, hunched over the table weary and tired.

After the water and the air had restored her, On brushed her mane back from her face with a broad and dusty hoof, and leveled her gaze on the pegasi at her table.

“We need to go.”

“Rangers?” Reckoning asked. “Or did Flag catch up already?”

On shook her head, taking another sip of her water. “No.”

“So what’s the big rush?” Reckoning raised the brow over his remaining eye. “I mean, obviously the Commander needs us, but you came in here like your tail was on fire.”

On delivered her next words as if they were razor blades sliding along her tongue. “They hurt the colt.”

“What?!” Rainbow rose, standing on the cushion of the booth. “Rocket?”

On nodded. “We need to go to Brayce Canyon, and─”

“Hold your horses,” Reckoning interrupted, placing both hooves firmly on the table. “I know how you are with foals, On, but let’s be rational here. Rainbow and I already called for a team of Rangers to deal with the train robbers; I figured that would keep them busy. The last thing we want is to do is head to Brayce Canyon now.”

“What about Rocket?” Rainbow asked. “You said they hurt him?”

On seemed haunted for a moment, before her resolution returned with a terse nod. “I had two of them pinned when their leader showed himself. An earth pony named Zakat. Called himself Sundown in Equiish.”

“Wait...” Reckoning cocked his head. “A Stalliongradian?”

“That’s what he claimed. I didn’t recognize him from the Revolution. But he knew how things worked. He stayed well out of my reach, and kept the colt between us so I couldn’t buck a shoe at him. But I still had two of his stallions. I told him I’d trade hostages, and then let him go; he agreed.” On looked away, ashamed and angry. “I was stupid.”

Reckoning cocked his head. “What happened?”

“He let Rocket go; as soon as he was out of Sundown’s leg-reach, I figured he’d be safe. I let go of the bandits, and they scampered over to their friends. Then Sundown turned around. I thought he was going to walk away, until he drew.”

Reckoning’s eyes widened in disbelief, just as Rainbow’s mirrored the motion out of confusion. “Drew?”

On removed one of the shoes on her foreleg, and slid it Reckoning’s way. She seemed too consumed by her own thoughts to do any more. Reckoning pulled back his hoof and stomped on the heel of the shoe. Like a flipped coin, the curve of bladed skysteel popped into the air, before clattering back to the tabletop. “That’s the draw,” Reckoning explained. “Comes right before you buck a shoe. Lots of earth ponies, especially here in San Palomino, buck shoes for weapons; a blunt one will break your ribs, or your neck if you take a bad hit. Bladed shoes are messier. Either way, they’re innacurate, even when they’re made for bucking like these one’s I made for On.” Reckoning noted the little flanged ‘wings’ sticking out from both the prongs of the skysteel shoe. “Everypony knows you can’t hit a flying pegasus with a bucked shoe; especially not a little colt like him.”

On shook her head. “He did it. Hit the kid.”

“Just a blunt shoe, right?” Reckoning asked.

The pause that ensued put icebergs in Rainbow’s veins. Finally, the young pegasus could endure it no longer. “Is he alright? Is he alive?”

“They wouldn’t let him die,” On answered. “Sundown needs the hostage.”

“So he’s okay?”

Soldier On’s head moved slowly to her side, reaching under the bloody spots on her coat. What she pulled out from beneath her jacket made Rainbow retch, and sent spots across her vision.

The wing was light blue, just barely a darker shade than Rainbow’s own feathers. From its size, it might have been Scootaloo’s. The clean cut where it ought to have met a colt’s shoulder was covered in mostly crusted blood, though a few drops fell onto the polished wood of the tabletop. Rainbow could see her reflection on the gleaming surface, just beside the grisly token. She saw the wrinkles form on her own muzzle, as her shock melted away. She saw her brow crease down into a wedge. She smelled the coppery scent of blood, and the salty stench of sweat, and the subtle hint of smoke, as the tips of her own wings grew warmer.

“We’re going after Rocket,” Rainbow ordered.

“But there are Rangers–”

“They won’t be enough,” On told him. “They’ll try to negotiate, and Sundown will get away, or Rocket will get hurt again.”

Reckoning held out a hoof as his tongue struggled to keep up with his mind in protest. “On, Rainbow, this is insane. There are three of us, and I can’t fly right now! We can’t take all of them. Especially not on their turf. Do you even know where they are? Brayce Canyon is huge!”

“One of them told me,” On answered. “They have a camp near Sundown Point–like his name.”

“Let’s go,” Rainbow noted, moving to stand up.

“Damn it, you two, listen to me!” Reckoning propped himself up on the table by his forelegs, and thus managed to look the mare in the eyes. “I spent years doing what you’re talking about in Zebrica. I had a team of twelve hoof-trained for hit-and-fly tactics behind enemy lines in unknown territory. Twelve! And I still lost a guard just about every mission. You want to take just the three of us?”

“I’ll do it alone if I have to,” On noted with a terrible determination, before glancing back to Rainbow. “But it seems like I have one partner, at least.”

“Don’t you get it? It’ll be a massacre!”

On nodded, stood up, and began walking toward the saloon’s doors. “I’m glad we finally agree, Reckoning.”

Author's Note

In addition to my usual slew of editors, the magnificent Ruirik gets editing credit for this and future chapters. If editors were cats, I would now be that old lady from down the street.

XI - Brayce Canyon

XI

Brayce Canyon

Rainbow soared through the night sky, relishing the chill against her coat as a stark contrast to the heat of the day. The feeling of the cloud she was dragging against her belly made her want to lay down and embrace a good night's sleep. There were more important things to do, though.

Ahead was her destination. Two red stone mesas, so tightly connected that they looked like only a single mass from the direction of Brayce Canyon. It wasn't more than a few miles by wing, but the winding passages of the canyons put plenty of distance between Rainbow's friends and the bandits who were their quarry.

As her cloud drifted down toward the rough brush covering the dusty ground between the stones, her ears perked up to the sound of singing. At least, that was what the noise seemed like amidst the little gusts of wind that drowned out all other sound around her. As she grew closer to her destination, the sound grew louder and clearer. There were no words, or at least none she recognized; only a lingering sense of sorrow was.

Then their little campfire came into view from around the side of the stone. Reckoning sat beside it, washing his eye patch as he tended to their dinner. The cactus slices he had seasoned smelled like the Summer Lands to Rainbow. Soldier On was nowhere to be seen, though her bags and coat still sat by the fireside. With a flick of her wings, Rainbow hopped from her cloud and entered the firelight. Reckoning smiled in the course of hurriedly replacing his eye patch. "How'd it go?"

"It worked just like you said. None of them even looked up." Rainbow paced beside the fire, trying not to lose the adrenaline in her blood. "There were at least twelve outside, and I didn't see Rocket. There's a cave, but I couldn't get a good look inside. Most of them were still awake. I think they were having a party or something." Her muzzle twisted at the thought of the bandits’ enjoyment.

The singing continued softly from the distance as Reckoning nodded. "On was right, then. We'll move in at sunrise."

"Why can't we go now?" Rainbow shouted. The singing paused for a moment, and then returned slowly. Growling, the young pegasus mare scanned the horizon. "Is that Soldier On?"

"Yeah." The scout gestured with his good wing off to the left. "She wanted to clear her head. I think the kid's getting to her."

"Well then let's go save him!"

Reckoning looked up at Rainbow with a cold stare. "Sit down and relax, Dash. We've had this talk three times already, and I’m not about to have it again."

The mare gritted her teeth, collapsed on a stone opposite Deadeye, and folded her forelegs over her chest. "I hate having to wait."

"I know the feeling," Reckoning answered, as he reached forward to rotate the cactus fruit on their spit over the fire. "You just have to remind yourself that us waiting is what's best for him."

Rainbow pulled the sheath containing her transparent sword from her back and set it against her seat. She settled down, staring into the fire. Her patience lasted at most thirty seconds before her hoof began to tap on the ground.

Reckoning's ears folded ever so slowly against the back of his head, until they were pinned flat against his mane. He leaned forward, his muscles flaring with exertion as if the simple act of standing up were some great feat of strength. When he was finally on all four of his hooves, he lifted the spit from over the fire, and began sliding the cooked and seasoned cactus fruit into his own overturned hat. "Go bring this to On; it ought to be enough for the two of you."

"Aren't you going to eat?"

"You were gone for almost an hour, Rainbow," Reckoning replied, making a shooing motion with his wing. "On's probably hungry, and she'll make for better company than me tonight."

"But..." Rainbow wilted slightly at the disappointed glare that Reckoning gave her. "It's not like we're going to have anything to talk about. And she's kind of an asshole."

Reckoning shot Rainbow a sour glare with his single eye.

"Well she is. I'm not the one saying we have to go running around killing guardsponies!"

Deadeye sighed. "Do you remember what you thought of me when we met?"

"That's not the point―"

Deadeye cut her off bluntly. "I don’t see the difference. Give her a chance, Rainbow. She wants to save your father just as much as you do."

"Probably more," Rainbow snapped, before her eyes widened as she realized what she had said. "I mean..." The words trailed off.

"You're still mad about him leaving you and your mother behind? I'm not going to blame you for that, Rainbow." Then Reckoning offered his little lopsided smile. "That'd be something to talk to On about, if you can get her to open up."

Rainbow's shoulders rose and fell. "Fine. I guess I'll do it, if you really want to get rid of me that badly."

"I just need some space, Rainbow. Also, between you and me, I'm not about to let a mare that size get hungry. No telling what could happen."

The pegasi shared a chuckle as Rainbow collected Deadeye's hat and wandered away from the campfire toward the sound of Soldier On's mournful singing.

The pony had been so close. So, so very close. But a crippled leg and broken wings did not make for a fast escape, and a trail of blood left stealth impossible in the open wasteland that was Suida. And yet as the limping pony struggled to flee, the warrior had to reflect that he had been a worthy foe, even if he was not an honorable one.

There had been four boars chasing him; he’d cut them down one by one, ambushing them and luring the group apart. Now, the lone survivor was left panting, as sweat mixed with the blood dripping from the wound in his shoulder. It wasn’t nearly a fatal wound, but the pony’s strange bone-sword stung like nothing else the boar had ever felt.

The pony spoke in his strange tongue, begging desperately for his life. Even if he could have understood, the warrior would not have spared him. Focusing the Arcana of his tusks, the warrior grabbed onto the pony’s neck, and twisted. It was a dry, crisp noise which heralded a quick and painless death. On reflection, it might have been more than the pony deserved.

Reflection ended slowly when the pony’s body rippled, revealing bristly gray hair beneath his bloodstained blue coat. The boar leaned forward, taking in the sight.

His life ended, with no greater fanfare than a little whistle and a bit of blood.

The Commander pulled the bone of his own leg out of the boar’s spine with a single sudden jerk, and the unfortunate creature collapsed atop a rapidly fading illusion. Even as Discord’s magic faded, the Spirit’s voice reached his ears on the wasteland wind.

“I guess your plan worked out.”

“Better than I’d hoped,” the Commander answered coldly.

“How did you know it would work?”

The stallion wiped his would-be sword on the cleaner parts of the dead boar’s coat, before pinning it beneath one of his limply hanging wings. “Because it worked on me. Masquerade turned Morning Star against me.”

“Was he the one with the sort of yellow coat–“

The Commander’s words came with no more audible spite than usual, despite their obvious meaning. “You turned him into a couch.”

“Oh, him! No, no, see, it was supposed to be a love-seat. But then I got to thinking about you and Celestia, and I realized there needed to be some more room for her huge...” Discord’s utterances devolved into chuckling, until he noticed the growl of anger building in the Commander’s throat. “Oh. Right. Uh, I’m… sorry for your loss.”

The soldier didn’t answer for a long moment, and when he did it was in a calm and level tone. “You didn’t kill him.”

“It doesn’t mean I can’t be sorry, right?”

The Commander shook his head. “You didn’t know him. He didn’t mean anything to you. I don’t need hollow apologies; I need directions. Where are the camels?”

Discord seemed amused. “Well, as long as we’re okay. Point yourself toward the moon and you’ll be going the right direction.”

The Commander nodded. “Can you teleport me some of the way?”

The spirit actually laughed at that. “I can barely talk to you; as long as I’m still out back on pigeon duty, I’m not going to be of much more help for you, unless you need moral support. I’m rooting for you up here!” The sound of a cheap party noisemaker wheezed in the stallion's ear, and he winced from the uncomfortable sound. He glared in the general direction of Canterlot, and he could almost feel Discord sheepishly lowering a flag and a foam finger. "...moral support?"

“I have enough motivation to get back already,” the pegasus replied grimly. “Although I may have to come back for vacation.” The words were so dry on the stallion’s parched tongue that it took Discord a few seconds to realize the stern pony had made a joke. The spirit’s laughter continued for some time, providing a background tune to the five-beat rhythm of the Commander’s limping gait on the desert ground.

Only when the sound began to fade did chaos incarnate lose its amusement. “My magic’s running out. Remember our deal, Commander. And good lu–“

And then the stallion found himself alone once again.

Rainbow had been expecting to find Soldier On sitting against the mesa, but the titan of the Honor Guard was nowhere to be found. In her place, the young pegasus found a very different pony. Perhaps her coat was the same off-white, and her mane still the color of parchment, but in the light of the desert stars, they were of little concern.

The mare in the desert had not just lost the discipline of Soldier On’s tightly bundled, short mane; she had abandoned it altogether. Strands of hair ran down her back and neck wildly, straying at times in front of the matted spots of her coat around her eyes. She wasn’t crying, but that fact was clearly a new development from the way the trails on her cheeks twinkled in reflection of the midnight sky. Some unknown force had spread her tears against what had once been a rigid sketch. Gone were the hard lines of her shoulders, her stance, and even the way she looked at the world. In their place were soft and rounded edges that bled into the darkness like water on charcoal.

“Hello, Rainbow.”

The younger mare shook herself in surprise. She had assumed On’s thoughts had kept the earth pony from noticing her approach.

“Are you alright?”

“Fine.” The answer was far too terse to be the truth, but Rainbow could tell easily enough that pressing the issue wouldn’t earn any answers from the ex-guardsmare.

The pegasus dropped Reckoning’s hat, and then sat down a good few feet to On’s side. “Here’s dinner.”

On grabbed a piece of the cooked cactus and bit off a huge chunk. Rainbow waited for a moment before taking a piece herself. The fruit was juicy, though it didn’t hold the mare’s attention for very long.

“We call it ‘The Lullaby’.”

“What?”

“The song.” On took another small bite of the fruit in her hoof, and swallowed it without bothering to chew. “You were going to ask, weren’t you?”

Rainbow shrugged. “I guess. What’s it say?”

“That’s not a question for tonight.” On wiped her cheeks with rather bushy fetlocks, and the watercolor mare was gone. Back were the cold edges and the level gaze that set Rainbow off in just the wrong way. If it hadn’t been Reckoning’s idea to talk, she knew she would have walked away then and there. “You aren’t ready to hear my story.”

“Fine. Whatever.”

On looked up grimly. “Were you hoping to talk about something else, or did Reckoning just send you with dinner?”

Rainbow’s nose wrinkled, and she reared back. “Hey! I’m not just some waitress, you know!”

“I never said you were.” On devoured another piece of the cactus fruit. “But I thought you wanted as little to do with me as possible. You can go back to Reckoning now.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Don’t sound like you’re gonna miss me so much. Reckoning wanted some time alone.”

“Hm.” The soldier seemed disinterested in Rainbow as she stared at a third piece of her dinner. Her tone remained as level as the desert horizon. “Well, I suppose I can foalsit you.”

Rainbow’s hoof battered a loose stone against the far-larger mare’s cheek. She didn’t flinch. “Screw you, On.”

“I was joking, Rainbow,” the mare noted flatly, brushing off her cheek before laying down on her belly and resting her chin on her forehooves. “Sorry.”

What followed was a chilling silence, echoing in the absence of the mare’s music and her sorrow. Rainbow shifted on her hooves anxiously, and picked at a few more pieces of fruit, though her stomach was quickly satisfied. Where her youth kept her from sitting still, the slightly older mare nearby seemed to be only a sliver removed from a statue.

“What’s wrong, Rainbow? Can’t stand the quiet?”

The voice jolted her from stillness, though she resisted the urge to call out at the stallion’s voice. For just a moment, she swore she could see him on the horizon. She bolted upright, and stared for just a moment, before speaking to On with an obvious sense of urgency.

“Tell me about my dad.”

“What?” Rainbow might have found herself surprised by the interest that On afforded to her distress, were it not for the distraction of the voice in her head.

“Oh, aren’t you going to tell her what you’re hearing? Genius, Rainbow.” Steel Lining’s voice was biting, sharp, and cruel.

Rainbow hadn’t really been thinking about the question; she just wanted a topic. Having her request questioned left a sinking feeling in her gut, and for a few spare seconds, she struggled to come up with some purpose behind the question. “I never got to know him that well. The only time I ever really met ‘him,’ it was Masquerade.”

It took a rather large motion for Soldier On to sit upright, but for the first time in the conversation, she gave Rainbow her full attention.

“Steel Lining saved my life more times than I can count. He―”

Unlike her first question, Rainbow suddenly realized what she was really asking. “No. I mean… I know he’s supposed to be some superhero-guardspony or whatever. Bucking lightning bolts and wearing Commander Hurricane’s crazy magic armor and whatever. It seems like that’s all anypony ever says. But what’s he like?”

On smiled, just a little. It frightened Rainbow, until she began to speak. “That’s a much harder question. Your father is…” She closed her eyes in thought. “I wouldn’t call him a quiet stallion, but he certainly is reserved. You’ll have a hard time getting him to talk about himself, or even to tell you what he’s thinking. It might be his way of trying to be humble.”

Dash’s curiosity found itself at odds with a bitter thought from the back of her mind. She struggled to keep her tone level with her next question. “So he’s like you?”

On shook her head, either missing Rainbow’s commentary or simply unbothered by it. “Sometimes, I wish I was like him, but I’m not sure I could live his life. He never lets himself get too attached to anypony.”

Rainbow’s hoof ground slowly over the pebbles and dirt of the desert as a way to control her growing irritation. “Is that supposed to be why he flew out on my mom?”

That time, On clearly noticed exactly what Rainbow meant. Her eyes narrowed subtly. “I’m just telling you the truth, Rainbow. If you don’t want to hear it, you don’t have to.” On held her tongue for a moment, but Rainbow gave no further protest. “I lost what I cared about. He chose to give it up.”

“Or maybe he just doesn’t care,” Rainbow snapped.

On flinched. “When you talk to him, you won’t think that. He might not let you get close, but you can tell he cares. Or, at least, I can.” The words steamed in the settling heat of the desert night, before she picked up again. “But foremost, he’s a leader. There is a reason everypony calls him ‘the Commander’, after all. That’s why I can’t do what he does.”

“Hold on. Didn’t you start the whole rebelliony-revolutiony thing in Stalliongrad?”

“Did you think I woke up one day, sat down for breakfast, and decided that I really wanted to start a rebellion? After all the work we put into getting things the way they were?” On’s brow creased. “I’m a farmer, Rainbow. Not a leader. You know how well I managed that when Celestia told me to take his place.”

“Maybe you shouldn’t have tried to kill Luna―”

“I did nothing to her. I didn’t pay for the assassin, or get the phage seeds. All I did was choose not to speak up.” On glared up at the sky. “It’s better than she deserves.”

Rainbow ground her hooves on the ground. “So its the same with you and Deadeye? I get that you’d be mad that Nightmare Moon killed that one other mare, but it wasn’t Luna!”

On turned back to Rainbow. The anger on her face was tainted by surprise and confusion. “You think this is about Loose Cannon?”

“That’s what Deadeye said.”

The ‘farmer’ released a single breath in a snort that spoke of bitter amusement. “That might be his story, but it isn’t mine. And it sure as Tartarus isn’t your father’s.”

Rainbow’s wings flared, and the subtlest hint of smoke permeated the scent of the night air. “Then I guess he’s an asshole too. Would he have stayed quiet too, or would he have helped Masquerade?” Before the earth pony could respond, Rainbow turned her back. “You know what, I don’t even care. Goodnight, Soldier On.”

“Rainbow, wait.” On’s voice wasn’t desperate or rushed, but it did catch the younger mare’s attention.

“What?”

“I… that wasn’t fair of me. Your father wouldn’t do what I did.”

“Why do you hate her so much, then, On?”

On took a deep breath. “She took somepony very precious away from me.”

“Nightmare Moon wasn’t―”

“It wasn’t Nightmare Moon, Rainbow.” On turned back to the sky. “I’m not going to talk about it. I’m sorry if that bothers you. You should get some sleep; it won’t be too long before we move.”

A portly unicorn with a bellowing voice placed a hoof on the pegasus guardspony’s cuirass and shoved him backward. “Was my first warning unclear? Cadenza is in no mood to deal with your incompetence right now.

“Yes, but sir, the caverns―”

“If you are not off of this balcony in the next six seconds, I will make a hobby out of destroying your career.”

“Please, sir, listen―”

“Six. Five.”

With an exaggerated sigh, the pegasus took to air. “Please, at least let her know that we tried to get in touch with her.”

“As you wish. Now get out of my sight.”

As the guardspony flew away, Sforzando Eccesivo opened the glass Prench doors to the balcony and strode back inside the House of Wig. He was barely a moment into the parlor when he found himself accosted by a croaking yet powerful voice.

“I hope that wasn’t too much trouble, Sforzando.” Count Powdered Wig, who had the almost impressive distinction of being the fattest unicorn stallion in the parlor, gestured to an open space on a couch opposite his armchair.

“Just another incompetent servant,” the Bitalian ruler replied. “Nothing worth halting our discussions over.” Sforzando took his seat, and turned to the mare at his side. “Cadenza, are you alright?”

The pink alicorn found the strength to nod slowly, though she seemed to lack the drive for any more meaningful motion. Her normally impeccable mane hung in a loose approximation of its usual style, casting a shadow across her features. The Bitalian prince wrapped a foreleg over his daughter’s shoulders and pulled her close to his side.

“You look pale, dear. Have you been eating enough?” The mare’s voice belonged to the fourth pony in the room: Marquise Haute Couture of Prance was a delicately aging mare defined by clothing that would make most other nobles blush, given a look at their price tags. The unicorn’s magic popped a cork from a bottle of champagne and poured a glass, even as it simultaneously assembled a plate of crackers and apple slices and other hors d'oeuvres

Cadance stared at the luxurious platter that floated to her side of the parlor’s coffee table, though she made no motion to actually eat anything. “I am fine.”

“If you insist,” the Marquise muttered, obviously unconvinced.

Count Wig added another thought. “If there’s anything we can do for you, dear, do let us know. I don’t promise that this conversation is going to be easy for you, Princess, but your father and Haute and I all felt that you deserved a say in it.”

He continued by placing his hooves heavily on the coffee table. “We’re here to decide who the next Captain of the Royal Guard will be.”

“What?” Cadance cocked her head. “Princess Celestia chooses the Captain of the Guard.”

It would be unfair to say that the room erupted in laughter, but it certainly did break into a light chuckle.

“Sforzando, how did you manage to keep her so innocent?”

The prince of Bitaly coughed slightly into his hoof. “I wouldn’t be so quick to use the term, Marquise. Nopony stares down the Queen of the changelings or some ancient shade...” Sforzando’s voice trailed off. “Cadenza, what was his name again?”

“King Sombra,” the crystal princess whispered.

“Oh, it doesn’t matter now.” Count Wig’s laughed broke down into a brief coughing fit, causing the rolls of fat on his belly to undulate with every violent motion. By the time he was done, the room’s joviality had died. “We needn’t worry about long-dead monsters. The point, Cadenza―can I call you Cadenza?―is that Princess Celestia doesn’t have the slightest clue how to tell if somepony will make for a good guard. I mean, just look at her most recent choice.”

“Watch your tongue, Wig!” Sforzando roared, actually shaking the champagne in Cadance’s glass simply by his tone.

The fat stallion recoiled. “I didn’t mean Captain Armor, Sforzando. I was talking about the Baron’s son. The new bodyguard.”

Sforzando’s fury evaporated like snow on the wings of the pony in question, though Cadance found herself needing a futher explanation. “The Baron?”

“Oh, of course. He prefers ‘Czar’.” The way he pronounced the misspelled ‘C’ as a distinct syllable would normally have earned a wince from Cadance. Instead, his words continued without pause. “I’m, of course, referring to Watchful Eye of Stalliongrad.”

Sforzando grumbled at the base of his throat. “A stallion with absolutely no respect for tradition.”

“Actually, he’s the reason I called this meeting.” Powdered Wig poured himself a flute of champagne and took a slow sip. “But let’s return to what you mentioned earlier, Cadenza. You were partially right; we certainly aren’t the only ponies with influence over who gets chosen as Captain of the Royal Guard. The other pony who helps advise Princess Celestia on that decision is her bodyguard. In the past, each domain would put forth their foremost policepony or military leader for the position, alongside one or two candidates from within the Royal Guard itself, and the bodyguard would choose between them.”

Cadance nodded slowly. “Shining said he got the job because Unending Vigil put him forward...”

Haute smiled and tilted her head slightly. “Precisely. He was one of the candidates and Commander... would it be Coil at the time?”

“No, the more recent one. Councilor Lining’s son.”

“Ah, yes. Commander Lining clearly thought that he would be the ideal choice, and so he got the position. Now, I can’t claim we were all happy with the choice, but in the end, maintaining the status quo is better than taking power away.”

Cadance’s brow dipped. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Count Wig levitated a bit of cheese to his lips, before offering a wide smile. “You’ve only lived through two Captains, if memory serves. Captain Vigil had a very long... well, vigil.”

Polite laughter masked the fact that everypony in the room felt Wig was about as funny a pony as the average terminal disease. He continued with utter disregard for their veiled lack of amusement. “Both Vigil and Armor were commoners―”

“Vigil is from the line of Platinum, Wig,” Haute interrupted.

The Count huffed. “An earth pony in the line? I very much doubt that. No, Vigil and the late Captain Armor had none of our blood―” His eyes darted to Cadance. “―and there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that. But it does mean that none of our families have held Celestia’s ear for a while. At least, not quite in the same way that, say, Lord Crucible did.”

“Who was Lord Crucible?”

“My uncle,” the old pony answered. “The Captain of the Royal Guard before Vigil. In his time in office, the Domain of Trottingham annexed the island of Shetland from the Domain of Canterlot, our foundries received contracts for all of the raw steel in the Guard’s armor and weapons, and we received immense benefits from the less tangible effects of his influence.”

Cadance stood up, wings flared. “This is about political power?”

“Cadenza, please sit down.” Her father reached up with a heavy hoof, though its touch on her shoulder was gentle. “Nopony is here to offend you or insult you. But you’re the ruler of a Domain now. Some day, you’ll rule two domains. If you hide from decisions like this, you’re going to be hurting your subjects.”

The alicorn gritted her teeth, but she allowed herself to fall back to the couch. “I don’t like this; if we aren’t picking the right pony for the job―”

The Prench Marquise cut off her thought. “Oh, we aren’t putting somepony incompetent in place. We always choose the very best. But I think you’ll find that there are plenty of competent military leaders in Equestria. As long as you stay away from the Flag family, you’re sure to do fine.”

Sforzando and the Marquise shared a chuckle that obviously brought some shame to Count Wig, who suddenly began to resemble a tomato. “That isn’t funny.”

“Oh, live a little, Wig,” Sforzando advised, as his own amusement died down. “What was the point of that diatribe again?”

“The point that I was trying to get to,” Powdered Wig began. “was that Stalliongrad is developing far too much power in Canterlot. Watchful Eye’s son, Red Ink, is the first ‘noble-born’ bodyguard ever.”

“Noble-born is stretching it. He belongs to the line of Cyclone.” The Marquise’s disdain was potent enough in the air that Cadence almost felt the need to wipe off her face. Or perhaps that was the spit that accompanied the way the Prench mare emphasized the first syllable of the ancient pegasus’ name.

“And again we’re getting distracted.” Sforzando placed a hoof to his brow. “Get to the point, Wig. I would very much like to be back in Neighples tonight.”

“You have my apologies, Sforzando. My point is this: Ink will want to choose another Stalliongradian as the new Captain. Unlike the long line of nopony pegasus stallions who’ve preceded him, he has a predjudice. We can’t allow that to win. We’ve already seen what Watchful Eye’s ideals have done to Stalliongrad.”

Cadance’s eyes widened as a bit of her fighting spirit rose. “Watchful Eye has done his best to create equality for his ponies.”

“And they’re perfectly equal, if one doesn’t mind living in a police state.” Powdered Wig shook his head. “Our families, Princess, have survived because our ways are needed by Equestria. And now we have an obligation to protect those ponies from this ‘Tsar’ of Stalliongrad. So now, I’m asking you three to back my proposal for the new Captain of the Royal Guard.” The Count of Trottingham clapped his hooves once, and the wooden doors of the parlor opened in a burst of pale green magic.

“You called, Sir?” asked a mare, clad in steel.

“I was hoping to introduce you to some friends.”

She wasn’t some unnatural giant, but what Cadance could see of her physique beneath her armor was impressive. Her mane was styled in a pair of buns, parted cleanly down the middle in what was obviously a mixture of noble fashion and necessary practicality. Unlike the mane’s compromise, her harsh eyes were all business.

“Reflection,” she offered with a curt bow and a single hoof crossed in front of her chest.

“Properly, that would be Lady Reflection, the daughter of the late Lord Spitting Image, now head of the house of the same name.”

Haute Couture slowly lowered her flute of champagne. “If memory serves, wasn’t old Spit’s heir a stallion?”

Reflection and Powdered Wig shared a glance and a minor chuckle. The count spoke up. “He won’t be of any concern to the Stable of Nobles, I assure you. Certainly not compared to Watchful Eye.”

“What are you so afraid of, Wig?” Sforzando wondered aloud. “Sure, he’s an alicorn, but―”

“The problem, Prince, is that Eye is a demagogue, and a cult of personality. Every day, he preaches to his masses about ‘equality’, and his subjects eat up every word. I do so hate to interfere in Stalliongrad again. But he’s close to abolishing the idea of nobility in Stalliongrad, and I won’t stand for his ideas leaking out.”

“What’s so wrong with his ideas?” Cadance asked piercingly.

She hadn’t been expecting Reflection to respond. “Have you been to Stalliongrad, your highness? It is an icy hall of Tartarus, plagued with monsters in the wilds, and civil war in the streets.”

“I’d heard they had the lowest crime-rate―”

“Stalliongrad has no prisons, Princess. The ‘Czar’ claims this is to avoid the legacy of Baron Frostbite, but it only provides an excuse for their black-cloaked soldiers to execute anypony who commits a real crime. Few ponies are willing to go against that. So instead, they turn to their ‘Czar’ to represent them. Either he is a canny foe, to come up with such a tactic, or he is blind to the actions of his own subordinates.”

Count Wig waved a hoof. “There’s no need to be quite so harsh against the guard of Stalliongrad, Reflection. As history has taught us, a domain resembles the will of its ruler.” The ruler of Trottingham turned to Cadance. “If Watchful Eye’s ‘liberties’ start leaking out of Stalliongrad, other parts of Equestria will follow. His philosophy may seem noble from a page, but it simply does not stand the test of reality. I’ve tried to sway him from his approach, but he is resolved. So now I turn to you, my friends, to help undo the damage he has already done to Equestria.”

“By my guess,” Haute Couture noted, “keeping him from having the Royal Guard in his pocket would only maintain the status quo. We’d be no closer to ridding his influence.”

“The first step to turning the tide is to stop losing ground.” Count Wig leaned forward, and lowered his head. “But I’ve already set some other plans into motion. In a few months, the ‘Czar’ will suffer a rather unfortunate political accident.”

“What?” Cadance rose again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing drastic,” Wig replied. “Just another step in our competition. I have no intention of hurting anything but his pride. With luck, he’ll step down and leave the domain to his more rational son, Foresight. And that, my dear Cadenza, is where you come in.”

Cadance felt the room’s gazes settled upon her heavily. She swallowed once, heavily, but she didn’t have a chance to ask before Wig began to speak again of his own accord.

“Foresight is a very reasonable stallion, but he shares some of his father’s tainted ideals. We need somepony with a better outlook to temper those ideas. Cadenza… we would like you to marry Foresight, and rule Stalliongrad.”

By way of response, Cadance said nothing. As the tears slowly pooled at the corners of her eyes, she turned to the balcony doors, flung them open with her magic, and took off into the night.

“Hey, Rainbow”

The voice jarred the mare from her sleep, and she shot bolt upright. “Deadeye?” Her eyes scanned their little campground, only to find both Reckoning and On still fast asleep on their respective sides of the small fire.

“Guess again.” The voice came from across the firepit in the center of their camp, where a stallion could be seen leaning on a guardspony’s helmet.

At first, she didn't recognize him. It wasn't the glow of the fire or the way he sat that gave him away, but the smooth black plating of the headpiece beneath his elbow. “Dad? What are you―” Rainbow shook her head, both to clear away her grogginess and to dispel the hallucination. Though she felt a bit more awake, the figment remained. “You aren’t even real! Just go away!”

“That’s no way to speak to me, Rainbow.” The silhouette placed the helmet on his head, and slowly walked around the fire. It was only when he rounded the flames that Rainbow truly saw his face.

Somehow, she’d expected him to be happy, or at least gratingly self-satisfied as Discord had so often been. Instead, the blue-grey stallion simply stared at her with dead brown eyes, as the light of the fire glimmered off Commander Hurricane’s legendary armor. “I’ve been hoping to talk to you for a while, Rainbow, but you keep pushing me away. It almost makes me wonder if I’m really the one you’re out here for.”

Rainbow swallowed heavily, and for just a sliver of a moment, her father’s eyes locked onto her throat. “N…no, I’m here for―”

“For a stallion who betrayed you?” The Commander interrupted, before shaking his head. “That’s still what you think about me, isn’t it? The stallion who left your mother dying in the hospital when she needed me most. The stallion who put a knife through your foalhood, perhaps? That’s got a bit of a ring to it.”

“Screw you!” Rainbow charged at him, head lowered. She hadn’t really meant to hurt him, but that mattered little when his hooves moved. He caught her across the neck with an armored shoulder, thrust himself forward, and bowled her over onto her back. Before the vertigo of the sudden flip and the pressure of his blow had passed, his hoof cracked across her jaw, leaving her staring up at a sky with far too many stars.

“I don’t have time for you if you’re going to be a foal, Rainbow.” He scoffed as he stepped away from her. “Why do I even bother to try and help you, if this is what I get? Some ‘awesome’ flier who can’t even get her hooves up in time to block an old, half-crippled stallion. What happened to the Rainbow Dash who could buck lightning like her father, without needing a cloud? What happened to the Rainbow Dash who killed a grown wyrm in single combat?”

“I never wanted to kill Smog!”

“Then you’re weak, Rainbow. That’s all there is to it. And tomorrow morning, if you don’t kill anypony in that canyon, you’ll be dead. Again. Just like your colt-friend.”

“I’m not… that’s…” Rainbow struggled not just with words, but the motivation behind them as well. The anger in her voice fell to confusion. “I mean, he’s too old...”

Before she could complete her stuttering thought, her father began to laugh. “Really? That’s what you can come up with? He looks plenty young to me.” The Commander paced over to Reckoning’s sleeping form. “Take some advice on love from your father. All you need is determination.”

“I’d rather take dating advice from Twilight. At least she wouldn’t abandon her foal!”

Steel Lining turned away from Dead Reckoning, wearing the smug grin that Rainbow had been expecting when he first approached. “I got exactly what I wanted from that whore, just like Reckoning and Morning Star did. The only difference is I got something else I didn’t really want on top of it.” He shook his head. “Then again, you are out here trying to save me, so I guess I can’t really complain.”

This time, Rainbow’s wings were burning when she lunged. “Don’t talk about Mom like that!” Her forehooves landed three blows against his jaw before he outright hurled her aside.

“Or what? You’ll try that pathetic excuse for an attack again?” He brushed a foreleg across his jaw, smoothing the offended part of his coat. “You don’t even have the resolve to admit you want Reckoning here. For Celestia’s sake, Rainbow, you can’t even admit it to yourself. But you expect you can do anything to me?”

“I’ve got plenty of resolve!”

“Another lie you’re telling yourself.” His head shook not with amusement, but disappointment. “I might as well spare you the pain.”

The fire in the center of the camp had begun to die, and in the darkness, the Commander drew the sword strapped to his side. Procellarum glittered in the starlight as Rainbow lunged forward. She was fast, but his sword was far closer to its finish line than her wings to hers. The ancient Cirran weapon’s gleaming edge contrasted against the dark fur of Reckoning’s mane.

“No!”

A second bolt of lightning fell from the sky, just as Hurricane’s sword cut down through the air. It struck Rainbow’s father on his right flank, throwing him backward. His body smashed through the fire pit, sending sparks flying every which way. Just as he finally found his way back to his hooves, a midnight blue blur smashed to the ground before him.

“We shall assist you here, Rainbow Dash.”

“Princess Luna?”

“Nightmare!” The Commander turned smoothly for his surprise, swinging his blade for Luna’s neck.

She didn’t react. Rainbow had no time to even scream a warning before the blade met her flesh. When it passed, it left no mark, nor did Luna seem the least bit troubled by the attack. In fact, the Princess turned away from her attacker completely, and walked calmly toward Rainbow.

The Commander roared around the handle in his teeth, and swung again for Luna.

“Princess, look out!”

Though Luna remained facing Rainbow Dash, the tip of her left wing extended, catching Procellarum with a single feather. The ancient sword snapped it in half with an ear-piercing crack of thunder. Rainbow’s father dropped his broken weapon, and spread his wings to chase after Luna. Again, she chose not to turn, and again, her gentlest touch reached out to meet him. Where his coat met her leading feather in the subtlest of grazes, the appeared the spark of a tiny ember. A moment later, only ashes remained.

“Dad!” Rainbow launched herself forward toward what little remained of the stallion. The same wing that had turned him to powder wrapped tightly around Rainbow’s body, holding her close to the alicorn.

“Calm thyself, Rainbow Dash.”

“You killed him!” Rainbow struggled in the Princess’ grip, but her efforts were in vain against Luna’s calm strength.

“I did nothing of the sort. This is a dream, Rainbow Dash. Nothing more.”

Rainbow’s struggles slowed as rationality overpowered emotion. In the end, her only motion was the panting rise and fall of her chest against’s Luna’s coat and wings. Luna held her tight as that too slowed. “Only a dream,” she whispered, running her feathers slowly down Rainbow’s back before releasing her.

Rainbow stepped away for a moment, and then shook herself. “Thanks, Princess.”

“As I recall, when we last spoke, you had agreed to use my name.” Luna chuckled.

Rainbow nodded slowly. “Right, sorry. Luna. Anyway, thanks for coming to help me out.”

“Truth be told, I had found myself ‘in the area’.” Luna smiled sadly. “I was searching the dreamscape for the soldier, Dead Reckoning, and I found your troubles more pressing.”

“You were looking for Deadeye? Is something wrong with him?”

“No, I would have gone to him now if there were. He sleeps peacefully. I was simply hoping to inquire about the progress of his mission. But now I would prefer a chat, if you will spare me the time. It has been too long since we spoke, and it is the least I can do to offer you reprieve from troubles.”

Luna stopped speaking for a moment, and then waved her hoof. Gone was the desert horizon, and in its place, Rainbow found herself in a small sitting room. Two cushions were placed beside a small fireplace, and the air was scented with lilacs and lilies. At the Princess’ gesture, Rainbow took a seat, nestling herself into the down of the expensive cushion. Luna joined her side, sprawling widely in a pose of exhaustion. Rainbow took note of a bruise on her cheek, and a few dozen feathers out of place, as if the Princess had spent many recent hours in hurried flight.

Luna seized the initiative of the conversation before the pegasus could comment. “You said something most curious to me. Is that stallion truly your father?”

Rainbow nodded with hesitance. “His name’s Steel Lining. It seems like everypony just calls him ‘The Commander,’ though.”

“Did you not know him?” Luna’s brow rose.

“I didn’t even know it was him until after Masquerade…” Rainbow realized what she was saying and let the words trail off unfinished. “We thought he was dead. I still can’t believe it, honestly.”

Luna tilted her head. “Why would he not tell you?” Rainbow’s lack of an answer was answer enough for Luna. She looked away slowly. “Perhaps I am prying, but I had been led to believe your father was another stallion of your peculiar rainbow mane.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “You’re thinking of my uncle Bifrost. Everypony does. He lives down by Las Pegasus. That’s how he spends all his money. I haven’t seen him since I was little.” Rainbow felt a strange chill in her wings, and shifted toward the fire. “My mom’s brother. Papa didn’t like him very much.”

“I see. Now, though, I must ask another question. You and… ‘Deadeye’... are quite far from Ponyville. I had not expected to find your dreams in his company. Where are you, in the physical world?”

“We’re on our way to save my dad, down by San Palomino.”

Luna smiled. “You and he are truly heroes, Rainbow Dash. First you save my life, and now his? One might think you made an occupation of it.”

“I’m trying not to. My dad’s kind of a dick.”

“A… dick?”

Rainbow suddenly found it very difficult to swallow, with all the blood making its way up her throat toward her cheeks. It took a moment for her to produce an acceptable comment. “He’s not a very nice pony.”

“Ah. ‘Dick’. That would explain his dislike of my sister’s pet name for him.” Luna waved a hoof at Rainbow’s raised brow. “I should not have mentioned it. If you do not enjoy his company, that would certainly explain your dream. Though then I must wonder why you travel to his aid.”

Rainbow hesitated. “It’s… uh… I guess I just need to.”

“Do you? So it is loyalty that compels you to travel? I find that curious, Rainbow Dash. You describe your father as a ‘dick’, you have never truly met him, yet you feel loyalty toward him?”

Rainbow had to think about the question for a moment. The words that echoed in whispers within her mind came from the phantom of her father, but they did not concern him. “I didn’t come for my dad. I came to help Deadeye.”

“I see.” Luna nodded. “You certainly have a strong sense of honor, Rainbow Dash. But I can only sense one other in your company, beside your friend. Was my sister so frugal in assigning you a company of guards?”

Rainbow quite literally flinched. “Uh… well, you see… Princess Celestia didn’t actually―”

Luna raised a hoof, silencing the struggling pegasus. “I had feared she would not condone your mission. You need not fear my reprisal; I will support your actions. But if she did not grant you an escort, who else supports you? Applejack, perhaps? Or Rarity? I struggle to imagine Twilight Sparkle going against Celestia’s wishes.”

“Uh, no. It’s… um… Soldier On.”

Luna stared blankly. “What?”

“Soldier On. You know, Stalliongradi mare, almost as tall as you―”

“I know well of whom you speak, Rainbow Dash, but I have to wonder why you would welcome the company of a traitor and a killer?”

“Deadeye said we needed somepony else.”

Luna closed her eyes for a very long moment. Had Rainbow’s vocabulary included such a word in the first place, she would have forever tied ‘inscrutable’ to the expression on the princess’ face. Regardless, when Luna did choose to speak, it was with a resolved tone. “Interesting. I will ask him directly, then. But first, there is one other thing that we should discuss before we part ways. This dream of your father; has it happened before?”

Rainbow hesitated. “I’ve heard his voice a couple times, but I’ve never really seen him. Not like that. Why?”

Luna nodded slowly. “The pull upon your soul from my sister’s spell is growing stronger. I was afraid that this would be the case. If you recall my proposal―”

Remembering Reckoning’s warning, Rainbow shook her head. “I’m fine, Luna. I can tough it out.”

“This is a most serious matter, Rainbow. I would at least have you hear me out.”

The pegasus shook her head. “Look, Luna, I’m sorry. I get it. You’re worried. But right now, I just want to live my life, save my stupid dad, and get back to Ponyville without anypony sneaking around doing crazy magic on me. I’ve had enough of that for one lifetime, okay?”

Luna wilted at the forceful refusal, though the expression only lasted a moment. “If you insist. I will gift you a calmer sleep, Rainbow. Farewell.”

Twilight stopped on the street, panting. She knew her hooves were resting on the street by the fact that the snow was two inches shallower there than on either side of the path. She moved a hoof to wipe the sweat away from her brow, only to find it literally frozen into her fur. Despite the trouble it had caused, she found herself incredibly grateful for the heavy black jacket Rarity had fashioned.

“Damn, it’s cold,” Going Solo observed, as if Twilight had somehow managed not to notice. “Do you know any heat spells?”

The youngest Archmage in the history of Equestria rolled her eyes. “No, Solo, for the seventh time, that’s Empatha. We should just keep going for a few hours, until we reach Trotsylvania. If you want fire before then, it’s your job.”

Solo shivered, though Twilight got the sense that the motion wasn’t from the cold. “I’d rather freeze to death, thanks.”

It was the sort of comment that the inquisitive unicorn would have pressed on, had it not been for the interruption of snow crunching beneath the runners of a sled coming up the path. Out of the haze of the constant snow of Stalliongrad came three black-clad figures.

From overhead, Solo’s hooves wrapped around the unicorn’s shoulders. “Twilight, what are you doing? Run!”

Twilight held up a hoof, and also held her ground. “Relax, Solo. They’re the Stalliongradi guard.”

Solo released her ward, though she remained hovering as if hoping to remain out of reach of land-bound ponies. “Princess Celestia’s gonna be pissed at me if you’re wrong.”

There was no time for further conversation as the sled pulled up alongside the two waiting ponies. Three Black Cloak stallions stood harnessed in front of the enormous maple vehicle. It looked almost like a noble’s carriage from Canterlot, complete with gold trim and family crests emblazoned on each side of the door. Twilight didn’t recognize the red five-pointed star on a gold circle any more than she did the rest of the vehicle. A glass window set into the cabin door looked in on a well cushioned chamber, though Twilight couldn’t see its occupant in the relative darkness. Her attention didn’t stay on the vehicle long enough to get a better look, as the stallions pulling the opulent thing through the snow began to speak.

"Посмотри-ка на эту. На ней одна из наших курток. Думаешь, из мятежников?"

"Скорее воровка. Ты хоть раз видел мятежника, разгуливающего вокруг в одной из наших? Они дорогие, эти куртки."

"Хотя, выглядит, как по ней шита."

"Бьюсь об заклад, она одна из ‘подруг’ коменданта Росчерка. Посмотри на другую. Её явно 'подпалило'."

Twilight scowled at the light chuckle of the ponies. “I, uh… Мы... хотим... попасть в... Трысьсильванию.”

“Explain?” Solo whispered.

“I have no idea what they said,” Twilight replied in kind. “Something about ‘tan lines’, I think. I asked if they could take us to Trotsylvania.”

The door to the sled opened just a crack. From the shadows within, a mare’s voice with a thick Trotsylvanian accent called out. “They will not understand you with such a thick accent, Tvilight Sparkle. Come, join me, and we will speak a more civilized tongue. ”

Twilight looked at Solo, and Solo replied with a look that quite eloquently wondered if the voice was ‘for real’. She was barely stifling a laugh, behind both her hooves. A gesture from the archmage answered the question, and the guardsmare recruit moved to the carriage door.

Twilight followed, placing a hoof on the folding step she found offered, and entered a different world entirely. The carriage was upholstered in red silk with golden buttons. Two couch-like seats faced each other across a small coffee table of polished maple, fixed to the floor. Opposite the door, a fireplace of stone was set into the wall, keeping the room toasty in stark contrast to the outside weather.

Solo had taken a seat on the couch closest to the ‘front’ of the carriage, as far away from the open flame of the fire as possible. Opposite her would-be bodyguard, Twilight caught the first glance of her host. The mare was a unicorn, who couldn’t have been more than Twilight’s age. Her scarlet mane framed a face paler than the snow covering the landscape. A tightly-fitted dress clung to her slender form in a muted red that served to accent the fiery nature of her mane.

She licked her lips as Twilight climbed into her carriage. “Vell, vell. My dear Tvilight. It is such a pleasure to make the acquaintance of a heroine. I ahm Countess Padayuschaja Zvezda, though you are welcome to call me Star.”

“It’s very nice to meet you, Countess. I’m Twilight, and this is my friend Going Solo.”

“Solo. An interesting name. Well, I will be blunt. These are dangerous times, and I find myself wondering what it could be that brings two Canterlot mares here to Trotsylvania.”

“We’re looking for my brother,” Twilight told her. “He was chasing a criminal from Canterlot when―”

“I ahm quite conscious of Sir Armor, Masquerade, and her plot.” Solo coughed to muffle a laugh, earning her a subtle glare. “Given the curfew that Predvidenie put in place, I wouldn’t be surprised if the entire Domain knew her name.” For a moment, a glimmer of anger appeared on Star’s expression. It didn’t last long before she once again became her level self. “But if you are wishing to find somepony in Stalliongrad, you must go to the city at the heart of it all. Fortunately, I can be of some great assistance in this matter, if you will in turn help me. You see, I have heard rumor of a unicorn stallion involving himself in the civil war, from one of the old abandoned castles.”

“Abandoned castles?” Solo asked. “That doesn’t sound creepy at all. I didn’t sign up to play Daring Do, Twilight.”

Twilight placed a hoof on Solo’s hind leg. “Relax. They’ve all been empty for thousands of years, since Commander Hurricane’s time. I’ve even been inside one before.” She once more faced Countess Star. “You’re talking about Castle Black, right? Near the ruins of Coltpenhagen?”

“I told you exactly as I had heard. ‘One of the old castles’. I would assume either they referred to Castle Black, or to Onyx Ridge. There is, of course, the Castle of Nightmares as well, but I doubt anypony would brave the curse.”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “There’s no such thing as a curse. Arcana doesn’t work that way.”

Countess Star seemed amused. “Oh? Then perhaps there is a better name for the magic of that place. Nightmare Moon didn’t simply leave her home unguarded, after all.”

Twilight visibly winced, earning a concerned glance from Solo. “Well… I guess Onyx Ridge and Castle Black are easier to reach anyway, and they’re both in the direction we want to travel.”

Solo snorted, unable to contain her comment any longer.. “You Stalliongradians sure like your things named after ‘black’ stuff, don’t you?”

“Don’t be rude, Solo,” Twilight cautioned.

Countess Star, however, humored the comment with a laugh. For a seemingly pleasant, if over-the-top mare, Solo had to reflect that the echoing chortle was surprisingly villainous. “We chose the color because it stands out well against the snow,” the noble concluded. “And because that its the color of the stone one finds if one digs beneath the ice.”

“I’d heard Onyx Ridge was destroyed,” Twilight noted. “Something about dogs, or wolves…?”

“Vargr,” Countess Star replied.

“What’s a ‘War-gur’” Solo wondered aloud.

“That isn’t her accent, Solo,” Twilight corrected, taking on a scholarly tone that Solo was quickly learning to dislike. “They’re called ‘Vargr.’ Or ‘wargs’, in more modern Equiish. Giant, carnivorous diamond dogs who carve crystals to do magic.”

“Ah,” Solo replied sarcastically. “Well, that sounds much more safe. Now I really think it’s a good idea to go searching old, abandoned castles.”

“If you could get some Black Cloaks to go with you, it would be very safe indeed. Their leader made something of a specialty out of hunting the volf-beasts And that is where my proposal comes in. Though that, I believe, can wait. It is still an odd hour of the night, and I had intended to catch up on my sleep as I traveled. You are welcome to do the same; you certainly seem fatigued. Tomorrow is what you would call ‘Tsyklon Day’, and you will enjoy the hospitality of Trotsylvania Manor and the Zvezda family. We can worry over castles and monsters when that time is past.”

Twilight smiled, nodded, and laid herself down on the cushioned seat. Solo wasn’t quite so quick to accept the strange mare’s offer, as she whispered a few quiet words more to herself than to Twilight.

“I’ve got a real bad feeling about this…”

Sundown Point looked so small from overhead, a few hours before the sun rose. Just a little crack in the dusty landscape, filled with maybe two dozen ants. Maybe they walked on four legs, and lay in half-drunken slumber following the previous night’s party. Maybe they spoke Equiish, and wore the clothes of ponies. But in Rainbow’s mind, the little dark specks in the shadows had to be ants.

Ponies wouldn’t cut off a foal’s wings.

The thunderhead rumbled against her belly, just before Deadeye spoke. “You’re sure you filled this thing?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’m a weather team manager, Deadeye. I know how to fill a cloud.”

“Weather team manager…” Reckoning idly scratched his chin. “Kinda weird to think of you doing such a boring job.”

“Watch it.” Rainbow tapped the cloud, feeling the little shocks jump onto her hoof. “It’s good pay.”

“I’m not saying it isn’t; just that it doesn’t seem like your job. When I hear ‘weather team manager’, I don’t think of a cute young mare who’s the best flier in Equestria.” Rainbow couldn’t help but feel her cheeks grow the slightest bit warmer… at least, until he continued. “I imagine some old stallion who’s spent his whole life pushing clouds and finally got a chance to sit behind a desk because he complained about the arthritis in his wings.”

Rainbow shot her now-young friend a serious glare. “Really? That’s funny, ‘cause when I think of a guardspony, I usually imagine a crazy old stallion who spends all his time in Zebrica, whining about how he isn’t in Canterlot and hallucinating about back when guardsponies used to matter.”

“Low blow, Rainbow. Low blow.” Reckoning shook his head, only to stop with a glimmer in his sole remaining eye. “There she is.”

Rainbow darted to the edge of their little thunderhead and carefully leaned forward to get a better look below. Given her size, and the lack of effort she put into concealing herself, Soldier On wasn’t a particularly difficult pony to spot.

Her duster swayed in the morning breeze as she approached, hoof after hoof crushing down on the dust. She had donned a black cowpony hat, which cast a shadow over her eyes. Her hooves gleamed with skysteel bladed shoes, whose wings stuck out behind her like spurs.

One of the bandits, a dusty orange earth pony, had enough lucidity left from the previous night’s party to see her approaching. “Hey! Hey, you!”

“Where’s Sundown?” On asked.

The bandit’s eyes widened. “Everyone! Everypony, get up! There’s somepony here, lookin’ for the boss!”

“You idiot!” another shouted. “She’s the one from yesterday! The one who tried going after Ace ‘n Jig! Get ‘er!”

The orange lookout turned around just in time to see On’s hoof jab into his throat. Her hoof came away red, and he collapsed with a gurgle. Before the other stallion who had shouted could clear the distance to her, Soldier On ‘drew’. Her right hind shoe rose into the air as her body coiled back for an Apple-family two-legged buck.

A sharp tug on her shoulder pulled Rainbow back before she could see the weapon find its mark in the bandit’s body. “Whoa!”

“You need to get moving, Rainbow!” Reckoning ordered, pointing his good wing at the cavern in question. “I don’t see the foal from here, so they’re probably keeping him in the cave. Go fast, get the kid, and get out.”

Rainbow nodded, and spread her wings, only to be stopped by another touch of Deadeye’s hoof on her shoulder. She turned back to face him, anticipating his warning. “I know. ‘Be careful.’”

“Sure doesn’t look like you know it. You should at least get your sword out.”

Rainbow reached down to her side and pulled her transparent blade out from under her poncho. For just a moment at the site of the skysteel, she thought of Papa. What would he think, if he could see her?

Then the thought was gone, like lightning, replaced by the same hoof on her shoulder. “Come back in one piece, Rainbow.”

“Like something else could even happen.” Rainbow leapt off the cloud, and almost immediately regretted her parting comment. It had sounded so much more awesome in her head. Still, she wasn’t about to turn around and look like a total ditz to Reckoning.

As she fell into the canyon with her wings at her sides, Rainbow turned back to where On was distracting the bandits. One of them swung for her face with a steel shoe of his own. She caught the attack on the inside of her own leg, and then twisted him around so that his foreleg was pinned behind his back like the victim of a schoolhouse bully.

The difference was, she didn’t stop pushing the leg forward when his shoulder found the limit of it’s joint. Rainbow didn’t see the end of the motion, but she did hear the crack of bone, and the ear-piercing scream. Thankfully, the sound was short lived, though the second crack of bone told Rainbow that On hadn’t simply let go.

The pegasus spread her wings mere feet from the ground, and she felt dust rise against her belly as she soared into the little crag that led into the cave at the edge of the canyon. Once she’d lost her fall, it was simple enough for her to fold her wings again and fall to her hooves. Flying was great, but even she wasn’t stupid enough to try it in a cave―and a dark one at that.

As the sounds of pitched battle and pain continued, incredibly muffled, from the light just behind her, Rainbow focused on what Reckoning had taught her. It was dark, and light came from fire. It didn’t take long picturing the severed wing On had thrown on the table the previous night to create the sensation of heat on the tips of her wings.

The cave was bigger than Rainbow had expected.

A lot bigger.

She could probably fit her whole house inside, were it not for the miniscule size of the entrance. And that was just the first ‘chamber’. Even in the little lights of the fires on her wingtips, the little tunnels to other parts of the cave were obvious. She probably would have continued to examine the space if it had been empty. However, the moans of at least a dozen sleeping, hung-over train robbers disturbed by her flaming wings suggested that there were more pressing matters for her attention. A deep breath snubbed out the fires on her wings before anypony could wake up, but it also presented a new problem.

As the firelight disappeared, the cave was plunged into darkness, and Rainbow could no longer see where the robbers sprawled out on the floor were, any more than she could see where Rocket was being kept. And while the cave was was big enough to fly in, her flapping wings and the gusts of wind would be more likely to awaken the bandits than the lights of her tiny flames. Though she was the best, a quiet flier Rainbow was not.

That left only one option. Rainbow slowly, hesitantly, stretched a hoof out in front of her, remembering that she had at least a few feet until the first bandit. She felt only the cold dirt of the cavern floor.

Then came another step. And another. Dirt crunched underhoof, and a loud snore stopped Rainbow in her tracks. Her heart skipped a beat, and she held her breath around the handle of the sword in her mouth. What followed was bitter silence, save the snoring of the bandits. Were it not for the echo, the noise might have been helpful in telling where the ponies were, but given the resounding sound, it was hard to tell where the voices had even come from.

Another step. Another crunch. Her hoof shook as she stuck it forward. Crunch. Step. Crunch. Step.

The rough feeling of dirty fur.

“Huh… who… Spurs, I swear…”

Rainbow pulled her hoof back, and listened in silent terror to the sound of the other pony momentarily flailing in the dirt, trying to find her hoof. She wasn’t sure what to do, so Rainbow went with her instincts. Don’t wait; act. She took a step forward, and leapt clear over the stallion laying on the floor.

The crunch of her hooves on the ground left Rainbow wincing, but she wouldn’t have turned back to see if the sound had woken anypony, even if her eyes could have seen them rouse. She pressed forward through the dark, feeling for the walls.

“Left, Rainbow.”

Her eyes widened. She’d heard enough voices in her head, between Fallaner and the phantoms of her parents, that the sound itself wasn’t a surprise. But it was a mare’s voice. A young mare, at that. Probably younger than Rainbow herself, though with a sterner edge than she would have found in the voices of any of her friends.

She hesitated for a moment over a dozen different questions she couldn’t ask aloud out of necessity for silence. Who did the voice belong to? Could she trust it?

When the sound of a body shifting heavily against the dirt echoed through the cave, Rainbow’s decision was made for her. She turned left, held out a hoof in front of her, and walked forward.

“Little bit too far. You’re looking for a hole about the size of a doorway.”

She shifted a little bit back toward the way she had been facing and progressed forward. Soon, her hoof found the cold stone of the cavern wall. She slid her way along it, using her wing to stay close by. It only took three strides before she found the path in question.

The flash from outside sent a single beam of blinding white light into the room, but the crack that accompanied it echoed deafeningly for what seemed like a lifetime. Rainbow hadn’t been frightened of thunder or lightning in years, but the rousing train-robbers put ice in the mare’s heart. She lunged into the darkness of the deeper chamber.

“Wait here. They’re all headed outside. Your friends did you a favor.”

The voice had clearly meant it to be a calming comment, but Rainbow’s heart panged for Reckoning. Would he be safe out there, with all those bandits? She almost turned back to check. Only an echo held her hoofsteps.

It was a sniffle. A little foal, hurt and lonely. She turned to the darkness, and closed her eyes. The fire came faster this time, though the flames were barely larger than a single feather on each wingtip.

In the firelight, Rainbow saw two ponies. Rocket was tied with his back to a stalactite. Dried blood on his back spoke to the wound concealed by the ropes. The little stump where a wing should have been.

The other pony’s eyes shot wide for a little splinter of a second, before they narrowed into something like annoyed amusement. “Rainbow Dash? Not exactly the pony I was expecting. You’re with Stoikaja now?”

He was an earth pony, with a coat that sat somewhere between orange and yellow, a red mane, and eyes to match. Painted in the blue light of Rainbow’s wing-flames, he took on an eerie, almost unnatural purple sheen that highlighted the wrinkles around his snide grin. Steel shoes decorated his hooves, though Rainbow’s eyes were drawn to the open scar at the base of his neck. It was black, sickly, and looked as though it ought to have already killed him. The loose neckerchief around his neck would have covered it, had it been pulled up just a bit higher. And where his cutie mark should have been, she found more plain sunset-colored fur. It might have warranted a question, were it not for the urgency of her objective.

“Let Rocket go!” Rainbow shouted, grateful that the curve in her sword’s handle allowed her to speak.

“My, my. Straight to business. Well, Rainbow Dash, my name is Sundown. I’d be lying if I said it was a pleasure to meet you under these circumstances. You see, dear little Rocket here is very important to me at the moment.”

The foal stirred. “R-Rainbow Dash?“

“Quiet, Rocket. The grown-ups are talking.” Sundown returned to attention to Rainbow, where he noted that the fires on her wingtips had doubled in size. “You know, I have to confess I’m surprised dear old Stoikaja hasn’t killed you for doing that.”

“He’s distracting you, Rainbow.”

Rainbow stepped toward Rocket, only to have the leader of the bandits remove one of his shoes. She knew perfectly well what it implied. She hesitated for a moment, worried for Rocket’s sake. “Just let her go, and you can leave.” she offered.

“Oh, that’s a delightful deal, but here’s the problem. If I take that deal from you, what happens when your bigger friend shows up? Stoikaja isn’t exactly the forgiving type, and neither are the San Pal Rangers. So I’m gonna walk out of here with little Rocket, and you’re not gonna stop me.”

“You expect anypony to just let you go?! After you cut off his wing?!”

Sundown scoffed, taking obvious offense. “That would be plural, and don’t insult my aim, filly. I’m the best bucking shot in San Palomino.”

Her entire wingspan flared into fire. “Let him go, now!”

“Duck!”

The bladed shoe whistled through the air, shaving away a few of Rainbow’s hairs, and drawing a drop of blood from her ear. She could still hear his voice when it was done.

“I can’t let him go. Not until I’ve lost you, and Stoikaja, and the Rangers, and whoever else is following me. So get out of my way. I ain’t gonna hurt him.”

“You expect me to believe that? After what you did?”

“Stoikaja knows the rules―heck, she practically wrote ‘em back in Stalliongrad. Now, Rocket ‘n I are leavin’, and if you don’t wanna get hurt, I suggest you get out of the way.”

“Rainbow Dash, help!”

Rainbow felt helpless. She needed to do something. Her own mind tore her in half as she wondered over her options. Yet when she needed it most, the voice in the back of her mind was silent.

Another strike of thunder echoed through the cave. Rainbow swallowed slowly, and turned back toward the entrance to the cave.

“That’s right, big-shot. Just head back on out an―”

She felt the crackle of electricity between her legs. She reared up, and bucked as hard as she could. The crack of thunder filled the room, echoing amongst the stone walls.

But the lightning never came.

“I don’t know if that’s supposed to be pegasus magic, or what, but if ya try something again, I’m liable to put one of these shoes in yer neck. I’m the fastest draw in the San Pal, and the straightest shot to boot.”

“Rainbow! Help!”

The pegasus spread her wings, dropped her sword, and took a deep breath.

“Don’t!”

That time, she didn’t listen to the voice. She turned, and flew as a blur. The clash of hoof on steel was the only herald to a sharp pain on her cheek, well below but in line with her right eye. She howled in pain, even as her hooves wrapped around Rocket. What should have been a smooth flight turned into a painful tumble, as she wrapped her wings and legs around the foal to protect him. They rolled together, until Rainbow’s back slammed into stone wall on the far side of the cavern.

It took her too long to regain her sense of direction. By the time she was ready to stand, she found another steel shoe against her throat.

“Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you, Rainbow Dash.”

“Are you actually that stupid?” called a familiar voice from the entrance to chamber.

Shocked, Rainbow twisted toward the welcome sound. “Deadeye?”

The one-eyed stallion smiled, carrying a little green flame on his wingtip for light. “Look, bandit, maybe you haven’t thought this through. So let me help you out here. You want to be the pony who slit Rainbow Dash’s throat? You want me and Soldier On out there to go back to the Princesses who’ll judge your soul, and tell them that you killed her because you wanted to get away with your treasure after you robbed a train?” Deadeye had the gall to laugh. “If you think the Rangers are trouble, you should really meet a Night Guard. Here’s your chance not to have that happen.” The scout stepped out of the way of the exit. “I can’t give you a pardon… but I’ll give you a head start.”

Sundown looked down at his hoof, and then up at Deadeye. And then, without hesitation, he ran.

“What a great stallion,” Dead Reckoning muttered, before walking across the cave. He only paused to pick up Rainbow’s sword between his teeth. “Hmph, Rmpckpt”

“What?” the foal asked.

Reckoning took a few more steps, dropped the weapon at Rainbow’s hooves, and repeated himself more audibly. “I said ‘Hey, Rocket’. You doing alright?” It was clear from the flash of feeling across the stallion’s scarred face that he regretted the question almost immediately.

“I’m fine,” the foal lied. “Thanks to Rainbow Dash.” And then he grabbed onto her side.

Reckoning turned to the mare and rolled his eye. “It’s a bit of a miracle that Rainbow is fine, though. Is your face alright?”

“Well, I can’t exactly see it right now,” Rainbow snapped, irritated. “Probably better than yours. Is On okay?”

“Better than you were,” Reckoning answered. “But we should get going. I don’t like leaving her alone out there. But we’re going to have a serious talk about acceptable risks.”

“Or risks at all.”

Rainbow shook her head; she’d hoped it was a small enough motion to escape notice, but Reckoning’s raised brow told her he had clearly seen. “Something wrong?”

“Just… thought I heard something.”

Reckoning looked to Rocket thoughtfully, and then moved to help Rainbow to her hooves. As his good wing wrapped over her back to pull her up, he whispered in her ear.

“Your dad’s voice again?” When Rainbow gasped, he explained. “Princess Luna told me last night. I guess she talked to you first.”

“Why would she―”

“Because she’s worried. And I am too. But we’ll talk about this later.” The three pegasi began walking out of the cave together, though only one of them could hear the parting words of the conversation.

“You don’t need to be worried about hearing me, Rainbow, but you can’t be so reckless. We’re all counting on you to save Dad.”

On’s hoof came down on the crown of the bandit’s head, and the shudder she felt from his flesh told her that he hadn’t felt a thing as he died. Her instincts, her Endura, and her mental count of the bandits in the canyon all told her he was the last of her immediate threats. The voice that rang out in the remaining half of her right ear told her otherwise.

“Stoikaja? Damn it, he said I could go if I left the foal behind!”

“Are you going to keep running?”

Sundown shuddered in place. “I know what you used to do to the Black Cloaks who ran away! I’m not turning my back!” He ripped off a shoe, and bucked it straight into On’s chest. She didn’t flinch as the steel bounced off the breast of her duster, even as a stripe of blood began to stain the fabric.

“So you really did fight for the rebels.” Her eyes settled on the scar in his neck. “And Roscherk caught you. The black dagger hurts, doesn’t it?”

He bucked another shoe. This time, On’s hoof moved with unnatural speed, swatting it out of the air mere inches from her face. Again, she ignored where the blade left a shallow gash in her flesh.

“Please, Stoikaja… All I wanted was the money, just like you. When the Black Cloaks…”

On walked slowly toward the stallion. “You think I wanted money?” With every fall of her titanic hooves, little pebbles and dust rose from the canyon floor.

“That’s what the rebellion was about!” Sundown yelled.

On’s eyes caught Rainbow, Reckoning, and the foal coming out of the cavern. She held up a hoof, advising them not to involve themselves. They took it as a sign to stay inside, and watch from around the rocks. That was fine by her.

Using the same leg that had guided the others, On struck Sundown’s jaw with the back of her hoof. It flipped him over completely, and left him skidding across the rough ground. “Maybe for the others. But for me, it was never about money. It was about getting rid of ponies who didn’t deserve power. Evil ponies.” Having walked to his side, On knelt, placing a hoof against Sundown’s neck. “Do you know why I started the rebellion? It’s because Roscherk framed me for killing his brother.”

“An’ he took away my magic with his black crystal dagger!” Sundown cried. “Don’t you see, Stoikaja? We’re the same!”

On’s hoof pressed down, and Sundown began to choke. “The same? No, we aren’t the same at all. You fought because you wanted money, and when you couldn’t get it in Stalliongrad, you came here. You took everything I taught those ponies about fighting for justice, and you turned it around for robbing trains and foal-napping. You think we’re the same because we both suffered?” On’s words had been growing in intensity, but by this point, she was shouting. “You and I have nothing in common. When I look at you, I see Roscherk Krovyu. I see a stallion so power-hungry, he’d burn my son alive, and throw my daughter off the Wall and onto the ice. I see a stallion who cuts the wings off foals for money!”

Her hoof rose from his neck, and he gasped for breath. “Please…”

“Don’t worry. I’m not like him. I’m not going to torture you.” On’s hoof scraped across the ground. “I promised a better pony than either of us that I wouldn’t do what I do for revenge. When I kill you, it won’t be about you. It will be about all the victims you’ll never have. And you won’t feel a thing.”

On raised her hoof, but it would never find time to fall. A strong, bellowing voice called to her from down the canyon.

“Keep yer hooves on the ground, ma’am, and we can do this nice ‘n easy-like.”

Her head snapped to face a stallion with a black waxed moustache. He wasn’t alone. A dozen earth ponies in Ranger’s uniforms stood to his sides, cutting off the sole exit to the valley. They wouldn’t have the decency to come at her one or two at a time, like the drowsy, hung-over bandits laying dead across the valley had. She didn’t like those odds.

She needed to buy time, so she greeted the stallion she knew from the covers of Honor Guard reports. “Sheriff Silverstar. Going to throw some pies at me?”

“That’s Marshal Silverstar now,” the stallion countered, tapping the badge pinned to the lapel of his denim vest. “And seein’ as yer wanted for treason and murder, I went ahead and brought something a bit more appropriate.” The stallion peeled open the flap of his vest, to reveal three short-fused sticks of dynamite. “Now, first question: where’s yer posse?”

On’s hard-earned instincts kept her from glancing to the cave where Rocket, Rainbow, and Reckoning were hiding. She could only hope they weren’t stupid enough to do something like try to help her. “They should be well on their way to Suida right now,” she lied, hoping Reckoning would pass the message on. Though Rainbow seemed a good mare, On doubted she would catch the hint. “I stayed behind to mop up these train-robbers.”

“Awful noble, fer a traitor. Well, I guess we can thank ye for brushin’ up on them desperadoes. Now, ye’ll be a kind mare for us ‘n step away from that stallion.”

The second she gave Sundown space, he rose to his hooves and sprinted into the canyon. A few of the younger Rangers moved to follow, but Silverstar’s raised hoof and muffled cough were enough to stop their motions. “He’s small-time, compared to her. Ain’t gonna do no harm off on ‘is own, and there’s always another chance.”

“Small time?” On’s head turned in horror as Rainbow stepped out of the cave. She saw Reckoning move to follow, and it was only by holding up her hoof that she got the stallion to stay where he was hidden. Thankfully, Silverstar seemed to have assumed On’s gesture was meant for Rainbow, as the irate pegasus continued forward. “He cut off Rocket’s wings!”

Some of the Rangers flinched, but Silverstar stayed cold. “Well, now. Rainbow Dash. Been a long time since Appleloosa.” His head didn’t move, but his eyes swiveled cleanly toward the older, larger mare in the canyon. “Looks like that makes ya a liar now, Soldier On.”

“I was hoping somepony could take a hint, and meet up with Reckoning in San Palomino City,” On replied, struggling to make the implication as obvious as possible and desperately hoping it would sink in. “Though if you’re hoping to catch her, Silverstar, you’re out of luck. She’s a lot faster than anypony you’ve got.”

“I’m not going anywhere, On!” Rainbow shouted.

On growled, deep in her throat. She didn’t have time for a subtler expression. “Don’t be an idiot, Rainbow.”

“I don’t leave my friends behind.”

On turned fully away from the Rangers to shout at Rainbow.. “Then its a good thing I’m not your friend! Somepony has to save the Commander! Take Rocket and fly south!”

“But―!”

“For once in your life, listen to me!,” On continued, despite the sinking feeling in her belly that it was the last she would ever see of Rainbow Dash. “For your father’s sake, if not your own!”

On gulped when Rainbow moved to turn back toward the cave. The Rangers weren’t stupid enough to miss a hint like that. “What about Reckoning―”

On’s lunged forward with her hoof stretched out, grabbing Rainbow by the cheek and swinging her head around so that the two mares were staring into one another’s eyes. “He’s already gone, Rainbow! Don’t you get it? There’s no reason for you to stay here!”

From where she was standing, On knew that Rainbow could see over her shoulder to where Reckoning was standing in the cave. The earth pony wasn’t sure what the stallion had mouthed or motioned, but it seemed to set Rainbow’s resolve. As the Rangers moved forward tentatively amidst the corpses of On’s handiwork, she scooped Rocket onto her back and spread her wings.

“Uh… goodbye, I guess?”

“You don’t have to pretend to like me, Rainbow.”

It hurt to part on those words, but they would be easier than leaving Rainbow with a lingering regret at leaving her behind.

The sound of Rainbow’s takeoff echoed through the valley. As the Rangers watched her go, On shot a quick glance to Reckoning’s hiding place. He needed help too. She steeled herself, and set her hooves. Silverstar’s troops stopped, watching her with sudden, shuddering fear.

Then she turned tail and sprinted away.

Sundown sat at the edge of a tiny fire as the sun rose, alone in the middle of the desert. He still wasn’t sure he’d gotten over the sensation of Stoikaja’s hoof on his neck. He stared into the fire, hoping for something else to think about. He didn’t notice the stallion approaching on the sands until he’d reached the edge of the fire’s glow.

“Hello, Sundown.”

“You!” Sundown’s hoof found his last bladed bucking shoe. True to his claimed titles, it was too fast for the other stallion to avoid. It slashed straight through his eyepatch, and sent the hat toppling from his head. There, one end of the shoe stayed lodged, caught in the stallion’s skull.

When he laughed, Sundown shivered. “Wh-what are you?”

“Just an ex-guardspony,” the stallion answered. “You don’t seem to be in much of the mood to talk, so just let me say my peace, and we can be done here.” The pony paused, and then slowly pulled the shoe from out of his skull. What should have been a bloody eye or an empty socket instead stared back, slitted and yellow. “We didn’t get much of a chance to introduce ourselves back in Brayce Canyon, so let me introduce myself.” He opened his mouth, and Sundown scrambled backward at the site of a set of pearly fangs. “My name’s Dead Reckoning, but I’m rather partial to Deadeye. I don’t like ponies who hurt foals, and I especially don’t like ponies who try to hurt Rainbow Dash. And I might not be the fastest draw in San Palomino…”

He stomped on the shoe he had pulled from his own skull, and watched as it hovered in the air.

“...but I never miss.”

XII - Introductions

XII

Introductions

Ghayth slowly spread his hooves across the rough rug cast over the floor of his tent. He lowered himself to his belly, took a deep breath, and focused his thoughts on the eastern horizon.

When a hoof collided heavily with one of the wooden pillars holding up the tent, he sighed. It wasn’t until the other guest in his tent spoke that Ghayth recognized he was still the only camel in the room.

“Hosp,” croaked the parched throat of the Commander, as he struggled to support himself on one of the wooden beams holding up the tent. “Please.”

“Ven. Ost.”

After a moment of trying to pick apart the nomad’s pidgin language, the pegasus stallion gave up and forced his bitter lips and dried tongue to release another few words. “I don’t... speak Camel.”

Ghayth seemed amused. “Yet you know how to speak of hospitality? I offered you to come and rest by my side, friend.” The camel pulled from his side a waterskin, and offered it to his unexpected guest. “Give me a moment to pray, and then we can speak further.”

The Commander stumbled forward to the edge of the camel’s rug. The loose fabric did no favors for his aching hooves and the bruises on the two joints that were still stable enough to hold his weight. He collapsed forward onto his chin, earning a wince from Ghayth.

“You are unwell, friend.”

“This ‘s what I get for taking boar hospitality,” the stallion muttered, before uncorking the waterskin and pouring it greedily down his throat.

Ghayth saw need and desperation in the motion, and grabbed a small cushion from across the room for the stallion who was clearly in more terrible pain than could be healed by mere water. “I see. I will do my best to be a bit more friendly than they are. For now, rest.”

The nomad’s eyes moved forward to focus on a golden disk, placed upon a small folding wooden table at the far side of the room. “Find strength,” he began. “Find strength in the morning to rise into the blue sky, and find strength at night to lower yourself from those heights. Do not lose hope in storms or clouds. Remember that it is you who brings glimmer to fresh water, and green to the earth. Take heart―”

It took awhile for the pegasus to build up the will to speak, given the awful state of his throat. “Are you praying to Celestia?”

“Does that trouble you?” Ghayth replied, on the verge of taking offense.

The Commander shook his head. “I don’t care. But she always seems to hate it when ponies put her up on a pedestal.”

The casual comment got the camel to break his focus on the golden disc. “You know her?”

The Commander took a long time to answer again, but when he did speak, he looked the camel squarely in the eyes. “Better than anypony.”

He’d been expecting questions about his identity, and found himself caught off-guard by the nature of the question he actually received. “So you don’t see her as a goddess?”

It took more than just a moment for Ghayth to realize that the stallion’s convulsions were in fact his quiet laughter, and not the effect of some wound or sickness. When he opened his mouth to make a noise, however, all that escaped was a dry, bitter cough. Two more followed before he finally found the strength to speak. “It takes a very stupid pony to meet his goddess face to face and turn into an atheist.” He closed his eyes, and for just a moment remembered her ivory coat and the scent of flowers that accompanied her every movement. “Maybe I mean something different when I say ‘goddess’ than most ponies would, but I know that she’s… something higher than me. I don’t know what you expect from praying to her, though. The only pony I’ve ever seen her ‘descend from on high’ to help was Twilight Sparkle.”

“The prayer is for her benefit. Not my own.” Ghayth gestured to the horizon, where the sun was slowly rising, visible through the canvas of the tent. “Such power cannot come easily. My kind and I give her what strength and support we can for her trying task.”

“If you really want to help her raise the sun, some coffee beans would do a lot more than prayers.”

The camel’s eyes grew wide. “You mock her?"

“She would have laughed,” the Commander muttered. “And then probably said something clever about how I could use some more beauty sleep too.” He looked down at the scars where his own wings had been twisted around to face backward, and the jagged corner where his front left femur had fused at an angle. “Maybe just this once, she’d be right.”

“I will have our doctor look after you―”

The Commander held up a hoof. “Don’t.”

“What do you mean? If your leg is left to heal that way, you will never get beyond limping again in your life. I know nothing of wings, but I would fear the same for them.”

“For the moment, I need to limp.” What the Commander didn’t say was a heavy weight on his chest, and his eyes flickered to the golden disc on the table nearby. “Please. Trust me. I only need to get to San Palomino City. From there, I can make my way to Canterlot.”

Ghayth nodded. “You live atop the Mountain of Dawn? That explains your speech of the sun princess. It is a pleasure, then, to offer you the Hosp of my caravan. Rest here in my tent, and I will speak to the others.”

The Commander watched Ghayth go before turning back to the golden disc. Words were slow to come, but not because of his parched tongue. “Celestia, I’m coming back soon.” He spared a slow glance over his shoulder. “I’m sorry about the camels.”

He could almost see her shaking her head, reflected in the smooth surface of the polished gold. He imagined her stern but calm voice.

You’re taking advantage of them, she would say. You’ll hurt them.

“It’s their culture to offer me hospitality. Why shouldn’t I take it?”

Her reproach would have been subtle. A slight narrowing of her eyes perhaps, or if she were truly angry, casting her gaze away from his. At least tell him that Khagan is following you, she might have said. They deserve to know.

“And if I told them, they wouldn’t help me get home.”

You’ll find a way, she would probably have tried, at first. She always did. There’s a reason you’re the best.

“It’s not a risk I can take. Khagan wasn’t just after me. He’s gathering an army.”

I’ll warn Captain Armor. We’ll be ready, she might have placated. But what about you?

“I’ll take care of it,” he would have said. And that would have been it. The end of the conversation. Celestia would have nodded, and wandered away in the confidence that her little ponies were safe. He would have turned to Star, or On, or Flag, or Armor as the situation demanded and solved the problem.

But for some reason, the vision of Celestia he imagined in the golden disc didn’t wander away. She sighed slowly, letting her shoulders and wings rise before lowering them an eternity later. His imaginary Celestia spoke to him, disappointment dripping from the voice that might have been.

The way you took care of Chrysalis? she asked him. Or Masquerade? Or do you mean the way you took care of Luna?

The Commander wilted, his backwards wings searing in agony as they tried to follow his instinctual slump. “I’m sorry.”

The phantom in his mind waved a single wing to brush off his words. I won’t say I’m mad at you, but I am disappointed. You can do better. You’re a better pony.

He broke his eyes away from the disk, and buried his face in the knee of his good foreleg. “I wish that were true.”

When Ghayth returned to his tent, mere minutes later, he found the exhausted, crippled pony asleep on the rug. On his cheeks, the desert dust in his coat had turned to mud.

Unending Vigil turned when a hoof knocked clearly on her chambers that morning. The fact that she had ‘quarters’ on an airship, rather than an expensive condo on the beach near Los Pegasus, still hadn’t quite sunk in, as reflected by her tumbling out of the cot in the corner and onto the wooden floorboards. She spent a few moments finding her hooves and regretting the creaking in her knees before she called out. “Uh… Come in.”

The mare who entered had huge bags beneath her eyes that stood out terribly against her fiery yellow coat. “Hello, ma’am.”

“Morning, Spitfire,” Vigil noted casually, brushing herself off and moving over to the room’s small desk. “What’s up?”

“Permission to commit suicide, ma’am?”

Spitfire was expecting an immediate reaction, and therefore found herself very surprised when the ancient earth pony opened a drawer of the desk and pulled out an unlabeled purple glass bottle. Her hoof tapped the cork,and it popped out with a rather sickening hiss. “There you go.” She concluded the motion by collapsing into a chair and placing her hind hooves on the desk alongside the bottle.

“What?”

“If you can down that whole thing, Spitfire, it’ll probably kill you.”

The Wonderbolt twitched. “I didn’t mean―”

“If you didn’t want to kill yourself, you shouldn’t have asked for permission.” Vigil grabbed the ‘poison’, and took what could roughly be called a ‘shot’ in a way that would have put most guardsponies a quarter of her age to shame. “Ah, that’s the good stuff. Go on. You don’t have to drink the whole thing.”

“What is it?”

“We called it ‘Suicide’,” Vigil replied with the chuckle. “Some stupid new bartender at the Private’s Reserve mixed the first one for Commander Skytrotter fifty-odd years ago.”

Spitfire took the bottle in her hoof, stared at it, and reflected that she could always do her crazy fire trick if things went bad. Down the beverage went.

And a moment later back up it came, spraying all over Vigil’s quarters. The elderly mare seemed completely unbothered, and in fact, took that opportunity to point at Spitfire and laugh. “Can’t hold something that weak, Spitfire? I thought you fly-mares were supposed to love the hard stuff.”

“It―” Spitfire gagged. “It wasn’t the alcohol. It was… whatever else was in that. What is this?”

“Five parts grenadine, two parts coffee liqueur, and one part apple cider.” Vigil took the bottle, recapped it, and placed it back in her drawer. “That means more than half of it is the same sort of flavoring syrup foals get in snow-cones.”

“What did the old Commander do?”

“He had me recruit the stallion into the Royal Guard on the spot. Said ‘nopony’s come so close to killing me in years.’”

Rather than sharing in Vigil’s amused chuckle, Spitfire’s eyes widened. “You recruited a bartender? That can’t have ended well.”

“Actually, he was a trainee drop-out who’d picked up the job that same day―it was the day of the last round of cuts for the Foreign Corp, and I guess he didn’t want to be stuck patrolling the streets in Canterlot. Once I’d beaten some discipline into his skull, he turned out to be one of my best scouts.” Vigil smiled. “Gotta love the Private’s Reserve for that rule. It’s too rare that I get to have any fun in a real scrape, even if it did run me fifty bits for the table. Anyway, his name was Dead Reckoning.”

“Wait… that stallion we’re after?”

Vigil nodded. “He was cute when he was younger, and he still had both halves of his face. He was pissing himself when the Commander and I walked in that day, though. I’ve never seen a worse bartender in my whole life; Skytrotter wanted a White Stalliongradian. I don’t think he ever went back to the Private’s Reserve.” Vigil scratched her chin. “Well, now that you’re not in such a sour mood, why don’t you tell me what’s actually got your goat?”

Spitfire’s mouth fell open slightly as she struggled to come to terms with the staggeringly racist turn-of-phrase. It wasn’t until Unending Vigil reached out and placed a hoof on her chin to restore her expression that she realized she had found her way to a much brighter mood. “Uh…” She scratched the back of her mane, trying to recall her original concern. “It’s just the foal. Scootaloo.”

“She seems like an energetic one. Didn’t get much sleep?”

“Well, there is that.” Spitfire scratched the back of her neck. “She’s kind of annoying. I don’t know where she learned about Empatha, but she thinks if I teach her how to light herself on fire, she’ll be better at flying or something.” Vigil failed to conceal her amusement. “But… To be honest, ma’am, I feel bad about using her against Rainbow Dash.”

Vigil rapped her hoof on the desk in the center of her room “Against. That’s an interesting word you’ve chosen, Spitfire. You think us stopping Rainbow Dash is going to hurt her?”

Spitfire gulped. “Well… kinda, yeah. She’s gonna be mad.”

“I’m pretty good at dealing with anger, Spitfire. And I don’t just mean shouting kids, either. I mean the kind of angry you get. The kind that ends in a burn ward. As long as she doesn’t try to break my hip, I’ll live with myself.”

Spitfire coughed into her hoof, trying to brush off her superior’s lack of seriousness. “With respect, ma’am, I don’t think you get what I mean. When I was running our training academy, there was a… an incident with one of cadets. Some of Rainbow’s friends were put in danger.” Spitfire took a deep breath. “She was so mad about what happened that she tried to give up on joining the Wonderbolts.”

Vigil nodded. “And?”

Spitfire rubbed her brow. “Didn’t you read my report on her?”

The elderly mare took another shot of Suicide. “I think you’re misunderstanding how this works. First off, I hate reading reports almost as much as I hate paperwork. And secondly, I don’t need to care about Rainbow. This isn’t my mission, Spitfire. Flag might be deferring to me, but that’s just her being nice. Or force of habit from twenty years ago. Whichever.” Vigil waved a hoof, as if two decades were an amount of time she could simply wave away. “The point is, this is her mission. She showed up at my house to ask for my help, and I’m only here because she doesn’t want to have to hurt Reckoning. Rainbow Dash is your problem.”

Spitfire cocked her head. It was all the prompt Vigil seemed to need. “Reckoning and I go way back. Hopefully, I can talk some sense into him.”

“And if you can’t?”

Vigil took a slow breath. “I’m hoping it doesn’t come to that. Let me show you something.” Her hooves fell off her desk and onto the smoothly shifting floor of the airship. She wandered straight out of the cabin and onto the outside deck. As the old mare reached the stairs into the belly of their vessel, she spoke up again. “What was it you wanted me to know from your report?”

Spitfire had to think back for a moment. “Rainbow Dash has been obsessed with the Wonderbolts for… well, probably her whole life. She’s been sending in applications since Arcus was still on the Flight Squad. If I know her the way I think I do, it’s the only thing she’s ever wanted. But as soon as her friends were in danger, she was ready to give it all up.”

The corner of Vigil’s wrinkled brow rose ever so slightly as she found the foot of the stairs. “You’re afraid what we’re planning won’t work?”

Spitfire shook her head. “I’m afraid it will. Captain Flag’s plan… it’ll tear Rainbow in half. We can’t do this to her.”

“Can’t? Well… maybe I can’t. I’m too old to be playing those sorts of games with you and Rainbow. Like I said, I’m only here to stop Reckoning. And I won’t speak for what you can and can’t do. But I know Flag. She won’t hesitate for a second if she thinks stopping Rainbow’s plan is what’s best for Equestria. So there’s a choice you have to make: do you want to use the filly and stop Rainbow Dash, or do you want Flag to do it? One thing I can tell you is that she isn’t a gentle mare. Even before…” It was as if Vigil had walked out onto a plank, only to realize that she had reached the end. Her hooves stopped abruptly as she contemplated what to say next. “...well, I guess I can just say that she’s always been a bit harsh.”

“I’ve noticed.”

Vigil smiled. “Anyway, that’s my point, Spitfire. You need to figure out what’s most important to you, before you need to make the choice. If you’ll forgive me for being trite, you’ve got to figure out where your loyalties lie. Otherwise, you’ll end up like this...”

Spitfire actually hadn’t noticed the door until Vigil placed a hoof on it. The tingling in the back of her skull made it easy to guess that magic was involved. The simple wooden panel creaked open, revealing a small room very near to the thrumming engine of the airship.

White Flag didn’t seem to have noticed the intruders. Her focus was on the trio of statues pacing on the wooden floor. They were circling her, more like wolves than the vaguely equine shapes they were carved into. They almost had the haggard mare backed into a corner. Sweat glimmered on Flag’s horn, dripping down around frantic eyes that danced from foe to foe.

She ducked when one swung a hoof; it caught her shoulder, and bowled her over onto her side so hard that she bounced. Before her body found the floor again, her horn flashed―just in time for a flash of light to teleport her clear of a second blow.

She popped back into the world with only moments to spare before the second statue would hit her head-first. She panted as magic coalesced on her horn. In an instant, a pale blue sheen appeared on the floor. The statue’s hooves lost their grounding, and the full force of its momentum smashed against the wall. Where its head had been, only gravel remained. But the victory was hard won; Flag staggered, seemingly dizzy, as the other two statues approached at speed.

Spitfire tried to step into the room, only for Vigil to place a hoof across her chest. “No, wait. You should watch this.”

When a stone hoof met the loosest hair of Flag’s sheer white mane, her horn flared. A little sizzle and a pop were all that marked the mare’s teleportation. The subsequent collision of two golems against one another was anything but quiet.

They moved to get up, almost comically. Flag didn’t give them the chance. Her horn flared thrice, and two hoof-sized ruby orbs popped into the air in front of her. Almost immediately, the motion of the statues stopped. Only shortly after, Flag fell to her front knees.

It was then that Vigil lowered her leg and wandered into the empty chamber. “Need a hoof?”

“I’m still not fast enough,” the Captain of the Royal Guard muttered. “Did you see anything to improve on the flank, Captain?”

Vigil chuckled. “Well, right now, all I’m seeing is that there’s only going to be one giant Stalliongradi mare. And she’s not made of stone.”

White Flag groaned as she stood back up to her hooves and wiped the sweat from her brow. It dripped along her left foreleg as she finally met Unending Vigil’s gaze. “Stoikaja is more dangerous than any single golem I can animate. And the term is Stalliongradian; Stalliongradi is the language.”

“Trust Captain Encyclopedia to know that one,” Vigil muttered toward Spitfire.

The Wonderbolt leader mostly ignored the comment, heeding the sinking feeling in her gut that laughing at White Flag’s expense was a bad idea. Instead, she hesitantly approached one of the dimly glowing ruby spheres on the floor, and prodded it with her hoof. “What are these?”

“Since I’m apparently going to get trouble for actually explaining, I’ll make this short. They’re the golem’s hearts.”

Spitfire’s eyes widened as she realized the implication; it wasn’t hard to imagine fleshy hearts lying on the ground in place of the stones, stolen away from their owners by what seemed simple magic. “Can you do that to real ponies?”

“If I can focus, and they stand still for just a moment,” White Flag answered somewhat casually. “It works better on dragons. Larger target; less likely to lurch suddenly, and easier to find with mana.” The mare fit a surprising amount of utter spite into the rather casual observation, before her voice found its way back to its usual tone. “Did you actually want something?”

Vigil shot Spitfire a teasing smile. “Actually, I think she wanted to say something about how you’re planning to deal with Rainbow Dash.”

“Is that true?”

Spitfire winced, and her heart beat more quickly in her chest. “Well… I…” A deep breath was all it took to steel her thoughts, though the fact that it even took that was concerning to the professional flyer. “Yes, ma’am, it is. I’m worried about what effect taking Scootaloo away will have on Rainbow.”

White Flag took a hoof to her mane, pulling it back away from her face so that it dangled down her neck. Her wrinkled forehead and the bags under her eyes seemed the perfect match for the icy white of her mane. Her nostrils flared regularly as she found a comfortable sitting position on the bare wooden floor. Only then did she speak. “Why are you concerned?”

“Permission to speak freely, Ma’am?”

“Denied,” Flag replied flatly. “The fact that you asked answers my question. Either you are concerned that this manipulation will compromise Rainbow Dash’s position as the Bearer of Loyalty, or you have some personal emotional connection causing you to feel sympathy for her. As far as the Royal Guard is concerned, Rainbow Dash is only distinct from any other civilian by virtue of her position as Bearer of the Element of Loyalty―part of our greatest and only line of defense against powerful magical threats. Beyond that, she may as well be a slab of meat.”

“So you don’t care about how much this is going to hurt her?”

“Not unless it affects her performance.” Spitfire reacted as if she’d been slapped, though Flag didn’t relent. “Four-hundred and thirty-eight million. Do you know the significance of that number?” Once again, the unicorn didn’t leave space for an answer. “That is the population of Equestria, as of last year. That’s the number of lives that I have to worry about, and answer to Celestia to. To be as blunt as possible, Spitfire, what Rainbow, Stoikaja, and Dead Reckoning are doing will put Khagan on the warpath with us. He already has more than enough reason to want Equestria burning. It may also get Rainbow killed, at which point something as simple as a Windigo or a Shade could crush Equestria unopposed. That is what I see at stake. I don’t have time to worry about how she thinks of me.”

Spitfire glared, in contrast to the disinterested coldness of Flag’s expression. “And what about how she thinks of Canterlot?”

“I’ve already taken that into account; that’s why I brought you. You will threaten her with a ban from the Wonderbolts, as discussed. If that fails, we use Scootaloo. Once this is over, Princess Celestia will issue a staged reprimand for my actions, and return Scootaloo to Ponyville. Rainbow Dash’s hatred will be directed at us, and us alone. But in the mean time, she will have complied, Stoikaja will have been executed, and this mission to Suida will be over. I’ll hope it doesn’t come to that, but I am no longer stupid enough to trust that heavily in optimism.” Flag rose to her hooves and walked past Vigil toward the door of the room. “If you have any further complaints, Lieutenant, I suggest you get over them quickly. You are a guardspony before you are Rainbow’s friend. Act like it, or you’ll force me to restrain her.” Her magic grabbed the golem’s ‘hearts’ as she passed the threshold. “Goodnight.”

Spitfire turned to Unending Vigil, who was quietly shaking her head. “Sorry about that. This wasn’t exactly what I meant for you to see.”

The Wonderbolt cocked her head. “What were you expecting?”

“Usually, she’s moping over her past or ‘meditating’.” The dripping sarcasm in the last word accompanied a wider grin on Vigil’s face, drawing attention to her numerous laughter lines. “That’s what I was assuming. Not opening the door to her training, and being… how is it you foals these days say it? Cool? Badass? Now I feel kind of stupid, leading in with ‘Otherwise, you’ll end up like this...’.”

Spitfire cracked a little smile. “Trust me, Ma’am, I’m convinced. I hope I don’t wind up like her when I get old.”

“All old mares end up like her, eventually.” Vigil rubbed her brow, and then paced slowly toward the door herself.

Spitfire cocked her head. “But you aren’t that way.”

“Don’t grow up,” came Vigil’s reply, “and you’ll never get old.”

The stallion’s heavy coat and well padded boots did little to ward off the cold of the ever-present snowstorm. In his mind, he cursed the snow and the ice, and the racism and the politicking of ponies long-since dead that had brought about the unending blizzard. Yet for all the rage within his mind, all that could be seen of Mirror Image’s opinion was the way he stared up at the imposing wall of icy mountains. “Who piles rocks that high, anyway?”

“That would be Krenn,” Luna noted. “Much as my sister raises the sun, and I the moon, he moves stone and earth and shifts the continents.”

“Though he spoke the truth, he would as well have spoken nothing.” Mirror Image quoted, rubbing his brow, letting his hoof wander around the base of the crack in his horn.

Luna donned a wry little grin. “For where no words ought do neither aid nor harm, far more damage do words of folly spoken in truth than any lie.” She idly adjusted her cloak with her magic. “I wouldn’t have taken you for the sort of pony to know Idyllic’s work, even if you use so butchered a modern phrasing. If I understand your implication, then help me to understand what it is that I failed to grasp.”

The young unicorn soldier chuckled under his breath. “I was complaining, Princess. When I signed up for the Honor Guard, I figured I’d get to spend my days in the Canterlot palace; not climbing mountains and freezing my marks off due east of nowhere.”

Leathery wings beat the air as Eldest Sister descended from overhead. The Night Guard folded up her wings a few dozen feet above the ground and outright dropped onto the snowy ground, so close to Mirror Image that their coats brushed together. “Where’s your sense of adventure, Mirror?”

He shot her a cold glare, even as his hooves carried him a few strides outside her reach. “Let’s just get going, Princess.”

Eldest continued her pressing questions. “Letting the cold get to you, Mirror?”

He responded by going out of his way to put Luna between himself and the Night Guard. The Princess took obvious note of the choice, though she didn’t comment on it. For the moment, her attention was on the leathery satchel strapped over her shoulder, like a mailmare’s bag. It’s eerie heartbeat had ceased, though its silence did little to make it less intimidating for any of the trio. The Princess herself seemed more concerned with some subject on the tip of her tongue to notice the stallion’s attention. Fortunately for his curiosity, it wasn’t long before she voiced her question.

“You imply that you were able to join the Honor Guard simply by signing a document? It seems I do not understand your organization as well as I ought―especially given recent developments.”

The broken-horned unicorn chewed on his cheek for a bit as he chose his words. “That’s a tricky question, Princess. I guess I’ll start with the obvious. Our job is to make sure you and your sister are protected.”

Eldest Sister made a sort of scoffing noise; the stallion of the group ignored her. “Probably twenty days out of the month, that means sitting around the palace doing research, paperwork. Keeping tabs on known issues, handling odd ones, and trying to solve problems before they start. We go through an awful lot of parchment for letters. More boring than you’ll read about in storybooks, but it’s good living.”

Luna nodded. “And the other ten days?”

“Usually, when somepony leaves an obvious hole like that, Princess, it because they’re going to go on anyway. But thanks for the interest.” He somehow managed to roll his neck endearingly before continuing. “Out of those ten days, we probably spend nine traveling around to deal with things face to face. Usually, that’s talking to ponies who didn’t take the advice from our letters. Sometimes, its just taking a noble from another domain out to an expensive dinner to… express our opinion on an issue.”

“The Commander’s opinion,” Eldest Sister muttered, only half under her breath.

Luna waited for a few seconds before she spoke up again. “You still seem to be missing a day.”

Image grinned. “Can we pretend I was talking about February, on a leap year?” Luna’s face made it clear the answer was ‘no’. The Honor Guard dipped his head momentarily in hesitance before continuing.

“Maybe February’s a good example, now that I think about it. These days don’t come up that often, honestly. They’re the days you never forget. Days like April Thirteenth, Fourteen forty-nine.”

Luna knew the date of Chrysalis’ failed invasion perfectly, though it did raise more questions. “But the Honor Guard wasn’t present in Canterlot when the Changelings attacked.”

“We left Thunder Crack and Marathon behind, for all the good that did. We were counting on Shining Armor to ‘hold down the fort’. The rest of us were in the canyons out east of the San Palomino.”

Luna cocked her head. “Why such a remote place? At such a troubling―”

Her words were cut off when Eldest Sister wrapped a hoof over the alicorn’s mouth. Her other hoof gestured to the horizon dead ahead. She spoke in a forced whisper. “Dragons, Princess.”

“Here?” Mirror Image stepped forward, squinting. All of the humor in his usual way of speaking was gone, instantly. Before Luna’s eyes, the soldier had become an altogether different stallion, concerned and focused as he stared into the snow. “I don’t see anything. We’re still in Stalliongrad’s land. There shouldn’t be any dragons here.”

“They’re out there, Image,” Eldest insisted. “I don’t know how you expect to ever see anything with those awful eyes; you can’t even see heat with those things, can you?”

Luna’s horn momentarily glowed, and then she nodded, matching the whispers of her guards. “She speaks the truth, bodyguard.”

Image rolled his ‘awful’ eyes, whose icy blue color looked quite dashing against the surrounding snow. “Fine. Can we get the Princess out of here?”

The Night Guard shook her head. “They’re coming this way; I think they might know we’re here.”

Mirror Image stepped forward again, placing his body sideways between Luna and the empty wall of white on the horizon that Eldest had indicated. “Numbers? How big?”

“Two of them, I think. Not too huge; nothing I’d call a wyrm.” She scraped at the snow with her hoof. “Are we gonna do this?”

“Fly a few hundred strides out and circle around,” Image answered. “And don’t do anything until I give you the signal. Got it?”

The Night Guard didn’t hesitate, flying off in the white without another word. As she disappeared into the snow, Image turned to look Luna in the eye. “Pull your hood up, and let me do the talking, Princess.”

“I am quite capable of handling such discussions on my own. Just as you will find that I am a much stronger warrior than you, if it comes to such a conflict.”

Image didn’t seem amused. “This is my job, Princess. Trust me. I’ve got things under control.”

Luna grumbled something inaudible, but seemed to comply with the stallion’s request. He turned away from her to face the storm, and the walking serpents within.

They didn’t take long to appear. First came the silhouettes on the horizon, walking on their hind legs but hunched forward so that their forearms weren’t high off the ground. They didn’t seem enormous either; by Image’s rough guess, Soldier On was larger than either of the creatures.

As they came into true visibility, he realized exactly what they were. Green scales ran down their backs onto long tails that ended in the bulbed stingers of scorpions. What he had assumed were their forearms were in fact wings, coiled forward against the wind; the creatures only possessed two legs.

“Wyverns…” the guardspony muttered. “Great.”

“Is that a problem?” Luna asked. Her bodyguard didn’t answer, instead taking three strides forward to meet them, well clear of Luna.

“Poniess…” One hissed, wandering forward on his folded wings. Fire licked across his forked tongue as he spoke. “You ssstep onto our lands.”

“I could have sworn dragons didn’t like snow. Isn’t the volcano side of the mountains where ‘your’ lands are?”

“Do not quessstion usss,” the other wyvern warned. “Thessse were our landsss long ago, and your kind could not ssstop usss when we took them back yearssss ago. We are willing to ssshare…”

The other picked up where his companion had left off. “...but only if you are willing to ssshare what you have with us.”

“What do you want?” Luna asked.

Image cut in before either of the would-be dragons could speak. “They want gold. Gems. Anything that would count for the hoard of a real dragon.”

“Real dragon?” The wyvern thrust its stinger toward Mirror’s face. He flinched, but made no motion to step back. The stinger stopped short of his flesh.

“We are real dragonsss!”

“Really? I’ve met real dragons; they have better things to do than trying to charge tolls from ponies who want to go over a pass.” He stared off into the distance and made a show of scratching his chin. “Maybe it’s because they know that travelers over mountains don’t usually bring much money with them.”

“No coinsss?”

“Then why crossss the mountainsss?”

Image smiled like a card-player who’d found a full house in his new hand. “We’re on our way to see Krenn.”

The wyverns looked at each other cautiously, whispering something in their native language, blurred by their forked tongues even beyond the difficulty of understanding the foreign words themselves. One turned to leave after a moment, though the other approached Luna. Image’s horn showed a tiny spark of magic, as the beast approached the princess.

“Sssshow me your bag.”

Luna hesitated, stepping back. Mirror Image, however, shrugged. “Suit yourself.” The Princess gave him a curious look, and he nodded to her in response. Still unsure, she opened the bag.

Thump, thump.

Despite the obvious noise, the wyvern seemed untroubled, as if he hadn’t even noticed. It stared for some time into the void of the bag, and then shrugged. “You ssspeak truth. No valuablesss. You may passss… if you are brave enough to make it through the passss.”

“Thanks,” Image muttered, with a sort of airy tone to his voice. He watched as the second wyvern departed, before turning back to Luna.

“What happened? The satchel’s magic ought to have garnered his attention.”

Mirror Image’s eye twitched as a little spark faded from his horn. “Assassins aren’t the only ponies who know a thing or two about illu―”

The thought ended with the stallion’s eyes rolling up into his head, as he fell face-forward into the snow.

The silken sheets were to die for, let alone the lush down of the pillow. And as gentle lips nibbled at her ear, Twilight Sparkle couldn’t help but think to herself…

“Wait, what?”

A burst of laughter accompanied a pegasus falling backward out of bed and onto her back. Her suit of armor clanged on the floor. “You should see your face, Twilight!”

“Solo?” The unicorn sat upright. “What do you think you’re doing?”

Going Solo struggled to contain herself. “It’s… pff, I’m sorry, Twilight, but you’re so red.”

“Well, I’m not used to waking up to somepony else in bed with me.” At renewed laughter, Twilight scowled. “Hey!”

“You said it, not me.” Solo clutched her sides until the joke finally died. “Heh. Sorry. Anyway, Miss Star said it was time for breakfast, and I figured I’d wake you up.”

“Breakfast?” Twilight crawled out from beneath expensive covers and took in the room. Silver filigree traced the shapes of lilies on royal blue wallpaper, framed in dark wood. A massive fireplace that could only truly be called a hearth dominated one wall, topped by an equally gigantic mirror. As her eyes wandered, memories returned to the archmage. “Is this Trotsylvania?”

Going Solo’s loose white mane jerked forward as she nodded. “You slept through us getting in. Star gave me a room down the hall, but I stayed here.” Her robin-egg blue wing gestured to a wide-backed reading chair in the corner near the fire. “I don’t trust those ‘Black Cloaks.’”

As if taking her words for a cue, a knock sounded at the door to the chamber. Twilight and Solo shared a quick glance before the unicorn’s magic opened the opulent double doors. Standing in an equally opulent hallway outside was Lady Star, flanked on each side by one of her black-clad guards.

“Vell, it seems as though I ahm too early. Tell me, are ponies of Canterlot known for sleeping in until two in the afternoon?”

Twilight tumbled out of bed in a bundle of sheets. “Two?! Why didn’t you say anything, Solo?”

“I figured you deserved a rest after running away from all those ponies in―”

“Shining’s out there somewhere!” Twilight interrupted, walking over to the doorway. “We need to get going as soon as we can. I really do appreciate your hospitality, Lady Star, but―” Twilight paced in front of the Black Cloak guards, but neither shifted to allow her past them out of the room. “Uh, excuse me. Um… Можно, я пройду?”

Star herself seemed amused, shaking her head as a parent might at a mischievous foal. “If you vill permit me to be the voice of reason here, Tvilight Sparkle, you need rest. When my guards and I stumbled onto you on the edge of the road there, you were on the verge of frostbite. Had you been in the snow two days? Three?”

“But Shining―”

“Vill be quite unhappy with me if I allow you to freeze yourself to death or starve in the ice. As vill Celestia, I suspect. Am I wrong, guardsmare?”

It took Going Solo more than a moment to realize she was being addressed. It was only when the hoof she placed on her chest met her golden breastplate that she remembered, at which point she nodded. “Oh, uh, no. No, you’re right.”

Star nodded. “Then here is my ultimatum, Tvilight Sparkle. You vill stay in Trotsylvania for a week, until you are truly healthy and prepared. It is your choice whether you do so as my prisoner, or as my guest.”

“Hold on!” Solo called, flaring her wings. “You said we could leave―”

“As soon as I was convinced of your safety.” The unicorn noble glanced briefly to her guards, standing tightly in formation in the door. “Are you in any position to argue?” Going Solo answered with silence, leading the Trotsylvanian Countess to turn toward Twilight. “Do I have your cooperation.” Despite the words she had chosen, it clearly wasn’t a question.

Twilight hung her head. “Fine…”

“Excellent.” Lady Star clapped her forehooves together, mildly unsettling her slimming blood-red dress. “Then come, walk with me, and we shall sup. Парни.”

At her simple prompt, her guards stepped out of the doorway, allowing their lady to pass into the hallway, guests in tow. It was a long, wide passage, whose walls seemed to share their owner’s preference for the tones of roses. At the nearest end of the hall, a single window let in light and a beautiful view of the heavy snowfall outside. The countess turned away from it, toward a pair of distant doors.

At first, they walked in silence. Candles and doors passed on the walls, and only the wind accompanied the five sets of hoofsteps. As they came upon a portrait in a heavy gold frame on the wall, however, the countess stopped in her tracks.

“Tell me, before we continue: do you recognize this?”

At first, Twilight thought it was Roscherk Krovyu―it would have made sense to her mind, given his prevalence within the Domain of Stalliongrad. However, the stallion in the portrait was decidedly older, and his face was marred by a notched scar, marking a sort of dotted line down from his brow and straight through his left eye. His shoulders were covered by a plate of lacquered onyx, trimmed with gold in the shape of feathers. A pair of wings were folded against his back, though one was clearly atrophied beneath a surface of bitter scars and missing feathers.

“Whoa…” Solo muttered, distracting Twilight. To the unicorn’s surprise, her companion was actively shuddering in the hallway, staring with unfocused eyes at the image of the fiery red pegasus. “H-him…”

Twilight glanced to the portrait, and then back to Solo. “This pony’s been dead for eight thousand years, Going Solo. I don’t think you know him.”

The pegasus shook her head, discarding her unwanted thoughts. Yet whatever memory had troubled her was still present, only hidden behind a level face.

Twilight wanted to ask what had inspired her new friend’s fear, but another voice stole the conversation. “To tell the truth, it will be nice to have intelligent company. I was worried you might not know; our agreement would not work if you were ignorant.” Lady Star smiled to Twilight, revealing eerily white teeth. “This domain is a haven for lovers of history, but I so rarely enjoy the company of another who shares my fondness for the subject. Since you so clearly recognize his image, Tvilight, what do you know of Lord Tsyklon?”

“To begin with, he hated being called ‘Lord’.” Twilight lamented the lack of a chuckle, before taking a short breath and settling into her usual academic nature. “Cyclone was the eldest son of Commander Hurricane. He grew up learning to lead soldiers like his father, and became something like a guardspony in River Rock―the city we now call ‘Stalliongrad’. Unfortunately, he was a bit too ambitious; he decided he was going to succeed where his father had failed, and win the homeland of the Cirran pegasi back from the Griffons. His plan didn’t last long after Commander Hurricane came back from Equestria, alive and well.”

Twilight paused for a moment, staring at the image again. On a moment’s reflection, the folding scales of a Cirran wingblade made perfect sense for the ‘dashed line’ of scars on the ancient soldier’s face. “After the first Hearth’s Warming Day, when all of the ponies of the three tribes migrated to Equestria, he stayed behind. He worked with Krenn and Clover the Clever to grow crops in the Volgallop river valley with heat from the ground. Nopony expected him or the ponies who stayed with him to survive, but when they started thriving, they renamed River Rock to Stallion― sorry, Stol’nograd, using a draconic name in honor of Krenn’s contribution.”

“Wait, really?” Solo turned toward Lady Star. “That’s why Stalliongrad has a different language?”

Twilight nodded, before continuing her history. “He eventually came to Equestria to help fight the Shadow War, though he didn’t stay. Unfortunately, that’s all I know. He doesn’t show up in nearly any Cirran records. Everypony in Stalliongrad has known him as the founder of the city, but until I found Commander Hurricane’s journal, just about nopony knew they were related.”

Star nodded. “I am quite impressed with that much knowledge. As you said, most ponies only know that he was the founder of Stalliongrad, and nothing of his family or his tragedy. Perhaps he would not be such a hero if they knew.” The Countess smiled, again showing off her brilliant white teeth. “There were always monsters and wars to fight, but somehow, Cyclone outlived his whole family. He was nearly a hundred years old when he died, the first Tsar of Stalliongrad, and the last Cirran Legionary.”

At the incredulous look she received from Twilight, the Countess tapped the picture frame. “This was painted by my grandmother, ‘great’ many times over. Family legend says he complained about sitting still while she was working, and that’s why she painted all his scars instead of blotting them out.” Star turned a curious eye of her own back to Twilight. “Most knowledge of his coup was… cleaned up, when the line of Platinum took over the Domain years ago. I am surprised a unicorn from Canterlot would know that story, Celestia’s student or not.”

The little troupe continued their walk down the halls of Star’s luxurious manor. Twilight took little notice of the hallway, absorbed as she was by her own story. “A couple years ago, a librarian at the Canterlot archives found an old book on the shelf that nopony had ever seen before. Princess Celestia asked me to come investigate it.”

“Oh boy!” Going Solo pitched in with feigned alarm. “It’s a book! Warn the Princess! Call the Elements of Harmony!”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “It wasn’t just any book. It was bound in leather, and nopony could read the writing. It took me a long time to break the obfuscation spell, but when I did, I realized why it was so hard to crack in the first place. Nopony who’d tried could actually read the text; it was in Cirran.”

Star’s golden eyes widened slightly, though it was once more Twilight’s pegasus companion who actually spoke up. “Are you two having fun in ‘super secret ancient history’ club? I really wouldn’t mind an explanation that actually, you know, explains something.”

Twilight rubbed a hoof to her brow. “Sorry, Solo. I’ll try and make this short, because it’s a really long story. Let’s see… A long time ago, all the pegasi in the world lived in the northern plains of Zebrica, and they called their civilization Cirra. Eight thousand years ago, they had a huge war with the griffons, called the Red Cloud War. It didn’t exactly go well for the Cirrans. The griffon emperor, Magnus―he’s like Princess Celestia; immortal, and with incredibly powerful magic―anyway, he outsmarted the cirrans, and most of them died. In the end, the young Cirran emperor, Hurricane, decided to evacuate their lands and fly west-by-northwest.”

“That’s Commander Hurricane, right? The king of the racists?”

The sound of Twilight’s hoof colliding with her face echoed down the hall. “He’s not… gah! The Hearth's Warming Eve play is a foal’s story that Clover the Clever wrote after the fact; it completely ignores all of the political complexity of the Tri-pony compact and the…”

As Twilight ranted, Solo directed her attention to another painting on the wall. It very clearly depicted Countess Star, from her leering yellow eyes to the smooth wrapping of her long red mane around her left ear. A little plaque beneath the image read Графиня Звезда VI, 202-216 A.S. To her reckoning, there was more than just afamily resemblance going on.

“...and all that still doesn’t account for the Crystal Union, or King Lapis’ sickness.” Twilight panted slightly, having not taken a breath through the length of her spiel.

“You feel better?” Solo asked.

The unicorn nodded.

“Good. So you found a book written in Commander Hurricane’s language. Is that where you found out about all of this?”

Twilight nodded, still slightly winded. “It was Hurricane’s journal. The story had been completely lost before we found it; he’d told Princess Celestia, of course, but even that’s second hoof, and long after the fact. So it was such an amazing find that I couldn’t just let it stand. I wanted to know more about the Cirrans, so I did some research, and it led me to Saraneighvo.”

“I ahm sorry,” the Countess muttered. “Tell me, did you prefer the gray, or the flat more?”

“Actually, it was anything but boring. But I’ll get to that in a bit, Countess. See, in a cave north of the city, we found a Cirran vault. I think Cyclone―that’s the pony from the picture―”

“Yeah, I caught that,” Solo muttered.

“Right. Sorry. Cyclone built it to keep a bunch of records from his time ‘ruling’ River Rock. Er, Stalliongrad.” Twilight coughed in her hoof. “Stol’nograd.”

Star’s brow rose. “You pronounced it right.”

“A friend taught me. Anyway, we found another one of Commander Hurricane’s journals, which is how I know all about Cyclone and Typhoon.”

The Countess’ black cloak guards moved in front of their mistress and her guests, opening a pair of double doors into a luxurious but small dining room. Following Star’s obvious color preference, the entire room was bedecked in dark wood and red fabric, illuminated by candlesticks and chandeliers of silver. As Twilight and Solo stepped over the room’s threshold, the guardsponies moved silently to pull out seats for them.

"Спасибо, мальчики," the countess noted with a nod of her head.

“Графиня,” they replied in unison, before leaving the room and closing the doors.

The Countess seated herself at the head of the table, leaving only a pair of empty chairs opposite the Canterlot mares; Twilight took brief notice of them before her host spoke up again. “Our other guests should be joining us shortly. In the meantime, tell me what it was that happened to make Saraneighvo anything but an utter bore.”

“Well, my friend Rainbow Dash and I were staying at an inn there. At the time, I only barely knew about the rebellion, and it hadn’t really crossed my mind that we might run into anypony who was strongly on either side. But one night, only a little while after we found the journal, some of the rebels had a meeting at the inn. And Marshal Serp showed up; he tried to kill Rainbow and I, assuming we were rebels.”

Ever the uneducated member of the conversation, Going Solo spoke up. “You say that like we’re supposed to know that name. Who’s ‘Marshal Serp’?”

Twilight opened her mouth to answer, though the Countess beat her to the punch, just as the doors opened. “You can ask him yourself. Mares, may I present Marshal Serp of Saraneighvo and Commandant Molot of Stalliongrad.”

Somewhere, a hoof grated its way down a chalkboard. It wasn’t within earshot of Twilight Sparkle, though that might not have been obvious to anypony watching by the way her whole body locked up, save the erratic twitching of her right eyelid. She stared that way at the smaller of the two stallions in the doorway for some time, as her mind simply failed her.

The pegasus with the buckwheat coat locked eyes with her immediately, and his eyes widened.

All was silence. In a warmer domain, a tumbleweed might well have rolled past. When they shattered the silence, each shouted a single word.

“You!”

"Ты!"

Twilight leapt out of her chair, directing her horn at the black-clad pegasus. His expression wavered as he hesitated, before standing up on his hind legs and raising his hooves in a gesture of defeat. “Вашу мать, это же Сумеречная Искра! Слушай, я не желаю тебе вреда! Она мне даже не сказала, что ты здесь!” He turned to the looming slate-gray earth pony at his side, pleading in obvious desperation. “Молот, скажи им, что я не хочу ничего с ней делать."

The larger pony, whom Twilight had not noticed in her state of shock, turned slowly to his companion and shrugged. "Я не знаю их языка."

The Countess held up a hoof and coughed aloud. “Twilight, Serp is struggling to tell you that he wants nothing to do with you. I can assure you both, he won’t be trouble, no matter your past. Please, be seated. My home is a place of safety.” She turned to the stallions. “Если ты создашь какие-либо проблемы, Серп, не забывай, что здесь нет Росчерка, чтобы тебя вытащить. Лучше, если вы оба положите ваше оружие в сторонке. Иначе, я могу проголодаться.” Though the meaning of the phrase was lost on the two Canterlot mares, the flash of the Countess’ decidedly white teeth didn’t seem quite like the smiles she had offered earlier.

As Twilight and Solo calmed down, they found a calm moment to take in the two stallions. The larger gray earth pony known as Molot wore his mane short and broad, in imitation of his skull. The gray hairs nestled amongst its black seemed a bit odd, given his obvious youth. His jet black jacket was rough, wet at its fringes and in some places still specked with snowflakes. By Twilight’s guess, he must have stood just shy of four feet at the shoulder―larger than average even for an earth pony stallion, yet not quite the equal of Big Macintosh’s sheer size. Despite his size, it was with an obvious gentleness that he removed the oversized sledgehammer from his back and rested it gently against the wall.

His counterpart, Serp, was not so restrained. Two words could easily sum up the tan pegasus stallion’s appearance: scruffy, and average. His chin was decked with a puff of ragged, overgrown whiskers that he clearly wished would blossom into a true beard. His hair was spiked up and back, giving him a wild appearance that matched the rapid shifting of his eyes as he continually glanced in concern toward the three seated mares at the table. His black coat was clearly more expensive than Molot’s although frayed edges and visible cuts suggested he hadn’t taken very good care of it. Rather than his counterpart’s gentleness, Serp had the gall to pull the sickle from off his back and outright slide it across the polished floor, where it stopped with a small bounce against the corner.

They came and sat together: Molot opposite Solo, and Serp facing straight at the increasingly uncomfortable archmage. Though awkwardness filled the air over the table, the countess seemed both ignorant and unaffected. She clapped her hooves together twice, and a large group of servants flocked into the room from a side door hidden behind a portrait of one of Star’s ancestors. Though they brought immense plates of exorbitant, luxurious food, Twilight’s focus was locked solely on the stallion across the table.

“Now that we’re all here, we can speak of business. Twilight, as you are perhaps avare, Serp and Molot are something of military legends from the Blizzard Revolution. They were kind enough to come and visit me to discuss the… leadership, shall we say, of the Domain. Now, they will be returning to the north. It would be only a minor burden for them to accompany you to Onyx Ridge, and help you in your search.”

“Что ты говоришь?” Molot asked, with both a voice and a speed of tone that were reminiscent of a glacier.

“Do they not speak Equiish?” Going Solo asked. “‘Cause I’m not sure how they’re going to help us if we can’t talk to them. Do you know a translating spell or something, Twilight?”

Twilight grumbled to herself briefly. “I don’t know where you got this idea, Solo, but I don’t know a spell to solve every problem in the world. I can’t just make it stop snowing, or magically pull where Shining is out of thin air. Believe me, I’ve tried that. And while I do know a translation spell, it’s no good here because it only works on written text.”

“Что они говорят?” Serp muttered, only to be utterly ignored.

“So… why not just write down what they’re saying? You speak a little Stalliongradi, right?”

Twilight rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t mean I can take dictation. Most unicorns can’t write that fast, anyway. That’s why... you’d…” The Archmage’s eyes grew slightly wider, before her horn flared up. In a flash of light, a quill, a piece of parchment, and an inkwell appeared atop her empty plate “Oh, I hope this works.”

“Эй, привет? Стольный град к свихнувшейся суке… doing magic over there. Can somepony tell me what in Tartarus is going on?”

Going Solo and the Countess shared a wide eyed stare. The former spoke up. “Wait… you could speak Equiish this whole time?”

It was the stallions’ turn to cock their heads and widen their eyes. Serp shook his head. “I don’t speak Equiish. You’re the one speaking на ебаном Stalliongradi. Or am I going nuts like a пиздаватая ape here, Hammer?

“No, Sickle, I’m hearing it too.”

Twilight clapped her hooves together with excitement. “I can’t believe it actually worked! I thought for sure that Starswirl’s Illuminating Dictation would interfere with the lesser thaumic architecture of Predicate's Tentative Translation on the feedback cycle.”

“You did this? Gah!” Serp began running his hooves over his mane, digging at his skull. “Get your freaky Ворожка сука magic out of my skull!”

Solo cocked her head just a bit. “Why does he sometimes go back to speaking Stalliongradi?”

The countess leaned forward. “Serp has vhat you might call a foul tongue. I suspect one of the spells Twilight is using avoids translating such filth. Likely Starswirl’s―he was known for being a respectable pony. That particular word was a slur against unicorns.”

“Well thanks for блять explaining, Star,” Serp growled, looking her dead in the eye. “But if we’re going to sit here talking about foul things, how about some warning in ебаной Celestia's name before you drop me in a room with the mare who ruined my life twice!” Rather than a hoof, Serp gestured in Twilight’s direction with an outstretched wing.

“Your life?” Twilight put her hooves on the table to lend herself some height. “You tried to kill me! In my own house!”

“I was trying to protect Blood Stroke from a rebel! The same one who escaped me in Saraneighvo!” Serp slammed a hoof on the table, releasing a small crack of thunder and sending plates and food scattering. “I didn’t even know who the блять you were until Foresight and the Tsar flipped their дерьмо a few months ago!”

Molot grabbed the shouting, spitting, and generally infuriated stallion’s shoulder with a hoof. It didn’t seem like it took much effort on the earth pony’s part to calm his peer. “You’re making an idiot of yourself, Sickle. Calm yourself, breathe, and remember: holes.”

“Holes… right.” Serp took a deep breath. “Sorry. I… well, before we met, I used to be the Governor of Saraneighvo.”

Twilight spared a quick, respectful glance to Molot for his part in calming the furious stallion down. There was a powerful friendship going on between them, if Twilight’s studies had taught her anything. “Apology accepted. Nopony got h…”

A brilliant flash filled the tavern―the result of some stored spell. The rebels drew weapons and hurled spells at the armed but surprised Black Cloaks. Serp, though, didn’t hesitate. His sickle stabbed up into the stallion’s skull through his eye, killing him instantly.

“...well, what I mean is, uh… I guess everything turned out alright.”

“My жопy it did! Did you not hear me, Ведьма? I lost my job because of you!”

“That calm sure lasted a while,” Solo muttered in Twilight’s ear, as Molot once more restrained the stallion from Saraneighvo.

The countess, who had been idly drinking a glass of thick red wine, looked over at Serp. “If you’re quite done making a fool of yourself, Sickle, I’d like to talk busiнес. Не могли бы вы―” She stopped, glancing over at Twilight. “Something wrong?”

“I ran out of ink,” Twilight replied, tapping the empty inkwell on the table. “I guess that’s the problem with this spell. It does actually transcribe everything anypony says, so once it runs out, we don’t get the effect. Hold on, though; I know a few tricks for this.” Twilight grabbed some eggs, a rutabaga, and a candle from the table. After a moment of focus, a flash of magic left her with a sort of hideous gray substance that could vaguely be called ink, if one squinted. It drained into her inkwell as she released her telekinetic grasp. “That should be better. It doesn’t matter the actual writing will be hard to read, after all.”

“...unicorns,” Serp muttered to himself, folding his forelegs across his chest. “Well, Star, you were saying something about business?”

“Yeah, let’s hear it,” Solo pressed. “You’ve been stalling since last night.”

The countess nodded. “If you are insistent. Twilight, I have reason to believe that Cyclone’s sister, Typhoon, died vith her troops when the Vargr overran Onyx Ridge. My… family… have unfinished business with her from a very long time ago, and I would like to settle it. So, to be as blunt as possible, I want you to bring me her corpse.”

XIII - The First Masquerade

XIII

The First Masquerade

The wind howled and the icicles rattled against the windows when Twilight Sparkle spoke. “You want me to do what?”

Countess Star smiled, once more revealing her eerily white teeth and simultaneously demonstrating an utter lack of care for Twilight’s uncharacteristic outburst. “Vas I unclear, Archmage? You are to bring whatever physical matter remains of the body of the Cirran legionary Typhoon, daughter of Hurricane. In exchange, I will lend you the support of the finest guardsponies in all of Equestria.”

The Canterlot guardsmare in the room leaned forward over her plate of exotic delicacies, looking the countess squarely in the eyes. “Can I ask why?”

Shooting Star’s calm voice wasn’t fast enough to outrace the emotion in Twilight’s. “There’s only one reason she could possibly want a corpse that old for: necromancy.”

“I see no call for that tone, Tvilight. Both our princesses embrace the pale school, and I know that you must at least know its tenets; all I want is information, just as I’m sure you might. Typhoon has been dead for a long time, and no number of old books dug out from beneath the snow vill ever be the equal of real questions between real mares. And as I mentioned, Typhoon has a personal matter with my family. I don’t honestly see what the matter is; you are going to Onyx Ridge regardless. I am offering to ensure that the Vargr who have taken up residence there do not tear you to ribbons, and all I ask in exchange is a little favor, from one rational mare to another. Now, eat up.” Her horn ignited, bringing a shallow wine glass to her lips and staining them a vibrant red. “You shall spend the day enjoying the hospitality of Trotsylvania, in the company of my peers here. And in the morning, you shall depart in search of your brother.”

“And what happens if we tell you to stick your horn up your hind end?” Going Solo wondered aloud, in a deceptively cheerful sing-song.

The countess’ eyes grew narrow. “Then you would be free to go on your own, of course. Though, our domain has had something of a problem with an assassin running wild, and Secretary Foresight―”

Serp cut off the mare’s words by rolling up phlegm in his throat and spitting on the floor.

“―delightful, Sickle. As I was saying, Foresight has instituted a rather strict curfew. I am certain you are quite resourceful, but I doubt your skills fall in the realm of evading the police.”

“You’d be surprised,” Going Solo retorted, before picking her plate up and casually dropping it on the floor. “Oh, looks like I’m finished eating. Come on, Twilight. Let’s get out of here.”

Twilight shot the countess a quick glance, and then back at Solo, before nodding. “I’m sorry, miss Star, but I don’t think we’re going to be able to make that deal work. I appreciate letting us stay in your home.”

Shooting Star placed a hoof on her brow. “I would urge you to reconsider, but I won’t keep you here as prisoners. Sickle, Hammer, show them the way out.”

“Sure, whatever you say, Star.” Serp rose much more quickly from his chair, and wandered over to the wall where he had placed his notched and generally ill-maintained sickle. “Come on, mares. There’s got to be something to do in this town, even if it’s hers. I, for one, could go for a drink, and―”

“Absolutely not.” Molot, who had just finished retrieving his namesake sledgehammer, wandered out after the rest of his company and gently shut the dining room doors. “I cannot trust you around Twilight Sparkle while drinking. I barely trust you around her sober.” The rather looming earth pony turned to the mares and lowered himself to look them in the eyes. There was a gentleness and a humility to his motion which surprised Twilight. “I would like to help you, Twilight Sparkle, regardless of Countess Star’s demands. I understand if you do not want my assistance, but if you do, we are staying in town at the Warm Welcome Inn.”

Molot gestured silently for Serp to follow him, and the two stallions began making their way toward the door out of the manor, though the larger of the two stopped only a few strides away and turned back. “One more thing, Twilight. If any of the Black Cloaks give you trouble while you are here in our domain, I would encourage you to demand to speak with either myself, or Tsar Eye.”

Twilight watched the stallions go in silence, unsure of just how much to trust the Commandant’s advice.

The likeness of Roscherk Krovyu took a deep breath, standing before a pair of mighty double doors in the heart of Burning Hearth Castle. The disguised assassin could feel the poisoned knife on the inside of her jacket, longing for flesh. In her mind, she cautioned it with patience. It wouldn’t be long.

Yet for all the false bravado she pretended to have in thinking about the knife, Masquerade couldn’t shake the icy chill where her leg had been torn away.

Deep breath. ‘Break a leg’, they used to say, in the theatre. It didn’t last long, but her longing for simpler days built up the tiniest bit of courage. She could almost hear the roar of the crowd.

Roscherk Krovyu was a much harder role than Lady Marebeth or Princess Platinum. Or, at least, she hadn’t been as likely to be stabbed for messing up a line.

Lying to herself for a single surge of confidence, she pushed the doors open and donned a mask of pride and bravado. Enter, stage left. “Third Brother?”

The room was surprisingly empty, given its size. A single purple carpet led a few dozen feet to a raised dais with a large cushion, still indented from where Princess Luna had slept days earlier. Behind it, the room’s only occupant paced in front of an enormous frosted window.

The Night Guard was large for a pegasus, though lean and chiseled. Had he been a normal pony, Masquerade might well have found him attractive. Instead, the tufts of his ears and his leathery wings gave him an air of mystery and danger. At the edges of his six-stride pace, when he turned around to walk the other way, she would catch a slight glimmer of his icy white fangs, hanging down half an inch over his lower lip. He paid no mind to the likeness of the blood-coated stallion at the door, at least at first.

Masquerade walked into the room and shut the doors behind her. “You are Third Brother, correct?”

He stopped his steady gait, and twisted his head ever so slightly, so that one of his slitted yellow eyes locked onto her. Ice swept through her veins, as she feared he was staring straight through her disguise. In Canterlot, the Night Guard named Eldest Sister had nearly guessed her identity; she feared it might have been part of the magic of the strange ponies. But he made no move to attack her, nor did he display any expression at all.

“I am. What did you need?”

Masquerade swallowed. Though the wind howled against the window, she could swear Third Brother must have heard her. “I wanted to talk about that scumbag assassin. Masquerade.”

“Scumbag?” It was the smallest of inclinations in Third Brother’s voice that indicated a question. “Did Twilight Sparkle make a gelding of you, or have you merely forgotten how to swear like a real citizen of Stalliongrad?”

Masquerade’s eyes darted away. “Princess Celestia doesn’t like it when I… speak freely.”

The night guard spread his leathery wings and gave a single casual flap. Masquerade would never have believed such a lazy motion could propel a stallion so far across a room, but he landed so close to the assassin that she could feel the frigid chill of his breath on her nose. “What did you want to know about Masquerade?”

She gave herself time for a single suck of breath before ripping the knife from her jacket by her magic, and ramming it into his ribs. His slitted eyes widened in shock, as surprisingly plain red blood dripped from the wound.

A green flame consumed Roscherk Krovyu, revealing the sleek body of an actress in inky blue. “Mostly, I just wanted to know if you could recognize her when she walked up to you face to face.”

“You didn’t stab…” He gasped in pain. “...deep enough.” A resolution settled over his face, and he recovered his breath as Masquerade took a step back in shock. Nopony should have been able to shrug off a wound like that. “Your knife isn’t long enough to reach my heart.”

She smiled back at him. “I wasn’t aiming for your heart,” It would only be a few seconds, now, before the first gasp. More than long enough for a monologue. Assured in her victory, she dared to turn her back to him and lock the doors with her magic. “That blade is coated in a very rare and very expensive poison called Galm’s Elixir. I’m sorry for how much this is going to hurt. You’ll feel it slowly eating away at your organs―”

“I know how it feels,” Third Brother answered, casually pulling the knife out of his side with a wing. It clattered to the floor, reverberating like a solid gold bit. “Thank you for locking the doors.”

“What? Why aren’t you dyi―”

Her words were cut off when the night guard became a blur of blue fury, lunging forward and striking the assassin across the chin with a hoof. From a normal pegasus, it would have been jarring, and perhaps sent her stumbling. Third Brother’s single hoof picked the assassin up and slammed her against the stone wall of the chamber.

Before she could recover from the stars in her eyes, he was atop her, leaning on her throat with one forehoof and holding the other against the base of her horn. His coat was colder than the snowy air outside, numbing her wherever they touched.

He leaned forward, until she felt his muzzle touch the tip of her ear. “I know Galm’s Elixir is your favorite poison for dangerous targets. I also know that it won’t begin to dissolve flesh until it finds body heat.”

Her horn flared up, and she disappeared out of his grip, popping back into being at the far side of the room. “This might actually be interesting.”

“No,” Third Brother answered, cracking the tiniest hint of a grin. “It won’t be.”

A mass of blue mana coalesced around her horn. She only needed one hit; Dismal’s Decay didn’t leave a lot to chance. The room didn’t offer much by way of cover; maybe he was right.

The first of her beams of killing magic missed the stallion by only a matter of inches as he lunged across the room. She’d been expecting him to charge straight for her, and so her second blast flung wide when he turned toward the large window.

The little soreness of fatigue and lack of magic in her horn tugged at her attention, but she pushed the thought aside. She wouldn’t need more than one more spell anyway.

“Trying to escape?” She gave herself a moment to lead her mark, and fired her third and final spell.

Third Brother folded his wings in, dug down his hooves, and fell to his side. Masquerade was confused for a split second at the form of the motion, before Luna’s enormous cushion was ripped off the ground and brought up as a shield to block her spell. Her eyes widened as the fabric rotted away, and countless downy feathers filled the air in the room.

She didn’t have long to think. Third Brother hurled the rest of the cushion at her with an overhoofed toss. On instinct, her magic caught the lightweight projectile, saving herself the distraction of a faceful of fabric, but costing her the focus to cast another spell as the unnaturally fast stallion charged her.

His first hoof hit the inside of her bad leg, dropping her to her knees. The second collided with her neck, putting stars in her eyes. Then he reared up with spread wings, and brought his hind right hoof down on her crown, just in front of her horn.

Curtains.

“Bit for your thoughts, Twilight?”

It wasn’t so much Solo’s question that snapped Twilight out of her stupor as the lurch of Countess Star’s opulent carriage. “Sorry, what?”

Solo, who was reclined over her entire half of the carriage’s cabin with her wings folded behind her head, rolled her eyes. “I’m wondering what the next move is. What do we do to find Shining?”

Twilight responded by clutching her head and giving a rather pathetic shrug. “I don’t really know, Solo. All this is crazy. If we go dig up Typhoon’s body, Countess Star might be able to help us, but I don’t like the way she sounded about that. And Molot seemed nice enough, but I don’t trust Serp. I’d like to get to Stalliongrad; Foresight would probably be helpful, and―”

The pegasus interrupted. “Who’s this ‘Foresight’, anyway?”

“He’s the Tsar’s son. He and I took magical dueling together at the Canterlot Academy. He’s supposed to be really good at economics, and now he owns the railroad here.”

“Sounds like your type of stallion, Twilight.” Solo leaned forward from her reclined place, and licked her lips in an exaggerated motion. “That is, if stallions are your type at all.”

Twilight shoved the other mare away with a hoof. “I’m not in the mood, Solo.”

“Sorry.” The guardsmare folded her forehooves across her chest. “So we need to get to Stalliongrad? Do you know how far it is?”

“A couple days by hoof. It’s hard to tell with the storms. But that’s if nothing tries to kill us, and I’m not super confident in that anymore.” Twilight shivered slightly. “Stalliongrad is not a happy Domain.”

“Just noticing now?” Solo smiled. “I don’t think we should trust the Black Cloaks, Twilight. They’re bad news.”

Twilight stared out the window through the snow, to the rapidly approaching city of Trotsylvania. “They’re just guardsponies trying to do their jobs in a dangerous Domain. Most of their reputation comes from their leader, and even he isn’t that bad anymore. I wish I knew were Roscherk was; he’d know how to find Shining.”

The question of ‘who’ died on Solo’s lips as the carriage lurched to a standstill, and another of Countess’ soldiers opened the door. The Canterlot guardsmare exited first, keeping a wary eye on her Stalliongradian counterpart as her hooves entered the thin veil of snow on the street.

“Thanks,” Twilight told the stallion honestly, as she too left the carriage. He didn’t reply, but instead shut the door with an almost mechanical jerkiness, before returning to the reins. It wasn’t four seconds later that the vehicle turned around and headed back toward Star’s manor.

With nowhere else to turn, Solo and Twilight looked ahead at Trotsylvania. The city of bricks and stone and short squat buildings was bedecked not only in the ever-present frost of the domain, but also with countless iron lanterns and torches, all lit and releasing little wafts of smoke into the gently falling snow. Ponies milled about in the streets, talking without a care for the weather. Despite the gray skies, they wore smiles, and their eyes danced amongst the fiery decorations.

Twilight was absorbed in the sights and sounds as she made her way into the streets; Going Solo couldn’t bring herself to be so carefree. She tapped her ward on the shoulder after seeing the uncomfortable gazes of a few of the ponies they passed in the street.

“Huh? Did you see something, Solo?”

“You’re still wearing black,” the pegasus replied. “And you’re still getting looks. Let’s find some new clothes, and then we can work on getting to Stalliongrad. Sound good?”

Twilight offered a simple nod in turn, and started looking for a suitable store. The two mares walked for several minutes through town until they found one ahead on a corner, beside what seemed to be a large park. Visible at the head of the street was a marble statue.

Solo honestly couldn’t claim to be surprised that it depicted somepony eerily similar to Countess Star. “Think it’s her grandma, or her great-grandma?” the ex-smuggler asked, poking her knee against Twilight’s ribs and gesturing toward the statue.

“Huh?”

The guardsmare rolled her eyes. “Look, Twilight, you’ve got to be a little faster on the uptake. Come on. What I’m saying is, Star has all these statues of herself everywhere, and she thinks we’re actually going to buy that they all look exactly like her.”

“Oh…” Twilight bit her lip for a moment. “Yeah, that is a bit odd, isn’t it?” It was utterly clear that the unicorn was absorbed in the culture she had only read about to pay any mind to any more present matters. Giving up on a discussion, Going Solo’s eyes began searching for somewhere to buy the unicorn a jacket.

It was hard to see the town for the festival. Performers danced and sang in the streets from their end of the town all the way to the park that held Countess Star’s statue. Solo took particular note of a tigress acrobat balancing on one paw atop a plastic ball just as colorful as her outfit. Nearby, a unicorn dressed as a clown tied red balloons into the shapes of pegasi. Little stalls sold bowls of some zesty food that left Solo to remember just how little of Countess Star’s meal she’d actually eaten. She might have wandered over for a taste of the foreign snack, had a sudden light not caught her eye.

A pegasus in a gaudy outfit of countless clashing colors juggled lit torches and knives off of his hooves outside a tent of red and white stripes near the entrance to the park.

Even from down the street and across the snowy square, the orange and red tongues dominated all of Solo’s thoughts. Despite the distance across the town, she couldn’t escape it. She smelled the smoke. She felt the heat.

Trotsylvania was gone. Baltimare took its place, burning all around her. And as she stared at the gaudy pony, she saw a blood red face with its lips peeled back, roaring at her in fury over a jacket blacker than any night sky.

She ran, he followed, and the fire chased after him. It ate wood, cracked brick, and shattered glass. She felt it on her tail. She smelled her own coat burning. She heard his fury calling after her.

“Solo!”

Twilight Sparkle lowered her hoof from Going Solo’s shoulder. The pegasus found herself hovering in midair. Her legs shivered, but not from the cold. Somehow, she’d found her way down the street and around a corner from the park. Ponies were staring.

“Are you alright?” Twilight asked.

She didn’t answer, at first. She wanted to. She tried to muster the courage, but it was too much to give more than a nod. Her landing took the form of folding her wings and falling bluntly into the snow.

“You look pale,” Twilight noted, gently nudging the guardspony with a shoulder. “Look, right over there across the street, there’s a boutique. We can sit down until you’re feeling better.”

“Thanks…” The word hung in the air as the city went back to its activities and the two ponies wandered across the street. But the pegasus found she simply couldn’t shake the memory. “Uh, Twilight, why don’t you go inside and get measured or whatever? I need some space.”

“Okay.” Twilight paused as she approached the door to the shop. “You’re sure you’re alright, though? You were exhibiting the classic signs of a panic attack, and―”

Solo’s raised hoof was enough to quiet the unicorn. A little bell rang over the shop door, and Twilight disappeared from view.

One. Two. Three. Four. The mental count seemed like a true eternity before Going Solo trusted that Twilight was out of view. Without any further qualm, she reached into the peytral of her Royal Guard armor, and pulled out a slender, white cardboard box. Its unmarked face was indented, as though it had been carried for a few days inside a crowded pocket. In fact, the box looked pretty good for the seven years she’d had it. She didn’t spend long taking in the crisp, cheap cardboard before sliding out the center like a matchbox, though. Inside were little fragments of yellow-green crystals that resembled chunks of rock salt. Before risking getting caught, Solo’s tongue ducked into the box, licked up one tiny, harmless rock, and pulled it into her mouth.

The taste was hideous, but the effect was almost immediate. Her muscles grew lighter, and her eyelids sagged. For a few spare seconds, she wallowed in the empty space between thoughts, before hiding away the precious box again. Nopony made whispersalt like that.

“That’s a bad habit for a guardsmare.”

Solo almost jumped out of her coat as a burnt orange pegasus settled down beside her, near the shop’s only door.

“Who’re you?” Solo asked, as her hoof casually reached toward another little pouch she’d sequestered inside her armor. “Why do you speak Equiish? And what do you want?”

“My name is Marathon. Private Marathon, actually. You can stop reaching for that bladed shoe, Solo. I’m not here to hurt you or Twilight; otherwise, I wouldn’t have announced myself while you were enjoying your whispersalt. You used to work on Summit Avenue, right? Dealing that stuff?”

“Shining said he’d get that off my record.” Solo leaned forward, pulling out her bladed shoe, though she didn’t do anything with it. “If you know that, and you were really a guardspony, I would have met you before. Who are you really, Marathon?”

“I really am a guardspony, Going Solo. Even Shining Armor can’t just make every file with your history disappear. I know you’re the pony who sold Masquerade enough whispersalt to get my captain killed.”

Solo swallowed down a bit lump in her throat as the logic of the claim settled in her mind. “Honor Guard. Great. Did Princess Celestia not trust me to protect Twilight on my own?”

“I doubt she’d trust you if she knew you were whispering on the job,” Marathon replied with admirably less snark than Solo had wielded. “But I haven’t spoken to her in a few weeks now; I’m here on an assignment with Princess Luna. I only came down after I heard about what happened in Arkhayngelsk.” The comfortable tone of the orange pegasus turned to steel at that point, even managing to wipe away some of the fatigue from her whispersalt. “What is she doing here? Stalliongrad isn’t safe, and it isn’t like Canterlot. You don’t seem like a hard enough pony to protect her here.”

Solo gritted her teeth, but she lowered her guard. “We’re looking for Shining Armor. Apparently, they said he’s dead, but Twilight doesn’t believe it.”

Marathon cocked her head. “Do you know why?”

“Something about Celestia―sorry, that’s Princess Celestia, isn’t it? She’s always supposed to know if somepony has died, and she never got anything about Shining Armor.”

Marathon shook her head. “What I meant was, why chase him here? If he’s dead, there’s nothing anypony short of the Princesses can do about it. If he’s alive, he’s still Shining Armor, the captain of the Royal Guard. Why do you feel like he would need your help?”

Solo found herself suddenly unable to meet Marathon’s gaze; rather than turning away at the horizon, the whispersalt dragged her focus to the ground. “He saved my life. And if Twilight Sparkle says he needs my help, I’m gonna believe her.”

Marathon shook her head slowly. “Listen to me, Solo.” The Honor Guard reached out a hoof and pulled Solo’s chin toward her. “This isn’t just about rebels or monsters. Things are starting in Stalliongrad. If you don’t get out, you’re both going to get hurt. So I’m begging you: take Twilight Sparkle back to Canterlot.”

The door of the shop creaked, and Marathon’s head snapped toward it. Before Solo could bring herself to make any sort of comment, the burnt orange pegasus shot into the snowy sky.

Twilight Sparkle didn’t notice the fleeing pegasus as she walked out into the snow. A light cream jacket of thick wool was held to her body by a thick belt of the same material. Around her neck, a light blue scarf framed her face. She twirled in place once. “Look warm enough?”

“It looks great,” Solo answered, writing off the subtle warmth in her own belly as another gift from the whispersalt. She cast her gaze toward where Marathon had disappeared into the gray sky above the city. “Now, we need to get to Stalliongrad.”

The assassin awoke to a cold, bitter feeling around her neck, and a curiously rhythmic sort of whooshing noise. The pain in her skull kept her from a better term for it. Her body was freezing against something just as cold as the weight around her neck. It felt like stone. She opened her eyes, but it took a long time for them to actually see anything.

First, there were flagstones for a floor, barely visible in the lack of light. Old, dusty, and gray. They reminded her of the vaults beneath Burning Hearth Castle. She could almost smell their history. The air stank, not just on in her nostrils, but on her tongue. Blood had been spilt, and innocence had been stolen here… wherever here was. She could taste pain, and sorrow, and despair so crushing that, for a moment, she gagged.

The steady noise continued. It sounded like a knife, moving through something wet, yet solid. It barely held her attention. Her hoof wandered to her throat, desperately searching for a distraction from the awful taste in the air. She felt cold, smooth metal, and then a chain. A… collar?

“Good afternoon.”

Her ears twitched at the comment, and her focuse jumped to the source of the little rhythmic noise. She knew the Night Guard’s voice. All she saw was a little glimmer of metal and a pair of slitted yellow eyes. “Th-thi―” Her throat was too dry and too sore to speak.

“Do you want water?” The noise stopped, and she heard him set something small and light down on a hard surface. He moved toward her, and she felt his frigid leather wings meet her hooves. Slowly, carefully, he helped her grasp a wooden cup. The gnarled feeling of the wood was strange against her half-numb legs. “I was unsure if it would help one of your kind.”

The water tasted dirty. It was lukewarm, and awful, but it was a balm to the little agonies of her throat, so she suffered to drain it down. When her lips released the rough wooden brim, it clattered from her hooves onto the stone. The noise echoed around the room, and she shivered in the dark.

“I suppose your kind can eat real food. I had not expected that. One must wonder what benefit your preferred diet supplies.” He focused on her more directly after the brief tirade. “I imagine you must be hungry.” Again, he guided her hooves to a strange, coarse thing. He must have guessed her confusion, as he quickly spoke again. “A radish.”

Before she took the vegetable, she looked him in the eyes. “What do you mean ‘my kind’?”

“You do a good job hiding your nature. Until I dragged you down here, and searched your body for hidden weapons and deceptions, I would not have believed it. It was only when I felt the chitin near your wings. A changeling who also knows classic illusions, and mixes both spells to create disguises? It is not hard to believe you were able to get into the palace. Unfortunately for you, our mistress grants us thestrals a measure of resistance to illusions like yours.” She was sure she hadn’t expressed any confusion, but he clarified regardless. “The Night Guard, as most ponies think of us. ‘Thestral’ is the name the mistress uses for what you might label our ‘breed’, when she does not simply call us by our numbers. It refers to an ancient magic, and so often I simply prefer ‘Night Guard’―it better captures our purpose.”

“If you could see through my illusions, why didn’t you catch me in Canterlot?”

He took a slow breath; the air that tickled her coat was even colder than the surrounding stones. “We are not immune to such magic; it merely has a lesser effect on us. It takes more than a casual glance to see through a Changeling’s disguise. Few of us knew Ment―” he forced a cough halfway through the word, before picking up on a very different thought. “Few of us knew the Commander very well, and we knew Morning Star even less. You are a talented actress; I did not suspect you in those forms. Not close enough to take a second look. But when you came to me wearing Roscherk’s face, your act was not good enough.” His eyes traced away from her, staring at something she couldn’t pick out of the darkness in a high corner. “I know him too well.”

The thestral returned his focus to his prisoner, and tapped her foreleg. “Eat.”

She bit into the crisp, peppery vegetable as the night guard walked back to where he had been standing earlier. He went back to making his curious noise for a moment before his voice picked up again, gentle and calm. “That was clever of you, using illusion magic instead of your changeling powers to infiltrate Canterlot. I still have to wonder how you beat the Commander. He he would never fall for something as simple as a knife to the back.”

“You’d be surprised.” Masquerade pulled her head away from her vegetable to stare at his eerie eyes. “Is this an interrogation?”

“No,” he replied with an almost terrifying levelness. “This is what civilian ponies call small talk. You need to eat, and rest. Interrogation comes later.”

She wasn’t sure why she did it; maybe just to spite him. She focused her horn forward, and gathered her concentration. What she earned in reward was a bolt of searing pain that ran straight down into her skull. She gasped, too tired to truly scream.

“You can twist no magic here,” he observed. His eyes weren’t even looking at her; they stared down at whatever he was doing to make his noise.

She snarled. “So what? Are you going to torture me? Keep me as your pet?” She shook the chain on her collar. “Does this get you off?”

The words got him to look up at her. She couldn’t see his face, but the way his brow lowered gave his eyes a tired, troubled appearance.

“I am a married stallion.” Masquerade opened her mouth to question the dead stallion about his loyalties, but he cut her off with a further thought. “And even were I not, I would never lower myself to you.”

Masquerade moved to walk forward, only to feel the bruises of her battle on her foreleg and neck. Shaking off the pain, she looked him in the eyes again. “Then why take me to some dungeon? Why not just turn me over to Luna?”

He let out a growl that froze a bit of Masquerade’s blood. “Let me explain myself. My mentor taught me that anything dangerous is worthy of respect. So I respect you, Masquerade, although you disgust me. I am not interested in humiliating you. I admit that I hate you, but I do not find any joy in what you will likely force me to do here. Answer my questions truthfully, and we will both go about our business without trouble. Once I know what I need, I will take you to Luna, and we can both reap what we deserve.”

He walked over to her again, pausing a few feet away. She saw his eyes dip, picking up the vegetable she didn’t remember dropping. Her eyes could barely make out the outline of his wing as he brushed it off and gently offered it to her. “Relax, Masquerade. It is almost over.”

“You know this is an awful idea, right?”

Solo rolled her eyes as she and Twilight walked through the snow in the increasing darkness of what would have been dusk anywhere else in Equestria. “Twilight, if this were a magic problem, I’d trust you. But right now, we’re trying to sneak onto a train without getting noticed, which is sort of my area of expertise. You don’t seem like the sort of pony who’d even know how to sneak out of the house without your parents noticing.”

Twilight cocked her head. “Why would I ever want to sneak out? I had all my books right there in my tower, and―”

“Sweet Celestia, Twilight, are you serious?”

After a moment to recover from the shock of the younger mare’s words, Solo began to mentally prepare an intimate explanation of exactly why a filly of a bit younger than Twilight’s age might be interested in sneaking out under cover of night. The thoughts were lost in the snow with the piercing sound of glass shattering somewhere ahead on their path.

Solo sidestepped, putting herself in front of Twilight and spreading her wings.

“What was that?” Twilight asked.

The pegasus’ eyes narrowed. “A window.”

“You’re sure it wasn’t just a bottle or something?”

For a moment, Going Solo considered explaining the difference in sound between something small like a bottle being smashed over somepony’s head, and the sound of a storefront window shattering into a thousand pieces as somepony was thrown through it. This time, it was a sight and not a sound that stopped her words.

“Врача!” the mare shouted, as she sprinted around the corner ahead on only three legs, and slid on the icy street. Though the sky was dark, the torches of the Cyclone Day festival made the blood smeared over her wounded right foreleg unmistakable.

Twilight tried to run to the other pony’s aid, but Solo’s wings caught her tightly. “Stop! Stop, Twilight! It’s not safe!”

A little fizzle and a pop marked Twilight’s teleportation. Soon, she stood over the bleeding mare, fumbling for her journal and her inkwell with her telekinesis. “Hold on. I just need to be able to talk to you.”

“Я не понимаю what you’re saying. Just… get me a doctor!”

Twilight nodded. “I think I can help.” Still managing her spell and holding aloft book, quill, and ink, she also produced from her saddlebags a length of gauze and a small splint. To somepony who could appreciate the difficulty of such magic, it would have been staggering. Twilight seemed to be paying her spells little mind as she spoke to the wounded earth pony. “What happened?”

“The circus ponies―ow!” She winced as Twilight pulled the gauze tight. “They started a huge fight in the square with a bunch of the guards. I was just trying to get out of the way, but their tiger scratched my leg.”

“A tigeris fighting here?” Solo’s eyes shot up to scan the city. “This Domain just keeps getting better.”

“We’ll be fine,” Twilight replied confidently, before returning her attention to her patient. “You’re going to be alright, now. Try to keep your weight off that leg, and get home safe.” As the Trotsylvanian stood and began to walk away, Twilight turned her attention to her friend. “Come on, Solo. I’ve got a plan.”

Going Solo watched in muted terror as Twilight backtracked along the other mare’s path, straight toward the town’s festive park, and the promise of a pitched battle. “Hold on, Twilight! I don’t know what you’re thinking, but I can’t fight a tiger. We should turn around, jump that train, and get out of Dodge before anypony figures out we’ve left.”

Twilight smiled. “You won’t need to fight her. Her name is Yóumín, and she’s perfectly nice.”

Twilight tried to step past Solo, but the pegasus’ wings were more agile than her land-bound companion. With a muffled grumble, Twilight gave a pathetic excuse for an explanation. “It’s a long story, Solo. You remember what I told you and Countess Star about when I was in Stalliongrad last time?”

“Yeah.”

“Well, after Serp attacked the inn Rainbow and I were staying at, one of the rebels brought us to their secret base in the ruins of Coltpenhagen. I met Yóumín there, along with some of the other big name rebels.”

“Like the one from Ponyville?”

Twilight grimaced for a moment at the memory of Stoikaja’s threats. “Uh… she wasn’t around then. She used to be Honor Guard.”

“I know,” Solo replied calmly. “Six months ago, I met her in Baltimare.” For just a moment, Twilight saw her eyes track to a flickering candle inside a decorative lantern. It took a wild shake of her head to break the focus. Ahead, the lanterns and the torches appeared in far greater number, illuminating a seemingly empty park. “You’re sure this is a good idea, Twilight? If you can’t talk to the tiger―”

“Tigress, in this case, ponies.” The two mares nearly jumped out of their skins as an enormous cat leapt down from a rooftop on the edge of the street, landing within inches of them. “It has been some time, Purple Read. How is the more boring part of the world?”

Twilight was shocked into silence. Solo recovered more quickly, lowering her shoulder and slamming into her stunned ward. Before Twilight could release more than a gasp, the guardspony took up a wide-winged stance, protecting her from their newest encounter.

Yóumín stared for a moment or two, and then began to laugh―a brutal, haunting, echoing noise that chilled Solo more than the snow. “If I had any interest in killing you or your friend, I would have jumped down on top of you.” She slunk backwards, raising her chest from the snowy street until she was sitting upright. It was at that point that Going Solo realized the tigress wasn’t all that much shorter than Princess Celestia. “Вы можете выходить, друзья.”

“What did you―” The rest of Going Solo’s words were immediately stolen away by the appearance of further figures from around the corner. A cluster of ponies in the tattered remnants of circus uniforms were lead by a scarred orange stallion with a graying mane.

It was then that Twilight finally realized that the cat still had her tongue. She blinked, and then called out. “Yóumín? Povstantsev?”

The pegasus was the first to respond, growling out an irritable Stalliongradi thought as his forces spread out around the downed and bleeding mare. “Это Твайлайт Спаркл, в точности как сказала Марафон. Откуда она знает мое имя?”

Solo tilted her head. "Do you know them too, Twilight?"

“Yes, i do. The pegasus is named Aljans Postantev, which means something like ‘Rebel Alliance’. He and Yóumín are the leaders of the revolution… well, except for Stoikaja.”

“Right… do you know what they’re talking about?”

Twilight glanced over to where the tigress was speaking to the circus-garbed pegasus. “I can set the spell up again. Just give me a second.”

“Она была в Кольтпенгагене,” Yóumín noted to Rebel Alliance near the edge of the street. “И я думаю, это была её подруга, Радуга пони, кто выболтала плащам о вашей встрече в Сараево у Прибежища.”

“Ладно, не важно,” Alliance answered in his irate grumble. “Заставь её пойти с нами, и мы сможем убедить её повлиять на Луну.”

“Я не знаю, будет ли она сотрудничать.”

“Поговори с ней, или засунь её в мешок. Я бы предпочел первое, но прямо сейчас Принцесса в замке Пылающего очага, и мы не можем afford Foresight and Blood Stroke earning her favor.”

Yóumín cocked her head. “What is this? You don’t speak Tigrese, Rebel Alliance.”

“Uh, that was me. Sorry.” Twilight gestured to the book and quill hovering beside her. “Translation spell. Well, really three spells chained together, but the point is, we can all hear each other in our own native languages, as long as I don’t run out of ink.”

“Great…” the stallion called Rebel Alliance muttered. “Miss Sparkle, I don’t have time to waste. The streets of Trotsylvania are about to become very dangerous. We have a train at the station, and I can spare one of the group to escort you if you like.”

“Great!” Twilight replied, with an enthusiasm that left Solo unsettled. The pegasus held her tongue, silently praying that they weren’t diving headfirst into a fight. Twilight seemed pleasantly oblivious to the fact that the ponies and tiger they were speaking to were a group of hardened freedom-fighters, and not the friendly, peaceful ponies of Ponyville. “We need to get to Stalliongrad. A train ride would be great.”

Rebel Alliance winced. “Absolutely not. I won’t deliver you straight into the Black Cloak’s hooves.”

“Well, that’s where we need to go,” Twilight replied with a touch of disappointment. “So I guess we’ll have to part ways. Thank you for the offer, though.”

The orange pegasus shook his head. “I see. Yóumín?”

“Yes, Rebel?”

“Try to be gentle.”

Solo’s world became a blur of black, orange, and white. Her forehooves wrapped around Twilight’s barrel, and she flung both herself and her naive friend sideways. She felt the weight of Yóumín’s paw clip her wing, spinning her into a wild cartwheel. Vertigo overtook her senses, though her wing folded without pain.

“Twilight, teleport!”

Solo’s stomach lurched up as she saw Yóumín pouncing again. The tightness didn’t help the nausea that followed as the world disappeared in a violent flash. Her hoof met a layer of snow atop icy shingles, perhaps two dozen feet away and two stories up off the street.

“You alright?” Twilight asked.

“Yeah, no thanks to―” Solo didn’t bother to finish her sentence when she saw the tigress leap up the side of a small house and begin sprinting toward them. “Again!”

“Where?”

“Anywhe―” The sensation of the world being torn away stole Solo’s breath. She barely had time to suck in a breath before she realized that Yóumín was still visible, and still in pursuit. “Can’t you get us any farther? Somewhere out of sight?”

“It’s dangerous!” Twilight shouted back. “What if I put us halfway through a wall?”

Solo growled, braced herself facing Yóumín’s direction. “Fine. You leave; make as big of a distraction as you can. I’ll hold her off.”

“What?”

“Trust me, I know what I’m doing. If you make a big enough show, the guardsponies will come running. You just have to keep away from her until they show up. Now go!”

Twilight hesitated silently, but then nodded. “Be careful.”

The violet flare that shot into the sky cast a terrifying light on Solo’s approaching foe.

“Tell me about your work,” ordered the first voice Masquerade had heard in hours. It was still Third Brother’s, just as it had been when last he had visited her prison of shadows.

“You must have such a way with mares, Brother. Some ponies do appreciate a ‘hello’, though I admit I’d be satisfied with just something else to eat and a blanket.” She held her tongue about the way the cold sent brutal aches along the line where Rainbow Dash had severed her foreleg.

The thestral moved forward, stopping no more than a leg’s reach away by Masquerade’s guess. She heard the sound of flint and steel scraping together. Faint sparks gave her brief glimmers of the stallion’s bulky, square jaw as he worked to light a small candle. It moved in time with his deep baritone, speaking to her with a flat tone that still managed to carry just a hint of disgust. “You are no kin of mine, assassin. You may use my real name, if you remember it.”

Despite the pain in the motion, Masquerade twisted her head. “Do we know each other?”

The candle sparked to life, casting the blue stallion in its faint golden light. Third Brother’s flat expression shifted away from the fire, and locked onto Masquerade. “You will most assuredly figure it out. For now, we shall start where stories begin.” He closed his eyes. “Prance, correct? A theatre?”

“You’re going to turn me over to Luna either way; why should I waste my time telling you anything?”

Third Brother walked forward, holding up a single hoof. Wrapped around it was an intricate brace of cloth bands and metal bolts, all leading up to a single, fishhook-shaped blade. It glinted in the dim firelight. “I thought I had explained this sufficiently earlier.” Before she could even blink, his leathery wing had wrapped around her right foreleg. “Will you tell me your story?”

“Princess Luna would never let you―”

The scream was deafening; the pain, blinding. When Masquerade finally regained her senses, her right foreleg felt as though it was on fire, despite the sensation of liquid dripping through her coat. The first sound she heard beyond the echoing of her own agony was the drip of a ball of wax falling onto the bowl beneath their candle.

The second was the Night Guard’s voice. “If I save lives with what I learn from you, my mistress will forgive me. Better to ask her mercy, than to let your accomplice succeed for the sake of decency to an assassin; especially one so absorbed as to sell her equinity for power.” When her eyes regained focus, she saw him wiping the blade on the coat of his other foreleg. “This blade was enchanted by the previous ruler of Stalliongrad; its magic amplifies pain. I can do far worse than what you just experienced. With that thought in mind, I will ask again: will you tell me your story?”

After only a moment’s hesitation, Masquerade began.

The Murder at the Opéra de Mareseille

Dramatis Equinae

Mascarade . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . A Rising Star
Prima Donna . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Aging Bitalian Opera Star
Jouant Favoris . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .Daughter of Marquise Couture
Aimer Intérêt . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . An Actor; Mascarade’s lover
Patron . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . The Owner of the Opera

Curtains Open

Scene 1 -

The stage of the Opéra de Mareseille, two weeks before a performance of Carmane - August, 1441. Stagehands are in a panic painting backdrops as a mare and a stallion sing to one another.

Mascarade

So, to keep me company,
I will take away my lover.
My lover, he has gone to the devil,
I put him out yesterday!
My poor heart, very consolable,
My heart is free, like the air!
I have suiters by the dozen,
But, they are not to my taste.
Here it is the weekend;
Who wants to love me? I will love him!
Who wants my soul? It's for the taking.

PRIMMA DONNA speaks up, not on stage, but in the front row of the audience.

Primma Donna

Stop, stop. Mascarade, dear, your voice is perfect, but I feel as though you aren’t wearing quite the emotion this calls for. Think of the lyrics you’re singing, for goodness sake. I’m not one to condemn a mare for loving her work, but you must try to contain your smile while you’re singing.

Mascarade

Sorry, Primma. It’s just, I finally get to be Carmane; and my first leading role will be in front of Princess Celestia too! And―

Mascarade struggles with the rope hoof bindings used in the scene of Carmane’s imprisonment.

Can somepony help me with these?

Aimer Intérêt

I’ve got you covered, dear.

Aimer produces a switchblade, and flips it in the air theatrically, before cutting Mascarade free. They briefly embrace.

Mascarade

Be careful with that thing, Aimer, or you’ll cut up your face, and wind up playing The Phantom.

Aimer

Relax, Mascarade. It’s like my second special talent. I’m as good with that knife as you are on stage.

Primma

Yes, well, she may have such a beautiful voice, but she must master the part first. I do hope to announce my retirement in two weeks, but if you cannot do the part justice, Mascarade, I may have to take it back.

Mascarade

Right, sorry. Uh, anything to add, Aimer? Any criticism?

Aimer

It sounded good to me.

Primma

Why don’t you take it from the top of the scene? One of you stage hands, can you grab―

The theatre doors burst open with a magical slam, attracting everypony’s attention. PATRON barges in, his tie unsettled and his face sweaty.

Mascarade

You look awful, Mr. Patron. Does that mean we have news?

Patron’s face grows even grimmer as his focus shifts to Mascarade.

Patron

Oh, uh, yes, Masc. I, uh, I managed to convince the Marquise to sponsor us for another year.

Aimer

Why, that’s great news! Why the long face, Patron?

Patron

Well, you see, the Marquise did have a stipulation. As you all probably know, Primma Donna is her fourth cousin, once removed.

Primma

Yes, yes, the line of Platinum and all that. Don’t spoil me, Patron; I worked to get where I am.

Patron

Of course you did, Primma. I wouldn’t question it. But the point is, for years now we’ve had a noblepony in some fashion leading the stage here at the Opéra de Mareseille. And… well, frankly, the Marquise has certain opinions about that staying the case…

Mascarade

You aren’t saying she wants you to bring somepony else in?

Patron

I’m afraid I am, Mascarade. In order to keep the theatre open, I had to make her daughter our new lead actress. I’ll give you the part of Michayla, or Marecédès if you prefer, but you cannot be Carmane.

Mascarade

Will I at least get to take the lead role for a few weeks, while she learns the part? Can I at least perform for the Princess?

Patron

That was the foremost of the Marquise’s demands. She wants her daughter front and center for Princess Celestia to― Mascarade, wait!

Mascarade ignores him, running offstage crying.

Curtains

Scene 2 -

Mascarade’s dressing room, in shambles. MASCARADE faces away from the audience, crying; her face only visible in a large mirror. AIMER enters stage right, through a partially open door.

Aimer Intérêt

Mascarde? Are you alright?

Mascarade

What do you think, Aimer? Everything I’ve been working toward is gone because I’m not related to the Marquise. Am I going to be stuck playing second fiddle my entire life? What can I even do?

Aimer

You can show the world just how good you are, Mascarade.

Mascarade

I’m sure that will do wonders when everypony’s listening to the other mare! What do I do if she’s actually better than me?

Aimer

Don’t be ridiculous, Mascarade. There’s no way she’s going to be better than you.

Mascarade

How do you know that ?

Aimer walks forward, wrapping one foreleg over Mascarade’s shoudler and gently tapping her cutie mark with the other.

Aimer

I’d say it’s written pretty clearly right here.

Mascarade

Careful where you’re putting that hoof.

Aimer

Oh, have I offended my delicate diva? At least she cracks a smile.

Mascarade

Fine, you win, Aimer. What do you actually want?

Aimer

I would like you to come outside. Perhaps enjoy a nice dinner. Take a day off. But don’t let yourself hole up in this stuffy place.

Aimer, Mascarade exit.

Curtains

Scene 3 -

The stage, two weeks later. The sets are complete, the lights are polished, the costumes finished. MASCARADE sits beside PRIMMA DONNA in the front row as AIMER clutches a prop knife against the brilliant dress of Carmane, worn by JOUANT FAVORIS.

Aimer

You can arrest me! It was I who killed her! Ah, Carmane! Carmane, my adored one!

Primma Donna stands up, stomping applause.

Primma

Bravo, bravo! A rousing performance, both of you.

Jouant

It is always my pleasure to perform. Truly, it was always my place to be in the spotlight.

Aimer

Thanks, Primma.

Primma

My only criticism, Aimer, is that your voice does not reverberate well while you are holding the prop knife. Come, I will show you a trick. In the meantime, I’m sure Mascarade and Jouant can practice some other scene.

Aimer and Primma Donna exit. Mascarade takes the stage alongside Jouant.

Mascarade

That was pretty good, Jouant.

Jouant

Pretty good? Goodness, I can’t imagine how you think yourself a real actress if you don’t recognize a true master’s work when you hear it.

Mascarade

Really? Don’t kid yourself, Jouant; you’re not half the actress I am; the only reason you’re on stage at all is because your mom is our sponsor.

Jouant

Oh, yet another jealous peasant? I suppose it doesn’t matter. You should be grateful, though; I doubt I’ll be here much longer, and then you can have the title role back.

Mascarade

What? You’re leaving?

Jouant

Well, after tonight, when I perform for the Princess, I’ll be too big for a little stage like this. Aimer and I will move to Canterlot, and―

Mascarade

Aimer would never leave with you!

Jouant

You think so, Mascarade? Everypony knows the lead always wins the stallion’s heart. But don’t worry; I’m sure you’ll find somepony for yourself someday. Maybe someday, you’ll even be worthy of playing a supporting role for me in Canterlot. Now, I’m going to go catch up on my appearance for the performance tonight.

Jouant exits.

Curtains.

Scene 4 -

The hallway outside AIMER’s dressing room. MASCARADE approaches; Aimer is speaking to JOUANT within.

Jouant

―for Princess Celestia, every time we perform. And the fans, Aimer; can you imagine?

Aimer

It would be lovely, Jouant.

Mascarade stops; before she had simply been walking down the hall, but now she presses her ear against the door.

Jouant

I know I don't even need to ask, of course.

Aimer

Of course.

Jouant

I will feel bad for Mascarade, though; she isn’t wholly without talent. Perhaps someday she’ll catch up with us.

Aimer

Yes. Perhaps someday.

Mascarade barges through the door as Jouant and Aimer kiss. She stands in the doorway as they break apart, and stare.

Jouant

Mascarade… how much of that did you hear…?

Mascarade

I heard enough! How could you, Aimer? Was it all just a game? Was I just another conquest?

Aimer

I… Mascarade, I thought you knew. I liked you, but never to that―

Jouant

Don’t be ridiculous, Mascarade. You think a stallion of Aimer’s caliber would choose you? He and I are simply out of your league.

Mascarade

If you think you can out-act me, Jouant, you’re fantasizing. And as for you, Aimer, I’m disgusted. I thought we had something. But I’m not a dumb enough mare to pretend I didn’t see who you really are.

Mascarade leaves the room.

Aimer

Mascarade, wait!

Mascarade

For what? For you to realize what you’ve done? You’ve chosen your side, Aimer. Now, you can live with it.

Mascarade storms off - exit. Aimer returns to Jouant and they embrace. Curtains.

Scene 5 -

The stage is set for the final scene of Carmane. Princess Celestia sits in the royal box alongside Jouant’s mother, Marquise Couture. MASQUERADE stands offstage, focusing. Her horn glows a pale blue, pointing at the stage, though the set blocks her from the view of the audience. AIMER and JOUANT struggle back and forth for the climax.

Aimer

For the last time, demon, will you follow me?

Jouant

No, no! This ring―once, you gave it to me: there!

Jouant throws a ring from her horn at Aimer. Mascarade’s brow clenches with sweat as she maintains her illusion.

Mascarade

Just a moment longer.

Aimer

Then you are damned.

Aimer draws a prop knife from his costume, and thrusts it against Jouant’s side. He feels the trick blade collapse into the hilt, and hears Jouant gasp―more convincingly than she ever did in their rehearsals. The choir picks up with the grim, minor-key refrain of the ‘Toreador’ theme. Aimer lets her fall, and turns to face the audience.

Aimer

You can arrest me―it was I who killed her.

Aimer feels a wetness on his cheek, where his mouth clenches the prop knife by the notch that lets him speak. It is not the prop knife he has practiced with. It is his own switchblade, dripping with real blood. The audience stands, applauding. They do not realize what has happened before their eyes, at first.

Mascarade runs forward, wrapping a hoof around Jouant’s body; she is already beginning to chill.

Mascarade

How could he? Jouant…

Jouant

Aimer… why…?

In a rough, un-artistic gasp, Jouant breathes her last. The audience turns. Celestia’s guardsponies draw their weapons.

Aimer

Wait! I― I didn’t mean to…

A bolt of magic from a guardspony’s horn strikes Aimer, and he falls to the stage, stunned. Mascarade exits, holding back false sobs.

Curtains

Fin

Third Brother moved for the first time in the several minutes it had taken for her dramatic story. “Never once did the guards catch on?”

Masquerade nodded. “I hadn’t even considered that Celestia would ask her soul who did it when she died. But that’s the beauty of it―it must not have occurred to Jouant that I could be behind what happened. She assumed Aimer was just after fame, like the slimy ‘mare’s colt’ he was. The Marquise was furious; she had Aimer beheaded in front of the entire city of Mareis. And for all that, I realized what my special talent really was.”

“You think of your special talent as one for assassination?” Third Brother asked, with a distinct lack of amusement.

“I know it,” Masquerade replied. “Nopony can do what I do. Not even close. Believe me, I know. When I was playing The Commander, I saw his records on the other ponies who’d tried what I did.”

Third Brother’s head cocked to the side, reminding Masquerade of a confused dog. “But you had no means of accomplishing such an act at first. You had never met Zagatka. You were not what you are today.”

What had once been a mare took a moment to stare at the chain around her neck before offering a single nod. “Not as interesting of a story.”

The thestral struck her again; this time, the spots in her eyes lasted only for a moment. He didn’t seem angry in the slightest, and that utter lack of emotion was what frightened her to continue. “I killed a freshman at the Royal Academy, and used her scholarships to put myself through a study of illusion. I think her name was… Prestidigitation. I let them call me ‘Presty’.”

She had the gall to chuckle at the fond memory, earning a glare of pure hatred from Third Brother. It wasn’t the worse she’d ever felt in her direction, though it did frighten her that he might actually do something to act on it. Her fondness faded quickly. “I didn’t learn much to help me in my task, though I did study dueling and teleportation, and a few other subjects that struck my fancy. I was already pretty good at normal illusions from my work in the theatre and my own practice. So when I learned about nightmares―my special illusions, the kind Celestia outlawed―I did some research and found my way to Zagatka.”

“And it was the dragon that made you a changeling? That took a hollow cocoon and gave you the power to kill the Mistress?”

Masquerade winced, and looked away. “I can’t talk about that.”

“Can’t?”

Memories of cold, quiet days locked unmoving beneath the Canterlot Palace flashed through the Masquerade’s eyes: the same barren patch of stone wall that she had been left to stare at in silence for months. She shivered so hard her chain shook, echoing out a brittle chorus in honor of her unspoken agony. She did not cry, though her body wanted very much to. “It’s magic. There’s a spell on me. And… I think I’d rather die. I’d rather go to Luna than face that…”

Third Brother nodded, and placed a hoof on her shoulder. “The Mistress will have the answers to those questions. But we are not done yet. For now, you will think on another story. And you will tell me and my brother everything you know of it when I return.”

“Brother?” Masquerade asked, with another shiver and another rattle.

His breath snuffed out the candle, and in the darkness she saw only his eyes. “You must remember; it was not so very long ago. Saraneighvo; June the twenty-eight, fourteen hundred and forty six in the age of the sun.”

- - -

Trotsylvania burned. It glowed and stank and set up clouds of thick acrid black into the bitter white sky. Somewhere high overhead on the nearby cliffs, Countess Star and her Black Cloak guards were no doubt facing down the rebels, both blissfully unaware of the damage their quarrel was yielding. But down below, in the streets, the common pony could only reflect that the Domain of Stalliongrad was no stranger to flames. In the eyes of the jaded survivors of two wars and an endless stream of rebellions, treasons, and monster attacks, the only thing to do was to disappear into the woodwork and the ice, leaving behind only the slow, the dead, and the uninitiated foreigners. They would be left to dart from shadow to shadow or sprint down the streets in fear, knowing that they were no more likely to earn reprieve from one side than the other.

It was thoughts like these that left Twilight Sparkle alone and terrified, jumping with every crackle of fire and every flicker of a shadow in the alleys between the city’s countless small homes and storefronts.

“Solo?” she asked, in a voice that could barely be called a whisper. “Anypony?” She launched another flare into the sky, and then immediately teleported across the street into one of the alleyways. Her rational mind told her that it ought to be enough to keep Yóumín off her trail; it was quickly drowned out by the trembling whimpers of her heart and the horrors woven by her imagination.

It might have been minutes, or hours. She had no idea beneath the oppressive gray sky, in the pitch black of night. She could only tell a hint by the way the fire had spread up toward the cliffs and the castle. That must have been half an hour earlier, given how much of the city had since ignited. Despite the danger of the fire, the combination of heat, light, and the lack of safe rooftops for her stalker to hide on had encouraged her to approach the smoke. She only stopped when the air grew too gray to breathe, leaving her in a bitter place of cinders and embers, but spared the true danger of the roaring flames.

A crack, mere feet behind. Twilight leapt; a moment later, her horn gathered the mana for a spell. She teleported out into the street―a safer place than the danger behind, but exposed to the world.

The house’s roof collapsed as its beam broke in two. After a skipped beat of her heart, Twilight sighed, and began looking for another hiding place. Her eyes settled on a cellar door beside a larger structure, whose sign read “Теплый прием”.

“Right,” she muttered to herself. “The Stalliongradians kept their cellars separate from their buildings because they were worried about dragons burning the houses down on top of them. That should be safe from the fire, and hopefully Yóumín too.”

She made her way over to the doors and tugged on them, only to find them barred. Momentarily, she found herself thinking of Applejack. Her horn ignited to blast the doors open, only to find pause: such an spell would be noisy, drawing Yóumín’s attention, and the blasted splinters would be a dead giveaway to her hiding place.

“Clever plan, Twilight Sparkle. Just not fast enough.”

The tigress’ voice was unmistakable. Twilight turned, not toward the dark city but into the inferno. Yóumín’s orange body blended in with the countless fires, leaving her a slender skeleton of charred black bones approaching without sound or pause.

“Yóumín?” It wasn’t a question worth answering, and it earned none. “Can we talk about this? I need to find my brother.”

“Your brother? That is why you are here?” Despite her curiosity, the cat continued to stalk forward, prompting Twilight to take a few tentative steps back down the road away from the fire.

“Uh, yeah. Shining Armor.”

“The white soldier, from Canterlot? The mighty warrior in purple armor?”

“You’ve met him?!” Twilight momentarily forgot fear.

“He is dead,” Yóumín answered flatly. “He tried to fight the river. The sickness took days to kill him, when others might have died in hours. I can give you the body, if you come with me.”

“What? No! You’re lying!” Twilight backed up further. “You just want me to help you influence Princess Celestia!”

Yóumín bared her fangs for just a moment. “My motive does not force me to lie. I want you to come with me. You want to find your brother. Do not be my enemy when you don’t have to be, Twilight Sparkle.”

Twilight shot a burst of magic like a firework straight up into the night sky. Yóumín didn’t seem to care, stalking forward at the same slow, calm rate. “The Countess’ guards will save their own skins before they risk themselves for the common pony. Am I going to have to hurt you?”

“Yóumín, please, listen to me. You really don’t have to do this.”

“That is too bad, but I should not have expected any different.”

Yóumín managed a single stride forward before the brick wall beside her exploded. The massive iron head of a sledgehammer narrowly missed her skull, but the fright was enough to send the tiger leaping backward, fangs bared fully and claws unsheathed.

In the cloud of dust left behind, an enormous earth pony of slate gray adjusted a sledgehammer to rest over his shoulder, between the black fur collar surrounding his neck and the heavy woolen fabric of the same color covering his body.

“Molot!”

The Commandant of the Black Cloaks ignored Twilight’s cry, keeping his eyes locked on his mortal enemy. He didn’t say anything, instead focusing on tightening the grip on his hammer between his teeth and his right foreleg.

Twilight knew very little of combat; her only prior experience was a magical dueling class she’d taken to fulfill a P.E. credit. Even with such a slight experience, she could tell the respect the two silent foes had for one another. They paced slowly, eyes watching each others’ every step, as well as the iron head of Molot’s hammer and the pale bone of Yóumín’s maw.

Yóumín moved first. Ice flashed up from the ground behind her claws, cast in a yellow light by the fires and standing out against the gray smoke that clouded the sky. She twisted, corkscrewing toward his throat.

He was prepared; he brought his weapon to bare. The weight and the long shaft stayed under his control only by the might of his jaw, driven toward her underbelly. They struck as one. Her fangs bit into him; a shallow blow for what she might otherwise have accomplished. His weapon struck her, sending her bouncing away in the snow and ripping her teeth away before the killing blow could be landed. She tore away the gray coat from his neck, and a chunk of his flesh as well. Blood flowed in little rivers through the remnants of fur collar of his jacket. Little rips in his own fur showed the way the muscles of his neck shifted as he turned to heft his hammer. His face contorted from the pain of the motion, tightening into a little ball, but it didn’t stop his work.

Yóumín rose quickly for what Twilight was sure would have been a killing blow to a pony. Molot didn’t have his hammer up. The tigress’ legs broke into a full sprint, only slightly limping from the blow to her ribs.

The air in the street swept back, like a giant sucking in a calm breath before a shout. For the second time in as many minutes, time seemed to stop.

It wasn’t a shout that came back. It was a hiss. At the cost of her pounce, Yóumín managed to throw herself sideways into the snow. A crescent blade, jagged, cruel, and swift, swept past her and hooked on an unfelt wind. Twilight barely saw more than the glimmer of its reflection until it was blown back up into the mouth of a buckwheat-colored pegasus standing amidst the flames of a nearby rooftop.

“Извини, Молот. Я столкнулся с той другой кобылой, что была с ней, но она не стала слушать ни слова, что я говорил.”

“Serp?” For what was unquestionably the first time in her life, Twilight was glad to see the violent guardspony.

“Отлично. Спаркл здесь. Давай по-быстрому закончим это.”

The pegasus leapt down from the roof, wings spread, and slammed the appendages into the snow. A massive burst of air shot away from him, kicking up a small snowstorm in Yóumín’s direction. Blinded as she was, she never saw the hammer aiming for her shoulder.

Molot’s blow tossed the enormous cat a dozen feet sideways, piling up a small barrier of snow behind her. Her left foreleg hung limp, bleeding slightly and bruising even through her coat.

Twilight gritted her teeth momentarily, and then turned to Molot. “Thanks, stallions. Have either of you seen Going Solo?”

“Что она говорит?” Molot asked.

“Без понятия,” Serp answered with a shrug, seemingly not noticing the journal Twilight’s magic was slowly lifting. “Я постараюсь заставить её to use her spell again. You kill the cat, and we can leave.”

“What?” Twilight ran forward. “Wait!”

Serp and Molot briefly shared a confused glance. The former spoke first, his lips eerily moving in Stalliongradi as his voice carried to Twilight’s ears in Equiish. “Why not?”

“Because...” Twilight took a deep breath, realizing exactly whom she was pleading to. Gears in her mind twisted, and an old story swept forward. “Let me do it.”

“What?” Molot lowered his hammer from his shoulder.

Serp chuckled. “Twilight Sparkle execute a criminal? This should be funny. Let’s let her do it, Molot; twenty bits says she can’t carry through.”

Molot’s brow dropped, leaving him with a scowl of distrust. “Why?”

She gestured to his hammer. “That’s gonna hurt.”

He looked at the weapon and shook his head. “I have never failed to end it in one blow. In fact―”

There was a flash of light from Twilight’s horn, and where Yóumín had been laying, only a thin layer of ash remained. “Sorry,” she muttered. “I was cold. I got tired of arguing.”

Serp cracked a smile, showing his jagged teeth. “Чтоб меня! I underestimated you, Twilight.”

Twilight tried not to show her disgust at the would-be compliment. “Do you know where Going Solo is? My guardspony friend?”

“Oh, her.” Serp nodded. “I think Yóumín just ignored her; I found her flying over the city, so I sent her to the train station. She didn’t exactly want to listen to me, but I think she finally figured out we were going to help you out to. I’ll probably never live down having to pantomime ‘unicorn’ for her.”

“Good thinking,” Molot muttered. “We can take them both to Foresight, and he can get them what they need.”

“Uh, right…” Serp replied, without voicing the fact that his choice of the train station was the result of two facts: it was the closest landmark which wasn’t on fire, and he could pronounce some semblance of the idea in Equiish. “Yes, Hammer, that’s exactly why I sent her there. Let’s go before more of them show up.”

Molot cocked his head. “Weren’t you going to go help the Countess?”

“I know Blood Stroke would probably be pissed at me for saying this, but I can’t really bring myself to side with her any more than the rebels. Let them kill each other off; we can clean up what’s left over afterwards.”

Blocking out the cruelty of the present discussion, Twilight cast a subtle glance up to a nearby rooftop, where a pair of slitted feline eyes were watching her with curiosity. There was so much to say on the topic of Coil’s Treacherous Teleportation, but all the explanation she could offer in that moment was a knowing, deliberate wink.

Yóumín answered it with one of her own.

XIV - Treasonfang Pass

XIV

Treasonfang Pass

It was a quiet, sunny morning on the common lawn of Manechester. On any other day of the year, that would have meant quiet old folks reading on the benches and cattle grazing. But this was no ordinary day.

A grown, tan unicorn stallion faced down a looming giant of the same breed, regal in his blue coat, if ever so slightly heavyset. Neither spoke, but magic gathered on their horns; the scarred stallion wincing as his aura sparked and sputtered.

“Go home, Mirror. Learn from what you just saw today, and perhaps you’ll amount to more than your father did,” the giant taunted.

Mirror Image sent a bolt of raw magic arcing from his horn; it rebounded from a spherical shield around the larger unicorn, and soared up into the sky. His foe responded in kind. Image’s body ripped itself in half, dodging both ways at once. After a moment’s arcane glow, two distinct Mirror Images paced where once there had been a single stallion. With no further words, they gathered their respective magics. The titan’s head swiveled between them, trying to watch both at once.

He ended in a burst of sparkling ash.

The two bodies Image had created rejoined, and he fell to his knees with a sigh. “It… it doesn’t feel real.”

“It isn’t.” His head snapped up, to find Princess Luna sitting beside him on the warm grass He hadn’t heard her approach, but then, he wasn’t sure she actually had. She took a long moment to absorb the tranquility left behind by the empty field, before laying a wing gently over her guard’s back. “Dost thou remember now? We met a pair of wyverns, and you cast some manner of spell to disguise the heartbeats of the bag. We had meant to ask thou―”

He interrupted with a chuckle. “Okay, Princess, that’s too far. Who meant to ask?”

Luna released a little growl of annoyance. “I had meant to ask you what you had done, but you passed out. So Eldest Sister and I carried you some way up the mountain until we found a nice cliff to build a shelter against. Then I entered your subconscious, to see if I could offer you any comfort.”

On mention of the Night Guard leader, Image’s brow darkened. “Is she in here?”

“Eldest Sister, you mean? No, I left her to watch for danger. Besides, I do not make a habit of taking my Night Guard with me while I wander the dreamscape.”

Image’s brow rose. “You can take other ponies with you?”

Luna smiled just a little bit, and nodded. “If they are physically in my presence, yes. I have no intention of wandering in the course of our urgent mission, but there are a few other minds I should like to visit if I can catch them asleep. Would you care to accompany me, bodyguard?”

Image gave a single dip of his head. Then he felt the lurch.

For an eternity, which passed before he could blink, all the world was stars, as if he stood in the cold void and looked down on where Equestria ought to have been. The only break in the beautiful, glimmering emptiness was where it joined with Luna’s mane, and swept down onto her focused face.

Then, just as quickly as it had come to pass, it was over. He landed in a pile of hooves and horn on a much softer, more cushioned pile. When he finally saw what it was that had broken his fall, he nearly vomited.

Severed pegasus wings dominated his vision as far as his eyes could see, forming rolling hills and valleys in even, blue feathers. In the center of it all, a pegasus mare sat crying under a rainbow mane. No wings decorated her back. In the sky above, the distant dots of pegasi moved back and forth, but none came down to see her.

Luna approached the pony who could only be Rainbow Dash in silence. Without speech, the princess’ wings surrounded the smaller pony, pulling her close to her chest. Image watched as they sat that way, the only motion being the gentle nuzzle that Luna bestowed on the side of Rainbow’s neck.

A stallion who knew his way around both mares and the tenderness of such comfort, Image only gave a few steps of approach. He didn’t want to interrupt, or draw Rainbow’s attention back to the flesh and feathers that cushioned his every step.

When Rainbow finally found the courage to look up, Luna’s wings spread fully. In a single mighty flap, the grim landscape was blown away. Everything was once more the starry void between dreams. And amidst those stars, Luna turned to him.

“Bodyguard, might we borrow your mindscape?”

He wasn’t sure what the Princess meant, but he nodded. Her horn glowed, he felt eerily dizzy, and the common lawn of Manechester returned.

The first sound beyond the little hint of wind and the chirping of birds was Rainbow’s voice. “T-thanks, Princess. Er… Luna.”

Image didn’t pretend to know Rainbow Dash, but he’d stood watch over enough of her meetings with Princess Celestia to appreciate just how shaken the normally brash mare must have been.

“Your nightmares seem to be getting worse, Rainbow.”

Rainbow looked away with hesitation. “I don’t think this was the same thing, Princess.”

“Tell me about it,” Luna requested, laying down on the grass and guiding Rainbow to do the same with a wing. “What is troubling you?”

Rainbow looked away, trying to avoid Luna’s gaze. In so doing, her eyes crossed with Mirror’s. “Uh, hi?”

“Hey,” Image answered, half-teasingly. “Or hello, for some ponies. It’s nice to actually meet you, Rainbow. I’m Mirror Image.” He walked forward to extend a hoof. She stared at it for more than a few moments before giving it half-hearted shake.

“You’re Honor Guard, aren’t you?” He was surprised just how much she managed to say with the question. Most of it was condemnation, but there was also a curiosity, and a bit of confusion.

He, in turn, made his answer plain and simple. “Yes, Rainbow. I’m Princess Luna’s bodyguard.”

“Oh,” was all she had to say to him. To Luna, she asked “Why not a Night Guard?”

“To be honest,” Luna replied, “sister disapproves of them, and I grew tired of arguing with her. Though I confess that I still keep one of them with me most days. We have Eldest Sister with us now, watching over us as we sleep.”

Rainbow made a little face. “What does Celestia care about the Night Guard? They’re just ponies, right?”

Image coughed into his hoof awkwardly, and Luna shook her head. “It may be easy to forget just how old I am, Rainbow, but I have had a great many conversations in my lifetime. Hence, I find it hard not to notice that you are changing the subject.”

Rainbow failed to notice Luna’s subtle hypocrisy as she forced herself not to divert her eyes again. “I don’t really want to talk about it.”

“I am worried about you,” Luna replied honestly. “You are vulnerable, and the pressure on your soul is great.”

Image cocked his head, but he said nothing. He’d been part of enough conversations between the Commander and the Princesses to know better than to stick his horn where it didn’t belong, especially when the subjects of souls and monsters came to light.

Rainbow crossed her forelegs, and then lowered her head onto them. “It just… it hurts, Luna. Do we have to do this?”

Luna surprised Image with her response. “No, no we do not have to do anything, Rainbow. I shall only…” She took a moment to swallow her pride, and to draw up memories of no small pain. “I will tell you that you need to speak to somepony at some time. Not to do so invites a darkness that you are too good of a mare to risk. Believe me when I say that I have seen what comes of bottling up such feelings. And given your distance from your friends, I offer myself for the moment. But you must someday find somepony whom you can show your heart too―not just the glories and the pride, but the shadows and the shame as well.” Rainbow nodded, and Luna stood up. “Then, having given you comfort, I will leave you to―”

“Wait!” Rainbow clearly had not meant to sound so desperate, but her lunge toward Luna could bear no other interpretation. “Uh, I mean, it would be cool if…” Conflicted, her lips moved without speaking, before she finally found her resolve. “I think… um, can we...you know… talk?”

The Princess said nothing at first. Instead, she paced around slowly, taking long gentle steps as if treading on an icy lake. Her path carried her to Rainbow’s side again, where she pulled the smaller mare close against her with a midnight blue wing. Only then did she speak, and with a softened kindness that Image had never heard in her voice before. “I am honored to listen, Rainbow.”

“Alright. Um… so, Deadeye and Soldier On and me were on this train.”

“Hold on!” Mirror Image’s ears flipped up in sudden interest. “You found Soldier On?”

“Not the time, Officer,” Luna snapped, before returning her focus to Rainbow. “Apologies, Rainbow. Please, continue.”

Rainbow nodded. “Um… right. So we met this foal, Rocket. He was a fan of mine; I think he might have seen me in Cloudsdale or something. He was a cool foal; really excited. We were most of the way to San Palomino City when a bunch of bandits stopped the train. They grabbed Rocket as a hostage. Soldier On went out to go stop them.”

Then they sat in total silence, feeling the breeze in their manes and the grass against their bellies. Image watched as Luna waited patiently for Rainbow to build up the courage to continue.

He had to admire the young mare; she didn’t take nearly as long as he had expected.

“Their leader, Sundown, cut off his wings.”

Image winced, and even Luna’s implacable face flinched. “Sundown?”

“That was the leader of the bandits’ name,” Rainbow repeated.

Luna gave a small nod. “He died last night.”

“What did you decide―”

“We do not―” Luna’s sudden snap left Rainbow to recoil, and for just a second, the sky grew visibly darker. Then the power and the ire were both gone from the dreamscape. Luna pulled back her wing from over Rainbow. “Apologies. I am sorry. I had no intention of frightening you. Sister and I agreed long ago that we would keep such decisions regarding the souls of the dead to ourselves, so that we might not be biased or influenced in our judgements. Besides, do you truly wish to have that burden?”

Rainbow took a moment to steel herself, but despite the freedom Luna had given when she lifted her wing, the young pegasus did not leave her side. “It’s okay, Luna. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“You had no ill will, Rainbow, and I can hold nothing against you.”

“The wing was nice,” Dash replied.

Image almost winced at the line, but it seemed enough to get Rainbow her feathered blanket back.

“Well, uh, we went after the bandits to Brayce Canyon, and we saved Rocket. He was all tough; he even told me nothing was wrong. And I kinda wrote it off, because I was still worried about Sundown. After we got out of the canyon, we kinda split up.”

“Why?” Mirror Image asked.

Rainbow hesitated. “The San Palomino Rangers came after us. I took Rocket and flew back toward San Palomino. They didn’t have anypony who could chase me. I don’t know what happened to Deadeye, but I think they caught Soldier On.”

“You are worried about them?” Luna prompted.

Rainbow swallowed slowly. “Yeah. But that’s not what was bothering me, I think. See, uh, Rocket and I were flying back. I had him on my back, cause― well, you know.” She bit back another taste of bile. “He just started crying. And I just… I just locked up. I landed, and I tried to hold him, but I mean, what do I tell the kid?” The pegasus blinked twice, holding herself together as if she thought Luna would look down on her for crying. “I can’t say ‘everything’s going to be alright,’ can I? What do I do?”

“I… daresay I do not know, Rainbow. Perhaps there is nothing to say. Some damage cannot be undone, or at least not easily. But I do remember a day not so long ago when you offered me comfort in a time when there was little that could actually be done to fix things.” Luna smiled, just a little bit. “You might be surprised to learn what a mare can hear when she lays in a coma. For the sake of saying it aloud, I don’t think ‘the fastest flier in Equestria’ sounds ‘stupid’ at all, though I do have to agree that ‘Bearer of Loyalty’ is a better sobriquet.” Rainbow cracked a small smile of her own, though it was cut off by surprise when Luna gave her a small nuzzle. “If you simply follow your instinct, Rainbow, I have no doubt you will help Rocket just as much as you helped me.”

“I guess… Thanks, Luna.”

Luna nodded slowly. The motions calm was lost in an abrupt lurch to her hooves, guided by a glow around her horn.

“What’s wrong, Princess?” Mirror Image asked, stepping forward.

Her eyes slowly regained focus, and shifted to to her bodyguard. “It’s not a cause for alarm. This is an opportunity. Rainbow, we will return shortly, but I do not want to miss the chance to speak to your father while he is still asleep.”

The Crystal Empire glistened amidst the February snow. Impossible spires sparkled in the distance as a long chain of passenger cars pulled into the train station. They had barely lurched to a proper stop when a pink mare soared up into the skies.

Empress Cadance, as the ruler of the Crystal Empire was meant to be titled, paid little mind to the subjects who stared up at her passing. Her mind was on heavier topics than the thought that she was unaccompanied by her usual mass of Crystal Guards, or that she flew on her own wings instead of using a chariot as was the tradition of nobility. Uncharacteristically, she paid not a single thought to the fear that her urgency might spawn in their imaginations.

Her task was too important to be stopped for such thoughts.

A pegasus guardspony approached her, unique in the Crystal Empire in two ways. Foremost was the fact that she was a pegasus in the first place, telling Cadance that she was no native of her glittering Domain. The second was that in place of glittering diamonds, her armor was plated in gold. Cadance found herself recalling her husband in his youth, when he was still a young officer in the guard and not yet more than her coltfriend.

“Princess Cadance!” she called, with a distinct accent of Manehattan in the outcry. “You’ve come back!” Cadance didn’t stop for the guardsmare, and found herself annoyed by the other pony’s persistence in following her. “Uh, Princess, we need to talk.”

“I am very busy,” the alicorn replied in an almost cold tone. “Can your superiors handle this?”

“No,” the mare answered, before coughing into a hoof. “Well, I mean, I guess they could, but Captain Armor insisted―”

Cadance winced, and spent no shortage of moments bringing herself back to focus. The guardsmare looked away awkwardly, realizing too late what she had said. “Um… he said it was important. So I thought I should tell you.”

“What’s your name, guardsmare?” Cadance asked, after a lengthy pause.

“Run Down, Princess. Private Run Down.”

The name stuck on Cadance’s mind, though she ultimately settled on the idea that the mix of memories swirling in her thoughts would keep her from any real recollection. She cast the concern aside completely when her hooves set down on the high balcony, jutting out of the glimmering face of her palace. “Well, Miss Down, if this is so important, walk with me.”

In a few mere strides, the wide blue skies and shimmering towers had become an open lounge, with a wide wooden table offsetting the omnipresent glimmer of gemstones with a pleasantly dull brown. Cadance ignored it completely, progressing out of the lounge and toward an opulent throne.

Run Down stared in awe, even as she struggled to try and keep up with the taller, stronger alicorn. “Well, Princess, I was with the team that was assigned to the excavation on Sombra’s Glacier.”

Cadance sighed. “So you finally found the cavern?”

Run Down was halfway through a nod when a bolt of black lightning began sparking along Cadance’s horn. Green fire leaked from the mare’s eyes, and a beam of darkness erupted toward a large crystal looming over the throne. Slowly, darkness spread to envelop the room, revealing a deep and spiraling staircase in the center of the floor.

“Uh, what was that, Princess?”

“Alicorn magic,” Cadance replied, without realizing just how frightened Run really was. “Empatha, Endura, and Arcana don’t naturally combine with one another, and the reaction is sometimes violent; however, it can do things other magic can’t. For example, heal the wounded, or turn flesh into stone.” Cadance took a single step down the long hallway before adding a final thought. “Or raise the dead.”

“But that looked like King Sombra’s magic… and he wasn’t an alicorn.”

“Sombra is dead and gone, and we have no reason to worry about him anymore,” Cadance answered as she continued her descent. “I assume that’s what you wanted to report. What we call ‘alicorn’ magic is the combination of three types of magic: Empatha, Endura, and Arcana, into a single force. There are other creatures in the world which can use all three, though they don’t make for polite conversation. If that is all, you are dismissed.” She stopped at a section of flat wall no short distance down the stairs and charged her terrifying alicorn magic again. A moment later, a door peeled its way out of the smooth gray stone. It swung open with a chilling creak, revealing a dark and musty library.

Run Down hesitated, entranced just as much by fear and curiosity. She watched as Cadance moved swiftly to a large tome on a lectern near the door, creating a blue light with her horn to read by. She spoke more to herself than her silent observer. “Coil…Coil… here we are.”

Again, her hooves were swift for a walking pace, finding their way to what to Run’s eye saw as an indiscernible shelf. The alicorn mare moved her hoof along the spines of weary books, before pulling a small scrap of parchment from between two tomes with a raised brow.

Prince Armor, Princess Cadenza,

I elected to take you up on your offer of borrowing the books I needed for my project with the Obelisks. I know you’re moving most of Sombra’s spellbooks to Canterlot for safekeeping, so I’ll have the Grimoire Fatalis delivered there when I’m done with it.

Thank you again for letting me make use of your libraries. In the face of so much knowledge and history, even the chore of helping to organize these books feels like an honor and an adventure. It certainly provides a pleasant break from the chores of Stalliongrad’s finances.

I wish you the best of luck in whatever you ultimately decide to do with all of these, now that they’re in sorted order.

Again, thank you,
-Predvidenie.

The starry void did not fade as abruptly this time. Mirror Image picked his princess out of the night sky, and wandered over to her, feeling the strange absence of a sensation beneath his hooves with every step. “So, uh, Princess… you and Rainbow Dash?”

Luna, deep in thought, spared only a terse answer without even looking his direction. “I do not follow.”

Image took a moment to gather his thoughts, before he said something stupid. “You two seemed to have a pretty close bond there, with the wings and all that.”

“Indeed. Amongst pegasi, such an embrace is a gift of comfort. And I consider myself to have a great bond with Rainbow, for her willingness to look beyond my past transgressions.”

Image groaned. “Okay, sure, Princess. But… how do I put this delicately?” He gave about three seconds of thought to the question before giving up. “She wants your horn.”

“I have no doubt there are many pegasi who would dream of being alicorns, but―”

Image slapped a hoof onto his forehead, and then immediately gasped at the pain of his own broken horn. “Alright, look, Princess. I have some experience with this sort of thing. I’m pretty good at reading other ponies; that would be no small part of why I have the job I do. So let me put this in language you will understand, o Princess of the Night.” Image made a show of clearing his throat, and continued with a much headier Trottingham accent than his usual suave tones.

“Come, night; come, Rainbow; come, thou day in night;
For thou wilt lie upon the wings of night
Whiter than new snow on a raven’s back.
Come, gentle night, come, loving, black-brow’d night,
Give me my Rainbow”

Luna turned a very peculiar shade of red, and shot an irate glare at her bodyguard. “How dare you, Officer? Do you think me too prudish to understand such metaphor? I have no intention of dallying with mortals; sister already suffered enough of such troubles for both of us. Now be silent, and let me focus.”

“Why are we so worried about Rainbow’s father anyway? Shouldn’t we be focusing on Krenn?”

Luna ignored the question, and her horn ignited. Before the pair, a visible crack opened in the sparkling sky. Behind it, fields of blurry wheat blended with faded, parchment-colored skies to form a watercolor landscape.

“What’s going on, Princess? Is something wrong?”

“He is… resisting me,” Luna answered, as the void snapped shut. “Perhaps he fears that it is a shade or a spell tinkering with his mind. I suppose we shall do this the hard way.”

Luna’s horn briefly sparked, and its spiral began to glow. With a sickening crack, a bolt of pure blue lightning flew out into the stars, and once more ripped open a path into the stallion’s dreamscape. This time, the tear grew wider and longer, wrapping around the void in both directions until it had consumed the stars, and only the world of blurry colors remained.

It was a farm, Image inferred, if it had been painted by Moneigh. The smudged face of a sturdy farmhouse of stone, capped by a thatched roof, was large enough to house a small family. It seemed not to be real, painted flat against the horizon and bleeding its colors slowly onto the marshy ground.

A painting of the sun slowly rose on the horizon, visibly moving and yet lacking the blinding brightness of the genuine article. Image watched it slide upward, until the whistling of a sword through thin air caught his attention.

“Get out of my mind!”

Luna recoiled behind an arcane shield as an unmistakable stallion clad in black armor lashed out at her with a sword and the blades covering the crests of his wings.

“Commander?”

It the pegasus heard Image’s cry, he did nothing to acknowledge it. Seeing that he had failed to break Luna’s shield, he spread his wings and lit them with a roaring blue flame. The smoke that followed was thick, dark, and blinding. The shadowy surface of Hurricane’s armor was gone in an instant, and soon so was the rest of the Commander’s dreamscape. Image hacked and coughed in the oppressive darkness, struggling to find his way and wondering whether he could be killed in a dream, or if he would just wake up. His vision dotted with stars and darkness, and even his curiosity was lost.

A large wing brushed against his side, and a gust of wind cleared a small sphere of the choking smoke, granting him a needed breath. Another of Luna’s shields wrapped around the Princess and her bodyguard, keeping out the Commander’s smoke, but also trapping them in place.

It took a moment of hacking for Image to regain a clear thought, and he would have to blame the lack of oxygen for its unfocused topic. “Wait… the Commander is Rainbow Dash’s dad?”

“Yes,” Luna replied through gritted teeth. “But ‘tis not the time, if you had not noticed.” Her horn grew brighter as she devoted more power to her shield. “Commander Lining, I do not know what it is that I have done to anger you, but I beg you to stop and listen to me. I―”

“You don’t know?” the stallion outside her shield roared, as the smoke grew ever thicker. Mirror Image felt his mane rise on end, and an uncomfortable memory from the depths of the Changeling Hive drew forward. He could picture the black stallion turning, his hind legs rising in the air, and the surge of power that flew from him He only had a moment.

“Princess, get down!” He lunged at her, and though her body was sturdier than his, the surprise of the force knocked her to her side. Had it not, the bolt of lightning that broke through her shield and seared the back of Image’s neck might instead have struck her squarely in the chest.

Her focus destroyed, Luna’s protective sphere peeled away. Image rolled away from her, falling onto the dirt on his back, and clutching his tender neck. From his place there on the ground, he saw a shadow in the smoke.

Slowly, the Commander approached―but in a sense, not the Commander that Mirror Image knew. He was a younger stallion, whose gray-blue coat was devoid of gray, and dark to the verge of being called black. His eyes were brighter, harsher, and more alive, carrying a magenta-red tone rather than the faded brown that Image had always known. The scars below his eye and on his lip were missing, and he walked evenly without his omnipresent limp,. Between his hind legs, sparks of blue and white lightning leapt between the gold-trimmed black greaves of Hurricane’s armor.

“Commander, stop!”

“Is that the best you can do?” he asked Luna, not even shifting his cruel eyes in Image’s direction. “I know what you can do with illusions; you’re wasting your time trying to lower my guard. Image wouldn’t stand with you; not after what you did to Loose Cannon.”

“Commander Lining, please.” Luna stood to her hooves, and approached the other stallion slowly. “Truly, I am not here to hurt you―”

“I’m not interested in your mind-games and lies, Luna. I’ve suffered enough without you haunting my dreams again. So leave now, or I’ll drive you out myself.”

“Listen to yourself, Commander!” Though she struggled to remain even, no small irritation leaked into Luna’s voice. “I do not haunt the dreams of my subjects, and even if I did, I know nothing of what you fear.”

“Princess, let me handle this.” Mirror Image paced up to the Commander, so close that the blade of Procellarum sticking out of the pegasus’ mouth was nearly drawing blood from his throat. “Commander, it’s really me, and I can prove it.”

“How?” the stallion snapped, speaking with perfect clarity despite the handle of the ancient sword in his mouth.

“Seven years ago, before Princess Luna returned, you brought me to a Wonderbolts show in Vanhoover. You told me we were there to pick up a new messenger for the Honor Guard, since we didn’t have Marathon yet.” The Commander’s gaze softened ever so slightly, but Image didn’t stop. “That’s where I met Loose. I wanted to take her back to Canterlot right away and treat her to dinner, but you insisted on staying through the whole thing. When we got back, Star and Deadeye and I had a good laugh at the idea you were some closet stunt-flying fan.”

Finally, the Commander’s brow rose. “You’re actually in my mind, Mirror? What are you doing here?”

Image laughed, and wrapped a hoof around his leader’s shoulders. The Commander accepted it without word, but he didn’t reciprocate the gesture. “Well, to be brutally honest, sir, I used a lot of magic protecting the Princess from some wyverns, on the way to Krennotets, and I passed out.” He tapped the split shaft of his horn. “You know how it is. Princess Luna came into my dreams to help ease the pain from it, and then she took me with her to visit other dreams. We were visiting Rainbow Dash when the Princess… sensed you?” Luna gave a curt nod, affirming Image’s understanding. “So we came here.”

“And broke into my dreams,” the Commander noted, with a clearly constrained anger in his tone. “Well, congratulations, Luna. You’ve finally finished the job.”

“What, pray tell, do you mean by that, guardspony?”

The Commander fell back on his haunches, and removed the helmet of Hurricane’s Armor. Beneath it, the tame and utterly gray mane that Mirror Image had known was a short but untamed mass of steel blue that rather resembled the modern tones of his coat. Neither time nor his work had been kind to the stallion, it seemed to Image. The pegasus’ shoulders rose and fell with a single slow breath, and then he finally found the strength to meet Luna’s gaze.

“You’ve killed me.”

Luna cocked her head in confusion, and then narrowed her eyes in offense. “You think I have any intention of seeing you harmed, Commander Lining? Even if I did, what could I have possibly done in visiting you to spell your demise?”

The stallion answered with a chilly gaze to match her own. “I am, right now, asleep in the company of a camel caravan in Suida, perhaps two days travel away from the border to San Palomino. I escaped from Khagan, and lost his pursuit. In five days, I would have been back in Canterlot. Instead, with the magic you used to break into my mind, you’ve told Khagan exactly where I am.” Casting his eyes to the ground, the Commander added his final thought. “At least he’ll kill me quickly this time.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Image asked. “Why don’t you just fly? You could be back in Canterlot tomorrow afternoon.”

Again, the Commander’s shoulders rose and fell with a terrible weight. “With what wings, Mirror?” The leader of the Honor Guard’s brow creased in focus, and before Image’s eyes, Hurricane’s armor rippled away. The vibrant, near-black blue of the stallion’s coat turned to the duller steely-blue that seemed familiar to his subordinate, and his mane was revealed beneath the helmet as a steel gray. Magenta eyes became brown, tired and bloodshot. The Commander’s wings folded back on themselves, twisting in an unnatural curve that made Image’s skin crawl until their crests pointed back toward his tail. The brutal burn scar that dominated his right flank reopened. An old puncture wound on his chest took up its usual divot. The little slits under his left eye and down the left side of his muzzle reemerged from beneath his coat. His left foreleg crumpled, gaining an unnatural bend in the middle of its femur that left it dangling uselessly at his side.

“How… what was that?”

“This is reality, as of this moment,” the Commander explained. “I’ll never fly again, and I can’t really run, but I can walk.”

Image winced. “I’m sorry, sir.”

Luna picked up with a positive tone. “In fact, Commander Lining, you are not so certainly doomed as you believe. One of your own, Dead Reckoning, suspected you had not met a final end as we believed. I was able to extract from Masquerade that you had been taken to Suida, and I dispatched a team to rescue you. Knowing that you are here, I can direct them to your aid.”

“For all the good my life would do anymore.” The pegasus turned his attention fully to Luna. “Let me speak to Mirror Image alone.”

“May I ask why?” Luna inquired.

“Because I am about to give him directions concerning the Honor Guard that I do not trust you with.”

Luna once again regained her irritation. “Why not? Are you not meant to serve me just as much as my sister?”

The Commander rose to his hooves and shook his head. “The Honor Guard was founded one thousand and nine years ago, Princess Luna. I think you can tell from that exactly what its intentions toward you were.” In a surprisingly instant transformation, he was once more his younger self, garbed fully in black armor. One of his pitch-toned wings wrapped over Image’s shoulders, guiding him toward the nearby fields of wheat.

Image shook off the feathered appendage. “Hold on, sir. I want a straight answer. Why do you hate her so much?”

The Commander took a single further step, his hind right leg suddenly jerking with the limp that he had previously ignored. Without moving his body, he twisted his neck to stare at Image with one eye. “After what she did to Loose Cannon, you honestly ask me that?”

Luna spoke with an obvious curiosity, glazed over a layer of muted anger. “You mention this so often, Commander; who is this Loose Cannon?”

Sparks appeared on the tips of the Commander’s wings, but Mirror Image’s quick words spared Luna his rage. “You call her Eldest Sister, Princess. She used to be one of us.”

“Don’t waste your time being gentle about it,” the Commander growled. “You killed her five years ago in Ponyville, Princess. And for five years, instead of letting her go to the reward she deserves, you’ve damned her to be your undead servant, in the company of the corpses of murderers and thieves you call your Night Guard. I would expect you to know that, if you had the courage to at least live with the guilt of what you did as Nightmare Moon. But of course, you dumped those memories in one of your magic crystals so that you could go forward, pretending that your actions didn’t have any real consequences.”

The Commander’s lips pursed into a little loop, and he whistled a few notes in a string Luna didn’t recognize. The golden lightning bolt in the center of the armor split cleanly in two, and the gilded pegasus wings flanking it folded together. A black hoof pulled the void-crystal plated armor open, revealing a small pocket, clutching tight around a tiny sapphire. “If we do ever recover my armor, you can have this back, and you’ll understand exactly why the Honor Guard will never answer to you.”

The silence in the air was unconquerable. Luna sucked in a slow sniffle, and tried to call to mind what Celestia had advised her when she dumped her agony into that little stone in the first place. In the midst of the Commander’s mind, all she could manage was to keep a straight face as the black stallion led her bodyguard away into the fields.

The faded memories of wheat parted like the watercolors they resembled, leading to a small green on which the Commander lay down, and gestured for Image to do the same. As the younger Honor Guard approached, his leader once again squinted in focus. The ancient armor of Commander Hurricane faded away into nothing, leaving behind what looked to all the world like another mere mortal stallion.

Mirror Image knew better.

“Where is this, sir?”

“This?” The Commander’s wing gestured to the surreal landscape, from the farmhouse to the glowing orange glow on the horizon. “This is where I grew up.”

“Hmm? I thought you grew up in Cloudsdale. Isn’t Councilor Lining your father?”

The Commander chuckled quietly to himself. “I wasn’t raised by Silver Lining. I didn’t even grow up in Cloudsdale.”

“Oh. I guess that explains a lot. But where is this?”

“Nowhere, now. It used to be a little town in… Zebrica.” The Commander’s hesitance did not go unnoticed by his unicorn companion, though nothing was said on the topic. “Not a hundred miles from Grivridge.”

“But the treaty line’s three hundred miles from… oh.” Image swallowed awkwardly. “The griffons destroyed it? In the war Deadeye lost his eye in, all those years ago? I didn’t realize you were that old, sir.”

“I’m older than I look, Mirror. Believe it or not, not all my gray hairs are from the job.” The Commander rolled his neck, releasing a trio of pops from his spine. “You said you and Luna are headed to Krennotets. Why?”

“Krenn wanted… something from us. He said Celestia took it, but he didn’t actually say what it was.”

“His hoard,” the Commander muttered. “I took it. You may as well turn around. The minute he has it, he’ll bring the dragons to bear on Equestria again. He won’t dare to actually act; I threatened to destroy it to end the Dragon Wars twenty years ago, and he’s kept in line since.”

“Wait, you know where it is?”

The Commander nodded. “There’s a magical bag, hidden in Burning Hearth―”

“We already have that,” Image interrupted. “It was empty. Can you tell us what we’re looking for?”

The Commander took a moment to think, and cast a glance back through the wheat in Luna’s direction before slowly shaking his head. “You would have to ask Krenn; I stole the whole bag; I didn’t care what his hoard was; only that it could serve as blackmail to stop the war. My advice would be to bluff that you can still destroy it.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work, even if we did have it; he threatened another war, sir.”

“It’s likely a hollow threat compared to what will happen if you give what he wants back. He’ll spin you a tale about his innocence in the Wars, but he was the one who started it. If you don’t keep some leverage over him, he’ll eventually move on Equestria again; he’s just as greedy as the rest of his race.”

Image held his tongue at the racism of the statement. “What happens if it isn’t a hollow threat?”

“Have the Elements of Harmony free Discord, and use him against the dragons; as ridiculous as it sounds, Baron Frostbite’s ‘Wall’ would serve as a good place to hold the line, if Discord’s magic could stop the snow for a few days. We’d simply have to endure Magnus and Valdria’s anger for freeing Discord, if it came to that. The Royal Guard is too weak to hold off the dragons these days. But I suppose that’s Soldier On’s problem now.”

Image winced; the Commander saw the motion clearly. “Sir, um… Soldier On didn’t take your place.”

“Why not?”

“She had something to do with the attempt on Princess Luna’s life; there are wanted posters for her everywhere.”

The Commander shook his head. “I don’t buy it, but it doesn’t matter. You’ll never catch her. Did Celestia bring Shining Armor up instead?”

“No… she was worried about Princess Luna, and Masquerade, so she brought in a Stalliongradian pony to take your place. A student of yours, if what he says is true.”

“Roscherk?” From the look of recognition on Image’s face, the Commander knew he had guessed correctly. The leader of the Honor Guard scowled. “Tell Celestia to get rid of him.”

“What? Why? Is he lying about Masquerade? He’s talked about how he knew you plenty of times since he took the position. He calls you ‘mentor’ and tells stories of the Blizzard Revolution, and how you were the one who taught him to run the guard there.”

“I taught him, Mirror, but he didn’t learn. There is a reason I never brought him on. He’s strong; probably more so than anypony else on the Honor Guard except Flag or On, but he’s also lazy.”

Image lifted a brow. “Lazy? I’d call him rude, sure. And maybe cruel if what I hear about Stalliongrad is true. But he seemed to have good discipline…”

The Commander shook his head. “That isn’t what I mean. For somepony like Roscherk, or myself, what do you think is easier: negotiating with some noble to get land for a new guard post at a reasonable price, or threatening his life to get the land for free?” Image didn’t need to give an answer, and the Commander didn’t wait for one. “You and I both know that sometimes circumstances require the second option. Roscherk is lazy because he takes the second option even when the first is still available.” The stallion coughed into his hoof; it was a dry, dusty noise that seemed to belie the youth of his body. “If Celestia won’t take Soldier On, and I don’t make it, you should take the position.”

“Me?” Image put a hoof on his chest in disbelief. “Uh, sir, what about Flag?”

“Treasonfang Pass,” was all the Commander needed to say. “Tell Celestia I said she was my only sunshine, and she’ll know the order came from me.”

“I… like the song? Isn’t that about somepony cheating?”

The Commander took a long breath, and let it ripple through his nostrils in a slow, painful whinny. “If I don’t make it back, Mirror, you’re also to tell her that I said to tell you everything. And you’re to tell her I said goodbye.”

It was a word with a decided finality to it. Mirror Image waited a good thirty seconds before moving his hooves to stand. The Commander turned slowly, with desperation in his eyes. “Wait. Please, Mirror.”

“Sir?”

“I don’t have any more commands or secrets to share, Mirror, but… you might be the last good pony I ever get to see in my life. If you can wait with me, at least until morning, it would mean a lot to me.”

Mirror lowered himself back to the grass and gave a single nod. “It would be my honor, sir. Can I ask you something?”

“There’s no harm in asking,” the Commander answered. “And you may not get another chance.”

“Are you really Rainbow Dash’s father?”

The Commander’s smile evaporated, leaving him as grim as he did before battle. “Who all knows that?”

Image shrugged. “Princess Luna. Rainbow Dash herself, of course. Her friends, I would assume… I don’t know who else, honestly. Why?”

“Under no circumstances are you to tell Celestia.”

Image’s brow rose. “What? Why?”

“I’m not going to answer that question, and you’ll be breaking your oath if you ever ask it again.” The Commander took a slow breath. “Yes, I’m Rainbow’s father. That’s a large part of why I don’t go by ‘Steel Lining’. I told her and Silver…” He swallowed slowly, took a breath, and started over. “I had Thunder and Star give them notice of my death after the Dragon Wars, and I just went by ‘Commander’ to keep the name from showing up in the papers. I was dead to them, and all the loose ends were tied up.”

“Then I was right.”

“Hmm?”

“When you insisted on staying at that Wonderbolts show, you didn’t care about the actual show at all. Rainbow was there, wasn’t she?”

The Commander looked away, and spoke three simple words. “Never tell her.”

The conversation was cut off when two halfway blurred figures and a more clear one emerged from the farmhouse through the creaky watercolor door. They wandered out into the fields, ignoring the two resting ponies and beginning to work on the fields.

“Pegasus farmers?” Image wondered aloud. “Is this from Zebrica too?”

“They’re family,” the Commander answered. His eyes flicked from the blurry midnight blue stallion with a crisp white mane to his wife of a darker but similar complexion. Only a younger mare, maybe sixteen, of brown coat and pitch black mane was crisp and clear.

The guardspony spoke with guilt in his voice. “I hardly remember them. Just… colors. Voices. Maybe a few little quirks.”

The stallion of the group stumbled on his way to his fields, unleashing a deep hacking cough into his leg. Even from a distance, Image could see specks of blood on the stallion’s blurry hoof.

“Was he alright?”

“The disease didn’t kill him,” the Commander answered. “The griffons did.”

“What about the mare? You seem to remember her a lot better.”

“She was my sister. She survived the griffons.”

“What happened to her?”

“She knew too much,” the Commander answered darkly. “And I wasn’t there.” He closed his eyes in focus again, and the family disappeared.

“I’m sorry.”

The stallion forced out a pitiful reply. “It was a long time ago. All we can do is live and learn. Magnus has been quiet for a long time, and no matter how kind he seems when he comes to Canterlot, he has the heart of a barbarian. I would be more worried of him than Krenn.”

The February sun rose slowly on powdered slopes and a roaring crowd. They were a sad mass of bundled-up young unicorns, who seemed almost as concerned with being noticed amongst one another as they were at shouting their protests toward the palace.

“We have the right to see the Princess!” one of the ponies in the group behind the glittering rainbow shield cried.

Another bellowed “End zebra oppression!”, waving a sign that depicted a broken ball-and-chain.

They were only two of a mass around three-hundred, by casual guess, that had gathered on the little strip of road leading up from Canterlot proper to the gates of the palace. It was snowing in Canterlot, which explained both the small size of the group and its abundance of scarves and boots. The protesters had stopped a few hundred yards shy of the drawbridge not by any desire or restraint of their own, but because a formation of four armored unicorns stood facing them, maintaining a wide, flat barrier of magic to hold them at bay.

Behind the four suits of gilded armor was one stallion clad in solid steel. The drab olive green crests of his wings were covered by thick rows of steel scales, and an officer’s sword hung from his shoulder. Thunder Crack’s heavy brow swept along the line of his soldiers, and he gritted his teeth.

“Great… just my luck.” He knew nopony could hear him over the chanting of the protestors, or he wouldn’t have said a word. In a way, he agreed with them, though duty and honor and a few other philosophical words were standing in his way.

“We’ve got airborne incoming, sir,” one of the guards on the line called to him.

Crack nodded, and then lifted his hoof six inches from the snow covering the road. When he slammed the hoof down, his Empatha took the form of his namesake. The noise was deafening, completely silencing the protesters.

“Alright, all of you, listen up! If you’re here to petition, come back tomorrow. Open court has been suspended for the arrival of the Emperor of Grivridge. Those of you here to protest his government can continue wasting your breath.” Crack looked up into the sky. “He isn’t gonna… who in Tartarus is that?”

“I don’t know, sir,” one of the guardsponies answered. “Pink pegasus… mare, I think. You want one of us to strengthen the overhead shield?”

“No,” Crack answered, before his eyes caught onto something else unique about the mare. “Actually, let her land; I’ve got it covered.”

With their orders, the conventional guardsponies turned back to the slightly dispersed crowd leaving Thunder Crack to watch what he had observed to be not a pegasus, but an alicorn.

“Princess Cadance?”

The ruler didn’t respond until her hooves were on the ground and she got a good look at the assembled mass. “Is something happening?”

Crack nodded. “Your aunt is hosting Emperor Magnus, the griffon ruler. We’re expecting him shortly. I’m going to assume you’re here to talk to her.”

“It’s urgent,” Cadance told the stallion.

“Changelings urgent, or Blueblood urgent?” When Cadance didn’t respond, Crack let out a light laugh. “Sorry, Princess; I’ll take you in with the griffons when they show up. And for the record, you have my condolences. Shining Armor was one of the best.”

There wasn’t anything else to say on the topic, which the alicorn made clear when she forcibly changed the subject. “Why is Magnus coming here?”

“He probably wants to see how far we’ve fallen after the attempt on Luna’s life. The griffons are vultures. No matter how many times you drive them off,” Crack’s eyes flitted up toward the sky, “or how many talons you cut off, they just keep watching and waiting.”

Cadance followed the stallion’s gaze up into the sky, where a mass of black and brown was descending from the decidedly white winter sky. Magnus was obvious simply by his enormity, and the pair of soldiers flanking him weren’t much harder to pick out. The breakneck pace the trio cut through the sky brought them forward in only a matter of seconds from their first appearance.

The protesters howled, shouted, and waved their signs as the five talons and six paws hit the ground. Cadance realized exactly what Thunder Crack had meant when one of Magnus’ escorts―a lean, grim brown griffon with a stump where his left hand should have been―wandered up to the Honor Guard. “It’s been a long time.”

Crack’s omnipresent glare furrowed deeper, and he stepped past the griffon. “Emperor Magnus, on behalf of Princess Celestia, I would like to welcome you to Canterlot.”

Cadance was stunned; never in her life had she heard a less welcoming welcome. Crack offered a bow, though it wasn’t long before his eyes were once again locked with Magnus’, and pointedly avoiding those of the the three-legged griffon.

“Thank you, pegasus.” Magnus boomed, his voice resonating enough to silence the protesters. He paid them no mind at all, and instead extended a talon in the direction of the griffoness still standing at his side. Without word, she produced a wide, flat wooden case with the support of both her wings. Magnus snatched it in a single claw and tucked it up into his armpit. “This is Naia Julia, my niece and frumentarius. She will handle our trade negotiations, if you will see her to your representative.”

Crack gave a curt nod, and then turned his neck to the line of guards. “Saber, take the griffoness to the Daybreak Lounge; Record Time should already be there.”

“But sir, the line―”

“Will be held,” Crack interrupted forcefully. “Go.”

“Of course, sir.” The unicorn stepped away from the magical barrier, and his yellow aura disappeared from its swirling colors. His three peers focused harder to pick up his slack. For her part, Naia silently followed her guide away.

“Now, shall we find Celestia?”

Crack nodded once, and spoke with a flat tone. “Emperor, Princess, if you will follow me.”

“Princess?” Magnus wondered aloud, as the group took the first steps toward the gates of the palace. “I do not believe we have had the pleasure of meeting, alicorn.” Inclining his head slightly, the titan passed the first doorway into the palace. “I am Magnus, called by many titles. The only one you would likely appreciate is Emperor of Grivridge.”

“A pleasure to meet you,” Cadance replied, with far more diplomacy and honesty in her words than Thunder Crack had managed. “I’ve heard of you, Emperor, but I am a bit in awe of your size.”

“Most ponies struggle to imagine any creature larger than little Celestia.” Magnus’ body shook with his light-hearted chuckle. “But I have just as much curiosity for you, little alicorn. Why do you share Celestia and Luna’s title? Are you one of their offspring?”

“That’s a… complicated question,” Cadance answered. “Well, to begin, I’m Princess Cadance of the Crystal Empire.”

“Would that not make you Empress Cadance?”

Cadance scowled only subtly, but another voice rejoined the conversation. “It would seem she isn’t fond of that title, Emperor.”

“Ponies in general dislike it, Gaius. That is most likely my fault. Forgive my bodyguard’s intrusion. You were saying, Princess?”

The low hallways of the palace gave way to airy spires and halls of stained glass glimmering just as much from frost as from sunlight. Though the decorations were impressive, Magnus kept his attention on Cadance.

“Well, to be honest, I can’t really tell you whether or not I’m descended from Princess Celestia because I don’t know myself. I’m part of what we call ‘the Line of Platinum’: a line of nobles that dates back to before the founding of Equestria. Traditionally, the story goes that Princess Celestia started it, but she doesn’t like to talk about the subject.”

“Ah, Celestia and her secrets. One would think that would be Luna’s domain, given her talent with shadows. Perhaps that is what I shall bet her today.”

“Bet her?” Gaius asked. “Emperor, what do you mean?”

Magnus answered his subordinate with disinterest. “Just a little game we play. Not a matter of politics or war.”

Thunder Crack stopped abruptly at a pair of slender doors. “This is where we stop, Gaius. Emperor, Princess, we’ve arrived.” His wings wrapped around a pair of wide golden rings, and with a mighty tug, the doors were opened.

“A cozy little place you have here, Celestia,” Magnus noted, taking in her personal quarters. The wide, round room contained two large cushions, a few end-tables with wine, salad, and an enormous bowl of seasoned raw meat that made Cadance’s stomach twist. Sensing her discomfort, Magnus proffered the bowl in a massive claw. “Hungry, Princess? I have to say, I’m grateful your cooks were willing to work with what I provided.” Atop one of the cushions, Celestia regarded the doorway with the same even expression that seemed as constant as the marble of the castle itself. A roaring fire popped and cracked in the fireplace behind her, framing her features in gold and orange.

“Hello, Magnus. Cadance, I have to admit I wasn’t expecting you as well. Come in, friends, and let us speak.”

“Take the cushion,” Magnus noted to Cadance, before extending one of his enormous wings. In a swirl of wind, a cloud that matched his unruly proportions came into being opposite Celestia. Without actually stepping onto his newly made seat, however, Magnus addressed Celestia. “Before I forget, I brought what you asked, Celestia. The last set I could dig up, too.” He accompanied the words by hefting the case off his back, casually despite its size and obvious weight,

Wooden hinges creaked and groaned as Gaius and Thunder Crack squeezed into the room for a look. A small puff of dust escaped the case, spilling over the floor of Celestia’s bedroom. When it cleared, the contents of the chest were revealed. A single set of dusty, broken black armor lay in the center of the chest, trimmed in gold. To an Honor Guard, it was unmistakable.

Thunder Crack’s sword was halfway out of its sheathe when an aura of golden magic wrapped around its blade to hold it in place. “Where did you get that?” the guardstallion demanded. “Did you kill the Commander?”

“Quite possibly,” Magnus replied sarcastically. “Is your commander a Cirran legionary of old? Was he born ten thousand years ago, perhaps? And did he walk away from the wounds that split this armor open? This came out of the ground of my home a mere week ago, where it had been laying since your ancestors left it there, pegasus. You would do well to sheathe your sword, or perhaps in another ten millennia, it will be your armor I place in this box.”

There was a little whistle of steel as Crack’s saber slid back into its sheath, at which point he turned away from Magnus and strode out of the room. “Forgive me.”

“Leave us, Gaius,” Magnus muttered.

The three-legged griffon limped out of the room after Crack. Only a moment after the puff on his tail had passed the chamber’s threshold, a sudden gust of wind slammed the doors shut. “Much better. It seems your subordinate has a certain spite for griffons, Celestia.”

“Thunder Crack was involved in our… border dispute. Twelve years ago.”

“We fought that recently?” The emperor cocked his head. “No, that can’t be right. I’m certain the last time we were at war was at least half a century ago.”

Celestia took a slow breath―Cadance knew to interpret it akin to the twitch of annoyance that might irritate an eyelid on a less controlled face―and responded calmly. “My ponies hold the zebras in high enough regard to remember these sorts of things. But we shouldn’t split feathers over the past. Cadance, are you here because of Magnus?”

“Unfortunately not, Aunt Celestia.” Cadance’s eyes briefly flicked to the gigantic griffon in the room before continuing. “I’m here because of Shining.”

Celestia’s metaphorical mask shattered with a visible wince. “Cadance, I’m so sorry…”

“I know. You told me so when I found out. Recently, I was thinking about your request regarding Rainbow Dash.”

To Cadance’s surprise, Magnus reacted to the name. “The one you sent to me a few months past? She was quite knowledgeable about griffons, for a pony. Was she the one who saved Luna?”

Celestia nodded. “Yes, Magnus. She’s the new Bearer of Loyalty.”

“Fitting that she should save Luna, then. Who would I be turning to if I needed aid?”

Celestia’s mouth turned up just a touch at the corners, though there was still a sadness and a guilt to the rest of her face. “Fluttershy. Another pegasus.” Cadance’s eyes traced from Celestia to Magnus and back again as her mind raced. The other alicorn took notice of her confusion. “Yes, Cadance, there was a time when Magnus and Luna and I bore the Elements of Harmony, alongside Lord Krenn and Lady Valdria.”

A look of realization settled over Cadance. “And the boar ruler?”

“Bah, Khagan isn’t one of us. He’s barely three thousand years old; just a little runt. There are mortal dragons older than him.”

“What happened to the original boar, then?” Cadance pressed.

Celestia shook her head. “Our sixth friend wasn’t a boar at all, or any creature you would have heard of. She was our leader. In revenge for stripping him of his powers over the world, Discord banished her, and her entire species, to another world.” There was a short silence in the room, punctuated only by the fireplace, before the alicorn concluded her thoughts. “I would rather not talk about it anymore, Cadance. You were saying, on the topic of Rainbow Dash?”

The Crystal Princess turned her attention to the fireplace as she continued. “I… did some research on the magic you talked about.” Her hesitance lasted only a moment, before turning into resolve. “I want to borrow the Grimoire Fatalis.”

Magnus, who had been sipping from a giant goblet of red wine, struggled to keep his drink in his beak as he began to laugh. “The Deadly Book? What would possess you to name something like that? And in Cirran, no less.”

“It’s a spellbook, Magnus. And it was named in that language for a very particular reason. Cadance―” Celestia spared herself another long slow breath. “―every time I have used that spell, I have come to regret it. It isn’t the kindness that your mind might assume. If you want to discuss the subject further, we can do so at a later time. For now, I need to attend to Magnus. If you find Record Time, I’m certain he can arrange a room for you, if you would prefer not to stay with…” Ever the diplomat, Celestia caught her oncoming word before it left her tongue. “...Twilight’s family.”

“Oh, don’t send her off,” Magnus grumbled, finally climbing onto his cloud. “I have so many questions for her. She tells me she might be your offspring. I would like to know if it is true.”

Celestia’s hoof moved toward her creased brow. “That is not a topic I seek to discuss with you in particular, Magnus.”

“Then that is what I shall ask for my reward in our game.”

The creases on Celestia’s brow disappeared. “That’s a high price, Magnus. I may have to ask a lot in return.”

“It’s knowledge of the past, and I already know that you took a single mortal mate some eight thousand years ago. And the simple fact that you hesitated instead of telling me outright gives me half the answer already. If I win, you will tell me the whole story.”

“Very well.” Celestia’s horn ignited, and a rather large checkerboard table floated into the center of the room from its place against the wall. “If I win, I want you to tell me what happened at the end of the Red Cloud War.”

Though Cadance didn’t recognize the name, Magnus visibly winced. “Very well. You may set the pieces.”

Cadance watched as Celestia’s magic summoned a full chess set of brightly colored figurines. Rather than the usual faceless tokens, the set took the form of an array of griffons, staring down a mass of ponies. A little token of Magnus served as his own king, while Celestia sat in that place on her own side. Cadance could pick out a few of the pieces on her side of the board, though they nearly all came from tapestries or paintings, rather than personal experience. Luna was the queen, and at her side stood Starswirl the Bearded. The king-side knight took a form that could only be Commander Hurricane, and his counterpart was a vibrant purple mare clad in what her mind labeled her husband’s armor, despite the knowledge that it vastly predated him.

Before she could try her memory of ancient history any further, Celestia lifted Commander Hurricane and moved him forward, placing him in front of her Royal Guard pawns and a robed unicorn bishop Cadance didn’t recognize. It was the first in a series of moves that Cadance could barely follow; barely a second’s thought passed between Celestia’s placement of a piece and Magnus’ response. In a matter of less than a minute, Celestia had three of Magnus’ pawns and a knight, at the cost of Starswirl and a pawn of her own.

The longest pause in the game came when Celestia broke a slight smile. “There’s your mistake, Magnus.”

“I don’t see what you’re talking about, Celestia.”

Commander Hurricane slid backward from the griffon line, taking up a position that threatened both Magnus and his queen (a blindfolded grifoness). “A king-queen fork, Magnus. Check.”

Magnus scowled, and scratched a talon along his chin. “Yes, I see that.”

The little stone Magnus stepped backward diagonally, and Celestia answered by taking the griffon queen. Magnus released a quiet, leonine growl, and slid a rook forward. The pony ruler responded by sliding Luna across the board. “Check again. Four to mate.”

Magnus’s eyes widened, and he took a moment to survey the board. “Impressive, Celestia.” He slid himself backward again.

Luna darted forward. “Check.”

Magnus slid a knight into line with Celestia’s attack. Only a single square away from his king, the armored griffon wasn’t worth the trade of a queen. Instead, Celestia pushed a pawn at the far side of the board forward. It would take only one more turn to reach Magnus’ rear line and be promoted. She had the time to wait. Magnus was pinned.

The griffon ruler in the flesh grabbed one of his rooks, as Celestia was expecting; it would buy him time, but nothing more, hounding off Hurricane. To her surprise, however, it didn’t go for her knight at all. Instead, Magnus talon thrust across the board, using the lane that Luna had left behind. The rook was placed one row ahead of Celestia’s own piece, cutting off its escape but leaving it unthreatened for the moment. “You were close, Celestia.”

“How so?” Celestia asked, sliding her pawn forward. In a burst of her magic, it became the likeness of a jade green alicorn, glittering like a crystal pony. Cadance could have sworn she’d seen the mare before in some history book or painting, yet her mind couldn’t call forth a name.

Magnus’ talon clenched down on his other rook. “It only took me three moves.” With a brutal finality, he slid his open rook completely down the board, ignoring Celestia’s more numerous remaining pieces and parking in line with her own figurine. “Checkmate.”

“What? But how…” Celestia stared over to the side of the board, where she’d piled up Magnus’ bishops, pawns, his queen, and one of his knights. In contrast, he’d barely touched her army. Yet when she looked at the board, she realized exactly what he’d been doing the entire game.

“Now, I believe I have won the right to hear a story. Unless your honesty holds no more weight.”

Celestia’s face grew weary as her horn ignited. Her magic sealed over the door of the room. “A silencing spell,” she explained. “What I tell you, Cadance, is not to leave this room.” Her wings twitched idly as she adjusted herself on her cushion, and for just a moment she spared herself a wistful glance into the fireplace behind her. “There was a time when Luna and I distanced ourselves from other ponies; we had no desire to rule, or be worshipped, or to be blamed or praised for events we had no influence over. When all ponies still lived in the Low Valleys, near modern-day Stalliongrad, we flew west and made our home amongst the caverns of this mountain. We passed millennia this way, sharing our company only with you, Magnus, and with Krenn and Valdria.”

“How long ago was this?” Cadance asked.

“I… honestly do not know how long we avoided other ponies. I know with certainty, though, that it ended eight thousand years ago. He was the first stallion I had met since we left the other ponies behind; maybe that was part of what I saw in him. I think much of it was the way he accepted myself and Luna as ponies, when others still wanted us to be gods. It wasn’t love at first sight, but at the same time, it didn’t take long. We were both lonely, and we found ourselves spending so much time together, as we struggled to build up Equestria into a real nation.”

“What was his name?” Cadance pressed.

Celestia’s horn lifted her knight off the chessboard, rotating the stallion in place. “Hurricane.”

A fountain of red wine spurted from Magnus’ beak, and was only kept from staining Celestia’s coat by a quick golden shield in the air between them. “Hurricane? The Cirran Emperor?”

Celestia nodded. “I won’t claim he spoke highly of you, Magnus.”

Magnus laughed, replying with no slight sarcasm. “I can’t imagine why not.”

“Are we talking about the same Hurricane here?” Cadance asked. “Commander Hurricane? From the Hearth’s Warming pageant?”

Celestia gave another nod. Magnus twisted his avian head. “You have a pageant about Emperor Hurricane?”

“He called himself ‘Commander’ after the Red Cloud War,” Celestia explained. “He felt it was better to separate what was left from the legacy of the Cirra you destroyed. And yes, for his part in founding Equestria, he is featured in the Hearth’s Warming Eve pageant we perform each winter.”

“I take it something happened with you before then, Emperor Magnus?” Cadance pressed, finally reaching her cushion beside the fireplace. “You were in a war?”

“Indeed,” Magnus answered, with a prideful smile. “I have lead many. But never one like that. For millennia leading up to those days, my kind had fought the Cirran Empire; at times, I would let one of my chosen warlords lead a battle against them, but time and again they failed. In a sense, I was rooting for the Cirrans; with every hard-fought victory, they taught me lessons in war that no other empire in the history of the world has mastered. Yet slowly but surely, they locked down upon my people, and there came a day when I was forced to take to the battlefield and the command table myself. Hurricane began the war as little more than a petty soldier, but he ended it as my rival.” Magnus looked down at the chess board. “His leaders played much like you did, Celestia. I hid my numbers, and their leaders underestimated me.”

Cadance had to note that the griffon seemed almost wistful in his recollections. Unlike the predatory glee he’d shown in defeating Celestia at chess, his face in that moment reflected a sort of nostalgia. “He left something to be desired as a personal foe, though at the time pegasi knew nothing of their magic beyond flight. And, in his own way, he beat me. I had intended to wipe their entire civilization from the face of the Earth, yet he led his people across the sea and saved them. I only wish he had the gall to face me and die nobly, instead of leaving his friend to hold my attention.” A haunted look passed over Magnus’ otherwise happy face. “Silver Sword; now there is a name burned into my memory.”

Celestia’s brow rose, though she again held her tongue on Magnus’ topic. “After the first Hearth’s Warming Day, he found us here on the mountaintop. I’ll glaze over a tale of our romance for your sake, Magnus. He had lost his wife…” Celestia’s voice trailed off as she realized just what she had said in front of Cadance. “Some years later, I bore him a foal; a little filly we named Gale in honor of his father.”

Magnus broke out into a laugh and collapsed backward on his cushion. “You named your child after Thunder Gale?”

“You knew him?” Celestia asked.

“I crippled him,” Magnus answered with a sickening pride. “At one of the battles of Nimbus, if memory serves. There were so many battles there; they all run together after all the centuries. Half-decent soldier, I think. Honestly, I only remember him because of Hurricane.”

“Why do you care so much about Hurricane, if you destroyed his Empire?” Cadance asked the giant griffon.

“Because he was the best foe I ever had the pleasure of fighting. Not claw to… well, to hoof in his case; I mean as another leader. He inherited a war that was already lost; any other pony would have given up or broken. He fought me, with such intensity that I didn’t even notice his plan until it was too late. He left his legions behind to hold my attention, and fled with his civilians. He lost his empire, but he saved his people. Certainly not the strongest, or the most dangerous of my rivals, but without question the most entertaining; he did things with a half-dead mass of conscripts in those days that Krenn could never equal with a thousand dragons, nor Luna with her armies of corpses.”

Celestia flinched. “I can attest to to his skill, Magnus, but that’s beside the point of the question you asked. It’s through Gale that I am related to Cadance, and Blueblood, and countless other ponies.”

Cadance cocked her head subtly. “I don’t recall anypony by the name of ‘Gale’ in the Line of Platinum.”

A small chuckle escaped Celestia’s lips in response. “That’s because she didn’t go down in history as ‘Gale’. In those days, both the pegasi and the unicorns included Luna and I in their pantheons of gods.”

“And rightly so.”

“I disagree,” Celestia muttered. “But regardless, there would have been… repercussions if the public of that early Equestria knew that Hurricane and I had borne a foal. So, with a little help from another character in our pageant, we crafted a different story. The name you would know Gale by, Cadance, is Princess Platinum the Third.”

“What?” Cadance’s mouth dropped open. “You mean… the line of Platinum…”

“Doesn’t actually have anypony named Platinum in it?” Celestia nodded. “One of the little ironies ancient politics plays on the modern day. But now you know why there was never a Platinum the Fourth. When Hurricane died, it was one of the worst feelings I’d ever experienced. And when Gale went to join him...” Celestia’s wings heaved with a deep breath, but it didn’t seem to restore much of her composure. “I’m sorry, Magnus; we’ll have to have our talks later in the evening. If you tell Thunder Crack, he can take you to your quarters. Cadance, give me just a moment to think. Then there is something I would like to show you.”

Mirror Image awoke with a surprising warmth across his body, given the fact that his surroundings appeared to be an ice cave. The crag was no more than eight feet long, and only a third as wide. At its only exit, Princess Luna sat with her back facing her bodyguard, her head hung low.

Image took a moment to stand up, and felt the flow of warm fur covering his body. He cast a glance back and found himself garbed in a dark gray cloak he didn’t recall Luna packing.

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Luna whispered, only audible in the total silence.

Image walked up toward her and took a seat at her side staring out at the white and gray landscape, broken only by a steep cliff wall of blue ice. “I honestly thought you knew,” Image answered. “Didn’t you ever ask her?”

“Of course!” Luna snapped. “I… well, the truth is that she was the one who offered to stay. There is a great deal to this story you may not understand, Officer.”

“You can call me Mirror, Princess.”

“Oh. Of course. Mirror.” Luna took a few seconds to consolidate her thoughts. “I shall endeavor to hold nothing back from you, Mirror. What Commander Lining said is true; at Celestia’s guidance, I cast aside my memories of the Nightmare. My first memory since my banishment is standing with the Bearers and my sister in the old castle. It wasn’t until we returned to Ponyville that Commander Lining approached me. He tried to kill me, and it was only Celestia’s presence that stopped him.”

“Some ponies never change.”

Luna seemed surprised at her behavior a moment after she released a chuckle. “I suppose not, Mirror. As I was saying, he insisted that I free the soul I had captured. I didn’t know her name; but when they led me down into the basement of the Ponyville town hall, she wasn’t as hostile as the Commander or the other Honor Guard. I told her I was going to let her go to the Summer Lands, but she protested. She said she wanted to stay, even if it meant being a thestral.”

Image cocked his head. “The Commander always said you’d forced her. That the Night Guard thestral things didn’t have free will, and that you just made her say that.”

Luna shook her head. “There was a time when I might have done such a thing; it is within the capabilities of the spell that creates a thestral. But I would never do such a thing to a soul as kind as hers.” The princess of the night hung her head. “I told her that I could not spare the magic to support her unless she served on my Night Guard; she agreed. I told her what that oath entailed.”

“What does it mean? You called them thestrals? I assume that’s a ‘Night Guard’, right?”

Luna nodded. “I know Celestia frowns upon the subject, so I expect that your education would include little knowledge of necromancy. I do not believe that any magic is itself good or evil, but I will admit that necromancy is most often used for darker ends. In any case, most undead are souls trapped in dead bodies, suffering in mindless hunger and obedience to their creators. That is the result of using only Arcana to drag a soul back from its place of rest… or torment. But if one can wield Empatha and Endura as well, much more can be done. Thestrals are the pinnacle of this practice: intelligent, and free-willed, yet controllable.”

Mirror Image’s expression did not seem delighted by the description. His rich blue eyes dragged away from hers to stare out into the snow. “So that’s what they are to you? Tools?”

Luna shook her head. “No, Mirror. Not at all. The Night Guard are my chance to give redemption to others. As you know, Celestia and I judge the souls of dead ponies, guiding them to their reward or punishment. I won’t comment on my sister’s philosophy, but I am sensitive to the plight of those ponies who lived their lives in darkness before struggling to earn forgiveness, and those who committed cruelties in the interest of a greater good. Rather than damning such rare ponies, I offer them a chance: one hundred years of service on my Night Guard.”

Image nodded. “So that’s what the Commander meant, about murderers and thieves.”

“I would assume. If he knows that, he must also know of the costs. I call this ‘Loose Cannon’ by the name Eldest Sister because I forbid the Night Guard from keeping ties to their past lives.”

“I guess that makes sense, given what you know about who they used to be.” Image tightened the cloak over his shoulders. “But Loose Cannon never did anything wrong.”

“I gave her the title of Eldest because I trusted her, but I did not want her to set a bad example for her subordinates. But that is only the least of the prices paid to serve in the Night Guard.” Luna closed her eyes and tilted her head back toward the dark cloudy sky outside their little crag. “Like all undead, my thestrals must feed on the freshly dead flesh of their own kind.” Image winced at her revelation. “I wish it weren’t so, but even Mortal Coil could not spare us that need. Thankfully, such hunger most often comes but once a year. Secondly, a thestral must gain mana from their creator every few days; a need just as great as water or food for a living pony. I project my magic off the moon, so all my Night Guard need do is find a place with a clear view of the sky each night, or come into my presence directly.”

“Would this sky work?” Image asked, gesturing to the cloud mass above them.

Luna shook her head. “No. It must be truly clear. Stalliongrad is a dangerous place for my guard. They would need to go somewhere like the high towers of the castles in Burning Hearth or Trotsylvania to reach above the storm clouds. Each day that passes weakens the thestral; about three days is lethal.”

The unicorn’s head cocked like a curious dog. “Can you even kill them? Aren’t they already…”

“If you destroy the body’s ability to contain a soul, the spell will be ended. They are hardier than mortal ponies, yes, but not truly immortal. And should they die, their soul is sent neither to Tartarus nor the Summer Lands.”

“What? But where else could it go?”

“Like all who are brought back from the dead, the soul is left to wander the world, slowly going mad from loneliness and powerlessness. Over years and decades, such a spirit is warped by its memories and environment until it becomes any of a number of horrible creatures. A windigo, for example, or a shade, or even a draconequus.”

Image’s jaw dropped. “So Discord is actually―”

“I do not know; he is far older than I. He will gladly speak on the subject, but he does not tell the same story twice. Luna shook her head. “There are other prices, but none so major.”

“Why did Loose agree to all of that? Did she tell you?”

Luna shook her head. “She asked for one reprieve. While she agreed to go by the name of Eldest Sister, she wanted the right not to break off completely from her former life. In particular, she mentioned a stallion whom she loved. I saw no reason not to oblige her, as she would be living in the palace with the Honor Guard regardless, and―Mirror?”

The unicorn walked out of the crag, keeping his face away from Luna’s. “Let’s go. Where’s Eldest Sister?”

“Is something wrong, Mirror?”

“I’m cold enough to be looking forward to seeing Krennotets,” the stallion growled. “And I don’t know where we are. Otherwise, I am fine.”

“We’re in the pass you pointed to before you passed out.” Luna whistled a shrill cry once, which echoed through the storm. “And you’re wearing most of Eldest Sister.”

Before Image could process the thought, a trio of bats fell out of the sky like inkblots, darting into the cape in his back. All at once it came alive, and he only narrowly escaped releasing an entirely unmasculine scream. Loose Cannon once more took a pony’s shape and stepped away from the unicorn. “Ooh, I’m all toasty and warm. Thanks for keeping me company, Mirror.”

He didn’t answer. With disappointment in her slitted eyes, the thestral turned to face her creator. “The rest of the pass is clear. Just a lot of charred bones and ice, up to where the pass opens up and starts sloping down.”

“Charred bones?” Mirror Image’s head swiveled like a hound on the scent. “We need to hurry. I don’t like this.”

“Why?” Luna asked. “Is there something wrong?”

“This is Treasonfang Pass,” Image muttered. “Just because you didn’t see anything doesn’t mean it’ll stay clear for long. We need to move.”

There wasn’t any room for protest before the unicorn took off, leading the two winged ponies to chase after him through the snow and the ash.

A fourth shadow on the wall watched them, before its toothy maw twisted into a caricature of a smile.

“Aunt, you aren’t taking me to the library.” Cadance’s words could not have been any more obvious than they were as Celestia’s hooves entered the palace hedge maze.

For her part, the elder alicorn shook her head. “I’m glad your eyes are working, Cadance. I know why you are interested in the Grimoire Fatalis, and there is somepony I would like you to meet before you continue down your path toward that choice.”

“In the maze?” Cadance looked down a few side passages that Celestia ignored, before scampering to keep up with her ancestor’s longer stride. “Do you mean Discord?”

Celestia shook her head. “He doesn’t much like the hedges; we passed him on the way in. No, I want you to meet a pony.” The towering mare rounded a corner, stopped suddenly, and extended a wing directly forward. “Cadance, I’d like you to meet Mortal Coil.”

The stallion was pale marble, standing on a plinth a foot and a half above the ground. He couldn’t have been more than Cadance’s age, with a strong chin and cunning in his cold stone eyes. Though the horn that stood on his brow was longer than one could find on most unicorns, his back was barren of wings. Instead, he wore a short surcoat with a raised collar, covering a slim but fit young body. Overall, he was handsome, though not the equal of Shining Armor…

Cadance winced, took a slow breath, and glanced to her aunt. “Who was he?”

“There was a time when, much like Twilight, he was my student.” Celestia’s words rung of regret. “Then he was my court archmage. Some would call him the father of the art of necromancy, but when we last parted, I knew him as my son in law.”

“Is this actually… is he a real pony? Or just a statue?”

“Neither, in a sense.” Celestia’s magic wrapped around her gilded peytral, and from somewhere within, she produced a small shard of jagged black crystal. “This should explain things for you.”

Before Cadance could ask for an explanation, a beam of light shot from Celestia’s horn, engulfing the crystal. It disappeared with a sound like glass shattering, and round where it had been, the world turned from grass and dirt to gray stone, flickering in the light of grayscale torches. On a stone plinth in the center of the figment lay a mutilated corpse that could only be identified as a pegasus by the muscled masses that had once been wings sticking out of its sides.

Mortal Coil was the first living pony to enter the scene; he looked nearly identical to his statue, save that his short-tailed jacket was a pitch black, and that he wore a peculiarly large amulet of silver, in the shape of a shield. His horn lifted a bowl of something that glittered like silver dust or gems; without color, it was hard to tell for sure. He spread the substance in a wide square around the body, and then took up a position near the unfortunate pony’s head. There, he levitated a heavy book from somewhere else in the room, and began to work magic in silence.

“What are you doing?” Celestia’s voice was unmistakable despite the interference of the magic. She charged into view a moment after her words to Mortal Coil, wearing a tired mortal pink mane and with bags beneath her eyes. “Stop this, Morty!”

“Why? I can bring him back, Princess.” His voice, resolved and demanding, was warped by the magic recording it from ages past. “All of the sigil forms work out; all of the tests were perfect. It’s no different than a phoenix. And with your help, I won’t even need all the complication of transmuting my Arcana into the other forms.”

“Morty, listen to me. I understand that you’re troubled after what happened; I think everypony is. But Hurricane earned his rest, and we have to let him go. He’s in a better place now.”

The unicorn walked up to what could only be Commander Hurricane’s body, staring at the flayed flesh and the exposed bones. “And you would want him back, Princess? Your immortal lover, standing by your side through the ages?”

Celestia snapped. “Don’t you dare, Mortal Coil! Do you think I’m happy now? Do you think I don’t want to have him back? But I never would have expected you of all ponies to say something like that.”

“I can do it. Not just bring him back; he’d be as timeless as you.”

“So he could watch Gale, and Typhoon and Cyclone die? Do you understand what you’re saying, Morty? This isn’t right!”

“It’s what’s right for Equestria, Princess, and it’s what’s right for you.”

“Stop it!” Celestia shouted. “He’s not some rat or dog you can play with in your study, Morty! Don’t do this to him! You’d hurt him!”

The young unicorn wandered around the plinth. His foreleg moved to wrap over Celestia’s shoulders, only to realize that he couldn’t reach. Instead, he placed a hoof on her shoulder tenderly, drawing her eyes to match his. “I never claimed he was a test subject, Celestia. No matter our differences, I would never say something that. But I can see what’s happening in Equestria, and I know you can too, if you can bring yourself to look. Equestria still needs him. Gale still needs him. Tartarus, you still need him, whether you want to admit it or not.” Coil’s hoof came away from Celestia’s shoulder, and he stepped toward the body once more. “A ‘better place’ might be an easy, comfortable lie, but it’s still a lie. So, as your student, and as your court archmage, I am going to do what’s best for Equestria.”

Coil’s magic started before Celestia could even process his final sentence. The square he’d drawn on the flow crackled as an enormous mass of mana gathered around his horn; Cadance had only ever seen Twilight gather so much power at once. The amulet around his neck also began to glow, floating up away from his neck.

“Stop this now, Coil! What if you hurt him? You have no idea what this could do to his soul!”

“Actually, Princess, I do.” Coil smiled, and continued his spell, right up to the moment that Celestia’s magic slammed into his side. Though he was thrown a good four feet onto the stone floor, his magic barely wavered. “Let me do this, Celestia!”

“I can’t, Morty. I can’t take let you risk him, and I won’t let you hurt him.” Instead of assaulting the mortal unicorn, Celestia’s magic reached for his medallion.

“No, Princess, wait―”

The chain holding it around his neck snapped, and in the same second, the mana around his horn exploded. There was a terrible screech from the air somewhere, and Mortal Coil’s eyes rolled back in his skull, leaving him to collapse on his side. Cadance could see him breathing, though she wasn’t sure how long that would last.

“Morty!” Celestia shouted, rushing up to his side, as if the damage had not already been done. The alicorn wrapped her student’s amulet around his neck, but his body remained still. Blasts of magic struck his breast, shaking his body but failing to revive him. Cadance’s unpleasant suspicions of the story’s end were only strengthened when the image disappeared.

The real Celestia, whose mane still shimmered in an unfelt breeze, lifted the crystal back into her golden peytral, and then turned to stare at the statue of Mortal Coil. “That was the first time I learned what the cost of my student’s spell really was.”

“You mean what you said about outliving Gale? Who were the others―Cyclone and Typhoon, he said?”

The ruler of Equestria stared up between the hedges to the sky overhead. “Commander Hurricane’s other children, from his first marriage. You might know recognize Tsyklon’s name if I pronounce another way.”

“The founder of Stalliongrad?”

Celestia chuckled a little. “In a way, yes; Twilight can tell you his story if you are curious. Typhoon doesn’t have quite the same fame to her legacy, though she has just as much claim to the Royal Guard as her father and her younger sister. She made an enemy of Luna, and I am sorry to say that she did not see eye to eye with me either, in her later years.” Celestia sighed and shook her head. “But all that amounts to nothing more than the memories of lifetimes past. I think you misunderstood the point of my image there. Hurricane wasn’t the subject of the spell.”

“I’m not sure I follow,” Cadance noted. “Was the body on the table somepony else, then?”

Celestia shook her head. “No, that was… that was what was left of Hurricane. But I prevented Coil from casting his spell in that room. What I hadn’t realized was that it would have been the second time the spell was cast. Mortal Coil hadn’t simply tested his magic on an animal, or in theory. He’d tested it on himself.”

Cadance stared up at the statue. “Wouldn’t he have already needed to be dead? And why would he die when you stopped his magic? What happened?”

“His locket,” The elder alicorn explained. “It was how he managed to test his spell in the first place: in effect, it had cast the spell. But when I tampered with its magic, the spell ended. Morty was always overconfident in his magic, and in the end it cost him everything. He didn’t truly die; his body lived on. But the magic that had tied it to his soul was gone. All he left was a comatose body.” Celestia tapped the ‘statue’ with a hoof as she continued. “I saved that, in the hopes that one day, I might find where his soul had gone. But after eight thousand years, I fear he has just as likely become some spirit or monster. That is what I want you to understand, beyond all question of whether or not it is right to raise Shining Armor: the risk that he would be lost forever.”

The princess of love swallowed slowly. “I see. But if all that is true, why did you do use the spell on Rainbow Dash?”

Guilt rushed over Celestia’s expression like a wave. “I acted selfishly, in desperation not to lose Luna. I was terrified that I would be alone, again. And even then, I knew enough of what I was doing to know that it would be wrong to keep her in this world very long. I raised her so that I could ask her about Masquerade, thinking she might know something of help. I had intended to end the spell and guide her back to the Summer Lands then and there… but when she offered to protect Luna, I couldn’t shake the thought that she might actually be the one to save her. I was right, but what I did was still wrong. I’ve made peace with the fact that I will likely never regain her trust.” A long white neck hung toward the ground by the end of Celestia’s thoughts. “I do not mean to linger on such topics, but until Twilight or Commander Ink locate a body, it is a moot point.”

Cadance nodded. “Thank you, Aunt.”

“I am glad you came to me, instead of making this mistake again. It was my pleasure to help you here. Now, is there some less gruesome topic we can discuss? I understand you spent some recent time in Neighples with your father. Is he well?”

“Putting on more weight,” Cadance answered, sitting down against the plinth supporting Mortal Coil’s body. “And I still don’t see what he sees in my step-mother, though thankfully she was away in Shetland while I was there.”

Celestia chuckled. “Sometimes, we must simply accept that the ponies we love will come with others we might not love as closely.”

The ruler of the Crystal Empire bit her lip for just a few seconds, before speaking up. “There is… another matter I would like to discuss.”

“Go ahead.”

“We visited Trottingham, to talk to Powdered Wig and Haute Couture. I can’t stand it when they and father play their politics, and this was the worst it had ever been. They sat there plotting who would… who would replace Shining. Like I wasn’t even there.”

In the garden, birds sang, ignoring the snow covering the rest of the mountaintop. In the chilly breeze, Cadance took notice of the wing that wrapped around her in a warm embrace.

“Are you concerned with who will be given the position?”

“No,” Cadance answered. “I don’t care. I don’t know anypony; I just… it made me so mad. And then they started talking about Tsar Eye.”

Celestia’s eyes widened in acknowledgement. “Not the most popular stallion amongst Equestria’s nobility.”

“They were plotting against him. I think they wanted to embarrass him, or do something to ruin his reputation in Stalliongrad. Then they asked me take over.”

“What?” It may have been the first time Cadance ever heard her ‘aunt’ surprised when discussing politics, yet the exclamation barely registered in her ears.

Cadance shifted in Celestia’s wing, putting her weight against the paler mare’s side. “They wanted me to marry Predvidenie.”

“Ah.” Cadance felt Celestia’s chest shift as the princess of the sun considered her next words. “Have you considered it?”

A wince answered Celestia’s question. “No!” Realizing her harshness, Cadance’s voice dropped. “I mean…”

“He seems a nice enough stallion,” Celestia picked up. “Perhaps lacking some measure of charisma, I suppose, but a competent and generally well-meaning pony. Between princesses, I hear rumor that his preference in the bedroom might make things difficult between you, but perhaps you could change him…”

To Celestia’s surprise, Cadance turned beet red. “Oh. No, Aunt, he isn’t…” Shaking her head, the younger alicorn struggled to find her words. “I mean, maybe he does prefer stallions. I don’t actually know. But the rumors are my fault, from when we were study partners at the Academy.”

“Oh? Did he not find you attractive?”

Cadance looked away, hiding behind her mane. “It was much more embarrassing than that. My love spell wasn’t always as… controlled… as it is now.”

Celestia laughed, only deepening Cadance’s blush. “I see. Well, forgive me for intruding. Shall we head in?”

Cadance answered by rising to her hooves and nodding. “There was one thing I wanted to ask though, Aunt.”

“Yes?”

“What did you really see in Hurricane? Wasn’t he an awful racist?”

With a sort of fatigue to her motion, Celestia shook her head. “The Pageant was written by Clover as a foal’s story, rather than a history. Hurricane didn’t so much hate unicorns or earth ponies in general as Platinum and Puddinghead in particular. The same could be said of both of them. But to answer your initial question, he was a sensitive, compassionate stallion who actually listened when Luna and I told him we weren’t gods. Even in those days, you’d be surprised how hard it was to convince ponies of that idea.” An enormous grin spread across Celestia’s face. “He was also fantastic with his sword.”

“You admired that?” Cadance asked. “I would have thought you wouldn’t have had much in common with his military ideals.”

Rather than answering with words, Celestia simply tilted her head in Cadance’s direction, donning what could only be referred to as ‘that smile’. It spoke volumes about how much more the immortal mare knew than her political rivals, and yet it explained nothing at all. At first, Cadance was confused. Then she was stunned. She didn’t manage to realize how widely her mouth was hanging open until Celestia had led her out of the maze.

The blackened bones of ponies blurred past in the snow and ash as Luna’s wings carried her alongside Mirror Image. “I have heard whispers of this ‘Treasonfang Pass’ before; what about it frightens you so?”

“Twenty years ago…” Image began, before stopping to suck in a breath of frigid air. “During the Dragon Wars…”

“Don’t try and talk while you’re running, Mirror.” Eldest Sister pulled herself forward with a few casual wingbeats, matching pace with Luna. “During the last days of the dragon wars, when we thought things were going to turn out bad, White Flag led a regiment through dragon-controlled Stalliongrad, and up toward Krennotets. Sixteen-hundred of our best scouts, spies, and covert specialists. They were using magic to go unnoticed, and they got as far as Treasonfang Pass before the dragons caught on.”

Luna took noted of the charred pony bones scattered across the valley floor. “I take it the attempt ended poorly?”

“Out of the entire regiment, only eleven ponies made it back to Equestria.”

“Ten.” It wasn’t a pony’s voice that had spoken, but instead a grumbling wheezing noise that reminded Luna of a distant avalanche. To emphasize the connection, a massive wall of snow and ice rose up, cutting off the ponies’ path. “One was not among others.”

Wincing in pain, Mirror Image’s horn lit with sparks, pointing up at the new cliff wall. Eldest Sister matched his speed, guiding Luna to the ground and spreading her wings to shield her princess. Luna herself remained calm, though her head began to swivel along the cliff walls, looking for the speaker.

“So hard to remember words without thoughts. Do not fear, Luna; I am not here to kill you. I stopped you only to give warning: turn back.”

A light began to shine through the ice of the cliff wall. Its brilliant blue somehow left Mirror Image feeling colder than he had in the relative darkness of the stormy mountain sky. The unicorn endured the pain of his magic to conjure a shield around Luna and Eldest. When the dark spots finally fled from his vision, a silhouette swam into view over the surface of the glowing ice. It looked like the shadow of a dragon, with a slender fanged maw and long arms covered in cruel spikes.

“Wow…” Eldest whispered. “Deadeye always used to say this place was haunted. I’m gonna have to start paying more attention to ghost stories.”

“Not the time,” Image muttered to his Night Guard counterpart. “Who are you, shadow?”

“I have no interest in you, mortal.” The dragon silhouette’s hollow eyes rotated across the blot that was its face, so that they were pointing in Luna’s direction. “Turn back, Luna.”

“Identify thyself, creature, so that I can understand your motive.”

“My name is… an enigma. I only have time to give a warning, at great pain. If you go to Peschera, you will find death awaiting you.”

Luna raised her chin high, glaring at the shadow on the wall. “You believe you can stop me, figment?”

“Not physically,” it answered. “I cannot fight Luna, mightiest of six, mistress of darkness.” Luna’s glare grew narrower as the figment continued to speak. “But the threat you are nearing is not one of force or magic. It comes from shadows and secrets, much like that which so nearly defeated you not a year past.”

“Masquerade…” Luna muttered to herself. “What is the threat you claim to foretell?”

“I think we need to get going,” Mirror Image interrupted, pointing back down the path they had come from. The charred bones were stirring. “Something’s happening”

The voice purred, as its umbral form twitched on the wall. “The dead are restless, and Krenn will be amongst them in two days time, Luna.”

A burst of Luna’s magic shot through Image’s shield, smashing into the icy wall and the shadowy creature. When the ensuing mist cloud cleared, the wall had reformed and the figment was unharmed.

“You’re the same creature behind Masquerade!” Luna shouted. “Tell me, phantom, why? Who are you?”

It’s smile disappeared. “I am not behind the assassin; it would be a death wish to come before you if I were. One of my kind serves that master, and seeks to kill Krenn; he will succeed, and if you are present, you will be blamed. Even your might cannot stand against so many wyrms. If you seek the threat that faces your own race, you should turn back now. Your foe lies in the frozen city that will burn.”

Luna’s attention was stolen from the figment’s words when the chattering of bones became audible. Mirror Image stepped past her, grabbing a slender tube about a foot long from his side. With a burst of his magic and the twang of a spring, it became a metallic spear, which he pinned against his side with a foreleg. “Eldest, you’re more mobile. Take point; I’ll cover the Princess.”

“On it!” the thestral answered, throwing herself into the air with a force no living pegasus could match. The full force of her body slammed down on the nearest skeleton, outright shattering most of its spine. Another of the creatures wielding a rusty sword swung for the mare’s neck. With impossible speed, she snatched the blade between her fangs, and threw her shoulder into the weapon’s wielder. Joints popped free from the blow, and the bones scattered about.

Her black mane stood up when a bolt of Arcana shot past it, eradicating a unicorn’s corpse mere inches from a blow to her skull. “Thanks, Mirror!”

“Focus,” the unicorn managed to mutter, though his own eyes were still blurry from the pain of his magic. “Princess, we need to go now!”

“This shadow seems to know about the contractor of Masquerade; I would ask more―”

Image ripped his spear out of a skull and swung it in a wide arc, sweeping out the hooves of three more approaching creatures. “Curiosity killed the cat, Princess.”

“I am not familiar with that―”

“It means your answers won’t do us much good if we’re all dead!” Image shouted.

Ahead, after smashing a skeleton into dust with another’s skull, Eldest Sister called out to him. “I resent that, Mirror!”

Luna turned back to the ice wall. “Shadow, do you know who was behind Masquerade?”

“No; I only know the servant. I do know that he needs one of the six to die, and that he does not care which.” The figure rippled, as if the icy wall it lay against was liquid, disturbed by a thrown rock. “And that the master’s magic affects memories and thoughts; it is difficult to discuss, and my strength wanes.”

Mirror Image’s howl of pain caught Luna’s attention. His spear batted the skulls off two approaching undead, though she could see his shoulder bleeding. Wasting no more time, her hooves wrapped around the barrel of his chest, and her wings flung her into the skies. “Eldest Sister, we leave! Shadow, though you speak in riddles, your warning is of great use. How can we repay you?”

“Remember me,” was all it said as it disappeared.

Nodding by way of an oath, Luna’s horn blasted away a group of winged skeletons approaching her in the air. “Then we will have to reach the volcano quickly.”

“What?” Image asked. “Didn’t you hear that… thing? You’ll be walking into another Masquerade.”

“Yes,” Luna replied with a grin. “And this time, we shall bear the element of surprise.”

Ahead, the eastern skies boiled with fire and ash.

XV - Sins of the Father

XV

Sins of the Father

Knock. The sound echoed from the heavy wood. Knock, knock.

Rainbow rubbed a hoof up and down her own foreleg, keeping her gaze anywhere but the solid whitewashed door.

At first, the other side was silent. Then Rainbow’s ears perked to the sound of hooves trodding slowly toward her, sounding defeated and weighed down. The pegasus bit her cheek and shut her eyes, fighting the overwhelming urge to spread her wings and flee. The only thing stopping her was the tiny, almost inconsequential weight pressing against her left wing.

The door creaked open. Silence hung for a moment. Then the little weight was lifted, and with it, the warmth against her side.

“Mom!” The colt’s squeal of joy was pure, tugging at Rainbow’s heart.

“Rocket!” The mare’s response was not so innocent, weighed down by a barely concealed pain. Rainbow had hoped that keeping her eyes closed would shield her from the look on the mare’s face when her eyes fell on the little stubs on her son’s back. The mother’s voice conveyed her shock to Rainbow’s ears, though, and the stunt-mare’s imagination took over where her sight ended. Her hooves felt numb and cold even in the San Palomino heat. Her teeth drew blood from her own cheek to avoid thinking about it further.

Hooves rushed toward her. This time, the voice was a stallion’s. “Honey, what―” His hooves stopped a dozen strides away. “Oh, Celestia…”

“He’s back,” the mare managed between sniffles. “Our little Rocket is back.”

Rainbow felt like she’d been stabbed with an icicle. On the insides of her eyelids, the world spun. Her left hoof slid out further to hold her balance, and she managed to choke down a breath of dry, arid air.

Then a warm hoof wrapped around her shoulder, and a wing after that. “Thank you,” was whispered into her ear. “Thank you so much.” From within the mare’s hug, Rainbow found her breath stolen away. Her eyes slipped open in surprise, letting out the first of the tears she’d been struggling to conceal for hours.

Rocket was wrapped around his father’s foreleg, pressing his bright blue face and his grimy rainbow bandana against the gray earth pony’s coat.

“You’re Rainbow Dash, aren’t you?” Rocket’s father’s words came in a neutral tone, only digging deeper into the pit of dread in Rainbow’s gut. She opened her mouth to respond, and found her throat unwilling to obey her will. She managed a nod, brushing her chin against the mare who still held her in a tight embrace.

“We can’t ever thank you enough,” the stallion told her, picking up Rocket and holding the little colt against his side.

Rocket’s mother, a gentle golden brown pegasus with a short but carefully tailored mane, released Rainbow and looked her in the eyes. “Why don’t you come inside, Miss Dash?

Rainbow gulped, and then shook her head. Finally, her fear gave her words. “I don’t think―”

“Please?” The single sorry word was all it took to change Rainbow’s mind. It had come from Rocket’s mouth.

“...alright.”

The young mare’s legs felt hollow as she allowed herself to be led past the whitewashed door and into the cramped little house. She was given a seat in a creaky rocking chair across a cluttered coffee table from a threadbare couch, just wide enough to hold a pegasus mare, an earth pony stallion, and their son who wasn’t quite either. The wood of her seat groaned as she struggled to get comfortable.

Rocket’s father was the first to speak up, speaking with his lips nearly closed in a true San Palomino mumble. “’m Payload. My wife’s Projectile. An’ like she said, we can’t ever thank y’ enough, Miss Dash.”

Rainbow swallowed hard, unsure of how to answer the comment. “Uh… how do you know my name?”

“Rocket’s got all this newspaper clippings and posters of you in his room,” The mare must have grown up in Cloudsdale, for how understandable her Equiish was. “He’s always wanted―” She cut herself off quickly enough to stop the words, but not the tears. Payload moved to comfort his son, but the colt leaned away to the comfort of his mother. Projectile wordlessly grabbed her son under his forelegs, held him tight, and carried him out of the room with a few quick flaps of her wings. His soft sobs were cut off by the creak of another door somewhere in the house.

Almost immediately, Payload placed his head against his hooves. “Can’t believe this… He’s never gonna forgive me.”

“You?” Rainbow sat forward. “Why would he ever blame you?”

“I was tryin’ to convince him that bein’ a stunt flier was a bad idea.” The stallion refused to meet Rainbow’s gaze. “I thought he wasn’t never gonna make it into the Wondercolts, or whatever… He ‘n his mother would always sit and talk ‘bout flyin’, and wind, and tricks. She’d take him on trips up to the in-laws in Cloudsdale, ‘n they’d get tickets. That’s what they was coming back from on the train.”

Payload shook his head slowly, barely managing a visible motion. “I ain’t got the money for some unicorn to let me walk on clouds, and even if I did, I can’t up ‘n take that much time off of my job. But ‘fore they left, Projectile ‘n I, we had a little fight. An’ I told her…” Rainbow saw a stream of tears leak down from behind the earth pony’s hoof; she couldn’t know how many he still had hidden from view. “…I told ‘er that I wish we’d had an earth pony instead.”

Rainbow stood up from the creaky rocking chair, walked over to Projectile, and placed a hoof on his shoulder. “Rocket will forgive you.”

His shoulders sagged. “I don’t deserve to be his father.”

“Sometimes, you say something you wish you hadn’t,” Rainbow told the stallion. “That doesn’t make you a bad father.” Then, with just a little hint of a smile, she added one more thought. “If it means anything to you, you couldn’t be any worse than mine.”

A long silence followed Rainbow’s comment, as Payload slowly pulled his hooves away from face and rubbed a shaggy fetlock over his eyes. Then he looked his guest in the eyes and smiled softly. “You’re ‘n amazin’ young mare, Rainbow Dash. I think maybe Rocket was right ta look up to you.”

Rainbow shrugged. “I just wish I could have… could have done something.”

“By my reckonin’, ya did. Ya saved his life.”

A hard swallow was Rainbow’s first reply. “I know, but…” Her eyes fled to the little hallway where Rocket and Projectile had disappeared. “My special talent is flying. I can’t imagine what it would be like to lose that.”

Payload had no answer to Rainbow’s regrets. Standing in truly painful silence, the mare’s eyes wandered the room until they settled on a little wedge of tan paper sticking out from underneath the pile of newspapers and schoolwork on the coffee table. On its surface, Rainbow could see an oddly broad muzzle. It came out of the pile with a simple tug, and Rainbow’s eyes widened.

“Why do you have a wanted poster of Soldier On?” Rainbow asked.

The earth pony cocked a brow. “Hmm? Oh, that ol’ thing. They put ‘em up at the mine a few weeks ‘go, but then they took it down on account o’ they caught the mare there. I brought it home cause sometimes Rocket likes ta play rangers ‘n robbers. They brought in one o’ them prison train-cars last night for her.”

“You mean she’s gone?” the mare asked hurriedly.

Payload shook his head. “Nah, probably still in the Pit. Mind if I ask what’s got you so interested?”

“I… I think I need to talk to Rocket.”

Hours later, the wind howled through iron bars against the side of the stone structure. Formally, it was the San Palomino City Prison, but all the locals called it ‘the Pit’ for the huge hole in the ground that served as its common ground. Desperadoes and con ponies filled its halls and stretched in the literal pit in the center of the complex that provided its name, lamenting their lives, though even they had to be grateful that they didn’t find themselves in the darkness down the south hallway. Solid steel doors and three-inch bolts barred that path, where the condemned were held.

It was in one of these cells that an off-white mare awoke to the faint sound of a hoof tapping against the heavy stone that kept her from the outside world. Between the skysteel bars in the walls to the thin layer of lodestone contained in the walls eating away any Arcana in the air, the exposure to the outside didn’t offer any risk of escape. With that thought, the mare brushed off the sound and closed her eyes again. But then the tapping began again. Another pony would have ignored the sound twice, but the itching on the back of the criminal’s neck told her it was important.

“Hello?” a faint voice called out. The lumbering mountain of muscle barely moved from her place on the jail cell floor; she only let her ears twitch, and cast her eyes up to the barred window set high in the wall. “Miss Soldier On? Are you in there?”

The voice couldn’t have belonged to anypony more than eight or ten years old. Stoikaja rolled her eyes. Had one of the guards brought their child to work? The Commander would have had an aneurysm. “Are you here to make fun of me before I die, or ask my why I did it? Either way, you’re brave, little pony.”

“I’m not here to do any of that,” the colt told her. “My name’s Rocket.”

“Rocket?” Soldier on rose from her chest to stand upright. “You’re the colt―”

“Rainbow Dash snuck me in and asked me to talk to you,” Rocket interrupted rather bitterly. On knew better than to press the subject. “She said there wasn’t going to be a lot of time, and she wanted you to get ready to go.”

On’s mouth dropped open, and for a moment she struggled to process words as her mind raced. “You… how… this cell is lined with steel bars; even I can’t break them. What’s she planning?”

“She didn’t tell me,” Rocket’s voice called back through the bars. “Just that you needed to be awake so you could run for it. I need to go now, Miss Soldier On. I’m sorry the rangers were mean, but Rainbow Dash says they just don’t understand.”

Soldier On lunged forward, standing up on her hind hooves and balancing her forward pair against the wall. Her head could easily look out the six-foot high window, just in time to see the little colt with the stumps on his back dart around a corner. “Rocket, wait!” In the dark alleyways of San Palomino City, nopony answered. The Stalliongradian mare waited for a few moments before collapsing against the wall, thinking. “Rainbow… what are you planning?”

Crickets chirped, and the chilly night wind howled through the bars in the window. The earth pony waited, performing her morning stretches and allowing her mind to wander freely. She wondered whether Flag would try to bring her back to Canterlot, or simply kill her. The latter fit the older mare’s style more, but if that were the case, why didn’t they simply hang her here? Would Celestia have the strength to do the deed herself? If not, it would certainly be Roscherk. They might have tried to feed her to the Night Guard, but that wasn’t likely to work out between Loose Cannon and―

Her train of thoughts jumped its tracks when the clicking of a key rattled in the solid steel cell door. She barely had time to find her hooves and press herself against the wall before it was flung open.

“Uh… Soldier On?” Rainbow’s voice was unmistakable. “You in here?”

“Rainbow?” When the enormous mare stepped away from her hiding place, the pegasus jumped a good two feet in the air and stayed there. “How did you…” On’s brow rose considerably across her blocky forehead. “You got the keys?”

“I’m awesome like that,” Rainbow answered. “I just walked in; I guess they recognized me. I told them Princess Celestia wanted me to see the inside of the prison for ‘Harmony reasons’, and they totally bought it. Then I looked around until I found the keys. I grabbed them from the guards and let them chase me back outside. When we got a good way out of town, I turned around and put on the speed for real.” Through the entire explanation, Rainbow hadn’t paused for breath; the ensuing noise was like a hurricane in the smooth stone cell. “They’ll be back soon, so we’ve gotta go. Come on.”

“Hold on,” the earth pony protested. “That colt, Rocket―”

Rainbow grimaced. “I think it’s finally my turn to say ‘I don’t want to talk about it.’ His dad’s an earth pony. I think he’ll be fine.” Rainbow’s eyes fell to her hooves. “I hope he’ll be fine.”

On wanted to give Rainbow a moment, but the prison wasn’t kind enough to grant the time. “Keys,” she demanded, extending a hoof. “They locked my gear in the evidence room at the other side of the building.”

“I’ll grab it,” Rainbow replied, clearly glad for something else to think about. She spun in midair and launched herself into the hall. “Get moving!”

For the second time that night, Soldier On was impressed by Rainbow Dash’s speed outside of the context of an outright race. By the time she’d made her way out the nearly-empty prison block, through the unstaffed, wide-open security checkpoint, and past the front desk, Rainbow was already waiting outside with a hat, two bandoliers of bladed shoes, and a duster coat in tow.

“I used a window,” she explained, tossing the gear to Soldier On. “I always imagined a prison would be more… prison-y, but they were keeping your stuff in an office like the weather one in Cloudsdale. Now come on; we need to find Deadeye and get out of here.”

“Find Deadeye?” On asked. “He hasn’t come back? You didn’t look for him?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “He wasn’t getting shipped back to Canterlot tomorrow morning.”

On knew Rainbow was right, though she didn’t have to admit it. Tightening her bandoliers and counting up her twelve remaining bucking shoes, she growled. “We can’t stay and look for him in town anymore. We should head south and get a lead on finding the Commander.” Her now-shod hooves dug into the dusty ochre dirt street, aligning herself by the moon.

Rainbow pulled forward, easily matching On’s pace by wing. “Whoa, hold on! We can’t just leave Deadeye―”

“Deadeye can take care of himself better than we can,” On interrupted. “He isn’t being chased by the Rangers, and even if he were, they couldn’t catch him. If you look up stealth in the guardspony manuals, he’s the pony in the picture.”

“Okay, so maybe he’s pretty good at hiding, but―”

On cracked a smile. “You think I’m kidding? When we get back to Canterlot after all this, I’ll show you. Royal Guard training manual, field-scout’s supplement. There’s a reason he survived alone in the Zebrica for ten years when most pegasi his age are out looking for nursing homes.” On’s expression took a turn for the sour. “There’s a reason I sent you to him when I was trying to get you out of our manes six months ago.”

“Yeah, that was a great choice,” Rainbow muttered. “Nothing dangerous happened at all.”

“I’d be glad to tell you―” On lunged forward, grabbing Rainbow’s tail and dragging her down a narrow side-road. Only a moment later, a trio of San Palomino’s distinctive guardsponies went running down the road. The itching on Stoikaja’s neck slowly settled, and she released her younger companion. “We’re clear. And yes, I admit it wasn’t the best decision in hindsight, but I was trying to solve six problems at once, and frankly, it seemed like the best solution since you refused to take no for an answer.” On sucked down a breath and ran out into the street again. “Go peek your head over the roof here, Rainbow, and get a look at the next two streets over.”

As Rainbow moved, On ran across the street to a shop whose tall red sign proudly proclaimed ‘Free Market’s General Store’. Without hesitance, she lowered her shoulder against the door knob and bashed the deadbolt free of the wooden frame. Years of practice in Stalliongrad gave her the talent to muffle the noise, to the point that she doubted even Rainbow had heard. The same practice as a rebel left her without much of a regret as she began to stuff her duster’s pockets and saddlebags with as much food as she could. Grains, cans, and anything that would survive in the desert were packed away, until finally there was no more space to spare.

Rainbow was waiting outside when Soldier On returned, wearing a disapproving frown. “Did you steal all that stuff?” she asked, gesturing to the obvious bulges in On’s outfit.

The earth pony rolled her eyes and started away at a reasonable jog. “Your father can pay it off out of the treasury once we save him. You looked at the streets, right?”

“Yeah.”

On gritted her teeth, as the itching on the back of her neck warned that she would regret her next three words. “Lead the way.”

Jad Din regarded the guest with confusion. The pony was unlike any other creature that the camel guard had ever met.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Drag.

He was strange because he insisted on walking, even though his leg was broken and Speaker Ghayth had offered him a place on one of the caravan wagons. He was strange because he carried a sword made of bone, even though he could not possibly use it. He was strange because he had asked for hosp amongst the caravan, and then the last night, shouted at the Speaker that the caravan was to leave him behind. But most of all, he was strange because he was the defender of Salwa Tibah.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Drag.

His malnourished, tormented legs struggled to keep up with the steady elegance of the camels’. His wings hung limply in the sand on either side, leaving a pair of shallow trails alongside his hoofprints. Every few hundred feet, the trail was marred by a dull crater where he had stumbled, falling onto his side or his chest. His wings and chest were thoroughly filled with grainy, itchy sand.

The Commander didn’t pay much attention when Jad Din wandered over to take up a place at his side, taking rather small strides to stay with the shorter-legged pony.

Step.

Step.

Step.

Drag.

“Leader Ghayth says that you have been in the company of Salwa Tibah.”

The pegasus sighed. “Sel-es-tee-ah.”

Jad Din cocked his head. “I do not know this word. What is a Selestia?”

“Her name,” the stallion replied with an unparalleled level of annoyance, “is Celestia.”

“I see. And what is yours?”

A silence ensued, as the pegasus who could not fly looked up longingly toward the sky. Though the sun was moving toward the horizon, the world was still hazy from its heat. “I gave up my right to my name when I became Celestia’s bodyguard. My ponies call me Commander.” Then he cracked just a little bit of a smile, and his eyes shifted to the north. “They call me the Commander.”

“I do not understand,” Jad Din wondered aloud. “Is this a name, or a title?”

“Neither,” the Commander told him. “There hasn’t been a commander of the guard in Equestria in a thousand years. My armor used to be his.”

Jad Din nodded, though in his mind, he wrote the fact off as another strange thing about the pony who had called himself Commander, yet was not. It was the way of the ponies to take the simple things in life and to make them complicated; that was what Speaker Ghayth had said, and it was proving true.

They walked in silence for a few more of the Commander’s painful steps before the pegasus broke the silence. “You’re a soldier too, aren’t you?”

“How do you mean?”

The Commander’s head tilted in the direction of the gleaming steel scimitar hanging in its sheath at the camel’s side. “You carry a weapon openly. Most of your friends don’t.”

“I know how to use it,” Jad Din replied, “but also when not to.”

Again, the Commander’s lips twitched up. “If all you have is a sword, everything looks like a throat.”

Another strange thing about this stallion was his sense of humor. Casting the thought aside, Jad Din pressed forward. “Tell me more. Are the stories true?”

A lesser stallion might have accompanied the next question with a raised eyebrow. The Commander didn’t even look up. “What stories?”

“About Salw―er, Celestia. That she stands over mountains? That those who look at her directly go blind from her beauty? That―”

“She’s about this tall,” the Commander interrupted, struggling to hold up a hoof and still keep his balance. “Five foot ten at the shoulder.” Then he smiled, just a little bit, in a different way than he had before. The word ‘wistful’ came to Jad Din’s mind. “I’d freeze to death sleeping outside if I denied her beauty.”

“But you can still see, can you not?”

The pegasus briefly considered a poetic comment about how he was blind to the beauty of other mares, and that all he could see when he closed his eyes was her smiling face. Instead of sharing those thoughts, he managed a small shrug. “It’s a story.”

“But you have seen her? What is she like? Is her mane―?”

“We aren’t having this conversation,” the Commander interrupted, before staring off toward the horizon. Endless miles of dirt, sand, scrub bush, and nothingness stretched on to the edge of the world. “If you want to know the truth, you can go visit her. She has open court three times a week.”

Jad Din’s mouth dropped wide. “You speak of the sacred journey?”

“I’m telling you that, if you want to meet Celestia, you can hop a train in San Palomino, and it’ll take you up to Canterlot in a week or two. Or bring a bit of extra gold, trade it out for bits, and catch the express. She’d be glad to meet you, as long as you don’t start groveling. It gets on her nerves. I would offer to take you…”

The Commander’s eyes dropped to the ground as his words faded off. Jad Din watched the brown irises, noting that they weren’t quite perfectly round, but instead escaped their natural circles in uneven blotches. “But?” the camel asked.

“Tomorrow, I will be dead,” the stallion replied. “Khagan is coming for me. If you want to survive, you should leave on that journey tonight.”

“But that is against the code of hosp,” Jad Din explained. “You are our guest; we cannot abandon you in a time of need.”

Broken wings rose and fell with a single heavy breath. “If you want to die for your code, camel, that’s your right.” The Commander’s head turned back to his broken, graying, scarred body, and he spoke with a bitter frown. “I’ve already died for mine.”

Step.

Step.

Step.

Drag.

The bottom of the sun had been severed by the edge of the world when heavy hooves came to a sudden stop in the red dirt. Rainbow came to an abrupt halt and turned toward her companion. “Is it time to get some sleep, On? I’m getting a little tired, and I’d like to see if I can catch Princess Luna again.”

“Again?” On didn’t shout, but the fact that she slipped into her native Stalliongradian accent betrayed her concern.

Rainbow’s brow wrinkled. “Right. You hate her. Sorry I mentioned it―”

“No,” On interrupted. “Don’t be. Whatever I think of her, we can use all of the help we can get finding your father.”

“Well, she found him,” Rainbow noted.

Rather than a mere twitch or an odd look for a show of surprise, On’s entire head whipped sideways to stare at Rainbow. “What?”

“We talked last night; I was having a bad dream…” The confident pegasus ruffled her feathers as if to brush off her own concern. “Anyway, while we were talking, she suddenly freaked out, and said that he was dreaming, and no one was blocking it. I guess some boar named Kaggun―”

“Khagan,” On corrected, visibly shivering. “I should have guessed.”

Rainbow took note of the concern on the other mare’s face as she resumed her explanation. “Well, she didn’t say why Khagan had foalnapped him, but somehow, he escaped. He’s with a caravan of camel traders on their way up here toward San Palomino, but my dad is worried that Khagan will know where he is. Something about Luna’s magic, and dreams, and stuff…”

“Stuff?” On asked, with a hint of amusement.

Rainbow’s eyes traveled in a wide circle. “Look, I don’t get this whole Arcana thing to begin with. And Luna isn’t exactly the easiest pony to understand even when she’s talking about something normal.”

Soldier On snorted once, and then released a sort of laughing noise from her nostrils; from the awkwardness of the noise, Rainbow realized why the earth pony worked so hard to keep her feelings tight to her chest. The echoes only vaguely reminded Rainbow of a dying goose.

Coughing into her hoof both to reclaim the mood and to try and excuse the noise, On nevertheless still wore a bit of a smile. “Alright, that’s pretty funny, Rainbow. But we’ve got a few problems now.” A deep breath wiped the last remnants of the smile off of On’s muzzle. “Khagan is the ruler of the boars. I think they call him the Warchief. He’s like Celestia or Luna for them. Or… you’ve met Magnus, right?”

“The Griffon Emperor?” Rainbow nodded. “He helped me save Princess Luna when I went to Grivridge.”

On’s mane fluttered just a touch in the desert wind, as if the griffon ruler had heard their words. “Magnus makes the wind the way Celestia and Luna move the sun and moon. Khagan has a similar power, though it’s not as easy to explain. The Commander calls it ‘decay’, and White Flag says it’s ‘entropy’. The point is, he makes things age.”

Rainbow grimaced. “Does he do it to ponies?”

“In the sense that we do get older,” On answered. “But he doesn’t just make ponies older. Everything decays over time; not just ponies and boars, but rocks and plants too. It all comes from him.”

Rainbow smiled, wiping a bead of very real sweat off her brow. “Phew. For a second there, I was worried he was going to be evil or something.”

“Don’t let what I said get your hopes up.” On took another slow breath, which Rainbow was beginning to suspect was her way of hiding her emotions. Her head swiveled slowly to face south. “He’s called the Warchief for a reason. Celestia claims he can’t actually age somepony to death, but I think he just prefers using his tusks.”

“You’ve met him?” Rainbow asked.

On frowned. “I’ve seen him, once, and I’m glad it was from a long ways away.” Then her gaze settled to the dust. “Going on six years ago… things were a lot different. Your father had helped us overthrow Baron Frostbite, and things were looking up in Stalliongrad. He asked me if I would help him with a mission that needed an earth pony. I guess I felt like I owed him, since he was the one who saved my foals and I. He’d found out Khagan was planning to invade Equestria.”

“No way!”

On nodded somberly. “What I found out later was that he was planning to invade on the twenty-first of June. The Summer Sun Celebration.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened. “The day Princess Luna…”

Again, On merely nodded. “Khagan knew Nightmare Moon was coming back. It shouldn’t be surprising; he was alive a thousand years ago, during the Twilight War.” Rainbow wasn’t familiar with the name, but it wasn’t difficult to guess exactly what was implied. “He was planning an invasion of Equestria; to strike at us while we were at our weakest, in the middle of a civil war.”

“What happened?”

On opened her mouth, and then stopped halfway toward a word. Her eyes swiveled south, and her lips closed slowly. “We beat him to the punch. We tried to kill him.” On swallowed slowly, as if her dry lips were what was holding back her speech. “We failed our original objective, but we stopped his invasion. I... would rather not talk about it.”

The mare’s head swiveled back over her shoulder, looking to the north where even the farms surrounding San Palomino city had disappeared behind hills and badlands. “We should be far enough out of Equestria that they won’t see us. Go fly a mile or so south, and then come back.”

“And then we can stop?”

“Then I’ll carry you,” On replied.

Rainbow made an almost pathetic face. “I’m not a little filly.”

Stoikaja took one step forward, clearing the distance separating her from the younger pegasus. When the motion was done. Rainbow had to crane her neck just to match her gaze to the other mare’s chin. Ten inches of height would have made On’s point perfectly, though she couldn’t resist a little jab to accompany the motion. “I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you down there.”

Magenta eyes rolled, and cyan wings spread. “Yeah, yeah, real funny. I’ll be back in a minute or two.”

Either On didn’t reply, or the rumbling gentility of her casual tone was too quiet to be heard over the rush of the wind past Rainbow’s ears. She didn’t really mind; the surge in her blood and the subtle sensation of thunder in her feathers made her feel alive. The fatigue of the night disappeared in a rush of endorphins and unbridled speed, freed from the troubles of focused thought and worry, and the politics and battles of years past.

Though the air over the desert was thick, Rainbow’s wings cut through it like blades. Spiraling into a casual glide, she let her eyes wander over the landscape of a world she had never seen before. Off to her left were the brilliant red peaks of the Macintosh Hills, covered in little trees and sparse fields that made ample use of their rich soil. To her right stretched the strange ‘no-mare’s land’ that formed the border between Suida and Equestria, reaching off toward the endless glimmering waves of the Neighdriatic Sea. She’d heard Bitaly was somewhere across those waters, though it too was a mystery to her.

Unlike those places, Suida was a land of death. It was harsh and alien, a far cry even from the desert plains of southern Equestria. The dirt was a ruddy, rocky brown, broken by abrupt fissures, cliffs and canyons in some places. In others, it was utterly flat for as far as Rainbow could see in the hazy sunset heat. Her eyes made out the rough outline of a ziggurat in the distance; the once proud pyramid had crumbled in on itself to reveal hollow innards. Idly, she wondered if it had been brought down on purpose, or if it simply couldn’t survive its own weight. Regardless, it would be a cool place to fly around in, if she ever got the chance. Maybe there was some treasure buried in there, behind a wall of death traps and secret doors.

Rainbow took a moment to slap herself. She didn’t have time to waste thinking about that sort of thing; there was a life on the line, in a very real sense. Putting on her ‘game face’, Rainbow focused on the ground more close by. Unfortunately, there wasn’t much to see; only the same brush and stone that dominated the more distant sights.

The stunt flier’s wings tilted as she entered a wide spiral, intending to make a final pass before returning to Soldier On. While her eyes had no more luck in locating anything even remotely resembling a camel caravan, her ears perked at the sound of a strangely familiar voice.

“Rainbow Dash! We need to talk!”

Though the rough-edged mare’s voice was unmistakable, Rainbow still found herself overtaken by shock at the fact that she was hearing it in the skies over Suida, instead of the comforts of a Cloudsdale race course. “Spitfire?”

The fiery Wonderbolt leader dove down off the top of a nearby cloud, nearly blinding Rainbow with the light of her gilded cuirass and helmet―a far cry from the blue flight suit or the formal jacket the younger pegasus was used to seeing on her idol. Spitfire pulled out of the dive with a hairpin turn that would have torn the primaries off the average pegasus. Neatly ignoring the devastating torque, she came to a hover a half-dozen feet from Rainbow with her forelegs folded over her chest. “I’m glad I caught you alone, Rainbow.”

The younger of the two pegasi took in a moment of confusion, before gritting her teeth. “Great. Another hallucination?”

Spitfire raised her brow in confusion, and then flew gently toward Rainbow. The bearer of loyalty wondered what was happening right up until the moment that Spitfire’s hoof slapped across her face. In her moment of pain and confusion, Rainbow’s first reaction was to dive down and catch her hat. By the time it was secure on her head again, Spitfire had floated down to the same level, a few hundred feet over the rough dirt.

“What was that for?” Rainbow asked, ignoring the throbbing in her cheek.

“I don’t have time for whatever ‘hallucination’ garbage you were about to get into, rookie. I’m here on behalf of the Royal Guard.”

Rainbow’s eyes narrowed. “So you want me to stop going to find my dad?”

Spitfire took a deep breath and nodded. “Yes, Rainbow. Commander Lining is dead. Princess Celestia understands it might be hard to hear that he passed away just as you found out who he really was―”

“I wouldn’t exactly take Princess Celestia’s word on whether or not somepony is alive or dead," Rainbow snapped.

Doubt flickered over Spitfire’s face, where Rainbow couldn’t possibly miss it. “I…” Her jaw hardened after a moment’s silence, and her gaze grew more focused. “It isn’t my place to say which Princess is right or wrong. My mission is to keep you and your team from igniting a war with Suida.”

Rainbow answered with a cocky smile. “Well, that’ll be pretty hard, since boars can’t fly. I don’t know what everypony’s so afraid of, but this ‘Khagan’ guy doesn’t scare me, and I’m not gonna let him keep my dad. They’d have to see me to do anything―”

With each of Rainbow’s words, Spitfire’s expression had dropped deeper and deeper into a frown. At last, she cut into the middle of Rainbow’s thought. “I don’t know that much about boars, Rainbow. I know that I’ve been ordered to give you two warnings. If you keep going now, I’ve been ordered to ban you from the Wonderbolts, permanently. I have my orders, and if you’re half as loyal as you’re supposed to be, you’ll come back with me now.”

“Loyal?” Rainbow’s first expression was one of shock. She closed her eyes, and afforded herself a slow breath, before focusing on Spitfire amidst the red light of the desert sunset. “Look, Spitfire, you’re asking me to choose between letting somepony die and a title. I guess that shouldn’t surprise me. It’s just like the academy, Spitfire. This proves it.”

“You’re just going to give up?” Spitfire asked.

“I already told you once: if the Wonderbolts care more about their stunts than ponies’ lives, I don’t want any part of the team. When I went to Zebrica, I had to choose between letting somepony die and leaving a friend behind. And you know what? I learned something then. Sometimes, being loyal means you have to do what’s right, even if it hurts your friends. Sometimes, you have to be loyal to yourself first. And if they won’t accept you back after you do it, they probably weren’t your friend to begin with.” The hard look on Rainbow’s face turned slowly into a subtle grin. “Besides, I’m already a better flier than you’ll ever be.”

“There’s something else,” the Wonderbolt noted, dashing forward to keep up with the younger flier. Rainbow kept flying, leaning away from the pursuing mare. “Rainbow, you need to listen to me.”

“So you can tell me to leave for some other reason?” Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Get lost, Spitfire. I don’t want to hear it.”

With her back to the Wonderbolt, Rainbow didn’t see the almost sick expression that settled onto Spitfire. “Rainbow… that little orphan filly, Scootaloo―”

To say that Rainbow stopped on a bit would have done injustice to just how quickly she came to a halt. “What does Scootaloo have to do with this?”

On the defensive, Spitfire held up her forehooves, as if they would somehow placate Rainbow. “I didn’t want to do it, okay? But if you don’t come back, White Flag is going to have you declared unfit as a guardian, and move her to another Domain.”

Rainbow’s wings exploded in fire without even a conscious thought, burning over Suida like a newborn star. “You wouldn’t dare.”

“I… I’m sorry, Rainbow. I didn’t think it was fair, but―”

This time, it wasn’t words which cut off Spitfire’s sentence. When Rainbow’s hoof met her cheek, it was accompanied by a crack of thunder. By the time Spitfire recovered, she’d lost two hundred feet of altitude, and her dented golden helmet had already hit the ground below.

Rainbow soared down, still burning the sky simply by force of her anger. “Where’s Scootaloo?”

“Rainbow, I can’t―” Spitfire gave up on trying to placate the other pegasus when she was forced to pin her wings against her side and drop to avoid the bearer. “Alright, we’re gonna do this?”

“Where?” Rainbow answered, her tone approaching outright hatred.

When Spitfire opened her wings, they came with a fire of their own. The Empatha offered no small resistance to Rainbow’s flames, and left the blue mare wincing back at the heat and the smoke. Though Rainbow might have been the better flier, it was clear in that second that Spitfire still held the advantage as a soldier.

Raising her hooves in front of her face like a boxer, Rainbow began to slowly circle her foe. Spitfire orbited in place, waiting for the oncoming attack. Barely three seconds later, it came. Rainbow’s speed in her two flaps put her farther to Spitfire’s left than she’d expected, but not far enough to keep the Wonderbolt from catching the thrown punch on the gilded armor of her left forehoof. Her right swung around for a cross that landed only a glancing blow on Rainbow’s shoulder. Then the pegasus pulled back and started circling again.

Again Rainbow pulled in, this time arcing overhead. It was a dangerous trick for the average pegasus, risking their exposed belly to land a blow with the greater strength of the hind legs. Spitfire saw it coming too late, and her hoof glanced off Rainbow’s flank without causing noticeable pain. Rainbow’s reprisal was an unshod hoof to Spitfire’s cheek, sending the Wonderbolt tumbling a few feet further toward the ground.

When Rainbow began to circle a third time, Spitfire realized that she couldn’t afford to continue letting the more agile mare fly free. Spreading her wings fully, she released a field of fire into the sky, blocking out all other sights.

Rainbow coughed at the sudden surge of smoke. Though the fires of her own Empatha protected her from outright burning, the heat still stung, and the acrid smoke still choked her throat and seared her eyes. By the time she’d adjusted enough to get a good view of her surroundings, Spitfire’s natural colors had faded into the fires of her own creation.

“Where’s Scootaloo?” Rainbow shouted, flying randomly forward in search of her opponent. For her choice, she received half a second’s warning before a strong hoof caught her jaw; not enough time to block, but enough time to flinch back and try to brace herself. The instinctual reaction of shielding herself left her wide open.

Spitfire’s left-hoofed body blow left Rainbow doubled over in midair. As Rainbow moved to clutch her belly, Spitfire’s right hoof came across in a backwards slap that disoriented the unfortunate blue pegasus. It was followed by an uppercut from the same hoof that filled Rainbow’s mouth with the coppery taste of her own blood, and put stars in her eyes. Spitfire’s left hoof joined her right overhead, and they came down together onto Rainbow’s hat, and the crown of her skull. The blow left Rainbow falling out of the fiery sky, with Spitfire close behind.

“I don’t want to hurt you, Rainbow; I just have to get you back alive one way or another.” In the breakneck dive, Spitfire was shouting just to be heard over the wind. “Just come back! You can have Scootaloo, you can join the Wonderbolts; whatever you want!”

Rainbow didn’t merely continue her fall; her wings tightened, and she accelerated. Spitfire’s struggled to understand what the other mare was planning; hitting the ground even at their current speed was suicide, and it was closing fast.

“I want to know where Scootaloo is!” Rainbow shouted back.

Spitfire sucked in a breath. “She’s with White Flag. Just wait for her to deal with the traitor. Then you can come back with me, and―”

The world shattered in color. Spitfire watched as Rainbow burst out of an expanding prismatic ring that stretched off toward the horizons. Despite her impossible speed, Rainbow still had enough room to pull up, no more than inches from the ground. Her wings spread out fully, and she swerved up, pulling away to the north.

The Commander woke from his slumber to an irritating rumble and a pain in his broken limbs. His makeshift bed in a pile of boarish goods tucked into a camel wagon offered him privacy, but also obscured his sight of the sky. On instinct, his teeth went to Procellarum. Rather than the legendary skysteel blade, his teeth found a would-be weapon of sharpened bone.

It would have to do.

He stumbled out of the covered pile of junk onto his bad leg, and fell down into the dirt. The feel of the grit in his wings would have disgusted him, were he not distracted by the pain of the half-fused joints twisting and cracking anew under the weight of his body. It took all his willpower not to scream, and instead he released only a quiet moan of suffering.

When his vision returned, his eyes caught the last moments of a wide rainbow arc as it spread across the sky.

“No…” was all he could manage at first. His wounded hooves failed once and twice to sustain him before he finally pulled himself upright. “Damn you, Luna, why? Why her?” His hooves dug into the ground, struggling to push him forward in a hasty limp.

“Who dares cry to the moonbringer at this―” The grim-voiced camel leader, still rubbing the sleep from his eyes, recognized his pegasus guest with a look more surprised than angry. “Commander?”

“Ghayth!” The stallion sucked down a breath around the ‘handle’ of his own femur. “I need to get there, now.” The Commander winced in agony as his wing failed to indicate the source of the sonic rainboom. Bringing up a shuddering forehoof, he made his point.

“I’ve not seen such a thing before,” Ghayth noted. “Is it a sign of Salwah Tibah?”

“It’s…” A moment of hesitance marked a secret easy to spot, but hard to unearth. “…somepony precious to Celestia.”

“Oh?” Ghayth inclined his head. “I would seek to know―”

The Commander’s hoof sounded a crack of lightning, and the air that compressed beneath it drove a slash as long as his leg into the ground. “I don’t have time for this!” the pegasus snarled. “Khagan will kill her, Ghayth. And I can’t cover that distance to beat him.”

“Don’t be ridiculous,” the camel replied, reaching out a calming hoof for the Commander’s shoulder. “Khagan and his warriors are still in Balgas Rift.”

The pegasus swatted away the aging camel’s hoof with such force that Ghayth stumbled back and gasped in pain. “No, he’s coming. Last night, he left.”

After regaining his hoofing, the camel stuck his tongue out over his curled lower lip, biting it gently in thought and confusion. “I would disagree, but first I would understand how you could come to such knowledge in the first place?”

The Commander moved to speak. “Because I ran―” There was a silence, and then a long draw of breath. “Let me make this simple, Ghayth. It shouldn’t matter to you how I know. Look me in the eye and call me a liar.” Matching the camel’s gaze, the Commander focused his Empatha, driving the force of his own willpower through his bloodshot rusty brown eyes. “You give me one of your caravaneers and an empty wagon so that I can beat Khagan to her, or I will stay here and gather his attention to spare her. He will gladly massacre you to get to me.”

“Y-you would not d-d-”

“I would,” the steel blue pony answered with harshness in his voice. “You made the mistake of assuming that because I stood at Celestia’s side, I shared her kindness.” The Commander took a half dozen strides past Ghayth toward the north, staring off at the sky. “Rainbow Dash is more important than me, and she is certainly more important than you. I’ll tell Celestia what you did for me, or I’ll tell Celestia that you died for me. Your choice.”

“I would rather she not hear of me from your lips,” the camel replied.

The Commander had no reply.

Stoikaja watched as the six equine shapes approached in the dark. White Flag was obvious, walking in the center of the formation alongside an ancient mare on a cane. Three of the other figures weren’t flesh-and blood ponies at all, judging by their stiff gaits. As ‘Soldier On’, the mare had seen first-hoof what White Flag’s stone golems were capable of. That she had brought three was a testament to the stakes of their inevitable conflict.

It was the sixth figure that worried her, though, twisting her brow into knots. It shouldn’t have been frightening, standing less than two feet tall at the shoulder, with stubby, underdeveloped wings decorating its back. The filly called out to her in a squeaky voice. “Miss Resistant?”

“Scootaloo?” Stoikaja’s gaze swiveled from the filly to White Flag. “What are you pulling, Flag?”

The middle-aged unicorn’s expression did not change in the slightest from its constant state of moderate displeasure. “I brought her to stop Rainbow,” Flag answered evenly. “The last thing I would want to do is drag up those memories for you.” In her usual tone of voice, Stoikaja had a hard time believing those words. Flag continued without much of a pause. “Where is Reckoning?”

It was the aging mare leaning on her cane that spoke up. “Don’t ask stupid questions, Flag. You might as well just get to work, and let him come out in his own time. Celestia knows he loves to be dramatic about it.” Vivid red eyes swiveled behind wrinkled lids to gaze at Stoikaja. “You’ve got your work cut out for you, too. What in Tartarus do they even feed you to get that big?”

“Potatoes,” On muttered. “Who are you, old mare?”

The mass of gaunt, wrinkled flesh and knobby joints smiled wider than Stoikaja would have considered possible. “Unending Vigil, Captain of the National Guard. And before you go buckin’ one of your fun shoes there at me, just let me say that I’m not here to get involved in your little Honor Guard vendetta.”

Scootaloo cocked her head. “What’s ‘vendetta’ mean?”

“It means White Flag is going to try to kill me,” Stoikaja explained, “because she doesn’t want us to rescue Rainbow Dash’s father.”

“No way!” Scootaloo yelled out, breaking into a run toward the unicorn. “That’s not―”

Flag’s head twitched in Scootaloo’s direction, and a single bolt of magic struck the little filly. Mid-stride, the pegasus crumpled forward. Stoikaja took three running strides toward the filly before one of Flag’s golem’s blocked her path.

“Just a sleep charm,” the unicorn explained. “She likely bruised her chin in the fall, but with the bruises she had on her knees, she’s endured worse. Now that I can be blunt, On, you have two options. You can surrender, return to Canterlot, and face whatever fate Princess Celestia decides to give you, or I can kill you here and now.”

“Give up and let Roscherk win, or fight to save a good pony?” The question was itself an answer, even before the earth pony lunged at the stone golem near Scootaloo. The mouthless muzzle of granite shattered under her skysteel hoof.

When the stone stopped its fall in midair and returned to the creature’s face, the rebel realized just how much trouble she was in.

The golem’s eyeless face lowered, as if it could see the mare standing before it, and it tensed. The warning was enough for Stoikaja to throw herself backward with both hooves with all her might. A twinge of her right shoulder gave her enough forewarning to realize the game Flag was playing. In midair, she leaned forward into the golem’s hoof, taking a jarring blow to her tingling foreshoulder. The blow came with enough force to throw the flesh and blood pony a dozen feet backward. In the space that she had only barely left, a bolt of Flag’s magic whizzed off to dissipate in the distance.

On skidded on three hooves, kicking up a cloud of dust. Without a moment to spare, she flipped a shoe from her bandolier into the air and reared up to buck it. The clang of steel heralded her attack, sent flying just in time for her see the golem hoof swinging for her neck. She couldn’t dodge the stone creature’s attack, but a better option presented itself. With her hind legs still in the air, she pumped her forehooves to jump over the oncoming fatal blow. The stone leg thrust through the open space in front of her forehooves, and she took advantage of it. Wrapping both legs tightly around the limb, she gritted her teeth to call upon the depths of her Endura. The magic lent her enough strength to twist in the air, still holding the golem’s leg, and slam all eight hundred pounds of the creature against the hard dirt.

The cost of the maneuver became clear when the cracked but unbroken statue wrapped its legs tight around her. She slammed her hooves down on its neck and pushed as hard as she could, but the tingling on her back warned her that her escape wouldn’t come fast enough. The sensation that came next could never be called a tingling. The two remaining golems slammed their hooves down on her back, one and then the other. Once, and her vision blurred until the night was a mass of red and purple splotches. Twice, and she lost feeling in her hind legs.

“Flag, stop it,” Vigil ordered.

The golems stopped their beating, though the cold stone pinning Stoikaja made no motion to release her. Her vision came back slowly, but in its absence, she heard the approaching hooves. Their perfect gait told her it wasn’t the mare with the cane. White Flag stopped a single stride out of hoof’s reach. “I’m going to make my offer again, On. You can come back with me if you want. Face Celestia’s judgement instead of Luna’s. All you need to do is give up. Whether you admit it or not, Equestria is better off without the Commander.”

Stoikaja had to shake her head to realize she had heard White Flag correctly. “What? After everything we’ve done―”

“We?” Flag snapped. “You don’t have a clue, Stoikaja. Have you ever tried to count the corpses?”

The strong-jawed earth pony glared at her former peer. “He told me exactly what I was signing up for when I joined the Honor Guard. If you’re talking about the boars―”

“I don’t give a damn about the boars, On! I’m talking about ponies!” A vein on Flag’s brow pulsed beneath her snowy mane, and her hoof ground down on the dust. “Sixteen hundred guardsponies in Treasonfang Pass. Most of them weren’t real soldiers, either. Draftees from Trottingham and Neighples.”

Still struggling with the golem, if only for show, Stoikaja replied harshly. “You’re going to let him die over Treasonfang? You lost a battle, Flag. Ponies died. Get over it.”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Flag answered with a growl. Her hooves took her a stride closer, where she could look On properly in the eye. “He was the one who came up with the plan! He ordered all those ponies to their deaths, and I was to blame for trying to save them!” Panting through gritted teeth, the captain of the Royal Guard gathered magic on her horn and struggled to calm herself. “It doesn’t matter. His Honor Guard dies with you, On. Roscherk is incompetent, and he won’t hold the position long if he’s even still alive. When I’m the commander, I’ll be able to fix entire catastrophe. But for now, On, it’s time to sleep.”

“I’d rather die,” Stoikaja growled. “Flag, if this is it, give me that at least.”

White Flag raised a brow, wrinkling her brow. “You’d rather face Luna than Celestia?”

“I’d rather face Luna than Roscherk,” On answered with an even face. “But I need you to keep her from putting me on the Night Guard. I need you to destroy my body.”

White Flag looked back to Unending Vigil. The old gray mare shrugged from her place near the parked airship. “Give her what she wants, Flag. We won’t have to deal with carrying her back.”

Brilliant blue mana congealed around White Flag’s horn as she turned back to face her restrained foe. “Well, then, On, this is the end.” The spell was simple enough, but it took most of the unicorn’s concentration. Disintegrating even a small rock was tiring, and required no shortage of volatile mana. The aging mare winced as the sparks around her horn grew more and more numerous, until her face resembled a firecracker.

Behind all the light, she didn’t see Stoikaja smile.

The earth pony slammed her entire body weight against the stone arms holding her. She already knew she couldn’t break the golem’s grip, but she did have enough strength to tip it over. The unthinking automaton offered little resistance when she worked to give it a better position, and accepted a place sprawled over her back pinning her against the dust. It had no way of knowing that there would soon be an arcane blast shredding through the air. When White Flag released her magic, the golem knew nothing at all.

The blast was deafening, and the sensation was surreal. Dust settled onto Stoikaja’s coat, as she felt its hairs stand straight up toward the open space where the golem had been. She knew she didn’t have time to think, however. Her forelegs braced against the ground, and she lifted her hind legs into the air, pointing straight at White Flag’s jaw. What followed was a skill she had picked up during her autumn working in Ponyville: a perfect, glorious Apple-family applebuck.

Though the attack only barely managed to reach its target, White Flag was hurled fifty feet, bleeding from a hoof-shaped cut on her neck and another lower on her chest. They were shallow blows, but still bled and burned. The mage hit the ground with a sickening crunch, rolling four times in the dust. By the end of the motion, her white mane had turned a gnarled red and her royal blue coat was a muddy brown, caked in her own blood and the desert dust.

Shaking off wounds that would have killed the average royal guard, the unicorn stood shakily to her hooves and surveyed the scene. That one hit had turned the tide. She had to give it to Soldier On; the Stalliongradian was clever. If the spell hadn’t been so complicated and requiring of so much focus, Flag would probably have seen through the trick. Either On was incredibly lucky, or a great deal smarter than the unicorn had given her credit for.

“Are you alright?” Unending Vigil asked, hobbling over to the downed unicorn. For her attempt to lay a hoof on Flag’s back, she had the offending limb slapped away.

“We’ve fought dragons, Vigil,” Flag answered. “If one hit like that could take me down, I’d have been dead twenty years ago. Where’d she go?”

Vigil pointed to a small hole punched in the skysteel-clad hull of their airship. “She’s in her element now, Flag.”

“And I’m going to kill her in it,” White Flag answered, sending out a quick spark of her Arcana. Her two remaining golems galloped to her sides, taking up flanking positions. The blue aura around her horn built up into a solid glow, and with its light, she stepped into the darkness.

It was only a few moments later that the sky was torn apart by a ring of rainbow light. Left alone outside, the old captain took a slow breath, braced herself on her cane, and frowned.

The engine room was a mass of pipes, steam, and shadows. Flag’s eyes wandered over the steel and copper pipes, glowing only in the feeble reflection of her own horn’s light. She didn’t speak. On wasn’t going to give up, and calling out wasn’t going to earn an answer. Instead, the unicorn gathered her thoughts into another complex, trying spell. Before her, the air wove itself into a shimmering blue veil of sparking magic, fully as wide as the little walkspace that navigated its way through the maze of pipes. Where it touched the metal, it sizzled and sparked, though it would only do harm to living flesh.

She gestured with her neck, and her golems set a plodding pace through the deadly barrier and into the belly of the airship. On was somewhere nearby, and soon she would be dead. Flag’s eyes sharpened at the flick of a mental switch, and she began to scan her way through the dim light, guiding her horn around corners and into narrow spaces in search of her enemy.

A pipe groaned behind her, and she pivoted in place. Her field of searing death swept through empty air. It met nothing, leaving her on edge and tensed. The old soldier drew down a breath and turned around again.

The path wound forward, up, and right with a small set of stairs. In the depths of the massive room, she could hear her golems traversing similar paths with perfect rhythm to their steps. One, two, three, four. Her own hooves carried her up the stairs toward a dimly glowing boiler. The bars that kept its coals away from unsafe hooves looked to all the world like teeth, ready to devour her, but she was too old to believe it posed any threat. Not when there was a real monster lurking in the shadows.

Ahead, her eye caught the slightest hint of vision. A leg, covered in fur. Moving slowly, she took two strides closer. Then, with a sudden twist, she spun her spell into the mass.

It found an odd pipe, cast in an odd shadow to look as though it were covered in hair. Her magic gave it an odd color, but barely different than anything else in the room. She shrugged off her curiosities; if it had been On, the spell would have killed her. Instead, the captain walked along the path past the strange pipe and continued her search for her prey.

One, two, three, four, went the golems, trodding along in the dark.

Flag heard the groan of a pipe, and spun in place again. The strange pipe stared back at her, unmoved. A quick surge of magic swept the area, but Soldier On was still nowhere to be found. Biting her lip, Flag turned.

One, two, three… four.

It was a small pause, but it spoke volumes to White Flag. Gathering her mana for teleportation without losing her spell was hard, but Flag had couldn’t afford to go without either. A painful crack appeared in the outer layer of her horn as she focused―the cost of using more magic than her body could manage in one go. A horn crack would heal itself in a week or so, but the exposure of the horn’s core to the air was painful. Most untrained mages would lose a spell from the pain of a crack, but Flag brushed it off with no more ceremony than the brutal buck she’d taken from her opponent.

She popped out of the high catwalk, and appeared three floors lower in the bowels of the ship. There, beside her, was her golem. Without waiting, she whirled her slaying field in a quick circle. It found no prey. Momentarily safe, Flag nevertheless gathered the mana for a quick shield to stop one of On’s bladed shoes. The pain of her fresh injury cost her the second spell’s worth of magic.

The golem at her side had a huge hole in it’s chest, where On had likely punched through the solid stone. The cavity where the construct’s heart should have been explained its lack of movement, though Flag had to wonder how the attack had gone unheard… and why there was no gravel on the floor.

A crack of steel and a hiss of steam stole her thoughts again. It was high overhead, on the catwalk she’d just left behind. Flag quietly wondered if On was somehow climbing the pipes. Rather than hurting herself further, and wasting more of her waning mana, the royal blue mare cast her net in front of her, and ran along the catwalks.

Pipes, gauges, and catwalks shot past her. Whenever she passed a fork in her route, she threw her net across it. Time and time again, it failed to find its target. Soon, she found her way back to the same stretch of path she had left behind by teleporting before. A crack in a pipe cast a cloud of steam into her way, though it wasn’t what caught her eye.

The strange furry pipe was gone. Flag gritted her teeth, and hurled her net forward in a surge of mana and her own pain. It seared over the path, yet the lack of a scream told her that even in that desperate burst, it had missed its goal. In the absence of her horn’s glow, the room became nearly black, broken only by the glow of the boiler on the far side of the steam. Gritting her teeth, the mare leapt through the scalding mist.

The pain was terrible, burning away patches of her coat along her side, but it was a trade she had to make for the light that the boiler was casting. Putting her back to the iron bars and the orange glow, her eyes swiveled over the catwalk.

“Come out, On! Let’s finish this!”

There was a creak from the boiler, and then a heavy tone of metal from the far side of the room. Flag gathered magic in her horn, readying the simplest of killing spells. It would overload a pony’s nerves, requiring only a modicum of mana and the basest level of focus. Perfect for a desperate pony in a corner.

The weight slammed her down on the catwalk, burning her side.

“How―” she managed to gasp, before a blow to the ribs stole the breath from her lungs, and the magic from her horn.

The voice that answered her was too dark and too masculine even for Soldier On. “I thought we agreed you were going to let me get myself killed.” The words were accompanied by the sensation of fangs running along her left ear.

“Reckoning?” Flag wondered in awe.

The stallion answered by picking White Flag up and hurling her against the pipes on the far side of the catwalk. The force was at least what Soldier On had managed, bending the pipes and covering both her paths of escape with scalding steam.

When the old mare had finally recovered enough to see straight, she set her eyes on Dead Reckoning. The stallion spread a leathery bat wing from his left side, even as a feathered green one extended from his right. His eyes were equally mismatched―the orb which had once been glass and blind was now yellow, slitted, and all too capable of seeing through the darkness. The trio of scars surrounding the frightening orb was shallower, though still present. His bared teeth contained a full set of razor sharp fangs.

“It’s over, Flag. I fed last night. I can end you faster than you can cast.”

Flag opened her mouth, and found it filled with bloody phlegm. After coughing up the disgusting coppery glob, she found her way around to words. Every draw of breath sent a tinge of pain through her chest. “So you’ve sold your soul for him, Reckoning?”

Reckoning smiled around his fangs, shaking his head. “You’re a sad old mare, Flag. And since I used to be a sad old stallion, let me give you some advice. The point of a soul isn’t to hoard it. It’s to find something worth selling it for.” Having spoken his peace, the thestral turned to walk away.

“You’re going to start a war!” Flag gasped, laying in her own defeat. “Think about what you’re doing, Reckoning!”

Ignoring her protests, the old stallion walked through the steam and disappeared.

Rainbow pulled down to the landed airship, where she found three ponies waiting. The old mare was unfamiliar, but the off-white giant and the orange foal could never have been mistaken.

“Scootaloo!” Rainbow called out at first, very nearly landing on top of Soldier On. The giant mare made no motion to resist as Rainbow pulled the limp foal from her back. “Is she alright?”

“Just asleep,” the old gray mare answered. “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Rainbow Dash. I―”

“Not now,” Rainbow interrupted, taking to the air with Scootaloo in her forelegs. “Scootaloo, wake up. You there, squirt?”

“White Flag stunned her,” Soldier On explained. “What happened to you?”

Rainbow growled. “Spitfire. She threatened to take Scootaloo away.” Nothing more needed to be said, and nothing was.

Soldier On ground a hoof into the ground, ripping up a huge track of the desert dirt. “Flag has a lot to answer for, Vigil.”

The old mare shook her head slowly. “White Flag was trying to do what she thought was right. We all are, in the end.” Then she smiled and turned toward Rainbow. “As I was saying, I’m Unending Vigil. The filly there’s cute. Your daughter?”

“My little sister,” Rainbow answered.

Vigil chuckled. “So the Commander had two daughters? And here I thought he was too busy with his work.”

“Are you here to stop us too?” Rainbow asked bitterly.

“In theory,” the ancient mare replied. “But honestly, I’m not feeling up to fighting all three of you.”

Rainbow tilted her head sideways, puzzling her way through the sentence. “All three of us?”

“What, forget about me already?” asked an unforgettable voice. Rainbow swiveled to the sight of the stallion walking out of the hole in the airship’s side and felt her jaw go slack.

“Deadeye?”

“Alive and… oh, well, I guess not. Dead and kicking?” The stallion shrugged with mismatched wings and smiled with harsh fangs. “You still don’t get to call me that, though.”

“You’re a Night Guard!” Rainbow observed. “Why didn’t you tell me you were a Night Guard?”

Reckoning took a few steps forward, finding his way over to Rainbow’s side, before he replied. “Uh, I did. I know I didn’t say it outright in Canterlot, since Scootaloo was sitting there, but really… what were you expecting?”

“I just thought the Night Guard had a trick on their armor or something. Are they all undead?”

Reckoning wore a priceless grin as he turned to Soldier On. The earth pony only offered a shrug.

“Yes. I sort of assumed you knew, Rainbow, after what you said about talking to her and Celestia. I would have been more blunt, but it’s a bit of an uncomfortable subject. For both of us.” On frowned, and Reckoning held up a hoof by way of apology. “The Night Guard are sort of the reason why most of us Honor Guards don’t really like Princess Luna.”

“But you said you didn’t like Princess Luna because she killed Loose Cannon…” Even mid-sentence, realization dawned on Rainbow’s face.

“Eldest Sister,” Reckoning noted. “It was always weird walking past her in the halls of the palace. The Night Guard are supposed to be Luna’s way of punishing―”

“Reckoning, stop,” Soldier On interrupted.

Reckoning shook her head. “I think Rainbow should understand this. It will make meeting her father easier, for one thing.”

“Not now!” On ordered. “Look!” Unwilling to disobey the mare who was six inches and a hundred pounds his superior, Reckoning directed his gaze to the south. Against purple sky, on the verge of going black, the pillar of smoke stood out like a knife in a map.

“What do you think that is?” Reckoning wondered. “Just looks like some burning brush or a wildfire to me.”

“I think it’s Dad,” Rainbow stated firmly. Only a moment later, she found herself wondering just what had drawn out the words and their confidence.

“How could you possibly know that?” Soldier On asked.

Unending Vigil chuckled. “Earth ponies aren’t the only ones who sometimes have a gut feeling. You’d be surprised what you can feel for your family.” Showing through the guise of ‘Soldier On’, Stoikaja recoiled as if she’d been struck. The old mare passed on a comment to address Rainbow. “If you think the Commander is there, you should probably hurry.”

“It’ll take us an hour, by my guess,” Reckoning muttered. “I’m not as fast a flier as Rainbow, and On can’t fly at all…”

“Rainbow,” Soldier On began, filling her tone with steel. “Go. We’ll follow.”

“What?” The pegasus turned to the giant earth pony. “What happened to being afraid of all the boars, and―”

“We don’t have time to waste worrying about fighting them, Rainbow. Fly fast, and fly hard. Don’t stop, and don’t let them catch you. If you have to, pick him up and carry him. Whatever you do, do it quickly!”

“But―”

“Go!”

“Get out of here, Rainbow!”

Gulping in hesitance, the pegasus spread her wings. “Be back soon, guys.”

Rainbow pressed her belly against the burnt out shell of the camel wagon, and peeked her head over the edge. She’d never seen a camel before, but it wasn’t hard to identify the humped bodies from her social studies classes as a young foal. The camels’ corpses littered the rockier ground on the little plateau miles away from the Equestrian border, strewn amidst fresh blood and living boars. One of them dominated Rainbow’s attention, as he was too large to be ignored.

Khagan grinned as his tusks began to glow in some dull tone, though only a moment later, the pegasus found that she could not recall the color of his magic. Instead, she only remembered the sight of the poor camel he picked up and pulled out from beneath a toppled wagon wheel. Rainbow didn’t even have a chance to cry out on his behalf. The grown camel stallion was crying right up to the moment that Khagan ripped him in half at the waist.

Rainbow gasped. Khagan’s ears perked. The pegasus ducked back behind her cover as the gruff gray head of the warchief turned in her direction. Her heart raced at a thousand beats a minute when she heard his massive cloven hoof take a step in her direction.

“You could have made this easy, you know,” Khagan bellowed. Struggling to control her breath, Rainbow barely noted that her memory of his volume grew quieter and quieter with every second. “All you had to do was tell me where the pony went.”

She spread her wings against the splintered wood and got ready to take off. She was only given pause by a groan of agony nearby. Off to her side, an ancient camel struggled to pull himself forward on his single remaining leg. The pegasus struggled not to vomit at the way his other limbs were strewn about around him. “We had―” the old camel began, before breaking down into a coughing fit.

Rainbow turned to peek through the broken wood of the wagon. Through it, she could see Khagan chuckle as his scraggly beard bounced from side to side on his burly chin. “You’re talking about our deal, camel? You swore that you would not interfere with my battles, and I swore I would not interfere with your continuing life. You broke our deal first.” Khagan’s smashed snout, which looked like it had had been broken too many times by the way it was pressed to the left side of his face, turned away from the suffering camel to face a team of four boar warriors in formation. Rainbow reflected that they were probably around Gilda’s size, beneath the heavy stone plates covering their bodies as armor.

“Which of you did this to him?” Khagan shouted. “Why is he suffering?”

One of the boars, a little runt in the warchief’s vision, nodded his head in admittance and stepped forward. “I thought you might like him the way you had the other pony.” The thought twisted Rainbow’s gut into a knot.

Khagan smiled. Stepping toward the smaller boar, he laughed. The world seemed to shake in fear of the noise.

Then the warchief’s tusks ignited, and he ripped the young boar’s head clean off.

“Look at this!” the warchief bellowed, turning the severed head so that it was staring at the three remaining warriors. “This is the fate that befalls warriors without honor! We all know why the ancestors sent us the tusk rot!” Khagan then gestured down toward Ghayth with a look of disgust. “No creature of honor deserves what we see here. He may be weak. He may be pathetic. But you have no place to make him suffer.” And with that, the boar ruler lifted a cloven hoof above the camel’s head.

“Wait!” Rainbow shouted, lunging out of her hiding place and slamming into Khagan’s side. The giant boar felt harder than the walls of most of Ponyville’s buildings, and the force of Rainbow’s collision didn’t even phase him.

“A pony!” one of the boars shouted, rearing back and igniting his tusks in brilliant red Arcana. Two bolts of magic were sent flying in Rainbow’s direction. To her surprise, Khagan stopped them with a quick spell of his own. The magical bolts rebounded in midair, striking their creator and engulfing him in brilliant red light. He collapsed to the ground, his body steaming.

“That will be enough,” Khagan growled at his two remaining subordinates. Then, to Rainbow’s shock, his magic wrapped in a vice-like grip around her throat. Her wings flared out, and she struck at the aura, but it only grew tighter until she was spending all her meager strength simply drawing breath. “The hubris of ponies astounds me. Your ‘Commander’ at least managed to cut my flesh. He is why you’re here, isn’t he?” Rainbow continued to struggle as Khagan’s vile grin grew wider and wider. “You made that burst of light. It matches your hair. But you’ve come here searching, which means he didn’t actually make it to you.”

“You… didn’t catch… him?” Rainbow gasped.

The old camel found strength for more words. “He left when he saw your light… Rainbow Dash.”

Khagan turned to the old camel, and then his harsh red eyes swiveled back to his captive. With no apparent effort, he slammed Rainbow to the ground on her back, and pinned her wings down. “Is that your name?”

Rainbow spat up at Khagan, putting a glob of liquid on his brow. “Why should I tell you?”

“Because I can rip your limbs off one by one if you do not give me what I want,” Khagan answered. “Your friend was quite fond of his wings. Which one of yours should I take off first?”

Rainbow tried to hold a strong face, but it lasted only until the first pinch of his magic gathered around the base of her left wing. “No! Stop, please! I’m Rainbow Dash, okay? Just don't touch my wings!”

“Was that so hard?” Khagan asked with a sarcastic smirk. “Unfortunately, I still need your friend to come back.”

Then Rainbow felt the tug. It was long, and slow, and agonizing. The first surge of real pain was when the ball of her wing was pulled out of the socket. She screamed as darkness came to her eyes. Khagan stopped only for long enough to keep her from slipping into unconsciousness. Then he pulled again. This time, the sound was wet, and the pain uncontrollable.

Pain was nothing, though, compared to the hollow void she felt when the feeling had settled to a wet throbbing, and Khagan grabbed her jaw with his magic to make her look up. Blue feathers hung limply in midair, stained by fresh blood.

Rainbow’s world was already over when she felt a tug on her other side. As her mind finally gave up, it produced one final word.

“Rocket…”

“Khagan!”

The warchief shook with amusement, running a hoof over the feathery center of his newly fashioned necklace. “I see she was important enough to bring you back, Commander.”

The Commander stumbled forward, his expression indecipherable under cover of night. “I’m here, Khagan. Let her go.”

“Or what?” Khagan turned to the boars in his company, smiling with growing amusement. “You’ll fail to injure me again?”

“Celestia will come for her.”

The boar slapped a hoof to the ground with such force that Rainbow’s unconscious body bounced up from the ground an inch. “You think I’m afraid of your pathetic princess? Threaten me with Luna and I might at least consider feeling threatened. Celestia lost a fight with the bug queen.”

The Commander called back with a blade in his tone. “You can’t survive a war with Equestria, Khagan. And if you don’t let Rainbow go, that’s what you’re going to be facing.”

Rainbow’s father had finally closed to a dozen feet away, standing over Ghayth’s sorry form. His wings were folded over his back at a horrifying angle, with their trailing feathers pointing toward his head and their crests twisted back toward the steel shield and lightning bolts that made up his cutie mark. He barely managed to stand on two of his legs, using a third as an uncomfortable support while the fourth hung limp and useless. His teeth clutched his own femur tightly, as if it could be of any use against the looming mass of his enemy.

Khagan shook his head with continued amusement. “That’s where you’re wrong, pony.” The warchief glanced back to his followers, and then stepped toward his mortal foe, speaking in a grumbling whisper. “You see, while you were enjoying my company in Balgas Rift, I finally figured out the cure to your curse.” At the little secret, his voice picked up again. “I don’t care whether your armies come to meet me, or if I get the pleasure of moving up to fight on your soil. Either way, your kind will be caught unprepared. I might decide to kill your friend here early, but you’re going to live to see me break Celestia and Luna on my tusks.”

The Commander glared at Khagan for a long moment, before turning to the old camel at his hooves. “I’m sorry, Ghayth. I meant for him not to come.”

“I honored hosp,” Ghayth gasped out. “I will be with Salwah…”

“Celestia,” the Commander corrected. And then, looking into the camel’s eyes, he added three more words. “I love you.”

Khagan gasped as the Commander thrust his bone sword into the camel’s heart. The boar’s tusks flared, the world flashed, and all was overcome by silence.

XVI - Ghosts of the Past

XVI

Ghosts of the Past

With guest translations by Fillosof

(Russian text in this chapter is unrated)

Rainbow dreamt of falling. Clouds shot past her left and right, yet with every little tickle on her wingtips, her desperate flaps failed to make even the slightest difference. Instead, the pit in her stomach only grew and grew, putting tears in her eyes and a quivering in her throat. She shivered with a cold that could normally never pierce a pegasus’ skin. Her wings grew numb, and her body shook. Out of the corner of her eyes, she could make out one blue feather drifting away. Then another. And another still. She was no stranger to losing the odd feather in flight, but the sight of what lay beneath froze her tongue and twisted her throat. In place of the flesh and bones of her precious wings, there was only a shadow.

She woke, in tandem, from the hoof on her shoulder and the surge of her own throat as her growling stomach found that it had nothing to empty. Her eyes blinked slowly, as fuzzy shadows became a stone cell a mere half-dozen feet across, sealed by a steel door and lit by a tiny open window high on the wall. Weighing her options on instinct, the pegasus pushed up with her hooves, only to find resistance from the hoof of another holding her down by her back.

“You are still not scarred. Stay still, mare, or you will reopen―”

Rainbow didn’t recognize the deep yet feminine voice. Her mind didn’t bother to parse to warning. All her mind understood was that the speaker was not a pony. She twisted in place, and looked up.

A boar stared down at her.

“Get away from me!” Rainbow shouted, rolling to the side with all her strength. The creature’s grip wasn’t enough to pin the young athlete down, though the surges of pain from the stubs on her back rubbing over the stone floor were a horrifying enough feeling to stop her completely just the same. Shrieking in pain, the pegasus wrapped her hooves around her head. “No! Give them back!”

“What?”

Rainbow felt her own blood pooling from her back, staining her coat and painting the floor. Even as she twitched, she cried out again to her enemy. “Give ‘em back!”

The boar didn’t answer. Gritting her teeth, Rainbow placed her hooves back on the floor. Twice she slipped in her own vitality before standing.

Her eyes locked on the boar. It was a smaller thing than Khagan or his minions, with a wiry brown coat and no tusks to speak of. Gritting her teeth, the pegasus ran forward.

“I want my wings!” Her first hoof caught the boar on the snout, drawing blood and leaving the sow recoiling. A second strike caught her chin, and toppled the larger creature backward. “What did you do with them?”

Hiding behind cloven hooves, the boar retreated from Rainbow’s assault. “I didn’t do anything!”

“Liar!” A third strike caught her foreleg, forcing it down. “Give them back!” A fourth blow hit the top of the sow’s brow, leaving her wincing.

“I swear! I’m just as much a prisoner here as you are, pony!”

“Prisoner?” The word found some purchase in Rainbow’s mind, and her eyes swept across the room. For a moment, they locked on the sky. “I’ve got to get out.”

“You can’t simply escape. The―”

“I’m going to get out,” Rainbow interrupted. “I’ve got to get out.” Darting across the room, she came to the foot of the enormous door. No knob or handle was available on the inside, leaving Rainbow to rub her bloody hooves up and down the edges. “I need to get out. I’ve got to find Khagan.”

“Pony, I do not know what you are hoping to accomplish, and I am sorry for your loss―”

“I have to go! I have to find him.” Growling in irritation, the pegasus pulled her hoof back and smashed it against the door. A dull ringing echoed in the little stone cell, but the door was unaffected. “I have to get Khagan!” Another blow cried out, to no result. Ignoring the resistance, she struck, again and again, until her hoof began to crack and bleed from the force. “No! No!” Over and over, the shouts escaped, but the door ignored them. “Let me out! Let me fly! Let me… let me…” The blows slowed, losing force just as quickly as Rainbow’s voice, until all that remained was a quivering wreck. “Let me fly again…”

For what seemed like a very long time, the pegasus was left alone in her sorrow. Tears fell, shimmering in the orange light of the little window, though Rainbow saw nothing, preferring the darkness behind her eyelids. She cried in silence, for there was nothing to say. All she had was the cruel realization that the marks on her flanks meant nothing.

She would never fly again.

“Что ты имеешь в виду, Полночь?” It was the first voice Masquerade had heard in twelve hours, echoing down the spiral staircase at the far side of the room that served as its only entrance. Her head perked up, rattling the chain connected to her collar. “Постой, что это было?” The voice had been speaking to somepony else, but it picked up to a louder tone as it continued. “Там внизу кто-то есть?”

“You’ll need to speak Equiish with her, Predvidenie.” The almost growling tone of Third Brother was unmistakable. “I do not know how good her Stalliongradi really is, and how much of it is magic, and I do not speak Prench. ”

The voice―Predvidenie―replied with an almost audible raised eyebrow. “That doesn’t make any sense. Everypony knows there’s no such thing as an auditory translation spell. And I can’t help but notice that you still haven’t given me an―” Foresight stepped around the last inch of the column at the center of the spiral staircase leading down into the dungeon. There, the royal blue unicorn simply stopped. “―answer.”

Masquerade stared, smiled, and then started to chuckle. “Foresight?”

It took only a moment for Foresight’s look of confusion to turn into one of utter hatred. “Masquerade.”

Shaking away her little spat of amusement, the assassin acknowledged her curiosity. “You recognize me?”

“If you thought Roscherk went about his efforts to hunt you alone,” Foresight replied as his horn went to work loosening his scarf, “you are sadly mistaken. We have pictures of you in acting classes in Mareis. When I take into account that Roscherk is far too thick to have picked up the finer points of a Prench accent, there aren’t a lot of holes to fill in.”

And then, almost casually, he added “Have you killed another one of my brothers?”

There was a part of Masquerade that was tempted to lie, to see how the stallion would react. It wasn’t any fear of Foresight, but of the midnight stallion at his side, that drew out the truth. “I couldn’t risk it. I didn’t have any way to keep Celestia from getting his soul, and then she would have known I’d escaped.”

“Necromancy?” Foresight’s glare deepened just a moment before he turned to face Third Brother. “You should have had me bring Infernus.”

“I don’t intend to kill her.” Third Brother casually leapt over the smaller unicorn, landing heavily on the flat stones that made up the dungeon floor a mere few inches from Masquerade’s side. “Perhaps the Mistress will.”

“Infernus?” Masquerade shivered a little. “A spell? What sort of freaky magic is that?”

“Not magic,” Third Brother answered with the same utter lack of emotion that scared Masquerade in a way no amount of anger ever could. “The sword of Tsyklon. Too large for any other living pony to use in battle.” Masquerade wondered if the thestral was including his own massive size and freakish strength in that assessment. Was a thestral actually a pony? Third Brother offered no answers to her silent questions as he continued. “Three feet in length, and heavy enough to go straight through a spine in one blow. Roscherk is fond of using it for executions.”

“Why do you humor her?” Foresight asked scornfully. “Get whatever information you can out of her, then execute her. Or bring her to Princess Luna, if that’s what you intend.”

Third Brother shook his head. “I would prefer not to torture her, Predvidenie. It was Truncheon’s influence that created me, and I do not want to retread my old steps. Masquerade has an answer for me, and as long as she gives it to me, she will have my respect.”

Behind his gold-framed glasses, Foresight’s expression went slack. “I think you’re being naive. As ridiculous as this sounds, Roscherk’s way is probably the best avenue to a resolution here.”

“Roscherk’s way?” the thestral asked flatly. His hooves moved slowly, one by one turning him around to face his unicorn companion. Leathery wings extended slowly, and the cold stallion lowered himself as if preparing to pounce. Masquerade gasped when the giant pony’s wings exploded into flame. “You honestly want to talk to me about Roscherk’s way?”

Foresight recoiled, losing his near-perpetual calm and shielding his face with a hoof. “I―I didn’t mean to imply that you…” Panting in fear, the unicorn finally managed to whisper another few words. “I’m sorry, Brother.”

“You are forgiven, Predvidenie. I would say that I was thankful she did not kill Roscherk, but in truth, he likely deserves it.” Snarling fangs briefly flashed in Masquerade’s direction, glinting white in light cast by his still-flaming wings. “Regardless, I know that he lives. The mistress makes a habit of speaking to her sister in dreams. And so, it was in a dream that Celestia warned that Masquerade was in possession of Roscherk’s jacket. Though it would not have mattered; the fact that she failed to recognize me told me everything I needed to know.”

His leathery wings relinquished their flames and folded against the thestral’s sides. With casual strides, he brought his looming body to bear near his prisoner. “Have you figured it out yet, Masquerade?”

“Now, hold on.” Foresight raised a hoof, managing to walk forward on his remaining three. Masquerade’s brow quirked at the little stiffness in his hind legs, though she didn’t bother a comment. “I think I’m going to need a bit more explanation here. I admit I suspected something was wrong with Roscherk when I spoke to him, but she got his cutie mark right. Illusion magic can’t do that.”

“No, it cannot.” Third Brother placed his head beneath his wing. A moment later, when he exposed himself from beneath the leathery appendage, a familiar glimmer of steel had appeared between his fangs. “But there is magic which can.”

“Is that Truncheon’s knife?” Foresight asked, obviously troubled.

The thestral gave no answer to the unicorn’s question, instead bringing the blade slowly toward Masquerade’s throat. She could feel the metal through her coat, stinging her even though it hadn’t cut her flesh. She could smell the cruel magic. Third Brother showed no sympathy, speaking around the handle with no apparent difficulty. “Answer his question.”

Panting tightly, and feeling a chill growing in her hind hooves, Masquerade looked to Foresight with desperation in her eyes. He replied with an unforgiving glare over the rim of his glasses. “I… I can’t.”

The knife made a tiny slit on the side of her neck, well clear of any veins. To her body, it felt as though lightning was coursing through her nerves from the wound, burning and shredding. Her eyes watered, and she screamed until her throat went numb and her lungs could not support the noise.

When Third Brother finally removed his knife, Masquerade found herself panting. The slit on her throat was only faintly bleeding, but her body still felt like it had been on fire. Worse still were the shadows all throughout the dark room. In her tired, desperate mind, she thought she saw the glowing orb of her contractor watching her. Her conscious mind told her that Foresight and Third Brother hadn’t reacted, but it was hard to convince herself of such logic through the pain. Tears leaked down her cheeks, but when she closer her eyes, she saw Third Brother’s slitted orbs staring back as if burnt into her eyelids. When she opened them again, the world was gray, and fuzzy around the edges, as if part of its reality had been stolen away by the cruel wound.

“Answer him,” Third Brother ordered, in the same tone he had always used in addressing her.

“I can’t. Please, I―” The knife moved forward again, touching her coat, and she screamed. “Alright, alright, please, just stop!”

The cruel blade stopped, but it did not retreat.

“I’m a… a… a changeling.”

The Secretary of Stalliongrad, visibly sweating in the presence of torture, brought a shaking hoof up to his face and his glasses on his muzzle. “I always thought changelings weren’t intelligent,” he observed, in a tone that wanted desperately to sound unfazed.

Third Brother’s slitted eyes stayed locked with Masquerade’s. “Explain for him.”

Masquerade swallowed, feeling the knife bob up and down with her throat. She struggled to keep a stiff lip, though she knew her eyes were watering. “Changeling drones aren’t intelligent. But those cocoons the changelings make have magic in them; they turn ponies into a different kind of changeling. Fully intelligent, but intensely hungry for love. We can use all three kinds of magic… but we can’t actually make magic on our own. Every time I cast a spell, it makes me hungry.”

Predvidenie paced forward, watching the mare closely with his dull red eyes. “So the Changeling Queen was behind the attempt to kill Luna?”

Masquerade held her tongue until the feeling of the knife against her throat began to draw blood. The feeling was worse than it had been before: pure agony, coursing through her body like a long, slow bolt of lightning, burning the base of every strand of her mane and every inch of her coat. “No!” she finally found the strength to cry. Satisfied, Third Brother removed his magic knife. Masquerade sucked down a breath, feeling her blood dribble against the cold metal of her collar. “No, not her.”

Third Brother’s brow rose. “Then how did you become a changeling?”

The assassin knew she couldn’t answer without risk of bringing down the curse her contractor had placed on her, but she wasn’t expecting Foresight to speak up. “All you’d need is a cocoon and a bit of alicorn magic.” the stallion told the thestral. “I can’t imagine there were any shortage of cocoons laying around Canterlot after Cadenza’s wedding. Alicorn magic, though…”

“Then there are only six options,” Third Brother noted to himself. “Or eight, if one is foolish enough to count the Princesses.”

Foresight shook his head. “Despite the name, Brother, it isn’t just alicorns who can use that sort of magic. You of all ponies should know that, even if Masquerade hadn’t just explained that any changeling… whatever she is… could do it too.”

Masquerade’s captor spoke up slowly. “Chrysalis would have no motive to kill me. A shade could not have freed Masquerade from her cell in Canterlot. And only the Mistress can create Thestrals.”

Foresight coughed. “That isn’t exactly true―”

“Create?” Masquerade interrupted, struggling with her words. “What are you?”

The thestral rolled his neck once, releasing a deep pop, and then turned his level gaze toward Masquerade. “When we last spoke, I told you that you would be telling the story of another contract. Do you recall the date I gave you?”

“I think so… June, six years ago? In Saraneighvo?” A pale blue head nodded once. Masquerade shivered in her collar, letting her eyes drift between the two stallions in her presence. “I… It was a pretty normal job.” Third Brother seemed unbothered by the statement, but spite collected on Foresight’s face in contrast to his earlier discomfort. “I have...er, I guess I had a pony who took contracts for me. But you and the other ‘thestrals’ picked him up.”

“His sacrifice is helping to undo your harm to Commander Lining,” the thestral replied, before licking his fangs in a slow and exaggerated motion that sent shivers down Masquerade’s already chilled spine. “But do not let my appetite disturb you. Please, continue.”

Again, Masquerade found herself shivering in fear and cold. “The target was a police pony… wait, I think I remember.” Third Brother’s brow rose as Masquerade turned to look at Foresight. “This was your brother, wasn’t it?” The assassin allowed herself a long, slow breath. “I think I remember now. Is that why you brought him down here?”

Slitted eyes rolled in their sockets. Then, like a bolt of lightning, Third Brother lunged forward and rammed his knife into Masquerade’s foreleg, in the joint where Rainbow Dash had severed the limb months before. The changeling assassin collapsed, twitching in agony and screaming for what she knew had to be the rest of her life.

Shards of glass traveled through her veins from the wound. Rolling in her chain, Masquerade lost all sense of sight or sound or time, feeling only pain, and hearing only her own screams echoing off the claustrophobic stone walls into her ears. She had no fear that she would die, but she desperately wanted to.

And then, all at once, it was over.

Looming above her, Third Brother spoke over her panting agony with an utter lack of emotion or pity. “I was expecting something like your own tale, Masquerade. But if Polnoch was not worth your memory, I will tell the story myself.” The stallion’s leathery wing extended, casting out a wall of visibly sparkling fog and purple shadows. Tongues of purple flame escaped from his eyes, and a wall of green wrapped tightly around his yellow slitted irises. Masquerade watched in awe, momentarily forgetting her discomfort. Even Foresight seemed confused by the thestral’s magic.

In the dark spots of the flame, Masquerade could see a vaguely familiar room, filled with blurry-outlines of tables and chairs, pots and pans. A stallion of a more vibrant blue than Third Brother, but sharing his size and breed, sat over soup in a chipped white porcelain bowl.

“His name, as I said, was Polnoch,” Third Brother explained. “Once a simple police officer under Baron Frostbite, then his unwilling torturer, and then a revolutionary who worked to overthrow him.”

From the side of the flames came another pony; a mare taller still than the stallion, with breadth to contrast the lankier build hidden beneath his muscles, and lacking the wings that decorated his sides. Her off-white coat curled up into a smile on her cheeks. In the air, Masquerade swore she could taste the slightest hint of a sugary sensation.

“Stoikaja…” Foresight whispered, as the general displeasure written across his muzzle deepened into a truly personal spite.

“In his later years, Polnoch was also a loving husband,” Third Brother told Masquerade, “and a father.”

The gasp of air from Foresight was enough to turn the assassin away from the image. “What are you saying, Polnoch?”

Third Brother’s flaming eyes turned away from his prisoner to face the effective ruler of Stalliongrad. “Well, Predvidenie, why don’t you let me finish my story?”

“Polnoch?” Masquerade interrupted. “You can’t be Polnoch! I killed him!”

The fury on the thestral’s face melted away, and he bared his fangs in a smile that turned into a deep and terrifying laugh, echoing on the cold stone walls of the dungeon. He took a step toward Masquerade, and placed a hoof slowly on her shoulder. Despite the chill in her own body, she shivered at his frigid touch.

“Yes, Masquerade, you did.” In the shadows of the flame, Polnoch kissed Stoikaja, and offered her a seat at the table. In reality, the thestral grabbed Masquerade’s neck, forcing her forward to stare at his memories. “You had the gall to come into that home wearing her face.” She felt his spit on her ear as he spat the words.

In the memory of flames, Polnoch drank from his soup, and then slowly moved a hoof to his chest. “Then you watched,” Third Brother narrated, as the pegasus fell out of his chair and onto the floor. “You walked forward and explained exactly what it was. Galm’s Elixir, a poison made from the pollen of the black lotus and a basilisk’s venom. How was it that you phrased it, then? ‘Nasty stuff,’ I think.” In the image, Polnoch clutched his chest and screamed, writhing in silent agony. “Harmless until it comes into contact with warm tissue. Then it acts on blood vessels, turning them into an acidic ooze that literally melts the internal organs, but mostly ignores the bones and the skin itself. In six minutes, all that’s left is a sack of flesh, filled with a stew that used to be a living pony.”

Masquerade’s shivered as the grip around her neck tightened, not from the freakish cold of Third Brother’s body, but from the fear of what she was slowly coming to believe.

“The problem with Galm’s Elixir, Masquerade, is that it needs a warm body. Not a walking corpse.”

The assassin shrieked. “What are you?”

He shoved her away, letting her crumple against the chain holding her against the wall. “My name is Polnoch, the damned soul of a stallion that never earned redemption for the evils he committed in life, in this very room. I serve a century-long sentence before I may return to the Summer Lands and rejoin my foals.”

Foresight seemed to have found words, which he wheezed out more through his nose than his mouth. “Stoikaja’s foals were―”

“Your nephew and niece,” Polnoch told his elder brother spitefully, not taking his burning eyes away from Masquerade. To the assassin, his words were softer. “I am offering you a choice, assassin. One which has nothing to do with your ‘contractor,’ and everything to do with that day, six years ago. In killing me, you sank this domain into a limping hell of politics and bloody rebellion. The blood of every death in the battles between my wife and my brother is on your hooves. Help me find who hired you to make this mess, and I will speak on your behalf to the Mistress.”

Masquerade had no words to reply. In the ensuing silence, the undead stallion continued.

“Help me undo the damage you’ve done, assassin, and I will do my best to find you a path to redemption. Spurn this chance, and I will send you to Tartarus myself.” Baring his fangs and narrowing his burning eyes, the stallion leaned forward, dropping his growling voice to a harsh whisper. “One limb at a time.”

A silence filled the dungeon, as the fires in Polnoch’s eyes and the image of his death slowly trailed off into smoke and shadows. Turning to his elder brother, the thestral gestured with a wing toward the stairs. “Теперь ты знаешь, Предвидение.”

Foresight replied in a slack-jawed whisper. “Почему ты не рассказал нам?”

“Спроси Стойкую,” Polnoch answered, his tongue dancing over his fangs with ease. “I will give you some time to think, Masquerade.”

“К чему медлить?” Foresight asked.

“Потому что ей понадобиться время на размышление, и потому что мне тоже нужно время.” Polnoch began walking toward the stairs. The speed of his speech and the peculiar inflection left by his fangs made interpreting his words impossible for the non-native assassin. To her surprise, he suddenly picked up in his stiff, formal Equuish, throwing a glance back in her direction. “She did not know what a thestral was, despite her time as the Commander. In all her information on the palace, whoever hired her to kill the Mistress did not explain our nature. With that knowledge, I think I have a way to find ‘the Contractor.’”

“Как?” Foresight snapped with a sudden volume, as his magic cinched up his scarf.

“Думаю, мне придется тебя удивить, Предвидение.” Masquerade did not understand the parting words, which made the nod the stallion gave her all the more confusing.

Solo found herself shivering beneath her wings in the cab of a heavy Stalliongradian locomotive as Twilight Sparkle held a muzzle-to-muzzle argument with the spiked teeth of Marshal Serp.

“I’m not asking to fight anything! I just want to stop and take a look!”

“Тирек побери! This is not about looking for a fight, Twilight Sparkle. This is about them coming to us. You are asking us to walk into Equestria’s biggest выгребную яму, a monster-filled fortress, just so you can ‘take a look?’” The pegasus pantomimed the quotes with his leading feathers. “Let me ask you just one question, unicorn: is Celestia ,блядь, insane?”

At the far side of the cab, the enormous form of Molot was shoveling coal into the locomotive’s engine. The flames stared at Solo, beckoning her closer with dancing orange tongues and tempting her with heat. Each time she moved forward, however, she saw the red stallion, snarling his teeth and lashing out at her.

“How dare you?” Twilight shouted, grabbing Solo’s attention. “Princess Celestia is an amazing leader, and―”

“Then what kind of dry dragon дерьма was she smoking, thinking that sending you and that sorry excuse for a guard was a ,блядь, brilliant plan?” Serp’s wing gestured in Solo’s direction. “Last time you tried to stick your muzzle where it didn’t belong, I nearly killed you myself. Back there in Trotsylvania makes twice. I’m not about to have the third time turn out different. My head’s on the chopping block for you already.”

“Then, as far as I’m concerned, you can let me off here! I’m going to Onyx Ridge!”

Another shovelful of coal was thrown into the furnace, only speeding the spinning of the train’s wheels. A burst of flame licked up out of the open furnace door at the introduction of the new fuel, sending Solo skittering backwards. Nopony seemed to notice when her hooves found the door handle, and she ducked back into one of the passenger cabins.

No sooner had she lunged into the cabin then she began digging into the peytral of her Royal Guard armor where it covered the center of her chest. Her forelegs were shaking by the time they pulled out her little matchbox, tipping out the side to reveal her stash of whispersalt. Her twitching tilted two of the crystals into her waiting hoof, when she had only meant for one. Without a real thought beyond her own desperation, she tossed both yellow-green rocks into her mouth and sucked down.

The world spun just a moment after the first bit of the bitter, salty taste. As the weight of the still-uncomfortable armor on her shoulders faded away, she reflected that it reminded her of the salt on the rim of a margarita glass.

The first sigh that escaped her lips was glorious, quiet as a mouse, tickling its way out of her muzzle. The shaking of her limbs stopped, and her right forehoof slid out to catch her as she tilted sideways. It was only a moment later that her eyes settled on one of the train car’s doors to its numerous empty cabins. A soft voice in her mind expressed its gratitude that the guardsponies had been willing to make off with an empty passenger train for their trip. Leaning heavily against the finished wooden surface, Going Solo slid the door open and slipped inside.

The train lurched, and she fell to the carpeted floor on her back, wings spread out and forehooves beside her head. The rush of motion was a wonderful feeling, and there hadn’t been much of an impact to speak of. Instead, she found herself enjoying the sensation of the lush carpet against her mane. Letting her neck roll backward, she nuzzled the simple tan patterns with a quiet tenderness. The floor answered back, taking away her troubles and her worries.

The Honor Guard mare was probably right, wasn’t she? Shining Armor would be okay on his own; he was Shining Armor. He didn’t need anypony’s help. With all his spells and his magic armor, he was practically invincible.

Another bump in the tracks slapped Solo’s face against the carpet, though her cheek felt the smack of a powerful hoof instead. Suddenly, the orange diamonds on the carpet looked just enough like flames. Shoving herself up, she spread her wings and took to hovering in the center of the room. Below her, a memory opened up.

Red Ink roared as the fire flew from his wings there in Baltimare, at the Chocolate Market. In the center of his raging inferno, Shining Armor hid behind a failing purple shield, struggling to call on mana that wasn’t really there.

“No…” Solo whispered, unable to bring up much more of a voice―the best known effect of whispersalt. “No, I won’t let you take him.” Sucking in a breath, Solo folded her wings and let herself fall. Her forehoof slammed against the ground just as the fiery stallion’s face disappeared.

“Whoa!” The room spun with such speed that Going Solo found herself spinning in place to counter it. When the blurring and the dizziness settled, Twilight was standing in the open doorway, wearing a look of quiet worry.

“Is something wrong, Solo?” the unicorn asked.

“No, no―” Solo shook her hooves, trying to force her voice up. “I just… just not having a good day.”

Twilight smiled empathetically. “Don’t let Serp get to you. We’ll find Shining Armor, with or without their help. For now, I think we should get some sleep. We’ve been up too long as-is.”

Solo nodded, and then pulled herself over to one of the paired beds on the walls of the cabin. Climbing onto the covers, she turned toward Twilight. “Do you think he’ll be okay when we find him?”

“Shining?” Twilight crawled into her covers. “He’s a tough pony, but I don’t know. I guess…” Twilight swallowed heavily. “…I don’t know, Solo. My heart tells me he’s got to be alive, but in my head, I’m not so sure.”

Welcoming the embrace of the whispersalt, Solo nuzzled into her pillow. “Let’s listen to your heart, then, Twilight.”

A little chuckle escaped Twilight’s lips. “Alright, let’s do that.” And then, with a tired sigh, she continued. “I hope Rainbow is having better luck finding her dad.”

Rainbow did not know how long she had been laying there; she had somehow managed to stumble into sleep, and as her eyes peeled open, she had to fight the crust of tears that had built up on her coat. More surreal than those sensations, though, was the feeling of a rough patchy coat pressed against her back, clinging tightly.

“Are you well enough to speak, pony?” The boar’s voice was accompanied by the rise and fall of a chest against her back. Rainbow twitched in her grip, only to find herself pulled into a tighter embrace. It wasn’t painful, or altogether that restrictive.

The pegasus’ mind was clear enough to answer the question, though her body still felt cold and altogether hollow despite the other creature’s warmth. “Why… why should you care, boar?”

“Because,” said the voice beside her ear, “I don’t know how else I can help you.”

Spitefully, Rainbow replied “You can start by letting go.”

It was a sad, sorry creature left on the floor of their little cell when Rainbow rose to her hooves and turned around. A brown coat covered its body, though its back was marked by three white stripes in the places where its coat wasn’t falling out in patches. Rainbow watched her blur for a moment, before realizing it was her own eyes out of focus, and not the creature barely standing before her.

“I’m sorry. The Warchief ruined our reputation, so I can’t blame you… but we aren’t all like him, pony.” In her earlier words, Rainbow had missed the gentleness to her voice. The sow’s eyes flitted to the little window high in the stone wall of the cell. “Some of us aren’t interested in living as brutes and barbarians, dying for something as stupid as glory.” Her head swiveled ponderously from side to side, and her words carried on with a somber tone. “Khagan kills most of us who speak out about that view.” Almost as an afterthought, she turned to Rainbow. “My name is Enkhjargal.”

“En-ka-what?”

She shook her head again, this time with a mild amusement. It slipped away from her face altogether too quickly for Rainbow’s taste. “Enka is fine, pony. Boarish is a difficult tongue for outsiders to pick up, and like so many parts of our culture, Khagan has left it suffer and die because it doesn’t lend itself to war. Most boars speak and use Equiish or Camel. What’s your name?”

“Rainbow Dash…” The pegasus swallowed, and then coughed at the taste of her own phlegm. Again, the room shifted, and she stumbled on her own hooves.

Enka took a step toward the pegasus, stretching out a cloven hoof. Rainbow batted it away with one of her own, and took two strides back. “Look, Enka, I don’t want your hugs or whatever.”

Enka looked down at the pegasus with a piteous expression. “I am sorry. The other pony said that would help to calm you, or at least to keep your wounds closed as you slept. You struggled―”

Rainbow interrupted with narrowed eyes. “My dad was here?”

The flash of realization in Enka’s eyes would have said a great deal, had Rainbow cared to think about it. “There was another pony, though I didn’t know he was your father. I wonder why he didn’t say…” Enka took a long, slow breath, and then brought her eyes up to meet Rainbow’s again. “No, I see now. That’s why the Warchief brought you here alive.”

Rainbow’s eyes dropped, saying what she couldn’t bring her tongue to voice. Enka’s voice grew quieter. “I’m sorry. I wish there was something more I could do.”

Rainbow felt the boar nuzzle at her shoulder, and in response, the pegasus lashed out. Her blow missed not by virtue of the boar dodging, but because the room chose that moment to swirl, until the pegasus toppled to her side, dizzy and nauseous. The stumps that had once been her wings sent flames burning across her back.

“Rainbow, you need―” The familiar voice from Brayce Canyon was lost as Enka spoke up.

The sow responded with a confused and worried tone. “I’m not trying to hurt you! I thought ponies nuzzled each other for comfort. I thought you might want―”

“All I want is for this all to be over!” Rainbow snapped at the indistinct form of the sow in front of her, spit flying from her teeth. “I’ll get out of here, and I’ll go back to Luna, and I’ll finish it.” She struggled to stand again, but the room only grew more indistinct. Collapsing onto her forehooves, Rainbow’s words dropped to a feeble whisper. “I’ll go fly with my mom.”

As the world turned to darkness, she heard a stallion’s voice. “Don’t worry, Rainbow. I’m coming.”

Mirror Image fell forward onto his knees, panting. “What―” His hurried breaths turned into a brief spat of coughing on the volcanic air, thick with black flecks of cinder and char. “What was that, Princess?”

“To what do you refer, bodyguard?” Luna asked, walking over to the troubled stallion. “The walking corpses, or the shade?”

Image rolled his eyes, and lifted his head to reply. For his trouble, his face was assaulted by a stinging cloud of black haze, ash, and foul vapors. After a brief fit of coughing, he squinted and focused on his horn. At the cost of a scowl of pain, his magic sparked into a shield. Blue magic held back the noxious haze long enough for the stallion to spare a clean breath. His eyes twitched as sparks erupted from the crack running down the length of his horn, and with another quick inhale, he released his spell.

To his surprise, a glimmering indigo shield had picked up where his left off. Turning toward the Princess, he found her horn glowing. She smiled at him. “Better?”

Image nodded, slowly rubbing his forehead. “Thanks, Princess.”

“It is our pleasure,” Luna answered. “Or mine, though I suppose it does not matter. In answer to your question, shades are the most common type of spirit left behind when a soul is left to wander the physical world. They are only able to exist in any physical sense through magic, yet they produce none of their own. Instead, they must sap it from the living through their connections: the subtler magics, like belief and memory and friendship.”

“Friendship?” Mirror Image chuckled. “That doesn’t sound very evil to me.”

“Not all spirits are evil,” Luna replied. “Even those that are twisted often do not deserve condemnation. Few bring such a fate upon themselves. That is why I keep the Night Guard. Their first and foremost duty is that of psychopomps.”

The archaic word was answered by a raised brow. Smiling around her fangs, Eldest Sister stepped toward the living stallion with a more comprehensible answer. “Shades are dangerous. You can’t actually kill them, but you can strip them of their magic. Even Soldier On has a hard time with them, but our magic works perfectly. We fight them until they’re too tired to resist, and then we bring them back to Princess Luna. If they still have enough semblance of themselves to know where to go, she sends them home. If not, there’s nothing we can do but release them to the Between.” At Mirror Image’s continued expression of confusion, Eldest Sister cracked an ever wider smile. “You really don’t want to know, Mirror. Besides, we don’t need to be worrying about spirits right now, right? We should have dragons on the mind.”

“Indeed,” Luna noted. “We have a dragon to save.” And then, with a powerful wave of her wing, the ash and smog outside her little bubble began to churn and pull apart. Soon, Mirror Image was able to see properly across the length of the draconic homeland.

What he saw stole any words from his lips. Stretching out to the murky horizon ahead was a plain of ash and obsidian, punctuated by rivers of flowing magma and spurs of raw gems, the smallest of which easily outsized his head. Dozens of tiny spires, mere hundreds of feet tall, belched missiles, fire, and smoke into the skies, thick enough to block out the sunlight. But in the glow of the magma and the rainbow of lights cast off the scattered gemstones, one edifice dominated the skyline by the silhouette it carved out of the orange glow on the horizon. It reminded Mirror of the changeling queen’s horn, notched and towering, leaking glowing magma along its silhouette as if to highlight the massive crags carved out of its sides.

“Is that…”

“Krennotets,” Luna nodded. “The Crippled Father. In an elder tongue, Kренен Отец.” The Princess smiled. “We are through the great struggle of our journey, though we have no time to waste.”

“Uh, Princess?” Eldest Sister cut in. “You’re sure the ‘hard part’ of the journey is over? We’ve still got miles of volcanoes and fire, and―”

“Magma and ash are trivial concerns, though we―rather, I shall carry Officer Image to make better time..”

“And I’m certain the dragons will be just as trivial,” Mirror Image muttered. “I’m still not sure this is a good idea.”

Luna took a single stride to arrive at her bodyguard’s side. “The dragons have long been friends of ponykind, ever since Cyclone and Clover befriended Krenn to save River Rock.”

“Oh?” Mirror asked with an unsubtle sarcasm. “Well, then, we should have stopped by River Rock on the way here and gotten Clover and Cyclone to come with us.”

Shaking her head, Luna knelt down at the unicorn’s side. “Your tone is not required, guardstallion. Now, mount me, so that we may go.”

Image smiled rather uncomfortably. “How forward of you, Princess. But wouldn’t you rather have Rainbow Dash do that?”

“Rainbow can fly on her own, and―” Luna’s face turned a bright red as she realized exactly what had been implied. Slowly, her jaw moved up and down, failing to actually say anything intelligible. Meanwhile, Mirror Image wore a small smile, and Eldest Sister had collapsed onto her side, laughing uproariously in the ash-covered ground. “…Officer, I will make this clear once and once only. While I consider Rainbow a close friend, I have no intention of sharing my body with her, nor with any other mortal. Besides, if my intuition is correct, she fancies Dead Reckoning.”

Eldest Sister’s laughter ended in a harsh gasp, made all the more strange by the fact that she did not normally make a habit of breathing at all. “Uh, that doesn’t sound right to me. He’s, like, seventy?”

“Worse,” Image added, “Dead Reckoning is a Night Guard now, isn’t he? That’s… a little creepy.”

“Hey,” Eldest Sister snapped. “What’s the deal with that, Mirror? We’re eternally young, in better shape than anypony else you’re going to find around, and if what Third Brother says is true, all our parts work just―”

Luna turned in shock, cutting off the mare. “What do you imply―

“Nope!” Mirror Image shouted. “Too much information,” the stallion continued as he finally wrapped his forehooves around Luna’s neck and laid his chest between her wings. “I suppose that was awkward enough that, by comparison, this isn’t anymore, Princess. Let’s get going.”

Chuckling to herself quietly, Luna spread her wings and soared off into the ashen skies of Krennotets.

The sudden lurch only barely preceded the feeling of snow on Solo’s hooves. She rolled twice before coming to a stop, despite Twilight’s claim that her spell would eliminate their momentum. The freezing sensation on her neck stole away the last of her drowsiness from her recent dose of whispersalt. The train continued roaring past for a few moments, before other sounds finally returned to the ex-smuggler’s world.

“Perfect!” Twilight announced, standing up out of the snow beside the tracks. “And now… ooh!”

“Huh?” Dizzy, it took Solo a second to find her hoofing and pull herself upright. Once she did, the sight that had captivated Twilight was utterly unmistakable. Though probably a mile away, the fortress of Onxy Ridge was clearly visible through the heavily falling snow. It sat atop a jagged hill of black and white, where its namesake stone stuck out of the snow in brittle spurs and blocks at the base of a fork in a frozen river. The fortress itself consisted of once towering walls, now crumbling in more than a few places. Through the openings in the walls, the pegasus could see a small city of half-ruined stone brick structures, assembled around a mostly-intact keep. “This is the place, Twilight?”

“Onyx Ridge.” Twilight released a little noise like a dog’s chew-toy. “Oh, this is so exciting! So much happened here! I can’t wait to see the inside.” The purple filly galloped forward with a massive smile plastered across her face.

“Hold on,” Solo interrupted, wrapping a hoof around Twilight’s shoulders to restrain her. “Listen closely, Twilight: we’re not here to be Daring Do or something stupid like that.”

“...Daring Do isn’t stupid.”

“Oh sweet Celestia, Twilight,” Solo slapped her face lightly. “We’re not playing archeologists, or getting involved with any more ‘friends’ from Stalliongrad. I’m sick of this domain as it is, and I’m looking forward to getting home in one piece. We sneak in, check for your brother, and head straight for the city from there. No getting distracted by whatever crap it was you keep talking about with Commander Hurricane and his kids. Got it?”

With a firm nod, Twilight agreed. “I’m not planning on actually going inside unless Shining has been there.”

That statement left Solo wondering if there were still some whispersalt in her system. “Uh, what? How?”

“Well, a long time ago, there was this pony named Brink, who…” Solo’s glare cut the story short. “Archmage, about three thousand years ago. Good at door magic. Wrote a spell that showed who’d been through a doorway previously.”

“You’re learning,” Solo observed. “I thought you were honestly proposing we go inside that place and look around.”

Making a strained face, Twilight shook her head vigorously. “It’s full of vargr. I’m not crazy.”

“Jury’s still out on that one,” Solo muttered, to Twilight’s chagrin. “Let’s get moving.”

The walk to the fortress’s crumbling gatehouse was utterly quiet. Though the snow fell heavy, the wind was gentle, offering only a soft hiss through the sparse pine trees of the surrounding area. Solo’s eyes darted between the trees, unsettled by just how perfect the quiet was, and how harshly it contrasted Serp and Countess Star’s warnings of the Vargr that were supposed to be ruling the fortress. To her eyes, the place was completely abandoned.

“I’ve got a bad feeling about this,” said Solo.

“We’ll be fine,” Twilight replied, as her first hoof settled onto the dry stone beneath the covering of the gatehouse. “The foundation of the castle is solid onyx, so the vargr can’t burrow up through it. See?” Twice, Twilight’s hoof rapped on the exposed stone, before Solo was able to grab the limb. The sound of the unicorn’s hoof hung in the air for a few seconds before fading into the wind.

“Look, Twilight, just… stay close beside me and don’t touch anything, okay?”

Grimacing in realization of her own mistake, Twilight offered another nod. “I’ll need to draw some runes; it won’t take long.”

Going Solo’s hooves trod carefully to the corner of the gatehouse, where she pressed herself tightly against the stone wall and slowly tilted her head out into the open. If anything, the courtyard was almost frighteningly barren. Only the soft wind and the heavy snow filled the air, coating the ground in a thick even layer of white. Sitting across the frozen ground, a massive keep of black stone jutted up from the ground itself, looming half a dozen stories overhead.

“You said there were supposed to be those war-things here?” Solo whispered.

“Vargr,” Twilight corrected, looking up from her work. “The ‘w’ was just Countess Star’s accent.”

“It’s cause she’s a wampony,” Solo cracked back in a pathetic emulation of the Countess’ accent, before losing the little hint of a smile on her face. “If we go any further, the snow’s going to be a problem. I might be able to carry you across it, but otherwise, the hoofprints are gonna make us pretty obvious.”

Twilight smiled. “I know a spell that should take care of that. But first…” Her horn flared to life. “Let’s see what we can see. Heh.” A moment later, the same aura covering her horn began to glow from her eyes. “Alright, we’ve got… oh.”

“That didn’t sound very good,” the ex-dealer observed.

Twilight shrugged. “I just didn’t realize the vargr were so big. I was expecting something closer to a normal diamond dog. Not scraping the top of the gatehouse.”

Solo looked straight up, eyeballing about eight feet to the top of the fortress’ primary opening. “You’re just chock full of good―”

“Ah!” Twilight interrupted, breaking into a smile. “I think… weird.”

The guardsmare’s patience lasted three whole seconds. “You gonna explain that?”

“Well, there’s a unicorn, in a fuzzy cloak. I was trying to work with the spell for a better view or focus, but under the cloak they’re still all fuzzy.”

“Fuzzy?”

“Blurry. Like something’s interfering with the magic, or draining it from the spell. But that doesn’t make sense; if another unicorn were to go through that much trouble, they’d have to know I was going to use Brink’s Beholden Barrier. It’s not a common spell, though…”

Solo almost brushed off the curiosity to Twilight; it was only a thought of Shining from Baltimare that let her eyes grow wide. “Twilight, what if it isn’t a spell?”

“Huh? What else would be interfering with the magic?”

“His armor!” Solo nearly shouted. “The, um…”

“Gale―sorry, Platinum’s Ward?” Twilight’s look of confusion shifted on her face into one of excitement, until she jumped up in the air. “That makes perfect sense, Solo! Let me check something...” Twilight’s joy then turned again into a look of worry. “He didn’t come out again; at least, not by this doorway.”

Solo swallowed once, almost choking on the cold air as it swept down her throat. “I still don’t like this, but if Shining’s in there… let’s get inside.” Wrapping her wings tightly around herself, Solo broke into a run. Twilight followed closely on much heavier hooves.

They were nearly to the doors of the structure when Solo’s ears perked to a whistling over the sound of the breeze. A practiced motion from the streets of Canterlot was what followed. Her right hind leg slid back, as its opposite dug into her armor, producing her single bladed steel shoe. With the momentum of her turn behind it, the weapon slashed through the air, only to narrowly miss a neck the color of buckwheat.

“Ебать колотить, чокнутая ты сучка, это я! Спрячь подальше эту блядскую игрушку, пока кого-нибудь не лишила хозяйства!”

“Serp?” Twilight cried out, with a volume that left Solo cringing.

“Да, так меня зовут, тупая ты пизда. Теперь доставай свою книгу, чтобы мы cмогли разговаривать.”

“I don’t understand…” Twilight told the raging stallion, growling as he pawed at the snow.

“Твое ебучее заклинание-переводчик,” Serp replied, speaking with laborious slowness. “Ты что, слишком тупа to pull out your… oh, is it finally ,блядь, working?”

“Yes,” Solo hissed. “Now can we all keep it down?”

The black-clad pegasus shrugged. “No need. The vargr don’t come up to the surface often. I’ve known the Tirek-loving rebels to hide out in the upper levels trying to escape Blood Stroke and I. There are дохуя of mines under the castle, but you’d have to be suicidal to go in there. I’m just glad I caught you before you got yourselves cut apart sticking your necks where they don’t belong. Why are you so set on getting yourselves killed? The stubborn sheep is the wolf’s gain, after all.”

Twilight stared at Serp for a moment, and Going Solo could see the drive she was slowly beginning to respect dance behind the unicorn’s eyes. “I’m looking for my brother, and he’s been here. You wouldn’t understand.” Before Serp could say another word, Twilight’s horn ignited, and the doors to the fortress swung open at the bidding of her magic. “You can come with us, but I’ll stun you if you try to get in my way. Come on, Solo.”

The doors led into a barren hall, coated with an odd dusting of snow and ice from the thin cracks in the walls. Solo imagined it had been a dining room or a practice hall or something similar, given the size of the space. Whatever wood and fabric had marked the place’s purpose had long since fallen to the ravages of time, however. Only the mostly rusted-away shape of a once proud chandelier lying in the center of the floor remained.

The pegasus mare walked up to Twilight’s side, whispering in her ear. “I’m impressed you had that in you, Twilight. He might be right, though.”

“My friends and I have done more dangerous things,” Twilight replied, a tone of irritation slipping into her voice “I’m not leaving until we’ve found Shining, or we’re sure he isn’t here.”

“Then you are a гребаная psychopath,” Serp noted through his filed teeth. Twilight gasped, having not heard the other pony follow them. He chuckled at her surprise, continuing where he left off. “But a brave гребаная psychopath, I admit. I still think you should come back with me, but since I can’t stop you without hurting you, and Celestia herself would damn me to be Tirek’s шалавой if you were hurt, I will try to keep you alive. We will be staying on the top level; if your brother went into the mines below, he’s rotting in Tartarus already.” His wings moved deftly onto his back, producing his namesake sickle. “Both of you stay about a body’s length behind me, and say something if you see anything. Don’t do anything brave like trying to kill it; I told Hammer to stay with the train, but he might decide to do something stupid and show up. And please, please, do not vomit at the blood. This will be like those signs from the water park in Baltimare.”

“What signs?” Solo asked.

“You will get wet. You may get soaked.”

Twilight cringed, but the Black Cloak only seemed amused by her reaction. Ruffling the feathers of his wings, he moved toward the large doors at the far side of the room. There, he paused to roll his neck, eliciting a sickening series of cracks and pops. “Time to earn my paycheck.”

The doors creaked open to a long hallway, lined with crumbling doors and collapsed rooms. Rather than bothering at any pretense of stealth, Serp moved forward calmly, his head swiveling as he slowly scanned both sides of the hallway.

The hall passed without incident, ending in a stone archway and another sizeable room: clearly a throne chamber of some kind, judging by the enormous stone chair at its far end. Solo was prepared to walk right in, but Serp’s hoof caught her gently across the chest. She looked to the buckwheat stallion, and saw him tap an ear. Taking his meaning, the Canterlot guardsmare closed her eyes and listened.

The shaggy hoofsteps―or did the vargr have feet?―moved around the room slowly, interspersed with the sound of rubble being pushed around, as if the creature were searching for something. It spoke in a tongue that Solo could not even name.

A tiny onyx pebble chose that moment to collide with Twilight’s hoof, skittering into the room. The sounds of the creature within ceased instantly.

Serp pressed himself against the doorframe as Solo dove toward Twilight, hoping to have her guard up by the time the creature reached her. With her back turned, she didn’t see the creature step through the doorway. All she heard was the gurgle, and then the dull thud of its severed head hitting the ground.

“Blech,” Serp said aloud, before spitting a wad of blood out from around the handle of his sickle. “He’s only a stone caste.” The stallion kicked the severed head with a forehoof, rolling it over onto its snout. It stopped next to the body, easily six feet long even disregarding its enormous forearms and the frightening six-inch claws extending from the ends of its digits. “Smells пиздец awful, too. I wonder what he’s been eating.”

Twilight sniffed twice, and gagged. “Scruff beets. They increase a type of amino acid in the bloodstream… like asparagus, but for blood instead of urine.”

“I was hoping to catch the big―” Serp stopped abruptly at a sick grating of steel on stone, echoing through the castle.

“What was that?” Twilight hissed.

Serp swallowed once. “I have no idea. It sounds bigger than a vargr.”

“Twilight,” Solo began. “How good are these things’ sense of smell?”

“They’re supposed to be able to smell a rabbit through the snow from a mile…” Twilight’s eyes grew wider as it dawned on her what Solo was implying. “You don’t think―”

The sound of grating metal echoed again, louder this time. Closer.

“I think we need to go,” Solo cut in. “Now.”

Three sets of hooves launched off into the fortress. Serp led the way, picking doors, halls, and one small spiral staircase from memory. All the while, the scraping followed them. Solo slipped on a patch of ice, catching herself with her wings. Twilight and Serp both stopped for just a second, turning to watch her. In their moment’s pause, without the echoes of their own hooves, there was another sound alongside the scraping. The padded noise sounded like heavy drums, reverberating in an even one-two pattern. Paws, Solo realized. They were enormous paws.

Her wings flung her forward across the black stone of the room, almost running into Serp. He and Twilight wasted no time in picking up their pace again, as the grating continued. To the ponies’ side, a few loose stones fell from the ceiling as they passed.

Solo felt a sudden heat on her tail as she rounded another narrow corner. Behind her, a massive tongue of flame splashed against the wall, before fading into smoke.

“What was that?” the pegasus shouted.

“A блядский dragon!” Serp shouted.

Twilight shook her head. “No, it’s probably a gem caste…” Her words broke down into panting as she continued to sprint. “…vargr. They… can do magi―whoa!”

The purple unicorn barely managed to catch her hooves on the edge of a crag before she careened into a massive black pit. While there had clearly once been a bridge of some sort over the opening, all that remained were two stubs on the opposite sides of the wall. The rest of the path was far out of reach on the other side. “Who puts a hole in the middle of a tower?” she shouted indignantly.

Serp spread his wings, launching across the chasm to a doorway. “Teleport, Sparkle! Like you did running from me in Saraneighvo!”

“But the spell―” she began, gesturing to the book floating at her side.

“Won’t do you any good if you’re dead,” Solo replied, snatching the tome out of the air and hurling it down into the pit. “Teleport! Now!”

Twilight focused herself and disappeared in a flash. With her ward relatively safe, Solo spread her wings and leapt out into the open air. It was a strange whim that got her to look back down the corridor behind her. At the edge of her vision, lurking in the shadows of the castle, was a creature from her nightmares. While she could only make out its looming, eight-foot bipedal silhouette, she was more concerned with the glowing blue runes that seemed to cover every inch of its flesh. It growled at her, its mouth glowing red, and another burst of flame shot down the path in her direction. Though it stopped well short of the pegasus, its smoke blocked her sight of the creature.

“Шевелись, сука!” Serp shouted, unaware that he was not being understood. “Впереди еще один проход, ведущий во двор.” His urgency carried his message perfectly well, and soon the trio were once again sprinting through the ancient fortress.

The path turned only twice before the end came into sight. Unfortunately, it was not what they had been hoping for. A massive pile of fallen onyx and rotting wooden beams blocked the path.

“Блядь! Еб вашу мать, за что мне вся эта хуйня?! Обложили, суки, волки позорные! Все, пиздец.” The growling of the black cloak slowly died into hopelessness. “Росчерк, спаси нас.”

“Relax,” Twilight told the stallion, placing a hoof on his shoulder. “I’ll get us past this.” Then she closed her eyes and focused on her magic. Sparks flew from her horn, and her aura danced through the air, but the rocks did not move, and neither did any of the ponies.

“Uh, Twilight… why aren’t you doing anything?” Solo asked, her eyes locked back down the hall. Thankfully, the scraping had stopped, though her imagination painted the nearest doorways in glowing blue just the same.

The archmage answered with a visible gulp. “You can’t teleport out of Onyx Ridge. The crystal ponies wanted to stay safe from unicorns, so they enchanted the walls. I might be able to break through, but it will take a while. If the magic is still around after all this time, it’s very strong. I wonder if Wintershimmer cast this…”

“Not the time,” Solo snapped. “That thing is behind us, with who knows how many of his friends. We can’t go back, so start working.”

“Почему она так долго возится?” Serp inquired, missing their entire conversation.

The stress was clearly showing on Twilight’s face when she replied. “Трудная… магия. Нужно время.”

“О. Тогда я буду на настороже.” Whatever Serp had said, it preceded the stallion walking around the corner toward the pit.

“What did he―?”

“He’s going to keep watch,” Twilight answered. “In case any of the vargr try to build a bridge or something, I guess.”

“They’re giant diamond dogs, right? What if they burrow over?”

Twilight shook her head. “They can’t burrow through solid stone any more than they could outside. Just dirt, snow, and ice. We’re safe. I just need time, and no distractions.” Her horn sparked twice, and she closed her eyes. “Do you think Shining might be here somewhere?”

Solo shook her head, wrapping a wing around Twilight’s shoulders. “No, if he were here, he’d have showed up to save us by now.”

The comment brought a smile to Twilight’s lips, though it didn’t last long. “I’m so worried, Solo. I didn’t think the vargr would actually be expecting invaders. I just wanted to go in quietly and look around. I thought I could do it like Diadem and Clover…”

“Not your fault, Twilight. But you’re the one who’s gonna save our flanks. Just keep working on that―”

The scraping noise started up again, uncomfortably close. It was followed suddenly by Serp rounding the corner, and standing in front of the mares with his wings flared and his weapon drawn. “Не высовывайтесь. Это Фенрир.”

It wasn’t more than three seconds later that the blue glow appeared on the black stone. From behind a doorway, the creature appeared. Its looming figure wore scraggly gray fur in the places where arcane sigils had not been carved into its skin. A pair of yellow eyes with tiny black pupils glared just above a maw of even, wolf-like fangs. Its enormous lanky arms ended in a pair of steel gloves whose fingers consisted of gemstone rings connected by steel chain links. Despite the precious stones, each finger ended in a sinister steel claw half a foot in length. The sight chilled Solo.

Serp lunged at the vargr, and it responded by raising a single claw. A yellow telekinetic aura wrapped around the pegasus’ weapon as a topaz on the beast’s right hand began to glow like a unicorn’s horn. A moment later, the weapon burst into flames and drizzled to the ground, reduced to molten slag.

“Try again, pony.” A sapphire on the thing’s other glove lit up, and ice swept up Serp’s hooves. The Marshal of Saraneighvo spread his wings for some manner of trick or strike.

Then the vargr bit into his leg. Solo leapt back at the sight, flinching away as the massive beast’s fangs crunched into Serp’s femur. Shock overtook his body instantly, and with a twist of his neck, the giant diamond dog tossed the bleeding, unconscious form aside.

“I will enjoy the flesh of the Black Cloak later,” the fiend growled, “Now I can decide what to do with these other intruders. Tell me, ponies, why have you entered Fenrir’s home?”

Rainbow awoke with the slam of the door. Two burly boars held a bruised and starved stallion between their deep orange and pale purple auras, and they wasted not a moment before slamming him down onto his back in the center of the dimly lit cell.

Her father was a pathetic sight. His right foreleg was twisted up onto itself, its hoof pointing outward from his body at a terrifying angle. Huge gashes on his neck exposed not just the flesh beneath his graying blue coat, but the muscles and bones buried even further below. The worst sight of all, though, were the wings on his back: unharmed, save jagged gashes at their bases where they met his shoulder. In all other regards, they were unharmed, clean, and a radiant sky blue.

They were Rainbow’s wings.

Shocked into silence, Rainbow could only watch as the stallion’s shaky left foreleg moved to the floor, and he pushed himself up.

“How―” The Commander staggered, gritting his teeth and twisting his scarred muzzle in pain as his hoof slipped on the stone floor. It took another few moments for him to stand properly. “How is she?”

“She’s been sleeping for hours, since she found out what had happened.” Enka gestured to the stumps on Rainbow’s back, and then turned again to face the stallion. “You didn’t tell me she was your daughter.”

The wince on her father’s face left Rainbow with no shortage of questions, but his answer beat her to words. “Does it matter to you?” He took a single step toward Rainbow, at the cost of another display of controlled agony, and then spoke to Enka without turning to face her. “If Khagan knows, he’ll hurt her more.”

“I don’t think he can,” Enka told him, casting a quick glance toward Rainbow. “She was heartbroken when she found out what he’d done to her wings.”

The Commander shook his head. “He won’t stop. He isn’t even interested in her. Khagan believes she’s close to me, and he wants her to suffer so I will feel hurt, or guilty. Even if he’s broken her already, he won’t stop.”

“Is she?” Enka asked. The corner of the stallion’s brow twitched upward, and the sow continued. “Close to you, I mean. Is she?”

“Not really…” Rainbow muttered; her father and the sow ignored the comment, staring at one another intensely.

“No.” It wasn’t the word, but her father’s tone that stung Rainbow a bit. Her ears could read more into the single word. No, and I don’t want her to be. No, she never meant anything to me. And, perhaps worst: No, and neither was her mother.

Rather than adding to his thought, the Commander moved to Rainbow’s side and lowered himself to the floor. There, his hoof moved gently to her shoulder, stroking her as if it would offer some comfort.

♪ “Dormi, mi filia, dormi –
sunt qui dicunt
vitam beatam esse:
dicunt, dicant, nesciunt.” ♪

His voice was coarse, and his throat and lips both longed for water, yet the tune he carried was solid and seemed to Rainbow’s ear heartfelt. She turned to look him square in the eye, though his gaze stayed locked at her side.

“What the heck, Dad? Not even gonna say ‘hello’? Just some weird song?”

“He can’t hear you, Rainbow.”

The voice in Rainbow’s mind was the same one she had heard before passing out.

“I need you to focus, alright? You’re in a lot of danger right now, but I can’t help you until you come to me.”

“What?” Rainbow asked. “Come to you… aren’t you, like, in my head or something?”

Though the stallion was nowhere to be seen, his voice still seemed to be coming from beside Rainbow’s ears. She could almost feel his breath. “Unfortunately, no. I wish I had time to explain comfortably, but you need to trust me.”

Rainbow swallowed once, feeling a chill in her throat, and her eyes darted between the shadows of the cell, and her father’s face.

“Dad, can you hear me? Hello?”

“Okay, did I not just make that clear? See, he can’t hear you. Now come on!”

Though Rainbow could not see the speaker, she felt a gust of wind tugging at her mane, and through her feathers. The shock of the ghostly sensation nearly distracted her from the impending approach of darkness from the edges of her vision. The last words she heard were her father’s.

♪ ”Dormi, mi filia, dormi –
veniet dies
quo tibi erit
salva, largissima quies.” ♪

The final note lingered in Rainbow’s ears in the void, as she lost all sense of her location. Even the stones of the floor and the chill of the air disappeared against her skin, until all that remained in her mind was the curious but welcome sensation of her feathers against her back.

“What’s happening?” She cried out. “Hey, weird voice, what did you do?”

“Weird voice? Well, you sure know how to compliment a stallion. I bet there’s a line outside your door in Pony...town. Now close your eyes and flap your wings.”

“My wings?” Though the prospect of flying filled her with hope, the slightest of the pegasus’ instincts screamed that something wasn’t right. “Wait, what does that mean? Where am I?”

“Stop asking questions and wake up! I’m not getting eaten over this!” The stallion had come to shouting in urgency.

Rainbow’s hooves suddenly found sand, and staggered at the sudden sense of gravity. Her first instinct was to open her eyes, though that quickly failed in the blinding light of the setting sun directly before her on the horizon. With her eyes closed, she let her other senses wander. Salt was in the air, and a moment later, the rush of surf heralded a chilly feeling on all four of her hooves. The wind tickled her feathers, stirring up mist and little grains of sand against her coat. Nearby, a voice of growing familiarity called out to her.

“There you are! Come on, Rainbow, we’ve got to get out of here.”

She squeezed her eyes open just in time to see the figure rushing toward her. Frightened and confused, she spread her wings, kicked backward off the wet sand, and took to hovering just out of his reach.

“Who are you? And where am I?”

He was a harsh white unicorn stallion, cast with an almost pink tint by the setting sun. His carefully styled pale blue mane resisted the gentle ocean breeze, and only parted for an unusually long horn jutting from his brow. Rainbow briefly suspected he was an alicorn, but the quilted green vest he wore left no space on his back for wings even if they were pressed against his sides. The sharp ridges of his chin were drawn upwards toward the flying mare, whom his icy blue eyes glared at in a mixture of hostility and desperation.

“Mortal Coil, the Between, can we go?”

Rainbow growled, hovering higher as an icicle-colored light gathered around his horn. “Can I get one straight answer?”

Through gritted teeth, the unicorn called out as he waded into the ocean. “This is the Between, because it’s what sits between the physical world and the ‘afterlives’ like the Summer Lands and Tartarus. You’re here because the spell Celestia used to bring you back to life was incomplete. There are other things here too, and we really don’t want to be around when they show up.”

Mortal Coil’s focus broke from Rainbow, turning toward the horizon of the beach, where the sun was quickly setting. “We’re going to have to go the long way now. Come with me, if you want to live. Again.” And with that abrupt word, he turned to sprint down the beach toward a particularly tall crest of sand, watching the sunset rather than where he was going.

Rainbow looked around at the growing shadows of the rocks and grass further up the beach, before swallowing once. Her eyes moved to the disappearing unicorn’s figure, and then inland. For just a moment, she thought she saw a pair of yellow eyes watching her. The chill she felt on the back of her neck was enough to set her wings in motion.

When the pegasus soared over the dune the unicorn had crossed, she saw him desperately pulling at the ropes of an enormous three-masted ship, halfway beached with its stern on the sand and its bow in the water. Beneath the ornate glass windows that marked its cabin, written in proud letters of solid gold, it was named The Eagle, accompanied by a flag of red and white.

“Uh, you’re not gonna get that boat in the water,” Rainbow called to the stallion as she approached.

“It isn’t going in the water,” Mortal Coil replied cryptically. “This isn’t a place where everything works the way you’d expect. Take the wheel, Rainbow; we need to get out of here.”

Soaring down toward the wooden deck, Rainbow landed before a steering wheel easily a pony across, glistening with gold and mother of pearl across a body of rich red wood. Her hooves briefly came into contact with the wheel, and she felt a mighty gust sweep through her wings. Almost on instinct, she spread them wide, and it was then that she realized what Mortal Coil had meant.

A pair of massive blue wings unfurled from the sides of the ship, in time with those on Rainbow’s back. She lifted right wing gently, and the ship’s moved in kind. Smiling, she leaned forward. “I’m gonna go!”

“Wait, I’m not―” The unicorn collapsed onto his face before finishing his thought, as the ship lurched into the air.

The feeling of flight was life to Rainbow, and her feathers felt the surge of the unconquered wind as she smiled. There was no pain where she ought to have been missing the limbs, nor even any sort of numbness or stiffness as she had so often felt in her youth after straining a tendon in a tight race with the other foals at flight camp. She looked down to the main deck in the interest of asking her mysterious unicorn companion a question, only to find him climbing the stairs of the quarterdeck toward her.

“Hey, Mortal Coil―”

“Morty,” he interrupted. “Call me Morty.” Rainbow cocked her head, and he smiled. “Yeah, it’s a donkey name, but it’s still an awful lot better than ‘Mortal Coil’.” He seemed to be expecting a laugh, or a comment, or something, and when he received nothing, the little curl at the corners of his cheeks fell away. At the mare’s continued confusion, he added “You know, as in ‘shuffle off’?” She looked no more familiar for his added explanation. He slapped a hoof against his face. “Its a euphemism for death, Rainbow. My parents didn’t exactly have a high opinion of me.”

“Ouch,” Rainbow muttered, before taking one hoof off the wheel to awkwardly scratch the back of her neck. “Well, anyway, I was gonna ask you something. Why do I have my wings back?”

Morty took a slow breath. “It’s easy to forget you don’t know these things when you haven’t been around before. Let me see if I can make this brief. This place is what we call the Between.”

“Yeah, you said that before.”

Morty gritted his teeth. “I know, but a little bit of a reminder goes a long way. So, the reason it’s called the Between is that it’s the place between the physical world, and the various afterlife realms, like the Summer Lands and Tartarus. Much like those realms, the Between isn’t a physical place.” He swept out a hoof toward the horizon, where it had turned from a pink to a bitter red in preparation of finally setting. “All of this is made of mana, as opposed to matter. I won’t bore you with the differences, since I tend to think the academic details are about as entertaining as drying paint. But the important part is that the body standing here isn’t actually your body. It’s your soul. And because your wings are part of yourself, your soul still has them even if your body doesn’t. Make sense?”

Rainbow nodded, staring at her hoof as she found herself unsure of her emotions. “So… we’re dead, then?”

Morty chuckled. “Now that’s a fun question. In the physical world, your body is comatose, but still alive. You left it behind because something caused you to give up on your attachment to your body.”

She swallowed once. “I’m here because what happened to my wings…”

“Judging by your cutie mark, I’d say they mean a lot to you.” Morty held an even expression, pacing around the deck. “Then again, don’t be surprised if that changes. That’s part of the magic of a cutie mark: it corresponds to the soul, not the body. I’ve never heard of one changing while somepony was alive, but just about anytime you raise a pony from the dead, you see small changes to their mark.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened in realization at the thought of the machete that had mysteriously appeared on Dead Reckoning’s flanks. Shaking her head, she focused again on the situation. “So what about my body? You said it isn’t dead; is anything going to happen?”

“Not on its own. It’s just sitting, waiting for some nasty spirit to come by and possess it as a way to wreak havoc. We obviously don’t want to let that happen. And before you ask, I am… not quite so simple to explain.”

Rainbow wasn’t sure if she had actually intended to ask him, but the mention brought up a few more meaningful curiosities. “Who are you?” Rainbow asked. “And how do you know all of this?”

“Oh, let me introduce myself properly.” Morty swept a hoof across his chest, and offered Rainbow a stiff stage-bow. “Mortal Coil, student of Celestia, and archmage of Equestria.”

The pegasus couldn’t bring herself to be impressed by the titles. “So you’re some sort of super-unicorn, then?”

“Well, I was the one who wrote the spell that brought you back to life,” Morty countered, as casually as if he had been commenting on the weather. “Apologies for never getting the chance to finish it, by the way, but the Between isn’t the best place for magical study. I suppose it’s a bit of my fault you’re here, so I owe it to you to get you out.”

“Oh…” Rainbow wasn’t quite sure what to say. “Well, thanks.”

“Don’t thank me yet,” Morty observed, walking to the back of the boat. “The horde is coming, and I don’t even know where your link back is going to take you. Take The Eagle higher, Rainbow; if you start seeing stars, that’s fine.”

The pegasus flapped her wings heavily, creating a small storm on deck as the ship surged upward into the sky. Morty barely caught hold of the deck’s railing, and Rainbow took note of the shield-shaped silver locket that slid out from beneath his vest, flapping in the on a chain around his neck.

“Is the ‘horde’ why you’re so freaked out?” Rainbow asked. “What’s that?”

Morty looked to the horizon, where the sun finally slipped beneath the edge of the world. “Do you know what a thestral is?” Rainbow cocked her head, to which Morty took a slow breath. “Okay, do you know what a Night Guard is?”

“Oh, a bat pony!”

The unicorn gave Rainbow the barest look of detest she had ever experienced. “Yes,” he growled flatly. “A bat pony? Honestly? Ahem. Thestrals are a type of undead; Princess Luna makes them out of ponies who she thinks don’t deserve Tartarus, but also aren’t ready for the Summer Lands.” Morty punctuated the sentence by spitting on the deck of the ship. “Well, it’s a magical rule that any time you raise the dead, if they die again, they wind up here in the Between.”

“So there’s some batponies chasing us? Won’t they be serving Princess Luna, though?”

“Not here,” Morty told her, settling his hoofing and walking toward the rear railing of the Eagle. “Here, they’ve been left alone to go insane without any purpose to their existence. Even those who might have managed to―Tatarus!” Morty’s horn flared as he jumped back, and a bolt of magic struck a leather-winged, black furred body. Rainbow gasped as it turned into a pile of ashes as the unicorn’s hooves. In her shock, she released the wheel of the The Eagle, and the flying ship lurched from its place at the top of the sky.

When Rainbow grabbed the wheel again, the ship had fallen almost a thousand feet in the air, and the force of the sudden stop slammed Morty against the deck with a painful gasp. Holding the hoof-grips of the wood as tightly as she could, Rainbow looked up to see a sky looming with thestrals. Some of them were batponies, but the others she saw were more terrible, and more frightening. Unicorns with curved glowing horns like King Sombra’s, and earth ponies whose forelegs ended in long reptilian claws instead of hooves glared down at her, looking hungry.

“Fly!” Morty shouted, as the horde dived at them.

The boat turned and sped on Rainbow’s wings. With every twist and dive, she felt the weight of the ship lurching against her own shoulders. Though it flew with her wings, the huge wooden vessel was far less agile than the pegasus mare, and she struggled to compensate when her turns were wider than her body was used to.

Meanwhile, Morty teleported up into the crow’s nest, where his horn began igniting the sky with blasts of magic and violent icy blue fireworks. Thestral after hungry thestral fell from the sky as they struggled to keep up with The Eagle. Those with wings curved and dove around his blasts, but the earth-bound creatures simply ran through the air as though on solid ground, leaping aside and rolling to avoid his magic.

“Fly north!” Morty shouted. “I have an idea.”

“Which way is north?” Rainbow called back.

“Which way―?” Morty disappeared from the crow’s nest in a flash, appearing at Rainbow’s side by the wheel. “What kind of a pegasus are you? It’s…” His eyes looked up at the stars, and a sudden lurch stole his hooves. “The bright one, Rainbow! Go that way!”

“Okay, that I can―” The sentence ended in a howl of agony as a searing sensation lashed over Rainbow’s flank. She clung desperately to the wheel to save the ship’s wings, but her own limbs locked up to glide, matching the instinct of a wounded pegasus in flight.

“Well, well, Mortal Coil,” said a cruel voice from somewhere on deck. “It looks like you’ve finally stuck your neck out too far. Ready to face the executioner’s axe?”

Rainbow saw the faded blue unicorn thestral as he paced toward the downed white stallion on deck. For his part, Morty cast a quick teleportation simply to stand up. “Jewel.” A smug grin overtook the unicorn’s face. “There’s honestly nothing I can think of to say about you in pleasant company. Rainbow, you’re going to have to fly the ship to keep the others away. No matter what happens, don’t stop. This one’s special.”

“Oh, how kind of you,” the ‘Jewel’ pony replied. “I see you’re still wearing that stupid horn you grew.” A bolt of dark blue, shadowy magic surged past Morty’s shoulder as Rainbow’s new friend rolled to the side. “You always had to be the chosen one, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t have to be the ‘chosen one’,” Morty retorted, hurling a trio of blasts Jewel’s way. All three bounced off the burly thestral’s magical shield with no apparent effort. “I just am.”

Rainbow saw a pair of batponies approaching from behind Morty, and lunged forward into the Buccaneer Blaze. The force of the wind crackling over the bow of the ship had little effect on Jewel, save his mane, but it forced Morty down as his hooves struggled to stay planted on the deck.

Momentarily off balance, the unicorn was forced to call up a shield of his own to defend against Jewel’s next attack. A very literal longsword of blue magic thrust at Morty, and its blows against his shield pushed back on the stallion until his hooves were left scraping over the wooden deck.

When Morty found his hooves backed up against the port-side railing of the deck, his brow was sweating with focus. “A little bit steadier!” he shouted to Rainbow, as he exchanged his shield for a sword of his own, not even a mass of magic but instead a blade of physical steel. It fenced momentarily with Jewel’s arcane blade for a few strokes before pushing back on the magical weapon.

Jewel grinned, revealing an intimidating set of fangs. “Oh, I’ve been waiting for this for some time, Mortal Coil.” Green flames leaked from the stallion’s eyes, and lightning crackled around his curved horn, before his floating sword pulled back toward him.

Seeing an opening, Morty stepped forward, bringing his floating blade onto the offensive. In a single blow, Jewel’s weapon shattered it across the deck. The thestral’s weapon lashed forward, but Morty simply conjured another blade to block the assault. “Is that honestly all you’ve got, Jewel? Or are you just building suspense?”

Rainbow’s eyes saw a long-clawed thestral latch onto the rear of the ship. Hoping to shake him off, she spun the wheel of the ship hard to the right, bringing The Eagle into a tight barrel roll. The force of the spin threw both horned ponies to the deck, and launched the hanger-on into the sky again. Coming out of the tight curl, her leading feathers perked up to the tingling of dry air.

“Morty…” Rainbow called out to the unicorn slowly rising to his hooves behind her. “I think we’re going into a storm.”

“You’re the stunt flier!” The unicorn called back. “You do your job, I’ll―” His magically wielded sword moved forward just in time to block another of Jewel’s powerful slashes. “―do mine!”

Rainbow folded the ship’s wings in, letting it dive. Morty managed to stay standing, harnessing the force of the wind to slide backward on the deck, coming just short of being cut in half as Jewel’s horn created a second glowing blade to slash down at his foe.

The steep dive ended with a sudden burst of forward speed as the giant wings echoed Rainbow’s in pulling upward and away from the horde. “This is your job? I thought you were a wizard like Twilight!”

Morty chuckled. “Alright, you got me; swashbuckling adventurer is more of a hobby. But you’ve got to admit, I’m pretty good at―”

“Will you shut up?” Jewel shouted, bringing a third sword to play against his opponent. “I’m going to enjoy a few years of silence when I’m holding your skull.”

Morty’s horn created a glow around his hooves, and with no further hurry, he leapt up onto the quarterdeck railing. “You’ll have to come get it first.”

As Jewel and Morty resumed a battle that Rainbow still wasn’t sure she understood, the pegasus focused on the bolt of lightning that launched down from the sky just off the bow of her flying ship. Leaning forward into the wheel, she drew her lips tight and clenched her brow in focus.

It was a race, something in her mind told her. A race through a thunderhead, just like flight camp. The thestrals chasing her weren’t all that much different from Ace and his goons, looking to give her a pounding after she showed them up at the hoofball match. All she had to do was get through the storm, and she could catch up with Papa.

Another bolt of lightning crashed down, striking the top of The Eagle’s main mast and lighting it up like a torch. “Whoa!” Rainbow shouted, turning the wheel and folding her wings. In the surge of wind as the ship spun in midair, the fire was quenched by the sheer force of the wind. It rushed through the pegasus’ wings amplified by the magic of the ship across her feathers. With a shiver, she righted the boat again and began to flap for her life.

The thestrals were fast approaching, but it was the tall blue one that brushed directly past her coat who grabbed her attention. Jewel seemed unconcerned by her, focusing his attention on the unicorn who was balancing on three legs atop the uneven, polished surface of the railing ahead. “You can’t beat me, Jewel. And even if you could, what then? I’ll just come back, just like you will when I get rid of you.”

“Maybe not,” Jewel retorted. “But I’m not here for you.”

From his place beside the captain, Jewel’s horn hurled a blast of magic at Rainbow. She barely had time to gasp before it collided with a glowing blue barrier of Morty’s creation, mere inches from her face. The distraction brought a smile to the thestral’s fanged face, as his swords moved again.

Mortal Coil had time for one gasp before the blades thrust toward his chest. That mere noise was all that preceded his body crumbling into ashes at the strength of Jewel’s magic.

“Morty!” Rainbow shouted, holding onto the wheel desperately as she watched Jewel approach what was left of her new companion.

The thestral turned to look behind her, toward the aft of the ship. A predatory smile dawned across his face. She turned back to look at what he had seen. In her distraction, The Eagle had leveled, and six other thestrals joined the blue figure to surround her. Some paced forward a few steps, but a raised hoof from Morty’s killer stopped their advances. “No, my friends. This one looks delectable. I think I’d like to keep her.” Rainbow felt disgusted as his yellow slitted eyes slid over her body.

“Over my dead body!”

Rainbow didn’t have time to process the words, or the stallion’s voice behind them, before a surge of force against her side hurled her toward the nearest thestral…

...and into a space of puffy clouds and brilliant clear skies. She rolled on the puffy surface, with barely enough time to blink, before a horn flared and her last sight of The Eagle and the horde that had covered it disappeared from view.

Everything had been moving so fast… she could still see the lightning in her eyelids, and feel the inertia of flying forward into the wind. Like stepping off a treadmill after a hard run, every motion seemed too easy, and the air too peaceful. She spent no few minutes soaking it in, letting her heartbeat slow and her mind spin in place before finally growing tired of questions it couldn’t answer, and calming down. She turned, and struggled to her hooves. The shock of Mortal Coil standing there, smiling at her, stole her words away for another few seconds.

“What was that?” the pegasus finally managed to ask.

“Treacherous Teleportation,” Morty explained. “A spell I came up with in my younger days, studying under Wintershimmer. I teleport, and move some ashes into the space I was standing, so it looks like I was disintegrated. Then I opened a portal, and now we’re safe for the moment. For the record, I told you not to stop flying no matter what happened. I could have just banished Gem if you hadn’t let all those thestrals onto the ship.”

“Well, I was kinda distracted that he’d just killed you!” Rainbow snapped, before rolling her eyes. “Also, wasn’t his name Jewel? Not Gem?”

“I knew him when we were both alive… well, I shouldn’t say that.” Morty shook his head slowly. “Shattered Gem was already a thestral when I met him, though he usually went by Jewel.”

Rainbow’s eyes widened slightly. “I… I think I’ve heard that name.” Her hoof moved to her chin. “Where have I heard that―”

The pegasus’ words were cut off by a squeal of joy. “Morty!”

Rainbow turned with the unicorn, who had just enough time to brace himself before a vibrant violet unicorn slammed into his side. “Gale!” he managed to gasp, before wrapping a hoof around her shoulders to match her energetic embrace. “How are you doing?”

The mare, Gale, answered by wriggling out of his grasp and smiling into his eyes. His matching smile lasted until her hoof slammed into his cheek, wielding enough force to topple him. “It’s been twenty years, Morty. Where in Tartarus have you been?”

“You… kinda just answered the question,” the stallion grumbled, clutching his cheek. “Tirek’s Palace has the best view. I’ve been keeping an eye on things topside. And speaking of which…” His hoof gestured in Rainbow’s direction.

“Uh, hi. I’m Rainbow Dash.”

Rainbow got her first really good look at Gale as the other mare turned slowly to face her. Gale was probably thirty-something, with a longer light-blue mane with long bangs that framed her face after parting around her horn. She seemed a friendly enough sort, as her eyes widened in newfound excitement. “Rainbow Dash? Oh, I can’t believe I get to meet you! I…” her excitement suddenly faded. “Morty, what is she doing here?”

Morty coughed into a hoof. “Well, that’s kind of a long story. Celestia used my spell on her, and I sort of had to go bail her out of a nasty meeting with the Twilight War horde. Your sister’s boyfriend is leading them.”

“Jewel…” Gale growled then name, though only a moment later her face lit up. “Ooh, I should go get the others. Both of you, wait here.”

“No, Gale, wait!” Morty called out in futility. Before Rainbow’s eyes, the purple mare took three steps and disappeared into thin air.

Rainbow turned to Morty with a flat expression. “Explanation. Now.”

Morty coughed into his hoof. “Okay. Well, I needed somewhere safe to take you to get away from the horde, so they couldn’t disperse your soul enough to actually get access to your body. Since they were already all on the ship, the best choice was to run away. I waited until I found a point with a co-realm overlap… that’s a fancy magic term, it doesn’t matter. All it means is that I was able to use this one spell I know, and…” The tallish stallion lowered himself uncomfortably to scratch the back of his neck. “This is the Summer Lands, the way it looks if Celestia and Luna don’t guide you here.”

Rainbow looked around in shock. “This is the Summer Lands? Just a bunch of clouds like in a foal’s cartoon?”

Morty chuckled. “The Summer Lands react to what would make you feel comfortable. I see the Crystal Empire, for instance, because the magic also isn’t as smart as Luna likes to think it is.”

“So you can get into the Summer Lands?” Rainbow raised a brow. “Were you already here?”

Rolling his eyes, Morty shook his head. “This place is an illusion, Rainbow. It takes your magic, and gives you exactly what you want to see, but none of it is real. There’s no ambition, no achievement… no real purpose, to be honest. It’s just Celestia and Luna’s daycare for dead ponies to keep them from turning into spirits and monsters. Honestly, I’d prefer Magnus’ place… Valhalla or whatever he calls it. At least there’s something to accomplish there, even if it is senseless violence. Don’t let your grandmother hear me say that though.”

“What?” Rainbow only looked more confused. “Do you mean that Gale pony―”

The unicorn clutched his side in laughter. “No…” His first attempt failed in another peal of laughter. “No, Rainbow. If that were true, I’d be your great-grandfather, a good few times removed. Gale is my wife.”

The pegasus looked up and down the twenty-something year old stallion. “Isn’t she a little old for you?”

Morty replied by changing before Rainbow’s eyes. Streaks of shiny silver appeared in his blue mane, and his horn shrunk to a more normal size. The green vest he wore was replaced by a short-hemmed black wizard’s robe, hemmed with a thin red trim. “I tend to like being about twenty, but age is fairly fluid here.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped as a strange question moved to the forefront of her mind. “Morty… how old are you?”

The stallion smiled. “Oh, give or take a few years, about eight-thousand. I’ve honestly lost count at this point.” He feigned a sniffle, pouting. “Nopony ever comes to my birthday parties.”

Silence answered his comment, until Gale reappeared amidst the clouds with another pair of ponies in tow.

They were pegasi, a mare and a stallion, sharing mirrored scars across their faces. The former was a fairly average pony physically, with a mane that reminded Rainbow of autumn, split between yellow, orange, and brown hairs. A long thin scar ran down her face, barely skipping over slashing through her right eye simply by virtue of the ridge of her brow. Though her head was exposed, she wore heavy black armor over her tan coat, and a sword hung from her side.

Unlike the mare, the most defining trait of the stallion was his size. It simply seemed wrong to Rainbow that a pegasus, normally the smallest of the three breeds, could stand nearly four feet in height. His coat reminded the aerial acrobat of the color of dried blood, and his wiry black mane joined with a thick and healthy beard on his chin. Under all the hair, she could only see his emotionless expression, and the strange perforated scar that mirrored the mare’s, running in a diagonal over his left eye.

“This is the one?” he asked, his tone carrying an accent that seemed part Stalliongradi and part Bitalian. “She’s very small.”

“Hey, watch it!” Rainbow countered, taking a step forward.

The stallion ignored her, turning to the mare with the matching scar. “I can see the resemblance in her mane.”

The autumn mare nodded silently, before stepping forward and extending a hoof. “It’s nice to meet you, Rainbow Dash. I am Commander Typhoon.”

Rainbow’s jaw dropped wide open. “Y-you’re Typhoon? The guardspony from the big fight in Stalliongrad during Hearth’s Warming? Like, from Commander Hurricane’s journal?”

“He was our father,” the stallion muttered in an even, accented tone.

Rainbow leapt back, wings spread. “Cyclone. Why is he here?” Rainbow looked to Typhoon, who seemed entirely at peace standing beside her old enemy. “You killed all those unicorns! You tried to take over―”

“You sure do have a way with mares, Cy,” Gale noted, deliberately interrupting Rainbow’s rant even as she poked the stallion in the ribs with her elbow, before breaking into a foalish giggle.

Behind his bushy brows and heavy beard, Cyclone rolled his eyes. “Even in death, my mistake follows me. I am not interested in destroying your government, Rainbow. I had eighty years of life to live with the mistakes I made in those days, and I have had eight thousand since.”

“Why did you bring him here?” Rainbow nearly shouted at Gale, barely hearing Cyclone’s slow, emotionless explanation. “Why isn’t he in Tartarus? He tried to take over Equestria, and―” The words continued for some time, though they were rather muffled when Gale’s horn lit up in a blue similar to her husbands, clutching down on the end of Rainbow’s muzzle.

“Lay off it, Rainbow,” Gale told the subject of her magic. “Cyclone made up for what happened with the rest of his life. You can thank him that there’s an Equestria today; we would have lost the Shadow War without him. He did a pretty good job fixing River Rock too.”

Cyclone winced. “Stol’nograd, Gale.”

Uninterested in her brother’s bickering, Typhoon put a hoof on the huge stallion’s shoulder and shoved him out of her way, walking up to Rainbow. “What are you doing here?”

Rainbow gulped, faced with Typhoon’s brutal focus. “Well, it’s kind of a long story. Princess Celestia used this spell after I―”

Typhoon interrupted by casting Morty one of the most sincerely hateful looks Rainbow had ever witnessed. Even in the warmth of the Summer Lands’ sun, the air felt suddenly cold. “Of course it’s your fault, Coil. After what you did to Father, I shouldn’t even be surprised.”

“Whoa, now, don’t stick your sword any further up your flank, Typhoon,” retorted Morty, placing a hoof on the mare’s armor and pushing against her chest. The motion failed to even budge the long-dead soldier. “It’s not my fault the spell worked out that way. You can blame Celestia for stabbing me in the back instead of helping me through the last step of my research.”

“Necromancer,” Typhoon hissed, leaning forward. “Get out of my sight, Coil. We’ll take care of Rainbow.”

Their muzzles were nearly touching, which made Gale’s slow rise between them all the more amusing. “Sis, Dear, can we please take a step back, stop ignoring our guest, and work together? There’s no need to be pointing hooves. What matters is that Rainbow is here now, and we need to help her. Right?”

Morty sighed, and then dipped his head once. “Fine. But Gale, did we really need to bring them into this?”

Cyclone took one step forward, suddenly looming over the unicorn stallion. “Do you think we do not care about our kin, necromancer?”

“Well, I never hoofed off my sister to be tortured in exchange for power,” Morty countered. “Oh, by the way, Typhoon, Jewel says hello.”

Rainbow didn’t see Typhoon’s hoof move. She only heard the noise, and saw the results. One second, Morty was standing. The next, he was laying on the clouds at Typhoon’s hooves, holding his cheek with his face clenched in pain.

“Don’t you dare mention him to me!” The wince that followed reminded Rainbow exactly where she had heard the name before. A pain flashed across Typhoon’s face, and the blue mare found herself likening it to the realization that she had lost her wings.

“Are you alright?” Rainbow asked.

“I promise I don’t fall down this much, usually,” Morty answered.

“You can’t kill anypony in the Great Skies,” Typhoon noted flatly, turning back to Rainbow.

“The what?”

“This place. The Great Skies.”

Gale rolled her eyes. “That’s what Dad always called the Summer Lands, Rainbow. Just like how they say ‘Celeste’ and ‘Lūn’.”

“Dad?” Something about the word rang in Rainbow’s ears. “Wait, do you mean Commander Hurricane? Are you their sister?” Rainbow looked to Typhoon and Cyclone, trying to remember the story Twilight had read her more than a year earlier in Saraneighvo. “No, that can’t be right.”

“She is our half-sister,” Cyclone corrected.

Morty nodded, having stood up while Rainbow wasn’t watching. “And your great-aunt, if you don’t mind skipping a few dozen ‘greats.’ Eight thousand years makes for a lot of generations. Typhoon there is your grandma.”

“Hm?” Typhoon asked, turning to the unicorn. “I was certain she was descended from Celestia. Look at her mane.”

“Princess Celestia?” Rainbow gasped before Morty had a chance to reply. “Princess Celestia had foals?”

Gale simply raised a hoof. “Yoohoo.”

“Wait,” Rainbow cut in. "Commander Hurricane slept with Princess Celestia?”

Gale made a disgusted face. “Thanks for that, Rainbow. Did you know your parents had sex too? Why don’t you take a moment to think about that? I’ll wait.”

“Grow up,” Typhoon told her younger sister. “Rainbow, I suppose I believe Mortal Coil in this case.”

“You’re my grandma?” Rainbow asked, eyes widening. “That’s so cool! I read your story when I went to Stalliongrad―”

Cyclone laughed without smiling, setting Rainbow off just a bit. “Do they actually call it that? Stalliongrad?”

Rainbow nodded. “Yeah. Why?”

“Celeste made that up as a joke. I thought I was the only one who knew.” A shake of his head dispelled the stallion’s humor. “I am sorry for interrupting.”

Rainbow shrugged. “Anyway, my friend Twilight and I found this journal, and―”

“Is now the best time for this?” Typhoon asked bluntly. “I’m sure we will have plenty of time to catch up when you’re dead, Rainbow, but for now, you and your father are both in danger. Is that correct?”

A swallow preceeded a nod. “Sorry, I just… I guess I kinda got sidetracked between having my wings back and coming here and meeting you. Oh, this is so cool, though! You’re like super good at freezing things, right? And you’re a stunt flier too?”

Typhoon sighed. “I am a Commander of the Cirran legions.” A cold glance flicked toward Gale. “The last Commander. And in that position, I again remind you all that we don’t have time to play around at a family reunion. Rainbow has nothing in common with our lives except a bloodline. She is here because, once again, Celeste has decided to interfere in Garuda’s domain. We need to decide how to move forward. Rainbow, you could go back. Your other option is to stay here in the Great Skies with us.”

Morty shook his head. “And leave her body for one of your father’s leftovers to possess? Plus you’re basically proposing she commit suicide.”

Gale looked Rainbow in the eyes. “Why not ask her? Rainbow, what do you want?”

“I…” Rainbow found herself uncomfortable under the gazes of four dead ponies. Her mind flashed back to her father, and Dead Reckoning, and Princess Luna, and her friends. “I’m not sure I really want to go back,” she began. “But I think I need to.”

Gale smiled. “Alright, Morty. Why did you bring her here?”

Morty looked down at the clouds, avoiding the gazes of Commander Hurricane’s children. “The Twilight War thestrals were following me when Rainbow arrived in the Between. I couldn’t just leave her to them, but now they’re on her trail instead of mine.” The unicorn gave Typhoon a knowing glance that Rainbow didn’t understand. “I can take one or two of them, but not the whole horde. I needed somepony who knows how to fight them.”

“You came for me?” Typhoon raised a brow. “That isn’t like you, Morty. Looking to bury the hatchet?”

The unicorn shook his head. “Actually, I came for Gale.” Turning to his wife the stallion continued. “I was hoping you could get in touch with your father.”

Typhoon and Cyclone each took a threatening step forward, and Morty backed away.

“Commander Hurricane?” Rainbow asked. “Isn’t he here? Why don’t we just go―”

“He isn’t,” Cyclone interrupted. “Some time ago, he was, but Celeste needed him to fight another of her wars. She raised him from the dead with the necromancer’s spell, just as she did you.” The words were accompanied by a fierce and focused glare in Morty’s direction. “She is not the shining paragon of morality that you modern ponies believe. Though perhaps you already knew that, Rainbow.”

Morty ignored Cyclone’s cynical comment and waved a hoof. A pool of water appeared in the clouds at his feet. At his beckoning, Gale walked over and began to stare into it, her horn glowing. Only once her spell had started did the unicorn stallion turn back to face Rainbow. “She’ll have an answer for us in just a bit.”

“If it’s that easy, why didn’t you just do it yourself?” Rainbow asked.

Morty chuckled. “Hurricane and I didn’t exactly get along.”

“That’s putting it mildly,” Typhoon said.

The necromancer kept his eyes locked on Rainbow. “Not the biggest fan of necromancy, as it turns out. Hurricane always thought I was sticking my muzzle where it didn’t belong.” Almost as an afterthought, Morty added, “especially inside his daughter.”

A noise like a bull choking to death rang in Rainbow’s ears, and it took her several moments to realize that the indomitable form of Commander Cyclone was struggling to suppress a laugh. For his efforts, he earned from Typhoon the ire she had previously reserved for Mortal Coil.

“Cyclone, Typhoon, and Gale are some of the strongest warriors who’ve ever lived, but they’ve spent their time here in the Summer Lands. Hurricane is like me; he knows his way around the Between. He should be able to help us find your body.”

“It’s Commander Hurricane,” Typhoon corrected.

Morty rolled his eyes. “Do I look like a Cirran legionary to you, Typhoon? I didn’t vote for him.”

“Well, here’s your chance,” Gale told her husband, looking up from the bowl. “Dad will be waiting for us out there.”

Morty shook his head. “You’re not coming. If any of you get caught out there, I won’t be able to get you back to the Summer Lands. I’m not having you becoming Windigos or something on my conscience.”

“Do you think you can stop us?” Cyclone asked, in a tone that sounded like a bear growling.

Morty took a long time to consider his answer. Typhoon actually drew her sword, a thin blade shimmering with visible ice and creating a cloud of mist in the surrounding air. The action seemed to solidify the unicorn’s answer. “I know I can, but I’d rather not start a fight. Fine, but don’t blame me when this goes south. We have to find Commander Hurricane,” he emphasized the title sarcastically, “fight our way through a small army of evil spirits, and figure out exactly where in the Between corresponds to wherever Rainbow’s real body is before any of the other wandering souls do.” A smug grin appeared on Morty’s face as his horn lit up. “You Cirrans have the best family vacations.”

From the outside, the hive looked the part of a mighty castle jutting out of the red stone; a twisted, cruel Canterlot formed in the interest of conquest and dominance, rather than luxury and culture. Lady Reflection, however, knew that like so much of the changelings, the outside existed only for appearances. Within its walls, her hooves moved down long curving corridors that followed the structure of square walls and ceilings, but rejected the idea that a building ought to fall evenly on a grid. The drones sprinted in front of her longer-legged stride as she moved toward the center of the huge red cliff that held the structure, opening doors and struggling to stay out of her way. They were expendable, and she was not. Both parties understood the relationship perfectly.

Her delicate, hole-ridden wings settled against her back to mild discomfort. Spending so much time as a pony always left her unsure of just how to let them rest on her back. They twitched up and down, hopping from side to side as if in a display of nervousness―though that would be ridiculous, as Reflection had no reason to be nervous in an audience with the queen.

The doors to Chrysalis’ throne room were made of solid jade, each emblazoned with half her icon of a solid, slender horn and a pair of hole-ridden wings. The sentient changeling had spent many hours wondering why the queen’s horn was marked with three distinct notches, when neither her children, nor her icon displayed the same marks. Unfortunately, like so many things about the queen and her past, Reflection was certain it would remain a mystery. She put the thoughts out of her mind, and gestured for the team of four drones to open the doors.

The queen looked up from a thick tome balanced on her foreleg, and straightened up on the cushioned back of her towering throne. Given that outsiders were only brought into the hive as food or for conversion, and that the drones weren’t truly intelligent, the show of the seat and the room’s dark columns, green-burning braziers, and looming ceiling were all likely conceits of the queen herself.

“Reflection, my daughter, come here!” Chrysalis’ face remained neutral throughout the greeting. Reflection hadn’t been expecting anything different from her welcoming; smiles were a luxury reserved for victories and conquests. The warrior paced forward on the green carpet as her mother maneuvered down the steps of her dais on stilt-like legs. “It’s been so long since you’ve come to visit. How is Trottingham?”

Reflection shook her head slowly in guilty amusement. “Almost too easy, in all honesty, my queen.” Though the queen always greeted her as a daughter, there was a part of Reflection’s mind that still remembered the late Lady Teatime enough not to call the queen ‘mother.’ “The Coltstream Guard is under my complete control, and my dear husband,” she noted with utter distaste, “is too focused on outside affairs and playing at noble politics to see the knife I’m holding against his throat. I suspect he may suffer an unfortunate illness in a year or two; nopony will bat an eye that his poor widow succeeds him. The Lady Reflection is, after all, almost twenty years his younger.”

“The scandal!” Chrysalis noted, laughing around her fangs. That noise, above all others, brought Reflection closer to the queen. Her laugh was so vibrant, so full of life and desire, that it never failed to inspire the younger changeling. “Does he feed you enough, dear?”

“Powdered Wig?” Reflection’s neck twisted back, and she spat a wad of bile onto the stones off the side of the carpet. “No, he was only interested in me as a way to get his hooves on Glasgallop. Not only does he not love me, he lacks even the stallionhood to lust after me. Fortunately, one of our manor guards, Sentinel, has found a nubile young maid working on the grounds with whom to start another scandalous little romance with.” Reflection licked her lips. “I did bring a bit of that love, if you’d like a sample. I know you’ve never had the taste for the sappier stuff, but the consistency is to die for, my queen.”

“You don’t need to be so stiff, Reflection,” Chrysalis replied, wandering back toward her seat. “The others all call me mother, you know.”

“I know,” Reflection replied guiltily. “I suppose it’s the Trottingham formality in me.” She hoped the queen’s laugh meant that her lie had passed unnoticed. “Though I enjoy talking with you, I didn’t return just to visit. There’s an opportunity I stumbled onto just a few days ago.”

“Oh?” Chrysalis brought a hoof to her chin. “Please, go on, Reflection.”

The changeling warrior cleared her throat. “I’ve found a vulnerability in Canterlot―”

The curiosity on the queen’s expression turned into fury. “You know better than to even mention that idea, Reflection! I won’t lose half the hive again attacking a city that’s already expecting us!”

Reflection recoiled with each word, stepping backward in time with the queen’s spiteful shouts. “My queen, please, hear me out―!”

“What good is a vulnerability, Reflection, when Shining Armor and Princess Cadance can simply swoop in from whatever icy wasteland they’ve been ruling to crush us with a single spell?”

Reflection took a deep breath. “My queen… Shining Armor is dead.”

“I don’t―!” Chrysalis caught herself mid-snarl. “What? Why have none of my drones reported this?”

“It’s a well-kept secret at the moment,” Reflection explained, feeling the pressure of the queen’s gaze lighten. “To the average pony who is even aware of his daily actions, he’s away on a secret mission for Princess Celestia. But what I am telling you, I heard from Cadance’s mouth.”

Chrysalis sat back, and smiled. “That does give us some opportunity, doesn’t it? But with the rest of their guard in place, and those new spells which see through our shape changing, we still won’t manage to sneak past them. And a full on invasion would fail under their military power.”

“Actually, my queen, the Royal Guard of Canterlot are fewer in number than our drones. Armor has spent the last few years downsizing their forces, even after… the wedding.” The flash of irritation over the queen’s face was less terrible than Reflection had expected, yet it still caused her heart to skip a beat. “Unless Stalliongrad or Bitaly came to their rescue, we could likely topple them. But that is not the plan I propose.”

“Oh?”

Reflection nodded. “You see, my queen, there is another pony who passed away in recent days. His name was Steel Lining, though you more likely know him as the leader of Celestia’s Honor Guard.”

Chrysalis’ brow furrowed, and she spoke through gritted teeth. “I know the stallion, yes…”

“Masquerade, the assassin who poisoned Luna some six months ago, killed him. At the moment, his position has been filled by Roscherk Krovyu of Stalliongrad.”

“Roscherk…” The queen’s hoof danced on her chin.

Reflection shook her head. “You wouldn’t know him, my queen. I only bring him up to mention his incompetence in relation to his predecessor. The point that I am getting to is this: if I were to become captain of the Royal Guard, it would be an easy enough process to create a gap in the spells over Canterlot intended to detect us. In a way, the total failure of those defenses would serve as a far greater surprise than our original attempt. Without Shining Armor, they won’t even have the means for such a powerful shield.”

“I see,” Chrysalis noted. Reflection could almost see the gears turning. “How do you propose to take Shining Armor’s position? And once you have it, how will you beat their spells?”

Reflection smiled. “Beating the spells is as easy as asking White Flag for her notes on the spells themselves. As the leader of Trottingham’s guard, I have every reason to want access to that magic. Even more so if, say, a small cell of Changeling drones was discovered trying to infiltrate Lord Powdered Wig’s manor.”

Chrysalis nodded. “I see. And the title?”

“That is the most important reason that I came here. In Suida this very moment, there is a team of ponies on some foolish expedition trying to save the late Commander Lining. Celestia believes one of those ponies, Soldier On, of having orchestrated the plot against Luna.”

Chrysalis’ head twisted in curiosity. “Did she?”

Reflection couldn’t help but chuckle as she vigorously shook her head. “Soldier On is guilty of having once been in the wrong place at an almost fantastically wrong time. I doubt there’s anything more to say about her. However, if I were to arrive with the mare in shackles, to present her before Celestia… well, it would make a very strong statement for my talents. Even more so when I reveal that Lord Wig, Marquise Couture, Prince Sforzando, and Princess Cadance all back me for the position.”

“You’ve been busy,” Chrysalis noted.

Reflection shrugged. “It was easier than you might think.”

The queen leaned back in her chair. “Well, you have my permission to go forward with this plan, then. I’ll spare you a few drones for your staged attack on Trottingham, and you can take care of this Soldier On mare before you even return.”

“Ah…” Reflection drew in a slow breath. “That isn’t quite so easy, my queen. Soldier On is Honor Guard. So are her companions, as I understand it. I can’t defeat them alone by brute force, and they will be suspicious of the aid of strangers, ponies or boars..”

Chrysalis looked down at her favored subject with a creased brow. “I see. How do you plan to defeat them?”

Reflection frowned. “Perhaps trickery isn’t always the best answer.”

XVII - Ancestry

XVII

Ancestry

Rainbow stepped through the shimmering portal of Morty’s magic, out of the glowing sunlight of the Summer Lands, and onto what felt like dry grass. She could barely make out anything more than a jagged fuzz, given the surreal fact that no light was actually coming through the portal behind her. Her eyes were left to struggle in the blur of midnight blue and gray, leaving her concerned when Typhoon and Cyclone pushed past her, standing in a sort of wedge between her and the outside world. Typhoon extended her wings, and Cyclone mimicked the motion with his right.

“How many do you count?” Typhoon asked her brother, keeping her head focused outward into the darkness.

“Seven,” Cyclone growled back. “No, eight.”

“Fourteen total.” Typhoon turned to Cyclone, unease spread across her face. Whatever was bothering the mare, it seemed just as unclear to Cyclone as it did to Rainbow.

“Fourteen what?” the stunt flier asked.

“Thestrals,” Gale replied, stepping out of the shimmering portal and taking up a position beside Rainbow. “They’re out there, waiting for us to get away from the portal.”

Somehow, as if the magic were aware of her words, the portal to the Summer Lands spasmed, its perfectly circular edges going wavy and contorted. Morty’s horn poked through the brilliant surface, its magic struggling the way Rainbow had seen whenever Twilight attempted a spell that was just a bit too hard. No more than a few spare seconds later, the unicorn stallion fell through the portal and onto the dry grass. With a rather violent pop, the portal collapsed, and the magic around his horn disappeared.

“Are you alright?” Rainbow asked. The other ponies seemed too preoccupied with the darkness to notice the stallion’s fall. “Was the portal that hard?”

Pushing himself up halfway with his right foreleg, Morty wiped several beads of sweat from his brow with his left. “Oh, it’s no big…” His sarcastic retort dropped away momentarily when he felt the need to suck in a tired, desperate breath. “...no big deal. Just… overpowering Celestia’s magic… even if it’s only… for a few seconds.”

“Rainbow!” Typhoon snapped, her tail flicking in irritation. “Eyes forward. Be ready to fly.”

“Why? I don’t even see anything out there!”

Typhoon ignored the comment, flexing her wings. “We can’t take them without weapons and armor. They have to know that. Why aren’t they coming in?”

“Because you do have―” Morty winced as his lungs fought his explanation. “Look, just remember the feel of your sword, and…” This time, his words trickled away as all eyes turned toward the shimmering veil of mist appearing in Typhoon’s mouth. Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the haze took on the form of a sword; a slender saber with a gentle curve, whose dimly blue blade seemed to be made just as much from ice as steel. Even when it had fully realized, the weapon still projected an aura of mist in the air, as if it were cold enough to freeze the surrounding air.

Typhoon herself nearly dropped the weapon from between her teeth in her slack-jawed, wing-spread state of utter shock. Turning toward Morty, she thrust the blade into the ground. The surrounding grass immediately took on a layer of thin frost “What is this? Some sort of spell?”

“It’s part of your soul.” Morty managed the entire thought without wheezing. Confident in his strength, he pulled his head up fully off the grass, letting his ears perk up in a show of relief. “It’s why Rainbow’s wings are here.” Rainbow’s eyes fell to the grass, and her ears folded back against her skull. From his place on the ground, Morty didn’t notice her reaction, and continued. “You should all get your weapons,” he warned. “That’s why…” the now young wizard shook his head. “…why they aren’t attacking. Cyclone, can we survive that many?”

“Don’t ask me,” the gigantic pegasus replied, briefly turning the scarred side of his face back to look at Morty. “I’ve never fought a thestral. Typhoon, can we do this?”

The sharp breath from her nostrils formed a thick fog as it passed near the sword clutched in her teeth. “If these are the fourteen I’m expecting, no.”

“Wait,” Gale darted forward, worry in her eyes and in her hooves, which she bounced between nervously. “You think these are those thestrals? The ones you―”

Typhoon’s hoof came up, its flat side signaling the mare’s younger sister to be silent in no uncertain terms. Typhoon’s eyes narrowed. “Gale, Cyclone, get your swords. I have an idea.”

Rainbow almost didn’t notice Gale produce her weapon. One minute, the air was empty; the next, her magic was holding a long, slender rapier which swished in the night air like the cut of an athletic wing. Even in the starlight, its golden handle glimmered, illuminating the gemstones of its guard and pommel. Smiling, the unicorn turned toward Rainbow. “You like it? Daddy got it for me when I turned seventeen. Aestas Melos. It means ‘Summer Song’ in Cirran. Mom hated it when I wore it with my dress to the ball.” For a glimmer of an instant, Rainbow thought she saw Twilight’s grin on the similarly purple unicorn. A moment later, a slight wind caught Gale’s wild blue mane, and the illusion was broken. At the feel of the wind, she ducked to the side with a frightened expression. “Watch it, Cyclone!”

The infamous stallion had produced his sword, if one were inclined to call it such. Rainbow reflected that it resembled a paddle nearly as much as it did a blade. Easily four feet long, it matched the massive pegasus’ height at his shoulder, and its blade was wider than his hoof. Its guard was plain and its handle simple, so that all Rainbow’s focus was directed to where the point of the blade curved back in what reminded her of nothing so much as a vicious fish hook. Though it lacked the visible aura of Typhoon’s weapon or the musical quality of Gale’s, Rainbow could feel the heat radiating from the plain-looking steel. In fact, the only quality of the sword that suggested its almost stifling power was the thin line of orange-red that separated the flat of the blade from the point where it’s metal narrowed toward a cutting edge.

“Are we ready?” Cyclone’s rumbling, accented voice asked. With each syllable, his spike of heavy black beard quivered, but like another red giant Rainbow knew from Ponyville, he used those syllables sparingly. “We won’t have another chance.”

“Let’s do this,” Gale announced, in a voice that strangely seemed to remind Rainbow of an action hero.

There was some unspoken agreement in the way the three siblings moved, spreading out to surround Rainbow and Morty. Once all three were in position, Typhoon called out.

“I know you’re out there. I know what you want.” The autumn mare spread her wings wide, beckoning to the fiends hiding in the darkness. “Why wait? She’s right here.”

The first sound Rainbow heard was the crunch of the dry grass under hooves, slowly approaching. Then, in the darkness, she saw their eyes. They shone, the slitted blues and greens and yellows and reds, piercing and hungry, from all directions across the uneven ground, and in the air above it. Leathery wing beats gave the approach a rhythm, and from the sound, Rainbow could count at least five of the creatures in the air.

Cyclone took a deep breath; Rainbow would not have noticed, were it not for the distinct cracking the air made in his nostrils, and the orange light that escaped from beneath the feathers of his wings. Then he exhaled. The fire would have put most dragons to shame, burning the stars from the sky and painting the world a vivid orange. In the few moments before the inferno became smoke in the darkness, Rainbow saw them: twelve creatures whose coats had shifted toward utter blackness, fangs in their muzzles, curved horns, leather wings, and vicious claws spread throughout. The thirteenth and fourteenth fell to the grass as piles of ashes, reduced without so much as a scream by the power of Cyclone’s Empatha.

“Two,” the stallion announced, smiling. “Race is on, girls.”

Rainbow winced at the stallion’s bloodthirsty grin, visible even through his heavy beard. Her mind conjured the images from her imagination, as he had stood by, laughing hysterically as River Rock burnt. Seeing the stallion in the flesh, hurling fire like his toy, left her with a pit in her gut. Almost by reflex, her head twitched away, and her focus fell on Typhoon.

Whether spurred on by Cyclone’s words, or simply sensing the right moment, Typhoon launched herself into the sky by all four hooves. Three bolts of golden magic shot past her, narrowly missing her wings and hooves, but she felt no need to look away from her target. Rainbow watched her icy sword, glinting visibly even for the flashes of light surrounding her, as it clove into a winged thestral. Like the body, she felt herself grow cold when it fell, lacking any trail of blood for the solid coating of frost containing its wounds. When the thestral struck the ground, it shattered like glass, its remains glimmering and twinkling in the starlight.

“Three!” Typhoon cried out, before ducking away from another burst of magic and back into the fray. Rainbow’s eyes followed her, until a flare of blue inches from her face left her nearly blinded. At her side, a raptor-clawed earth pony thestral lay shuddering, as Gale’s magic rippled along its flesh. The young, friendly mare’s attention remained on the battle, hurling up spell after spell at the horde even as she approached the fallen enemy and lifted her right forehoof.

Rainbow closed her eyes. All she heard was the wet crunch, and the failed wheeze that should have been a gasp or a scream. The struggling stopped.

“Four,” Gale announced, and then without missing a beat, “Five.”

“Six,” came Cyclone’s heavy voice, though it trailed off into a grunt of pain when another of the clawed thestrals slammed into his side. Its terrifying weapons dug into his sides, scrabbling to break his ribs and reach his heart.

“Cy!” Typhoon shouted, outstretching a wing. Her Empatha gathered into a single icicle, flying like lightning to strike the creature through the throat. Even gasping for air and bleeding to death, it tore at Cyclone’s wings for two more seconds before the giant pony lit his entire body on fire, disintegrating it completely.

“He was mine,” Typhoon announced. “Seven.”

“Eight!” Gale interjected, before hurling a brilliant blue shield up in the space between Rainbow and a diving pegasus thestral. Overhead, the creature smashed its hooves against Gale’s barrier, though it was a golden glow of another horn that ultimately ended the spell.

“How proud of you three to count us like that.” The unicorn thestral laughed, watching as the thestral above Rainbow curved, tackling Gale and wrapping its fangs around her horn. The thestral’s curved horn illuminated a slender blue face. “It’s been a very long time, Gale. You two,” he ordered, turning between Typhoon and Cyclone. “Stop, or your sister loses her horn.”

“Shattered Gem,” Typhoon hissed, ears pinned to her skull and wings ever so slightly unfurled in distrust.

“Mortal Coil, I believe you called the colorful one here ‘Rainbow Dash’?” The unicorn walked up to her. “Don’t mind Typhoon, Rainbow,” he told her. “We didn’t get much of a chance for introductions when you were flying the Eagle of Lubuck. My name is Shattered Gem, although my friends call me Jewel; at least, when I’m not Seventh Brother.”

“I know who you are,” Rainbow told the thestral, looking straight into his slitted yellow eyes. “I read your story.”

“Oh, you did?” Jewel smiled, as if proud that he was remembered, even as a monster. “Typhoon, tell me, is Rainbow here one of ours? Or is she Gale and Coil’s?”

Typhoon looked between Gale’s prone form and Rainbow, and her gaze briefly flicked to her icy sword which lay in the frosted grass at her hooves. “She’s my granddaughter,” the pegasus soldier announced. “But you’ll never be a part of our family!”

“Oh? Blood doesn’t lie, Typhoon. I’m certain your necromancer friend could tell you that.” Jewel chuckled to himself; Rainbow watched his muscular body shake with each cruel laugh. “I don’t see why you hate me so much, when you fight alongside your brother. He and I were the same.”

“We were wrong,” Cyclone noted, his teeth still wrapped around his massive sword.

Jewel shook his head, ignoring the other stallion completely. “At least I gave you something other than a scar. I thought you liked our son; I would have expected you to be grateful. And what a ladies stallion he turned out to be," Jewel offered a saccharine smile. "A chip off the old block." Jewel managed a single step toward Typhoon before a burst of blue magic struck him in the side. He toppled suddenly, slitted eyes rolling back and legs flailing wildly.

All eyes flew to Gale who was standing beside the pegasus thestral that had previously held her prisoner. It lunged at another of its kind, a horned undead approaching Cyclone from behind. The unicorn thestral didn’t even have time to recognize its assailant before its throat was stolen.

Before Rainbow or any of her company had any time to even process what had happened, a single lightning bolt fell from the sky in the distance. The remaining four thestrals turned tail and fled straight back into the darkness; only the strangely helpful winged creature and the unconscious form of Jewel remained behind.

“What was that?” Typhoon asked. “You!” Her eyes locked on their thestral ‘friend’, harsh and suspicious. “What just happened?”

“I serve my master,” the former pegasus mare answered, bowing her head.

“Your master?” Typhoon’s tail flicked to the side out of irritation. “Give me a straight answer, corpse!”

“That,” came a tired wheeze from near Rainbow’s side, “would be me.”

Mortal Coil slowly pushed himself to his hooves. Ribbons of shadowy purple smoke trailed away from the corners of the stallion’s eyes, which glowed a fiendish green.

“What is that?” Without hesitation, the cyan mare pounced on the pale stallion. His back had barely hit the grass when she pressed her hooves onto his shoulders, glaring into his eyes. “Are you Sombra?!”

A blue aura wrapped around Rainbow, and though she struggled, the unicorn magic hoisted her into the air. She was turned slowly, made to stare at Gale as Morty once more reclaimed his posture. The warrior-princess smiled, speaking with just a hint of sarcasm. “Let’s try and stay calm, Rainbow. I don’t know who this Sombra pony is, but as we’ve already discussed, this pony is named Morty, and he’s trying very hard to be your friend.”

“Sombra was a thestral who conquered the Crystal Empire,” Morty explained. “I suspect he had some part in Luna’s fall,.”

“Whoa, what?” Rainbow struggled to turn around, failing to change her position in Gale’s magic and resorting to talking over her own shoulder. “Sombra was part of the Night Guard?”

“Not all thestrals are part of the Night Guard,” Morty replied. His hoof gestured toward the frightening mishmash of green, purple, and black issuing from his eyes and horn. It then motioned rather lazily to Gale, and her magic released Rainbow to drop gently onto her hooves. “All it takes to raise a thestral is some knowledge, a lot of willpower, and ‘alicorn magic’. The third is what you saw just a moment ago when you tackled me.” Morty rubbed a hoof over his brow. “It takes a lot of magic, though, and you don’t get it back as long as the thestral is running around. The average unicorn doesn’t have enough magic to do it. An archmage, like myself, can support one. Princess Luna can manage up to twenty.” His eyes flicked briefly toward some look of distaste on Typhoon, though by the time Rainbow turned, the mare had again masked her anger.

“In any case, I didn’t want Gale to be hurt, so I took control of this thestral.” Morty indicated to the pegasus. “You don’t need to worry; I’ve taken away her free will. She can’t hurt any of you.”

“Taken away her free will?” Rainbow turned the the former pony, who stood almost frozen, and then back to Morty. “That’s a little creepy, don’t you think?”

“Would you rather I let her bite Gale’s horn off? Or possess you and go on a rampage in Equestria?” Morty rolled his eyes as Rainbow opened her mouth to protest. “Necromancy is a thankless job, Rainbow. I’m used to it. I don’t intend to keep her like this forever. I’ll probably just disperse her when we’re done, but first we should talk to her.” He turned toward her. “Thestral.”

“Yes, Master?”

Morty winced. “Don’t call me that. It’s Morty.”

“Yes, Morty,” the creature replied, treating his name with the same reverence it afforded the prior title.

The unicorn chuckled. “There’s a place somewhere near here, where you can see into the living world. Do you know where it is?”

“Yes.”

The ponies waited for a good few seconds before Gale stepped forward. “Well, where is it?”

“Cloudsdale. The fountain in the lobby of the Curia Haysarea.”

“Cloudsdale?” Rainbow wondered aloud, looking up at the sky. “This doesn’t look like Equestria to me. Actually, does anypony even know where we are?”

Cyclone nodded once. Rainbow took silent note of the way his glee from the battle had worn off, leaving him once more stone-faced and dour. “The Compact Lands, before the blizzard. This is Northwind Basin, where I won command of the Praetorian. In your time, these lands are covered in snow and ice. Cloudsdale isn’t far north of here.”

“Thestral,” Typhoon addressed the creature coldly. “Where did that lightning come from? Why did it scare your companions?”

“It was mine.”

The voice was new. It stole across the plains, strong and authoritative. As one, the heads of the assembled ponies swiveled toward the silhouette a mere dozen yards away. He stood out against the night sky, a true black against its mere dark blue. One by one, his strides carried him closer, until Rainbow could tell apart his coat from the plates of his sheer black armor.

He was tall, for a pegasus. Strong legs and mighty shoulders led him closer, and with each step his piercing magenta eyes studied the group anew.

“Father?” Cyclone asked.

Gale, in contrast, lacked the hesitation. The unicorn charged forward, lunging at the dark stallion with both forelegs for a hug. The first light Rainbow truly saw from the stallion was the glint of his teeth as he smiled in the embrace.

“It’s been too long, Gale.” His head tilted up. “But you shouldn’t be here. And… Typhoon? Cyclone?” Commander Hurricane released his daughter, and a controlled anger overtook his expression. “Coil. What are they doing here?”

Under Hurricane’s focus, Mortal Coil took an active step forward. Despite his confidence, it wasn’t hard for Rainbow’s eyes to track the unicorn’s gaze to the cross-shaped golden hilt of Hurricane’s sword, hanging beneath his left wing. “They insisted, Hurricane.”

“Commander,” the dark stallion corrected. “And they couldn’t have escaped the Summer Lands without a shade’s magic, necromancer. Did you drag anypony else out? Do you intend to damn Silver Sword? Or Swift Spear? Pathfinder?” With each name, Hurricane stepped forward, and before long, he was glaring down three inches to meet Morty’s gaze. “Or is it just my children you wish to see as wandering spirits?”

“Dad.” Gale’s voice was sharp, cutting through the night with a force to turn the dark stallion’s head back. “Stop. We convinced him to take us because we want to help Rainbow. He’s not out to get us killed or anything.”

Hurricane took a slow breath, and then returned his focus to Morty. “Fine. Let’s take care of this as quickly as we can, and get them back to safety.” His peace made, Hurricane pushed past Morty on his way toward Rainbow.

“Why?” Morty asked.

The single word prompted Hurricane to spread his wings, flap once, and turn in place a perfect one hundred and eighty degrees. “What do you mean ‘why’?”

“You want me to take your foals and shove them back in a prison of pointlessness and illusion? A place where every day, they’ll know that their continued existence is completely meaningless? Have you even asked them―”

Hurricane’s hoof collided with Morty’s chest, releasing a crack like thunder. Its wind flitted through the hairs of the crest on Hurricane’s helmet, as well as every mane and tail in sight. Gasping in agony from the blow, the unicorn toppled over.

“You would rather they get eaten by spirits? Dispersed until they forgot who they were? Until every semblance of your Gale is dead? We survive because Celestia and Luna remember us, Coil. We have their magic. But Celestia put away her memories of Gale centuries ago.” Hurricane made no notice of the way Gale flinched at his harsh words. “You’d condemn them for the sake of a bit of freedom.”

“Those who sacrifice liberty for security deserve neither,” Morty grumbled from the ground.

“This isn’t about liberty, Coil, this is about survival.” Commander Hurricane shook his head, turned his back to Morty, and drew his sword from its sheath. The Gladius Procellarum was nothing like what Rainbow had imagined. It was a long, heavy blade, but rather than rigid edges, it had a gentle curve like Typhoon’s weapon. Most interesting, however, was the hole in the center of the blade. The long thin oval ran nearly the length of the weapon’s edge, releasing a hissing noise not unlike a furnace when it was swung through the air.

Hurricane had only swung it once. A few drops of blood were shed by the motion, but far fewer than Rainbow would have expected. Morty’s captive thestral fell to the ground. A moment later, its severed head followed suit. The flesh of the stump was in some places seared, and in others frozen. And for all the cruelty of the action, Rainbow was most disgusted that she caught herself feeling almost nothing. In the end, it was just a tenth corpse to add to the pile strewn across the grass.

With frightening precision, Hurricane thrust Procellarum back into its sheath, and then turned his head to Rainbow. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” she lied.

“You aren’t used to death,” Hurricane observed. “It will pass.” Then he stepped forward, and moved to wrap a foreleg over her shoulders. Without hesitation, her wing batted it away. “I’m sorry,” he whispered.

“Whatever.”

Hurricane turned back to his offspring. “We’re taking Rainbow to Cloudsdale. Is that correct?” He received three nods. “Alright. We’ll go in two teams. Coil, make an illusion so that Typhoon looks like Rainbow. Gale, use the cloud walking spell Star Swirl taught you. The three of you will go to the main street of Cloudsdale. Cyclone and I will take Rainbow through the Silver Mountain catacombs.”

“Wait up,” Morty cried out. “Shouldn’t I be going with Rainbow? I know my way around the Between.”

“There are two of us,” Hurricane countered. “You go with Gale.”

“Can you even reattach her soul?”

“Better than you can,” Hurricane replied. “Soul magic is Empatha, as I’m sure you’re aware. Not your Arcana.”

“But I―”

“Morty,” Gale interrupted. “Give up. This isn’t worth fighting over.”

Beneath his black robe, Morty’s foreshoulders drooped. “Well, Rainbow, it was a pleasure to meet you. Give Celestia and Luna my regards.”

As he and Gale turned toward the north, walking out into the night, Hurricane and Typhoon shared a focused look. Hurricane’s hoof came up to his eyes, and pointed forcibly at Morty. Typhoon nodded once, and then spread her wings, ready to move after her sister and brother-in-law.

Only when they had left did Rainbow suddenly come across the feeling that she’d let her only friends in the strange darkness of the Between wander away.

Solo’s first sight was a sort of purple blob, sitting squarely in the center of a gray blur. A ringing in her ears settled to the discernible sound of an equine voice.

“...awake?”

“I…” Solo’s head throbbed, but when the pain disappeared, the world came into view with it. “Twilight?”

“Oh, good. I was worried he’d hurt you… Uh, permanently, I mean.”

“Too soon,” came a voice echoing off a nearby wall, accompanied by a growling few words that Solo didn’t understand. Her head turned slowly, avoiding a resurgence of her aching head, toward the dreaded Marshal Serp. Without his left foreleg, the grain-colored stallion was far less intimidating. One of the sleeves of his heavy black jacket had been ripped off, wrapped tightly around the stump that remained of his shoulder.

“Sorry, Serp.” As Twilight spoke, one of Serp’s quills danced along the wall, scratching out words in the pegasus’ spilt blood, and echoing them in Stalliongradi to his ears. “Don’t move so much; you’ll reopen it!”

Solo took a moment to take in her surroundings: the three ponies had been placed in a cell clearly designed to hold only one, two pony-lengths deep, but only wide enough for two to stand in its width if they were shoulder to shoulder. Serp was sprawled in the back of the cell, a mere leg’s reach from Solo. Twilight was seated near the barred door, which seemed to be made of some metal far darker than iron or steel. With the jagged edges that spurred out of the bars, it reminded Solo of obsidian. Outside, through the cell’s bars, a barely-lit torch illuminated a hallway that the captives couldn’t see down.

Serp growled when Twilight stepped toward him. “You think it matters? I’d rather bleed out then let Fenrir kill me slowly.”

Twilight’s eyes widened slightly. “That’s the name of the big one with all of the canid sigils, right?”

Solo prepared to sit through another of Twilight’s academic explanations. “What’s a canid sigil?”

“Well, Diamond Dogs and Vargr both have magic, but they―”

The rough tones of both Serp’s native Stalliongradi, and the translated echo from the wall, were almost music to the Canterlot guardsmare’s ears. “She срала on it, Twilight, and so do I.” Focusing on Solo, he bared his filed teeth in a smile. “Vargr carve magic spells into their skin, and then самки fill the scars in with powdered gems. It’s the only way they can do magic. Fenrir has the most, so he’s their leader.” Turning to Twilight, he continued. “And how in Tartarus do you not know who Fenrir is, книгодрот? Next you’re going to tell me you don’t know what a yeti is, or that you’ve never heard of гребанной Baba Yagaur.”

“I’ve met several yetis, thank you very much.” Twilight rolled her eyes. “And Baba Yagaur is just a foal’s story; gaur can’t even use Arcana; they’re like buffalo, who only have Endura. That’s beside the point that they can’t even be found on this continent―”

“Oh,” Serp interrupted. “Well, then my memories of fighting with that мандой and her magic house must have just been a drunken dream. I certainly can’t think of any other блядских monsters that everypony said were made up. Nightmare в пизду Moon certainly turned out to be fake. I bet― agh.” The sudden gasp of pain came from Serp’s simple motion toward Twilight; though his shoulder was nowhere near the ground, the trivial action of moving it in pantomime of a step was enough to pause the battle-hardened officer.

Without saying a word, Solo’s hoof moved to her cuirass, only to find her guardspony armor missing. Though her shoes were likewise missing, Solo was surprised to find that the vargr had left her vest. A quick run of her wings over its pockets brought a smile to her face, which went unnoticed, hidden by the others’ bickering.

“I’m telling you, Serp, you need to stop moving your shoulder around.”

“Why, you stupid долбанная шлюха? We are literally going to die in this tiny cell. Maybe you’re looking forward to a happy little tea party in the Summer Lands with your stupid woodland friends, but I’m going to be spending the rest of time licking Tirek’s salty жопу. And it’s your клятой Celestia fault, pile of дерьма.” By the end of his rant, Serp was panting, leaning forward into Twilight’s face with his jagged teeth and unleashing the rank force of his foul, booze-tinged breath in her direction.

Twilight pulled back, and the corners of her lips twitched as if struggling to come to grips with a newfound emotion. “I… I just thought…” The purple mare’s head hung low. “I’m sorry.”

Solo rested a wing on Twilight’s back. “We aren’t dead yet, right?”

Serp’s hoof slammed on the ground, with the sound of a crack of thunder that echoed in the tiny cell, nearly deafening the other pegasus. She could see his lips moving in time with his Stalliongradi, but it was only after a few moments of his shouting that she began to hear his words. “―pony ever makes it out of the mines; Celestia’s sunny flank knows Blood Stroke and Hammer and I have tried. We’ve lost probably a dozen good ponies down these tunnels, and unless Blood Stroke shows up himself from where Celestia stuck him, we aren’t going to do any better. So take your optimistic horse-гавно and your hugs and hearts and жрущие навоз butterflies, and―”

Solo’s hoof smashed into the side of the Black Cloak’s jaw with enough force to leave the three legged stallion on his side, crumpled at the base of the cell’s wall. “You want to play this way, fine! I can’t stop you from giving up if you think we’re already as good as dead. But do you really want to go out like this? Shouting at the last pony who could ever be your friend? Because let me tell you something, Black Cloak: I’m not gonna forgive you.” Solo took two steps forward, glaring down at the toppled soldier and pointing a furious hoof at his chest. “You’ve spent your whole life being a complete asshole to everypony you’ve come across. And you’re right: if you do die here, I’d bet all the money I’ve got Celestia would have your flank burning in Tartarus. You’ve got one chance to change that, and you can spend it helping Twilight and I get out of here, or bawling in the corner like the playground bully you are. I’m getting us out of here in one piece.”

Serp stared at Solo, cowering with his eyes locked against her glare, unable to look away. Sighing, the ex-smuggler turned away from the pathetic stallion and pulled off her vest.
“Uh, Solo, they searched you; they took my bags, and Serp’s sickle, and everything. They just left us the clothes.”

“Then it’s a good thing they don’t know about Canterlot fashion.” The pegasus turned her vest around, revealing a half-dozen small pockets stitched into the inside of the garment. “These are padded on lining that faces the outside, so you can’t feel them if you’re patting the wearer down.”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Why does your vest have hidden pockets?”

Solo cracked a cocky smile. “You can ask your brother when we find him. Give me a second.” The mare’s hooves danced over a few of the pockets, pulling out her single bladed steel shoe, a bag of marbles, and her precious crumpled matchbox. Without hesitance, she slid it open and withdrew a single narrow chartreuse crystal. “Serp, eat this. It’ll help your shoulder.”

“What the―” the stallion seemed to catch himself in some mixture of self realization and pain. He popped the crystal into his mouth and crunched down prior to asking, “What is it?”

“Whispersalt,” Solo replied casually, closing the matchbox.

Twilight’s eyes widened. “But… that’s illegal!”

The flat stare Solo answered with spoke more than any words could have. After a moment of silent reproach, the ex-smuggler took a slow breath. “I’m assuming you can’t teleport us out of the cell?”

Twilight shook her head. “The bars are lodestone; it’s like a sponge for magic. I could probably overload them, and actually just break it, but that would make a really loud noise.”

Solo shook her head. “No good. Serp is right about one thing: we can’t fight these varg-whatevers.”

“Vargr,” Twilight corrected.

“Gesundheit.” Solo chuckled as she stuck her head beneath her wing.

“Why are you laughing?” The unicorn of the group frowned. “We’re in serious danger, Solo.”

“I noticed,” the pegasus replied from beneath her wing. “But if you let the danger get to you, you start making stupid mistakes.” A moment later, her head returned with a robin’s egg blue feather clutched in her teeth, its rigid quill sticking forward. Her hooves moved confidently toward the barred door, where she transferred the feather to sit on the flat of her wing.

“What are you doing?” Twilight asked.

The momentary leader of the group decided not to answer. Instead, her eyes clenched tight in focus. Her far wing reached under her chin to lay flat atop the feather, and she gritted her teeth. Moving slowly, she guided the feather toward the keyhole. It wasn’t a hard target to hit; Solo imagined it was sized for a key that fit in a vargr’s massive claws. Running the feather across the top of the lock, she felt two tumblers. Foal’s play.

“What are you doing?” the unicorn repeated.

A little growl escaped Solo’s throat. “Shut the buck up, Twilight; I need to focus.”

“Sorry.” Twilight sounded hurt, though in her focus, Solo didn’t have time to apologize..

The first tumbler took more than a moment of prodding; Solo wasn’t worried about the lock getting jammed by her tampering as she was of the weight of its parts snapping off the tip of her quill. Two, three, and finally four taps held the little weighted head up. With a slow breath to regain her focus, Solo moved in for the second tumbler.

The sound of a crunching footstep down the hall froze her in place. It was followed by another, slowly approaching.

“What was that?” Twilight asked.

“Quiet!” Solo’s wings twitched through the bars. The tumbler moved up, and then dropped with a brutal force. She gasped, twitching again and again. Echoing down the hall, the heavy footsteps continued. “Come on…”

She gave one last desperate twitch as the footsteps continued, but before she could even feel the tumbler fall, Twilight yanked her back from the door. The pegasus and the unicorn held tight against one another for the next few painful seconds as the footsteps drew closer.

Fenrir’s claws were immediately obvious by the glowing runes carved into his skin. Only a moment later, he stepped into proper view. The greatest of the Vargr was an imposing sight, even taller standing fully upright than Solo recalled from his silhouette running through the fortress. At least nine feet in height, the monster would have loomed over even Princess Celestia, with shaggy shoulders nearly as wide as the average pegasus’ wingspan trailing down into long, patchy arms. His entire torso seemed to brim with a combination of muscles and scars, glowing blue and bulging all over. Mere inches from his massive clawed feet, Solo’s feather sat on the floor. She struggled miserably to avoid looking at it.

A single mark beneath his left arm caught the pegasus guardspony’s attention for its distinctive lack of a glow. In fact, to her eye, it looked as though the long scrawl was written in Stalliongradi, though she had no way to comprehend its meaning.

“Ponies.” Fenrir’s words came out as a throaty growl, like the rumble of a dog trying to scare off an intruder. “You were foolish to tread on my ground.”

“We were just looking for my brother,” Twilight told him.

“Liar!” the walking wolf shouted through the bars, with a force that folded back the ponies’ ears. “You killed Maugrim! You and your soldier came into my home, and killed my packmate.”

“I swear, Fenrir, we didn’t want to hurt anypony!”

The vargr’s skin ignited to an even brighter blue as his lips curled back from his fangs. His feet stomped down frighteningly close to the feather. “Any pony? Your kind are all the same; so content to label us monsters, and to hunt us down in the snow. I came hoping that your fear in the cell would crack the truth from you, but it seems you are sticking to your idiotic lie.”

“It’s not a lie!” Solo shouted, leaning up to the bars. “Shining Armor was here!”

Fenrir’s gem-covered claws lunged at Solo’s muzzle, and though she was fast enough to escape his grip, the motion came at the cost of a thin scratch near her nostril. “No pony would ever come here, save the soldiers. It has been that way since the icy corpse. If a pony had come here in a year, we would have known.” The vargr shook his head. “No, your story is a lie, and I see I will not break you from it. The only other use I have for you is as rewards for the miners. I think I might try one of your wings next, bitch.” Fenrir’s claw indicated to Solo. “The soldier’s flesh is harsh and bony. I would prefer to offer something more tender.”

With that thought, the glowing wolf-beast turned back to the hallway. Twilight rushed up to the bars. “You’ve got to listen to me, Fenrir! I can talk to the ponies in Stalliongrad if you want! I can get you― Please!”

Solo could not see the wolf disappear, but she did hear the door slam in the distance.

Twilight collapsed onto her back, looking at Solo with confusion and desperation. “Are we gonna die in here?”

“No.” Solo put a hoof on Twilight’s shoulders, smiling. “No, we’re not.”

Then she slid the cell door open.

Rainbow Dash and Commander Hurricane shared confused expressions as they flew mere feet off the plains of the Compact Lands. The sun was beginning to rise that morning, though its light was repeatedly blocked off by a long flat skysteel blade, being hurled up into the air and then caught by the teeth of the walking pegasus, Cyclone. Unlike his father and his great-niece, the scars of the pegasus’ shoulder kept him from flying. For his part, the ancient soldier seemed untroubled. Casually, his neck turned to catch his weapon, which Rainbow was sure would come down by its blade instead of its handle to decapitate him. Further, every time he completed the motion, Rainbow was certain the weight of the weapon would break his jaw. Yet, every time, he caught it deftly without so much as losing his balance.

Finally, Rainbow’s curiosity cracked her silence. “How do you lift that thing?” she asked Cyclone.

The soldier looked down his muzzle at the sword, then back to Rainbow. "With my mouth," he replied bluntly, ignoring the handle between his teeth.

“It’s a boat paddle!” His great-niece retorted. “I mean, what is it, four feet long? And a foot thick? It looks like a baseball bat slept with a fishing hook!”

“Is it your cutie mark?” Hurricane asked.

Cyclone rolled his eyes, stowing the weapon on his back. “Yes, Father. I shaped it to match my cutie mark. It’s a cumulus blade, reinforced with a line of stratus in the core.”

“Cumulus?” The weather-manager and grand-daughter of a cloud architect in Rainbow both rushed to the forefront of her mind. “Why? It isn’t very dense.”

“The metal is not chosen for its strength; it is merely a tool for my Empatha.” Cyclone’s wing wrapped up to touch the weapon. “Infernus does not cut. It melts.” At Rainbow’s cringe, he added another note. “I did not use it against ponies, Rainbow, though it would be a kinder weapon than most if I did.”

“Or you could not kill them.”

“I could…” Cyclone began, letting the word drop off as his eyes wandered to the corners of their sockets. “...but then where would you have been a few hours ago? You would not have survived those thestrals without us.”

Hurricane swooped down on near-black wings, landing at his son’s side. “Don’t press that issue, Cyclone. Rainbow comes from a very different time than us. There are no legions anymore.”

“I know, Father. I saw the end of the legions. Cirra died with you.”

“Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem.”

“Uh, what?” Rainbow asked.

Hurricane sighed. “Before the legion, there was nothing. After the legion, there will be nothing. It’s ancient Cirran. As I was saying, Cyclone, less than half a percent of the modern population serve as soldiers.”

Cyclone released a sort of snorting noise that Rainbow recognized as his form of laughter. A moment later, he turned to Hurricane. “You are serious? How do they survive?”

“I couldn’t tell you.” Hurricane turned toward Rainbow. “They haven’t disbanded the Royal Guard, have they? Or the E.U.P.P.F.?”

Rainbow cocked her head. “The what?”

“The Earth-Unicorn―” Hurricane cut himself off. “The National Guard, Rainbow. The reserves.”

“Oh! Yeah, we’ve got both. My friend Twilight’s older brother has the fancy purple armor―”

Again, Cyclone unleashed the sound of a throttled goose. “A stallion is wearing Gale’s armor?” And then, without breaking his even expression, the huge red pegasus put on his miserable interpretation of an effeminate stallion’s voice. “Oh, look at me, I’m a soldier. Does this armor make my hips look fat?”

“Hey! Shining Armor is―”

“His name is Shining Armor?” Cyclone actually stopped walking, holding a hoof to his immense beard as if he were deathly afraid of revealing his teeth outside the bounds of mortal combat.

“Alright, that’s enough, Cyclone.” Hurricane waited for a good five seconds as Cyclone’s mirth passed slowly into nonexistence. The older of the ponies spread his wings again, taking to the air with what Rainbow recognized as a decent degree of agility. Hurricane would probably never fly for the Wonderbolts, but she imagined most ponies couldn’t outrace him in a straight line. “What do you do for a living, Rainbow Dash?”

“I’m head weathermare of Ponyville,” Rainbow announced with a small degree of pride. “It’s a hard patrol because of the Everfree Forest, but I keep it under control.”

“Everfree Forest? Everfree City was on a plain.” Cyclone’s head rotated like a confused puppy, before an even stranger thought occurred to him. “This may sound rude, Rainbow, but if your job is just to manage the weather, why did Celestia raise you from the dead?”

Rainbow grimaced. “Well… I…”

I’m the Bearer of Loyalty. Those were the words she intended. Yet a torrent of memories left her tongue as cold and still as the stallions she traveled beside. She could see Twilight, her mouth hanging agape as she watched Rainbow clear the sky over Ponyville that fateful day. She saw her hooves meet with Applejack’s, struggling to prove her strength against her stubborn friend. Pranking with Pinkie. Dancing through Fluttershy’s garden in the company of all her animals. Flying alongside Rarity’s glittering butterfly wings. Riding on Papa’s back as he climbed the steps to their Cloudosseum box seats. Racing with Gilda at flight camp. The sensation of Luna’s wing on her back. Riding Twilight’s hot air balloon up to Cloudsdale with Deadeye.

I left them all behind. The thought was a rock weighing her down, and she felt her wingbeats slow. I gave up. Her hooves touched the dry grass. I don’t deserve to be called Loyalty.

“Rainbow, calm. Open your eyes and breathe.” Hurricane’s voice had a definite strength to it, piercing through the fog of her emotions like the sword at his side. With a tug, Rainbow’s eyes flicked open to find herself standing in a circle of frost stretching at least a wingspan away from her in each direction.

“Typhoon would be impressed,” Cyclone noted.

Hurricane’s eyes flicked momentarily toward his son, before the black-armored legend approached Rainbow. “What’s bothering you, Rainbow?”

“I…” The pegasus forced a breath into her lungs, struggling for words. When their eyes finally met, those words froze to death. There was something about the way he looked at her, as if he was seeing past her, judging her. It left her with the strange feeling that she was somehow falling, wanting desperately to spread her wings and catch herself. “I… I don’t want to talk about it…”

“You will.” Hurricane’s hoof crunched down on the frosted grass for emphasis. Rainbow’s imagination painted a thestral’s throat there. “For the sake of your soul, if not to regain your focus.”

Rainbow took two steps back, pulling her tail more tightly against her back and letting her wings flare out just a bit. “You wouldn’t understand.”

“Father, you’re scaring her.”

Hurricane’s head snapped toward Cyclone, and then slowly moved back to Rainbow. He took in the way her wings sat uneasily at her side, and he stared at the expression on her lips for what seemed to Rainbow a very long time. Then, with a slow motion, he brought his hoof to his jaw, pulling off his crystalline black helmet. A mane of far more silver and gray than steel blue barely stirred as it felt the morning wind, short cropped down his neck and loosely brushed back atop his head. With care, the helmet was placed on the frozen grass.

Commander Hurricane sat. His posture was still harsh, but his eyes stayed on the ground beneath Rainbow’s hooves. Without the brutality of his focused gaze, Rainbow found she could see more of the stallion. His shoulders hung with fatigue. His cheeks had grown gaunt, and the shape of his flesh beneath his coat was lean, his musculature revealed just as much from hardship as from fitness.

“Rainbow, I am not trying to frighten you,” he explained. “I am trying to help you. Perhaps you think I’m cruel. Perhaps you know me as the racist villain from Clover’s damn fairytale. I understand if I make you uncomfortable, but I am not here to be your friend.” His eyes rose to meet hers, driven and sharp. “I’m here to save your life.”

Rainbow gritted her teeth. “What difference does it make? I won’t have my wings when I go back, will I?”

“Celestia can give them to you,” Hurricane answered.

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Great, more of Celestia’s magic. I’d rather ask Luna.”

Absolute silence followed those words, as force returned to Hurricane’s glare. “Rainbow Dash, listen to me very closely. Luna is not your friend. She is not to be trusted.”

“Oh great, here we go again.” Rainbow glared right back at Commander Hurricane. “I don’t really care what Nightmare Moon did to you, but―”

“Four hundred twenty four.” Hurricane’s interjection came like a knife to the throat, as if he had somehow been waiting to catch Rainbow mid-word. There was hatred in his eyes, though his voice was steel. “Four hundred twenty four thestrals, Rainbow. Four hundred twenty four ponies she not only murdered, but then damned to wander this place, hungry and half-mindless, still bound in loyalty to Nightmare Moon but unable to serve her. She made me cut down my soldiers, Rainbow, one by one. My friends.”

Fluttershy bared her fangs, pacing forward with her leathery wings unfurled.

“I know you understand that, Rainbow.” Anger built in Hurricane’s voice, and the air grew hot around him.

Pinkie’s claws scraped against the stone floor in the old Everfree castle. Rainbow walked backward on the stone floor, until her tail brushed against a wall.

“So until you know what it’s like, Rainbow, to put a sword through the throat of a friend you couldn’t save, knowing you had damned him to an eternity of this―”

“Father!” Cyclone stepped closer to his father, inserting himself between the militant commander and the subject of his irritation.

“I am getting tired of betrayals.” With a single forehoof, and a strength more reminiscent of Soldier On than any pegasus Rainbow had ever met, Cyclone was tossed aside, and the black stallion turned back toward the young mare. “She’s a monster, Rainbow.”

Though Rainbow backed away from the stallion, she tried to answer his voice with determination of her own. “Luna isn’t Nightmare Moon.”

“Nightmare Moon was Luna’s choice. Beneath that shell were Luna’s feelings.” Hurricane scowled. “And make no mistake, Rainbow, those feelings are still there.”

Rainbow was prepared to carry the argument forward, but the dark red form of Cyclone made for an effective barrier to shout over. “Father, we are done.”

“Do you want her to go back and turn to Luna?”

“You are letting your emotions best you.” Rainbow couldn’t see Cyclone’s face, but the tone of his voice made his frown quite clear. “A thousand years have changed you, Father. She isn’t a soldier, and you’re clearly scaring her. Clear the path ahead. I’ll escort Rainbow to Cloudsdale.”

Rainbow heard Hurricane’s hooves crunch on the frosted ice, and then the beat of his black wings, before she saw him over Cyclone’s back, launching off into the morning sky. The red stallion watched his father until he was merely a black speck on the horizon, and then began walking without a further word. Rainbow hesitated a few moments before following after him.

Their path went on as the sun rose, revealing miles of rolling plains and hills. Ahead, Rainbow got her first glance of Cloudsdale from eight millennia in the past, anchored atop the peak of a jagged mountain alone amongst the flat lands. It lacked the rainbow falls of the modern city, but otherwise, little seemed to have changed amongst the clouds in thousands of years. She spread her wings, and then looked toward her guide. Her ears folded back when her attention landed on Cyclone’s scarred wing.

“Hey, uh… Cyclone?”

The behemoth pony turned to look at her. Even the simple glance from his rusty brown eyes cowed Rainbow back a few steps.

“I don’t bite,” Cyclone uttered, in a voice that could not have been farther from reassuring Rainbow. “Do you want something?”

Rainbow swallowed down her apprehension and forced herself to spit out her thought. “What was it like not to fly?”

The question seemed to have slapped the giant pony across the face. When the shock settled, Cyclone’s even expression seemed to take on a pensive light. Without answering Rainbow, his head swiveled away and his hooves settled back to the path.

“Sorry… I guess that was an awkward question.”

“I am not angry,” Cyclone replied. “I’m thinking. My first thought is that I deserved it. That scar, more than banishment or loneliness, was the cost of my choices in River Rock.” Brown eyes swiveled to the south. “For years, I served River Rock because I felt it was my duty; but with each passing day, I started to believe I was no good even for that.”

Cyclone paused, and then turned his flank toward Rainbow. Emblazoned on it, she saw a massive Cirran sword ending in a cruel hook, the mirror image of the one slung across his back, raised high and wreathed in flames. “I was a Cirran commander, a legend of battle, second only to my Father.” Those words came painfully, though Cyclone didn’t stop his story. “All that ended in River Rock… you know my story. Without the skies, I was stripped of my strength. Father always said a Cirran was as good as his weapon, and mine had been shattered that day in River Rock. I got so used to feeling the shards in my shoulder.”

Rainbow shivered, as her own thoughts drifted back to the little cell in Suida, where her body was trapped without its wings. “Did you…” She hesitated, struggling with her words. “Did something ever take its place? Flying, I mean?”

Cyclone offered her a softer version of his usual level gaze, no doubt intending to be comforting. “It came to me when I got my chance to save my sisters. When Father wasn’t there…” he let the thought trail off, as if unsure why he had said it in the first place. “I didn’t need my wing to be who I am.” He gestured to his flank. “I didn’t need my wing to protect River Rock. I made Infernus after the sword on my mark, to remind me of that.”

Rainbow sucked in a breath, and then sighed. “But… but my special talent is flying!”

Cyclone’s brow rose. “Your wings are well. I do not see…” Whatever it was Cyclone had intended with the thought, realization dawned on his cruel gaze to cut the words short. Rainbow was truly surprised when a red wing settled over her back, holding her gently. She looked up into the stallion’s face, encouraging, though it nearly lacked expression. “If your mark truly means for you to fly, then you will fly again, Rainbow Dash.” His wing patted her on the back twice, and then folded against his side. “But first, we must find you a way back to your world.”

As strong as the heat of his body was, Rainbow had to reflect that she felt warm inside for the first time in recent days. “Hey, Cyclone?” He turned back without word. “Thanks. I, uh, well, I was kinda expecting you’d be a jerk or something. You know, after what you did… but you’re pretty cool.”

The corner’s of the stallion’s face twitched, as if considering a smile. Nothing came of the motion. “I had thirteen foals, Rainbow. Father taught me to be a perfect soldier, but my children taught me to be a better pony.” His eyes moved toward the mountain. “We aren’t far now. We should hurry.”

“Silver, excellent to see you.”

The aging pegasus held a hoof to his side, just below his right wing, as he landed on the balcony of the palace. “As always, Princess, the pleasure is mine.”

“Is your wing bothering you?” Celestia extended a wing slowly, brushing it across the stallion’s side. “Do you need a doctor?”

Behind his moustache, Celestia could see his lips twitch in discomfort at her touch. “I’ve seen six, Princess. My usual, a second opinion, two specialists, a hack, and an acupuncturist of all things. Turns out there’s no cure for old age.” And then he smiled. “Well, apart from yours, but we had that unpleasant discussion six months ago. Just don’t tell Rainbow I’m not up to fancy flying.”

“Oh?” Celestia pulled her wing back, ushering it toward the glass doors that led into the palace. “I seem to remember your stories of flying with her. Won’t she notice?”

The old stallion walked through the open doors and onto the marble floors of the palace hallways. His wing twitched as it folded at his side. “Not with her new stallion.” His immaculate silver moustache curled up with his grin. “He’s one of your guardsponies, you know? Met him in Zebrica… Is something wrong, Princess?”

Celestia’s expression had frozen solid. “Dead Reckoning?”

The stallion’s brow ground down upon itself, and his hooves stopped in place. “That was his name. Is there something I should know about my daughter’s coltfriend?”

“No,” Celestia answered. “Just something I need to speak to my sister about.”

“Urgently?”

“Not enough to interrupt our meeting, if you’re certain you want me present.” Celestia gestured with her wing once more, and the old stallion began to walk once more. “Though I still don’t understand why you insist on having me join you. You must have been through dozens of these sorts of negotiations.”

Silver Lining nodded. “Let me be frank, Princess. I’m a grandfather, an artist, and a business-stallion in that order. I am not a politician.”

“I wasn’t aware there was going to be any politics,” Celestia observed.

The old stallion shook his head in a show of visible fatigue. “Believe me, Princess, when we’re negotiating with griffons, there will always be politics. The last time we talked, I took an airship to Manemphis and then, I swear to you, a canoe down the Stile and across the Congallop to get to the griffon captial. What do they call it? Agna-something?”

“Angenholt.”

“That’s it, yes.” Silver let himself be led through the palace, around corners and down winding stairs. “Well, I got to Angenholt, and I sat down with this… whatever they call their stallions… and halfway through our negotiations, when I thought I had things in the bag, their Emperor comes walking through the door. And believe me, Princess, I am not easily intimidated in the boardroom over drinks, but Magnus is frankly not somepony easy to play the game with.”

“He can be rather intimidating,” Celestia observed.

“He’s enormous,” the old stallion retorted bluntly. “I don’t mean anything by this, Princess, but I had thought you were as big as speaking creatures came.”

“Oh, have I been helping myself to dessert too frequently?" Celestia answered with a smile and a chuckle. “Yes, Magnus is an interesting sort. Hard to predict, certainly. This Naia Julia, though, is a fairly pleasant griffoness.”

“I know a thing or two about dealing with young griffonesses, if you’ll recall,” Silver told the Princess, who had stepped up to a single polished chestnut door. “Is this the room?”

“Ready?” Celestia replied.

Silver Lining brushed a hoof over his chest, and then his thick bar moustache. “As I’ll ever be, I suppose.”

Celestia’s magic pushed the door open, revealing a rather plain sitting room with two couches, two legchairs, and a coffee table adorned with a frankly boring potted plant. Thick books adorned one wall of the space, while a globe sat on the other, between a pair of windows looking out on the palace gardens and grounds.

The most interesting thing to see in the room was its sole occupant. Silver had to reflect that the griffoness, Naia Julia, was nothing like his granddaughter's friend Gilda. Where the young, troubled griffoness had been rebellious and rough-around-the-edges, Naia was well groomed and sharp eyed. She sat in the center of the pony-sized couch, taking up the better part of both seats, with her back upright and her hawk eyes sharply focused on her new negotiating partner.

“Councilor Lining, is it?” she began, in a surprisingly gifted imitation of a Canterlot accent. “And Princess Celestia?” She stood, and bowed in the griffon manner, with a claw tucked across the line where her body switched from bird to beast. “I am truly honored by such noble company.”

“Oh, there’s no need for formalities.” Silver offered the griffoness a wing in greeting, and tried not to wince too obviously when she shook it with her taloned claw. “You can call me Silver. I understand you’re Frumentarius Julia?”

“Naia is fine,” the griffoness observed, “if we are doing away with titles. And Princess, if I may ask, will you be staying for our rather boring, though likely short, negotiations? I am certain my uncle’s peer must have more significant matters to attend.”

Silver smiled behind his moustache, noting Naia’s hesitance to host Celestia.

The alicorn took her place in the room with a friendly smile, reclining with her forelegs draped over the side of a smaller pony’s chair. “Actually, Naia, I was hoping to sit in precisely because there is little else going on. Most of my castle staff are out, and I’ve already taken care of open court for the day.”

“Oh?” Naia asked. “What holiday?”

“We call it Saturday,” Celestia replied, expertly hiding her amusement. “It’s one of our most popular days.”

“You ponies seem to take so many holidays,” Naia reflected. “I’ll have to study your calendar more closely it seems. Now, Silver, let’s get down to my uncle’s stipulations. Trading such a volume of skysteel outside of Grivridge is unprecedented, and we want to make sure we understand how it is intended to be used; if you took military action with weapons made from our clouds, there could be ramifications for us.”

Silver shook his head. “I assure you, Naia, we won’t be using your clouds for our military contracts. Though I wonder why you’re even worried; Equestria hasn’t been the aggressor in an open war in…” He turned toward Celestia. “Well, ever?”

“Certainly not in a very long time,” Celestia replied.

Naia’s wings rose and fell in a dismissive shrug. “Lord Krenn would disagree, but that is neither here nor there. We understand that you managed all skysteel for the Equestrian army, Silver. That is correct, isn’t it?”

“More or less,” Silver Lining began. “Most of Equestria’s domains have a standing guard who serve more as police than a real army. Our cloud cities lend their populations to guards of the domains they sit above. Of the remaining domains, my foundries supply the armor for Canterlot, Bitaly, Stalliongrad and Zebrica.”

“Oh, so it’s your armor we keep finding on it’s way over our borders, then?”

Silver rolled his eyes. “I’m not going to get involved in border politics; I’m old enough to remember firsthoof how much of a fiasco that was. If you want to talk about being a guardspony, there’s another Lining you… should…” His words trailed off in realization of where his casual conversation had steered him.

“Are you alright, Councilor?” Naia asked, as the stallion stumbled.

“...I’m fine,” Silver lied. “Just… a memory.”

“Silver,” Celestia whispered aloud, more for gentleness of tone than to keep a secret. “If you need a few minutes,”

“No, no.” He waved a stiff wing. “I’ll be fine. Naia, I’m sorry for that brief…” He spared himself a deep breath. “…interruption. In any case, I’ll agree to your restriction about military use.” His leathery chest moved in and out again, and another sliver of his businesslike demeanor returned. “I proposed this deal with Angenholt in the first place because we’re building some major railroads in Stalliongrad, and our own weather factories can’t artificially produce the quality of cumulus I need for the rails. That’s what the clouds will be going towards.”

“Excellent,” Naia noted, producing some paperwork, an inkwell, and a quill from a bag hidden under her wing. With a flourishing motion, her talons took brief notes on the pegasus’ explanation. “Secondly, we will have a griffon representative along for the entire transit of the―”

All three occupants of the room turned when the door was flung open. A gold-armored, green stallion stood in its frame, panting as he folded his wings at his side. “Princess, I have an issue that requires your attention.”

“Sergeant Crack.” Celestia rose from her seat with poise that didn’t match the posture she had used while sitting. “I take it from the fact that you’re interrupting so boldly that this is urgent?”

“There’s a gazelle in the main courtroom saying he’s here on behalf of Lady Valdria. He was shouting something about ponies fighting on neutral ground, and something about ‘between’ and an oath you’ve apparently broken. I’m not sure I could have made head or tail of it even if he weren’t shouting straight into my brain, and I don’t know the first thing about dealing with elk. I thought you should at least know.”

Celestia nodded. “You made the correct call, Sergeant.” The Princess turned to her guests. “Councilor. Frumentarius. It seems a Princess’ work is never done; even on a Saturday.”

They watched her go in shared silence, before turning back to face one another. The silence persisted as Silver looked over the sleek feathers of the griffon’s head, and the sharp hook of her beak. Her eyes were watching him in turn, judging him.

“Where were we?” he asked.

Naia looked down at her papers. “We’ll have a representative along for the entire transfer, to ensure the clouds arrive where they’re intended. Now, I understand there is some racial tension between our peoples, but―”

Silver held up a hoof to stop the griffoness. “It won’t be a problem. You see, following our border disp…” The councilor paused.

“Another memory?”

“No, just realizing that I don’t feel like beating around the bush today. Naia, we had a war not all too long ago, and as part of the conditions of peace, we took several young griffons to learn about Equestrian culture as a way to support future peace. Now, I don’t know the slightest thing about who arranged this, because in all honesty I am far more of a business-stallion than a politician. What I do know is that one of my granddaughter’s best friends was a young griffoness living with a good friend of mine and his husband, who went by the name of Gilda. She was a nice enough little… what’s the term you use for your young? Not filly, but…”

“Fledgling. Or cub, if she was old enough to fly.”

“Well, she couldn’t fly when she got here; pretty much all she knew how to do was to pick fights.” Silver chuckled. “I’m sorry, that probably makes her sound terrible. She was a nice enough griffoness.”

“She sounds proud; is she still in Cloudsdale?”

“No,” Silver answered. “She flew back to Grivridge a few years ago.”

Naia looked up. “Well, if you’re comfortable around our kind, that takes care of our second issue. The last thing I’ll need from you is a tour of your foundry.”

Silver’s silver brow rose. “I’m certainly glad to offer tours; we do them twice a day for the public after all. I’m curious why that’s a stipulation for our agreement, though.”

The griffoness smiled, and for just a moment, Silver was reminded of the predatory nature of her race. “It isn’t entirely a matter of pleasantries,” Naia told the stallion. “Cloudsdale skysteel has a certain reputation even amongst the dragons and my own kind as the highest quality in the world. I have no intention of stealing your secrets, Mr. Lining, but I wouldn’t mind having them delivered
to me on a silver platter.”

“I keep a few tricks locked up in my head,” Silver replied, plucking a quill from his wing and dipping it in Naia’s inkwell. “You’re welcome to whatever you can figure out with your eyes.”

His elegant signature completed cleanly, Silver Lining stood up. “Well, Naia, it has been an absolute pleasure to work with you.” He offered his wing again, bracing for the grip of her claw. The second time, however, her talons were gentler.

“The pleasure has been all mine, I assure you. Shall we say a week’s time, for the tour?”

“Certainly,” he told her as he walked out the door. “Saturday will be wonderful.”

Naia looked down at her paper, and then up to the door as it swung shut. Then, carefully, she scratched a quick note.

Send ‘Gilda’

XIX - Crooked

XIX

Crooked

Mirror Image had never seen so much gold in his life.

The doors were easily thirty feet tall, and each one stood at least twenty feet wide. Their surfaces were studded with rubies and opals, diamonds and sapphires that made no particular shape so much as an intricate pattern of glimmering, spiraling light that seemed to beckon one’s eyes toward the nigh-imperceptible crack between the two doors. When compared with the rough volcanic rock they were set into, they seemed altogether like the entrance to another world. He would never have expected to find something so beautiful so far beneath the jagged spires of Krennotets.

“I guess this is the place,” Eldest Sister noted flatly. “The gates to Peschera. Do you know how to open them, Princess? They look a little heavy.”

Luna stared at the gems for a moment, and then without warning sent a brief flick of her magic toward one of the diamonds on the wall. The result was blinding; dozens of gemstones flickered with internal light filling the small and otherwise dark space with a merciless barrage of flashes.

When it finally subsided, Mirror Image rubbed his brow. “A little warning next time, Princess? If you wouldn’t mind?”

“My apologies,” she answered. “This is a puzzle door. My sister and I use them to protect a few of our secrets in Canterlot, but Krenn was always fond of them. This one, it seems, asks only for Arcana, in the right order on the gems.” Then she frowned. “But I do not know the order.”

“Is there a way to find out?”

Luna nodded. “By testing slowly, and watching the lights that follow. Magnus would be amused, but I have little patience for this sort of riddle.”

Image sat down on his haunches, staring at the ostentatious doors, now once more lit only by the glow of Luna’s horn. “I don’t get it. Why put something like this on the doors to a city? I mean, I would get a bank vault or something, but isn’t the point that the dragons can come and go as they please?”

Luna turned toward her bodyguard, one brow peaked. “You may wish to close your eyes.” Image obliged, and a torrent of lights flashed through his eyelids as the Princess answered his question. “In the past, at Krenn’s city of Drath… Dralt…” Luna huffed once. “I have never learned to say it; truly, its name lends itself to a forked tongue. Regardless, in his old capital, it was his habit that the only dragons he permitted in his company were those who had proven their merit. To return to the capital one either had to solve the puzzle of the door, or offer Krenn a substantial hoard as a prize he could add to his own collection.”

Eldest chuckled. “Well, that’s one way to get a big pile of gold, I guess.”

Luna shook her head. “The gold has little value to him, and the gems are nothing more than snacks. He has told me as much, rather bluntly, in the past. It would be enlightening to hear from his own tongue what his hoard consists of.” The alicorn scowled. “But first, we need to get past this door. I don’t suppose either of you are skilled at puzzles?”

The thestral looked to Mirror Image, and he looked back at Eldest Sister. As one, they broke into muted chuckling. It was the stallion who finally replied. “Sorry, Princess. I’ll help how I can, but patterns look an awful lot like math, and that was never my strong suit.”

Luna’s head tilted to the side. “But surely when you studied magic…”

Image tapped the edge of his horn, indicating its cracked surface. “You must have me confused with somepony who puts a long list of letters after their name, Princess.”

“Our apologies.”

“I got over it a long time ago. Honestly, sometimes I wonder what it is about having a scar that makes ponies assume I have some sort of deep, brooding emotional issues.” He turned his head to the door. “I guess the first place I’d think to start is this: Princess, how would somepony good at puzzles solve this?”

“Hmm.” Luna’s silver-shod hoof gently graced her chin, leaving a spot of ash from the Tartaran environment. “Well, I have no doubt that Starswirl would have arrived already knowing to expect the door, and brought a set of attuning stones to solve it easily. Twilight Sparkle would likely encourage me to examine the gems themselves; that would take hours, but far better than the weeks random guessing would require. If my pupil, Cloudy Mirror, were here, he would likely try and approach it in terms of a different problem.”

Image scratched his own chin. “So we think of it as Tourmaline’s Chest?” The look on Eldest Sister’s fanged face made her confusion obvious enough that she didn’t need to ask. “It’s a classic magical test given to young unicorns seeking to earn an apprenticeship from an established wizard. Basically, you take a chest, and lock the key inside it, so that the only way to get it out is with magic. There are a ton of possible solutions, though the classic one is to use a bowl of quicksilver or a crystal ball to scry through the keyhole, and use that sight as a focus to teleport the key out.”

Luna nodded. “Alas, Krenn’s magic is strong enough and his mind clever enough that I shall not be able to simply teleport us past these doors…” Very slowly, a smile dawned on Luna’s face, creeping up her cheeks until her slender expression had become an almost frightening grin.

“I take it you thought of something, Princess?”

She nodded, and tilted her horn to point at the stone wall just to the side of the door. “I shall use the same method that my sister’s old student embraced to best Tourmaline’s Chest.”

Her horn flared. A beam of blue shot into the stone, unleashing a cloud of dust and gravel that cut through Image’s coat and stung his flesh. As the debris settled and the last ringing echoes of the blast faded away in the tunnel, Luna took a single step toward the gaping hole her magic had created.

“What…?” Eldest Sister looked confused, her slitted eyes dancing between Luna and the hole. “How does that have anything to do with a treasure chest and a key?”

“A great deal of time ago, I bore witness to an argument over whether a talented wizard was defined by their knowledge of magic, or the brute power of their Arcana. It was quite heated.” Luna’s smile returned briefly. “I recall it was Clover the Clever who argued that brute force could never bypass Tourmaline’s Chest. In response, the pony on the other side of the argument ripped a solid steel chest in half, pulled out the key with his… or maybe her teeth, and then stuck it into the keyhole.”

Mirror Image cocked his head. “Do you remember who the pony was?”

“No, there were so many would-be archmages in those days. I can’t imagine it was Starswirl since he was nearly our peer the first time we met him, and of course, Clover was representing the opposite cause. But then there was Gale, as well as Diadem, Mortal Coil, the elk Cal’vathron…it honestly isn’t even worth the effort. We can ask Celestia when we return. Now, come. Let us see what Krenn’s new city is like.”

Two strides through the debris revealed the answer. By any measure, just that first glimpse of the city put the gates to shame. Peschera was a city of gold and fire. Canals of magma as wide as the gates were penned in by streets paved in precious metals, with each brick bearing the shape and texture of a dragon’s scale. Though they came in various sizes, they seemed to fit together perfectly, giving a strange sensation to the first step Mirror Image took into the city proper.

The air was heavy, yet Luna’s spell made it easy on her companion’s lungs. In the place of a strange gas, and in the brief adjustment of his eyes to the accost of shimmering wealth, his body focused in on the churning drip of magma, flowing in and out a thousand times deeper than the crash of the ocean’s surf. It was as if the mountain had a heartbeat. Image’s hoof tapped on the scaled streets in time with the sound as his vision began to return, and his eyes focused on the specifics of the city’s glories.

Little bridges offered passage over the fiery canals, with railings of solid emerald shaped into the forms of vines and other gemstones set apart in a strange and beautiful imitation of flowers. At times, the stone plants continued from the railings, wrapping their way around the gilded but rough walls of the draconic homes and shops that filled the path. No two buildings were alike in shape; they seemed to have once been natural cavern walls, left with their rounded, twisting shapes and simply plated in solid gold. Into and out of their doors came the city’s denizens.

The dragons were as colorful as their city, their bright scales so varied that they were almost distracting. They varied in size from half of Image’s size to a single specimen easily forty times his length. Some wore curved horns on their heads, while others walked with proud fins and crests rising from their backs. Still others did not walk at all, preferring to drift through the canals with the propulsion of their powerful tails.

No shortage of those who had been moving, however, had stopped at the sound of the wall’s destruction.

“Пони?” One asked, her draconic words possessing an artistic and alien quality that seemed absent in the similar Stalliongradi tongue.

Another, twice the size of the first, replied. ”Должны ли мы уведомить Кренёного?”

”Они найдут путь к нему, со временем.” The voice of the giant wyrm rumbled in the air, disturbing even the magma. The green scales of her muzzle came down close to the group of ponies, and her reptilian eyes drifted slowly over Eldest and Image before finally stopping on Luna. “Many years has it been, Queen of the Ponies, since you and I last spoke.”

Luna cocked her head. “Do I… know you?”

The dragon roared in her face, and Mirror Image’s horn wasted no time in lighting up. The roar stopped at the light, and started again abruptly. Four more times the sound began and ended, until the deafening noise could be seen for what it really was: a laugh. “Oh, Luna, have you truly so far fallen? I fought at your side a mere millenium ago. Rystar' is my name.” Her head slid slowly toward Eldest Sister. “You still have your thestrals, I see. Not much, then, has changed. Tell me, fallen mare, do you know who I am?”

Eldest Sister took a step back toward Luna, and her flank brushed against Image’s side. “Uh, Princess, what’s he talking about?”

“She has mistaken you for one of the thestrals who I used as my army one thousand years ago, when I fought my sister.”

“Oh…” The thought left Eldest’s ears drooping slightly, and her head hung low in a show of obvious discomfort. “No, uh, I don’t know you. I’m only thirty years old.”

“Thirty?” The dragon lifted its head up toward the roof of the cavern and released another deafening chuckle. “Oh, and here I thought the chance to share in glorious recollection of battle might have been had. And you lack the horn and the pale coat of the one who survived. Alas.”

Luna cocked a brow for just a moment, and then shook her head, her own ears slowly falling backward with growing displeasure. “I’ve done away with my memories of what I became, and all of the thestrals from those days are gone.”

“Oh, I know about the culling,” Rystar' replied. “But they did not all leave this world.”

Luna shook her head. “Even if the Honor Guard hadn’t killed them, they would have died without my magic.”

“Do you truly believe you were the only combatant in the War of Twilight that could twist such magic together?” Rystar’s serpentine eyes rolled in their sockets. “You bore me with what you have given up, Luna. Even those ponies who came for Razdor were more intriguing. Go, and see Krenen, as you have surely come to do. But be mindful; his temper has been foul since his awakening.”

Luna’s hoof moved to her cheek, where her draconic peer had struck her. “Believe me, Rystar', I know all too well.”

The dragon shrugged, slinking into the magma of the canal. “To the center of the cavern, and Krenen shall be found.”

Luna watched the last of the vibrant scales disappear with a slight ripple of magma. Then her attention turned to the path. “Let us go.”

As the group took its first steps further into the city, Eldest Sister dropped down to walk at Luna’s side. “Mistress, what did the dragon mean about mares coming for some dragon?”

“Not a dragon,” Luna replied. “Razdor is the draconic name for Discord. When the Bearers of Harmony ‘redeemed’ Discord, he decided that his best course of action would be to visit the only living beings that would remember him. What he did not count on was the cold reality that Valdria, Magnus, and Krenn would not be as forgiving of his antics as my sister and I were.”

“I heard about this,” Image noted. “The Commander sent the Bearers on some sort of secret mission, right?”

Luna nodded. “Valdria and Krenn each demanded that we give up the Elements of Harmony, so that they could be used against Discord. There was talk of breaking The Pact if we did not give them up.” This time, Luna didn’t need another prompt to recognize the looks of confusion on the faces of her companions. “Millenia ago, after a particularly vicious war between Magnus and Valdria, we six came to an agreement: we would not interfere in one another’s rule, and we would not use our powers against one another.” Luna sighed. “After so much effort, we were forced to return Discord to stone, not for any sin of his own, but as a way to protect Equestria. The six were unwilling until we explained the stakes. Even now, I know the yellow one holds some great measure of anger toward Krenn. I hope today that we see a better side of him, though I wonder if perhaps his gentleness is lost forever.”

The harshness of the phrase stole Image’s attention away from the cavern city and its populace, and Luna’s pace left him struggling to keep up. As his hooves beat against the golden street, he noted the way her ears were folded back, and the pinch between her shoulders that told of discomfort in the way she carried her wings.

The guardspony’s eyes flicked between the streets as his outright gallop caught up to her rather forceful trot. For three blocks, he held his tongue, brushing by dragons of every shape and color and feeling with every step as though he had escaped from a zoo. After those three blocks, however, he found a bridge above another of the canals pleasantly devoid of prying ears.

“You look stressed, Princess. Are you alright?”

Luna stopped abruptly, and then released a sigh that accompanied a sag in her shoulders and her wings. “My memories trouble me,” she whispered. “Or rather, my lack of them. What your Commander said is true, you know―”

“Don’t listen to him, Princess,” Eldest Sister directed, butting into the conversation. “You’re a great pony.”

“And yet my past keeps rearing its head.” Luna frowned. “I don’t even remember that dragon, yet she speaks as if she expects me to turn against my sister again. I find myself wondering if I would be a different pony, had I kept my emotions from those days.”

“Does it matter?” Mirror Image’s blunt question left Luna blinking in minor shock, but he donned a more sensitive tone as he continued. “Would I still be a guardspony if my horn hadn’t been broken? What’s the point wasting time on what could have been, when you can’t change it? If you want to worry about whether or not to take your memories back, we can deal with that issue when Rainbow and the Commander get back to Canterlot, but right now, we’re in the middle of a volcano, and Equestria needs you to be at your best so we can defuse this situation with Lord Krenn.” Image nodded his cracked horn forward across the bridge. “Can we count on you, Princess?”

Luna’s cerulean eyes locked with Image’s, and they grew hard; unflinching, unmoving, and unwavering. She didn’t say anything, but then, she didn’t need to. Her hooves pivoted on the golden floor of the bridge, and with long forceful strides, she continued on her way.

The rest of Peschera’s streets passed with the same glittering glory, though it could not compete with the sheer shock of the first view. The next site of interest that caught their attention was not gold, but magma. Sitting in the center of the city was what could only be called a lake of fire. Seven canals of magma poured together into a swirling whirlpool of orange and gold and black, churning thicker than tar and hotter than Tartarus. Around its edges were no railing or protection of any sort, and the edges of pool itself were arrayed into the shape of a seven-pointed star.

“Careful!” Eldest Sister yelled, as Luna approached the lip of the fire.

“He is here,” Luna replied, staring into the fiery pit. “I can feel his magic.” Her eyes briefly flickered across the hole. “Amusing that he would use the symbol for magic here.” She took a slow breath, and then her voice echoed at an impossible volume, filling the cavern. “Спайк, I come to speak with you.”

Krenn’s response was almost immediate. The magma in the star-shaped pool spun faster and faster as its center grew thinner and thinner. After little more than a moment, what remained was a spiraling tube of magma, and at its center, facing flat into the ground, a hatch of black stone nearly forty feet down.

The feathers of Luna’s right wing extended out from her side, and from their surface, a cloud of smoke began to form. With each passing moment, it grew darker and denser, until at last both the wing and half her torso had been shrouded in the cloud. With a flick of her body, however, it moved away, draping out over the open space and descending amidst the still-swirling magma. In a matter of moments, it had formed a spiral down to the obsidian door. With a flick of the same wing, Luna finished her work, and the loose smoky spiral became misty, ethereal spiral staircase.

“Come.” Her hooves moved to the edge of the first step. “We should not keep Krenn waiting.”

Image moved hesitantly toward the Princess as she began her descent, but stopped before his hooves touched the smoke. “Uh, Princess, I can’t walk on clouds.”

“You will find this smoke solid, Bodyguard. It is a rarer skill for an Empath, but at times very useful. I have put enough of my Empatha into the steps that anyone will find them just as solid as my hooves do.” Her horn flicked briefly upward. “It is how Krenn keeps flying dragons from entering this city through the top of the volcano.”

The guardspony was hesitant, and he began with a single hoof on the smoke. Slowly, he increased the weight on the step, but no matter how hard he pushed, it held strong.

“No need for fear,” Luna told him. “Had I not intended you to join me, I would have simply flown down.”

His nostrils filled with the scent of fire as he took his first step, and as he descended, the heat in the air became almost palpable. By the time Image reached the ground, Luna’s magic had already grasped onto the obsidian hatch, and Eldest Sister was hovering nearby. At Luna’s tug, the doors came open, revealing a rather plain staircase of the same volcanic stone. After the onslaught of sparkling gold on the ponies’ eyes above, the near-total darkness was almost a welcome relief.

Only a dozen strides into the room, the orange glow of the lava disappeared when the doors slammed shut. Luna’s horn replaced orange with blue, and in the newfound light, Mirror Image leapt in front of the Princess.

Ahead, a simple arch of stone separated the end of the stairs from some flat-floored room beyond. Flanking the opening in perfect stillness and silence were a pair of young dragons. Their slitted eyes watched the three ponies closely. One, a brown scaled male with a webbed crest over his head, was unfamiliar. The other, however, with her almost demonic horns and pale white-blue scales, was immediately recognizable.

“Princess,” the latter greeted. Ice, as she was called in Equiish, nodded curtly, though her eyes remained hatefully locked on Image. “Krenn was expecting you to come alone.”

Princess Luna replied with the beginning of a long discussion about the presence of her company. As her words began an earnest dialogue with the dragons, Eldest dropped to her hooves and walked slowly over to Image’s side. “What’s the deal with that dragon?” the thestral whispered.

“The Princess and Lord Krenn didn’t quite get along in Stalliongrad,” Mirror replied in a similar tone. “Remember the Changeling cell in Baltimare?”

The unicorn had been expecting a nod or a whispered response; instead he received a rather chilly nuzzle from the undead pegasus. “Here I thought you’d forgotten about us.”

Image scowled, pulling away. “Eyes on the mission, Cannon.”

“Cannon?” Eldest smiled, baring no small number of her harsh carnivorous fangs.

The stallion chose to ignore the slip of his own tongue, instead stepping aside as the Princess moved to step forward through the arch and into Krenn’s lair.

What Mirror Image saw in the light of Luna’s horn surprised him for its utter normalcy. In place of vast halls and massive piles of gold from storybooks, Krenn’s quarters rather resembled a Canterlot manor’s parlor or art gallery, albeit with dark stone walls in place of windows and intricately patterned wallpaper. A number of small tables and shelves of some rather light stained wood sat about the room, displaying trinkets and baubles of every size, shape, and material the pony could imagine. His eyes flickered between picture frames and necklaces, a plain wooden flute sitting beside a rather ornate goblet, and a number of books held upright by an equine skull. Hundreds, if not thousands of such items filled the shelves in the room, so wide that the unicorn almost jumped when his hoof met the comfortable feel of plush carpet.

Luna had come to the center of the room, where a decorated rug of red and blue thread played host to a large table, and a large cushion of similar colors. At the far side of the room’s central feature was the one piece of the room that could be called truly draconic: a fireplace shaped out of the natural stone instead of bricks or the work of hooves or magic. A fire roared in its mouth, lit from four large logs. In the glow of the flames, a single dragon could be seen, staring into the pile of logs and away from his guests.

Laying on his belly, with his three good legs and his still-present wing against his sides, Image was shocked at just how small Krenn was. The eldest of the dragons wasn’t terribly longer than an average pony if one discounted his serpentine tail. At the approach of the three ponies, his almost feline ears twitched once.

“I was surprised when word came that you were here so soon, Luna. My kind are still not used to seeing ponies on the ash plains, even after last year’s visit.”

Luna drew in a slow breath and forced herself to take a single tentative step toward the black dragon. “Krenn, we need to speak.”

“We are speaking.” He didn’t bother to turn his head back toward her. “Look at this, Luna. Tell me what you see.”

Krenn gave no indication to the subject of his words, so Luna was forced to assume he meant the fireplace. That Krenn had shaped it himself was obvious; no other creature in the world could match his ability to sculpt solid stone. Within its confines, three logs were stacked plainly on an iron rack. Little balls of sap cracked and popped, and a few pieces of lingering green needles gave rise to a great deal of smoke, which disappeared up into the chimney above, but still managed to fill the chamber with a distinct scent of fresh cedar.

“It…” Luna let her initial thoughts trail off as she struggled to get into Krenn’s sometimes peculiar way of looking at the world. “It’s a fireplace inside a volcano. Why not just use the lava?”

“Because I enjoy the smell, and because the crackle of a fireplace reminds me of the Valley.” Krenn’s right arm stretched out, and his razor-sharp claws sunk into the surface of a log stacked in a pile just beside the fireplace. With little motion, he tossed the wood into the fire. Sparks erupted for a moment at the violent collision, but it soon settled back to the calm pops of a welcoming hearth. “But cedar trees do not grow on ash, and molten stone is a poor substitute for rain.”

The alicorn princess took three strides forward, stopping when she was close enough to reach out a hoof and touch Krenn’s back. “So where do you get them?”

“A pony’s nose is weak. You smell the breed of the tree. A dragon’s nose is sharp, deductive, and predatory. I smell the weather the tree grew in. I smell the soil it rose out of. I smell the tree’s home.” Slowly, the dragon’s head swiveled, until at last his slitted amethyst eyes were focused fully on Luna’s. “I smell our home.”

Luna’s even expression briefly cracked; for just a moment, Mirror Image could see pain and sorrow and regret, written as plainly in her eyes as any text. He knew Krenn could see it to. He took a single stride toward the ruler of the dragons, and toward his ward.

“The Valley is gone, Krenn.”

The corners of Krenn’s mouth moved upward, and his lips seemed to roll back on themselves. “Ah, but Luna, it doesn’t have to be. All I need is a bit more of the draconequus’ magic.”

“A bit more?” Eldest Sister asked, drawing the ireful attention of the speaking immortals. Image unsubtly drove his knee into the thestral’s ribs, but she pressed forward just the same. “You already have some of Discord’s magic?”

Krenn’s grin spread, revealing more and more of his fanged maw. “No more than your princess, nor her sister or our other peers.” The eldest of the dragons raised his hoof-sized claw, its fingers open and outstretched as if grasping at thin air. Between them, a visible aura of black magic crackled with green flames and purple lightning. The show of ‘alicorn’ magic lasted for only a moment, but it seemed to drain the dragon, leaving his shoulders slumping, his scaled brow tugged down over his serpentine eyes, and his sharp ears sagging. For his effort, an orb of perfect white light, about the size of a baseball, hovered an inch over his palm. “This is my immortality,” Krenn explained, before drawing in a harsh, wheezing breath.

“Krenn, what are you doing?”

“Educating your pet corpse.” Black scaled claws closed around the orb, and in a mere instant, its light was gone. Krenn’s nostrils tightened around a single, noiseless breath, and he regained his strength and posture. Purple slitted eyes once more focused on Eldest. “Eighty-eight millennia ago, Discord ruled this world. He moved the moon and the sun, he shaped the earth, he bent the winds; even the nature of time to bring about growth or death lay in his mismatched grips. In those days, only a place called the Valley of Dreams was safe from his touch. Your kind lived there; ponies, along with two guardians. Myself, and...” Krenn’s eyes flicked away, his expression growing distant. “...another.”

“Another dragon?” Eldest asked.

Krenn shook her head. “Her kind is dead. Slaughtered to the last as part of Discord’s revenge for what we did to him. We six who first wielded Harmony.”

At this point, Mirror Image found his brow rising toward his hairline. Rather than address the dragon, he stepped up to the mare he was somehow supposed to be defending. “Princess, does he mean the Elements of Harmony?”

Luna nodded. “Much as the mares of Ponyville, there were six of us. In those days, we were… more diverse. I carried Loyalty. My sister, Honesty.”

“Generosity was mine,” Krenn added. “Ottgam―the griffon you know as ‘Emperor Magnus’―carried Kindness. Lady Valdria of the Elk bore magic.”

Image found himself mentally ticking through the list of Bearers, but Eldest Sister beat him to the final count. “What about Laughter?” the thestral asked Krenn.

“Laughter?” Krenn cocked his head. “In our day, we called it ‘Mirth’. Regardless, it belonged to… our leader.” His hesitance begged questions from the ‘young’ ponies in the room, but the dragon pressed on without offering a chance for their curiosity to be fielded. “When Discord came to the Valley, we used the Elements to stop him. But, rather than petrifying the spirit, we simply stripped him of the powers we truly feared. Sun and moon. Wind and stone. Growth and decay. We had no understanding of just how much power he still had.” Krenn’s eyes turned to Luna. “And that power is what I need to heal my people, and to restore the Valley. I thank you for coming so quickly, Luna. If you will hand over the bag…”

Luna looked down at the dirty leather bag hanging loosely around her neck, and then back up at Krenn’s impatient expression.

“The bag is empty, Krenn.”

Thump

“What?” The room seemed to grow hotter and darker with the snap of Krenn’s serpentine tongue against his pale fangs.

Luna stood strong against the intimidating display. “I spoke to Celestia, but she doesn’t know what your hoard is, and neither do I. I had planned to ask you for the straight answer you seem to be loathe to give, but we have a more pressing concern.”

Thump, thump

“You are trying my patience, Luna.”

“Listen to me, Krenn. I have reason to believe that whoever was behind the attempt on my life several months ago is now intending to take yours.”

Krenn’s scowl grew deeper, until his brow was so creased that the scales covering it had begun to rise up, like the hair on a cat’s neck. His lips had peeled back fully, but there was no hint of a smile in his snarl. “This is what you tell me, Luna? That after my waiting, you come to me with some specter of a death threat?” The dragon rose up, unsteadily, before finding balance on his sole hind leg still capable of supporting his weight. Finally able to look down on Luna, if only just, he extended a claw in a dismissive wave. “Оставьте нас.”

The other two dragons in the room exchanged a careful glance, before Lyod addressed her elder. “Кренёный, думаем мы, что не хорошая это мысль оставаться тебе наедине с этими―”

“Удалитесь.” Though forceful, the word was delivered slowly and calmly. Were it not for the following noises, Image might have believed that Krenn was still relaxed.

Thump, Thump, Thump

Lyod and her companion left the room, the former sparing only a moment to shoot a hateful glance in Image’s direction. Only when they had shut the doors to the chamber did Krenn speak up again. “Discord took my leg and my wing, Luna. I have lived without them with few regrets. The third price he demanded, though, was my legacy.”

Luna cocked her head. “I’m not sure I follow…”

Krenn sighed. “He wanted my fertility. I asked for a day to consider his offer, thinking I could outsmart him. I was a fool.”

“What did you do?”

“I fertilized three eggs.” Krenn’s tired expression drew down into a scowl. “And then I sealed them with magic, so that they would not hatch until I was ready.”

“Three eggs?” Luna’s brow rose. “It thought you only had two.”

“Syn and Naslednik were the first two.” The dragon shook his head. “At first, I did not understand why you were so insistent to avoid progeny. When Syn died, I finally began to comprehend. Then, two decades ago, there came the war. Naslednik was young and ambitious, and sought to prove his strength. I had no part in the conflict, but your military leader came to me just the same, demanding that I end the war. He brought Tirek’s bag with him, carrying in it some bauble meant to appease me. I told him the blunt truth: I had no interest in stopping my kind any more than I had interest in starting them against Equestria.”

In a voice not nearly quiet enough to avoid interrupting the two demigods’ discussion, Eldest Sister turned to Mirror Image. “He means the Commander, right?”

Luna turned to answer the thestral herself. “I would assume so. I do not know who else has worn Hurricane’s Armor in recent years.”

“I don’t know,” Mirror Image told her. “When I talked to him, Princess, he said he was the one who came here. But that doesn’t make sense. Until the Battle of Treasonfang Pass, Steel Lining wasn’t even Honor Guard. He was a lieutenant or something in the Royal Guard. Commander Coil was the pony who had Hurricane’s Armor back then.”

Thump, Thump

“I do not care who the pony is. Understand this. That stallion stole my last egg, and then he killed Naslednik. He hid the egg in Tirek’s bag, where I could not scry it, and he threatened to smash it if I did not intervene to end the war. I was told it would be returned to me when the mutual bloodlust had died down. I slumbered for two decades, but now that I am awake, I find my one precious treasure has not been returned to me.” Krenn’s claw ignited in a smoky aura of Arcana, and he directed it toward a log on top of the pile by the fireplace. At his magical behest, it slammed into the fire, sending up a cloud of sparks and smoke that outlined the obsidian-scaled figure. “So I return to the race of ponies the offer that was given to me. Return my hoard, or I will restore the war I stopped.”

His claw moved for another log, but this one did not rise. Instead, a low humming issued from it, so subtle that Mirror Image barely picked it up. It was familiar somehow, though the pony had trouble placing it.

“What is this?” Krenn’s magic disappeared, but the humming only grew louder.

From the moment Image remembered the sound of a Void Crystal devouring arcana, he barely had time to react. A shield wouldn’t do him any good when the dust started to eat his mana. Instead, the stallion grabbed Princess Luna in his telekinetic grasp, and hurled her away from the fireplace and its stack of logs.

Then the room exploded. There was no fire, save the few embers from the fireplace. Only thick black ash hanging in the air, and the splinters and shards of wood and stone, and the sudden force of a thousand ponies bucking the stallion in the chest, all at once. Were it not for the pain surging through his horn from his brutal use of magic, he might have cried at the sensation of his ribs cracking from the shockwave. The chamber spun around him, before his horn collided with the floor. The sensation of its open wound scraping across the floor as he slid stole away all other sensation. Sight, sound, even smell were taken away. Only pain filled his consciousness. Then that too faded.

XX - The Commander

XX

The Commander

“Give me one reason I shouldn’t cut your head off your shoulders.” Hurricane’s cruel voice was the first Rainbow heard as she followed Cyclone into what she knew as the Cloudsdale City Council building.

“If you never want to speak to your daughter again, there are easier ways.” The confidence in Morty’s voice seemed at stark odds with the tip of Procellarum pressing into the apple of his throat. “If you actually don’t care about Gale anymore, you could also consider what kind of damage my magic would end up doing if I wound up as a shade. You wouldn’t want another King Sombra, would you?” Then, looking away from the stallion threatening his life, Coil smiled in the direction of the newcomers. “Glad to see you made it in one piece.”

Hurricane’s attention turned away from Coil as he finally acknowledged Rainbow and Cyclone’s presence. In the momentary gap, the pale horse disappeared in a flash of blue light, blinking back into place unsettlingly close to Rainbow. The fastest mare in Equestria didn’t react as quickly as her looming great-uncle.

“What are you doing here, Coil?” Cyclone demanded, as his good wing slung Infernus off of his back and into easier reach of his mouth. “Where are Typhoon and Gale?”

Commander Hurricane walked across the massive room, his naked hooves clicking on the marbly cloudstone. “He’s left them to the thestrals.”

Morty held up a hoof, and an edge slipped into his voice that Rainbow hadn’t heard before. “Screw you, Hurricane. I would never leave Gale in danger. She asked me to come here for your sake. To tell the truth, I’d rather you got what was coming to you, but I couldn’t exactly tell her no.”

Though Hurricane gripped Procellarum all the tighter in his teeth, Cyclone relaxed a bit at the unicorn’s explanation. “Alright, Coil, what is it that Gale needed to tell us so urgently?”

“Your diversion didn’t last long. When the horde figured out Rainbow wasn’t with us, they turned back for Cloudsdale. Even if we get Rainbow out quickly, it won’t be long before they’re pounding at the doors. You and Cyclone need to get out of here. I’ll help Rainbow back to her body.” He accompanied the last comment with a smile in Rainbow’s direction.

“And how do you propose to get Gale, Typhoon, and Cyclone back to the Summer Lands?” Hurricane’s words were bladed with distrust. “My Empatha can get Rainbow back, but I can’t breach Celestia’s barrier.”

“Gale can get Cyclone and Typhoon back if they want,” Morty replied. “But she’s staying with me.”

“What?” Cyclone growled.

“No.” Sparks danced on Hurricane’s wings.

“Why?”

It was Rainbow’s question that Morty answered, at once serious and on the verge of excitement. “Because there’s something else after this existence. Souls were never meant to be trapped the way Celestia and Luna have trapped them. When a loose soul like ours is forgotten by the living, they start to fade away. Eventually, they go… somewhere else. The next great adventure.”

Rainbow Dash cocked her head. “What’s it like?”

“I don’t know,” Coil answered bitterly. “Cathartic, if I had to guess. Celestia and Luna aren’t about to kick the bucket any time soon, and they remember Hurricane and I too well for us to fade away. Almost ironic that even out here, they’re still holding on to me. All I’ve heard are the descriptions of a few nearly-faded souls, but they don’t make a lot of sense, since there isn’t much of a pony left in them. What they all say is that it’s something good, somehow. Don’t you want to know what it is someday, Rainbow?”

“Well, yeah, I guess…”

“He’s selling you a daydream,” Hurricane growled. “Even if he hasn’t just made this up, what about the shades?” The pegasus derisively shook his head. “You haven’t changed in all these years, Coil. Still putting adventure and excitement ahead of the lives of other ponies. The Summer Lands make ponies happy and safe, and protect the living. You’d do away with that?”

Coil turned from Rainbow, matching Hurricane’s glare. “We used to have a very elegant solution to that problem. I think Luna called them the Night Guard. It’s too bad somepony decided to slaughter them.” The necromancer spit on the stone floor. “The Summer Lands were a mistake, and I’d undo that spell in an instant if I could. You’re too consumed with counting the lives you’ve saved to realize that there’s more to life than just existing, Hurricane.”

“Foal.” Hurricane shook his head. “Typhoon and I were right; Nightmare Moon proved that beyond a doubt.”

“But she’s not Nightmare Moon anymore!” Rainbow cut in, taking a long stride toward Commander Hurricane. “She’s Princess Luna!”

“A mare who haunts the dreams of her enemies and keeps an army of the dead to serve her. I don’t see the difference.”

“You’ll never change.” Morty rolled his eyes. “And for the record, I can vouch that keeping a few walking corpses on hoof is pretty useful. You can’t solve every problem with a sword, after all.” The pale stallion smiled disingenuously. “Oh, wait, you probably didn’t know that, did you?”

“We don’t have time for this. Cyclone, go with Coil and find your sisters. Rainbow, join me.”

“Hold on!” Cyclone, who had stowed Infernus between his shoulders, froze mid-stride and turned to face his great-niece. “Thanks, Cyclone. You’re… a lot cooler than I was expecting.”

His right wing burst into flame. “Is that better?” Without the slightest hint of a smile, it took Rainbow a moment to realize his joke. With his broad, bushy muzzle, he reached down and pushed her shoulder toward Hurricane. “Get back to your life, Rainbow. We’ll meet again someday. Don’t make it too soon.”

Rainbow, however, made another turn. Her smile turned toward Mortal Coil, who answered with one of his own. “It was cool to meet you, Morty.”

“This doesn’t have to be goodbye,” he told her. “Just ask your friend Twilight; she knows how to get in touch.” Rainbow was taken aback by the comment, earning a chuckle from Morty. “Oh, she never mentioned me? Well, like I said before, give Celestia and Luna my regards.”

“Stop wasting her time, Coil.” Cyclone gestured toward the dense cloudstone doors of the enormous chamber.

The necromancer shrugged. “He’s right, Rainbow. Good luck.”

“Thanks.” Rainbow made no motion of her own, but she didn’t fight back when Coil wrapped a hoof around her shoulders in a brief hug. In stepping back, he pushed her toward Hurricane.

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Hurricane.” With those parting words, his horn flared to an almost frightening brightness, causing Rainbow to squint. When the light disappeared, Commander Hurricane was the only other pony in sight.

“Come here,” he ordered, as he placed a dark wing on the cloudstone at the center of the room. Lightning bounced between his feathers, and a veil of shimmering steam began to orbit him. “Don’t be afraid.”

Rainbow tentatively touched a hoof to the barrier. Little bolts lightning spread from her hoof across the surface of the stone, like one of the electricity balls Twilight kept in her laboratory. In the absence of any pain, she stepped through to stand beside Hurricane. “So… what now?”

“I need a moment to build up the magic I need,“ Hurricane explained. “Listen closely. Here, in the Summer Lands, you didn’t have the pain from your wings or the fatigue on your body to impact your emotions. In the living world, you’ll have to deal with those stresses as well. If an emotion gets too much, use your Empatha. It will make you tired, but that’s far better than losing your soul again. Do you understand?”

Rainbow nodded. “I… I’m not exactly sure what I’m gonna do though. I still have to get out of Suida.”

“Celestia won’t abandon the Bearer of Loyalty. Hold your ground.” Hurricane’s piercing, perfect magenta eyes stared into Rainbow’s matching set. “And stay away from Luna. As long as she lives, you’re one of the only ponies who can protect Equestria.”

“Wh―”

Before she could finish her thought, the world became fire.

“She’s waking up!”

Silence followed the observation from a raspy, effeminate voice. Rainbow’s groan broke it, as she lifted her chin from the harsh stone. Her back stung, her stomach ached, and her ever subtle motion sent shivers of agony up her spine into her head.

“Slowly.” The word, whispered in her ear, came from a very different voice. The feel of a loose, lean coat pressed against her side, and a similarly baggy leg wrapped over her shoulders to help her stand. “I kept you hydrated with ice, but it’s probably been two days since you’ve eaten anything. Here.” Something crispy pressed against Rainbow’s hoof.

“Wh...what?” Rainbow bit into the strange brown-black blur in her hoof, finding it harsh and crisp like burnt bread, but pleasantly more flavorful.

“It’s the better part of a beetle.” A dark blue-gray hoof pressed over Rainbow’s muzzle when she gagged. “Swallow it. You’ll need your strength.”

The meat went down hard, and it left the young mare feeling green-cheeked. She squinted, shuddering at the sensation, as the weight of the hoof on her lips pulled away. She wanted to cough it up. Though she was too cool to be afraid of bugs, the idea that she’d eaten something which had once been alive churned in her stomach.

When she finally opened her eyes fully, the world came into a bit clearer focus. Brown eyes with misshapen, splotchy irises stared back into Rainbows. Around them, a graying mane hung long and loose over a steel blue coat. Loose skin hung from the stallion’s skull, bags filled the spaces below his eyes, and his lips seemed just narrowly unable to close.

“Dad?”

His eyes closed slowly, and his lungs wheezed as they expanded. Even that petty motion of his face seemed to cause the stallion a great pain. “What are you doing here?”

“I came to save you.”

The Commander finished his wheezing exhale. As his eyes opened, his brow fell into a flat, furious glare. “You’re part of the team Luna sent? Are any of your friends with you?”

Rainbow shook her head. “She didn’t actually send me. Deadeye decided he was going to find you, and Soldier On and I came with him.”

“Why?”

Rainbow’s brow rose. “What the heck do you mean ‘why’? I came here to save your life.”

“Why should you care about my life?” the Commander asked.

A voice behind the Commander caught Rainbow’s eyes, startling Rainbow. “I don’t understand. Aren’t you her father?” Only when the sow stepped forward did the young pegasus recognize Enka.

“Yeah,” Rainbow answered, without bothering to hide her spite. “Not a very good one, though. He abandoned my mom and I when I wasn’t even a year old.”

The Commander scowled. “It was the right choice.”

“The right choice?” Rainbow rolled her eyes, and then brought her head forward toward her father’s, glaring more closely at him. “For who? You? So you could run off on Mom and I?”

Despite the expression on his face, the Commander’s voice was calm and controlled. “Look at where being my daughter has gotten you, Rainbow.” He gestured briefly to the stumps on her back, and then to his own sides. Rainbow’s stomach seized when she saw where the small, bright-blue feathered wings had been stitched into the shoulders of the long, steel-blue stallion. Her eyes locked on her own wings. Her heart burst into a full sprint.

Her father wrapped his forelegs over her shoulder, and pulled her muzzle into the loose, dirty fur of his chest. “Ice, Rainbow. You can do it. Let it out. Let the feelings go.”

Rainbow focused on the pain. Her mind locked down on her loss. Memories came to mind, and disappeared through the stumps on her back. Her first Rainboom. Her cutie mark. The Wonderbolt academy. Learning to fly from Papa. One after another, they came and went, passing through her mind like leaves on a wind.

“What are you doing?” Enka asked, obviously distraught.

Rainbow felt her father’s head turn, and heard his gravely voice through his chest. “Pegasus magic comes from emotion. The ice is her sorrow. She needs to release it..” Then he turned back to her, holding his forelegs even tighter for a moment. “Are you alright?”

“...yeah,” Rainbow answered, pulling back. It was a lie, and she could guess from his expression that the Commander knew all too well. He remained silent on the subject, however. His eyes drifted momentarily to the little circle of ice, perhaps half a wingspan around her on the floor. “Yeah…”

“I’m sorry, Rainbow, but you would have seen them sooner or later. It isn’t permanent.” The father nuzzled his daughter, and she found herself too drained to pull away. “You’ll get back to Canterlot, and then Celestia can heal you.”

“…I’d rather have Luna.”

Tired, loose skin slid over the Commander’s ribs as he sighed. To Rainbow’s slight surprise, though, he held his tongue. “The first step is getting to Canterlot. Are you any good at art, Rainbow?”

“What are you talking about?” Enka cut in. “Art? Pony, have you had enough to drink? The heat is getting to your head.”

He coughed once in a sort of sad imitation of a laugh. “Probably. But regardless, we need information. Help me, Rainbow.” His forelegs shuddered, and he winced in utter agony at the strength it took to stand. Slowly, his weight began to rise from the floor.

Rainbow got her first good look at her father’s rear leg as it shook, and then collapsed beneath him. Where his coat should have borne a cutie mark, he instead wore an enormous scar. Pink skin, waxy and yet rough, dominated his right side, dragged down nearly to his knee. Even compared to his atrophied, patchy coat, it was thin.

After his brief gasp of pain, the stallion stubbornly began to rise again. Rainbow stepped forward to help him, lowering her shoulder under his side and bearing a bit of his weight. She held him for just a moment, until the first feather brushed against her side.

“Papa, my wing itches.”

The old, gray stallion chuckled. “Well, you haven’t had a good preening in a few days. I imagine that’s where it’s from.”

The filly pouted. “But I wanna go flying! Preening takes soooooo long.”

“You’ve gotta take care of your wings, Rainbow. Otherwise―”

“Rainbow!”

The mare jumped aside at the sound of the shout. The Commander’s shoulder, and her own wings stitched to his side, were both covered in a thin layer of frost. “Are you okay?”

Her father nodded, shakily holding himself upright. “I’ve spent time in Stalliongrad, Rainbow. But you need to control your emotions.”

“Well, sorry. I didn’t realize I was doing something wrong for getting bothered that I had my wings torn off!”

The Commander simply looked at Rainbow. It wasn’t a stare; it was soft, though not particularly compassionate in her mind. It seemed as if his mind were somewhere else. Whatever he had thought of, it did not last long. His right forehoof extended, and at no inconsiderable pain, he took a single step. Then came another, and another, until he reached the stone wall of their little shared cell. The same hoof that had taken his first step burst into flame, though unlike his steps, he suffered no pain.

“W-what?” Enka asked. “Your hoof―”

“Pegasus magic,” the Commander answered. “Rainbow can probably do it too, if she gets angry. What you are about to see is much older magic.” Almost callously, he added, “Please, do not scream.”

With that rather cryptic comment, the stallion began to draw in the stone, scraping away burnt stone with his hoof. First a long, thin squiggle, and then another found their way into the wall. At the upper end, a strange flat wedge, providing a base for an upward curve and a jagged forking line. At the other, a bushy wave that reminded Rainbow of a tail.

As he added arms and legs, realization came onto Rainbow. Not a moment later, the burn marks began to move.

“Ah…” moaned Discord, as he stretched his stubby stick-arms. “Commander, did you really have to use stone as your medium? I’d kill to be carved in some wood. Or maybe oil on canvas? Then I could really stretch.”

“Discord?”

“Rainbow Dash?” Discord spoke with the mare’s voice. “Were you expecting the Spirit of Interior Decorating?” Discord chuckled to himself as he glanced around the room. “Unfortunately, the Elements of Tackiness imprisoned Doily in a stained-glass lamp, so she won’t be available to help. Here’s a better question: what are you doing here? Both of you?”

“I―”

“She got the brilliant idea to come here herself trying to rescue me,” the Commander interrupted. “I turned back to try and save her from Khagan. Now I need to get her home.”

“I can talk for myself, Dad.” Rainbow folded her forelegs across her chest as she glared. “I didn’t expect you to be so ungrateful.”

The stallion rubbed a hoof across his brow, dragging his baggy skin and scruffy mane in a wide circle. “Discord, how much magic do you have now?”

The caricature of the draconequus grinned. “Quite a bit now that things are heating up; there’s a fair bit of fun going on in Krenn’s home these days, and I have to admit, Stalliongrad isn’t that far behind either. That being said, I’m not about to start dropping lightning from the sky for you.”

“I need a message delivered,” the Commander noted.

Discord snapped, and a little courier’s hat appeared atop his head, likewise burnt and carved into the stone. “Celestia, I take it?”

The Commander shook his head. “Morning Star, if you can. I’d rather keep Celestia out of this.”

Discord shrugged. “Well, Morning Star is a little dead to be helping you.”

“Masquerade…” The Commander’s frown deepened. “Rainbow, is it true Stoikaja was exiled?” At Rainbow’s nod, the stallion hung his head slowly. “White Flag, then.”

“Hay no!” Rainbow bellowed. At her father’s raised brow, she explained her outburst, “She tried to take Scootaloo away.” Aggressively, she pressed a hoof against her father’s chest. “I bet you think that was a good idea too?”

The Commander glared down at the hoof on his chest, and then with a gentle motion of his own forehoof, he brushed it away. “The Honor Guard has very few rules, Rainbow. One of the most important is that we never interfere with the friendships and personal lives of you and your friends. I agree that Flag should have stopped you. Using Scootaloo…” He let the words trail off.

Discord chuckled to himself. “Let me save you both the trouble; the good Captain isn’t going to be able to bear your message. She’s quite occupied―”

“Wait.” Rainbow’s father raised a hoof. “Captain? I thought Celestia gave Roscherk my position.”

The carving of Discord smiled and nodded. “She did. White Flag finally got what she wanted, going on twenty years ago. She’s the captain of the Royal Guard.”

Rainbow reared back, and her back flared in pain as her body tried to flare wings it no longer had. “What about Shining Armor?”

“Hmm.” Discord placed a talon on his chin. “Now that is an interesting question, isn’t it?”

“Just tell us!” Rainbow shouted at the wall.

The draconequus chuckled. “He had a little run in with Masquerade, right about the time she escaped. Now, can you imagine that? Half the captains of the guard out of commission, Masquerade freshly escaped, and now it looks like somepony just made an attempt on Spike’s life. Probably just coincidence, though.”

“Spike?!” Rainbow leaned forward, slamming her forehooves onto the stone wall.

“Not Twilight’s hatchling,” the Commander noted, pulling his daughter back with a single hoof. “A very long time ago, Krenn went by that name. I’m certain Celestia named ‘Spike’ after her old friend.” Then, turning his steely gaze toward the wall, the brutalized stallion spoke with a tone that matched his name. “Explain, Discord. I need to know.”

“Oh, I don’t know if I should do that,” the Draconequus noted, scratching at his chin and staring idly away toward the window. “I’ve already given you plenty of information for free. Certainly more than enough to help you plan your next move. If you’re hoping for more, I expect a reward.”

“I don’t have time for this, Discord. I promised to free you. What more do you want?

“A story, as usual.” The carving smiled. “But I’d rather you tell your daughter and your new boar friend here than me. Honesty, after all, is an Element of Harmony.”

“Not my favorite,” the Commander grumbled.

Discord chuckled. “Alright, I’ll be frank. Tell them the story of the first Gilded Lotus.”

The Commander’s eyes widened behind the curtains of his mane, and he staggered backward. “No, Discord, you know I―”

“Fine, it’s your choice. You already know what you need, Commander.” Discord crossed his mismatched, hoof-drawn arms. “If that’s all, then, I’ll be going. I’m most of the way through a pretty good plan to make pigeons go extinct.”

“Wait,” Rainbow called, holding up a hoof pleadingly. At Discord’s raised brow, she turned her attention to her father. “What’s he mean? Why don’t you just tell the story, Dad?”

The Commander was silent for what seemed to be a very long time. His brown, misshapen irises traced along the floor, toward Enka, onto the wall, and then finally found their way back to Rainbow’s face. “I need your word, Rainbow, that what you are about to hear will never be repeated.”

Rainbow took a step back. “Uh… okay? What about Enka?”

A shrug answered her promise. “Equestria’s survival isn’t dependent on her life.” His gaze briefly flicked toward the sow, but he added nothing to the comment.

Discord snapped his fingers, and the black scorched lines of his body expanded over the wall, forming a sort of charcoal portrait on the rough reddish gray stone. “Whenever you’re ready, Commander.”

“Fine. It was December, fourteen-forty-seven…”

Discord’s portrait began to move.

Stoikaja shifted the crate from her shoulders, planting it in the dirt and reeds at the side of the river. Though her jaw was just as strong, and her body just as dense, there was a gentleness to her expression that would be long gone six years later. Her bladed hooves made quick work of the rough wood. “Commander, are you sure we want to do this?” Her accent was thick, overpowering when mixed with her already heavy voice.

Clad in void-crystals and ancient gold, the well-groomed soldier turned his attention to his subordinate. “You didn’t hesitate to throw Frostbite to the dragons. This will be much less painful.”

“Frostbite deserved it!” Stoikaja countered, with a surprising show of youthful emotion.

The third member of the little squad chuckled to herself, shaking her aged head from side to side. “Filly.” Unlike the Stalliongradian giant, White Flag seemed just as old and weathered that day as she would for the next half-dozen years. “He deserved it? How idealistic.”

“Mind yourself, Lieutenant Flag,” the Commander ordered. “As for you, listen closely. We’re not here to decide who’s right and who’s wrong. Leave that to the Princess. Our job is to protect her, and by proxy, Equestria.”

“How is this protection? We’re invading the boars! This is assassination!” Stoikaja loomed over the Commander, though he seemed unphased by her advantage in height.

“If we don’t stop him, Warchief Khagan will lead an invasion against Equestria soon. We can pit the entire Royal Guard against a boar horde a million strong, or the three of us can kill Khagan and end the threat without the death of a single pony.” He dipped a hoof into the river and wiped his hooves with it. “If you can’t do this, Stookajah―”

“Stoikaja,” she corrected, emphasizing the ‘y’.

His nostrils flared as he released a snort. “If you can’t bring yourself to do this, On, the Lieutenant and I will move forward without you.”

“Wait, what? In Stol’nograd, you said you needed me for this mission.”

He nodded. “Without your danger sense, we’re likely to be caught. If we are, Equestria goes to war with the boars and thousands of ponies die. This is your last chance to turn around, Soldier On. The war begins June twenty-first.”

White Flag cocked her head. “That’s an incredibly specific date, Commander.”

“It’s the Summer Sun Celebration,” the stallion replied.

“And what does that mean to the boars?”

The black-clad stallion ripped off one of the sides of Stoikaja’s crate. “That’s between myself, the Princess, and a very old book, Flag. For now, we need to move.” His hoof reached into the box, withdrawing three gilded flowers. “Now, remember: we’re aiming for absolutely no detection. Khagan dies of a previously unknown poisonous plant, and we were never here. If any boars see you, kill them and disintegrate the bodies. Flag, you and On are going in on hoof. Trust On’s instincts; she’s got strong Endura for that. I’ll take up a cloud overhead and spot for you.” His wings spread to give him balance as he reared up on his hind legs, sharing equal weight between them. With his freed second hoof, he ground the three flowers together, working them together until only a mustard-colored paste remained. With care, he scraped the ooze off into a plastic bottle that also lay hidden inside the crate.

“This is what Reckoning’s mad elk came up with?” Flag asked, staring at the bottle.

The Commander frowned. “Fallaner called the plants ‘deicide’, but I’m fond of ‘gilded lotus.’ Like the black lotus they’re bred from, they have parasitic seeds. Instead of just burrowing into muscle and dissolving it for nutrients, though, these seeds are hungry for magic. They burrow into the bone marrow of whatever part of the body produces mana, and then they dissolve it, drinking in the magic to become fertile. At the same time, the acid they produce eats out through the bone and the flesh, until the affected part of the body starts bleeding. The seeds fall out, into the ground, and grow into new flowers.”

“That’s horrible!” Stoikaja yelled.

“It’s the only way to kill something as strong as Khagan,” the Commander noted. “His Endura is incredible; not just faster healing, but honest-to-goodness regeneration. In a normal creature, these will take weeks to kill. But with magic as strong as the Princess’, it shouldn’t take more than a few days to end Khagan―the magic giving him immortality will fade, and he will age to death. Even if we could take him directly, doing so would reveal us, and then the boars would have a unified enemy to fight against, instead of turning on themselves.”

“How are you proposing we poison him without the boars seeing us, inside their capital?” Flag asked.

“That’s why we’re here at the river,” the Commander explained. “You and Stoikaja are going to walk in along the bottom. Ulaanboartar is two miles down river. I’ll get on top of a cloud and spot for you. That means we’ll I’ll need you to keep up telepathic communication. Can you do that, Flag?”

She nodded once. “Yes, sir.”

“Good.” The Commander turned his head to the south. “You have to get it inside the body somehow to get it started. Injury or ingestion. We’ll be putting it in Khagan’s food at the banquet for his chieftains tonight. If some of them are killed as well, it will only spur their infighting. Any other questions?”

In the ensuing silence, the dark blue stallion extended his wings, sending a rippling click down the bladed steel scales that covered their crests. His hoof pulled off his helmet. “Go ahead and cast, Flag.”

“Khagan… was right?” Enka whispered, staring wide-eyed at the Commander. Gears seemed to churn in her mind, even as she spoke. “ And for all that yelling about honor and ancestors, he knew...”

“What happened next?” Rainbow asked. “Why tell us about the plan, but then not tell us about what happened in the city?”

“He doesn’t need to.” A shudder ran down Enka’s body. “Oh ancestors, it’s true. He caused the Tusk Rot. Our people are dying everywhere. Ulaanboartar is a graveyard. You… you… do you know how many boars you’ve killed? Do you know what you’ve done to our people?”

The Commander gave a solemn nod. “Eighty-thousand is our best estimate, from the plants themselves. I don’t know how many died from the power vacuum after those first few chieftains died.” The words were calm and factual.

Rainbow’s forelegs shuddered, and her eyes closed. She found herself struggling to swallow. The Commander took notice, and he turned toward her just in time to receive an uppercut to the jaw. Rainbow’s body burned as her father was thrown to the ground, skidding along the stone with a gasp of pain. “Eighty-thousand boars? And you just say it like it’s no big deal! How dare you!” Rainbow lunged forward at her father’s prone form, but a mighty brown mass stopped her.

“Calm yourself, Rainbow Dash,” Enka ordered, holding the raging mare tight despite the flames spreading from her back. “Attacking him will not bring them back.”

Rainbow struggled in the sow’s grip. “But he killed all those boars, and he doesn’t even care.”

“Answering violence with violence is what brought my people to where we are now. Though it makes me sick to say this, I must stay true to my belief: even with what he’s done, he deserves to live. Death only begets death.” Enka held Rainbow tight until her thrashing ceased. “Though I want to know why Khagan still lives, but the Tusk Rot rages everywhere.”

“Bad luck,” the Commander answered flatly. “Khagan had requested a ram, and we managed to get the seeds inside, but when it was served, he opted for some different meal. I don’t know what happened after that, but some other boars ate the meat, and then the gilded lotus began to spread.”

“Bad luck?” Rainbow growled in fury anew, though she refrained from leaping on her father. “You killed eighty-thousand people and you call it bad luck?”

“Better than hundreds-of-thousands,” the Commander answered. “How many do you think would have died if I allowed an open war? We would have lost San Palomino, and Appleloosa, and probably even Ponyville.” Staggering to his hooves, the guardspony’s tone took on a harsher edge. “How do you think you and your friends would have fared on your quest for the Elements if a boar army were occupying Ponyville? Do you think all six of you would be alive to stop Nightmare Moon?”

“What are you talking about?” Enka asked, revealing no small spite as she turned toward the guardspony.

The stallion offered an even expression in return. “The day Khagan had planned to invade was the day that Princess Luna returned from her millenium of banishment. He knew Celestia would be occupied with her sister, so she wouldn’t be able to stop him. Rainbow was one of the mares who…” After a moment of consideration, the stallion chose “...pacified her.”

“You say that like we killed her. We freed her. But now that I see what you’re really like, I’m not surprised you can’t tell the difference!” Rainbow shouted.

He took a deep breath, and then turned to Rainbow. “I made the right choice for Equestria. Not a single pony died, and in the end, I saved more boars as well. Hate me for that if you like. Discord, I held up my end of the bargain.”

“Oh, always so business-like? I’d rather hoped you and Rainbow could get into a good tussle over your morality.” The etching on the wall clapped his claw against his paw. “Still, it was more amusing than I expected. Well, to tell you things the fun way, Masquerade escaped from Celestia’s imprisonment. I don’t know how, because she had too many void crystals around for me to see. Once she did, she disguised herself as Red Ink and made her way off for Stalliongrad. Along the way, she ran into Shining Armor, and he took a bit of a tumble off a rather large bridge.”

“Is he dead?”

“Oh, that’s what you’re asking?” Discord held his paw to his belly as he chuckled. “He’s as alive as either of you… well, as alive as one of you, at least. Although, I can hardly say he’s well. You and your daughter of all ponies should know what I mean when I say there are fates far, far worse than death. He’s run in with a very old friend of yours. But I wouldn’t concern yourself with him; Twilight and Roscherk are both on his trail.”

“Wait! What do you mean about Shining?” Rainbow ran over to the wall. “Do you mean like Celestia’s spell, or―”

“I’m certain I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Discord replied. “Suffice it to say he’s outside of your reach anyway. I’d be more concerned with Princess Luna. You see, she and her guards decided to go all the way to Krennotets to figure out what good old Spike―that’s Krenn again, Rainbow, not your fun-size version―was so upset about. Well, it turns out those void crystals showed up again. Somepony clever got one inside a log Krenn was using in his fireplace, and when he tried to pick it up, it popped. I can’t tell you if either of them survived the explosion, but regardless, it isn’t hard to guess what the dragons will think. Especially after Luna and Krenn had a little tussle only a few days earlier.”

“They fought?” the Commander pressed.

“Hardly,” Discord replied. “I mean, Krenn did hit her across the face once, and he threatened Equestria with war… oh, and Mirror Image killed one of Krenn’s advisors. But there wasn’t any continental drift or tidal calamity involved, so it’s hard to call it a real ‘fight’. Why do you ask?”

The Commander lowered his head. “I don’t need a message anymore, Discord.”

“Really? Why is that, now, I wonder?”

“Because we don’t have time to wait for rescue.” The Commander limped slowly to the wall. “Discord, if Krenn makes a move against Equestria, I want you to end the curse on the dragons.”

“Uh…” the Draconequus turned toward Rainbow awkwardly, before his eyes flicked back toward the Commander. “But, uh, you know what that’ll cost, right? Fluttershy won’t be happy…”

“Goodbye, Discord.” The Commander’s flaming hoof scraped out the image of the draconequus, and all at once, the room was silent. “Rainbow, I’ll need your help.”

Rainbow glared. “With what?”

“The door,” the Commander answered, gesturing to the massive slab of flat, solid steel. It had no grate or window, no handle or knob, and even its hinges must have been on the outside. “You’re angry. Call up your fire. We’re leaving.”

As Rainbow stomped forward, Enka rushed up to his side. “What are you talking about? You can’t melt that door.”

“I can’t open it alone,” the Commander replied. “There aren’t many ponies capable of melting a solid steel door. But I don’t intend to melt it.”

“And what about when you get out?” She asked. “Khagan is still here.”

“I know.” He offered her a cursory glance, before placing both his forehooves rather painfully on the face of the door. “When I came here, I had a sword and a suit of black armor with me. Do you know where they are?”

Enka swallowed, taking a step back as she hesitated.

“This isn’t the time for philosophy. Either we escape, or ponies and dragons go to war.”

Ashamed, Enka’s eyes looked to the stone at his hooves. “There’s a trophy room. But there will be guards…” Her voice trailed off as she realized who she was talking to. On the order of eighty-thousand, it seemed he didn’t care about one or two more.

Rainbow, who had reached their exit, placed her hooves on the door and focused on her anger the way she had practiced on the train. He had killed thousands of boars. Though she found herself hating him, the fire was slow to come.

“Say it out loud, Rainbow,” her father suggested. “Tell me what makes you angry.”

“You killed all those boars,” Rainbow answered. “Eighty-thousand of them!”

The Commander shrugged in response. “To save ponies. Why does that matter to you? You didn’t know them.”

Rainbow growled. “How can you say that? They’re living beings!” An orange glow began to build around her hooves.

“It isn’t my job to protect them.”

“So you just don’t care about them?” Rainbow shouted. “If they aren’t ponies, you don’t think their lives are worthwhile? Is that it?”

The Commander’s hooves came off the door as the orange glow began to spread across the metal. Pulling back his right foreleg, he closed his eyes. A single exhale and a wordless shout accompanied his thrust, and a deafening, echoing crack of thunder marked its collision. The door shook under Rainbow’s hooves. Though he did put a crack in the heated metal, it was small, barely worthy of notice.

Her father was not through, however. Placing both hooves on opposite sides of the tiny crack, he sucked in a breath. Where the metal had been burning orange, it quickly turned a frosted white. With a groan and a creak, the little crack grew longer and wider. Satisfied, the stallion let go of his icy Empatha and turned toward Rainbow. “Again.”

“Screw you, Dad. I can’t just get mad on command, even if you are an asshole.”

The Commander looked Rainbow in the eyes, and though his gaunt face was expressionless, his eyes seemed to approach her statement as a challenge. “Tell me about your mother.”

Rainbow narrowed her eyes, speaking out of the base of her throat. “Why?”

He shrugged, “I never got to know her.”

“Of course not!” Rainbow pounded a hoof of her own onto the crack in the metal. “You abandoned her! You told her you were coming back, and then you never did!”

“I didn’t realize a whore was expecting me to come back to her.”

“You bastard!” Rainbow’s raging lunge ended quickly when her father’s longer reached shoved her away. She landed in pain on the stumps of her wings, only to see the door glowing not just orange, but a brutal red. Her flames flickered against the stone floor, leaving behind whisps of smoke and dust that tickled her nostrils.

With another heavy wheezing breath, the Commander began to beat on the crack with his bare hooves. Again and again, thunder rang out in the little room, and again and again, the crack widened. Soon, it was nearly as tall as Rainbow, though still not deep enough to reach through the door.

When her father’s hooves turned white, that fact changed. The fractured, battered, baking metal shuddered, and with an audible crunching and groaning, the crack widened until the door was sheared cleanly in half. The two slabs remained upright, too heavy and too thick to fall without some impetus.

“Whoa…” Rainbow muttered, momentarily distracted from her anger. “Are you going to―”

The Commander leaned his shoulder into the unhinged half of the door, and thrust his entire body weight against it. It fell outward, though it stopped before it hit the ground on the face of a rather large armored boar, wearing thorn-like wires around the ends of both his tusks. The creature groaned in agony, though the sound was short lived. The Commander hurled himself forward onto the door, jarring the boar further. Before it could so much as begin to recover, his right forehoof swung around the metal to reach under its throat. With his body and the remnants of the door in the way, Rainbow couldn’t see what happened next, though in truth, she didn’t need to. The gagging gurgle from the boar guard’s throat, and the blood on her father’s hoof when it came back into view told her more than enough.

The creature obeyed timidly, curling into a little ball. The stallion walked slowly forward, and then turned his head to some sort of stick poking out from under his folded wings. His teeth wrapped around its end, and with a flick of his neck, he pulled free a long, rounded steel blade. The hiss of metal leaving sheathe did nothing to stop the creature's trembling fear. Instead, it remained still, and nearly silent, as the pony lined up his blade with its neck, and then drew up onto his hind legs.

Something in Rainbow forced her to close her eyes. All she heard was the noise. It began with a hum, and then became more of a whistling, before it ended with the sound of a small splash and a gentle trickle.

Rainbow stared at the bloody hoof, and shook her head. That minor motion was all it took to clear her mind.

“Move, Enka. We won’t have long before more guards start showing up.” When the sow hesitated, the Commander brushed aside his mane with his bloody hoof, exposing his full eyes. “Move.”

Enka shuddered when the force of the Commander’s stare disappeared, and she immediately ran past him into the dense hallway of heavy clay and vibrant red stone. Rainbow followed, watching the torches and the tiny windows that looked out on an early morning as she took up a position at her father’s side. “How much of that was true?”

“Hm?”

“When we were getting through the door. Did you mean what you said about the boars? And about Mom?”

The Commander scowled, keeping his eyes on the hallway ahead instead of meeting Rainbow’s curious gaze. “Your mother was a good mare who wanted a foal, but she knew she couldn’t keep one if foal services found out. We agreed to an exchange. I would support her, so that she could give up her career.” He briefly flicked his eyes toward Rainbow. “I truly didn’t know she expected me to come back. I thought the money was enough.”

Rainbow’s hooves stomped with her next few steps. “You didn’t know? What, you didn’t think you had an obligation to come back for me? For your daughter?”

“Was your foalhood terrible, Rainbow? Were you beaten? Unloved? Did you go hungry?” The Commander looked fully at his daughter. “Or are you just mad that the pony who raised you wasn’t the one who rutted your mother? Family isn’t about who slept with who, Rainbow.”

“But you abandoned Mom!”

The steel blue stallion looked away for a moment, and his ears perked. “I gave your mother exactly what I promised: a father for her foal. One who could look after you, and love you, and provide for you. One who wouldn’t put you in danger when Nightmare Moon returned, or we went to war with the dragons.” After a wheezing breath, his right foreleg burst into flames, and his left began to emanate a frosty mist “Silver Lining is your father, Rainbow Dash.” His words picked up, his tone once more reflecting the title he used as a name. “Enka, get behind me.”

“What?” she called back. “What are you―”

A larger boar slammed the sow aside, hefting an axe in the amber glow of his tusks.

“Rainbow, get back!” The Commander thrust his flaming hoof forward, staggering both with the pain of the motion and the energy it took as he sent a long tongue of flame in the direction of the boar.

Rather than diving backward, Rainbow took one look at her father’s pained expression, and lunged at the boar. Her shoulders screamed in pain as her body tried to flap her wings by reflex, and she felt her wounds reopen, spilling blood down her back. Nevertheless, she continued her assault, slamming both hooves on the the warrior’s wide, flat brow. It winced back, more in surprise than pain. She would have kept fighting the creature, had a heavy club not knocked her to the ground.

Clutching her bruised ribs, the pegasus looked up to the sight of a second boar grinning with yellowed, spade-like teeth. It’s green magic hefted the club that had struck her, though it was the points of the hulking creature’s tusks that frightened her the worst.

A hiss of steam and a thick cloud stole the attention of both boars, and they turned toward the place where the Commander had once been standing. Before Rainbow’s eyes, it took on the shape of a gigantic boar’s face, its eyes burning with flame and its fanged maw likewise roaring. The shout it released shuddered the stone walls of the corridor.

The axe-wielding boar dropped his weapon in terror and turned tail, fleeing they way he had come. His counterpart was not so easily frightened, swinging his club through the mist and laughing as he walked forward.

The face in the mist glared, and then blurred into an indistinct cloud, which lunged toward the boar. The change earned a step of retreat and a gasp of surprise from the porcine warrior. That moment was all it took. The steam shot forward, diving into the boar’s nostrils and his open mouth. There were perhaps two seconds of coughing before the warrior fell on his side, icicles piercing his sides from within.

The mist cleared, and the Commander fell onto his scarred side, panting heavily with his eyes unfocused.

“What…” Enka couldn’t bring herself to finish the question.

“Fire and water make steam…” The Commander, in turn, had to interrupt himself with a raspy breath. “Water freezes. I was… hoping they would both run.”

“So you wouldn’t have to kill him?” The sow pressed.

The Commander hesitated, and then nodded. “That is one reason.” His daughter knew instantly that he was lying. “Rainbow, help me… help me stand. Enka, how far are we?”

“It’s just that door up ahead.” Enka indicated their destination, not more than a dozen strides away.

Glancing briefly down at the frozen boar corpse in his path, the Commander leaned heavily on Rainbow and forced himself to his feet with a gasp. “We still don’t have long. Rainbow, once we’re in there, we need to find my armor and Procellarum.”

Enka turned toward the stallion. “Armor? Are you planning on fighting Khagan?”

The Commander nodded. “I am. But the armor isn’t for me.”

XXI - Last Rites

XXI

Last Rites

Roscherk Krovyu, Commander of the Honor Guard, had no idea how to react when Twilight Sparkle threw her forelegs around him with a sigh of relief. After a moment’s consideration, he reached over her back with a wing and gave her a firm swat to her left cutie mark. At her gasp of offense, the red stallion slipped out from her grip, chuckling. “Looking good, Sparkle.”

“You… you…”

“Not the time, I know.” Ink rolled his shoulders, notably bare of his trademark jacket, and looked around the room. Though his next words came out in Stalliongradi, the quill scratching on the wall translated them quite well. “Serp, what in Tartarus happened to your leg?”

“I ran into Fenrir…” Serp shuddered, his eyes staring into the ground.

Twilight, who had finally managed to located her tongue, looked in Ink’s direction. “How did you find us?”

“It wasn’t that hard. I just followed the trail of carnage.” The stallion known to both present mares as Red Ink waved a wing in the air. “I leave Stol’nograd for six months, and when I get back, rebels take over Trotsylvania and a small team of ponies steals a train to escape. Countess Star―” Ink cut himself off to spit on the ground. “―told me you had been here, and you were looking into Onyx Ridge. When I found the train just sitting there, it was pretty obvious.” Ink chuckled to himself. “Oh, yeah, and then Molot outright told me. So, Twilight Sparkle, student of Princess Celestia, let me ask you this: what possessed you stick your muzzle in here alone?”

“We’re looking for Shining Armor!”

Ink was quiet for a surprisingly long time. His shoulders rose and fell in one smooth motion. “You don’t know?”

Twilight shook her head. “I know exactly what you said. Princess Celestia told me. But if he were really dead, she would have known. She would have sent him to the Summer Lands.”

“Serp,” the Honor Guard growled. “Take the guardsmare in the corner up top. I melted a hole in the tunnel that goes up to the castle level; get to the train and wait. We won’t be long.”

“No…” It was the first word Going Solo had managed since Ink had come to their rescue, and its lingering echoes were tinged with fear and insecurity. When she felt his eyes fall on her, her wings began to shake, rattling her armor. Despite the obvious fear, she managed to match his gaze. “I’m not leaving Twilight with you.”

Serp bared his filed fangs as he laughed. “Looks like you even have a reputation in Canterlot, Blood Stroke.”

Roscherk himself was less amused. “Look, guard, whatever you’ve heard about me is probably true. There’s no need to go wetting yourself over it, though. I’m not going to hurt Twilight. I’m not even that interested in sleeping with her. But right now, I think I can help her―”

“No. No, you can’t.” Solo stood up, though her motions were strained as if some weight was holding down each of her hooves. “Stay… stay away from…”

“You’re going to stop me?” Ink’s wings didn’t properly unfurl, but the slight stretch he allowed them was just enough emphasis to bring the little sparks he had building on the tips of his primaries into view.

Solo froze. Ink smiled. The flames on his wings grew full and tall, filling up to the ceiling of the room.

The guardsmare screamed, sprinting past him and running back into the tunnels of Onyx Ridge.

“Shit.” Ink himself turned to chase after her, the fires on his wings dying. Twilight moved to go with him, and the bulky warrior had to stop himself in order to slow her near-sprint. “Serp, go find her. Path should be clear.”

Serp, who was holding his chest with a wing as he laughed, nodded at the command. “Oh, Blood Stroke, the look on her face…” Breaking into a limping run, the buckwheat Marshal pursued the echoes of Solo’s steps.

Left alone, Ink turned back to face Twilight. When he saw the disappointment on her face, his hoof wandered to his short-cropped black mane. “Look, Twilight, I didn’t think she’d freak out like that.”

“That’s your excuse? What if she isn’t okay?”

Ink smiled at that comment, which seemed to only put Twilight in a worse mood. “I wouldn’t worry about her. The vargr decided to get out of the kitchen.”

“What?”

“I thought that was an Equiish… saying… thing. If you can’t take the heat…” He flared up the fire on his wings for just a moment, like a vainglorious pyrotechnician. Twilight’s expression remained flat. “...you know what, nevermind. I guess not. Anyway, I killed seven of the vargr, and then the rest ran away with their tails between their legs.” He glanced away. “Ahem. Twilight, I…was hoping to talk to you about Shining Armor.”

“What about?”

Ink opened his mouth, and then hesitated. His lips closed again, and then he shut his eyes and spoke. “Masquerade killed my brother too, Twilight. My little brother.”

“Shining isn’t dead,” Twilight insisted.

The new commander of the Honor Guard hung his head. “Don’t do this to yourself, Twilight. You should be at home with your family, and Candace―”

“Cadance.”

“Close enough.” Ink winced when Twilight’s expression worsened. “I’m terrible at this ‘comforting’ thing, aren’t I? I guess I’ll just be blunt and get it over with.” His deep, Stalliongradi-accented voice took a turn for the softer and more focused. “Grief and emotion make us do things we wouldn’t on better days. If I’d paid attention to what was going on around me the day Polnoch died, Stoikaja wouldn’t have gotten away. There wouldn’t be a rebellion.” Ink donned a frown of his own. “I live with the regrets of what happened that day. I don’t want you doing the same―or worse, getting yourself killed. Leave Masquerade to me.”

“I’m not here for revenge,” Twilight answered. “But Shining isn’t dead.”

Ink sighed. “Look, Sparkle, I’m not going to get your hopes up… but if Armor is alive, my older brother should be able to find him. But in return, if Predvidenie finds out he’s dead, I want your word that you’ll go back to Ponyville.”

Twilight’s irritation turned to confusion. “How would your your brother know if Shining was alive or dead? I already tried scrying him, but it didn’t work.”

“I don’t pretend to know how Predvidenie does the things he does; if you can put up with his ego and his stupid voice, you’re welcome to ask him whatever you want. For now, I’d rather talk about something nicer.” Ink’s eyes swept around the room. “Uh, who’s frosty over there?”

Twilight turned to where the soldier was gesturing. The frozen corpse of Commander Typhoon remained as still as it had been for eight millennia. The unicorn frowned. “That’s Typhoon. Commander Hurricane’s daughter, and one of the strongest ice Empaths who has ever lived.”

“She’s got a nice scar.” Ink’s eyes wandered over her frozen body, and he smiled. “Looks like a badass. It’s a shame she’s on ice. I could go for another soldier, for a change.” Looking squarely at Twilight, he continued his thought. “Does she have any descendants?”

Twilight cocked her head, not quite understanding the significance of the question. “Yeah, my friend Rainbow Dash. Why?”

“I can see where she gets it. Close enough build, same manestyle… Actually, that’s a little freaky how close they are. Think I could get Rainbow some coat dye? I was hoping I could find her in a forty-years-younger and not-dead model.”

Twilight growled, stomping toward the tunnel out of Onyx Ridge and whipping her tail from side to side. Ink chuckled, following after her with a smile on his jaw.

Twilight watched Solo shaking in the corner of the train cabin as it began its slow progress toward Stalliongrad. The sorry guardsmare hadn’t noticed the door open, nor had she looked up as her ward approached.

“How are you feeling, Solo?”

Solo’s mouth moved to answer, but the gasping whisper that escaped her lips was unintelligible. To Twilight it sounded like a mare who’d nearly drowned, sucking in a desperate gasp of breath after breaking the surface.

“Solo!” Twilight rushed forward, wrapping a hoof around the mare’s back. The second she sat down, however, she saw the problem―a half open matchbox sitting beside the pegasus’ hind legs. It didn’t take long for the scholar to notice it wasn’t full of matches. “Whispersalt?”

Literally shaking in Twilight’s hooves, Solo managed a nod before looking away in shame.

Twilight’s first reaction was to loosen her grip in irritation. Her momentary thought had been to leave Solo to her misery, and go back to Ink.. At the loss of Twilight’s touch, however, Solo curled into a ball, wrapping her wings around her body and pulling her hind legs in under her chin.

“Solo…” Hoping her motion would be interpreted as making herself comfortable, and not an attempt to abandon the suffering mare, Twilight slid closer. “I’m sorry about this. Is there anything I can do to help you?”

“Away…” Solo whispered, the harsh signs of the salt leaving a crackle in her voice. When Twilight moved away, the guardsmare began to shake her head in shuddering bursts.

“You don’t want me to leave?” Twilight asked, standing half a stride away.

“from… Red…”

Twilight’s ears perked high in realization. “Oh. Solo, he’s not…” Though the pegasus could barely speak, her friend was able to see exactly how the conversation would end from the sheer terror locked in Solo’s eyes. “…sorry. Let’s just…” Though a part of Twilight wanted desperately to be the mediator, she found herself too tired for the battle. “Let’s not talk about it right now, okay?” Solo nodded. “Do you want me to stay?” Another nod.

Once more, Twilight Sparkle took her place by Solo’s side, acknowledging her sore shoulders and her aching ribs. With a moment of fiddling, she managed to undo the buckle on the side of her jacket. Only a few days from its maker in Trotsylvania, it was fraying and singed, but surprisingly serviceable for what it had been through. Twilight idly amused herself imagining Rarity’s reaction. Oh, darling, what have you been through to do this to such a coat? You simply must let me repair it. The unicorn smiled wistfully, until she finally removed the weight against her flank.

The ancient book was cold to the touch, preserved by its owner’s empatha even all these thousands of years later. “Do you mind if I do some reading?”

Solo seemed to think for a moment, and then nodded her head with a small smile. “…out loud.”

“Alright!” The cover heeded Twilight’s hoof, revealing the scratchy writing of a mare long-dead. It took the modern unicorn a few moments to get used once more to the strange symbols of the Cirran alphabet, but soon, she found the words flowing.

“Cyclone got me this journal. When we were younger, Father taught us to write like he did, as a way to clear our minds. We were too young to appreciate why he did it, but now I understand it was his way of letting out the pressures of leading so many ponies.”

Twilight turned the page slowly, using her hoof to make sure her magic did not interfere with what was left of Typhoon’s in the old pages. Before she continued, she spared a glance for Solo. Despite the glassiness of her stare, the guardsmare’s ears were perked, and her attention pointed straight at Twilight. “Keep…”

“Alright. Just let me know if you need anything cleared up. I’ve read a lot of these from Typhoon and Commander Hurricane, and I―”

“Just read…”

Twilight forced her most sympathetic smile onto her face and turned her attention back to the book. “My Command is over now. I’ve let Celeste and Gale have their ‘guard’. The Legion is all but gone. Maybe half a dozen of us still call ourselves legionaries. Someday, I’ll take the time to tell that story, but for the moment, I need to clear my mind like Father did. I’ve spent three years hunting down the last survivor, if you can call it that, of Lūn’s Night Guard. I’ve tracked the monster to the ruins of Onyx Ridge.

“It’s time to finish what I started thirteen years ago.”

Typhoon’s wingblades clicked in time with the idle twitching of her wings as she stood at the foot of the huge black wall. “Onyx Ridge. Are you all equipped?”

A chorus of ‘aye’s in various languages was their response. The cluster of six sailors was a far cry from the Cirran legionaries she was used to leading, but true legionaries were getting harder to come by every day, and she wasn’t about to go to Gale for help.

She turned to face her company . It was a slow, painful motion that grated on her knees and forced her to admit she was getting old. “Soldiers, we’re hunting a monster. Not a pony like you or I, but one of Lūn’s walking corpses.”

“All o’ us?” one of the sailors asked, raising a hoof. Typhoon recognized him as Anchor, a huge earth pony carrying an axe shaped like his namesake, with half as many teeth as he ought to have and a manecut criss-crossed with scars from a sea serpent. “An’ just one monster?”

Typhoon rolled her eyes, sending a little twitch of pain through the scar on her right brow. It was a familiar pain, though it still left her with a wince. “She’s not like anything you’ve fought before, and believe me when I say that I know what you’ve fought.”

She paused to cast her icy glare across the ponies standing in the snow, calling to mind their proof of their resolve. Anchor, of course, had earned his scars from a sea serpent. Though Typhoon wasn’t sure she believed it, the unicorn filly who called herself High Seas claimed to have survived a shipwreck by taming a shark. Flounder, Trout, and Eel were newer additions to the company; all Typhoon knew of the siblings’ skill in battle came from the matched garments they wore. Flounder, the eldest, carried a kraken’s claw as a sort of shield strapped to his right foreleg. Trout wore the same creature’s teeth as makeshift blades on the crests of her wings. Eel, whose jittery eyes and jerky movements unsettled Typhoon, had one of the creature’s dried tentacles wrapped around her neck as a trophy, leaving the filly with a mild but inescapable stink of the sea.

“You don’t need to waste your breath impressing us, Typhoon.” The stallion who spoke was a tall, aging pegasus, carrying a greatsword to rival Cyclone’s between his wings. Tarnished armor carried the medals of an admiral in the newly-formed Equestrian Navy. “These sailors all served in the Battle of Everfree. I chose them because they’ve stood the test of facing down monsters. They may not be Cirrans, but they’ll fight just as hard.”

I doubt that, Typhoon thought to herself. “Fine, Admiral Winterspell. If your crew is ready, we’ll move. The target resembles a pegasus mare, with a light gray coat and wings like a bat.”

“A bat…?” High Seas whispered.

Trout claimed a tighter grip on her bill hook. “Who cares what its wings look like. Can we kill it?”

Typhoon nodded. “It’s hardier than a pony, though. You can’t expect it to stagger if you land a shallow blow. I’m not sure if they feel pain; it doesn’t seem to affect them much.”

“So you’ve fought these things before?” Winterspell asked. To accompany the motion, his wrinkled brow rose toward a blue mane with enough white to resemble a frozen sea. “Are they intelligent? Should we expect others? Are they going to want revenge?”

“There aren’t any others,” Typhoon replied calmly. “This is the last of its kind.”

“It?” Typhoon jumped a bit at the stallion’s voice, even before her mind registered it as one she recognized. “At least have the decency to call her by name, Commander.”

“Oh, is this about Miss Icecube?”

Twilight jumped at the interruption and found Red Ink peeking his head through the door of the train cabin. At her side, Solo began to shiver again. “Roscherk! It would have been nice if you had knocked. Or at least let us know you were there. Also, who’s driving the train?”

“It only really takes one leg to drive a train,” Ink replied with a shrug. “I was just checking in to see if either of you wanted anything to eat or drink. I’m headed down to the diner car to see what they’ve got.”

“You can’t just take that food! It’s not yours!” Twilight shouted, earning a chuckle from Solo, and an outright burst of laughter from Ink. “What? What’s so funny?”

“Well, you’re the one who stole a train.” Ink gestured around the car with a wing. “My older brother, Predvidenie, owns the trains, so the food is his too. Stealing from him would just be a bonus. Besides, how many days has it been since you two had a proper meal?”

As if Ink had manufactured the noise, a grumble rang out from Twilight’s stomach. “Uh… I don’t actually know how long we were down there under Onyx Ridge. The last time we ate was with Countess Star…”

Ink snorted, and then spat on the wallpaper, earning a look of disgust from his unicorn companion. “She is a complete…” The stallion let his words trail off before they reached any particularly colorful language. “Hmm…” He whispered quite audibly to himself, “How would I say this if I were a complete pussy?” A moment later, a smile broke onto his face, and he spoke up fully. “We didn’t see ‘eye to eye’. That’s a saying, right? Anyway, if you ate with her, that must have been before the rebels took control of Trotsylvania.”

“Took control?” Twilight’s eyes widened. “You mean completely?”

Ink sighed, and nodded. “That’s what happens when I join the Honor Guard, I guess. There’s a part of me that’s tempted to fly down there right now and just deal with it myself…” Again, his words slowed as he took note of the glazed eyes and shuddering form of Going Solo. “…but now that I’m Honor Guard, protecting you and catching Masquerade are far more important.”

Twilight nodded. “That’s probably for the best, Roscherk.”

“Alright.” Ink smiled, although the motion mostly came across as a baring of his teeth. “Well, I’ll go grab whatever they have from the food cart and cook something up for us. Mind if I listen in on storytime when I get back? I’d love to hear some more about sweetcheeks.”

“Uh…” Twilight turned to Solo, who was vigorously shaking her head. “I’m not sure if that’s such…”

“Great!” Ink called from around the doorway, already partway down the hall toward the dining car. “Be back soon then.”

The two mares sat in silence as the snow flew past the window, and the wheels rang and rattled on the rails. It was Twilight who first found the strength to speak up. “He won’t hurt us, Solo.”

The guardsmare said nothing, and after another minute of sheer quiet, Twilight turned back to the journal.

After the sudden shout, Typhoon rounded in place to find a stallion sitting in the rubble that had once been the main gatehouse to Onyx Ridge. She remembered a day, in her youth, when his coat and mane had once borne green and brown. Now he was a solid gray, withered and atrophied to a shuddering husk of his former self. He was eighty years old, and quite possibly the last stallion to have set hoof on the mainland of Cirra; a walking reminder that soon the Empire would be nothing more than a memory.

“Scout-Centurion Pathfinder.” Typhoon stared down the old stallion and met his look of disappointment with one of outright spite. “Did you come to make up for your mistakes? Or are you looking to save her again?”

“You don’t have to do this, Typhoon.” The eldest living legionary fell forward off the rubble, spreading his wings to slow his fall and landing in front of Typhoon. If his joints ached with age even half as much as hers did, he didn’t show it. “She’s a Cirran, just the same as us―”

“She’s a walking corpse,” Typhoon interrupted. “And even if she were living and breathing, she wouldn’t be one of us. She stopped being a Cirran the day she killed Commander Blaze. You know the law as well as I do. And if you intend to stand by her side, you should stop and remember where your loyalties lie. The legion doesn’t take kindly to traitors, living or dead.”

Pathfinder stepped forward, thrusting a hoof against Typhoon’s armor. “Then where was Cyclone’s noose? You’re brave to question my loyalty, pup. I’ve been serving the Legion longer than you’ve been drawing breath.”

Typhoon’s frown deepened. “Your service won’t bring Legacy back. Nor Legate Perfect. Get over your nostalgia; the mare you knew is gone. All that’s left is a demon to be put down.”

A sudden burst of empatha from Pathfinder’s eyes stopped Typhoon mid-sentence. It took her only a moment to conjure up enough willpower to break the Stare of the foremost earth empath in the Legion, but in that moment, he began to speak. “Don’t you dare insult her, whelp. You’ve never set hoof on Cirra. You’ve never looked a griffon in the eye.”

“And you’ve never had a monster claw your foal’s eyes out!” Typhoon felt her wings grow warm as her empatha turned anger into flame. It took a clenched jaw to prevent real flames from appearing on her feathers. “I know you’re a father, Centurion. Can you say you’d do different if it were Shimmer? Or Zephyr?”

Pathfinder, it seemed, had no qualms about letting his magic reveal his anger. The flames on his wings were small, but they steamed and smoked in the air of the Compact Lands’ perpetual blizzard. “How dare you? I lost my eldest to the Legion, Typhoon. Not in battle, or some ‘glory’ like that.” The elder soldier’s ears were pinned to his short, rough mane, and Typhoon could smell the alcohol on his breath as he shouted. “Sky died because the senate decided that legionaries needed medicine more than my daughter did. I know exactly what it feels like to watch my foal suffer without being able to help them.” His bladed wing flung out, gesturing to the ruined facade of Onyx Ridge. “And when she was shaking, and coughing, and freezing to death, it wasn’t some ‘legion hero’ who finally decided to smuggle us the medicine we needed. It was that mare in there. The one you call a ‘monster’.”

Pathfinder’s chest rose and fell as he caught his breath. A thick cloud of mist formed around his nostrils, and the fires on his wings died slowly. His tempo likewise slowed, though his words lost no intensity. “When she stood with me at Nimbus, we didn’t have fancy magic or special training, or some legendary warrior for a father standing over our shoulders. We only had each other, staring down an enemy you can’t even begin to imagine.” Pathfinder’s voice trailed off as his eyes seemed to grow glassy. With shaking hooves, he reached under his wing to retrieve a canteen. It opened with the scent of ale, which he poured into his mouth greedily.

Winterspell was the first to move, shaking his head in disappointment. “I’ve seen sailors turn to the bottle. It’s never pretty, but there’s nothing we can do. We’ll collect him when we leave.”

Typhoon nodded, walking toward the fortress. “We’re moving. Be warned, the target likely isn’t alone. There have been reports of bandits raiding trading caravans on the road nearby.”

Pathfinder growled inaudibly, dropping his flask and rising shakily to his hooves. The mass of sailors parted slightly as he forced himself forward toward Typhoon. “She spared your son, Typhoon. You know she could have killed him. There’s a good mare in there somewhere, and if you want to kill her without at least hearing her out, you’ll have to cut me down.” He glared Typhoon in the eyes again as he stepped up beside her. “Then you’ll be the mare who killed Cirra.”

Typhoon took a slow breath. “Either it ends here, Pathfinder, or we drag her back to Everfree and put her down in the square. There’s no other ending to this.”

“Forty years ago, ponies were saying that about your brother.”

Few of the gathered ponies could follow the motion when Typhoon drew Heims Osculum from its sheathe. Even in the frozen air of the Compact Land’s lingering eternal winter, the blade was cold enough to warp the air surrounding it into a cloud of frost. Everypony seemed to freeze with it, waiting for the icy blade to meet the old stallion’s neck. Instead, she turned it toward the fortress. “Arm yourselves,” she ordered. The sound of a half-dozen weapons being unsheathed and uncased echoed in the calm, snowy air behind her. “You can speak with her, Centurion, but it won’t change anything.”

“Move,” Winterspell added firmly, and at his beckoning, they marched into the narrow corridors of the black fortress.

The first chamber of the building was an enormous hall filled with wooden tables and benches from the Crystal Barbarians who had once ruled the fortress. Once more, it was filled with food and song as a half-dozen bandits and brigands enjoyed their spoils. When the trio of aging soldiers entered the room, all music quickly stopped.

“Soldiers!” one bandit cried.

Another shouted “That’s Typhoon!” as he turned tail for a door out of the chamber. Winterspell seemed amused by the attempt at escape, and placed his wing flat on the flagstone floor. A visible wave of ice shot across the stones, forming into a solid wall in the doorway mere moments before the unfortunate bandit reached it.

Typhoon wasted no time worrying about escape. Both her wingblades flicked forward, forming three icicles from the sparse water in the air. Two lodged in throats. The third found a shoulder, leaving the bleeding bandit to slide up to Typhoon’s hooves. She ended his misery before he even had time to scream.

In those mere seconds, and the few it took Typhoon to lift her head and survey the room, it was already over. Bandits were no match for the best sailors in Equestria’s newly founded navy. Only the one bandit who had tried to run still drew breath. His hooves moved to flee, but Winterspell was faster. With his wing to the floor, the Admiral once more directed his icy empatha along the flagstones, freezing the outlaw’s hooves to the ground.

“All yours,” the sailor growled through his mild accent.

“Make sure the doors are secure,” Typhoon ordered. Then she took a step forward, only to be stopped by the feeling of a warm hoof on her chest. The scent of alcohol made it altogether too clear who the hoof belonged to. Pathfinder didn’t bother speaking to her, and instead loped across the large room toward their prisoner, his gray body blending well with the shadows of the ruined fortress.

Though distraught, the young stallion’s will was solid. He looked Pathfinder square in the eyes, as if believing he could somehow negotiate his way out of his crimes. “Look, I had to do it to survive. You’ve got to understand―”

“I’m not going to hurt you, son.” Pathfinder uncapped his flask as he approached, slipping another swig into his mouth. “Hell, you tell me what I want to know and I’ll let you go free.”

“Hell?”

Pathfinder rolled his eyes. “Cirran name for Tartarus. Doesn’t matter. What’s your name, son?”

The bandit gulped. “Last Gasp, sir. Please, you’ve got to understand, I didn’t want―”

The old scout seemed amused as he cut Gasp off. “I frankly don’t care what motivated you to do what you’ve done. I already told you I’d let you go free. Right now, I want to know about your boss.”

At those simple words, the bandit began to shake in his icy restraints, struggling to escape. “Look, she was great for the loot she got us, but I don’t want anything more to do with her anymore. I swear it!”

“Like I said, tell me and I’ll let you go.” Pathfinder smiled, the way only a grandfather can, though Typhoon could smell the Cirran ale on his teeth. “Let’s start at the top. Where is she?”

“In the caves under the fortress.” Last Gasp glanced back to one of the doorways out of the room, staring as if he had seen something move. “Look, you don’t want to go down there. I don’t know what she is, but she’s scarier than anything you’ve ever seen, okay?”

“Then why are you working with her?” Typhoon asked.

“She found us when we nabbed one of the wagon trains with food for Stalliongrad. All six of us couldn’t take her and her freaky magic.” Typhoon glanced around, counting five bodies and the still-breathing stallion, as he continued. “She told us she wanted to join, and she’d help us get better hauls. That’s when we started hitting the skysteel convoys.”

“Skysteel?” Winterspell noted. “That would explain a lot.”

“Yeah, we took dozens, but she never seemed interested in the weapons. Just the ponies she was killing.” The bandit shuddered again.

Pathfinder cocked his head. “What’s bothering you?”

“The way she killed them… not with magic or a sword. She wears these hooks on her wingblades, but I’ve never seen her use them. Always uses her teeth…” His eyes glossed over for a moment. “One day, Cleave found a special sword. It was really good skysteel or something, cause it had pegasus magic in it that worked all on its own. It was always on fire, glowing like a torch. He told that… that thing… that he was done. He wanted his share, so he could go back to Lubuck and live like a king.” Winterspell spat on the floor, though he did not deign to comment. “And he said if she tried to stop him, he’d stick her with the magic sword.” The bandit’s head gestured to the center of the room. “We were all watching, but nopony saw it. She was too fast. One minute he was mid-word, talking around the sword in his teeth. The next, he was gasping, choking on his own blood, and her muzzle was…” He couldn’t finish the thought, and instead moved forward, his voice still shaky and uneven. “She told us we could leave once her work was done.”

“Did she tell you what it was?” Pathfinder asked. “What she wanted?”

Typhoon snorted, her flared nostrils creating a cloud of steam near the blade of Heims. “She wants me, Pathfinder. If that wasn’t clear in Everfree City when she cut out Tempest’s eyes, it should have been obvious now that she’s hunted down every Praetorian who was with us at the Roost.” The mare glared at the bandit, and then gripped her sword more tightly between her lips. “We’re wasting time. He can’t tell us anything we don’t already know.”

Twilight lifted her head as the door to the cabin creaked, only to realize that Red Ink was closing it. “How long have you been standing there?”

Ink offered a cocky smile and lowered two silver trays to the floor of the cabin. One was covered in little wedge-cut sandwiches of various flowers and overcooked hayfries with too much ketchup. The other had three glasses, and three bottles. “Long enough to hear about a rebel and a monster pony. I brought cola if you’re feeling wimpy, but you should really try a gin and tonic.” With surprising agility, the soldier mixed one of the drinks and extended it in his wing toward Solo. The quiet mare recoiled from the red wing, leaving Ink to roll his eyes. “Fine. Cola for you then. Twilight, you want a try? It’s the good stuff. Predvidenie goes all in when he buys this, all the way from Trottingham.”

Twilight contemplated for a moment, and then took the glass in her magic. Ink smiled as she held the glass to her lips. He then broke into uproarious laughter when she began to cough. “Too much for you, Sparkle?”

“It’s…” Twilight held her tongue out of her mouth for a moment, shaking her head. “It tastes like I ate a branch off a pine tree.”

“That’s half the fun,” Ink countered, smiling even as he took the glass away. His wings worked deftly, pouring a pair of sodas in the clean glasses, and then placing them before the mares. Twilight dove into hers eagerly, while Solo stared at the soda hesitantly. “So, can you fill me in on what I missed? What’s the deal with the monster thing?”

“Well, Typhoon hasn’t really said yet. But…”

“Vam… pony…” Solo forced out through her harsh whisper.

Ink’s brow climbed the better part of his sheer brow. “Armor lets you carry whispersalt on duty?” Glaring, Solo shook her head. Ink responded with a chuckle. “Fair enough.”

Twilight coughed forcefully into her hoof. “Anyway… like I said before, Solo, there’s no such thing as a vampony. However, you might be on the right track. Given what I’ve read about Commander Typhoon, and what she said to Pathfinder, it sounds to me like they’re referring to a thestral.”

A few moments of silence followed before Ink extended a hoof. “Are you gonna tell us what a ‘thestral’ is?”

Twilight hesitated for a moment, as images of Celestia and Luna flashed to mind. “I… I guess, since you’re both guardsponies. So, you know the Night Guard?”

Ink and Solo both nodded, the former adding, “Princess Luna’s guards, with the magic armor that makes them look like they have fangs and weird wings?”

“The armor isn’t magic. Those are thestrals: undead ponies that use Princess Luna’s magic to hunt spirits and monsters, and protect Equestria.”

“If Luna…”

“I’ve got you covered,” Ink picked up, when Solo’s words failed. “Why was Frosty the Snowmare hunting one, if they work for Princess Luna?”

“Commander Typhoon,” Twilight corrected. “And they don’t all work for Luna. The magic is very illegal, and it requires alicorn magic to raise one, but beyond that, all you need is a mostly-intact corpse.”

“Is that from experience, Twilight?” Ink teased, making a ‘spooky’ motion with his forehooves.

“Of course not!” Twilight shouted, only to realize the tone of her voice. Speaking much more softly, she continued. “Do I look like I have a pair of wings? It would take me years to make that much empatha and endura, even if I had a void crystal to work with.” At Ink’s continued amused grin, she added, "Which I don’t. Back to what I was trying to say, King Sombra was a thestral, but Luna didn’t raise him. There have been a few others throughout history, but the spell is only written down in a book my brother keeps locked up in the Crystal Empire.”

Twilight followed the thought by letting her eyes drift away slowly. Ink must have guessed her thoughts, as he gestured to the book. “So… was this thestral a rogue, then?”

“Not likely. Typhoon… well, she didn’t exactly get along with the Night Guard.”

“Really, now? I couldn’t tell from all the parts where she wanted to murder it.” Ink shook his head as he continued to wear his grin. “Actually, if they’re undead, is it still called ‘killing’?”

Twilight sighed. “I’m not going to honor that with a response, Roscherk. Let’s just keep going.”

“You’re right, Typhoon. We should get moving.” Pathfinder knelt down and struck at the ice around one of Last Gasp’s forehooves, before shaking his head. “Damn, that’s cold. Can you get this stuff off him?”

“We’ll free him when we’re done. There are only eight of us.” She shot Pathfinder another look of condemnation. “And only seven willing to do the job. I can’t spare anypony to watch him, and I won’t leave an enemy behind me.”

“Six,” Winterspell corrected, gesturing to a body near the exit. Typhoon recognized Flounder almost immediately by the crab-like claw on his leg. Her mind recounted the moments after their little skirmish.

Typhoon flared her wings to extend the scales of their blades and her eyes scanned the room again. “Not a bandit,” she whispered. “It’s her.”

“Formation!” Winterspell shouted, taking up a position at Typhoon’s side, but facing the opposite direction. In a hurried mass, the lightly armored sailors shuffled together, forming a tight but disorderly circle facing out toward the room. On Typhoon’s left, Trout was shivering, and the Commander didn’t need to turn to see the sailor’s eyes locked on the body of her brother.

Blood dripped from open wounds, slowly freezing on the remnants of Winterspell’s magic. The thick air stank of cedar smoke and copper. Green wood cracked in the fireplace, covering the ceiling with a thin veil of smoke. Outside, the wind of the eternal blizzard howled against the fortress. Amidst it all, they waited.

A rock clicked, echoing in one of the hallways. Their heads turned as one, and High Seas shuddered against Typhoon’s side. For just an instant, the mother in Typhoon wondered what such a young filly was doing in so much danger.

“I don’t want to hurt you. Leave.”

The words shocked the group, and, disorganized, they spun toward the doorway they had so shortly before passed through. Typhoon had expected the thestral to be standing there, blocking their escape, though it hadn’t been her voice. Instead, as before, the only pony to be seen was the body of Flounder, bleeding from the throat.

One of the sailors spoke up. “Was that―”

“The monster,” Winterspell clarified, cutting off what was sure to be a painful question. “Not the first time I’ve heard a creature play with corpses. Don’t heed it.”

“Shouldn’t you?” Pathfinder asked. Amongst all the gathered ponies, he alone seemed at ease in the darkness, leaning against the far wall with his hoof-crafted blade Ensis still resting comfortably in its sheath. “It isn’t often that a monster tells you it doesn’t want to hurt you.”

Typhoon glared at the alcoholic scout and bit down on her cheek to control her words. “Pathfinder, Anchor, you two are up front with me. Anchor, watch behind us. Winterspell and the rest of you will make a second group, a few strides back down the hall. I don’t want us all caught if she’s got traps or something down there, but under no circumstances are you to lose line-of-sight with the other team. Is that understood?

The sailors nodded, and even Pathfinder seemed to acknowledge the command. On surprisingly light hooves, he trotted over to her side, adding nothing to her thoughts. She looked to Anchor, and then nodded back to Winterspell. “Let’s move.”

The tunnels were long, cold, and above all else, dark. At points, they grew narrow enough that the group had to shift into a single file with Pathfinder calmly striding ahead. In others, she strode shoulder to shoulder with Anchor and the ancient scout, guiding the former with a wing as he kept his eyes behind them. Somewhere in the distance, the echoes of wind filled the tunnels, and the air was fresher and crisper than it had been in the more civilized parts of the fortress. The only source of warmth was the little fire Typhoon carried on her wingtip for light―no match for her brother’s infernos, but it served her purpose.

Her hooves slowed as the tunnel widened. “Hold.” The fire on her wingtip built, and with a flap, she hurled it forward into the darkness. Her mass of fire and magic flew at least a hundred strides before fizzling against the rough-cut wall on the opposite side of the cavern. Along the way, it revealed three new tunnels, once again carved out of the very walls.

“I don’t like this,” she whispered to Pathfinder. “I can’t light the whole room at once.”

The scout shrugged, glancing back to the other team. “The old sailor seems like a passable Empath. You said his name was Winterspell?” At the Cirran commander’s silent nod, Pathfinder’s rough, weary voice picked up, every syllable echoing in the tunnels. “Winterspell, can you help us light this room up? We need more fire.”

The Admiral shook his head, responding with his firm accent. “My family can’t make flame. Even when I do find my anger, it doesn’t come for me. My strengths are ice and wind.”

Pathfinder shrugged. “Alright then. Give me a few minutes, and I’ll have the tunnels here sorted out.” Before anypony could reasonably object, the spry old stallion had faded into the shadows. “Wait!” Typhoon called, altogether too late.

“She won’t hurt me, Typhoon,” Pathfinder called back.

For a moment, his hooves were audible, but they soon faded. It wasn’t of any real surprise to Typhoon; even back when there had been other Cirran scouts, he was always the best, so long as he wasn’t muzzle-deep in ale and half past being able to walk. With nothing to do but wait, Typhoon stretched her neck, and began a slow sweep back and forth over the little circle that her wing tip’s flame carved out of the shadows.

The chamber was quiet and cold. The fire on her wingtip danced in silence, and she briefly brought it nearer, letting it draw to mind her brother. Cyclone had offered to join her, but she had told him off. What business did a stallion with five foals, and a sixth on the way, have hunting monsters in a frozen cave? Still, in a sense, she found herself regretting his absence. Even after all that had happened―or perhaps because of it―she would have preferred to have him fighting by her side over a thousand sailors and mercenaries.

Something crunched. It wasn’t a visceral noise; rather, it brought to mind gravel. But all the same, it sent Typhoon’s mind racing once more toward battle readiness. It had come from behind her, back into the tunnel.

“Did you―” she whispered, only to be cut off by a confident, if worried, voice.

“Trout? Eel? Where did you go? I can barely see down here, and…” The light of a torch was the first warning that somepony was approaching, though the voice unsettled Typhoon. Only a spare few seconds later, the stallion in question appeared, smiling in the light of an improvised torch he had no doubt pulled from the fireplace upstairs. “There you are! Why did you all leave me behind?” He took a step forward, and stumbled. “Sorry. Kind of dizzy. I lost a lot of blood.”

“Flounder?” Eel’s voice was confused, staring at the brother she’d seen dead mere minutes earlier. “How are you alive?”

The earth pony took another awkward step forward. “She didn’t cut deep enough. Just… nicked a vein.” With a stilted motion, he gently set the torch on the floor and lifted it with the crook of his other hoof. The shaded side of his neck lit up in orange, revealing a rather sickening mark of burnt hair and flesh. “I had to stop the bleeding. Once I did that, I wanted to find you. And, well, here I am.” Flounder took two steps forward, stiff and unsteady even for the three legs he was walking on in order to hold his torch. On the third step toward the group, his foreleg gave way, and he collapsed against the ground. With the same loud thud and the gust from his fall, his torch went out.

“Flounder!” his younger sister called. Eel charged into the darkness, her horn igniting in teal for just a fraction of a second. There was never enough light to really see by; just enough to outline the blur of pale gray before everything returned to darkness.

Typhoon hurled a another burst of fire forward, and she let her empatha overtake her nerves. Though the world ticked on as always, in her eyes it had slowed to a crawl. A trick few other ponies could replicate, her magic gave her no advantage with her limbs, but it gave her mind the advantage of time to plan. Painfully, as if pushing through stone, her burst of flame tore away the shadows. First, she saw Eel, fallen onto her muzzle with a deep gash in her spine at the base of her neck. Next, she took in Trout, just as dead as he had been before. Though she lacked any evidence, it wasn’t hard to guess what had happened. After seeing her brother-in-law in action, she was no stranger to necromancy, but it still turned her stomach in knots to know the colt’s body had been desecrated that way. Her only comfort was that the thestral hadn’t strength or the time to rip away a soul the way Lūn did. A part of Typhoon wondered if her little team could survive a second thestral.

The fireball finally struck the tunnel wall, dissipating into smoke and heat. And amidst that thought, Typhoon realized the thestral was missing. Her mind still had the advantage of time, and with it, she realized what had happened. She was the first in line, and when everypony turned to look at Eel, that left her back to a massive cavern. She didn’t hesitate.

The spin came with a terrifying speed that shook Typhoon’s aching joints and blurred the darkness that filled most of her vision. Her right wing’s blades rung out when they clashed with a thick, stony surface.

“Jumpy much?” Pathfinder asked, brushing Typhoon’s bladed wing away from his neck with a hoof. Once he was no longer in danger, the scout released his grip on his own empatha, letting the stone of his neck revert to fur and flesh. “I heard talking, and a shout. What happened?”

“She got another one,” Typhoon whispered back. “She animated Flounder’s body, and brought him down here as a lure.”

“Necromancy?” Pathfinder raised a brow. “Isn’t that unicorn magic?”

Typhoon nodded, frowning. “Whatever she used to be, Pathfinder, she’s a thestral now. She has Lūn’s magic, and her hatred.”

Pathfinder shook his head, as if the motion would somehow dismiss his memories. “I found another path that’s hoof-worked, and recent. The room’s clear, so that seems like our best bet.”

“Agreed.” Typhoon turned to Winterspell, using a hoof to gesture silently into the chamber. The Admiral merely nodded before whispering inaudibly to his team. After a quick glance to Anchor, Typhoon was ready.

The first dozen strides across the room were easy, marked only by the echoes of gentle steps and the beating of Typhoon’s own heart within her breast. The air was stale despite its chill, resting there beneath the earth, and it only served to remind the Cirran how much she hated being away from the sky. A slight twitch of the wing carrying her fire was all she allowed herself, though it hardly seemed enough to dispel her worries.

She must have been halfway across the chamber when she heard it: a growl, too deep to come from any living pony, or even a thestral. When it echoed against the walls, Typhoon’s head snapped back toward Winterspell and the surviving sailors. In that split second, the admiral had already taken command. “Run!” was his only order.

Their hooves clopped a cacophonous echo into the cavern, but beneath it all, a deep bass like the pounding of drums followed, growing louder and closer with every passing moment. Ahead, Typhoon could see the wall, and the tunnel Pathfinder had alluded to. With a thrust of her wings, the aging solder landed beside the exit, her fire making the path clear for the other ponies.

Pathfinder and Anchor slipped through the door with ease. The other sailors sprinted as hard as they could, ears pinned back as they put all their strength into the run. Though fit, Admiral Winterspell was clearly falling behind. Typhoon couldn’t see what was chasing him, but her ears told her it was close. Her free wing lashed out, launching a trio of icicles just over the ponies’ backs.

In the darkness, something howled in pain. Winterspell slid into the doorway as it recoiled, and Typhoon followed as quickly as she could. In the darkness, all she could make out were a pair of vicious yellow eyes, too high off the ground to belong to a pony, and a clawed paw nearly the size of her torso, covered in rough patchy fur and scars. Before she could take a closer look, Pathfinder slammed a hoof and a wing down on the wall of the tunnel, sending a ripple that reshaped the natural stone into a makeshift door.

“What… what was that?” one of the sailors asked between pants.

“I don’t know,” Pathfinder replied, rolling his wings in a display of stiffness, and letting the loose gravel left over from his empatha drop out from between his feathers.. “Some sort of monster, from the sounds of it. Not terribly intelligent, whatever it is.”

“What makes you say that?” Winterspell asked.

Pathfinder’s hoof moved as if to rap against the stone wall his empatha had created, though he never actually touched it. “This stone’s only half an inch thick, at most. If you put your shoulder into it, you could run straight through this, no magic needed. If something that big wanted through this stone, it wouldn’t have a problem. All it would have to do was try.”

“Well, great.” High Seas rolled her eyes, collapsing onto her flanks. “So now we’re trapped down in these tunnels with a monster behind us, and some pony-thing hunting us down, and we can’t even get out the way we came in. Two of us are already dead―”

“Silence, sailor.” Winterspell’s voice wasn’t loud, or harsh, but its aged and focused tone left little room for rebuttal. “Look around you, Miss Seas. Think about the ponies you stand with. Do you know who Commander Typhoon is?”

“Well, of course, but―”

“Do you hear her complaining? Is she quivering in terror?” The Admiral flung out another wing. “What about Pathfinder? What about me? We’ve all survived situations like this before.” Briefly, Winterspell turned his attention to Anchor and Trout. “We all fought together in the Shadow War, friends. We’ve looked the Sisters in the eyes. We know exactly what awaits us the day we finally leave this world. So let me ask you: would you rather go to the Summer Lands today, panicked and wild, never seeing your families again? Or will you keep your wits about you, hold your tongues, and stand beside us to finish what we came here for?”

Rather than waste his time waiting for an answer, Winterspell gestured to Typhoon, and the team once more began to move down the tunnels. They seemed tighter now, though Typhoon and Pathfinder still led the way shoulder to shoulder. The chill of the air was gone, and she could smell the smoke from her fire over the stillness and stagnation. Every step seemed to lead downward, further and further, and it wasn’t long until Typhoon felt that the surface had been lost completely. Was she two dozen feet beneath the earth, or two hundred? She found herself idly bringing up a fire on her other wing, just for an excuse to swap their positions, and move them around in some semblance of freedom.

A growl came from ahead. Everypony froze, waiting for the next sound of a roar or stomping paws, but nothing came.

Typhoon walked forward, keeping her eyes on the shadows. She wasn’t sure how long it had been when she realized that the tunnel was slowly curving upward. A moment’s hesitation interrupted her pace. Though it passed in little more than a blink, it was enough to turn Pathfinder’s head, and the old scout offered her a raised eyebrow.

“Uphill,” she whispered, by way of explanation.

Pathfinder shrugged. “Probably following the path of least resistance when they dug it out. See here?” He tapped a hoof on the floor, and Typhoon was startled to realize they were standing not on hard, solid onyx, but a layer of dirt. “Keep your eyes ahead. I’ll worry about the walls.”

The next sound to reach Typhoon’s ear was a slow, constant roar; unmistakably that of water. It echoed from further into the cave, audibly resounding with each passing minute. She looked to Pathfinder, who rolled his eyes and shrugged. A voice from behind the mare surprised her with a whisper.

“There’s an underground river ahead,” Winterspell explained, extending a wing. “Three hundred strides, downhill a fair way. It has a waterfall, with a fairly large drop.”

Pathfinder turned back. “How could you possibly know that?”

“My magic.” The Admiral extended a wing. “Sensing water and ice is useful when you need to navigate a ship through a blizzard and the fog is too thick to see through. Though these days, I hear they’re abandoning Novigrad because it’s too hard to get in and out.” A graying blue hoof ran through a mane like the sea, and the stallion refocused his eyes. “We don’t have time to stand here.”

Typhoon didn’t feel the need to reply with words. After another hundred steps, the rise of the path began to turn downward again, steeply. Typhoon sucked in a single breath to quell her discomfort, and took the first new step deeper into the ground.

It shifted beneath her feet, and something heavy slammed into her side. She tumbled from the unexpected blow, falling onto her shoulder and rolling down the sharp, dirty tunnel. She bashed her neck against the wall and dinged her hind hooves more times than she cared to count. In the darkness, all she could go by were the sounds of vague shouting, completely unintelligible when the echoes began to conflict with each other.

Finally, she managed to catch a hoof in the dirt hard enough to slow her tumbling. Her wings extended flat, turning her roll into a slowing drag, and after another two dozen feet, she stopped. Her back ached, her coat was covered in dirt, and above all she felt tired. The shouting had stopped, and the only sound for a moment was a dull, wet squishing, as if something lightweight were approaching. After a moment, something tapped against Typhoon’s leg, and the sound stopped. Fighting back her fatigue, Typhoon’s wing sparked twice before she called up a rather pitiful flame.

The severed head of Anchor stared up at her, eyes frozen wide open, staring open in fear. Typhoon stared at it for a moment with a mixture of sympathy and fear, before turning her head to look up the steep slope of the tunnel. “What happened?”

“Some… thing came up out of the ground,” Winterspell shouted back. “It killed Anchor, and then went back down.”

“I noticed,” Typhoon replied. “Get down here, and we’ll get off this stone. Watch your step.”

Getting everypony down the slope was simply a matter of time, and though Typhoon’s ears jumped at every small noise, whatever creature had attacked the company did not return. Soon, the only noise to be heard was the roar of the water ahead. Though she guided them with her weak flame, Typhoon spared a glance toward the others in her company. Pathfinder’s expression seemed thoughtful; though his eyes were sharp, the slouching of his ears and the droop in his wings made it clear his mind was conflicted. Winterspell, in contrast, could only be called determined. He had gone so far as to wrap a row of icicles along the crest of his wing, keeping himself ready for battles in a tunnel too small for him to wield his greatsword.

High Seas seemed terrified. Typhoon could see the little shudders in her shoulders, though the unicorn hid it well. She couldn’t fault the young mare for her response; the Cirran commander knew all too well how dangerous fear could be. Flounder, the last of three siblings, lacked even that. The darkness left his eyes hollow and glassy, his expression slack, and his wings lazily folded. Though it hurt to admit it, the stallion was broken; he’d be of little use in the coming battle.

The tunnel led only a few steps further, Typhoon discovered, before it opened into a wide, natural cavern divided down its center by a waterfall and a rushing river. Gemstones glittered in the walls and out of the sides of stalactites, casting Typhoon’s little flame into a thousand different shades that reflected across the room. Ahead, a sheer cliff separated a high plateau from the room below. The cave was large enough to fly in, if one were careful to avoid the sharp edges of the stones and gems.

“Summer!” Pathfinder’s shout stole all attention.

Typhoon’s gaze shot to the aging scout, and then followed his gaze up to the clifftop. There, beside the waterfall, the thestral stood; her crimson eyes watched Pathfinder, and her relatively short red mane stirred gently from the breeze off the water. She still wore her legion armor, stained in blood alongside the cruel hook of her plain stratus sword. “What are you doing here, Pathfinder?”

Winterspell moved to step forward, but Typhoon caught him with an outstretched leg. “Let Pathfinder say his peace,” she whispered. “Keep your eyes open.” With a nod, the admiral led his sailors a few strides away, keeping his eyes focused.

Pathfinder spoke up again, stealing Typhoon’s attention once more. “Trying to stop this.” He tilted his head Typhoon’s way. “I don’t want to watch the two of you cut each other apart. I’m begging you, Summer. Let the past be past. Come back with us to Everfree. We’ll talk to the Sisters, and―”

“I’m sorry, Finder, but I can’t.” Summer’s head twitched suddenly to the side, looking Typhoon in the eye as she bared her pearly fangs in the living mare’s direction. “There’s only one way this can end.” The thestral’s voice sounded distraught, and it carried a softer tone that matched the apparent age of her body. Typhoon wasn’t about to be fooled. “I don’t want to have to hurt any of you. Please, old friend, go home. Go back to Rain.”

Pathfinder frowned, and his eyes drifted away to the shadows. “She’s gone, Summer. It… it was eight years ago.”

Silence filled the caves as Summer seemed stunned by the news. “Gods... Finder, I—how?”

Typhoon held her tongue, not for the thestral’s sake, but for the old soldier who stood at her side.

The old stallion’s lips pulled into a thin line and his ears fell flat against his grayed mane. He steeled himself with a trembling breath, a hoof absently reaching for the flask tucked under his wing. “A fever took her.” He paused for a sniffle, seeming to forget the ponies around him. “I...I begged her to stay with me. To stay strong…” A sorrowful smile grew on Finder’s lips and tears spilt from his golden eyes. “She looked up at me and smiled. She told me everything would be all right. That she was going to see Sky again…”

Clenching his eyes shut, Finder pulled his flask to his lips and swallowed a mouthful of heady Old Cirran ale. Emptying the flask, Finder wiped his foreleg across his lips and let out a heavy breath. “I held her in my wings until she passed.”

A long silence settled between the remaining pegasi before Summer spoke again. “Finder, I’m so sorry.”

“They’re all gone now, Summer,” Finder continued, his head down. “Carver, Cloudburst, Haze… You and me, we’re all that’s left.”

“Finder, I’m sorry. I’m so, so sorry, but that isn’t true.”

Pathfinder looked up, the glimmer of hope in his wet eyes. “Summer?”

“You’re the only one left.” Summer leaned forward over the cliff. “You can’t stop this, Pathfinder.”

“Then I’ll die trying. I won’t stand and let you meet the same fate as the rest of the Night Guard. And I owe it to Hurricane’s memory to make sure you don’t kill his daughter either. If I die here, at least I’ll have died for something, instead of sitting in Legate’s Lookout until I go to see Rain again.” Pathfinder dropped his flask. The thin metal bounced twice off the solid stone floor of the cavern, ringing like a bell.

Summer spread her leathery wings, and her muzzle wrinkled up. “Forgive me...”

She dove, and on aching wings, Typhoon rose to meet her. The thestral’s hooked blade, Fortune, rang out when it clashed with Hiems, and from the sheer pain in her neck, Typhoon realized just how outmatched she was. Summer’s unnatural strength threw the aging mare down to the ground, where the collision with the cold stone forced the air from her lungs. She blinked to see Summer diving, her wingblades and her sword all ready for the killing blow, so soon after they had begun.

No more than three yards of open air away, a gray blur slammed into Summer’s side. Sparks flew when a sword and two sets of wingblades scraped along the floor. As she used her wings to roll herself back onto her hooves, Typhoon saw Summer slashing away at Pathfinder. Though his empatha had turned most of his body to moving stone, the thestral’s blows were still taking chunks out of his resilient form. Pathfinder gritted his teeth through the pain, keeping Summer pinned.

Winterspell and Typhoon charged at Summer, swords raised. Before they’d covered more than a few steps, however, Summer’s wings were wreathed in a red glow, mirrored by a ball of the same energy centered on her brow, just above her eyes. The pegasi’s blades crashed down on empty air as Summer disappeared from beneath Pathfinder.

“Wha’ was that?” Winterspell asked around his sword.

Typhoon rounded, casting her gaze to the top of the cliff, where Summer was calmly standing once more. “Unicorn magic. I doubt she’ll have much; Lūn hasn’t been feeding her.”

Summer frowned, and pursed her lips. A shrill whistle filled the chamber, ringing off the stone spears rising from the ground and dangling from the ceiling. The stone shuddered beneath their hooves.

“Is that unicorn magic?” High Seas asked, lighting her own horn.

As the shaking grew stronger, Typhoon let her magic flow through her nerves. Around her, the shaking slowed with the world. Her eyes took in Winterspell, High Seas, and Trout looking around with panicked expressions, but her mind was still. Briefly, her attention flicked to the ceiling. The stalactites were still, despite the quivering of the ground below. Summer’s wings weren’t glowing, and Typhoon knew her empatha favored fire too heavily to have mastered what only the greatest of earth empaths could manage.

The ground cracked under High Seas, and Typhoon saw the first claw break up from beneath the earth. For the aging soldier, it happened in slow motion: the massive furred paw reached up to the filly’s exposed belly. Rough nails pierced her skin, pushing aside her ribs where they were too wide to fit. Sea’s eyes went wide as the air left her open mouth, squeezed out by the grip of a beast that could fit her entire torso in its palm. When she saw its head, she recognized it by name: a warg, fully grown and hungry.

“Winterspell, Trout, kill that thing. Pathfinder, on me!” Typhoon flapped twice, flying up the cliffside and landing near the edge of the waterfall.

Summer was there as Typhoon’s hooves met the lip of the stone precipice. Fangs lunged for the living mare’s throat, and wingblades scratched at her armored legs. Rather than trying to dodge, Typhoon leaned into the attack, filling her wing with her empatha as she struck back. Summer’s mouth was wreathed in ice, holding it open and obscuring her vision. Typhoon lashed out with Hiems, putting a shallow line of frozen blood on Summer’s right brow, before the thestral flung herself backward.

Typhoon charged forward to keep up the pressure, but was forced to stop when a massive wall of flames from Summer’s wing blocked her path. “Just like Cyclone…” Typhoon concluded the thought with a deep breath, and then extended both her wings. As a wave of mist joined with the fire into smoke and steam, Typhoon flicked her second wing. The cloud heeded her, wrapping forward in search of Summer. After a few seconds of focus, Typhoon panted from the cost to her mana, and waved her wings aside. The cloud parted, vanishing into little more than dew on the stalactites, but Summer was gone.

A groan from Pathfinder caught Typhoon’s attention, and she turned in time to see the aging scout recoiling from another mass of Summer’s flames. His stone body cracked, taking on a faint red glow. For just a moment, Typhoon considered hurling more ice to counter the attack, before realizing she would likely kill the old stallion with such a change in temperature. With no better option, she broke into a run, charging straight for the wall of fire. As the heat began to singe her coat, Typhoon focused her magic yet again, and she leapt for the thestral at the source of the flames. Ice formed around her body, a magical armor to fend off the flames as she closed the distance to her target.

Summer’s unnatural speed beat Typhoon to the first blow, but her attack lacked the strength to pierce an inch of ice, and then a layer of the finest skysteel armor money could buy. Typhoon flung her wings back for force, and Hiems left a thick line of ice across the neck of Summer’s armor. The thestral finally thrust an unshod hoof into Typhoon’s chest, breaking at least one rib and tossing the soldier backward with undue force.

This time, Typhoon was ready for the pounce. She clapped her wings together as she slid along her back, forming a dome of ice, covered in razor-sharp icicles. Through it, she could see Summer lunging, and the thestral had to flare her wings to lose her momentum.

“You’re trapped, Typhoon.” Summer’s leathery wings were once more wreathed in orange flame, and she strode toward the living pegasus. Her pacing stopped suddenly when the stone around her hooves rose up to hold them. The thestral’s expression was one of irritation, and she cast her gaze sideways to face Pathfinder. “You can’t leave well enough alone, can you, Finder?”

“I’m not letting you two kill each other,” the stallion replied firmly.

Summer closed her eyes, and from beneath their lids, purple flames began to flow around her brow. “Fine, Pathfinder. If you won’t go back to your family, I’ll send you back to Nimbus.” When she opened her eyes again to glare at Pathfinder, the red irises were surrounded by a fell green glow, brighter even than the flames from her wings.

Typhoon watched as Pathfinder shuddered, and then screamed in agony. “Longbow!” he shouted, before breaking into a sprint away from Summer, stumbling on the rocks as his eyes jumped from shadow to shadow.

The sickly glow faded from Summer’s eyes, and the flames on the thestral’s wings flickered. Her tufted ears drooped, and she spread her forelegs to better balance her own weight. “Now we can finish this.”

With another flick of her wing, Typhoon shattered the icy shell surrounding her. “What did you do to him?”

“I showed him a memory he’d repressed,” Summer answered as she pinned her ears flat to her head in shame. “He’ll fly back to Everfree and drown it in Old Cirran, the way he does all his others. In the end, he’ll survive.”

Typhoon’s wings straightened, sending a series of clicks down the scales of her wingblades. “Is that what you told yourself when you cut out my son’s eyes? That he’d survive?” Fires ignited along the trailing edges of Typhoon’s wings.

“I never wanted to hurt him, Typhoon.” Summer took a step forward, and then extended her right wing. Another wave of flame flew toward Typhoon, but faded into smoke before it reached the living mare.

Typhoon’s glare stayed strong, but her voice revealed a sarcastic amusement. “Getting tired, Summer? Haven’t eaten enough pegasi?” The furious mother slung forward a wing of her own, sending icicles shooting toward Summer. The thestral leapt backward into the air to dodge, only to fall back to her hooves a moment later. “I can’t imagine you have much arcana left either, with all that teleportation you’ve been doing.”

“How do you know that?” Summer asked. “Did Lady Luna tell you―”

“The necromancer,” Typhoon answered, flatly. “He and Tempest are good friends. He told me all about you ‘thestrals’. How you don’t regain mana on your own. How you can’t disobey an order from your creator. That you still have blood in your veins, even though your bodies are cold.” With that last thought, Typhoon waved her wing, and a wall of icy mist swept over the thestral. Typhoon calmly entered the haze, casually speaking around the handle of Hiems between her teeth. “Father and I were right about you creatures.”

Summer stumbled backward, her legs and wings stiffening as ice filled her body. “Don’t pretend that any of this was my fault. I never wanted to fight in your war with Lady Luna. I hope she gets your soul when you die, so you can understand what you’ve done.”

Typhoon paced forward, tightening her grip on her blade. Summer’s defiant glare persisted as the weapon whistled through the air toward her. Hiems Osculum cut into the thestral’s throat, and to Typhoon’s surprise, the walking corpse disappeared before her in a burst of red magic―a magic that had been lacking from the other thestrals she’d returned to their eternal rest.

Below, the roaring of the warg had stopped. Typhoon rushed to the cliff’s edge and looked down on Winterspell standing over the frozen corpse, halfway submerged in a block of ice at the center of the river. Trout was likewise well, resting a stride away from the river’s edge against the spire of a stalagmite.

Typhoon’s magic returned to her veins again, slowing the world, as the surface of the river broke. “Winterspell! Look out!” The admiral was ready in a heartbeat, but his claymore swung through empty air. Summer lunged out of the water toward Trout, and in the same motion tackled the young mare, and surrounded her throat in fangs. The stalagmites blocked Typhoon’s view, but the crunch that echoed through the cave left little to the imagination.

Winterspell nodded when Typhoon leapt down toward him, gliding smoothly to his side. “I don’t have much left in me, but I’ll stand by you.”

“No, you won’t.” Typhoon turned to the admiral, and released a small pant. “I’m still strong enough to best her in a battle of magic, but I can’t risk her getting yours.”

Winterspell frowned. “This is a bad idea, Typhoon. You said yourself, a thestral is stronger than any single pony, and―”

“It’s not about strength,” Typhoon interrupted. “She’s tired, and even with what she’s taken, she can’t best my magic.”

“Should I go to Cyclone?”

A shake of Typhoon’s head spilled a few graying hairs from her tritone mane. “One way or another, this… vendetta ends here.”

Winterspell nodded slowly. “As you wish.” And then, as he walked toward the tunnel leading out of the caves, he called back a few spare words. “Good luck, Typhoon.”

The corner’s of Typhoon’s mouth rose, despite the grimness of the ancient saying. “Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem.” She watched as the old sailor plodded his way out of sight, and then turned toward the solitary stalagmite that concealed her foe. “What are you waiting for, Summer?”

“I didn’t want to kill him,” Summer answered, striding slowly out from behind the stone. Her wings extended, and she focused on Typhoon once more. Though her furrowed brow and her muzzle full of fangs painted the picture of hatred, Typhoon thought for just a moment that she saw sadness hidden in the thestral’s eyes.

They had no more need for words. Summer charged. Typhoon slammed her wings flat against the ground, creating an icy wall to intercept the attack. The thestral dodged deftly to the side, giving Typhoon more than enough room to parry her slicing wingblades with the flat of Hiems.

Summer continued past, and then flipped herself around in midair as Typhoon turned. The living soldier had only enough time to throw up her wings for another shield of ice before a massive column of fire engulfed her. The heat left Typhoon sweating, and she gritted her teeth in focus. It was obvious Summer was trying to win their battle by overpowering Typhoon with a single burst of brute force.

Typhoon lifted her forehooves from the stone, and let ice form beneath them. Then, with a single thrust of her hind legs, she sent herself sliding toward the surface of the half-frozen river. The fire followed her, at least until she slipped below the surface of the water. For a normal pony, it would have been suicide, but her empatha kept it survivable, though uncomfortably chilly. From beneath the water’s surface, she watched and waited as the flames died away.

When the last tongue of orange disappeared, Typhoon leapt out of the river with her wings, letting her empatha turn her splash into a burst of icicles that flew around the room. At least a dozen scratched Summer, drawing little dribbles of blood from the thestral’s gray coat, though none scored a solid hit.

Summer’s wings lit with a red glow, but the would-be arcana faltered, leaving the thestral vulnerable as Typhoon unleashed another cloud of freezing mist. With no way to dodge, Summer was forced to light her body on fire, forcing out the flames simply to hold back the chill. As she did so, Typhoon watched the red glow of her magic build on her wings and brow, only to stutter and start.

“Typhoon…” Summer growled through gritted teeth. Typhoon made no move to acknowledge her name, focusing her efforts on finally ending the thestral. “Please… tell Tempest I’m sorry.”

Typhoon’s eyes widened. “Sorry? You think sorry is going to heal his eyes? Are you sorry to Blaze? Or Oath?” The living pegasus focused on her magic as Summer’s wavered, keeping her mind on the ice and away from the temptation of rage and flame. “Do you know what it feels like to be a mother, and to watch your foal―”

Summer winced. “I was barren, Typhoon. I never had a family. Just Pathfinder, Carver, and a few other survivors from Nimbus. Not much for a family.”

The thestral’s arcana stuttered again, and a stony click came from Typhoon’s side. She turned, just in time to see Last Gasp thrust a dagger into her ribs, beneath the edge of her armor. Her eyes widened, and a breath wheezed over her lips. Suddenly, even without using her magic, the world around her lost its motion. Her focused magic drifted away from Summer, and toward the cowardly bandit, trying to run away from the mare he had stabbed.

“Quick, Miss Summer, get away from―” The stallion’s words ended when Typhoon’s ice caught him, encasing him in a solid block, his mouth forever frozen mid-warning.

When Typhoon returned her attention to Summer, the thestral had fled to the far side of the enormous chamber. “Get back here!” Typhoon yelled, as her wing ripped out the bandit’s dagger and froze over the bleeding hole it had left behind. Even with her ice slowing the beating of her heart, she could feel the blood leaking away inside her.

“I’m not an imbecile, Typhoon,” Summer shouted back. “You’ll die from that wound, and I still don’t have the magic to stand hoof-to-hoof with you. It’s over, for you.” The fleeing mare paused, and held a hoof to her brow. “I wish you could have won, so I could have my rest.” With those words, the thestral disappeared into the shadows.

Typhoon looked down at her side, and the blood she had frozen into her coat. For just a moment, her eyes stared at the dark path Summer had taken, further into the earth. “I’m sorry, Tempest.” Then, with a heavy heart, she limped back for the path she had followed coming in, toward the surface. “I’m not coming home this time…”

XXII - The Warchief

XXII

The Warchief

The Commander removed his hoof from the boar’s throat, and casually flicked away few drops of blood. Rainbow couldn’t bring herself to feel surprise at his apathy. Where she might have retched or recoiled, she simply sat and drew in a breath, waiting for the stallion to enter the storeroom. Once his dark coat had crossed the threshold, Enka demonstrated her strength in slamming the solid steel door shut. Rainbow paid the boar a brief moment of attention before turning toward the deep, raspy panting of her father. “You okay, Dad?”

“Good… enough…” the Commander lied. In the darkness, Rainbow could hear his leg move, and she saw a small spark appear on his hoof. No more than a moment later, a dry torch on the wall likewise ignited. The light was enough to reveal shelves in the room, but Rainbow’s rapt attention stayed with her father. The rough patches of his coat slid over his ribs on loose skin, and he struggled to stand upright. He sat there for a few minutes, forcing breath back into his lungs, and Rainbow caught herself staring at his back. There, her limp wings had been stitched onto his shoulders, held in place not by careful needlework, but sheer brute force and a bit of magic, fusing a truly revolting and terrifying jagged line where her sky blue feathers met his faded navy coat.

Rainbow jumped slightly when Enka brushed past her from behind, holding a pair of waterskins against her side with a leg. The sow offered Rainbow a gentle smile to go with the water; her glance toward the Commander was far more sour. “Drink, soldier.”

The liquid in the bag was sour, but its surprising chill more than made up for the poor taste. After the first sip, the flavor took a turn for the bitter, and lost its sourness. Though she’d never been one for the prissy drink, Rainbow could still recognize the taste of tea, strangely combined with the faintest tinge of alcohol. Three healthy swallows later, she let out a pleasant gasp. “What is this stuff?”

Enka cocked her head, her heavy brow twisting upward at the edges in a display of confusion. “I thought it was water…”

“Kombucha,” the Commander grumbled. When he saw Rainbow’s look of puzzlement, he continued. “Fermented tea. You can buy it in Canterlot.”

“What’s it like?” Enka asked.

Rainbow shrugged. “Kinda bitter, but―”

“No, I mean Canterlot.” In the flickering firelight, Enka’s ears perked. “The camels say it is a holy city on a mountain.”

“It’s…” the Commander hesitated.

“…cool,” Rainbow finished. “Kinda pretty, I guess, if you’re into that sort of thing.” Her ears folded back. “Not the friendliest ponies in the world, but still.”

“It’s peaceful,” the Commander added. “Most days are quiet, and slow.” Despite the wistfulness in his tone, he was expressionless to the point that Rainbow began imagining his face as nothing more than a mask. “You’ll be there soon.”

Enka’s heavy boarish brow climbed up her sloped forehead. “What do you mean?”

“Khagan won’t spare you now that you’ve helped us,” the Commander explained. “Blood kin or not. You’ll be leaving with Rainbow.”

“And you’re not?” Rainbow stood up, glaring at her father. “What is it with the Honor Guard and trying to sacrifice yourselves? I didn’t come all this way to leave you behind!”

The Commander closed his eyes. “Why do you care, Rainbow? You hate me. You’ve made that more than clear. You hate what I stand for. So―”

“It’s not about me!” Rainbow slammed her hoof on the stone floor, and barely noticed the small thunderclap she released, shattering the stone. “It’s about Soldier On, and Deadeye! Believe it or not, there are ponies out there who care about you. And some of those ponies are my friends. That’s why you’re coming with us, Dad.”

“You misunderstand me, Rainbow.” The stallion’s irregular brown eyes opened again, and slowly swept the room. “You and Enka are able bodied. Even without your wings, you can run.” He cocked his head backward. “You see my body. I have a broken leg, and another scarred beyond use. My coat is falling out. I barely had enough energy in me to deal with the guards in the hall.”

“There’s food here,” Enka offered.

The Commander snorted. “Six months of atrophy and torture don’t disappear with a single meal. Short of Celestia’s magic, it would take me a year to get back to my former self, at best. Some of these wounds will never heal without magic.” Again his head flicked back, glancing at the burn where his right cutie mark should have been. “Some won’t heal even with magic. I can’t outrun the boars. When I escaped earlier, it was a trick. Discord’s magic. Now that’s all but spent, and even if it weren’t, the guards know we’ve broken out. I have no doubt Khagan is waiting for us outside.”

“There’s got to be some way,” Rainbow protested. “I’m not leaving you here.”

Her father bowed his head, and closed his eyes. “Are you willing to pay the price?”

The young mare’s ears folded back against her skull, and her tail slapped the stone floor. “What’s that supposed to mean? I just told you, we’re all getting out of here together.”

“It’s something guardsponies have been saying for… a very long time,” the Commander explained. “The price of loyalty. When somepony dies in battle, you’ll hear ponies say he ‘paid the price’. These days, that’s what most ponies assume it means. Dying for something or somepony you believe in.”

“You say that as if it is not,” Enka noted.

The Commander nodded once. “Dying is easy. Living is hard.” His eyes left the sow, and focused on Rainbow. “Bring my sword over here.” His hoof lifted from the floor to point at a shelf on the far end of the room.

The Gladius Procellarum looked oddly simple, tucked in its scabbard and shoved haphazardly between a leaking clay jar and a crate of what looked like pears. Still, Rainbow approached the weapon with caution, and wrapped her teeth around the sheath with trepidation. Its surprising weight pulled her head to the floor of the room as soon as she slid it off the shelf, and she released it briefly to shake off the sting on her muzzle.

The Commander took a step toward her, though his leg shook from the motion. “Are you alright?”

“Mhmm,” Rainbow answered around the weapon. “Jss…hewwy…” Rainbow dragged the weapon across the floor, and then dropped it in front of her father’s hooves. “Geeze, what is it made of? Ground steel?”

“It’s skysteel,” her father answered as he dipped his head toward the handle. The blade that came out was wide, with a gentle curve on its leading edge, and a straight back marked by a slender open slot. “Not made in a factory, but torn out of a cloud.”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “I’ve heard all that before from Twilight, Dad. Commander Hurricane ripped off the eyewall of a hurricane and made a sword. But why does it weigh so much?”

At first, the Commander did not reply. His eyes closed, and his nostrils flared as the only indication of a slow and potent breath. Then, calmly, he tilted the sword between his teeth so that it pointed at the floor, and thrust is straight into the stone. With a violent crack and a red glow, the stone gave way. As Procellarum sank further and further into the ground, Rainbow took a step back from the awful stench and the uncomfortable heat of the molten stone. When the slot in the sword’s blade touched the rock, however, a wave of frost suddenly swept across the floor. Only then did the Commander release the weapon from his teeth.

“Skysteel holds empatha. The denser the skysteel, the more capacity it has.” With a hoof, he gestured at the weapon halfway buried in the ground. “It has enough of my magic in it to do that a thousand times over, though getting that magic back out isn’t easy. I can’t beat Khagan, but I can hold his attention.”

Rainbow shook her head. “I already told you, I’m not leaving you behind.”

“That isn’t what I meant.” The Commander looked down at the blade, and then up at Rainbow. “With what we have here, we can’t outrun Khagan. We can’t sneak past him, with the noise we made getting out of the cell. If you want me to make it out of this place alive, Rainbow Dash, you have to kill Khagan.”

It was as if Rainbow had been slapped across the face; she stood and stared unflinching at her father, her jaw not truly slack, but altogether still, as a million protests collided in the forefront of her mind. The winner did not come in her voice, and it made her sick.

If you stay on this train and come with us to Suida, you will kill. Not by accident, but with deliberation and intent. There will be blood on your hooves, and it might never wash off. That's the cost we pay for the safe, pretty Equestria you've grown up in. Right now, that's what it costs to save your father's life.

“Is that all you can think of? Violence?” Enka thrust a hoof in the direction of Procellarum. “You’re no different than Khagan if you think that will save you. Rainbow, if he wants to throw his life away, let him. We can get away together.”

“No.” Rainbow stomped once to add force to the otherwise quiet word. “There has to be another way.”

If you stay with us, you will have to make a choice. It might be between your father's life and somepony else's. It might be between my life and some guard's. I don't know the future, but I can tell you that the choice will come.

Enka pointed at Procellarum. “If that cuts through stone, can we use it to cut our way out?”

You were trying to be a good guardspony. You were trying to save lives. My life. Your princess' life. Sometimes, that means making choices. Not many ponies could make that choice. It might not always be nice; that’s what makes it hard.

The Commander shook his head. “It would take months, and we might only have minutes.”

You didn't know the Commander, so I don't expect you to understand why we need to do this. But I know you understand loyalty, so you know that this is something we have to do.

Rainbow shuddered, trying to push the memories of Deadeye and Soldier On from her mind. “Um… Enka, can you do magic?”

The sow shrugged. “Only male boars have tusks. It’s why our culture is so imbalanced.”

Rainbow says you can't leave your friends hanging, even if it means getting your hooves dirty.

Rainbow flinched when she heard Scootaloo’s voice in her mind. “Is there another way out of this place, then? Some way we could sneak out— ”

The Commander interrupted her, not with words, but by drawing Procellarum from the stone of the floor. “You’ve answered my question, Rainbow. You won’t have long. Run to Soldier On and Dead Reckoning. When you get to Celestia, have her ready the Royal Guard.”

“No!”

Following Rainbow’s shout of defiance, the room was utterly silent. Rainbow’s legs shivered, and she struggled to lift her head. “No, Dad, I’m not leaving you behind. Not after everything Deadeye and Soldier On and I did to get you.”

The Commander’s face was stone, and for a thousand heartbeats, the living statue stared into her eyes. When he finally spoke, it came with a slow shift of his head from side to side. “But you won’t kill for it.”

“You aren’t giving me a choice, are you? If I leave you behind, is that any different than if I… crap, I don’t know, if I stabbed you or something?”

Enka gasped. “You aren’t considering…”

“She’s not,” the Commander finished, when the sow’s words had drained away. “She doesn’t have the determination to follow through. She’s afraid.”

“So what if I am?” Rainbow stood up, leaning forward, and for the first time, she saw her father shrink back. “I’m not afraid of Khagan! I’m not afraid of getting hurt! The only thing I’m afraid of is that I’m going to wind up like you!”

Though it could have been a shadow, Rainbow knew she saw her father wince. However he truly felt, the glimpse passed like the flash of lightning. In its place, he granted the awful clang of metal, as Procellarum was dropped casually from between his teeth. The weapon bounced twice on its blade and the gilded spurs that made up its guard before coming to rest near Rainbow’s hooves. “Do you understand what this means, Rainbow?” He gestured to the sword.

Rainbow gritted her teeth, and turned her eyes toward the sword. “Dad, I’ve… when I was in Zebrica—”

“Look me in the eye.” He didn’t shout; from the way his breath slipped out with his words, Rainbow doubted he had the strength. In some way, his hoarse wheeze was worse. “You cannot hesitate, Rainbow. If we walk out of this room, and you stop for even a second in what you need to do, Khagan will kill you. I can’t let that happen, not just for your sake, but Equestria’s too. So look me in the eye and tell me what you’re going to do.”

“I… I’m—”

“No.” Again, the Commander’s deep voice escaped his lips, windy and loose. “You’re still hesitating. You’ll leave with Enka.” He stepped forward, and on shuddering legs, lowered his mouth toward the grip of his sword.

Rainbow rose up on her rear legs and shoved her father back. With a gasp of sheer agony, the stallion crumpled on his wounded flank, wrapped in the limp weight of Rainbow’s stitched-on feathers.

When his blotched eyes regained focus, Rainbow stood over him with her ears pinned against her mane, and her tail flicking from side to side like a whip. “I’m tired of other ponies trying to make choices for me! Soldier On, and Princess Celestia, and Spitfire, and now you too!” Her words slowed for a moment as her nostrils flared to suck in a powerful breath. “And, you know what? You’re probably right. We can’t fly, we’ve got next to no magic, and we don’t have time to think of something else, so it seems like the only way left is fighting our way out. I’ll admit it, Dad. You’re right. Fine. But if I’m the one who has to make the choice between you and Khagan, I’m picking you, for Deadeye’s sake. It makes me sick, but I’ll do it. Now give me the stupid sword!”

“Rainbow…” Enka’s thoughts were cut off by nothing more than Rainbow’s furious glare.

In the ensuing silence, the Commander rose to his hooves once more. For the first time, it seemed there was a crack in the stone of his expression. Rainbow wasn’t sure what to make of it; she could see the emotion written across his face in the way the corners of his lips shuddered, and the furrow that ducked up and down on his brow. Yet through it all, she couldn’t even begin to imagine just what he was actually feeling.

Her only shred of answer came when his lips parted, and his parched throat leaked out a harsh demand. “Prove you won’t hesitate, then.”

Without hesitation, she answered him. “How?”

“Cut off your wings

Rainbow’s eyes flashed wide. “Why?”

“Because they’re holding me down,” the Commander told her bluntly. “And I can’t take them off cleanly myself.” His hoof nudged Procellarum gently forward.

She moved her neck down and wrapped her teeth around the tight cloth grip on the handle. It tasted dry, and coppery. Bloody. She pulled up, struggling with the weight. It rose after a moment, but the blade danced off the left side of her cheek, bobbing her head up and down against her best efforts.

“Dad,” she began, finding it surprisingly easy to speak if she clamped the blade into the back of her mouth. “Too heavy…”

“If you can’t do it—”

Rainbow spat out the word and turned back to the shelves of the storeroom. “I can do it, Dad.” She rushed over to the shelf holding Hurricane’s armor, and swept her hooves to send the black armor scattering across the floor. “This is what I needed.”

The Commander watched as Rainbow pulled canvas and twine away from the blade of a sword—or what should have been one.

“What is that?” Enka wondered, edging backward. “Why do you have the ghost of a sword?”

“It’s not a ghost,” Rainbow told the sow, pulling the handle behind her teeth as if it were a bit to free up her tongue. “It’s just see-through skysteel. Look, you can touch it if you want.”

“Does it have a name?”

Rainbow rolled her eyes. “Soldier On asked me that too. Let’s just… let’s get this over with.”
With the see-through sword in her teeth, she forced her hooves closer to her father. One step and then another, and another.

He nodded to her slowly, and then closed his eyes, keeping his chin high as if he had seen something over her shoulder.

“Is this going to hurt you?”

“Would you believe me if I said ‘no’?”

Rainbow bit down tighter on the sword. She had to focus to make her nostrils draw in a breath. She smelled the scent of salt and stormclouds from her sword, and the dense stagnant air of the storeroom with its wooden shelves. But above all, she smelled blood and ashes, sweat and rot, all from the stallion mere inches away.

“What are you waiting for?” the Commander growled.

Rainbow turned to him, but his eyes were still closed. Not clenched shut, but resting calmly. “Do you want me to do it slowly, and try to be gentle, or—”

“Aim for the stitching,” he told her. “But do it quickly. Like ripping off a bandage.”

She forced down another breath, and her throat burned for the effort. With as much gentleness as she could muster, she aligned the blade with the cruel line where the feathers that had once been hers met her father’s shoulder.

Mortal Coil wiped the sweat from his brow as the last vestiges of magic left his horn and the tongues of purple flame disappeared from the corners of his eyes. A flat disc hovered in the air before him, behind which the Summer Lands beckoned. All around it, the Between was a land of mists and marshes, no doubt the leftovers of the trepidation in the minds of his three companions at leaving their father behind. “Here we are. All three of you, safe, sound, and bored out of your minds. Now your dad will have to come up with a new reason to disperse me.” He watched Cyclone’s titanic limbs climb up onto the lip of the portal, before his view of the would-be-paradise was blocked by his wife’s approach.

“Won’t you stay, for a little while?” Gale tossed a hoof onto her husband’s shoulder, and then then another, crossing her forelegs around the collar of his coat. “I don’t know what you think is so important out there that you can’t come see us more often.” Her velvet coat nuzzled against his neck, and his ears perked up. “The kids miss you. Especially Velvet. You didn’t even talk to her the last time you came by.”

“She won’t have even noticed,” Morty whispered back. “The Summer Lands’ magic is too powerful for that, and—ow!”

The last exclamation spawned from the throbbing pain in his right cheek, where Gale had slapped him with enough force to leave the rather tall stallion reeling. “She’s your daughter, Mortal Coil!”

Morty’s shoulders dropped. “You’re right. Of course.”

“Of course,” Gale echoed, letting the slightest hint of venom accompany the words. Her glare persisted for a few moments, but it broke down quickly, and the young-bodied mare began chuckling to herself. The laughed ended abruptly, however, when a little spark wound its way around the spiral of her horn, and her mane stood up. “Morty, did you—”

“It wasn’t me,” he replied. “It’s Rainbow, again. Get… damn, who would we want? Get Graargh, if you can find him, and Iron Hoof, and that old Cirran scout friend of yours.”

“Pathfinder?” It was the first time Typhoon had spoken in hours, and her word surprised Morty enough that the unicorn jerked toward her. “What’s going on? What do you want him for?”

Morty’s icy blue eyes rolled briefly. “I would rather have Tempest, but I figure you’d probably stab me if I tried to put your son in ‘danger’. We need to help Rainbow again. We need to catch her before she winds up back here, this time.” His head swiveled briefly toward Gale. “Typhoon and I will travel ahead. Do you remember what I taught you about how to get out on your own?”

Gale’s head dipped once, briefly. “We won’t be long. But are you sure you want Typhoon?”

“I don’t have much choice,” Morty answered. “You and I can’t do it. Trust me, Gale, I have a plan. Go.”

The first Equestrian guardsmare offered a stiff, if sarcastic, salute. With a quick flare of her own blue magic, she teleported through the portal. No more than a second later, it disappeared, and Morty again wiped his brow clear of sweat. “Let’s get moving, Typhoon,” he ordered the remaining soldier, before turning stiffly in place.

“Where?” Typhoon’s hoof caught Morty’s shoulder, pulling the unicorn around in place to face her. “Give me a straight answer, Coil!”

At first, he was quiet. His eyes fled from her glare. It wasn’t until her wings tensed in irritation that he found his words. “I don’t make a secret of keeping an eye, and sometimes a hoof, in the living world. When somepony is sent to the Summer Lands, it doesn’t tend to make much of a splash, but a pony getting pulled back is hard to miss. After what happened with Hurricane, I’ve been keeping an eye on Rainbow.”

“And?” Typhoon pressed.

Morty closed his eyes and gestured with his neck toward some unclear direction in the mists of the Between. “Walk. We’ll talk while we’re on the way.” He held his tongue for a good dozen strides, as the marshy grasses squished and shifted under his hoof. “My spell was unfinished, Typhoon, and it was never actually intended to raise the dead. I wrote it so I could stop aging—and for the record, it worked pretty well for that—but it turns out attaching a soul to a dead body isn’t all that different from pinning a soul to a body that’s, for lack of a better term, frozen in time. Without a focus like my amulet, there’s nothing to get broken or damaged that might cause the soul fly off back where it came from. But that also means the soul’s attachment to the living world is more fragile. It needs something powerful to latch onto, like love, or friendship, or it starts to twist. In the best case, you get a strong soul like Rainbow’s that simply breaks free of its bonds and returns here. In the worst case, the pony’s personality starts to change, until they’re a sick mockery of who they used to be. I have to assume your father’s bond stayed strong because of Celestia. I thought Rainbow’s bond with her friends would be enough, but the spell isn’t holding together. Until I can figure out what’s different, I’m doing what I can to support her, and keep the bond strong.”

“And what do you need me for?”

All at once, the seriousness in Morty’s expression was gone. He turned to face Typhoon with the expression of a cat offering a beheaded bird to its owner. “Moral support.”

Typhoon’s eye twitched, and her neck twisted to reach for Hiems. Before she could reach it, Morth held up a hoof. “I’m being serious. See, attaching a soul to a body is a lot like... what’s a metaphor you would understand?” He tapped the raised hoof on his chin, and a moment later a smile broke across his face. “Like a sword and a sheath.” Typhoon cocked a brow as the necromancer continued. “Imagine Rainbow’s soul is a sword, and her body is a sheath, right? Now, earlier, when Rainbow’s soul was here with us, that’s like having the sword fully taken out; it isn’t touching the sheath at all anymore.”

“Drawn?” Typhoon suggested.

Morty shrugged. “Sure, whatever. Anyway, that’s the absolute worst case, but a sword doesn’t just go all the way in, or all the way out. You can ‘draw’ it partway. Then only part of the blade is out, and there’s also an open hollow spot in the sheath. Follow?”

Typhoon’s head twisted to the side. “So… there’s a hole in Rainbow’s body? Is your spell injuring her?”

Morty slapped his brow with a hoof, and then gasped. “I think your dad left a bruise…” he growled through gritted teeth, before sucking down a new breath. “No. The ‘hole’ is where her soul is supposed to go, not part of her body. She’s only partway in her body, and if some nasty spirit like your ex-coltfriend found their way in there, we’d have a serious problem.” He gestured broadly toward the mist with his horn. “I don’t need to tell you what’s out there. So we’re going to beat them to it. I’m going to put you in Rainbow’s head.”

It took Typhoon a moment to react, as Morty strode forward into the mist. “Then we’re back to the original question. Why me? Why not Gale? Or could you do it yourself?” Typhoon lifted her hoof from the sludgy grass, and in irritation, froze the ground beneath her hoof.

“I tried both,” he answered. “I don’t have enough in common with her; her mind kept fighting back against me, conjuring up things from her past. Her mother’s death. Her grandfather. That damn song.” Coil swiped with his tail as if it would somehow wipe the thoughts from his mind. “Gale was a better fit the one time I had her try, but it took too much mana for me to try and set her up from Stalliongrad, and she still wasn’t a very good fit. You’re our best bet for a fit. Even beyond that, I did get a glimpse of what’s going on with Rainbow and her father in the living world. They need a soldier to help them out, and I don’t use empatha.”

“You’re going to make me show up there? In a physical body?”

Morty chuckled. “Yeah. Rainbow’s. Now, I hope that answers your questions, because we’re here.” He lifted his hoof from the marsh, and rapped on a tree trunk.

The noise startled Typhoon; as she looked around, she could see the outlines of trees surrounding her in all directions through the mist, yet at no point did she recall entering a forest. “Coil… where the Hell are we?”

“The Between’s version of Everfree City,” the stallion answered, chuckling. “Obviously, a little more forested than you’re used to, but thankfully, without all the wooden golems and walking corpses and half-breed monsters of the physical version. And somewhere around here…” His horn ignited pale blue, and the mists began to shift and writhe. Not three seconds later, the ground before the necromancer was revealed: a stone staircase leading down into the earth, surrounded by loose rubble and undergrowth. “…is a place you should recognize.”

“Is this Father’s tomb?”

“We have a winner!” With those sarcastic words, Coil began his descent.

Hurricane’s Tomb was a dusty, spacious single chamber, lit only by Mortal Coil’s magic. “Always a strange feeling to walk over your own grave,” he muttered. Typhoon shot him a look of confusion, but he ignored it in favor of approaching the empty stone coffin in the center of the room. The box was enormous, carved by hoof to accommodate Hurricane’s full wingspan for a true Cirran burial, with wings spread facing homeward to Dioda. The sides of the box were carved with Cirran characters and pictures depicting the story of the stallion meant to be interred inside. Even there, in the Between’s shadowy reflection of the real tomb, Typhoon could feel the magic she, Cyclone, Gale, and even Celestia had left to protect Hurricane’s remains into the future. But as Typhoon approached the coffin, with its lid set off to the side of the room, she found those remains missing.

“He’s not here…”

Coil briefly looked up at her in disbelief. “You know what happened, Typhoon. Did you think Celestia just pulled a new body out of thin air for him?”

The soldier shook her head. “No. I just… if his body isn’t here, why bring me to an empty tomb?”

Morty replied by rapping his hoof on the coffin. “We need a safe focal point. Climb on in.”

“You’re insane!” Typhoon moved to grab Hiems, only to find its handle and sheath already firmly wrapped in a pale glow.

The necromancer adjusted the collar of his formal coat with a hoof as he shook his head. “I really hate that word, Typhoon. I get it. You’re frustrated with me. I lied to Gale and Cyclone to get them out of our manes so we could help Rainbow. Then I brought you here without a very good explanation. Admittedly, it’s because a proper magical explanation would go right over your head, but that’s a tough pill to swallow when you already don’t trust me.” He tapped a hoof on the floor. “But stop and think about this: have I ever, ever, used my magic for anything other than helping ponies? I don’t pretend I’m perfect, and even if it’s irrational, I’ll admit that the things I do can be a little bit intimidating, but I need you to trust me. Rainbow needs you to trust me.”

Typhoon’s wings folded slowly against her back, though the ridges on her muzzle refused to settle. “You want me to trust you? Stop playing your stupid games and give me a straight answer. Why here? Why Father’s coffin?”

Morty tapped the stone. “Most spirits don’t have the mana or the knowledge necessary to break free back into Equestria. I have both. Using that much magic tends to get their attention, and they flock to wherever they sense it; that’s why Luna’s horde attacked us when I grabbed Rainbow earlier. If you go to Rainbow out there, in the open, you’ll come back to at least one spirit waiting to take all your mana and disperse you. But if you get in the coffin, the only one around to chase will be me. Once I’ve fought off or lost whatever comes for us, I’ll come back and get you out.”

Typhoon’s eye twitched. “You want me to let you lock me in my father’s coffin?”

Morty nodded. “Unless you want Equestria to be destroyed by some all-powerful evil spirit who ate the soul of the Bearer of Loyalty.” He gestured to her wing with his horn. “You’ve got a little twitch going on there, Typhoon. You alright?”

“I don’t like tight spaces,” she hissed back. “Why don’t you get in the coffin, and I’ll fight off the monsters?”

He answered her with a chuckle. “One, because as I already explained, I’m not a good match for her psyche. The whole obsession with loyalty thing gets in the way of more important morality for me. Two, if I got in the box, how do you propose I cast the spell? It won’t let magic through; that’s the entire point. Three, I have a way better chance of coming back for you than you do for me.”

The Cirran mare flared her wings. “You think you’re a better soldier than me, colt?”

“Hmm… am I a better fighter than a mare whose entire contribution to history consisted of fighting alone, losing, and then being taken hostage?” Morty shook his head, and his tail swished in amusement. “Out of the two of us, I’ve never come back from a fight pregnant, brainwashed, or dead.” Then, abruptly, he paused. “Actually, that last one isn’t quite true…” He blinked out of existence just in time to avoid having an icicle thrust through his brain. “Am I not allowed to make that joke after eight thousand years? Fine. I’ll admit I wasn’t your equal in battle for as long as you were alive. But in the millennia since, I’ve spent my days feeding on Celestia and Luna’s memories, fighting off shades, and doing my best to keep Equestria safe. You’ve sat on your haunches in the Summer Lands. I am the better of us now. But all that is beside the point: I can’t get in Rainbow’s head myself. We don’t have time to waste. Get in the coffin.”

Typhoon’s frosted wings remained spread as her gaze flicked between the necromancer and the coffin. Then, with a hesitant breath, she lifted her legs into the box. “I’ll do this for Rainbow, and for Father. I’m trusting you, Coil.”

As Morty’s horn ignited, he let loose another grating chuckle. “That’s probably a bad choice, but thanks anyway.” A strange light began to appear at the corners of Typhoon’s vision, and the lid of the coffin grated overhead. “This might hurt a—”

Typhoon lost the necromancer’s word when the blue light swept over her, and the agony wiped away her thoughts.

“I knew you couldn’t do it.” The Commander approached his daughter, who shivered with legs locked, staring down at her own wing on the floor. His leg rose shakily from the ground, and he wrapped it around Rainbow’s neck. She felt his weight on her neck, leaning heavily on her as he struggled to embrace her. “Let it out, Rainbow. Let it go.”

“You’re right… you’re right, Dad.” Her eyes clenched shut, but on the backs of her eyes, she still saw it. The severed wing lay there, cold and crumpled. “I don’t think…”

Her words died to the feeling of a stormcloud beneath her, as something like electricity swept up from her hooves, making her coat rise. When the almost comfortable tingling had past, her limbs felt cold and heavy. Uncomfortably, she shifted her legs in hope that motion would relieve the strange chill.

Her legs refused to budge.

Whoa, that was weird— Rainbow let the thoughts of her words die out. She hadn’t said anything. Her tongue wouldn’t heed her. What’s happening? Again, her mouth was still. When she tried to move her hoof, the result was the same: nothing. Utter stillness. Claustrophobia began to set in as her closed eyes blocked out all light. She wanted to shiver, to curl up, to do anything at all.

And then, that simply, her eyes opened. Without any thought from her, she could see again. Her father stared back at her. He seemed emotionless, as always. No anger. No disappointment. No sorrow.

Help! No sound escaped. Her eyes widened at the thought, and she felt one of her own hooves rise from the ground to scratch at her brow in confusion. The simple movement nearly sent her body tumbling to the ground, and the instinctual flaring of wings that weren’t there did nothing. Rainbow’s body only managed to catch itself on a pile of wooden crates that it clumsily sent clattering to the ground.

“What was that…?” Rainbow asked, save that she hadn’t. It was her voice, to be sure, but not from her will. The hoof that had scratched her head moved in front of her eyes, and again her eyes grew wide, accompanying a sharp intake of breath.

What’s happening? Who are you? A changeling, or something? Get out of my head!

Unable to hear Rainbow’s silent protests, the Commander cocked his head in the direction of her body. “What’s wrong, Rainbow? You look dizzy.”

It’s not me! Rainbow shouted, without moving her mouth.

“I... think I let out some empatha,” her body explained. Her body paused and smacked her lips together, working her jaw like it was something alien, and she felt her eyes narrow at the sensation. “It won’t happen again. My head is clear now.”

“Can you continue?” the Commander asked, gesturing down at her sword again. “Or will I need to finish the other wing myself?”

Her eyes traced the length of the blade that had fallen at her hooves, and then turned to stare at her severed wing, lying beside her father. There, they rested for a very long time. Rainbow desperately wished she could look away, or escape, or even simply close her eyes. Instead, they lingered on the wing, against her will.

Her right forehoof rose from the floor, and she held it in front of her eyes. It turned slowly, as her eyes took in its chips and dents, and the dust that had built up in her skysteel shoes from weeks of travel. From the way her eyes were widened, though, it seemed as though she had never seen a hoof before, rather than taking concern at the state of her body.

Can anyone hear me? What’s happening?

Next, her neck lowered slowly, bringing her head toward her sword. Her mouth opened to grab the handle, but instead of grabbing it calmly, she pressed her muzzle against the stones of the floor. An uncomfortable chill spread across her face, and she felt her ears peel back against her skull in irritation. With a second try, she claimed the weapon.

Abruptly, Rainbow’s head tilted back, staring into her father’s eyes with intensity, though she hadn’t meant it to. “The other wing, now?” she heard herself ask, speaking with surprising clarity despite the sword between her teeth.

Her father’s brow shifted upward, though only slightly. He said nothing, but turned his body to expose Rainbow’s other wing.

Rainbow felt herself grimace around the sword, as her eyes locked onto the morbid stitching.

Who’s there? she tried to shout, and though her mind heard the words, her mouth was still and steady around her sword. Morty! Anypony? What’s happening?

Her neck pulled back, and though she tried to close her eyes, the effort was in vain. With no other option, she watched the blade cut with frightening precision. A few drops of blood fell from the fresh cut, but nothing as unsightly as what Rainbow’s first cut had dealt.

Can you even hear me? she tried to shout.

“Quiet,” Rainbow’s voice snapped.

The Commander cocked his head. “Rainbow? Are you sure you’re up to this?”

I don’t know what’s happening!

Rainbow’s voice spoke up, determined and harsh. “What’s the plan?”

A single breath preceded the Commander’s directions. “Enka, bring me the armor Rainbow knocked over earlier. It may sting you to touch it, but it won’t hurt you.”

Let me go!

Rainbow’s head turned without her input, and then her body jumped back in surprise at the sight of Enka. As the sow began to pull the armor down from the storeroom’s shelves, Rainbow heard herself speak. “What is that?”

The Commander growled to clear his throat, and then spat on the ground. “I thought you would have recognized it from the pageant, Rainbow. That’s Commander Hurricane’s armor.”

Do you hear me? Let me go!

In return for her silent protests, Rainbow felt her own body take a breath. “Alright, Rainbow, stay calm.”

Wait… can you hear me? Who are you? What’s happening?

The Commander cut off any chance of a swift answer. “I don’t have much mana left. We only have time for one go at this. I’ll use my empatha to hold Khagan’s attention. You land the killing blow. Boars have thick skulls for ramming one another, and his magic will regenerate his throat before he bleeds out if you go for that. Your best chance is his spine. Put that sword into his neck at the base of his skull and you should be able to kill him before his magic has a chance to close the wound.”

“And if it doesn’t?” Rainbow’s body asked.

The Commander scowled. “Then you and Enka will run for your lives, and I’ll hold Khagan’s attention as long as possible.” His head flicked away. “Enka, bring the armor here.” His attention returned to Rainbow almost immediately. “If Khagan survives, or something goes wrong, you do not take another chance. You and Enka will run for Soldier On and Reckoning. I’ll buy you as much time as I can, but you are not to come back for me. The armor is onyx-plated skysteel infused with void dust, so it will protect you from Khagan’s magic. Enka, you’ll need to stay close to Rainbow if you want to make it out. If you need to, pick her up and carry her. You have longer legs, and you’re more used to the terrain.”

“Understood.”

At her own agreement, Rainbow cried out silently. What? You can’t just leave him to die!

“I’ll do what I have to.”

For almost ten seconds, the Commander stared at Rainbow. His face remained nearly unreadable; all Rainbow could tell was that he was thinking. His pensive stance ended when his parched, cracked lips came together, and he whistled four notes.

You are my sun… What?

“What?” Rainbow’s body asked, as the last note ended with a distinct, audible click.

The Commander ignored the question, reaching over with shaking hoof toward Enka, holding the black and gold armor of Hurricane. “The armor is enchanted. Apparently, a griffon cut one of the straps on the peytral while Commander Zephyr was wearing it.” With silent aid from Enka, Rainbow’s father placed the suit onto Rainbow’s back. “I know you know the song.”

The lightning bolt clasp clicked around Rainbow’s neck, and her body rolled its shoulders. “It’s very light…”

“It’s pure skysteel, unlike gilded armor,” the Commander explained. “There’s a layer of stratus, and underneath that, a thin coating of nimbus that’s been enchanted since the Shadow War. The black itself is void crystal over an onyx plating that helps absorb blows better than solid skysteel would.” Then the Commander cupped the helmet of the armor with one hoof, and hoisted it to Rainbow’s head. “Part of the magic will help it stay on you, though it doesn’t just resize like some of the other enchanted suits of armor. Right hoof.”

Rainbow’s hoof rose, and the Commander slid a bracer up her leg. Without prompt, her other leg rose, and it too was armored. “There. Now, let’s move.”

Enka rose, and the Commander went soon after, pausing only to sling the sheath of Procellarum over his shoulder, and stow the weapon inside. A few stray drops of blood on his side ran over the leather, gold, and skysteel.

Rather than following straight away, Rainbow’s body fell in line a half-dozen steps behind her father and Enka. It spoke, in a whisper. “Rainbow, it’s Typhoon.”

Typhoon?

“Coil sent me; he said you needed help.”

Why didn’t you say so before?

“How would that benefit the situation?” Typhoon countered. “Your father and the… enka?”

Her name is Enka. Haven’t you ever seen a boar before?

“No. Regardless, your father and the boar would have asked inconvenient questions, and in the end, nothing would have changed. It’s still the three of us against this Khagan. Is he another boar?”

Yeah. But he’s big, and magic. Like Princess Celestia or Princess Luna—

“I see.” Though the words came out in a whisper, Rainbow could feel the surprise of the statement. Before any comment could be made on the subject, Typhoon directed Rainbow’s eye toward Enka. “Why is a boar with us?”

Khagan locked her up because she hates fighting.

“So she’s no help.” Typhoon spat on the floor. “I hope you’re father is as good as mine was, Rainbow.”

The thought was bitter, but there was no time for rebuttal. Ahead, the tunnel through the red stone of Balgas Rift turned. Standing in the corner, Enka waited with her eyes locked on Rainbow.

“You don’t have to be like him, Rainbow Dash,” Enka whispered. “Maybe I’m wrong, but I don’t think this is what you want. I heard what you said to him. You aren’t a soldier, are you?”

She’s right… but I have to—

Typhoon cut Rainbow’s silent words off, speaking aloud. “I didn’t choose this, Enka. I didn’t come here wanting a fight. But family is important, no matter how distant.” With those words, she turned the corner, and found herself looking at the silhouette of the Commander in a doorway. From beyond the precipice of the fortress, natural sunlight painted the dusty stones a vibrant crimson.

“Come,” the Commander ordered, his voice as dusty as the rest of the fortress. “It’s time.”

Typhoon guided Rainbow forward, clutching her curved, transparent sword tight between her teeth and forcing herself to breath slowly. The light blinded them when it struck Rainbow’s eyes. For just a brief second, all they could see was a wall of golden-white. Despite the lack of sight, the outside world felt wonderful, and alive. The air was fresh, and clean. Though scalding, the desert sun was a welcome change from the torchlights and smoky shadows of Balgas Rift. Yet, in that moment of near total freedom, their ears perked up against a gentle breeze, to the sound of a growling, ghostly voice.

“So… the Commander of Equestria comes to face me at last. Look at what our ancestors have sent us, in punishment for our dishonor.”

Typhoon blinked away the light, and took in the vague shape of the fortress. Balgas Rift took the form of an enormous teardrop of lowered ground carved out of sheer stone cliffs rising hundreds of feet overhead. Carved into the faces of those walls were boar-sized doors and windows, and a series of enormous red banners rose toward the sky overhead, decorated with what looked like severed tusks or ribs.

There was only one boar in sight, though Rainbow thought she saw others watching from the windows overhead. Warchief Khagan of Suida grinned beneath the web of scars covering his face, and his oversized scything tusks swung to and fro a mere foot above the dust and dirt that made up the canyon’s floor.

“And you’ve brought your daughter as well. I’ll give her a warrior’s death, if she can prove she deserves it. I wonder, have you told her of your crimes?”

“She knows,” the Commander wheezed in reply. “But you won’t kill her today.” He closed his eyes, sucked down as deep a breath as he could manage, and opened them again as tiny slits. “You are going to let us go.”

Rainbow watched the focus in her father’s brown irises as the wind played with her mane. There was something about the way the Commander spoke that held her attention.

“He doesn’t waste any time,” Typhoon whispered, before digging into the soil with the leading edges of Rainbow’s hooves, as if bracing to sprint.

“Do you think my willpower is weak enough that you can overpower it with that magic?” Khagan glared at the Commander and stomped on the ground as his voice rotted away in the distance. A wide cloud of dust rose up behind his leg, and the wind teased it gently toward Rainbow.

Typhoon kicked off.

“I don’t expect to overpower you,” the Commander slowly told the boar.

Rainbow’s legs tore forward.. Her eyes clenched as she sprinted through the dust.

“You already gave us what we needed.”

Three strides away, Typhoon reared up. Rainbow’s trained, toned hind legs kicked off the ground with the strength of a trained flier’s launch.

“It’s over.”

Even without her wings, Rainbow soared. Her forehooves touched down on the top of the warchief’s shoulder, and Typhoon cleanly guided the blade into Khagan’s spine. It was in every way a perfect cut, digging straight into the thin slot at the base of the boar’s skull.

Khagan’s mouth slowly fell open, and his harsh eyes betrayed a mixture of realization and pain. A trickle of blood ran its way through the boar’s coat and the scars on his brow, dribbling in front of his right eye. Standing on his back, Typhoon released her skysteel sword, leaving it standing upright in Khagan’s spine.

The mighty boar shuddered, and Typhoon leapt down, skidding in the dirt as her father’s armor rattled around her lean frame. She turned to the Commander. “Lets go, before more of them—”

The world spun, and stars exploded into Rainbow’s vision from the sheer pain in her side. Between the flashes in her eyes as the sun spun around her, she saw Balgas Rift above her, and the sky below.

“Rainbow!” the Commander bellowed somewhere off to her side. The world spun again, and then pain ran up her side once more, alongside a crunch. Her eyes were watering, and everything was dark, but she could feel the ground against her cheek.

Typhoon?

No answer came. Her body lay still.

Typhoon?! Get up! What happened?

Khagan bellowed into the air; Rainbow could never have mistaken the sound of his voice, rotting as it met her ears. The sound was close, as were the shudders of the ground that marked his massive hooves trodding toward her.

“Always using trickery as a substitute for strength. In the end, your games can’t save you, Commander.”

Rainbow heard a hiss, and a shriek like steam leaving a tea kettle. Khagan roared again, and a faint mist tickled the coat on Rainbow’s side.

“Enka, get Rainbow!” The Commander’s voice was sore, panting, and desperate.

Typhoon, get up! We have to help him!

Rainbow felt Enka’s muzzle on her back, and then digging under her side. A twisted howling tore through the air, like a unicorn’s magic heard from underwater. Whatever had made the noise grew louder for a moment, and then suddenly stopped. Hurricane’s armor shifted only slightly on Rainbow’s back, and she felt it begin to hum aloud.

“What? How did you—” The rest of Khagan’s twisted words were lost as Rainbow’s body turned, lifted from the ground and onto Enka’s back. Trapped in her own mind, Rainbow could do nothing as the sow beneath her broke into a run.

We can’t leave him!

“Always using trickery as a substitute for strength. In the end, your games can’t save you, Commander.” Khagan’s spiked yellow teeth grinned at the Commander for only a spare second before both his beady eyes and his tusks turned toward where he had thrown Rainbow. Hurricane’s helmet rested in the dust a dozen feet away, and she wasn’t moving.

There wasn’t time for second thought. The Commander bit down his cheek and focused his memories. His right foreleg was sheathed in ice, while his left burst into flames. Rearing up on his crippled leg and forcing the physical pain into his empatha, he twisted the shoulder of his broken leg so that it ran along his healthy one. A cloud of mist and smoke flew toward Khagan, obscuring the warchief’s vision and wrapping the boar’s face in frost.

Whispy, sickly arcana gathered around Khagan’s tusk, meant for Rainbow’s unarmored head. The Commander hurled himself forward with both his hind legs. Procellarum met the frozen ivory of a tusk. A bellow of agony followed, punctuated by a dull thud when the severed tusk met the ground.

“Enka! Get Rainbow!”

Khagan’s head turned, and his remaining tusk slashed at the Commander’s skull. With no other option, the stallion hurled himself to the ground. Wind tossed the grimy hairs of his ungroomed mane. As soon as it passed, he hurled himself back with what little strength he could gather, hoping to avoid the second pass of the tusk.

It never came.

The Commander watched as the warchief’s tusk ignited in a color his mind could not remember, directed toward Rainbow. Through the pain of his wounded legs and his blood-crusted side, the stallion hurled himself at Khagan.

A line of magic rotted out of the Commander’s memory. As it flew for Rainbow’s head, however, the spell was tugged by some unseen force. Narrowly, it wrapped its way around the young mare’s head, and sank harmlessly into the black armor. All that remained of it was a slight shudder in Rainbow’s shoulders, and a dull but constant ringing that clawed its way into the Commander’s ears.

“What? How did you—”

The Commander brought a hoof down on the Warchief’s brow. It was a weak blow, compared to the sheer size of the boar’s skull, but it was only meant to be disorienting. It bought half a second; more than enough time. Procellarum dipped into Khagan’s left eye, far enough that it hit skull on the other side. With a better grip, the Commander might have gone for his enemy’s brain; as the boar’s head shook in agony, he knew he wouldn’t be able to get the angle. As fast as he could manage, the stallion clambered his way up Khagan’s back, toward the ghostly sword still standing up like a pennant from the boar’s spine.

His hind left hoof dug into the boar’s rough coat, laden with scars. Four strides to go. Gritting his teeth, he forced his right hind leg up onto Khagan’s scalp. The seared flesh where his right cutie mark should have been nearly brought tears to his eyes, but the leg moved. Three.

Khagan released a heavy breath. Before the Commander could get a decent grip with his two reliable legs, he felt his stomach spin. Khagan rose onto his hind legs, and then let himself fall onto his stomach. The abrupt jerk sent the Commander flying off the warchief’s head, and then rolling across the dirt of Balgas Rift. Procellarum fell from his grip, skittering off on the ground a few yards away.

Yards… it may as well have been miles. He was no closer to Procellarum than he was to Canterlot.

Khagan’s step forward shook the ground beneath the Commander’s chin, and captured the pony’s attention. With both red eyes glaring forward, the Warchief grinned. At the side of his face, the bloody stump of his left tusk shuddered and churned like some sort of ooze instead of solid bone. Before the Commander’s eyes, the stump began to repair itself, just as his eye must have.

“Done already, Commander?”

The stallion on the ground opened his mouth to speak, and felt his throat groan for want of water. After a pause of painful focus, he forced wind across his tongue. “I was done months ago, Khagan.” Driving himself slowly to his hooves, the Commander wheezed out another heavy breath. “And you were done six years ago.”

Khagan briefly attempted to turn his head, in a show of confusion. The blade in his spine prevented the motion, and his brow creased with irritation. “What are you hoping to accomplish? Buying time for my bloodkin and the filly to escape? They’ll never outrun me. On hoof, it takes days to escape the desert.”

The Commander answered Khagan’s glare. “She’s my daughter, Khagan. And if you know what’s good for you, you won’t chase her.”

“You aren’t in a position to threaten me.”

“She’s the Bearer of Loyalty. Do you know what that means?” The Commander coughed once, and then rubbed his hoof into the fleck of blood he’d left on the dirt. “Do you remember?”

For a tiny sliver of a moment, Khagan’s eyes widened. “She had an Element of Harmony?”

“I’m worth nothing,” the Commander managed. “I can be replaced. But her… that mare and her friends are the most dangerous ponies in the world. Equestria will go to war for them.”

“I am not afraid of you ponies.” Khagan ground a hoof through the rough red dirt. “I found the secret behind your Tusk Rot. I know about the flowers. My armies will crush you.”

“Do you think you can fight Celestia and Luna?” the Commander asked. “What about Discord? Do you think your armies will stay coordinated when you are dead?”

Khagan ground his hoof into the sand. “They won’t fight me. If Celestia were brave enough, she would not have sent you.”

The Commander took a single step forward. “She didn’t know, Warchief. I didn’t tell her.” And then, with a brief flick of his attention to the narrow path out of Balgas Rift, he drew in a full breath. “You weren’t worth her time.”

Khagan bellowed, and charged. The Commander braced himself, sucked in his pain, and remembered.

You are my sunshine…
My only sunshine…

XXIII - In Loving Memory

XXIII

In Loving Memory

“Is he going to be alright?” The voice hung suspended in the air by its own desperation.

“The burns may scar, but he will survive longer than we if I do not step outside this place.” Domineering, calm, and smooth, Luna’s voice was unmistakable. “Keep close watch on him, and should this place begin to shudder, find me in the gallery. I will need you to hold my mind together; I have little enough magic that I might spend even that preserving this place.”

“But he—”

“Silence.”

At great expense in pain and sweat, Mirror Image forced his eyes open. The crackling of ash and the tension of charred hair that accompanied the motion were in no way promising of comfort. He opened his mouth to speak, and managed to squeeze a single drop of a moan from the stone that was his throat.

“Mirror?” Luna—looking altogether too mortal for Image’s comfort, with a mundane mane of pale blue and the creases of stress and age on her muzzle—leaned over into his vision. Behind her, Eldest Sister smiled with her hungry fangs, and a shimmering sea of blue sky stretched onto forever, unbroken by clouds or pegasi. “I am gladdened that you have wakened, but I must depart, or your cunning in the volcano will have been for nothing.”

Volcano? His mind wondered, as Luna turned to step away. Had there been a volcano? He was sure there had. Eldest Sister tapped the princess on the shoulder with an irritated hoof. He remembered a bag too, and a heartbeat, and dragons. Oh, and an explosion.

Luna turned with exasperation, and Cannon matched the motion by gesturing to her mouth repeatedly with a leathery wing.

“What is so pressing?” Luna demanded. Eldest continued to gesture to her mouth, again and again. “Just tell me!”

He remembered the void crystal now. An explosion of black and ash.

“Finally!” Eldest groaned. “You gave me a direct order, Mistress. I had to be silent.”

He had heard it coming. He knew the room was too small to offer an escape. But how were they still alive?

“I’m sorry,” Luna replied, her voice waving from its most familiar tone. “Truly, I ask your forgiveness. But now I need to go.” And then she was gone, in a haze of stars against the pale blue.

Image pushed himself up on a forehoof, and groaned at the action. Eldest rushed to his side, wrapping a wing over his back. “Don’t move, Image. Here, let me help.” The wing was frigid, and it grew only colder as she lifted its twin to his mouth, dangling a slender icicle from the little elbow at the center of the leathery limb. “I can’t make water, but see if this helps your throat.”

Uncomfortable with the gesture, Image nevertheless leaned forward, crunching off a bite of the ice. It burned, but it was all the comfort of the Summer Lands when he swallowed. There had been something in his throat, he was sure; something awful washed away by the mouthful of pure water. “Thanks,” he managed, still sounding hoarse but no longer suffering beyond the hope of speech.

“You saved us, Image,” she answered with that lopsided grin he used to like, tainted by carnivorous fangs. “I think the least I can do is get you a little water.”

“What did I do? I remember the void crystal, but after that…”

“You threw us in the creepy heartbeat-bag. The Mistress explained it to me. Something about… pocket-planes, and dispelling, and void crystals eating enchantments? I don’t do the whole ‘magic’ thing, but I guess the gist is the inside of the bag isn’t actually in the same place as the outside of the bag. So when the void crystals ate the magic that was making the bag work, instead of staying in Krennotets with the outside of the bag, we got trapped in the made-up magic place where the inside of the bag was.”

Image nodded, hiding just a little bit of pride. It was clever—well, more than clever, really, given that he’d apparently come up with it in the space of four seconds. He only wished he could remember the actual act. “How did I survive, then?”

“I think Mistress grabbed you.” The thestral shrugged. “But we aren’t out of Everfree yet. The place where the inside of bag is isn’t actually safe either. I guess it’s where dead ponies go, or where magic comes from, or something. Mistress cast another spell on us, and took us in here.” Eldest’s wing gestured toward the smooth gradient of pale blue that stretched on to eternity. Nearby, Image could see… something… hanging in the air like a painting without a wall, and as his eyes grew focused, more of the strange rectangles faded into view. “She called it the Memory Gallery.”

“We’re in her head?” Image forced himself forward and sat upright. Eldest moved to stop him, and he pushed the mare away with a hoof. “I’m tougher than I look.”

“Believe me, Image, I remember.” She attempted to ruffle his mane, but the stallion pulled away. Her ears splayed ever so slightly outwards along with the subtle downward curve of her lips. “Fine. Be like that. Can you at least call me Cannon, like you used to?”

The stallion frowned. “I thought you weren’t supposed to—”

“As if you ever cared about the rules.” In a motion Image thought was rather brave, Eldest Sister stuck her tongue through an incredibly narrow gap in her fangs. “Now come on. I wanna look at these memories.”

“You want to go poking around in Princess Luna’s memories? Do I even need to explain why that’s a bad idea?”

Eldest rolled her slitted eyes. “You used to be fun, Mirror. Fine. You can sit here all on your own if you want; we’re never gonna have a chance like this again, and I wanna see history and stuff.” With that groaning retort, the thestral turned her back and paced away down the long line of memories.

Image rubbed a hoof on his brow and groaned as he slowly came to terms with reality: there was no way in Tartarus he wasn’t following her. He stood up, and with only a split second of vertigo, found his balance on the indigo nothing that stretched off from the ground into the horizon.

Eldest’s wings had carried her off a considerable distance. The unicorn gritted his teeth, tilted his split horn forward, and broke into a run. As he passed the ‘memory frames’, voices cried out to him, sounding sepia and strained as if he were somehow hearing the slow process of forgetfulness.

“Spike and I are going to go see Tirek’s—” A filly Luna, her brow curiously lacking a horn, smiled almost too broadly for her tiny jaw.

An older Luna, lacking a horn, stood with her wings spread and covered in ice before a badly burnt elk doe. “You’ll never have her, Discord!”

Image bit down on his cheek before his curiosity could seize him.

“Yes, we knew,” Luna said, taking a seat by an aging pegasus clad in familiar black armor. “But we do not intervene with ponies. Not anymore.”

“Eldest!” Image locked his knees and slid to a stop on… whatever it was he was standing on.

The thestral cocked her head, letting one corner of her lips twist up. “Stallioning up now, Image? Here, this one’s fun.” Her wing gestured to an already obvious memory.

“—the throne.” The stallion, a pale gray figure with blue streaks in his charcoal mane and the archaic garb of a noble, stood before Luna with a gentle smile on his face.

Luna shook her head. “I can’t help you directly, Shady; you know the rules.”

“I’m not asking you to help me, Luna. I’m just making sure I’m not going to meet unexpected opposition for ending this war the fastest way possible.”

The princess winced, and her lips moved without speaking. “I agree with you, to a point. But convincing Celestia will be… harder.”

“I’m sure you’ll find a way.” The stallion stepped up to the larger pony, nuzzling her and then sliding his muzzle up to her ear. “I always admired your determination, you know? Your willpower.” Flat teeth nibbled on Luna’s ear, and the mare’s eyes widened. “You’ll manage. I know you will.” His tongue flicked down the side of Luna’s jaw.

“You always did have a silver tongue, Silver—” Luna moaned.

Mirror Image slapped a hoof onto the side of his brow, carefully missing his horn. “Really? A silver tongue? Come on!”

“I thought it was romantic,” Eldest muttered, mostly to herself.

Image responded with a roll of his eyes. “Let’s look at something else. I’m not watching the Princess get busy.” Turning away from the increasingly graphic memory, the stallion let his eyes drift to the sky. “I wonder why she lied to me, though.”

“Huh? What do you mean, Image?”

“The Princess said she’d never had a mortal lover.” At the sound of a surprised gasp, he continued. “She and Rainbow were having a moment and I teased her about it. She didn’t take it very—”

All words stopped as the gallery shook, and a massive black crack tore through the smooth blue that surrounded the world of Luna’s mind. All at once, the world turned cold, growing only worse with every passing moment as the slash in the sky grew larger.

“I didn’t do it!” Eldest shouted, raising both hooves defensively.

Image rolled his eyes. “I don’t care who did it! You’re the Night Guard, you know about souls and memories and… whatever this is. What do we do?”

“Umm…” Eldest Sister glanced around wildly, then wrapped a hoof around her companion’s shoulders. “Do you trust me, Mirror?”

“Yes…? Why do you—” Words turned into a strange combination of a gasp and a shriek as Eldest Sister flapped her wings once, using her unnatural strength to hurl both herself and the unicorn toward a random nearby memory.

The huge wooden doors traced with swirling, vine-like lines of gold were Cadance’s favorite. Something about the way the patterns danced made it clear the room was Celestia’s, but without all the overdrawn history and pomp that dominated the rest of the palace’s halls. When a younger and more curious Cadance had asked her ‘aunt’ about the swirling pattern, Celestia explained that she liked it because it looked nice. Nothing more.

Thunder Crack, clad in gilded armor, nodded as she approached. “The Princess is meeting with a delegate from Cervidaen.”

Cadance frowned, gesturing to the envelope she had tucked under her wing. “I can wait.”

“I didn’t say you couldn’t go in,” Crack countered with a grin. “She’s expecting you.”

Cadance cocked her head. “What?”

Crack shrugged. “She said you’d be by and that I should warn you about what you’d be walking into, then let you in.” Stretching out one hoof to the doors, he gave her another nod. “Ready?” He didn’t offer much of a chance for much of a reply before pushing the wooden door open.

Celestia’s substantial room seemed crowded between the the single tall, slender-limbed caribou and the Princess herself. The pale blue glow around the tips of the creature’s enormous antlers faded, and he turned toward the new intruder with eyes wide; his body remained unmoving.

“Oh, Cadance?” Celestia, whose back was facing both the elk and the other pony, maintained a golden glow around her own horn, gently levitating a slender rapier by its glimmering, gem-studded basket hilt. “Rimbor and I were almost done.”

I said no such thing. The distinctly Prench accent on the gruff voice surprised Cadance as it called out in her mind. The caribou’s antlers were glowing again, and with each syllable, one the spurs on his considerable headgear flashed brighter. Our Lady Valdria sent me to take from you an account of your meddling in the affairs of the dead.

Celestia’s brow twitched, barely visible from Cadance’s place near the door and clearly not visible to the caribou. “I haven’t touched the Between in a thousand years.”

Our Lady warned me that you were a liar. She knows you dragged your sister’s successor back from the dead, and now you’ve sent dispatched that same successor and restored her yet again.

Celestia’s wings twitched. To the caribou, it might not have meant much, but Cadance almost gasped at the show of raw surprise. The elder princess twisted the blade in midair, letting her eye trace down its long, slender edge. “If you know that much, then why bother coming all this way and asking me?”

The caribou cocked his head. Because you’ve breached the Between more than three times recently. If you don’t intend to be honest, I shall convey that reality to Lady Valdria, but know that Hith Taurë will not be allowed to burn again. Surely you recall the promises you made when the long night ended. I will leave you to your kin, as her time is clearly more valuable to you.

Cadance held a tongue full of questions as Celestia slowly turned in place, still holding the sword in her grip. Her magic stretched out, and at the tip of the blade, two golden tickets appeared. “Before you go, these are my gift to Lady Valdria, and the guest of her choice. I would like to speak to her face to face, and I’m certain Luna would as well, in two weeks’ time.”

The caribou nodded, and his blue magic wrapped around the Gala tickets. Then, without a pop or fizzle or so much as a sound, he was simply gone.

Not three seconds later, Celestia’s firm knees bent gently, and her wings fell to sagging at her sides.

“Aunt!”

“I’m fine, Cadance. Just… my horn is tired. Can you take Aestas?”

Cadance’s blue magic wrapped around the hilt of the rapier, and to her surprise, her magical power grew stronger.

“What…”

Celestia waited until she was sure Cadance had let her words truly fall away to answer. “Aestas Melos, Cirran for ‘Summer Song’. Hurricane had Star Swirl make it for Gale when she kept stealing Procellarum.” The ancient alicorn’s sides shifted gently with laughter. “I was so angry with him when she wore it to a dance. It’s not much use as a sword; the steel is just a thin layer over a diamond core. It’s actually a staff. It just looks that way because Gale wanted to be like her father.” Celestia shook her head. Her eyes seemed too dry.

“Why bring it out with the elk?” Cadance asked.

“They like to have several conversations at one, telepathically,” Celestia explained. “Valdria is usually kind enough to stick to one, but her ambassadors assume I can speak on their level. I always have to speak one out loud to keep things moving, and even then, it’s… draining. I’m in no danger of running out of mana, but I always come out feeling tired. Aestas helps me keep my mind in order, and I suppose it helps me steel my mind. A very long time ago, when I was more of a warrior myself, there were times it served me well. But those days are long past. Thank you for coming. Always good to have a political excuse to cut things short instead of starting to stutter in one of the dialogues.”

Cadance smiled faintly. “How did you know I’d come?”

A confused expression briefly flashed over Celestia’s brow. “I send Record Time to get you. Isn’t that why you’re here?”

Rather than shaking her head, Cadance levitated the envelop under her wing toward her ancestor. “I must have passed him on the way here. I actually have something I needed your advice on. Take a look at this.”

As Celestia took hold of the letter and let her eyes trace over the letters, Cadance watched the elder alicorn’s mask of perfect calm and composure regenerate before her eyes. On another day, she might have asked how to mirror the practiced elegance, but more pressing matters seized her thoughts first. “I can’t make heads or tails of it, except the summary. It was… Shining was working on some sort of research.”

A brief nod answered the statement, at first. “I was concerned about Sombra. Sealing him away isn’t a permanent solution, nor do we condone that cruelty to any soul—even one like his. Luna most especially.” Cadance caught a moment of hesitation. “Or she would, if she remembered.”

“Remembered what?”

A sigh. “When Twilight and her friends freed Luna, she was distraught. Broken. She remembered everything she’d done, everypony she’d hurt, and it was a burden she simply couldn’t bear. Not all at once. I wanted to help her. I took her memories—with her consent—so that she could come to terms with the modern world. I had planned to return them to her slowly.”

“But what does Sombra have to do with Nightmare Moon?”

Celestia turned slowly to face her niece. “He was her Hurricane.”

“Aunt Luna was with—” Cadance caught herself halfway through her thought, slapping a hoof over her mouth.

A nod answered the outburst. “Baron Somber Shadow in life. He was the ruler of Stalliongrad, and incredibly ambitious. When King Tungsten died, there was nopony else in his family to take the throne of Everfree City—the old capital. Luna and I had always allowed the nobility to settle their disputes with dueling or gambling or whatever they wanted, so long as their subjects weren’t harmed. But with a vacant throne, politics and scheming turned into outright war.”

“The Succession War,” Cadance whispered. “I remember history class.”

Celestia smiled, but it was a weak motion, devoid of real happiness. “Luna wanted Sombra to win, of course, but at the time, we thought it was best if we didn’t interfere. Sombra was a brilliant leader and a powerful mage, so he thought he was invulnerable. One of the other nobles had him assassinated. I thought that was it, but Luna couldn’t let go.”

“Did she use the spell? The one you used on Rainbow?”

“No. Her own magic. She made him a thestral, like her night guard.”

Cadance stared forward, speechless.

“You didn’t know? Forgive me; I thought Shining might have told you. In any case, that is the truth. Luna’s soldiers are undead, and Sombra was one of them. Not a night guard, but a thestral. He couldn’t go back to Stalliongrad as a walking corpse, so he reinvented himself and gathered his strength in the Crystal Empire. He used their bodies as living batteries of magic; just as I’m sure you saw, they lost the magical sheen of their coats as his influence grew stronger. He won the war, and took the throne of Everfree, and became King Sombra. And then…”

“Okay, waking up face-down is getting old really fast.” Image pulled his head from the bank of snow and rubbed a hoof across his eyes to get some semblance of a clear view of his surroundings. Miles and miles of icy plains stretched off into the hazy horizon as what seemed to be a hearty blizzard fell from the skies—all directions save directly ahead, where a city of glimmering sapphire and jagged void crystal rose out of the snow. “Tartarus.”

“What’s wrong?” Eldest Sister crunched through the snow to stand at his side, and the cold only served to emphasize how strange her body felt for lack of the warmth of a living pony.

“I think I know what the princess is remembering. Do you know how to get us out of here?”

Eldest shook her head. “Mistress said to ‘find her,’ whatever that means. Why?”

“I think we’re about to meet King Sombra.” Image sucked down a frigid breath and took his first step toward the blackened surface of the Crystal Empire.

"Don't put one of your spears up your backside, Mirror. They’re memories, right? I doubt we’ll be able to change them, or anything like that. They probably won't even see us."

“Probably?” The uncomfortable question was blown away by the frigid wind, giving way to the crunching of snow. Eldest answered something back, but gave up the attempt to be heard when the storm grew fiercer around them. Their hooves dug into the snow for almost a mile until, with a single step, they found warm grass. Ahead, a perfect circle of summer had been carved out around the massive spire at the heart of the Crystal Empire by some magic Image couldn’t begin to understand. Taking another step, he let the rest of his body settle into the heat of a midsummer day, and smiled as the warmth permeated his limbs.

A freezing mare leapt onto his back, stealing away all the heat he’d won. Image shook himself, but Eldest’s grip was too tight, wrapping her forelegs comfortably but firmly around his neck and gripping his flanks with her hind pair. “Yes! Warmth!”

“Get off!” Image reared up, and when the motion failed to dismount his partner, he let himself fall onto his side. Finally, the thestral’s grip failed, and she was flung from her place.

“Aww. But you’re so warm, Mirror, and—”

“No.” Image continued toward the city. “Keep your eyes up. See what I see?”

Just as the stallion finished the thought, two shadows passed against the sun overhead—both larger than an average pony, but one far larger than the other.

“You think it’s them?” Eldest asked.

“Hard to remember something you never witnessed in the first place.” Image tilted his head toward the palace at the center of the city. “You said she wanted us to find her?” As Eldest was only halfway through a nod, her companion broke into a full gallop.

The streets of the Crystal Empire were filled with dimly-coated crystal ponies who stared up at the balcony on the side of the massive palace overhead. The throng barely acknowledged Image as he forced his way through. He only found pause when he felt Eldest’s forelegs once more wrap around his shoulders.

“I thought I told you—” He stopped himself abruptly when the winged mare pulled him up into the air with a series of heavy wingbeats.

“This way’s a lot faster than the stairs.” Image caught the hint of agitation in her voice as she carried him up to the shimmering balcony of diamonds and sapphires. His hooves landed with a click on the gemstones. Eldest moved to fly into the palace, but an extended leg from Image stopped her.

“What?” she asked, raising a brow. “We just want to find Mistress, right?”

“Listen to me closely.” Image’s normally lackadaisical expression had grown tight and serious. The fur on his brow had bunched up, and his lips were taught. His sapphire eyes met hers, and then darted away over the glimmering city below. “This is magic we don’t fully understand. I would expect us to be unable to alter her memories, but I don’t know what we’ll find in that throne room. You have magic I can’t replicate, and you know your way around this kind of magic better than I do. No matter what happens, your job is to find us a way out.”

Eldest shook her head. “It’s going to be fine, Image—”

“The last time you said that to me was five years ago, in June.” The simple words left Eldest Sister’s fanged maw hanging open. “If something goes wrong, and I die, I get Celestia’s Oath. You remember?”

A nod. “The Honor Guard go to the Summer Lands, no questions asked. No judgement for what you did to serve Equestria. But you don’t think something is going to happen…”

“Too much has already gone wrong on this mission,” the stallion answered, turning to walk into the palace. “And if Luna couldn’t react to your presence, why would she tell you to find her?”

The room was massive, though beyond its amethyst and its void-crystal pillars, Image barely paid it any mind. His focus was on the two princesses and the stallion reclining in the throne facing them. Celestia and Luna had not changed in appearance through the passage of a millenium, though their suits of heavy armor were unfamiliar, as was the glimmering rapier in the elder sister’s magical grip.

King Sombra likewise matched what little Mirror Image had seen before, though that fact was, in its own way, a surprise. Gray fur and a black mane were framed by a curved red horn and a mouthful of uncomfortably pale fangs.

“He’s a thestral…” Eldest Sister whispered, inches from Image’s ear. “I thought the fangs were just part of the big smoky thing.”

Clad in a brilliant red velvet cloak over heavy steel armor, the villainous monarch nonetheless seemed relaxed in his formidable throne, leaning sideways on the jagged gemstone hoofrests. “You’re certain you don’t care for a moment of small-talk, my love? I have an excellent vintage crystal berry wine.”

“My love?” Eldest wondered in another whisper.

Image nodded. “That explains his being a Night Guard.”

“A thestral,” the Night Guard leader corrected. “They’re not always the same thing.”

To the guardsponies’ shared horror, Sombra turned toward them. “I see you’ve brought more company too. A shattered horn, and one of your night guard?” His voice, deep, eloquent, and sickly-sweet, rolled over his prominent fangs like molasses. “Positively terrifying, Luna. I take it you’ve come for the Crystal Ponies?”

The memory of Celestia cut in with a nod toward the monarch, speaking with a level expression and a voice of pure steel. “This is the end, Sombra. Stop this spell you’ve weaved and let them go.”

Beneath his curved horn, the gray thestral smiled. His hoof tapped gently on the side of his throne. “Go where, Celestia? They’re my subjects, just as the rest of Equestria is. Don’t you see what they’ve let me accomplish? The war for the throne is over. My kingdom knows peace once again.”

“Yes!” Luna shouted. “That’s what you promised, Shady—”

“Sombra, Luna. Speak to me as an equal; I’m not your pet any longer.”

Luna winced, taking a step back as her ears pressed against her skull. “Very well, Sombra, if that is what you deign necessary. But your word was given nevertheless. The war has passed; release thy grip over the crystal ponies.”

Image leaned toward Eldest. “Go to Luna. You need to get us out. Now.”

The thestral nodded, and began slowly walking along the wall of the room. As she moved, the fierce debate of the immortals continued.

Sombra, either oblivious or disinterested in the whispered conversation, answered Luna with a slow shake of his head. “The war is over? For the moment, perhaps, but peace won’t last. I know our history. Dragons. Boars. Elk.” His red slitted eyes turned to Celestia, and his mouth widened into a grin. “Even changelings. Think of the lives that could have been saved with power like mine. The magic of a million ponies focused into a single will.”

Celestia broke her even expression with a glare and a frown. “So you would sacrifice their freedom for the luxury of safety?”

As Celestia’s words still hung fresh, Eldest Sister approached her creator. “Mistress, we need to—”

“Now is no time for thy distractions,” Luna cut her off without so much as a glance. Her focus remained on Sombra.

“Thank you, Luna. As for you Celestia, I was wondering when I would confront your hypocrisy.” Sombra brought his forehooves together and smiled wider still. “You’ve already done what I propose. What else are the Summer Lands, but an exchange of freedom for security? You know Equestria needs an immortal guardian; somepony to hold back the monsters and the spirits. You took on the burden against Discord—surprised I know that name, Celestia? Your sister has been most forthcoming.”

“Mistress, please listen—”

“Enough.” Luna did not shout, but the word nevertheless echoed into total silence in the gaping chamber of smooth edged crystal. “Whoever thou art, interrupt us no more.” The younger princess’ command took effect immediately and visibly; as if moved on puppet strings, Eldest Sister stepped back from Luna and sat down against the wall of the chamber, still and silent. Satisfied, Luna directed her attention to Sombra. “As for you, King Sombra: I command you to release them.”

The simple command seemed to change Sombra’s entire stance. All at once, his lips closed over his smile, and with an empty expression, he rose from his throne. Armored forehooves clicked against gemstones as the stallion walked down off his dais and onto the velvet carpet. Red slitted eyes locked on Luna, and she offered a solemn nod. The whites of Sombra’s eyes were swept with glowing green, and a shadowy magic leaked from their sides. Those same shadows built around his horn.

A bolt of black lightning tore into Luna’s chest. The blast of pure magic hurled the younger sister back through the throne room, where her smoking, burnt fur slid across the polished gemstone floor.

The room erupted into chaos in that instant. Eldest Sister screamed and buried her head beneath her hooves and wings. Celestia rushed to her sister’s side, throwing up a glimmering golden shield between herself and Sombra. Mirror Image walked out into the center of the room, releasing one of his spring-loaded spears from the side of his armor and holding it tightly against his side. And in the center of it all, Sombra himself snarled at Luna.

“I was hoping you would be the one to see reason, Luna, but instead you betray me!” Despite not needing to breathe, the undead stallion panted with the force of his own words. “And in the midst of it all, you prove me right. In trying to set the crystals free, you tried to take my free will? Make me no better than your sobbing thestral in the corner?” His gaze briefly shot to Eldest Sister, before returning to the two sisters at the far side of the room. “You’ve both proven you aren’t willing to do what’s necessary to protect Equestria, any more than you were willing to rule it when it turned against itself. You’re afraid of power.” His horn charged with magic. “So now you have a choice. Stand aside, and let me rule and protect Equestria, or stand against me and be destroyed.”

Celestia glared back at the thestral from behind her shield, though her magic remained focused on her sister’s wounds. “Don’t pretend this is for anything more than your own ambition, Sombra. Power has corrupted you.”

“The victor will decide that,” Sombra answered, letting his horn build with shadowy alicorn magic.

A bolt of focused blue mana slammed into Sombra’s side, leaving the tyrant staggering for a moment. His slitted eyes gathered their focus just in time to disappear in a cloud of smoke, as Mirror Image’s spear sought his heart.

“Brave. Or foolish.” The observation came from behind Image, and he hurled himself into a roll just in time to avoid a blast of pure force that cracked the amethyst floor and sent tiny slivers of gemstone slicing through his coat.

“Definitely foolish,” Image muttered, more to himself than the ancient tyrant. Speaking up more formally, he added, “It was my lot to be cast among fools, so I had to learn it.”

Sombra snorted. “A sycophant. I should have expected that much.” More lightning flew from his horn, due for Image’s chest. The guardstallion answered with a flash of a blue shield. Though it held back the electricity, the ward wavered as Image winced in pain. “And there lies the limit of your tolerance for pain. A pity; two spells is your best? I thought Celestia would have brought one of her better mages, at least.” Another ball of shadowy magic gathered on Sombra’s horn.

“Soldier, I don’t know who you are, but I’m glad to have you standing beside me.” Celestia’s unusually harsh voice sent a chill down Image’s spine as she rose from beside Luna, clutching her rapier.

Though the words hurt to force out, Image spoke up as he shook his head. “I’m standing alone, Princess. If you want to help me, use whatever magic you can to heal Princess Luna and then have her talk to Eldest Sister.”

Without waiting for an answer, Image broke into a three-legged gallop toward Sombra. This time, when the lightning formed on the thestral’s horn, the living stallion lowered the point of his spear into the cracked floor and thrust it upright with his weight. He’d barely released the weapon when the bolt of lightning broke through the air. The gilded handle of his spear flashed as raw electricity was channeled into the floor of the palace through the makeshift lightning rod.

Sombra’s eyes widened. In the moment of surprise he had won, Image charged. A tap sent the spear on the other side of his armor popping into the grip of his foreleg, and with a leap, he thrust for the tyrant’s throat.

A pulse of red magic hurled him backwards, lacking the strength to really wound, but with the power needed to put him off balance. “You’re clever, soldier; I’ll give you that. You speak like a Blue Army mercenary, you dress like a Royal Guard of Canterlot, you wear a broken horn the way no soldier has in six millenia, and you fight like no soldier I’ve ever seen.” Sombra’s horn glowed again, and the crystal’s at Image’s hooves cracked. Leaping sideways and rolling, he avoided a spike of glistening black void crystal aimed to impale him through the ribs. “Perhaps you’ll even live long enough to satisfy my curiosity. Who are you?”

Image rose to his hooves with feigned calm, sucked in a deep breath with a single flare of his nostrils, and nodded. “You’re mistaken in calling me a soldier at all, your majesty.” Taking another breath, the stallion pushed just a hint of false confidence onto his face, letting one corner of his mouth rise in a smirk. “My name is Mirror Image, son of Lord Spitting Image of Glasgallop.” He let himself slip into his less-polished native tongue with the last few words, before once more donning a polished received pronunciation.

“I’m not with the Blue Army; I was born in Trottingham, but I don’t have much loyalty to the place.” He paced slowly before Sombra’s throne. “I’m not a Royal Guard; I wear their armor because gold is practical to protect against magic, nothing more. I’m not a ‘broken-horn’, or whatever ancient practice you’re referring to; my horn is broken because when I was a foal, I picked a fight with somepony far, far outside my skill, not unlike the one I’m fighting now.” With his free hoof, the stallion tapped the base of his horn.

Sombra seemed amused by the speech, so Image continued with still greater feigned pride.

“I’m not a soldier, your majesty, because my occupation is not to fight wars. What I am is an Honor Guard. A force I doubt you’ve heard of.” Given that the force would not be founded for another several dozen years of history at the least, Image was confident in his claim. “There are never more than ten of us, King Sombra, and none of us are soldiers. Many were, in the past, but not all. We don’t fight wars. We are guardsponies. Our work is to protect the one thing in Equestria that hasn’t changed since our nation was founded.”

“And what is that?”

“You’re a clever pony,” Image answered. “Why don’t you tell me?”

In that single question, Sombra’s amusement disappeared. “Very well, Mirror Image. I have better ways of gathering my answers.”

Darkness billowed from Sombra’s red eyes, sweeping not just back in flames, but spreading across the walls of the room. In desperation, Image twisted his spear back, and flung it like a javelin at the unmistakable slitted eyes of Equestria’s last tyrant. The collapsible steel weapon swept through what should have been Sombra’s skull, but instead found only shadows. More shadows leaked from Sombra’s eyes, and Image swallowed hard. The room vanished, and only the dark remained.

XXIV - Regrets

XXIV

Regrets

Cigarette smoke rose from Twelfth Sister’s lips and mingled with the falling snow above the roof of Stalliongrad’s enormous train station. In life, the mare had hated the habit. But in death, sitting in the snow, it was a good substitute for the comfort of real body heat, and that sensation was the only true relief from the sheer boredom of her assignment. With Trotsylvania overrun by rebels… or revolutionaries, or whatever the Stalliongradians called them… train traffic had almost completely stopped. In a few hours, the eight o’clock would come down from Saraneighvo, and at eight-thirty, it would leave again.

Ostensibly, she was there watching for rebels, although the way Big Brother put it, attacking Stalliongrad city itself was suicide. Thus, the thestral sat on her belly on the roof of the train station, staring out at the unending white stretching off into forever and enjoying her momentary break from the chaos that had consumed the Night Guard since their summons to Stalliongrad.

Tufted ears perked at the sound of a train’s horn in the distance. “Early…?” Resigning herself to climbing down into the eerily empty station, Twelfth rose, stretched out her forelegs, and sucked down the rest of the tar and precious heat in her cigarette in a single long draw. Not hacking and coughing afterward was one of the rare benefits of no longer needing to breathe. As she spread out her leathery wings and felt the mostly-idle blood in her veins slosh about, she heard the train whistle again.

“From the south?”

With a newfound urgency, Twelfth dug her forehooves into the snow and used her unnatural strength to dive off the roof. With a grin that exposed her fangs, she closed her wings and dove muzzle first from the forty-foot high roof into the considerable snowbank that had been built up beside the tracks. Once all-but buried, emerging was a simple matter of pushing up her weight on her wings and legs, and flipping backward to land outside the station doors on the freshly shoveled sidewalk.

Two of Stalliongrad’s black-clad guards reacted with surprise, though without an understanding of their language, she wasn’t sure if the shock came from her sudden appearance, or her unnatural appearance.

“Стой! Кто—?” a lanky, young earth pony began, only to be interrupted by a stern, wrinkled unicorn.

“Она одна из стражников принцессы Луны. Не приставай к ней. Мы можем получить неприятности от коменданта Молота.” The older mare gave a nod in Twelfth’s direction. “Проходите, госпожа” Her magical aura opened the gray metal doors.

“Thanks?” Twelfth muttered, walking into the station. Compared to the boring walls of perfectly smooth concrete that framed the building, the steepled roof and mustard-colored wallpaper seemed more appropriate to Mareis or Neighples than what she had come to expect of Stalliongrad. Lush, cushioned benches offered plenty of places to rest, and an ornately framed ticket booth dominated the entryway, though with few trains coming and going, the enormous room looked bare. A few civilians lay on the couches, but far fewer than the chamber could hold. A stallion with an unkempt and bushy moustache was the only administrator, despite the dozen windows on the ticket booth. Those few looked her way as she entered, and continued to stare at her for her unusual shape, but the thestral paid them little mind. Adjusting her purple armor, she walked up to the edge of the platform for the line to Trotsylvania.

The train, a huge bulky thing just like all the other trains of Stalliongrad, plowed toward the station at an alarming speed. Its wheels churned forward and smoke billowed from its stack even as the awful grating of its brakes began to fill the station. The civilians winced and covered their ears—and they didn’t have the magical hearing of a thestral. Twelfth half expected her ears to start bleeding, and she almost wished the sound would just hurry up and deafen her.

When the train finally lurched to a stop, it was still belching steam up to the roof of the station. Twelfth glanced to the curved sword strapped under her right wing, and then tapped her raw hoof on the tiled floor. She didn’t have to wait long.

A particularly short blood red pegasus climbed down out of the train engine’s cabin. His face and chest were stained with coal and grime, though it was the hairless scar running diagonally down from his shoulder that caught Twelfth’s attention. Well, that and the fact that his wings were on fire.

As a night guard, Twelfth was no stranger to empatha, but the fact that he used his magic so casually was a red flag. The small but bulky pegasus spat on the beautiful tiled floor before looking up, and only then did he lock eyes with the thestral.

“Well, that’s oddly relevant,” he muttered, before glancing back over his shoulder. “Twilight, look. It’s one of the thestrals we were talking about.” His attention briefly turned back to Twelfth, and his eyes wandered over her body. “Могу я поинтересоваться вашим именем?” Before Twelfth could clarify her linguistic preference, he turned back to shouting toward the train. “She’s cute too; great hips, though with what you told me, I don’t think I’d want those fangs anywhere near my—”

“I speak Equiish.”

“Oh.” And then, to the stallion’s credit, he smiled without missing a beat. “Well, I hope you’ll take all that as a compliment then. What’s your name, thestral?”

At that word, Twelfth lowered herself and flared her wings. “How do you know about thestrals? Who are you?”

The stallion brought a hoof to his brow, and then ran it down his muzzle. When Twelfth was able to see his mouth again, he was wearing a stupid grin and his shoulders were twitching from light laughter. “Commander Red Ink. Honor Guard.”

Twelfth stared in shock for a moment as her mind painted a black jacket on the stallion’s back. She might have continued the thought for some time, had another pony not emerged from the train. The buckwheat pegasus was slightly taller than Ink and dramatically lankier. His most notable trait was the bloody, bandaged stump that took the place of one of his forelegs. “Росчерк? Что это еще за блядство? Почему у неё крылья летучей мыши?”

“Долгая история, Серп. Намного выше твоей головы. Просто иди в госпиталь.” Ink’s response didn’t even come with a glance back to the other pegasus. The Honor Guard’s attention remained locked on Twelfth. “Serp. My old subordinate before I took over the Honor Guard. Picked a fight with a Vargr. Now, who are you?”

“Twelfth Sister.” It was a flat answer, and one Twelfth had gotten very used to providing to a question that most ponies considered completely natural.

Ink rolled his eyes. “I didn’t ask for your rank. What’s your name?”

“You’re not supposed to ask that, Ink,” the voice of a younger mare announced from the train engine. Twelfth’s eyes flicked up to a mare who needed no introduction. Even wearing a torn tan coat and carrying a sword that looked like it was taken from the Hearth’s Warming pageant, Twilight Sparkle was unmistakable. The young unicorn was occupied helping another mare down from the carriage.

The pale sky-blue pegasus shuddered on her hooves as she stepped down onto the firm ground. Her pale white hair shook beneath a burgundy bandanna wrapped around her forehead. A slimming dark gray vest was her only protection against the magical cold of the wintery domain.

Twelfth broke into a run toward the mare. “Solo? Are you okay?” Using her wings for drag, the thestral stopped within inches of the other mare, and then the same leathery wings wrapped over the struggling pegasus’ barrel, steadying her. “Are you hurt?”

“Excuse me,” Twilight butted in, flustered at having been pushed aside by the chilly thestral. “Do you know Going Solo?”

“We’re old friends,” Twelfth answered. “Better friends than you, if you still use her full name. Easy there, Solo. I’ve got you.” The thestral’s nostrils flared, and she frowned around her slight fangs. “She’s been whispering again. I thought she’d kicked the habit. What happened to her, Sparkle?”

Twilight’s eyes widened. “Do I know you?”

“No, but everypony in Equestria knows you. You and your friends are in the papers every three months.” Twelfth turned away from the unicorn when Solo stirred in her wings. “You were always trouble, Solo, but I didn’t think you’d ever rank with the Honor Guard and the Princess’ student. Are you selling her whispersalt too?”

Who—” The harsh forced-whisper ended in Solo coughing heavily into her wing. After a few painful seconds, she lowered her wing and looked up. “Who’s asking?” When her eyes found the thestral, she frowned. “You’re one of those… thestral… things?” Her hoof shakily rose to her vest, reaching for a hidden pocket containing a single bladed shoe. “How do you know my name?”

“I know a lot more than just your name, Solo.” Twelfth smiled, and then held a hoof up to her fang-filled face. “What if I told you I still owe you from that time in Moneighco?”

Solo’s hoof fell from her vest, scraping across taut blue fur and tapping on the cold stone floor of the station. Her jaw quivered twice, trying to find her words. Finally, they came. “Eyewitness…? But… you can’t be dead.”

“Read ‘em and weep, Solo,” Twelfth Sister replied, spreading her wings and baring her fangs as casually as she could manage that normally threatening motion.

“Hold on!” Twilight cut into the conversation. “Solo… or, whoever you are—” that comment was directed at the thestral. “—can somepony explain what’s going on? Do you two know each other?”

Ink chuckled from his place, leaning against the side of the now-still train engine. “Your friend knew the thestral while she was still alive. But now she works for Luna, right?” Twelfth nodded. “And this is a mare with the gall to carry whispersalt on duty, behind Shining Armor’s back. So…”

Twilight’s head dropped and her ears wilted at mention of her brother. Ink winced in realization of what he had just said. “Twilight, I’m sorry—”

“It’s fine,” the young mare cut him off. “He’s alive. We’ll find him. Solo, do you want some time to catch up with your friend?”

“Yeah. But I’m not leaving you alone with him.” Solo’s glare could have almost melted steel. On the receiving end, Ink let a frown build on the edges of his scruffily groomed muzzle. Turning back toward Twelfth, the former smuggler took a step forward. “What happened to you, Eye?”

The thestral folded her leathery wings and seated herself, sucking in a wholly-unnecessary breath for the story. “I was at a Nightmare Night Party at a museum in Lubuck. Bankers and nobles and trophy-spouses, as far as the eye could see.” She briefly glanced toward Ink. “And in case you missed it, my name’s Eyewitness, so I see pretty far. Anyway, we weren’t knocking the place over like usual—”

“We?” Twilight asked.

Twelfth shook her head. “Don’t get your guardspony friend excited, Sparkle. Even if I told you names, you’d never catch them. All you need to know is we were friends. The brains, the muscle, the magic, the teeth, the face—that’s me—and the locksmith, Wax Mold.”

“What happened?” Ink asked. “Lubuck uses Royal Guards, right?” He ran a hoof along his chest, tracing the edge of his long, furless scar as if trying to appear only slightly interested. “It’s not like you picked a fight with one of my Black Cloaks.”

“We didn’t get caught. Look, I’ll keep it short. We weren’t after plain cash or gems like usual. Somepony Wax had talked to was offering four-hundred thousand bits for a single piece: a necklace. About… this big.” Eyewitnesses’ wings were held two inches apart. “Shaped like a shield. It had a gem in the middle, and—”

Twilight interrupted the story with a gasp. “You stole the amulet?”

Twelfth rolled her slitted eyes. “I was about to tell you, I don’t have a clue in Tartarus where the stupid necklace went. I don’t exactly remember what followed very well, but I woke up dead on a rooftop in Canterlot. Stabbed right through the ribs.”

“Do you know who—” Solo began.

“Wax Mold,” Twelfth answered. Solo gasped, and Twilight recoiled in shock. “And to spare everypony’s bated breath, no. He didn’t get away. But at some point between Lubuck and Canterlot, he ditched the thing. I’d like to ask what the deal with the necklace is, but Princess Luna made it quite clear I wasn’t allowed to ask.” Staring pointedly at Twilight, she added another thought. “If you happened to explain while I was in your presence, though, that wouldn’t be breaking her command.”

Twilight swallowed nervously. “It belonged to an archmage, a long time ago. Another one of Princess Celestia’s students. It’s not dangerous… at least not by itself. But if you know just a little bit of necromancy, it’s a way to talk to Mortal Coil—an old archmage.”

“So it lets you talk to some old dead pony?” Twelfth asked.

Solo smiled. “I’m talking to one right now. Doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.”

The comment earned a snort of laughter from the thestral. “It’s been too long since you cracked a joke like that.”

“A lifetime?” Solo asked.

Then, to Twilight’s mild shock and Red Ink’s crippling disappointment, Twelfth Sister leaned down to the slightly smaller mare’s side, and offered her a surprisingly affectionate nuzzle. The motion continued all the way down to the very base of Solo’s neck, where the thestral deposited an audible kiss. Solo’s blush pierced her coat.

“So… how’d you wind up with an Honor Guard and Twilight Sparkle of all ponies? Please tell me Sparkle isn’t a client.”

“Eye…” Flustered, Solo staggered back. “You’re freezing! And can we not do this right now? I mean…”

“It’s only barely necrophilia,” Twelfth teased, stepping forward into the space Solo had left. “But seriously, you don’t exactly seem like you fit in with the Princess’ student and the Commander.” Then the thestral stopped herself, turning to Ink. “Do you do that too? ‘The Commander’? Or was that only the black asshole?”

Ink’s smile disappeared, and he exhaled plumes of thick smoke. “It was a sign of respect. He earned that title. Maybe someday I will too.” He forced a deep breath, and this time exhaled a cloud of mist that seemed to fit the chilly air that persisted even inside the train station.

With a surprisingly sudden motion, Twelfth Sister produced a cigarette from within her armor. “I wish we weren’t stationed somewhere so damn cold.”

“Here, let me get that.” Ink smiled at the mare, and then extended a wingtip toward her. What started as a little spark of fire danced forward. Tongues of flame stretched out to become wings and feathers, until it wasn’t merely a burst of fire but a tiny phoenix soaring forth from his leading feather. The blast of seemingly living fire touched the tip of Twelfth’s cigarette, and then vanished into as much smoke when Solo screamed.

Twelfth wrapped her leathery wings around the twitching mare who knelt on the cold ground. Twilight rushed to her side.

But Red Ink scowled and paced forward, folding his wings at his side. “Alright, I’ve had enough of this. What in Tartarus is wrong with you? Because I don’t give a damn if you got hit with a firework when you were a foal. You’re getting in the way now.”

“Ink,” Twilight scolded. The rest of her thought never arrived, though.

Going Solo’s blue wing pushed Twilight away. On shuddering hooves, the mare rose from the ground, eyes on the verge of tears locked with Ink’s. Her leading feathers moved under her barrel, undoing one button of her vest, and then another and another. When the fitted gray garment was completely loose, the mare reared up on shaky legs, using her wings for a moment of balance. In the center of her belly, devoid of any fur or bandage, was a charred patch of black and red flesh, waxy in some places and almost like charcoal in others. Though it had clearly been cleaned and treated, the edges of the burn still gave the sickening impression that they might have just been fresh.

Ink took a slow breath, and his expression softened. “What happened to you?”

“You did.”

Ink took a hesitant step backward. “When?” he whispered.

Solo’s mouth fell open. Her wings flared up from her back. “You don’t remember?”

Ink seemed to have no response. His wings slowly pulled closer to his torso. His eyes stared forward, at first appearing locked onto Solo’s, until she moved and they stayed still.

“Baltimare, Red Ink. Do you remember that?” The acid in Solo’s voice seemed to have no effect on the stallion, yet in brought a snarling grin to the smuggler’s off-white muzzle. “You tried to kill Shining Armor!” she shouted. “And when I helped him, you tried to kill me!

Ink said nothing. He stood, silently, staring through the guardsmare as if she wasn’t there at all.

Going Solo panted as her sheer rage contested with itself for words.

“Is… is that true?” Twilight whispered.

Silence offered her answer.

Hesitantly, Twilight walked forward. “Ink?”

Solo lowered, herself, wings spread. “He’s a monster, Twilight.”

But Twilight did not pause in her approach. The Honor Guard found he couldn’t bring himself to look away from Solo. All that left his mouth were two words. “I’m… sorry.”

Solo’s hoof met his jaw with enough force to drive the stallion onto the hard floor. “Sorry? You think sorry is going to bring back the ponies you burnt to death?!” Solo stepped over the toppled stallion, rearing up for another blow, when a purple blur latched onto her and pulled her back. Twelfth Sister’s wings beat the air, but her supernatural strength easily overpowered the mortal pegasus.

“Easy, Solo. Don’t pick fights you can’t win.”

Still, Solo struggled. Her red bandana slid up to one of her ears, and her face contorted into a tight knot of rage. “He doesn’t even remember!”

“Solo, you need to calm down!” Twilight cried, raising her voice only to be heard. “Violence isn’t going to help Shining Armor!”

If Going Solo even heard the words, she gave no sign. Struggling in vain against Twelfth Sister’s overpowering grip, the mare still panted and pushed.

“Please, Solo. You need to calm down—”

Somehow, Solo slipped free of the thestral’s grip and lunged forward at Ink. Her hooves caught his jaw and his shoulder.

The blows seemed to jar Ink from his stunned silence. His shoulders tensed as he pushed himself up from the ground, and his wings rose to their full height. The first tongues of flame measured in feet; by the time they had grown to their full strength, they licked the ceiling of the train station lobby, twenty feet overhead.

Solo took a single step backward. Ink matched her, his nominal height completely forgotten as the flames on his back loomed over the guardsmare.

Another step forward, and it was Solo’s turn to lose focus. Her eyes wandered up into the fire, and her tail pulled in against her flank in fear. Ink watched her for a moment before she turned, spread her wings, and flew off. By the time Twilight and Twelfth had turned around, the former smuggler had already slipped past the parked train on the rails and out into the snowy open air over Stalliongrad.

“Solo!” Twilight shouted.

“You deal with him, Sparkle,” Twelfth Sister growled, shooting a harsh glare in Ink’s direction. “I’ll find Solo. Meet us at the castle.” With those blunt directions, the thestral spread her own leathery wings and silently cursed the Honor Guard. Big Brother was going to kill her.

Ink sat opposite Twilight at a table in the corner of a cramped little corner cafe, staring into his hot cocoa and watching the swirls of cream dance, simply to avoid her eyes. He barely registered the sound of approaching hooves until the little notepad Twilight had set on the table started speaking in Equiish.

“C—Commandant Blood Stroke… Is there anything—”

“No,” he interrupted harshly. The waitress, a unicorn who could barely be called more than sixteen, dropped her serving tray from her buttery yellow arcane grip as she jumped backward. Glasses broke and water spilled on Ink’s hind hooves. Sighing, he looked up, ready to assure the filly that he wasn’t going to hurt her. The memory of fire stole the words from his tongue. Without comment, his wing reached down for the dropped tray.

Before his eyes, wrapped in rosy magic, the shards of glass reformed into unblemished cups. “I’m sorry, ma’am. I think we’d just like some privacy.” With those delicate words, Twilight handed the restored glasses and their tray to the filly.

With a grateful nod, the filly slipped away, leaving Twilight and Ink by the frosted window, where the shadows of snowflakes danced over their muzzles.

The cocoa was lukewarm, at best. Ink frowned, and set the drink down. Ceramic rattled on unfinished wood; the harsh sound left him pinning his ears back, and his eyes wandered over to the window.

“Can we talk, Ink?”

He winced, and only caught himself after the motion was through. He sighed, and tried to look her in the eye. He really did. Somehow, his neck just couldn’t complete the motion. “It’s true,” he blurted out, still staring through the window. “Everything she said.”

“I know,” Twilight answered, her voice still gentle.

“Armor told you, didn’t he?” Ink stacked his forelegs on the table and lowered his head to rest his chin atop them.

Twilight offered a little sigh that made Ink’s ears perk up. “No, Ink. I didn’t know until today.”

“Then Solo—”

“I know because I know you.” Twilight’s hoof stretched out, gently pulling Ink’s muzzle until he was at least facing in her direction. Sitting upright, she looked down on him not with judgement, but something resembling pity. “The way I know any of my friends.”

He found himself quietly wishing it could have been judgement instead.

“If Solo had been lying, you would have gotten defensive. You probably would have made a joke or caught on fire or something. Locking up like that, though… That’s not like you. At all.”

“Hmmph,” Ink grumbled. “I still lit myself on fire. Scared her off.”

Twilight gave a slow nod. “I was hoping to calm her down, but she was attacking you, Ink. And I can see her side too, but you didn’t actually hurt anypony.”

“I killed three ponies. Burnt three more, badly.” Twilight’s eyes widened in shock. “In Baltimare,” Ink elaborated. “She was one of them. The rest were…” And then he closed his eyes. “I still don’t know their names. I thought it was better to stay away after what I did.”

“What actually happened?” The question was so calm, Ink found himself staring up at Twilight with a raised eyebrow. “Roscherk, I don’t think you’re a bad pony. I used to, before you came to Ponyville, but you lived in the library for two months. I don’t think you were ever the kind of pony who would try to hurt my brother to get ahead.”

Ink sighed and turned toward the window. “I was worse than you think, Twilight. But you’re right. I didn’t actually want to kill Shining Armor.” As the snowflakes fell outside, Ink brought his cocoa to his lips, and downed the now chilled liquid in two quick gulps. “How much do you know about empatha?”

“Um… I read Commander Hurricane’s journals, and he was the one who rediscovered it. But that’s all just theory. I don’t know what it feels like.”

Ink nodded, and then raised himself up from the table into a poor imitation of proper posture. “The magic is based on emotion. Fire comes from anger, ice from sadness, wind from excitement. Or desperation, Mentor always said, though I’ve never felt it. And stone from fear.”

“When you say ‘Mentor’, you mean Commander Lining, right?”

Ink nodded. “He was the one who taught me. Well, taught me to be any good. When Polnoch—my little brother—when the two of us were working for Frostbite with the Secret Police, Commandant Truncheon taught us the basics. But Mentor…” Another sigh escaped the red stallion’s lungs. “Your personality affects your empatha. It’s a… an extra-edge sword?”

Twilight smiled slightly. “Double-edged is the idiom in Equiish.”

“Ah. Anyway, for soldiers, that’s what it is: the more emotional you are, the stronger your magic, but the more likely you are to let your emotions overtake you in battle.”

With a nod, Twilight silently indicated her understanding. Ink frowned. “I don’t know a ‘nice’ way to say this, so I guess I’ll just be blunt, Twilight. I’m the best fire empath in Equestria.”

“Um, I don’t mean to be rude, but how do you know that?”

“There’s a pair of huge iron doors in the castle,” Ink half-heartedly muttered. “They’re melted open in the middle, wide enough for somepony to get through.”

To Ink’s surprise, Twilight’s eyes widened in recognition. “The throne room doors that Cyclone burnt when he was attacking River Rock?” When Ink offered her a completely blank stare, Twilight looked down at her hooves. “Sorry. I guess you wouldn’t know about that history.”

“I know, Twilight. I just don’t care. My point is, Mentor taught me to control my anger. Even calm, I can heat those doors enough to bend them. I’ve only ever failed him twice.”

“Twice?”

Ink winced, realizing what he had said. “You don’t want to know, Twilight.”

At first, Twilight said nothing. Under her gaze, Ink felt his skin writhing beneath his coat. After a lifetime of silence, Twilight nodded. “I understand if you don’t want to talk about it, Ink. I won’t force you to. But one of the first lessons my friends and I learned when I moved to Ponyville was that being friends is just as much about accepting help as it is giving it.”

Ink’s ears perked. “You keep insisting we are friends, Twilight?”

“Yes. Don’t you?”

“After I told you that I tried to kill your brother? This isn’t some lesson about Rainbow Dash insulting somepony or Rarity being jealous. I killed innocent ponies—”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Maybe you aren’t like my other friends, Ink. You’ve made some mistakes. But I guess, more than anything else, that’s why you need a friend. Or a few friends, but we can work on that once we rescue Shining.”

Ink’s nostrils flared, and then in a surprisingly fast motion, he stood from the table. “Walk with me, Twilight. Let’s find my brother.”

“We need to pay…”

Ink rolled his eyes and then glanced to the far side of cafe, where the young waitress was very pointedly occupied polishing an already gleaming table. Ink cried out in Stalliongradi, and Twilight’s notepad translated his words aloud. “Send the bill to my office.”

“O-of c-c-course, C-commandant.”

As Ink shouldered his way out the door, he muttered a harsh “thanks” that probably didn’t reach the waitress’ ears.

Outside, the snow on the streets of Stalliongrad fell slow but heavy. Without wind, Ink revelled in the temperature, letting his fetlocks pick up a hint of dust as his hooves dug down to the flagstones underneath the powder. Without his namesake jacket, the ponies on the street paid him little attention, though at least one recognized his cutie mark and gave him a wider berth. Overhead, buildings of brick and stone and plaster rose up tall and narrow on uneven heights, leaning against each other to create lopsided alleyways. Overhead, Burning Hearth Castle loomed over the city, mirrored on the opposite side by the spire of his brother’s obsidian obelisk. Rippling blue magic ran along its surface, through the frame of wooden scaffolding around it, reaching up toward the sky.

“What are you looking at, Ink?”

“That,” Ink answered, gesturing to the obelisk. “I’d guess Predvidenie is there.”

“Is that the focusing pinnacle he’s using to try and end the eternal winter? I read about his experiment in Popular Magic, and I’ve been meaning to write him asking about it. The article was very vague about the way he was applying void crystals in his resonant gem matrices, and I’m curious how he got past the near-infinite resistance quotient.”

Ink nodded in feigned understanding, and started to trudge through the snow. Twilight shivered as she followed, even wrapped in her tan jacket. Their path led through streets Ink had learned by memory years earlier, past familiar storefronts and down streets whose stones were older than Equestria itself. From street to street the buildings shifted in age and style, leaving Twilight in a perpetual state of curious wonder, trusting Ink’s direction while her eyes wandered the city’s skyline.

Unlike his companion, Ink was more interested with the path and the ponies on the street. They passed a few Black Cloaks who the stallion didn’t recognize; without his jacket, he passed unnoticed. In older days, he recalled enjoying the influence and the wide berth that precious jacket inspired, but now he found himself sickened by the thought of the attention. There were still more than a few ponies on the street who knew his size and his color well enough to guess his identity, made clear by their wide steps and nervous sidelong glances, but even those were better than being crowded by his former subordinates.

With his mind lost in memories, Ink didn’t see the little rubber ball rolling on the packed snow covering the street until it bumped against his hoof. He regarded the thing with idle eyes: it was cheaply made, a solid cherry red that wouldn’t be lost in the snow, but it bounced well enough. He tapped the top twice, letting it dribble up and down, before catching it with his wing and looking up to find the owner.

A little filly with her mane in pigtails was slowly walking toward him, unsure what to make of the strange red stallion. Her eyes briefly jumped to the sword Twilight was still wearing, hanging off her neck at the shoulder, but to a filly so young, the ball was more interesting than a strange metal tube. She was halfway across the street toward Ink when a pair of strong hooves wrapped around her sides. Scolding the filly, her mother pulled the child back toward their home, and the door slammed shut with a surprising force.

“Huh…”

“Hm?” Twilight, shocked away from the sights of the city by the sound of the door, turned to Ink. “What happened? Where did you get that ball?”

“A filly kicked it to me,” he answered, his voice still unsure. “Hold on.” With no more explanation, the soldier hesitantly crossed the street to the door. Twilight followed cautiously, stopping a few strides away. No knocker or doorbell hung on the house’s unfinished and unpainted door; only a heavy lock and a handle. Trying to avoid sounding angry, Ink hesitantly raised his hoof and knocked twice.

The wait that followed took two full breaths, though that seemed like forever. When the door opened, it was the face of the mother who stared back at him.

“Your filly…” The words drained off as Ink took in the sheer terror on the mare’s face. Her eyes were watering at the edges, and tears ran down the gaunt cavities on her cheeks.

She shuddered as she tried to speak. “Please, Commandant Blood Stroke, she didn’t mean to interrupt you. She was only playing. She didn’t know—”

“I just wanted to give her ball back,” Ink interrupted, holding out the toy in his wing. “I… um, I’m sorry if I scared you?”

The mare didn’t seem to know what to say. It was with a shuddering hoof that she pulled the ball beyond the door. “Thank you. Thank you, Commandant. I’ll keep her out of the way of your soldiers in the future.”

“It’s no trouble.” Ink nodded, visibly uncomfortable. “Now, I need to be going.”

Though it would be unfair to say it slammed, the door closed rather quickly.

“What was that about?” Twilight asked as Ink walked back to her side.

He didn’t answer her, at least at first. His head hung. His breath stung when it hit his lungs. It took three long breaths to find his voice. “She’s a rebel. Or at least she listens to them.”

“What? How could you possibly know that?”

“Because she believes the story…” Ink took a deep breath. “Twilight, I… there is something I would like to tell you. Well… no. Something I should tell you. But when I am done, I’m afraid we will not be friends.”

Twilight swallowed hard. “I already told you, Ink, I understand that you’ve made mistakes.”

“Not like this.” Turning toward the obelisk once more, the stallion exhaled a cloud of thick mist from the fire building in his gut. “Put away your pad. I will speak Equiish. I do not want this heard.”

At first she hesitated, unsure of what the stallion could possibly mean. Ink only frowned, waiting. Once Twilight had stowed the quill and notepad for her translation spell, he began to speak. “After we killed Frostbite and ended the revolution, Mentor left Stalliongrad with Stoikaja. You know who she is, right?”

“In Equestria, she was called Soldier On. I moved out of Canterlot around the time she joined the Honor Guard. They say she was part of the plot to assassinate Princess Luna.”

Ink scowled. “She worked with us to overthrow Frostbite; usually on missions with my little brother. Mentor taught her to fight too, and when he left after the revolution, he took her with him. He needed her help for some Honor Guard mission in Suida. That was a few months before you fought Nightmare Moon. I don’t know what happened, but when she came back, she was different.

“A lot of the poorer earth ponies who had sided with us against Frostbite wanted us to split up the treasury and strip all the land from the remaining nobles so they’d have some pay for their work. Father sided with them at first, but Predvidenie showed us the math. We needed that money to make the new government work, or ponies would be starving. We’d nearly convinced them all when Stoikaja came back.

“She was a face of the revolution. Mentor had stood her up that way; she represented the ‘common pony’, since Father was an alicorn and our mother had noble blood. So when Stoikaja sided with the farmers, she drove a rift between us.”

“Didn’t Predvidenie try to show her the math?”

Ink opened his mouth to snap back at her show of naivete, but hesitated when he looked at the young mare’s face. Her hopeful expression honestly believed the conflict could have been resolved with simple statistics. He only barely caught his disappointment before it slid onto his muzzle. “She wouldn’t listen any more than the rest of the masses.” Ink’s eyes fell to the road. “She’d always gotten along best with Polnoch, so she tried to pull him over to her side. But when that didn’t work, she hired Masquerade to kill him.”

Twilight recoiled. “I… that doesn’t make any sense. If she was going to assassinate him, why not do it herself? Wasn’t she a soldier?”

Ink nodded. “Stoikaja is dangerous.” He tapped the scar on his chest, running from his shoulder to the base of his ribs. “Deadly. But she didn’t just want to kill him. She wanted to frame me. I was the only one holding her back. Father was on the verge of supporting the farmers himself, and all Predvidenie’s money can’t buy him a spine to stand up to an army. If she took Polnoch and I out of the picture, she won.”

“But that didn’t happen?”

Ink shook his head. “Masquerade operates through middle-ponies. She puts spells on them to keep them from talking about her, and to make sure they haven’t been discovered by guardsponies. But none of her magic protects her contractors; only herself. I managed to track down the pony who Stoikaja talked to. Between his testimony and the evidence I dug up to find him in the first place, I knew the truth. But by that point, Stoikaja had already built up a following.”

“The rebellion?”

“I thought if I cut off the head, the rest of it would crumble. But Mentor had taught Stoikaja too much about stealth for me to flush her out. I had to make her come to me.” Stopping for a moment, Ink swallowed heavily. “I could only think of one way to do that, though. Stoikaja had two foals.”

Far to the east of Stalliongrad, snaking amidst the Clawcasus Mountains from Sibearia in the east to the dreaded edge of Treasonfang Pass in the northwest, the ponies of Stalliongrad had built a wall. The strangely dark granite that made up the mountains left the landscape with a surreally picturesque black and white appearance as the perpetual winter of the region struggled to cover the mighty edifice.

Within the dark stone walls of the serpentine structure, a relatively lanky, slight-figured, and short red stallion fiddled with the stubble building up on his chin and tried to ignore the sound of crying echoing through the room. From the sheer force with which his ears were pinned to his skull, and the notable pinch of muscles between his wings, it was clear his efforts were failing.

“Damn it, Voyska, can you make her shut up?”

Voyska Spetsial'nogo, the mare responsible for acquiring the sobbing filly in the first place, rubbed a hoof through the young child’s mane. “What in Tartarus am I supposed to do exactly, Commandant? She’s five years old!”

“Let us go!” shouted the periwinkle colt in the corner. Eight or nine years old at most, the young pegasus spread his wings without understanding exactly whom he was addressing. “Mommy’s going to come get us, and if you don’t let us go, she’ll hurt you!”

Roscherk Krovyu rubbed his brow with a hoof and resumed the slow pace back and forth in front of the door that had occupied the previous four hours. The stride only lasted two laps before he stopped at the face of a rather cheap pine cabinet filled with military rations and miscellaneous glass bottles. Without even really looking, he procured two such bottles, pouring them into a tall cup. Or, at least, he tried to. When one bottle proved to be empty, his wing flung it backwards over his shoulder, where it smashed against the stone wall. Unhesitating, he filled his cup to the brim with the liquid from the other bottle. The potent scent of juniper and alcohol hung in the air.

“Is that straight gin?” Voskya wondered, looking up from the filly she held against her own lush black coat.

Roscherk nodded as he held out the drink in her direction. “We’re out of tonic. Still ought to shut the kid up.” His eyes fell on the earth pony filly in question, and she curled tighter against Voskya, her cries growing louder still. “How about it, kid? What’s your name… Neustannaja?” The foal made no response, which seemed enough of an affirmative for Roscherk to continue. “Take a nice nap? Maybe stop crying for twenty seconds?”

“Leave her alone!” shouted the colt, lunging at Roscherk’s extended wing. Gin splashed in the air and drew gray puddles on the floor, though most remained in its vessel. “And let us go! We wanna see mommy!”

“Really?” The glint of the sealed ceramic cast light from the room’s hanging oil lantern into the sagging pouches under Roscherk’s eyes. He downed at least two shots worth of the straight gin in his glass without hesitation. “I’d love to see your mom too, colt.”

The colt took a step forward, as if he thought he could somehow intimidate the soldier before him. “My name’s Upornyj, not ‘colt’.”

Roscherk snorted, and then helped himself to another gulp of his drink.

“Roscherk, you’ve been drinking a lot lately. Ever since—”

Voskya winced when her commander smashed the porcelain cup on the floor. “Since when, Voskya? Since Polnoch died? Since I found my brother with his organs melted? Since Stoikaja and her fucking farmers killed forty-five ponies on Gemstone Way?”

Voskya gently set the filly on her lap aside, and then rose to her hooves. “Does that make what you’ve done right, Commandant? I thought your new police were supposed to be above foalnapping. What would your ‘Mentor’ say?”

“That two orphans are worth stopping a war,” the stallion growled back, turning his back to the mare and sulking. “He’d be doing exactly what I’m doing now, Voskya. She admits to having Polnoch killed for her greed, or I burn her alive.”

After his heavy panting died down, the mare responded. “She’ll lie to you,” Voskya whispered, hoping not to upset her commander again. “She’ll claim she’s willing to confess, but she’ll use her dying breath to send a message, and the peasants will start another rebellion.”

“No she won’t,” Roscherk growled. “Because she cares more about her foals than the rebellion.”

“Are you sure about that?”

The heavy, steel-framed wooden door creaked open, amplifying the whistle of the snowstorm outside. As Roscherk’s coat stirred lightly, the stallion once more dipped his head. “If she didn’t, Voskya, we wouldn’t have caught her.” Turning to the pony looming in the doorway, the blood-colored stallion perked his ears. “Is it time, Drobilka?”

“She’s here,” growled the old mare with scars on her throat, sounding for all the world like a stallion ought to.

Roscherk’s eyes flashed with fire, and whatever haze the alcohol had placed in his mind was burnt away. “Bring the foals.”

He hardly noticed the warmth of Drobilka’s coat, nor the gust of wind that swept amidst his hooves when he pressed through the door. Up the black stones, hooves crunching on the white snow, he trod. Two thin lines of fire traveled up the crests of his wings, and the bitter chill of the blizzard vanished.

“Where?”

The hoarse-voiced mare gestured with a wingtip. “Patience, Roscherk. They’re coming.”

“Polnoch has waited long enough.” Roscherk’s right hoof reached up to the furry collar of his cheap black coat, and almost without thinking, he stroked it. “It will be over soon.”

“What are you going to do with the foals when it is done?” Drobilka asked him.

Roscherk shrugged. “Send them to an orphanage somewhere. Canterlot, maybe Trottingham. Somewhere far away. They don’t need to be part of this.”

“I mean now,” the mare growled. “You aren’t going to let them watch, are you?”

A shake of his head was Roscherk’s answer. “I gave Stoikaja my terms. I intend to honor them. The foals will be on the way back to Stol’nograd, whether I put the bitch down here or drag her back there to confess.” For just a moment, the flames on the stallion’s extended wings flared blue. “And here she comes now.”

Out of the wind and the snow to the west came seven ponies. Six were clad in heavy winter coats of neutral browns and blacks and grays, but the seventh in the center of the formation wore only a crimson scarf.

A head and half-again taller than her closest peer in the cluster of guards, Stoikaja walked with a surprising determination for a defeated mare. Her hooves crushed the snow, and her shoulders pressed heavily into the wind, undaunted by the chill. The mane that Roscherk had last seen flowing down to her shoulders was chopped to nearly nothing; in some places an inch long, in others barely risen above her scalp. Two slender red lines marred her right shoulder; a half-dozen more had caught her forelegs where her deadly blows had crossed with the guardsponies’ weapons.

Her emerald eyes caught Roscherk’s amber, picking out the orange of his flames against the monochrome horizon.

“Where are my foals?” Stoikaja shouted, her powerful voice easily clearing the few hundred yards separating her from the foot of the wall.

The fires on Roscherk’s wings grew taller at the sound of her shout, but his face remained even. Turning back to the sloping stairs buried on the top of the wall, he spoke firmly. “Bring them up, Voskya.”

As Roscherk’s subordinates led Stoikaja to a slope of snow at the foot of the wall, Voskya led the two young foals up the stairs, holding them firmly with her purple magic. The young filly shuddered, docilely heeding the tug of the unicorn’s lead. Her brother struggled in vain, flinging his weight back and forth at odd intervals in hopes that he could break the spell wrapped around his shoulders

Neustannaja whimpered. “Don’t throw us off the wall! We’ll be good!”

Roscherk scowled. “I’m not the villain here, filly. You are only here because your mother—”

At that moment, the two foals stepped up from the stairs onto the upper level of the wall. Voskya’s focus lay on the colt and his continued struggles, so when Neustannaja caught sight of her mother, her bolt toward the familiar face broke her free of her magical restraint. The little earth pony filly managed three full galloping strides before strong red legs wrapped around her and pulled her back.

"Let her go!" Stoikaja yelled, beginning to spring forward.

"No sudden moves," Roscherk answered. The spite unrestrained in his every word turned to icicles in the bitter air, despite the fire roaring from above his black coat.

Stoikaja's hooves slid to a stop on the snow below the wall. Desperation rang out over anger. "Please, Roscherk, don't hurt her."

"I'd be glad not to." Roscherk's hoof wrapped around the filly's neck, pulling her up against his chest where her struggles meant nothing against his lean soldier’s physique. "Here's how this is going to work, Stoikaja. You admit you hired Masquerade to kill Polnoch.”

“That’s what you want, bastard?!” Stoikaja took a step forward, but that single step was all she had the courage for, as Roscherk’s grip tensed. “Fine…” Green eyes blinking and twitching, struggling not to cry, scarf flying on the wind, the mare lowered her head. “I… I did it. I killed him.”

Roscherk scoffed, maintaining his grip. “You think I care if you say it to me? I already know. Donoschik told me, right before I lit him on fire.”

Stoikaja shouted up the side of the wall. “Let go of my daughter!”

“Burning Hearth.” Roscherk’s reply echoed through a lull in the wind. “You stand on the wall of Burning Hearth. You tell Postantev and the damn elk and anypony else stupid enough to have believed what you said about me. You tell them the truth. Then you die.”

“No!” The shout came from Upornyj, the pegasus colt struggling against the hold of Roscherk’s lackey. Motivated by desperation, the pegasus colt slipped free and charged toward his sister and the threatening red stallion who held her tight. “You’re not gonna hurt Mom!”

Unfortunately for the colt, no amount of desperation could make up for Roscherk’s honed reflexes and his superior size. Lashing out with the edge of the his free forehoof, the trained soldier caught the back of the colt’s neck. Upornyj hit the black stones of the wall so hard that he bounced, before skidding on his jaw along the smooth surface of the frozen stones.

Stoikaja’s next stride turned the tundra into a battlefield. The first of the six black-clad soldiers surrounding her thrust with a spear for her side. The desperate mother grabbed the shaft of the weapon between her forehooves with speed like a snake. Rising up onto her hind legs, she yanked the weapon back, letting the spear brush past her side and into the belly of the Black Cloak charging her from behind. The tug of the spear also unbalanced the stallion holding it; he stumbled forward just in time for her hooves to wrap around his neck.

Neustannaja screamed at the sound of the stallion’s spine cracking into splinters.

Roscherk glanced down at the earth pony filly in his hooves, and then bluntly shoved her toward Drobilka. The older pegasus, consumed with preparing herself for battle, stumbled at the sudden weight before wrapping her wings around the foal.

“Get her and the colt out of here. I’ll deal with this.” Blood red wings extended, igniting into pillars of flame that tore through the icy sky.

A blast of crackling arcana flew over Stoikaja’s shoulder when she lowered herself, letting her foreleg sweep out in a wide arc that picked up a heavy pile of snow. Flicking her elbow, she launched the mass of frost into the unicorn’s eyes. Only a moment later, her right ear twitched, and on instinct, all four of her legs kicked off against the snow. The desperate backflip put her in the air as a trio of sharpened icicles filled the space where she had been standing. The pegasus black cloak, a wiry sky blue stallion, wheezed when she landed on his back. Her hooves wrapped her scarf around his neck and pulled up.

When the unicorn hurled his next spell, Stoikaja rolled back, spreading the strangled pegasus across her flank as an equine shield. He gasped and went limp as the bolt of magic cleanly pierced his ribs. Releasing her grip on the dead stallion’s neck, Stoikaja bucked the corpse at the unicorn, pinning the unfortunate pony.

Fire consumed her world before she could turn on the next attacker. It singed her frosted coat and brought water to her eyes. She coughed on the smoke, and in that tiny show of weakness, Roscherk struck.

The right cross struck her jaw, and then he kicked off her skull before she could catch him in a grip. Exactly as their mentor had taught them: for a pegasus to lose their mobility is to die. She knew better than to try and fight his battle. Loosening the shoe on her right forehoof, Stoikaja turned her eyes to the sky. She didn’t have any blades to strike with, but the Black Cloaks had left her the plain steel shoes on her hooves.

Her ears twitched at the sound of heavy wings beating the air. Swallowing back her anguish, she tossed the loosened shoe into the air. The smooth steel crescent glimmered in the firelight as she spun, rearing her hind legs for the kill. Without a blade on the leading edge, she’d have to aim perfectly to kill him.

When the flying shoe met the steel on her hind hooves, it rang like a chime. The wet crunch that followed it told her she’d managed a hit. It was over.

A filly’s scream cut through the air. Stoikaja’s eyes traced her children dropping through the sky as Drobilka fell, her brow cracked and bleeding where she’d been struck with a shoe. The mother ran for her foals, but on flaming wings, Roscherk was faster. His hooves caught little Neustannaja, while the bruised, unconscious, and now burnt form of Upornyj was left to Stoikaja’s care.

When she caught her son, Stoikaja cast a quick glance around at the surviving Black Cloaks. Though the unicorn had freed himself from the burden of his compatriot’s corpse and joined the two surviving, sword-wielding pegasi, the introduction of the colt to the battlefield gave all the soldiers pause.

Clearly, Roscherk was not so restrained. When he landed on the black stones of the Wall alongside Voskya’s attentive horn, his forehoof flicked Neustannaja aside, freeing his wings to once more spew Tartarus into the blizzard that filled the skies. The filly skidded to the far edge of the wall, overhanging a sheer precipice to a frozen lake hundreds of feet below. When she tried to move, Roscherk roared and waved his wing. The stones around her melted, ringing the filly in with a pool of glowing magma. For her part, the little earth pony filly unleashed a hoarse scream, her throat tired and her eyes unfocused, at a loss of how to respond to the unending nightmare of her surroundings.

“You know my terms, Stoikaja. You can end this rebellion and die an easy death.”

Stoikaja ran up the wall, slowing only when the bouncing of her stride threatened to send her son spilling from her back. “Polnoch would have been ten-thousand times the Commandant you are, Roscherk.” Her trots on the ice grew heavy, her tail flicking back and forth through the snowflakes in the sky. Her voice shouted up into the storm. “You killed him! I’ll die to save my foals, Roscherk, but I won’t lie to Stol’nograd! I won’t let you win! I won’t do that to Polnoch’s memory!”

“You want to talk about Polnoch’s memory?” The flames on Roscherk’s wings turned blue, and fire danced over his tongue as his voice grew louder. “You didn’t even have the courage to look him in the eyes when he died, whore!” Voskya dove back from the fires on Roscherk’s wings, but nevertheless, the heat left her coat crinkling and blackened.

Stoikaja stopped at the edge of the flames, and laid her son down calmly on the edge of the fire. When she looked up, her eyes were wild, dancing with fire. “Get away from my daughter.”

“Then say it.”

Stoikaja's primal scream filled the air, and she began to run forward.

The Commandant roared in anger, and his mouth lit up in pale blue. A torrent of fire poured off his tongue toward Stoikaja, hot enough to drive away the icy curse that plagued the land. Most of the other Black Cloaks were petrified as smoke engulfed their prisoner. It came as little surprise when Stoikaja tore out of the black clouds toward Roscherk, but she passed him up entirely in the interest of saving her daughter.

He was not so distracted. The steel shoe on his hoof, now heated to the point of glowing white, seared into the mare's flesh with every strike he landed against her. His hooves moved with untraceable speed, slicing into her flesh and searing shut the wounds they left behind.

She toppled to the cold surface of the wall with a deafening crunch, mere feet from her daughter, too determined in her rescue to even gasp or cry out in pain.

Roscherk pounced atop her and wrapped his hooves around her neck as his wings flared. Only inches from her filly's hooves, Stoikaja was pulled into the air by the burly pegasus who was her most loathed enemy.

"Say it!" he shouted, as consumed by his obsession as he was by flames.

Stoikaja twisted in his grip even as she gasped for air. The sheer might of her body was thrown into a single blow against Roscherk's ribcage, shod hoof first. Bones slid into muscle and sinew two dozen feet in the air, and in shock, the short lived flight ended in a sudden fall.

As Roscherk remained crumpled, his lackeys charged her. Stoikaja acted on little more than instinct, dancing away from spells and swords with the sense she still didn’t fully understand. Her ear twitched, and she rolled to the side. A sword would have filled her belly. A shoulder spasmed, and she pounced, catching the unicorn’s horn with a hoof just as the mana for a spell began to build. The coat on her neck stood up, and she lunged after the backpedaling unicorn, just in time to feel a razor-edged sword trim the longer hairs of her mane. Her hoof lashed into the unicorn’s throat twice, tearing up a gaping wound, as the pegasus behind her stumbled with the balance he’d lost in the swing. Without standing, she caught his chest in a single-legged full-body buck. His sternum sank behind his rib cage, and bone spurs pierced his sides as he died. The pant of wings on the air followed, marking the last of the pegasi moving in for the kill. Rearing up, she parried his sword with a shod forehoof, and then broke the diving pony’s wing with her remaining hoof. His momentum carried him over the wall.

Vosyka survived until last, teleporting and dancing away from Stoikaja’s blows. The tickle on the tip of her nose warned her of the blow she needed to end it. As the Black Cloak mare appeared before her, the earth pony rammed her skull down forehead first, putting stars in the other mare’s eyes. Before Voskya could recover, Stoikaja snapped her neck.

The crackle of fire was the first sign that Roscherk had awoken. His roar came next, guttural and indistinct, blending in with the flames that filled the skies once more. The fire spread wide this time, untamed and unlimited, consuming the bodies of his fallen comrades, wrapped in black coats turned bodybags. The sky fell orange and black along with the familiar blue and white. It was clear Roscherk hadn’t noticed. His only thought was of the towering mare before him.

He struck Stoikaja and her flesh burned. Her hooves shattered his foreleg, but the heat in his blood concealed the pain. He ripped at her and burned her, biting and striking in a whirlwind of flames that would have cooked a lesser pony alive. Her strength and her endurance were nothing against him when his mind refused to recognize such petty concepts as pain and danger. He protected himself not by dodging or blocking, but with the sheer volume of damage he and his fires wrought upon her once-invulnerable form.

When he had broken her guard, his hooves beat against her hind legs again and again and again, burning open flesh and muscle and even blackening and melting the edge of her hoof. By the time his fury had abated to permit speech, the unstoppable titan of the rebellion could no longer stand.

"Now..." Roscherk sucked in a breath between his furious words. "... I'll finish what Frostbite started."

Stoikaja's face was too battered, and her mind too tired to even consider a response. Roscherk hefted her with a wing and a hoof, and carried her to the edge of the wall, where an icy fall awaited.

“Mom!” Neustannaja shouted. Roscherk heard it too late. The filly dove, hoping perhaps to pull her mother back, just as he released his enemy for a final fall to her death.

Two ponies tumbled down the sheer wall of black stone, toward the frozen surface of a lake far below. Though they disappeared quickly in a wall of smoke and snow and darkness, Roscherk stared down for some time, until the fires on his wings died and the chill in the air pressed against his bones.

When he turned back to the wall, amidst the charred and withered corpses of Voskya and the others, he saw another body. Smaller, leaner, with little wings and what remained of a wild-cut tail. Burns marred his body, and his chest was still.

Twilight was quiet for a very long time. Ink couldn’t bring himself to look her in the eye, fearful that he might guess what she was truly thinking. Instead, he let his eyes wander the streets of Stalliongrad. Old streets that he’d called home for a few years. Streets he and Polnoch had patrolled in slim gray and black uniform under Frostbite’s orders. Streets he’d fought up and down with Mentor at his side. Streets—

“Thank you for sharing that, Roscherk.”

Ink turned toward Twilight, and he found in her eyes… something. Something he couldn’t quite place. But it wasn’t the hatred he had been expecting. Rather, something closer to pity, though that wasn’t the right idea either.

“Don’t tell anypony,” he told her.

“I would never tell,” Twilight told him, and he believed her. She looked at him with a sad curiosity. “Have you been keeping that secret all these years? Have you ever told anypony?”

He nodded. “Predvidenie knows. He’d helped me find her foals—find Upornyj and Neustannaja. When I came back alone, I knew I couldn’t keep it secret.”

“And?”

“He helped me keep it quiet. Set up an official story, that all my soldiers had died trying to apprehend Stoikaja, and that I was the only one who survived. Left her foals out entirely. Most ponies didn’t know about them. She’d always kept them hidden.” Ink frowned, and his wings sagged on his back. “But the rebellion didn’t die. We started seeing graffiti. ‘Stoikaja lives’. And when I caught rebels, they’d call me ‘foal-killer’. As far as the good ponies care, it’s just some slander. But that mare back there, the mother with the ball… I could see it in her eyes. She’d heard the stories. She thought I’d kill her daughter.”

Twilight brushed up against Ink’s side and reached up a forehoof to wrap around his shoulders. To her surprise, he recoiled from the gesture. Lowering the hoof, Twilight let her gaze fall back to the ground. “It was an accident, Roscherk. A mistake.”

“Does that make a difference?” Ink asked.

Twilight nodded. “I… well, I’m not sure I know what to say, Roscherk, but—”

“Ink,” he corrected. “Please, Twilight.”

Twilight’s ears perked, and her hooves stopped still on the snow-dusted avenue of Stalliongrad. “Why? I thought I was pronouncing it right—”

“You were. Just…” He hesitated, his eyes drifting to the horizon. “Look, I don’t know,” the stallion whispered. “It just sounds better right now.”

Without pressing the point, the unicorn’s hooves returned to their path. “What I’m trying to say, Ink, is that you can’t change the past.” Glancing down to where her hooves met the snowy streets, Twilight whispered to herself. “What would Princess Celestia say?” A glimmer of metal caught her eye, and her gaze drifted back to her own side, where in the commotion of the day, she had forgotten that she was wearing Heims Osculumagainst the somewhat worn and dirtied tan jacket she’d bought in Trotsylvania.

“Have you ever heard the story of Cyclone, Ink?”

He nodded, and when he spoke up, it was clear his mind was elsewhere. “Everypony in Stol’nograd knows about Tsyklon. One of Commander Hurricane’s soldiers who didn’t like ‘giving up’ on the pegasus nation, so he took over the unicorn capital when everypony else migrated to Equestria. What does that have to do with me?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Well, Ink, Cyclone was a lot like you. He was a talented soldier, and a powerful fire empath, and he was Commander Hurricane’s son. More than anything, he wanted to live up to his father’s legacy, and get the pegasus homeland back from the griffons.”

Ink seemed to be barely attentive. His hooves lazily beat the snowy streets, and his eyes traced a path across a wide bridge over the Volgallop. “And…?” he muttered.

“And like you, he made a mistake. He tried to usurp Cirra from his father and overthrow the Diamond Kingdom. He didn’t remain in River Rock—Stalliongrad—because of some nationalistic ideal. He was exiled from Equestria, and forced to stay with the remaining eternal winter.”

“I did not need the knife twisted, Twilight.”

“That isn’t—” Twilight huffed when she saw the wry upward twist at the corner of Ink’s mouth, short-lived though it was. “My point is, nopony remembers those things about Cyclone. Part of that is because they were left out of history books, but it’s also because of all the good Cyclone did in his later life. He saved Stalliongrad from starvation by negotiating with the dragons for the heat to grow crops. He helped negotiate a peace between the grizzly bears and the polar tribes to found Sibearia. And his skills as a soldier let him save Equestria once or twice too.”

Ink slowly nodded, and then a slow smile emerged on his jaw. “Also, he was clearly compensating for something.”

“What?”

“Have you seen his sword? Infernus?” Ink spread his wings out. “It’s like, if I wanted to make the world’s biggest pancake, that’s what I would use. It’s longer than I am.”

“Well, to be honest, Ink, that isn’t very—”

“How badly do you actually want to finish that thought, Miss Sparkle?” In the ensuing silence, Ink gestured with a wing at the small stone structure ahead, surrounding the base of his brother’s massive monument. “I do appreciate your story though, Twilight. Now, let’s find my brother. Then, hopefully, we can find yours.”

The base of the obelisk was a rather mundane stone building that would have blended into the surrounding buildings, were it not occupying the center of an otherwise wide brick square lightly dusted in snow. The air here was warmer, Ink observed, than in the rest of the city. Perhaps Predvidenie’s idea wasn’t as insane as it sounded. The stray thought died as quickly as it had risen; ahead, two Black Cloaks stood flanking the heavy sheer-skysteel doors that offered entrance to the building.

“Товарищи,” Ink began, only to hear an imitation of his voice offer greeting from Twilight’s notepad in Equiish, over his shoulder. “Comrades.” It sounded tinny and off-key, but Twilight would survive. Ink continued unhindered, and the spell followed along. “New recruits? I don’t recognize you.” Before either could answer he shrugged it off. “Doesn’t matter. I’m in a hurry. Looking for my brother. He inside?”

“Commander Blood Stroke,” one of the stallions greeted with a surprisingly casual tone. “He is. But Countess Star gave us strict orders not to be disturbed.”

“I’m sure she did,” Ink replied. “Typical. Star’s lackeys. I’m glad you aren’t letting the average idiot passerby on the street go nosing through whatever sensitive, explosive magical crap Foresight is keeping in there. But I think it’s safe to say those rules don’t apply to me.”

The guards shook their heads, and the pegasus of the two spread a wing across the doors. “I’m sorry, sir. She was quite clear.”

“Do you understand who I am?”

Nods.

“The military advisor to Princess Celestia? Her personal bodyguard? The foremost soldier in Equestria?”

Nods.

“And you’re still saying I can’t go inside?”

Heads shook.

“I see.” Ink glanced back over his shoulder. “Twilight, give me a moment to speak to these two fine stallions more personally. There’s some fine pre-Civil War architecture down the street.”

More curious about what Ink was actually indicating to with his extended wing than believing his claim of such fine, rustic architecture (given the extensive damage the city had faced in the dragon wars), Twilight turned around. Within two seconds of that motion, a fleshy gasp and three heavy metal clangs could be heard in the air. Worried, the mare spun back around, only to find Ink leaning casually on the wall beside the door. The two black cloaks were laying at his hooves; one, unconscious with a bruise forming on his brow, and the other groaning and clutching his gut.

“They… slipped,” Ink explained helpfully. “It’s icy.”

The doors to the building were flung open in a golden light, and an irate stallion’s voice called through the opening, helpfully translated by Twilight’s spell. “What in Tartarus are you letting somepony knock—Blood?” Foresight, his brow sweating and his ever-present scarf hanging loose around his neck, walked up to the doorway in astonishment. “And Twilight Sparkle?”

“Hello, Predvidenie,” she greeted. Her notepad helpfully announced ‘Foresight’, before she ended the spell and tucked it into her jacket. “It’s been awhile, hasn’t it?”

Shaking his head as if slapped, Foresight nodded and picked up in Equiish. “Too long. Far too long.” Stepping out of the way, he gestured into the structure beneath the Obelisk. “I’m sorry, that probably sounded like I was hitting on you, Twilight.”

“I understand,” Twilight replied as she walked into the warmth of the closed structure. “No harm done.”

The inside of the building was, at first, a short hallway with tiled linoleum floors, plastered drywall walls, and florescent lights. It even smelled like a government office, though there were no bureaucrats or doors with little plastic nameplates to justify the scent. Only Foresight’s cologne offset the perception of micromanagement and inefficiency that Twilight couldn’t seem to shake.

“Smooth, Four-eyes,” Ink whispered to his older brother as he too slipped inside. “Well, this place is nice. Interior heating? And electric lighting?” He waited for Foresight to close the doors, and then followed his elder brother inside. The short hallway inside turned abruptly to the right, before opening in a square room centered around a cylindrical pillar of pure diamond. “You sure threw in on this thing, didn’t you?”

“They were cheap compared to the void crystal I bought from Princess Cadance.” Foresight’s hoof gestured up to the ceiling, where the inside of the smooth, black obelisk could be seen, glimmering like the night sky with tiny specks of light. “But you probably don’t care about that right now, Roscherk.”

“I’d love to hear about it,” Twilight announced, looking up with glimmering eyes toward the intricate lines carved in the stonework where the lower ‘building’ met the black crystal of the obelisk proper. “What are these matrices? You have counter-thaumic resonance dumping an unstable feedback loop into the void crystal? I feel like I’ve seen this before, but I can’t place a name.”

“They don’t have one,” Foresight replied. “At least, if they do, I haven’t found it yet.” His horn ignited, lifting a heavy book from its place on a table at the far side of the chamber. An ornately carved cover of sapphires was wrapped in a frame of purest silver.

Twilight gasped. “Is that the Grimoire Fatalis? Princess Celestia said it had been lost!”

“It was in King Sombra’s private library.” Foresight once more nervously tugged at his scarf. “Cadance and Shining Armor were very kind to lend it to me, once I explained what I needed it for.”

Twilight let her gaze wander the walls of the obelisk again. “How does a book of necromancy and narcissistic journal entries help solve the windigo curse?”

“I needed a way to generate and store controlled thaumic inputs of alicorn magic.” Foresight glanced over to his brother’s exaggerated yawning motion, then rolled his eyes behind his gold-rimmed glasses and returned his attention to Twilight. “His void-crystal orbit method might not be the most efficient use of arcana, but it’s a lot more practical than asking earth ponies for bone marrow donations to get the endura I’d need. Fortunately, we have more than a few competent mages willing to generate the empatha and endura necessary if they’re paid well. Mostly university students, but—”

Ink interrupted his brother by audibly spitting on the otherwise pristine floor. Twilight realized the source of his reaction, and scowled at the paired steel doors on the far side of the room, which parted to reveal a familiar and unwelcome face.

“Ah. Tvilight Sparkle. I trust your trip vas safe?” Countess Shooting Star offered a meaningless flash of teeth by way of a smile to the younger mare before turning toward Ink. “I see you’ve upgraded the skill of your escort. I hope the spirited filly you had before is vell.”

“She’s fine, Countess.”

Foresight, sensing the tension in the room, adjusted his glasses and grinned nervously at both parties. “Twilight, have you already met Countess Shooting Star?”

Twilight nodded. “She asked me to go into Onyx Ridge. She wanted me to rob a grave.”

“I made it quite clear I vas interested in the history of the place. You vere looking for your brother.” Star strode forward. “It seems you found vat I asked anyway, if my eyes aren’t mistaken. Is that not Heims Osculum hanging from your side?”

Twilight scowled, and led with a hoof forward—a classic dueling stance, meant to convey her determination. “I’m not an idiot, Star. You knew Typhoon’s body was preserved in the ice. That’s why you wanted her corpse, and not just her sword or her journal.”

Countess Star cocked her head, and a hint of concern slipped into her voice. “Journal?”

“I don’t know what freaky necromancy you wanted to do to Typhoon, but I’m not having any part in it. She went through enough in her life!” Twilight took a breath and tried to regain some measure of composure. As if a twist of her head would somehow wipe away the anger in her voice, the mare adopted what she must have thought was a calm tone. “What are you doing here?”

“Ahem,” Foresight said aloud rather than actually clearing his throat. “Twilight, Countess Star has been making empatha for me. She’s far-and-away the most productive donor. Recently, there was a rebel attack on Trotsylvania—”

Star raised a hoof. “She knows, Predvidenie. She vas there.”

Foresight looked at Twilight over the top of his glasses, almost disbelieving, before regaining his composure. “Forgive me; I still tend to think of you as the school-age filly taking college classes with us. After Discord and Nightmare Moon, I suppose rebels wouldn’t faze you.”

“It also helps that I knew them from my last trip to Stalliongrad. They wanted me to come with them, but even when they tried to push the issue, I didn’t think Youmin was going to hurt us.”

Following that statement, the room hung in a dead silence. Foresight and Star both looked to Ink, who leaned against the wall regarding his own hoof in a deliberate show of disinterest. The act might even have been believable, were it not for the brutal canyon creased into his forehead.

Star picked up slowly. “Sparkle, I understand you are not from Stalliongrad, but you might do vell to mind who is listening to you if you’re going to call the rebels your friends.” Then she made a show of laughing off the comment. “Still, the room is not on fire, so I suppose there is very little to be vorried about. Returning to our original point,” she said, before turning to Foresight and lifting a necklace of fire opals from her neck in her magical grip, “Predvidenie, here is the promised empatha. Tvelve thousand thaums should be enough to—”

“Twelve thousand thaums?!” Twilight’s hooves slid on the smooth floor as she nearly lost her balance in shock.

Ink coughed into his hoof again. “I’m assuming that’s a lot?”

“More than just a lot. That’s…” Twilight steadied herself with a deep breath. “Let me put it this way, Ink. You can probably make twelve thousand thaums of empatha in a day or two; I’ve seen a few samples of the kind of magic you can do. But you couldn’t store it in gems or a resonance glyph to make it useful in a system like this one. Most unicorns can make a few thousand thaums of arcana a day, if that’s all they do. A practicing mage like me can do it in a day or less. But converting arcana to empatha with void crystals is incredibly inefficient. You keep less than a tenth of a percent of what you put in. It would take most unicorns ten years to get that kind of mana stored up.”

“You don’t believe me, Tvilight? See for yourself.”

Twilight’s horn lit up, and she pointed it in the Countess’ direction. For a moment, only the sound of the mana building on her brow broke the silence. Then, slowly, her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. “That…” Her eyes grew narrow, and then wide again. “I’m still not sure I believe it, but that does feel like a few thousand thaums.”

Star smiled almost viciously. “Glad to be proven right. Now, Predvidenie, you take these. And with that, I can see you and the princess’ student have business. If you can give me Heims Osculum and this journal you’ve found, I can be on my vay with a freshly restored force of guards.”

Twilight shook her head. “I’m not giving you anything of Typhoon’s.”

“I’m afraid I’m not actually asking, Tvilight.” Star leaned forward, looking Twilight in the eyes. “Since you seem to think you are in a position of power here, let me make things perfectly clear. You may vell be Celestia’s prized student. You may have the favoritism of many in our government. But this vill be the second time that you have come into the Domain of Stalliongrad and stolen from us. I’m certain you know that archeological treasures are the property of the domain they lie in.”

To Twilight’s surprise, a blood red hoof grabbed the shoulder of Countess Star’s expensive dress and pulled her back. “You think you can win threatening Twilight Sparkle? I knew you were a bitch, but I never thought you were that stupid. Think about who you’re picking a fight with.”

“Roscherk—” Predvidenie’s protest did not live long against stronger wills.

Star calmly placed a hoof against the long scar on Ink’s chest, and pushed him him away. “You don’t scare anypony, Roscherk. Certainly not vhen I’m in the right. Look around. The battle’s over. Стойкая победила.

Ink’s wings burst into flame. Star smiled. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Sparkle knows I’m right. Just look at her.”

Scowling, Ink looked to Twilight. Though she was furious, the young mage shook her head slowly, and waited for the fires on his wings to die down. Once the room was still again, her horn ignited, and both Typhoon’s journal and Heims Osculum floated over to the pale countess. No more than a few mere heartbeats later, Star was gone.

In silence, Ink, Foresight, and Twilight looked at one another. The room was still. The only movement to be seen was the smoke from Ink’s fires fading into nothingness as it dissipated into the air. Almost a minute later, Ink finally found his tongue. “Why in Tartarus did you give her the damn sword?”

Twilight frowned. “I didn’t want to confront her until I’ve talked to Princess Luna or one of the Night Guard, but there’s something…” A slow, contemplative breath held her words back. “When I was looking at that necklace with the empatha, I found something else. She’s keeping an illusion on herself.”

Predvidenie chuckled. “I know you aren’t exactly one for politics, Twilight, but lots of nobleponies have a minor charm like that built into their jewelry, just to make them look a bit younger or hide a blemish or scar.”

“I know.” Twilight glanced back to the door out of the obelisk. “But most ponies don’t use a nightmare illusion for something like that. The only other pony I can think of who uses that sort of spell for a disguise is Masquerade.”

Ink straightened up. “You think she’s with the assassin?”

“Like I said, I need to talk to Princess Luna. But in the meantime, Foresight, we didn’t just come here to talk. We’re in a hurry. I need to find Shining Armor, and Ink said you could help.”

Foresight’s hoof nervously returned to his neck. “Well… I don’t know what you’d want me to do, but I can send out some guards, maybe offer a reward for information—”

“Don’t waste her time, Foureyes,” Ink cut his brother off. “Use the stupid rock.”

“I… I don’t know what you’re talking about, Blood Stroke…”

The back of Ink’s hoof struck his brother across the cheek. “Don’t give me that crap. You can trust Sparkle.”

“But…” Foresight wilted when Ink raised his hoof again. “... fine. Twilight, can I trust that what I’m about to tell you will remain between us?”

Nervously, Twilight shrugged. “I guess…? It’s not dangerous or anything, right?”

“No, but…” With a tug of his magic, Foresight finished pulling his scarf tight enough around his neck that his fur was beginning to bulge around it. “I suppose I’ll just say it. Twilight, we can find your brother with Electrum’s Orb.”

Author's Note

Added to our editing credits: SolidfireSolstice, DJThomp, Pega-ace, and Zennyth. Thanks, guys!

XXV - Memento Mori

XXV

Memento Mori

Rainbow awoke to the crunching pain of her own shoulder bashing against the dirt, though she didn’t recall having fallen asleep there. She blinked, and dust fell from her eyelashes. The indistinct blur of the sky was painted the colors of rust and water, blending together in a majestic amethyst that dominated the horizon. Set against it, the silhouettes of two ponies stood nearby, with the larger looming over some fallen figure.

You’re awake? Thank Mobius. I was worried I’d be stuck in here forever. Trust Coil’s magic to switch control without warning. Though Typhoon seemed to be forcing a hint of sarcasm into her ethereal voice, Rainbow was also certain she heard more than a hint of fear.

“Wait… you’re back in my head.” Rainbow couldn’t help but grin. “I’m me again.” The words might have come out as a shout, if her throat hadn’t felt so parched and coarse. Instead, the rasp she released was muted, and did not reach the ears of her friends.

“Don’t move, boar.” Soldier On held a blade-shod hoof to Enka’s throat calmly. “Why were you carrying Rainbow Dash?” Though Enka was bigger than an average pony mare, Soldier On still loomed over her, big enough that she seemed to belong more among the distant mesas cutting into the horizon than the little gathering.

“The other pony wanted me to get her away from Khagan!” The stress in Enka’s words could not have been missed. “He stayed to buy us time—”

“He’s fighting the Warchief?” Dead Reckoning stepped forward. It took Rainbow a moment to recognize the familiar stallion, with his slitted yellow eye, his prominent fang, and his leathery wing. Still, three parallel scars he wore were unmistakeable, even on a face that seemed decades too young. “But Rainbow has his armor—”

On cut in before her companion could finish his thought. “How long ago did you last see him?”

You may need to help Enka, Rainbow.

“An hour, maybe a little more. From what you said…”

In attempting to stand, Rainbow’s shuddering motion gathered the attention first of Soldier On, and then of her other companions. When her shaky hooves found stability, and her throbbing headache settled enough to let her see, she saw Deadeye, Soldier On, and Enka all staring at her in total silence.

“…you two alright? You look like you saw a ghost.”

I can’t believe you actually said that out loud. Are you sure you aren’t descended from Gale?

Dead Reckoning demonstrated the newfound speed and power of his thestral body when he lunged at Rainbow, wrapping her tightly in a hug with his mismatched wings and his forelegs. Where the plates of Hurricane’s armor left a gap at the base of her neck, his coat felt dusty and coarse, but the pressure nevertheless gave her a comfort she only then realized she had forgotten in the halls and shadows of Balgas Rift.

“You’re alive…” he whispered in her ear.

“Yeah,” Rainbow whispered back. “I made it.”

In the following moments, the sun was blotted out and an enormous weight settled on Rainbow’s neck, forcing her down onto Deadeye’s shoulder. As she craned her neck in an attempt to breathe, her thestral companion chuckled to himself. “On, I know you’re not supposed to say this to a mare, but you’re really heavy.”

Soldier On leaned back from her own hug and sat on her haunches in the dirt of Suida. “Typical pegasi. Can’t handle a real hug. I’m glad you’re okay, Rainbow.”

Rainbow didn’t think her smile could grow much wider. “It’s good to see you too, On. I hope you didn’t scare Enka too much; she’s on our side.”

“I’m fine,” the sow answered, though she still gave Soldier On a wide berth. “I’m glad we have found your friends, and I do not mean to cut your reunions short, but if we are going to escape Khagan, we ought to flee. I doubt your father bought us much time.”

Soldier On cast her gaze to the south. “You left Balgas Rift an hour ago? It doesn’t look like you were followed. We’d have seen at least dust on the horizon by now.”

When Rainbow disentangled herself from Reckoning’s wings and followed On’s gaze, she saw the truth. Under the golden brim of Hurricane’s helmet, the red stone desert stretched on into a hazy horizon miles away, unblemished by the shapes of boars, or any life whatsoever save dusty shrubbery.

Something’s wrong, Rainbow. Don’t get idealistic. Just because there’s no one following you—

“He’s still alive,” Reckoning said, not speaking to anyone in particular. Mismatched wings spread, before Soldier On’s hoof caught his shoulder.

“Deadeye, listen to yourself.” On pulled the thestral back, spinning him to face her. “You can’t seriously be thinking of flying in there. He’s fighting Khagan.”

“He survived Nightmare Moon,” Reckoning replied, glaring up at the earth pony.

“With his armor,” On countered, very nearly kicking Rainbow with a wild gesture in her direction. “And even then he nearly lost his leg. They’ll have ripped off his wings, too. What chance does he really have?”

“He’s the best soldier we’ve ever had!”

“He’s not immortal!” And then, panting from the shouting, she leaned forward and thrust a hoof against the stained and dusted shirt he still wore. “And you aren’t either, undead or not. Equestria will have to survive without him.”

Deadeye’s forelegs shuddered with barely constrained rage, and his thestral wing began to visibly steam. “I don’t care about Equestria. Not anymore. The Commander saved my life, and I owe him the same.”

“We’re soldiers, Deadeye. You don’t owe him your soul because he saved you from some griffon.”

Rainbow finally found a moment’s pause to speak, though she hesitated as she stepped up to the shouting soldiers. “Deadeye… I get that you feel like you owe him, but… do you know what happens if you die like this?”

Deadeye nodded solemnly. “The Commander told us—after the Summer Sun Celebration that year—though a lot of the magic talk goes over my head. I don’t get to go to the Summer Lands. But that doesn’t matter.”

Soldier On beat a hoof against her brow. “What about your family, Deadeye? Your friends? Your old—”

“I know!” Reckoning shouted back. “Look, I don’t have time to argue this with you, and neither does he. Rainbow can tell you why I need to go to him; she had this argument with me enough times in Zebrica. Now it’s my turn. I can’t leave my friend behind.” With those harsh words, Dead Reckoning spread his wings, leapt, and took off into the sky.

What did he mean?

Rainbow looked over to Soldier On. “We have to go after him.”

“No we don’t. Rainbow—”

“What he said there at the end—”

On smashed a hoof into the stone beneath her, sending cracks out. “For once in your life, listen to reason. Even if we accept that the Commander is still somehow alive after an hour in single combat with an immortal giant boar, the two of us would only get in the way. Boars don’t fly, so the only chance we really have left is that Deadeye can swoop down out of the sky, grab the Commander, and get out without being hit by any magic. If you throw yourself into danger blindly, even if it’s for your friends, you’re only going to get yourself killed.”

Listen to her, Rainbow. She’s right, about the strategy and about you getting hurt.

“I can’t.”

“Can’t what?” Enka asked.

Rainbow, they can hear you.

“I know, Typhoon.” Rainbow looked up at Enka, and then at Soldier On, who both stared at her with confusion and concern written across their faces. “I don’t leave friends behind when they’re in danger. You were right, in Ponyville. I don’t care about my dad. But Deadeye is my friend. And I know exactly what happens if he dies. Because I died saving Luna from Masquerade.”

Enka’s mouth hung open without speaking. Soldier On reacted only by the motion of her nostrils flaring to draw in a punctuated breath.

“I’ve been to the Between. I saw what happens to thestrals who die away from Luna. And there’s no way in Tartarus I’m letting that happen to Deadeye.”

“And what happens if you die?” On asked.

Rainbow matched the huge mare’s green-eyed gaze. “Better than living with myself if he got killed. He’s my friend, On.”

“Hold on,” said Enka, stepping forward. “What did you mean about being dead? And who’s Typhoon? What was all that about?”

“We don’t have time to explain.” Soldier On nodded to Rainbow. “For the record, you’re still wrong. And you owe me for this.”

With those blunt words, On picked up Rainbow, slung the diminutive pegasus over her neck like a scarf, and broke into a run that would put a locomotive to shame.

Looking down from over the brim of a wispy cloud that barely held his weight, Dead Reckoning shuddered at the sight of Balgas Rift. Between the dusty red walls of the surprisingly narrow canyon, dozens—if not hundreds—of boars had gathered around Khagan. It was the first time the soldier had seen the warchief, and the rumors about his staggering size were true: from above, he more closely resembled a decently sized cottage than any living creature, with huge boxy shoulders that kept his legs tucked in beneath his bulk and a broad, squat muzzle that joined with his torso without any meaningful neck to speak of.

Sitting on the ground in front of Khagan and his mass of boars was a blue-black blotch, tinged with hints of silver and gold. The Commander looked familiar enough, though a normal pony’s vision wasn’t enough to gain more detail.

Fortunately for Deadeye, a better view came as easily as closing his more natural eye and devoting his focus to the slitted orb he’d only just gained. The picture it gave was sharper, fuller, and more detailed, at the cost of the sharpest reds of the canyon walls and the deepest blacks of the shadows they concealed.

For just a moment, Reckoning reflected that being a thestral was weird.

The Commander lay hunched over, crumpled and shuddering with thick vines wrapped tightly around his flesh. From the stumps where his wings ought to have extended Deadeye saw golden flowers and trunks of the plants surrounding his leader. He’d heard the stories of the gilded lotus. If the plant was this developed already, the roots would have already found his heart, his lungs, his bones—extracting them would take magic even a thestral didn’t have.

That left one option, supposing the Commander would survive long enough to reach Canterlot.

“Too many tusks…” he whispered to himself. “But at least they don’t have wings.”

Flapping his wings gently to direct the cloud beneath him without revealing himself, Deadeye put the thick walls of the canyon between himself and the eyes of the boar army below. Only then did he kick off and flare his wings.

Clouds were sparse in the skies over Suida, and the long gaps flying between them left the thestral with a sinking feeling in the cold void of his gut, and far too much time to think. To remember.

“Do you understand what I’m asking of you?” the Commander had asked that chilly December day in Canterlot. Despite the snow falling outside, the Private’s Reserve was nearly an oven, lit by a massive fireplace that crackled and cast flashes across the harsh face of the pony whose age Deadeye could only guess. “This won’t be easy for you.”

Reckoning looked down into the mug of seltzer water and virgin apple juice, and then to the makeshift coaster beneath it. They had said Psychiatric Discharge earlier, though the ‘rge’ was all that could be made out, the rest stained into oblivion by the sweat on the outside of his drink. “I want to do the job, ‘Commander’. But why offer it to me? You know who I am, don’t you? You read the papers—”

“Warrant Officer Dead Reckoning. ‘Deadeye’. The griffons call you ‘die Kreuzotter’.”

“That was before I went mad.”

“Does that change who you are?” The Commander gestured to Reckoning’s flank with a blue-gray wing, its crest glimmering with sharpened scales. “Would it surprise you to learn that you’ve led more successful wartime operations on enemy territory than any other pony alive today?”

Reckoning’s good eye flinched. “That was a long time ago. Fifteen years in that damn gray suit—”

“I’m not going to waste my breath trying to convince you if you don’t want the job,” the Commander interrupted harshly. “I’m offering you a place on the Honor Guard because I feel a soldier deserves more than dying alone in a retirement home, watching his mane fall out and eating grits three times a day, regretting his life. If you want to give up on your destiny, that’s your decision. I can’t heal your mind, Reckoning, but I can teach you to control it. If you decide you want to live up to your mark, you can find me.”

When he’d gathered three clouds, Reckoning balled the wispy white bits up and punched them with his hoof. Each strike he filled with his empatha, and slowly, darkness began to build up. The thunderhead was never going to be military grade; any of the boars could shake off the shock without much more than a sore spot and a burn to show for the trouble. But that wasn’t the point.

The Commander dragged Deadeye out of the immaculate Canterlot throne room through a side door, tugging on the smaller and lankier pegasus’ neck with a foreleg even as his teeth clamped tightly around Procellarum. As the door swung shut, the aging scout caught a glimpse of the griffon ambassador rubbing his talons across the fur of his neck, even as Celestia moved down from her throne to offer him condolences. Only a few loose hairs in the middle of the marble floor testified to how close Reckoning had come to starting a war.

When the door swung shut, the Commander slammed Reckoning into a marble pillar, putting an ache in his back, and a far bigger bruise on his pride. To the older stallion’s confusion, his leader then sheathed his sword.

“You’re not going to do it?” Deadeye shouted, at which point the Commander pressed down on his neck. Only when most of the fight and the air had left Deadeye was the pressure released. Panting, and wheezing in a far softer voice, the scout continued. “I nearly caused a war!”

“You want to die?” the Commander asked. “I won’t stop you.”

Reckoning smashed a hoof into an immaculate marble pillar lining the palace hallway. With a crack of thunder, priceless stone became pebbles and dust. “You told me yourself the spell won’t take again! So that’s it. That’s might as well be my life. I can’t protect Celestia if I’m going to have the flashbacks again!”

The Commander responded slowly, pulling Hurricane’s helmet off his head and setting it down on the floor. “No, Deadeye. We can’t have you in Canterlot anymore, but that doesn’t mean you can’t still serve.”

The graying green stallion’s brow rose. “What are you saying?”

Frowning, the Commander’s blotched brown eyes looked away. “It won’t be an easy price. You’ll be alone for months, maybe years. No poker, no cushy missions to Neighples, no evenings in Cloudsdale. As far as the rest of Equestria is concerned, whatever you choose, you were just discharged from your service as a guardspony.”

Reckoning drew in a slow breath, though his lungs were less patient than the Commander. “...but?”

“I need somepony in place near Grivridge. Somepony who can survive in the jungle. Keep an eye on Magnus. And if the need arises, assassinate him.”

“I’m not a spy,” Reckoning protested. “Get somepony from the E.I.S. or—”

“If somepony from Intelligence gets caught hiding in the Zebrican jungle, spying on Grivridge, how do we deny it?” Walking away from his helmet, the Commander cast his gaze on one of the elaborate stained glass windows lining the hall. “Once a month, I’ll send Marathon to rendezvous with you and provide you with some basic medical supplies. The rest—food, shelter, armaments—you’ll have to provide for yourself. If you do have one of your flashbacks, and the griffons apprehend you, Equestria will tell the griffons the truth: you’re a mentally unstable veteran who believes there’s still a war going on from forty years ago.” Only when his brutal explanation had finished did the scarred stallion turn back to face his subordinate. “I know the choice I’m offering you is hard. Unfair. I wish that I could offer you something more—”

“I’ll do it.” The Commander’s eyes widened slightly, and Reckoning continued. “You were right, when you recruited me. I’m still a soldier. I’d rather be out there than lose what’s left of my mind trying to live like a civilian.”

The thunderhead sparked between his hooves as Reckoning flew toward the mouth of the canyon. His hooves met the red stone, just far enough from the edge to keep himself out of sight of whatever sentries might have been watching below. Sure that no boars could see him, the thestral reared up and bucked the thundercloud.

Though the lightning bolt was barely visible, the crack of thunder left a ringing in Reckoning’s ears. Nearly twenty seconds later, when the noise settled, it was replaced by the unmistakable noise of an avalanche of hooves rushing through the canyon below.

“Well, that was easy,” Deadeye muttered to himself, before spreading his disparate wings again and soaring up to his remaining cloud overhead. Below, boars rushed like a river toward the mid-day lightning. Khagan himself was nowhere to be seen, however, and a chill settled in Reckoning’s stomach. With a shake of his head, he shed the feeling and once more committed to his plan.

The flight back toward the Commander was incredibly short, and yet by far the longest in Reckoning’s death. Every flap felt his throat grow tighter in hopes that there was still something he could do, somehow, to help the stallion that saved his life. Memories flashed through his mind, too quickly to even honor, as the red stone sailed by below. And then, all at once, he was there. A glance downward saw no sign of boars, massive or mortal. Only the Commander, lying alone. Rolling off the back of his cloud, the thestral kept his wings tight against his sides and fell like a stone. A mere thirty feet above the ground, he flared them out, catching the wind and suspending his fall. The force would have broken most mortal wings, but undeath was not without its advantages. Three seconds of gliding carried Deadeye to land within leg’s reach of the Commander. At his hooves, Procellarum had been thrust into the dirt.

The first thing out of the gray stallion’s mouth was a gasping moan. “...Reckoning?”

“Dead and kicking,” the scout answered, forcing himself to grin out of the fangless side of his mouth. “Come on. We’ve got to get you out of here. Celestia can help you.” Reckoning’s green hoof reached for the Commander, only to pause when the red rock of the ground rose up from beneath him, pinning the soldier’s legs firmly to the Suidan earth.

“He will not be going anywhere, corpse.”

Reckoning turned slowly, watching as the walls of the canyon were torn apart to reveal a mammoth cavern, playing host to an equally mammoth boar. Khagan’s scarred visage was marred even further by the blood leaking from the blade of Rainbow’s sword, snapped off just above his skin but still buried in his neck. His right tusk scythed down, just the right height to easily disembowel a pony, while his left slowly but visibly regenerated a foot away from the rest of his teeth.

“And neither will you. Did you think I was stupid enough to accompany my entire force after your distraction?”

Reckoning’s muzzle wandered down to his wing, where his misshapen machete lay bound in cloth. Mongrel escaped its makeshift sheath without sound, leaving all the more focus for the thestral’s words. “A pony can dream, can’t he?”

“I do not have time to waste on your humor. I had been expecting the filly.” Khagan’s full tusk lit with hazy gray magic that only seemed solid in one of Reckoning’s eyes. The thestral lunged forward and to the side on nothing more than instincts, though they proved worthwhile when a beam of magic tore apart the space where he had been standing.

“Fly!” The Commander’s shout preceded another roll from Deadeye, and another of Khagan’s spells. When Reckoning found his hooves again, he leapt into the air, avoiding a third spell.

Roaring in fury, Khagan reared up onto his hind legs. Reckoning realized the boar’s enormous size when a tusk slammed into his side, crumpling his wing against his ribs and smashing him out of the sky. Pain overcame his vision as he bounced twice across the stone, and rolled over and over again until up and down became indistinguishable.

When Deadeye finally regained his senses, Khagan was charging toward him, tusk lowered. Digging into the dirt with both wings, the pony launched himself not up into the sky where he would be an easy target, but instead forward, just over the tip of Khagan’s tusk and onto his muzzle. Throwing as much empatha as he could into his hooves, Reckoning spread a layer of ice over Khagan’s eyes. With the warchief distracted, the soldier moved in for the kill.

“Jump!” the Commander shouted, but Reckoning barely had time to hear the word before Khagan moved beneath him. Leveraging an impossible body weight, the boar threw himself onto his back. The sudden lurch left Reckoning trapped, and in that moment of darkness, trapped between the boar’s coarse hair and Suidan stone, he felt the earth rise up and trap him.

“Your ‘Commander’ fought better, corpse.” Khagan’s words died in Reckoning’s ears, though his mind held on to them. Rolling over, the warchief rose onto his hooves and glared down his muzzle at the thestral. “You are of no more use to me.”

Khagan’s tusk lowered slowly, aiming for Deadeye’s heart. From the long winding path leading out of the canyon, a voice echoed against heavy stone walls.

“Get away from him!”

When the lightning cracked overhead, Soldier On’s hooves dug into the red dirt at the base of the canyon, sliding to a stop. “Damnit, Deadeye…”

“What was that?” Enka asked, tilting her eyes through the narrow opening between the canyon walls toward the blue, almost cloudless sky overhead.

Rainbow shrugged. “I think Deadeye packed a thunderhead.”

“It was a distraction,” On explained, looking between the rough stone of the canyon’s walls. “This place is a maze. Are we close?”

Enka’s didn’t need to answer; the rumbling of cloven hooves from further down the forked paths into Balgas Rift made the answer completely clear.

“Это пиздец!”

“What did you—”

“Don’t repeat that,” the mare growled. “Rainbow, you remember that fork in the path behind us?”

“...yeah. But what about you?”

“We can’t fight sixty boars, and I’ve got experience running away from a decent sized army. Enka, you’re with me; make sure I don’t run into a dead end. I’ll let them see me so I can lead them on a chase. You get to Deadeye as soon as possible, then have him carry you and your dad out of the canyon by wing. We’ll be fine as long as they don’t catch up.”

Rainbow looked up the canyon again; no boars had appeared, but the thundering of hooves was growing louder by the second. Following a single nod, she leapt off of On’s back, and charged backward down the canyon. The sound of closer hooves made it clear On and Enka were following, even before her longer-legged companions took the lead. In little more than twenty seconds, they reached a fork in the jagged path at the floor of the canyon.

“Back soon, On! En—” Before she could even finish the thought, the sheer cliffs cut off her view of her friends.

Typhoon wasted no time in speaking up. Rainbow, listen to me closely. Get further into the canyon so none of the boars see you. We’ve only got one shot at this. If you can get close enough to Khagan, I can try to freeze his skull in one go. That’s probably our best chance, but I need you to get in close to him without getting hurt.

“Got it. Shouldn’t be too hard with the armor, right?”

My father died in that armor. Don’t trust it too much. It doesn’t make you invincible. Especially not to something as big as Khagan.

Rainbow leaned up against the canyon a few dozen strides from the fork. From her hiding place, she watched as the bristly backs of the boars rushed past. Two, three, four dozen stampeded down the paths of Balgas Rift in search of the source of the thunder. At the head of the group, already out of Rainbow’s sight, one shouted up in Equiish. “Ponies!”

As the mass sped up, and the last of the boars disappeared from view, Typhoon began to count in Rainbow’s mind. Five, four, three, two, one. Go!

Balgas Rift passed in a blur. The little windows carved in the striped red walls and the dry, rocky canyon floor were barely noticed as Rainbow barreled at a full sprint into the heart of the boar fortress. When she rounded the final corner, her confidence disappeared into a sea of terror.

Khagan loomed over Deadeye, and the boar warchief slowly lowered a tusk toward her friend’s heart.

“Get away from him!” Rainbow shouted, continuing her desperate rush forward.

The warchief paused in his execution, and a smile broke across his face. “The prodigal daughter returns.” A burst of his magic flew toward Rainbow and was swallowed by Hurricane’s armor, which left the void crystals humming. Rainbow didn’t stop.

For a second spell, Khagan directed his magic at the dozen feet of space still separating him from Rainbow. The entire rift shook as the red stone literally eroded away. Rainbow’s hooves dug into the earth, but her momentum left her unable to avoid sliding into the pit. Ancient armor cushioned her shoulders and her flanks, but the tumble still rattled her.

From at least a dozen feet above, at the top of the pit, Khagan looked down on her. “Did you think your armor made you invulnerable?” The boar paced around the rim of the pit, and Rainbow watched him. “Disappointing. And futile. Your father has only hours to live, and it would take the magic of one of your princesses to save him.”

Be ready. If he comes down here, we can finish this.

Rainbow drew in a deep breath and glared back at the boar. “We could fly him to Canterlot before sunset.”

“I remember the lights you made in the sky before I took your wings. But had you forgotten your loss? Or were you hoping the corpse would save him?” Khagan turned back toward Deadeye, or perhaps the Commander; from her place in the pit, Rainbow couldn’t see. His voice dripped with joy and spite. “Since you both still live, I think I’ll let you enjoy her death first. I've given you far too many slow deaths to escape already, so we will finish this quickly. If it gives you any comfort, you can know that she will at least be buried—that is your custom, isn’t it?”

“Let her go!” Deadeye shouted. “Kill me, do whatever you want, but don’t—”

“Save your breath, Reckoning.” The Commander’s voice sounded hoarse and pained, even compared to the way he’d been when Rainbow had first met him in their shared cell. “Don’t give the boar the satisfaction.”

Khagan lowered his uneven tusks toward Rainbow. Wispy gray magic wove itself into the sheer walls of the pit that surrounded the pegasus, and stone began to crumble around her.

Needing to make a decision, Rainbow’s first move was to try and run up the crumbling wall. She leapt nearly her own height, and gained that distance again by digging her hooves into the wall, but the stone fell away beneath her before she could even touch the surface. Freedom slipped through her hooves like sand through an hourglass, and her back fell into loose earth that rose up around her.

“No!” was all she could manage before the earth covered her mouth, and sealed her into a dark pressure her legs couldn’t fight. Though she moved the earth, more fell into whatever space she cleared, and her struggles only trapped her deeper and deeper. Only when all sense of the open sky and the world above had been lost did the sound of Khagan’s magic and the dull grind of stone disappear from Rainbow’s ears.

Deadeye struggled against the stone pinning him to the ground as Rainbow disappeared from view. He didn’t bother with shouting or pleading; his focus was too fully on his magic. Empatha grew in his wings as he let his mind embrace darkness.

He’s won, Deadeye told himself. Rainbow is dead. He’ll kill me next. No Summer Lands again; just… darkness. His legs trembled. He felt the fear, and the power in it. Nothingness until I go mad. Turn into some kind of monster…

The fear took life. He felt the earth; stone reverberated around his wings like an extension of his own disparate flesh. It answered him. When he pushed, it moved.

His wings pulled free, and with a mighty push, his body followed suit. Even in that tiny motion, he could feel the drain. The cost of the magic left him exhausted in a way his empatha hadn’t in life, before his body lived off of mana. He hadn’t yet even confronted Khagan, and already he felt winded and sapped.

Still, he didn’t hesitate. Rainbow was buried. She needed him. With Khagan turned away, Reckoning saw his chance. Breaking into a sprint with a strength he still found foreign, the thestral brought his fangs to bear against Khagan’s hind right leg.

The taste of coppery blood filled Deadeye’s mouth as a gasp of pain surged out of the oversized boar. Reckoning knew well enough to release Khagan’s leg before the boar had a chance to buck him into oblivion, and he ducked out the way just in time to avoid a hoof more than capable of crushing a skull.

Khagan winked out of existence before Deadeye could land another bite, teleporting himself to the opposite side of the broken earth where Rainbow had been buried. “You should have flown while you had the chance, corpse.”

Deadeye spared no time on fancy magic; all he had left was some measure of speed. His hooves dug into the dirt and his wings slammed against his side, throwing the combined weight of his entire body into hurling himself like a fanged dart at Khagan’s face.

The boar didn’t flinch. With a casual twitch of his neck, the broad flat of his remaining tusk slammed into Deadeye’s rib. That he hadn’t been impaled on the long, jagged-tipped bone was a testament to the speed of his new body, though in the surge of immense pain racking through that body, Deadeye didn’t realize his good fortune. What little of his mind could focus beyond the wound that he imagined should have crushed his ribs he devoted to standing up.

The decision proved wise. With only a moment to spare, he rolled sideways as Khagan’s hoof fell toward his head. Though he dodged the blow, it served only to leave him in a corner against the cliff walls.

Khagan shook his head without so much as a grin for his obvious victory. Before Reckoning could find his bearings, the stone around him wrapped his body, sealing him up to his neck.

“Finally, this is over. I hope your kind do not all take so long to kill when the time comes for my conquest. But now, since your ‘Commander’ seems to value your life, I will end you first. Do not worry; as I promised, it won’t take long.”

Rainbow’s heart pounded in her throat.

She wasn’t sure if her eyes were open or shut. Stone pressed in on her sides, squeezing against her lungs even through her armor.

The snug feeling began to feel comfortable. Welcome. She curled up into the clouds around her and let her mind drift toward sleep.

No! Never again!

Typhoon’s defiant shout rang in Rainbow’s mind as the sun-cooked stone grew cold around her.

Fight, Rainbow!

Ice stretched from cyan hooves, stretching into the stone and pushing it aside. At first, movement came as barely more than a violent twitch. Rainbow’s ears couldn’t hear the stone break, but through the vibration in the ice, her bones heard just fine. That was it. Hope. Hope she could escape. Hope she could still save Deadeye. More importantly, the earth did not fall back down around her when she pushed. A web of ice held it back, letting her drag herself upward. Again and again she jerked, left hoof, right hoof, left hoof, right hoof; each motion earning more motion than its predecessor, buying her just a hint more of freedom. Her nostrils flared for nothing, and her lungs burned, but her body knew better than to give in. Thin air in the skies over Cloudsdale had made her too strong to give in so easily.

And then, with one last thrust of her hoof, she found open air.

Pulling herself out of an icy grave was an almost otherworldly experience. Loose stone and broken ice rolled off of Hurricane’s armor, glittering like stardust. Her lungs sucked in precious air. With the unmistakable rumble of his gargantuan hooves beating the ground, Khagan turned away from Deadeye and the Commander to look back at the mare he was certain he had killed. Her shoulders heaved, and it took what seemed like all the effort in the world to lift her head, and glare out from under the gold brim of her pitch black helmet and stare into Khagan’s eyes.

He’s scared.

Rainbow didn’t need to be told. She wasn’t sure how she knew, but she knew. Khagan’s face was locked halfway into a snarl, and his brow furrowed down in a show of hatred, but there was something in his eyes that Rainbow could just read.

“How…” the warchief growled, staring at the mare who had risen from the grave before his eyes. “Your magic wasn’t this strong before. How are you alive?”

“I don’t leave my friends behind.” Rainbow took two steps, not toward the looming boar, but Deadeye and her father. “Last chance. Let them go.”

Rainbow, bravado is all well and good, but that was all my empatha.

If Rainbow heard Typhoon’s protest, she gave no sign of it. She continued her slow walk toward the other ponies in the clearing, keeping her focus locked on Khagan.

What are you planning?

“You mistake surviving a single spell as being a threat to me. Do not presume for a second you are the equal of your father.”

“Good.” Rainbow continued her slow pace toward Procellarum.

“Good? I have crushed the greatest warrior of your species, and you admit you aren’t his equal; what hope do you have?”

“I’m not a ‘warrior’,” Rainbow told the boar, as her hooves came to rest beside Hurricane’s sword. “I didn’t have anything to do with the gilded lotus. I’m not here ‘cause of some story about wars or magic or whatever. I’m here because my friend needed help.” Her head bobbed toward Deadeye. “I don’t want to kill you, Khagan. Heck, I don’t want to hurt anybody.

“The whole time I was coming here, I kept fighting that. I kept saying that nopony had to get killed. That everything would work out, somehow. Deadeye and Soldier On and my dad all tried to warn me that wasn’t how the world worked. But I didn’t listen, until now. You proved them right, warchief.” The young mare spared a brief glance to her father and her friend, bound in stone and beaten into submission. “You proved to me that sometimes, there isn’t a better option. Sometimes, there isn’t another way. There’s only one way I can keep my friends safe. And I don’t leave my friends behind.” With those words, she tilted her head and wrapped her teeth around the handle of Procellarum.

The weapon was no less heavy than Rainbow remembered; she staggered to lift it steadily.

“You seek to kill me with a blade you cannot even lift?”

Rainbow, channel your empatha into it. Typhoon’s voice carried surprising steel, given that Rainbow could almost feel her desperation in the back of what was, momentarily, their shared mind. If you put your air into Father’s sword, it will help support the blade.

The blade seemed hungry for Rainbow’s maelstrom of emotions, and what it ate left behind a hollow void. The blade grew light, and the tug on her neck abated, letting her raise her eyes to once more meet Khagan’s gaze. He lowered his shoulders, bracing himself for battle.

She moved first. Hooves kicked up dirt, and she led with the sword.

Khagan’s tusk swept sideways across the ground, not aiming to impale her, but to take her hooves out from beneath her. Leaping, she leaned into the attack, letting the ivory pass narrowly beneath her shoulder. She landed hard on her armored side, but even the pain in the stumps of her wings couldn’t reach through the storm in her mind. Barely a second had passed before she was on her hooves again, inside the reach of Khagan’s tusks and swinging Procellarum wildly for his mouth, his throat, his eyes—whatever she happened to reach.

A few splashes of blood fell from the Warchief’s cheek before he reared up out of her reach. She tried to rush forward and reach his belly. The pain she felt when his cloven hoof slammed into her side told her the move was a mistake. She rolled twice from the sheer force, losing track of the sky and the earth.

Khagan moved with urgency that had been lacking from his earlier battles. Rainbow watched as the single point of the boar’s surviving tusk dug up a trench of red dirt, driving toward her.

Move!

She could see he was too close to roll aside or jump. Without even the time to think, she thrust her legs into the ground all at once, and felt the air around them ripple, heeding the call of her desperation.

Air and dust burst with the sound of a crack of thunder, and the armored stuntmare hurled herself up into the air in an impossible jump. Seven feet above the the ochre dirt, she drew Procellarum along Khagan’s back as he charged beneath her. The warchief staggered as ancient skysteel ripped through muscles and tendons. With an almost geologic rumble, he fell onto his chin and slid forward across the sand.

Did you…?

“Rainbow!” Deadeye shouted. “You… you did it!”

The Commander’s moan of pain seemed to mark a very different diagnosis of the situation; one which was echoed by the stirring of Khagan’s considerable mass. Across his back, wounds stitched themselves closed.

“Go, Rainbow!” the Commander managed to gasp out. “While he’s down.”

She only hesitated for a moment before breaking into a sprint. It took her barely more than the time to process the command to start running. She leapt up onto his back and galloped across the rough hair of his coat. Three strides. Two. One.

Procellarum slashed through empty air and a wispy wave of gray arcana. Khagan disappeared from beneath Rainbow, and her grip on her father’s sword faltered, leaving her swinging her legs wildly as the stone below rose up to meet her.

When she found her breath, she lunged for the sword. Khagan’s magic found it first, wrapping the blade in gray magic and hurling it down the length of the canyon.

“I tire of suffering cuts and nicks chasing you, little pony.” The giant boar turned toward the Commander, and then to Reckoning. From the corner of his lip, Rainbow could see his carnivorous teeth as he donned a smile. Gray magic billowed around his solid tusk, its point aimed straight at the center of Deadeye’s chest.

Gravity seemed to react slowly as Rainbow screamed. Reckoning slipped downward. His wings fluttered helplessly against the air, but his shattered side could not carry his weight. And so he continued downward.

The edge of the ridge first stole his hind legs from sight. The gray fur seemed more faded than ever before, as if he were nothing more than a frame from an old film. Grayscale. Blurry. Unable to move beyond a single pose. His tail went next, short and stubby and still filled with the brambles and dust of his adventurous life. Then his cutie mark, the sole remaining color on his weary coat. She had forgotten all about the map, and in watching it disappear, she felt a hope fade along with it.

She flapped her wings as he went further and further. Every beat took the greatest ounce of her energy. Her cage may have protected her body, but it was tearing apart her soul. In agony, she cried out again, though the winds stole her words.

His brown shirt, stained red with his own blood, was swallowed up by the void. The rough mane and the poorly-shaven roughness of his neck's coat passed next. And in a moment, all that was left was his smile, and his one smiling eye.

She felt the spark on her rear fetlocks. The familiar prick of raw power, the prickling of her coat heeding the will of unbridled electricity. Desperation. The agony of helplessness.

She wouldn’t let it happen again.

Rainbow’s forehooves pulled back to her side, bracing hard in the dusty red stone. Her hind legs rose from the ground, remembering lessons learned in long summer days working apple orchards. Lean muscle tensed throughout her body, throwing her whole weight into a single mighty buck thrust into empty, open air. She closed her eyes, letting her gut and her mind aim.

Her eyelids flashed red.

The canyon echoed with the harsh crack of thunder. It rumbled away, reverberating through red dirt and dense rock, until all was quiet.

The quiet held on too long, punctuated only lightly when Rainbow’s hooves returned to the dirt.

Then came the smack of flesh. The shuddering snap of tons of meat and bone smashing down onto the dirt.

Rainbow dared to open her eyes. Ahead, at the mouth of the canyon, Soldier On led a mass of boar soldiers to hear the source of the noise. The giant mare and the horde that had only moments before been her enemies stood side by side, staring in blank awe over Rainbow’s shoulder. Sprawled over On’s back, Enka lay bruised and bleeding but clearly still alive.

When Rainbow turned to follow the gazes of the small army of boars, she saw a sight too strange, too unreal to be believed. The smoking corpse of Warchief Khagan was barely recognizable. Enormous muscles withered and atrophied before her eyes. Flesh turned to worn leather in some places, and simply rotting away to ash in others. No gushing blood slipped from the wounds; instead, it seemed as if whatever liquid was to be found in the would-be immortal had dried up in the desert heat.

Emerging from the brow of what was rapidly becoming a dusty skull, a shimmering silver light became visible.

Sounding nearly as stunned as the canyon’s sudden audience, Typhoon spoke up in Rainbow’s mind. What is that?

“I don’t know…” Rainbow whispered. Her gaze slid to her father, and then to Deadeye, and in a moment, all thought of the strange light vanished. Her body refused to run, all semblance of adrenaline lost with the death of Khagan. Still, hustling with all the strength she could muster, she hurried to Reckoning’s side.

“Kid…” The thestral chuckled. “Rainbow… That was incredible.”

Rainbow found she couldn’t resist a chuckle. “Heh. It wasn’t anything special. Let me see if I can get you out of that stone. Typhoon?”

With grating obviousness, the long-dead soldier replied, He can hear you.

“I know.” When Deadeye raised a brow, Rainbow turned her focus to him. “Look, I’ll explain later. It’s kind of a long story. Anyway, Typhoon, can you freeze the rock?”

Like I said before, I’m spent. Ask your father. Or the earth pony.

“Good call,” Rainbow muttered to herself, nodding. Then, raising her head and her voice, she shouted. “Soldier—”

“I’m right here,” Soldier On replied, no more than a stride from Rainbow’s side. “And I would also like to know who Typhoon is. But for now…” The sentence ended with a few grunts of exertion as Soldier On’s hooves ripped away the stone covering Deadeye’s limbs, one after another. “Now the Commander.”

The boars at the mouth of the canyon seemed content to simply watch as the three exhausted and variously wounded ponies stumbled over to the mass of flesh, vines, and golden flowers that was their leader. His muddled brown eyes danced between the other ponies and the remains of Khagan, now decayed to no more than a hollow skeleton.

“On,” his raspy, dry voice managed to harshly growl. “Take… the spark.”

Without rebuttal, the earth pony stepped up to the glowing light and stretched out her hoof. To her shock, and the surprise of everypony save the Commander, the light swept over her limb, fading into her body. A slight glow appeared on her right ear, and in the space of mere moments, the stump completely reformed, indistinguishable from the rest of her coat save its lack of red dust.

“Focus on… your…” A coughing fit interrupted the order, and the flowers on his back writhed, visibly growing taller and thicker. “Magic,” he finished. “Reckoning… fire.”

“Sir, that’ll kill you! I don’t know how deep those vines are inside you, but if I burn them—”

“When he… burns…” Unable to finish the thought, the pony resorted to raising a shaky hoof toward Soldier On, beckoning her closer. “Touch me. Give up… magic…”

The two standing Honor Guard glanced at one another, and without word, nodded. Deadeye stretched out his thestral wing and furrowed his brow in focus. Soldier On laid her hoof on the Commander’s shoulder and serenely closed her eyes.

Tongues of orange flame surrounded leathery flesh. The muscles in Dead Reckoning’s throat tensed in exertion, and his mouth bared teeth both flat and fanged. Waving his wing forward, he sent a wave of fire sweeping over the Commander’s body. Green vines and gold petals seared to brown and black, crumbling away into ash and revealing scalded tunnels that seemed to drive as deep as the Commander’s core.

The silver light that he had called the spark outlined the Commander’s form, starting from where Soldier On’s hoof met his shoulder. As the last tongues of flame faded away, in a matter of moments, the Commander’s flesh began to heal. With sickening cracks, his broken leg contorted, realigning itself. The holes piercing his flesh shed their cauterized linings and wove together fresh new muscle. Scars criss-crossing his muzzle were covered with new fur, and a lively sheen swept over his navy blue coat and the wizened silver of his mane. Even the strange blotchiness of his irises were swept away, revealing perfect orbs of magenta—a perfect match for his daughter’s. In a grisly display, Rainbow’s wings fell from his back. In their place, a set of darker blue feathers stretched up toward the sky.

In Rainbow’s mind, she heard Typhoon gasp, though the mare said nothing.

Rolling his shoulders to the tune of a series of satisfying pops, the Commander rose to his full height. Lean but defined muscles supported a pony of substantial size for a pegasus. His chest swelled and shrank with a strong, full breath.

And then, abruptly, his hind right leg fell out from beneath him. Rainbow, Deadeye, and Soldier On all rushed forward, and their eyes all fell on the massive scar that still dominated his right flank, where one of his cutie marks ought to have been visible.

“Why do you still have that?” Rainbow asked. “Everything else regrew…”

“Luna wanted to make sure Celestia couldn’t heal it,” the Commander replied, his tone controlled despite his moment of pain. “To make sure I couldn’t buck lightning.” With a rather casual motion, the stallion pulled his crippled leg up to his chest, and then pushed himself up on his remaining three legs. “On that topic, Rainbow, I’m surprised your empatha is strong enough.”

“It doesn’t always work. Only when I’m worried about my friends, and I really want it...” Those words brought realization flooding into Rainbow’s mind, and she turned her gaze back to Khagan’s remains. “I… At the end, I think I wanted to kill him. Just to stop the pain. The torture. But now…”

Deadeye’s hoof rested on Rainbow’s shoulder. “Rainbow, you saved my life. Or what’s left of it. You saved the Commander. If anything—”

“Stop.” The Commander’s single syllable brought forth total silence from Deadeye. “Don’t try and coddle her.” His head flicked in Rainbow’s direction. “Let it hurt. You'll sleep better knowing you still have that part of yourself intact."

In the ensuing quiet, the Commander lifted his right hoof, and drew out the silver orb. "I'm surprised. Celestia said this was harder to give up. On, take it. We need it holding more endura for Rainbow." He extended a leg in the direction of the earth pony, who once more accepted the luminescent orb.

"What is it?" Deadeye asked. "His immortality?"

"And his power. The six sparks are parts of Discord's power that the Elements of Harmony took away millennia ago. They grant immortality, nearly infinite mana, and control over one aspect of the world. On, take it again and focus on your magic. We'll need to load it up with endura again to heal Rainbow. And Rainbow, I'll need my armor. Best not to let the spark touch the void crystal; I have no idea what would happen." Finished with his orders, the stallion whistled four short notes and then stepped up to Rainbow, peeling the armor off her chest.

The loss of the weight was a surreal feeling; it laid bare nicks and cuts and fur matted with dried splashes of her own blood from the sheer pain she'd endured. Her whole body hurt, naked in the desert sun, and yet she was still happy to have taken off the black armor.

Soldier On let the silver glow of the spark build on her foreleg yet again. Hovering above her hoof, the spark appeared.

Rainbow reached out to the light. She felt the electric pricking of raw magic, but her mind was locked in a far different feeling dominating her mind. She had killed him. He might have been a monster, but she still killed him. And she'd been happy to do it. She couldn't claim it was an accident, couldn't justify the death without lying to herself.

The spark hovered in the frog of her hoof, tempting her with the promise of blue skies and the unending rush of adrenaline. But every time she let herself imagine looking down on Ponyville or ripping over the streets, her eyes wandered to Khagan’s corpse.

“I can’t take this.”

What—?

Echoing Typhoon’s sentiments, Deadeye stepped forward. “Rainbow, it’ll give you back your wings. Don’t you want that?”

“I do.” Rainbow looked back at the sore, open stubs on her back. “I really do. And I’m gonna get my wings back. Just not like this.”

Soldier On took a slow step forward. “I hope you aren’t talking about asking Luna to—”

“She’s not.” The Commander’s voice left no room for counterargument. Sheer force of steel in his voice made his position perfectly clear. “If she wants to walk back to Canterlot, let her. Celestia can heal her easily.” Turning pointedly to look Rainbow in the eye, he continued, “Make no mistake, we will talk about this more, once we’re not surrounded by hostiles. For now, we need to go. Rainbow, give Enka the spark and tell her how it works. I’ll join you in a moment. Deadeye, On, give me a status report.”

Nopony questioned the commands. Soldier On slowly lowered Enka from her back onto the rusty red soil, and then stepped away to give Rainbow space and to speak quietly with the Commander. Rainbow reached down, pressing the spark against Enka’s wiry coat. With a low glow and a slight hum, the spark faded into the sow’s body.

A few strides away, Reckoning coughed into his hoof and looked up at the mass of boars blocking the only exit from Balgas Rift. He didn’t seem to be hiding his voice; Rainbow could hear him easily. “Sir, this may be a bad time to bring this up, but is she gonna be okay holding on to that spark… thing? Aren’t you worried one of the other boars might try to take it?”

“If they kill her, Suida will crumble from infighting and the Tusk Rot. But we will do everything in our power to ensure that doesn't happen, and we will have an ally.”

On cocked her head. “But won’t Krenn or Magnus come after the spark?”

The Commander frowned sharply at the latter name; a surprising display of emotion in Rainbow’s experience. “After Nightmare Moon, the other races with sparks made two rules. Never use a spark’s power against another race, and never pursue stealing another race’s spark. Break either, and you’ll face the other ‘bearers’ trying to return it to its rightful owners. Now, Reckoning, you got an overhead. Is there a way off the top of the plateau that doesn’t come down into the rift?”

Though the Commander continued to ask questions and issue his orders, Rainbow’s attention was pulled away from the Honor Guard’s discussion by Enka’s cloven hoof tapping against her shoulder. “Is… is that Khagan?” Her head tilted toward the leathery remains of the once-mighty boar.

It took a deep breath for Rainbow to find the words. “Yes.”

“Your friends killed him?”

Rainbow said nothing. It proved more than enough answer for Enka.

“So… what happens now?”

Rainbow looked over to the other boars and shrugged. “Well, I guess you’re in charge. You’re gonna have a whole bunch of magic from the ‘spark’ thing. And Dad says that means the other boars will probably listen to you. You’re probably gonna get super huge too; I don’t know how long that takes though.”

Enka shook her head, smiling slightly. “I don’t really care about size, Rainbow. I’m not sure I believe your father, either. It’s been the way of the boars since before even Khagan was born that the strongest claims power by killing his predecessor. I… if you’ve given me his power, I may be the first sow Warchief ever, if that title even means anything. But I have little doubt the other chiefs who served Khagan will try to kill me in order to replace him. I have neither the skill in battle nor the desire to defeat them. And I’m afraid that I’m not ready to lead anyboar. Certainly not to lead a bunch of boars who want me dead.”

“You can’t look at it like that, Enka.” Rainbow shook her head. “Look, take it from me. I might not look like much right now, but my friends and I beat Nightmare Moon, Discord, an army of these creepy shape-shifting bug things—not to mention I’m the best flier in Equestria.”

Got a little ego, Rainbow?

“And I didn’t do any of that by letting myself worry about who was going to get in my way, or what I was gonna have to beat. That’s not how being awesome works. You have to push through. You have to decide ‘I’m gonna do this’, and then you can’t listen to anypony—er, anybody who says anything else.”

Enka let her gaze slide away, returning to the withered remains of warchief Khagan. “I’m afraid that isn’t who I am, Rainbow. I don’t embrace confrontation. Do not misunderstand me; I would love for my kind to become a peaceful people. But… I am not certain I am the one to make such a change.”

“You’re right; you aren’t.” Enka jumped slightly at the stern voice of the Commander, no longer raspy or hollow as she had last heard it. The armored blue stallion slowly wandered over toward her and his daughter. “Change is a violent process. It takes a creature willing to embrace conflict to change the world. Someone like Rainbow or I, in one way or another. But that work is done. Suida doesn’t need someone like us anymore. The violence is over. What it needs now is a builder. A healer. A source of stability. Someone like you, or Celestia.”

Enka blinked twice. “I hesitate to take such advice from you.”

“Would it be any different if Rainbow had said it?” The Commander frowned beneath the gleaming gold brow of Hurricane’s helmet. “Or do you think I’m lying to you after what you’ve done for us?” He waited a moment, though not long enough for Enka to find a real answer. “You’ll rule by right of the spark. The other chiefs won’t challenge you. You know how to cure the tusk rot.”

Enka’s eyes widened, making ridges on her forehead. “I do?”

“From what you heard in the cell, you know it comes from the gilded lotus, rather than some ancestral curse. You know that it feeds on the marrow as a source of magic—hence the rotting of the tusks and other bones. And you know that it survives digestion, meaning that eating something infected will likewise infect you. From that, you ought to know the cure. But, to be blunt, you need to burn the bodies of your dead, and anything else you find in the wilds that shows signs of infection. You need to burn any growths of the flower you find as well. You’ll face a struggle getting your people not to bury the bodies, but in time they will see their children grow up healthy, and you’ll be a hero to them. If you need help in rule, in resources, or in defense against those who would try to take your land, Equestria will stand by your side.”

“Wait, what?” Rainbow turned to her father. “You killed like, tons of them. And now you’re saying we’re gonna be allies or something?”

“Enka is the only boar who knows we had any involvement in the tusk rot, beyond Khagan’s claims that I was some instrument of revenge on the part of their ancestors. She will refrain from discussing the truth, and so will you. And in exchange, she will never see me again, and Celestia will give her both the resources she needs to lead a nation, and the guidance that it takes to live forever.” He pointedly looked back to Enka. “We believe that a friend is worth more than a spark.”

Rainbow felt herself cringe as she glared at her father. “You… Did you seriously just play the friendship card? How dare you?!”

He rolled his eyes—a motion with more sincerity than she had expected from the seasoned soldier. “An ‘ally’ then. I don’t mean it personally. Enka, make no mistake, this is entirely an act of self-interest. Peaceful rule in Suida means Equestria can demilitarize its southern border for the first time in thousands of years.” Then he stepped forward, looking straight into the sow’s eyes with unsurmountable intensity. “I am offering you peace, Enka, for the first time in either of our lives. If you don’t take it, your people will fight until they are weak, and my flowers and the creatures in the wastes will finish the job. That isn’t a threat; it’s simple fact. I know you’ll make the right decision. Send an envoy to Canterlot soon, or come yourself. Now, however, I’m afraid Rainbow and I cannot wait any longer.”

Rainbow cocked her head. “Are we in a hurry?”

“Yes; do you remember Discord’s warning?”

Rainbow had to think for a moment, and then nodded. “All that stuff about Shining Armor? Is he… dead? Is that what Discord meant?”

“I don’t know,” the Commander answered. Then, taking a step toward Rainbow, he wrapped a foreleg over her shoulders. “Please don’t squirm; I won’t have you in the air for long.”

Rainbow barely had time to draw breath for a response before his powerful wings pulled her up from the ground and away from Balgas Rift.

In her mind, Typhoon spoke forcefully. I need to talk to Luna, Rainbow. There’s something I have to know. Don’t mention it to your father or your friends until we’ve heard from her.

The nod Rainbow offered in response could easily have been mistaken for her nodding off into peaceful sleep. Instead, supported by her father’s legs, Rainbow watched Balgas Rift draw away below as they rose into the air. Even in the wind, as Enka and the other boars became blurs amidst the shadows and the dust, Khagan’s withered corpse held her attention. Only when the tall cliffs of the canyon stole her sin from view did she dare to close her eyes and draw breath.

XXVI - Nightmares

XXVI

Nightmares

Celestia watched the shadows overwhelm the courageous unicorn. Sombra’s magic took hold, and the pony simply toppled—whether dead or merely down, she could not tell from across the room. With another foe defeated, Sombra’s eyes turned toward her.

Her horn flared with the speed she needed, pouring a surge of magic into Aestas Melos, and in response a shimmering shield of her own magic filled the crystal throne room. It stretched from wall to wall and separated the open door and looming balcony from the mass of void crystals that Sombra had molded into a throne.

Though she fought not to show it, holding the diamond-cored rapier was beginning to strain even her considerable magic. The cost of greater power came in efficiency, though neither the shield nor her attempts to heal her younger sister were trivial spells to begin with.

Time was scarce, and her options even more so. Celestia allowed herself just a moment to flick her eyes in the direction of the thestral shuddering on the crystalline floor. Then her focus was back to Sombra, watching as shadows and green flames leaked from his eyes. “Thestral, can you hear me?” If the unfortunate soul heard the words, it offered no reply. “I don’t know what charm Sombra has placed you under, but focus on my words. Fight it. I need you. Luna needs you.” Seeing no response on another brief glance, the Princess resorted to shouting. “Thestral! Luna needs you!” She drew in a breath, and her eyes fell on the tan unicorn lying at the base of Sombra’s throne. What had his name been? “…Mirror Image needs you!”

Emerald eyes fought to look up from a nest she’d made from leather wings. For just a moment, Celestia dared to hope; Sombra saw fit to punish her. A massive force smashed against her shield, cracking its surface and recoiling back through Aestas and into her own horn. It felt as if she’d been struck in the face, though her loss of focus came more from surprise than injury.

Sombra still quietly watched her from the other side of the shield. And to Celestia’s confusion, nothing had changed. He hadn’t cast some spell, nor even prodded at the shield. Though his eyes leaked with magical flame, his curved, vicious horn was devoid of magic.

“Confused, Celestia? Can’t keep up?” Sombra glared her way. “For a moment, I allowed myself to fear your acumen in battle would match the deception of your tongue.” His horn flared to life. “I am disappointed.”

Celestia watched the shadowy thestral closely as he began to pace, not more than a leg’s length from the surface of her shield. “I don’t know what lie you are referring to, Sombra.”

“You drove her from me.” His horn still glowing, Sombra inclined his head toward Luna’s unconscious form. “Were you jealous?”

Celestia shook her head. “I never set out to ruin her love. I—”

The piercing pain of cold bone sinking into warm flesh stole her breath. She only barely heard the echoes of Sombra’s shout after his horn settled firmly in her side, draining blood over his muzzle. “Liar!” She couldn’t breathe; the pain was unbearable. He’d hit a lung, or her diaphragm. Agony made it impossible to tell. All her conscious mind could feel was the tingle of arcana, unmistakable even when it gathered against the flesh of her side instead of the surface of her horn. She had only a moment at best. But the magic wouldn’t come. She didn’t have the focus.

And then, as if by the magic of another, Sombra’s horn was torn from her side. She felt cold flesh run against her, hurled by a violent and sudden strength. The clatter of heavy bodies on crystal, the crashing of hooves and fangs, only barely preceded the wet thud of her own heavy side hitting the floor, and the crunch when its surface cracked under her weight.

Eldest tore a gash from Sombra’s throat, leaving behind a space filled with smoke and purple flame where blood and sinew ought to have been seen. Her wings battered his eyes to keep his attention unprepared, and her teeth moved down to his shoulders and his forelegs, tearing and biting even as her hooves lashed out at the ribs of the larger pony. Though neither thestral spoke or roared or even voiced the tones of pain, their duel was far from quiet. Hooves and wings and Sombra’s horn scraped across the polished gemstone floor. Brilliant orange flame crackled on Eldest’s hooves, the product of a focused and hardened empatha backed by genuine emotion. Sombra’s horn sparked and crackled, discharging lightning wildly into the floor, but failed to strike the smaller and far faster thestral.

All at once, he swept out from beneath her. It wasn’t a natural motion; he didn’t walk or roll or jump or even teleport. It was as if his body had forsaken its form and become fluid, sweeping out beneath her like a fog, or a shadow. Only a second passed and he was solid again—and not just that but whole, unharmed, looming over her with eyes flaming and horn ready for the kill.

A beam of darkness clashed with a golden shield. Celestia’s eyes grew blurry with the pain in her side, but Aestas would not betray her. Slowly, relentlessly, the shield grew. Again it divided the room, separating Sombra from both Eldest and the fallen alicorns.

“Your shield only guarantees you a slower death. Bypassing it was child’s play before, and you grow only weaker now.” Sombra let his tongue flick briefly onto his cheek, lapping at Celestia’s blood as it ran in tiny drops down from the point of his horn. “I know that blow won’t kill you, but you don’t have the strength to stand up to me any more.”

Celestia grimaced, slowly forcing herself to her hooves. Her legs were shaky, her vision racked with blurs that turned the room into a mass of black and blue and white with every unwelcome draw of breath. “I…won’t let you…enslave…”

“Enslave?” Sombra shook his head mockingly. “Still adhering to your lies? What I’ve done is hardly different than you and Luna—save perhaps in subtlety. Descending on an infant Equestria as goddesses. Breeding yourself into the royal family.”

“We… never took their… will. Never forced them…”

Sombra shook his head. “Perhaps you don’t remember being a foal, Celestia, but I do. And of all the dungeons in the world, the ideology of one’s birth has the thickest walls and strongest doors. You let them see you as goddesses—you pay lip service otherwise, but it takes little more than a foal to see the truth. You preach harmony to make them docile. You reward meek submission and call it loyalty. And every few decades, you fly down from your lofty ivory towers to deliver divine justice on the next new threat to your rule—a perfect lesson in fear. You raise the sun and the moon with no more effort than it takes to lift a glass of wine, and let them think that they owe you something for your great sacrifice. The only difference between your slavery and mine, Celestia, is that you have had the luxury of generations to instill—”

Eldest Sister’s hoof punctured Sombra’s throat from behind, cutting off his political discourse rather abruptly. “Sombra, you’re an asshole and everypony knows it. If you want to fight, cut the sob story and fight.”

From what Celestia could read of the king’s expression, Sombra turning around to look her in the eyes while her forehoof was still buried in his neck did not feel terribly comfortable.

As the two dead ponies once more tore into one another with animalistic abandon, the ancient princess turned her focus back to her sister. Luna’s nostrils flared with gentle breathing, and behind her eyelids, her eyes danced back and forth in some horror or fantasy known only to her mind.

“Luna, please. Whatever it is he’s done, fight it off. If you can hear me, come back to—”

A blast of pure alicorn magic flew past her face, stealing any notion of the sentence she had been uttering. When she looked up, Sombra had his back to her, his shoulder wreathed in shadows as if the blast of magic had torn through it. Past him, near the fallen form of Mirror Image on the steps leading to the crystalline throne, Eldest Sister stared across the room at her foe, purple flames leaking from her eyes.

Aestas Melos aligned itself perfectly with Sombra’s back, and the diamond-cored rapier ignited in a radiant, golden glow. Though it wasn’t truly the power of the sun, no eye looking at the blade was likely to have recognized the distinction; when the beam of brutal piercing light struck out at Sombra, it left behind no smoke, no shadowy essence in signal that the undead monarch might have avoided the blast.

The thestral collapsed, twitching. At first, that was all the motion he displayed. When a wave of magic surged over his coat, Celestia tensed and raised Aestas higher. Yet it passed to reveal no threat—only a horror that left the alicorn’s heart sinking in her chest. Where Sombra’s rich coat had been, loose wings appeared. When the illusion passed over his head, it revealed Eldest Sister looking back, eyes wide, with a hole through the better part of her shoulder and her neck.

The still-standing Eldest Sister quickly shed his illusion, and Sombra grinned in Celestia’s direction as he paced forward. “And then there was one. Bested by a simple illusion, Celestia? I know we had been discussing something before this irreverent corpse elected to interrupt us—” he gestured with his neck toward Eldest, and in the action, fired a bolt of alicorn magic into her side, stunning her and searing another sizeable hole in her flesh. “—but at this point, I find my patience wearing thin. Tell me where the Elements of Harmony are hidden, and I will ensure you and Luna both enjoy quick, peaceful deaths. I’ll even grant you the Summer Lands you’ve worked so hard to create.”

“I won’t give you—agh!” Sombra’s hoof drove into Celestia’s chin with a force the alicorn hadn’t experienced in millennia. Even strengthened by endura, she felt her jaw break and blood spurt from her muzzle. The savage uppercut hurled her off her hooves, and her wings flailed uselessly by her sides. Before she could hit the ground, Sombra’s magic wrapped around her hind right hoof, spinning her like a ragdoll before smashing her into the already cracked crystal floor.

Priceless sheets of gemstone shattered under the blow. The glistening of the hall’s lights in the shards that flew into the air distracted Celestia’s reeling mind from the pain. She hardly noticed the broken crystal digging into her coat. She just felt tired. Worn out. It was the strange feeling she got on lonely nights, as if the thousands of years she had lived had caught up to her, but magnified a million times over.

Sombra said nothing, but she heard him laugh. Not a chuckle or a snide, mocking guffaw, but a real, deep, hearty laugh. Joy, she heard from the cold depths of his belly. True happiness.

When the shards fell from the air, she looked over the room. Her vision blurred when Sombra’s hooves pounded into her side, but she hardly felt them.

Was that what dying felt like? Like nothing at all?

Mirror Image stirred in whatever vicious nightmare Sombra had wrapped around his mind, but he did not rise.

Another blow. She tried to breathe in and no air came. Like the way she felt as a filly, after galloping for miles in pursuit of Luna and the younger filly’s wings.

No, focus. The thestral, Eldest, shuddered in pain as her body tried, failed, and tried again to heal the damage Celestia’s magic had caused.

When the room moved, Celestia knew she had been picked up, though her body deigned not to tell her if Sombra was merely lifting her, squeezing her, or tearing her apart. The crystal chamber blurred, and then abruptly stopped. Behind her, crystal rained like glass. A pillar then, supporting the arched roof. The sparkles were beautiful again. Like the rain in Canterlot, when just a few beams of light bounced off the domes.

Gale loved those days.

Was it finally time to see her again? Or Alacrity? So many names.

...Hurricane?

Another blow shook her, and she saw Sombra’s hoof flash across her muzzle. No feeling. No pain. Just the sight, as another blow fell. And another.

And then he stopped, at the heeding of a commanding voice.

“Let her go.”

That voice… Celestia’s eyes could hardly focus as her head turned toward it. The blurriness that filled her vision peeled away in waves, and when she focused, she saw Luna standing at the far side of the hall.

“Impossible…” Sombra growled.

And she was holding something; a brilliant diamond glistening the palest of blues. The Crystal Heart orbited in Luna’s inky midnight magic.

“The power is fragile, isn’t it, Sombra?” Luna spoke with utter spite, offering a thousand times the emotion she most often displayed in times of conflict. “It seems so infinite, so unimaginable when you don’t have it. But when you hold it, you see it’s a tiny thing. Like a foal. So easily smothered.”

“How? How did recover from the spell?”

Luna shook her head, wearing a scowl. As she spoke, her magic wrapped around Mirror Image, and the unicorn opened his eyes. “You forget who mentored you in the art of deception, Sombra. You may well be the second-best illusionist in the world, but you lack the eons it would take to call yourself my better.”

Sombra winced; even looking at his back, Celestia saw the pull of his expression. “Very well, Luna. Listen to me. It’s over. I forgive you. I understand.”

Luna’s face took on a look of surprise. “Do you still— After all this, you would still claim to love me?”

Sombra nodded slowly. “What else could I ever say, Luna?”

The thestral gasped, muzzle hanging open, when Luna’s magic tore through his throat. “That you are the damnedest of liars and the foulest of monsters. To betray me, I understand, but to think that you could use me?” Her next blast of magic tore away his right foreleg completely, and the severed limb dissipated into smoke and shadows as it hit the ground. “That I would lie with you again and rule by your side after what you have done? Do you know nothing of me, Sombra?” His horn met the same fate as his leg. “Do you know nothing of loyalty?”

Sombra stumbled on three hooves, and fell to the floor even as his throat returned. “Loyalty would lie to you. The same way you might have spared me. Not abandoning what we were. What we were always going to be!”

Luna grabbed Sombra by his neck and pulled him close by. “Loyalty doesn’t lie; it shares the truth, and when it hurts, loyalty stands by to ease the pain. A lie is cowardice, Sombra. And as I look into your eyes, that is all I see. A colt who only played a stallion for fear of his own mortality. Now the power is gone, and we both know it would take you years to get it back. Let me make the same hollow promise you offered my sister. It will all be over soon.”

Sombra’s eyes widened, and then he lunged forward at Luna’s neck.

The alicorn jumped back, and her arcana held the rogue thestral at bay. Had his goal truly been her throat, she would have succeeded. But when Sombra’s teeth gripped the Crystal Heart, magic surged from his eyes and a brilliant glow surrounded his horn.

“I’ll be waiting for you in the coming years, Lu—” The thestral vanished before the spell could be finished.

The Crystal Heart had vanished with him. The ensuing silence lasted only a moment, before the room shuddered.

“Princess,” Mirror Image noted in a surprisingly matter-of-fact voice, “Do I need to say I have a bad feeling about—”

In a flash of pure white from the center of Sombra’s palace, the world ended.

The return of the starry emptiness of Luna’s mindscape came abruptly, but it was a welcome alternative to eternal oblivion. Mirror idly watched the stars in the unreachable distance, rubbing his slightly scuffed hoof against the central plate of his gilded armor. Nearby, Eldest Sister slowly brought her own forehoof to her muzzle. The realization that she was still alive… or at least still in one piece, appeared to have come as something of a shock.

“Guess you were right that we couldn’t die in the memories. That’s good to know.” He smiled at his undead companion, and for just a moment, he saw the athletic pegasus he’d loved half a decade ago—her smoky mane, curled forward over a smile so ambitious it was almost hungry. “You alright, Cannon?”

In a startling non-answer, Eldest pounced the way only a thestral could, latching her wings and her hooves down into the non-ground of the misty void in Luna’s mind and hurling herself on the strength of six limbs into the side of her living companion. Overtaken by the grayish purple blur, Image was toppled with the sudden force and the unnatural strength, and the world spun as he rolled. The feeling of cold lips against his own stole away awareness of even the void, and sharp fangs drew slight lines of blood in his mouth, drawn against his tongue by the cold, slithery thing that forced its way into his mouth.

He gagged. He struggled. And when Eldest pressed harder in the unwelcome kiss, he bucked her in the gut with both his hind legs. Unprepared, the blow tossed the thestral away, taking a gouge out of Image’s lip with her.

“No!”

Eldest rolled twice from the unexpected buck to the chest before she managed to catch herself with a wing. She looked to him in shock, carrying no small amount of hurt. “Image?”

Image took a few moments to catch his breath and struggle to his hooves before he cast Eldest an icy look. His nostrils flared and his hoof dug at the ground that wasn’t there. “How many times do I have to tell you? Did I not make it clear that we were over?”

“But…”

A shout wiped out the quieter, hesitant speech. “No! No ‘buts’. There’s no us anymore. It’s been over for five years.” Image threw his weight into the sentence, and Eldest recoiled from the roaring stallion. “Do you think I rent an apartment outside of the castle because I like the feel of a rusty spring mattress?” Mirror moved forward, glaring down at the mare shrinking under his gaze. “Was ignoring you in the castle halls too subtle? Or focusing on the mission instead of putting up with your constant flirting? How many times have I had to push you away?”

A vein throbbed visibly through the close-cut fur on Image’s temple. Eldest needed no supernatural sight to see his teeth clench, or to count his heartbeat in the pulses of the arteries in his neck, though her mind was more focused on the tears that her dead eyes couldn’t manage to draw.

“I know!” Eldest shouted back, eyes wide but unable to match Mirror’s gaze. “But I hoped it was just because you didn’t understand. Image, when you dove in front of me, to save me, I thought maybe…” She hesitated, her fangs nipping at her lips lightly as her tail flicked back and forth. “I thought maybe there was still something there. I… I thought you might have gotten past what the Commander said about us… about me. After coming out here with Luna, seeing what she’s really like… I just hoped you would understand.”

“Understand what?” Image snapped. “What am I supposed to have seen that would change anything? You’re still dead, Cannon.”

Eldest pulled back a hoof and stomped it into a floor that wasn’t there. “And that’s all that matters to you? I’m not her puppet! She doesn’t force me to do any of this. I chose to stay. I… I…” The thestral squeezed her eyes closed, and when she lowered her head, her mane fell in front of her eyes. “I came back for you, Image.”

Behind the mane all she could see of the stallion she loved was the way his legs shuddered.

“And when the Commander told you she made me do it… That I was some tool for Nightmare Moon to come back…”

“Cannon—”

“No, Image.” Not needing to breathe, the feeling of choking on air was alien, a forgotten reminder of the pain of living. “I can’t take it anymore. I wanted to show you it wasn’t true. I wanted to prove that I really wanted to be with you, but… You threw it all back in my face, Image. Every time. I’ve waited five years for you to give me a chance.”

Silence filled open void of Luna’s mind. Image watched Eldest. Eldest waited for Image. Neither moved from where they stood, though Eldest’s wings pinched together on her back and Image’s nostrils flared in an obvious show that he was controlling his breath.

Finally, Eldest could wait no longer. “What is it? What do I have to do to prove the Commander was wrong? I’m not some spy. I’m not trying to trick anypony, or kill you all off so Mistress can take over Equestria!” The words were desperate, her voice cracking as the words fell out. “I just wanted to stay with you.”

Image winced. It was a small thing, a tiny crack in his forced, even expression, but Eldest saw.

“Can’t you believe me, Image?”

“I…” When the words didn’t come, he drew in a slow breath. Silence reigned for six long seconds before he found the strength to continue. “I wish I didn’t.”

It was Eldest’s turn to recoil. She pulled her hooves in, curling herself up to nearly a ball as her expression contorted in pain.

But Image continued. “It was so much easier listening to the Commander,” he told her. “Because then the answer was easy. But you’re right. I… I know you’re not trying to trick me. Maybe I always knew. You and Luna have showed me that more than enough.”

“Then why?” Eldest let herself open, just a bit. Her wings loosened, and she paced forward a few slow steps. “We can be together again. Like we were before. Don’t you want that?”

Image’s eyes fell from matching her gaze. “Eldest—”

“Cannon,” she interrupted. “I don’t give a damn about whatever Mistress says to all the others, you call me by my name!” Her ferocity died in the silence that swept in yet again. “Like you used to, Image. When you took me to Bitaly and we danced in the Court of Rains. Do you remember lying under the bridge, whispering in each other’s ears?” She paced forward again, and to her muted horror, Image recoiled. “Do you remember how you held me?”

“Cannon, please… you don’t want—”

She launched forward, hurling herself with her wings to glare into his eyes, almost muzzle to muzzle. Though he stumbled back, she never touched him. “I came back from the dead to be with you, Image. Don’t you get that? I don’t care about being a guard or fighting spirits or any of that stuff. I only wanted the chance to be with you again.”

Image’s head dropped again. “That’s it, Cannon. That’s the problem.”

“What?”

“You’re dead.”

Eldest flinched, and then her eyes wandered away. Subtle, avoiding his gaze. On another pony, it might have meant the words had been taken well. But Loose Cannon was never another pony. Image knew her fiery spirit, her inability to hold her thoughts, and the heart she wore on her foreleg for all of Equestria to see. To her, the quiet resignation was something else.

Something worse.

The quiet hurt him: a stabbing pain in his chest that would not go away, and would not be ignored, no matter how hard he focused on his breathing. One breath, two, five, nine, on and on until his shoulders began to shudder. Only then did some small semblance of speech finally come. “I know the Commander was wrong. You’ve shown me that more than enough. I think I still love you, Cannon. At least, I love who you were. But when I’m with you like this… When you hold me, I don’t feel Loose Cannon. I wish I could. I don’t know if I even have the strength to try. This body…” he gestured to the leathery wings, the pearly fangs her frowning mouth revealed on the edge of her lips. “When you try to kiss me, all I can think of is the ponies you eat. When you touch me, and I feel the cold, I…” He settled on the truth, despite the weight he knew it carried. “I feel disgusted.”

“Disgusted?” Eldest whispered the word.

“I’m sorry, Cannon. But I can’t do it. We can’t be together. Not like this.”

The thestral stepped away slowly, turning to stare off into the void. Her words were flat, her eyes glossy. In a moment of weakness, he dared to hope for tears. But none came. “I’m disgusting.”

“I still like you for who you are, Cannon. None of that has changed, I swear. It’s just… physically…”

“Do you still love me?”

Image hesitated. “You’re still my friend, Cannon. I—”

“No.” Eldest Sister looked back over her shoulder for only a glimmer of a second. “If that’s all we ever were to you, it was my fault for not seeing it. I…” And then she turned to look away, leaving him with only a view of her ears as they settled resolutely upright atop her head. “Goodbye.”

He knew he couldn’t catch her when she turned and flew. She was an ex-Wonderbolt and a thestral. He was just a unicorn on hoof. He wasn’t sure he wanted to catch her.

Lowering his head, Mirror Image turned his back on his old friend and wandered off into the depths of Luna’s mind.

Had it been hours, or just minutes? Years or seconds? He hadn’t been counting. He barely noticed the countless spread of Luna’s memories around him. His mind was just as lost as his body was in Luna’s.

However long it had been, one memory managed to snap Mirror Image out of the haze of emotions drowning his mind.

Heavy iron chains wrapped around the moving painting that hung in the air, latched together with a single titanic padlock. The rattling of the metal was unmistakeable once he found his way close enough; something behind the chains was moving. Between the harsh, jagged metal, some part of Luna remembered a fortress of almost spiky natural stone. Ponies flew around the structure that reminded Image of a changeling’s horn—pegasi in brilliant golden armor, and more thestrals than the stallion had ever dared to imagine.

The reasonable part of his mind pushed him away, rumbling with a fear that shoved aside thoughts of Eldest. He felt his legs tense; he would have run, were it not for an impossible glimpse of a familiar figure in the memory.

“Commander?”

The black-clad stallion in the memory didn’t hear the half-whispered gasp, but the chains did. Groaning and creaking, rattling as if they were massive arms shaking, they shifted in place. Readying themselves. Loosening.

Image was a good enough soldier to see the danger coming. His legs waited no longer. He turned his back and ran.

The chains were faster.

Cold, harsh metal wrapped around his forelegs, his barrel, his throat, and with a violent lurch, the the world of Luna’s mind was replaced with darkness.

In an almost pleasant shift from awakening facedown in a snowdrift, Mirror Image slowly came to his senses with the feeling of cold stone being run against his back. No, that wasn’t right. The stone wasn’t moving. He was. Something was dragging him. Something cold… but not cold like Cannon. Cold like stone.

It took his eyes a moment to focus, and then the entirety of his willpower not to gasp. His right hind leg was wrapped in a tight cluster of jagged rubies. They didn’t appear to be piercing his flesh, though he hardly considered the lack of pain when he realized why the rubies were moving.

Attached to the rubies—no, made of them—was a creature out of a nightmare. Where flesh ended and gems began, the unicorn could hardly tell. The tips of the spurs and crests in its ruby exterior gathered an unnatural frost in the air. For shape, it might have been a pony, nearly the equal of Soldier On. But despite her size, at least On’s coat and mane looked like a pony. This thing had a row of crystalline spines in place of a mane, an aura of unnatural frost trailing where its tail ought to have been, and teeth of serrated rubies that put even Cannon’s thestral fangs to shame.

His heart skipped a beat when it looked back at him.

“Had I wanted to kill you, you would never have woken up.” The creature’s voice wasn’t equine; it rumbled, cracked, and echoed more than Image imagined the darkness around him had any right to echo. “Restrain your apprehension. We will not need long to decide your fate.”

Though his mind was confused, the unicorn’s body knew what to do on instinct. He reached for one of the spear holsters on the sides of his gilded armor, and found it empty. “What…?”

Image wasn’t sure where the question was leading, but the creature clearly thought it—he?—did. “I am the Mistress’ finest creation.” He spoke very slowly, and left long pauses between his every thought. Whether he feared biting his own tongue, or was merely intent to speak with deliberation, Image couldn’t guess. The pony dragged him along the dark stone further and further, until ahead he saw some glimmer of light. “In life, a crystal.”

As the creature’s words continued to grate and grumble from its stony lips, the world around Image opened up in light: a fiery orange and purple sky that still managed to be filled with the glimmering of innumerable stars. Perched still in the sky overhead, a crescent of fire where the moon sat just off-center of a total eclipse of the sun.

His guess was right; he knew the time. The Twilight War. The only question that remained was the place.

All around was harsh black stone, not so much constructed as poured or molded into spires that reached up into the sky and looked down on a wide and ice-ridden strait. The unnatural chill in the air identified Stalliongrad more clearly than any sight or smell could match. Yet none of the land looked familiar, nor the coastline. Instead, all he could see were the boats gathering around the island fortress he found himself being dragged across. Dozens and dozens of tall-masted, white sailed ships flying a single golden sun in the strange dusk.

“Now I am something more,” the creature dragging him concluded, finishing a thought Image had nearly forgotten. Looking at the creature in better light, the answer would have been obvious.

“You’re a crystal pony thestral?”

“The only,” it intoned coldly, continuing its inexorable march. “Even in life our bodies are resistant to your magic.” The sky was stolen away again; whatever balcony they had walked onto was crossed, and replaced by claustrophobic hallways unlit by flame or crystal. “Only in her full glory did the Mistress find the might to raise one of my kind to take a place at her side.”

As he was dragged along in silence, struggling to think through the constant unease of the dark and the disruptions of the bumps in the floor, Image focused on his education—all the battles he’d read about after Luna’s return and redemption. The loss of Everfree City and the creation of the forest. The escape to Stalliongrad—but that was the city proper, not some island fortress. Fleeing to Zebrica and recruiting the griffons. And then…

“This is the Castle of Midnight,” Image whispered, more to himself than to the thestral.

The thestral stallion scoffed. “Do you intend to state the obvious? Or were you foolish enough to somehow arrive here without knowledge of your destination?”

“Well, if I’m being honest—”

“Don’t vaste your breath humoring him, Eldest.” Image’s ears perked at the distinctly Trotsylvanian accent off to his right, somewhere in the dark. He barely heard the mare’s hoofsteps drawing closer, but when she spoke, she was no more than an inch from the tip of his ear. “I vill have his mind, and then I vill take the meat.”

The crystalline corpse, Eldest, growled. “You think he is yours, Second? I claimed him. I am Eldest.”

The mare snorted back. “Eldest in title, perhaps. But you’re no mage, and you’re no match for Celestia’s champion. What good vould his blood do you? Do you honestly believe you could fight the Commander?” Image’s ears perked in the darkness, and though he could see neither Eldest nor this Second Sister, their sudden silence made it clear that they had noticed. “You know that name, unicorn?”

Eldest chuckled, a grim and grating noise like heavy stones scraping against one another. “Now you are the one humoring him.”

A spark of blood red light pierced through the darkness, illuminating the tip of a unicorn’s perfectly straight horn—something about the fact tickled Image’s attention, though the expanding light quickly quashed the thought. Second Sister was a markedly small mare for a unicorn, regarding Image with an expression equally mixed between amusement and hunger. Her neck and shoulders were clad in blackened steel armor, emblazoned in what looked like archaic Bitalian text. His eyes followed the collar past massive letters, SPQC and up to the slits for her leathery wings.

The unicorn blinked twice, making sure his eyes weren’t lying. “You’re an alicorn thestral?”

Second Sister cocked her head. “You must have been clever to get in here, through all our guards. Figure it out for yourself. I’m more interested in your little gasp vhen I mentioned the Commander.” The thestral’s tongue danced across her fangs. “Did you think the Mistress didn’t know about Celestia’s little experiment vith necromancy? That ve weren’t sure vhat your ‘secret’ mission to Everfree was for?”

Image momentarily considered trying to lie, and then thought the better of it. It wasn’t like they could actually kill him, assuming the flash at the end of Luna’s memory of Sombra had been as lethal as it felt—though they could probably make it hurt for a bit. “Well, no,” he told Second Sister with as honest an expression as he could manage. “I didn’t know Celestia used necromancy. What does that have to do with the Commander? And—what is that?”

That was the unnatural chill that flowed down Image’s back like water, under not only his armor but his coat and his skin. It managed to at once freezing him and leaving him with a terrifying sensation of vertigo as the darkness around him seemed to grow thicker. It ate his sight, swallowing up the little glimmers of reflection on the closest walls, and then devouring the light from Second Sister’s horn.

“Mistress,” Eldest and Second intoned, almost in unison.

All Image saw were her eyes in the darkness. Teal. Slitted. “What have you found, Eldest Brother?”

The thestral shrugged. “An idiot unicorn with his horn broken the way my people did in ancient days.”

“Hmm…” The room’s darkness was driven away by a piercing teal light. Though the visage of Nightmare Moon could hardly be called a surprise, it nevertheless made Image shudder. She loomed over him with all of Celestia’s height, but none of her grace or calming presence. As she leaned forward, Image took note of her periwinkle armor—wrapped not in gold like Celestia’s but rare and potent lodestone. It wouldn’t eat magic the way the Commander’s void crystal armor did, but the sheer mass of the precious stone would be far more resistant than his own gilded armor, and it rendered her all but immune to the magic of any mortal unicorn; if she decided to torture him or kill him, the sinking feeling in his gut warned that he wouldn’t be able to stop her.

His analysis disappeared from his mind when a mouthful of carnivorous fangs descended into his view. Nightmare Moon’s teeth were mere inches from his muzzle, and they parted with a visible hunger.

“You…” She spoke with none of the caution that defined Luna’s voice. Commanding and unhesitating, there was no doubt her pause was for effect.

Image closed his eyes.

“Are you not the soldier who fought at my side against Sombra?” Image opened his eyes, and saw in Nightmare Moon not hatred or malice, but confusion and curiosity. In that brief flicker, he saw Luna.

“Mistress?” Eldest Brother questioned. “You know this pony?”

“Only for a matter of minutes,” the Nightmare replied. “Yet he and a thestral fought alongside me in one of the most dangerous battles of my former life.” Her slitted eyes returned to Image. “Whatever my sister’s forces may say, I honor those who stand beside me. I hope that is why you have returned. If memory serves, your name was Mirror Image?”

And then something strange happened. Nightmare Moon smiled. Genuinely. Not hungrily, not forcefully (despite her prominent fangs), but with a broad curve to her cheeks, and even dimples. Not at all what Dead Reckoning had described with a black spiderweb scar burnt into his chest. Not the horror foals imagined at the end of autumn. A real pony.

Image nodded, still unsure. “Yes… Princess.”

The title earned him a brief glare, though Nightmare Moon said nothing about it. Instead, her focus slid across his body. “You haven’t aged a day; you ought to be ninety years old. What are you? What magic has made you last this long?”

Second Sister rolled her eyes. “No doubt another one of your sister’s ‘champions’. He certainly looks like vhat the necromancer’s spell might spit out, and if he vas strong enough to stand against Sombra, he vould seem worth the effort.” The potential alicorn thestral shook her head in a show of scorn. “Let me eat him, Mistress; the spell vill give me far more magic for my battle with the Commander.”

Mirror Image’s ears perked. “The Commander?”

“And now he knows too much to be left alive.” Eldest’s crystalline hoof smashed against the stone mere inches from Mirror’s ear, leaving behind a painful ringing. “Clever of you, Second, forcing our hoof against him. Your reputation for bloodlust is well deserved.”

Nightmare Moon’s feathered wings extended. “Silence, both of you.” After a pause as if testing the quarrelling thestrals, the black alicorn smiled. “Whatever he is, I am the ruler of this land. I see no need to simply kill him.” That same smile crossed her face again in pride, yet for all the armor and all the show of power, Mirror Image wondered if she wasn’t somehow more mortal this way; more alive this way than the restrained and terse Princess Luna he knew in reality.

“Second Sister,” Luna continued. “As I said, he fought alongside a thestral—one I had not created. For that alone, I am inclined to see where his loyalties lie before I jump to any condemnation. It might be that he is sympathetic to our cause.”

Eldest snorted. “After infiltrating the castle?”

“We shall see the truth shortly.” The teal magic around the Nightmare’s horn—the only real light in the room—grew piercingly bright. Slowly, her neck coiled and her horn aimed squarely between his brow. “Relax,” she cautioned, “and this shall not hurt.”

Flashes of memories too fast to see.

Luna’s mind.

Shouting.

Cannon.

He felt pain, and sorrow, and anger, yet he could not comprehend them. Too fast. Too sudden.

Sombra.

Krenn.

Bag with a Heartbeat.

Was it his eyes seeing, or his mind? Through the teal glow, he could hardly remember.

Cannon—alive.

River Bank.

Kiss.

Tears.

Reflection.

Shouting.

“Ah.” The Nightmare spoke as an expression of comprehension, though it carried an expression of humor. “So all this was for the thestral?”

Image cocked his head. “What made you come to that conclusion?”

“Your mind,” Nightmare Moon replied with her now familiar wry grin on her fangs. “Don’t look so pathetic, Mirror Image. I’ll give you a gift. Mortal stallions are so indecisive. Always wondering, always stressing over whether or not they have chosen the right partner for what little life they enjoy. Cease your mental debate and pursue her. Your ‘heart’ has chosen her.”

Image looked up at Nightmare Moon—Nightmare Moon—and found his mouth opening and shutting in rapid succession. Finally, he found some measure of a word. “Did… did you just give me dating advice?”

“No, I read your mind,” she replied with a harsh amusement. “You decided everything I told you; I only recited it.”

“Okay…” Image swallowed hard, genuinely lost for what to say next. “So are you going to… let me go?”

Second Sister chuckled into her hoof. “Vell, he’s funny enough to excuse his foalishness, but he still knows that ve know about Celestia’s champion. It isn’t as if he can be allowed to leave the castle alive.”

Image cocked his head. “Who’s the ‘Commander’? That’s who you mean, right? Why do you keep bringing him up?”

“Does he genuinely not know, Mistress?” Eldest Brother asked.

Nightmare Moon shook her head. “He has met the stallion before. But he has no idea. Second Sister can explain when you go with her.”

“Excuse me?” Second raised a brow in the Nightmare’s direction. “Mistress, are you suggesting I let him go?”

“No. I am directing you to take him with you. He proved competent in battle with Sombra; he is skilled enough to stand with you against Hurricane.”

Second stomped a hoof, cracking stone. “He’s a unicorn! He can’t fly, his magic can’t get through Hurricane’s armor. He’s a liability if I try to protect him, and meat if I ignore him.”

“Consider this a command, Second.”

Second’s wings burst into flame, overriding the teal magic of Nightmare Moon’s horn and fully illuminating what appeared to be a ruined throne room. Without further comment to her mistress, the thestral gestured toward a door. “Follow me, Mirror Image.”

“Um…” Though Mirror followed the thestral, his mind raced with questions of just what he had gotten himself into.

The parapets of the Castle of Midnight looked out over the vast stretches of the Stalliongradi coast in the perpetual dusk. Hastily constructed forts and sailing ships with hulls plated in skysteel faced off against the fortress. Closer, on the near-side of the water, a massive courtyard below was filled with ponies, dragons, and a few scattered elk. But above all were the thestrals. Hundreds of them, assembling fortifications and distributing weapons.

Image glanced over to the arched doorway into the castle, where Nightmare Moon was presumably watching him. She had to be… right? Otherwise the memory would have ended; she couldn’t remember him if she wasn’t aware of what was happening.

His mind only returned to the army when Second Sister’s frigid shoulder brushed against him. Despite the motion, she said nothing. He looked down at the army again, and his mind flew to the ghost stories he’d heard from the older members of the Honor Guard.

“Are there really four hundred?”

Second Sister nodded. “Four hundred twenty four, myself included.”

“Three hundred seventy sixth sister is kind of a mouthful,” Image told the figment of Luna’s memory. He’d hoped the levity might earn a smile, but instead, Second glared at him.

“Mistress vent too far.”

Image was almost flabbergasted. “You don’t support the Night Guard? I thought you would all—”

Red slitted eyes rolled in their sockets. “You do not understand, Mirror Image. I have been Second Sister long enough to know that Mistress vould be better off without thestrals—to say nothing of us.”

“What’s that supposed to mean? She keeps you for a hundred years, right?” Image took notice of the ensuing silence and shrugged. “I know you’re not allowed to talk about your pasts. Sorry.”

A frigid wheeze caught the stallion’s ear, and it took him more than a few moments to realize the thestral had exhaled. No, sighed. “In life, my name was Aestas Celsus. Summer, to my friends.”

“Really?” Image asked. “Just like that?”

“You vill find I have much more freedom vith my speech than my vould-be peers.”

“You mean the freedom to choose between ‘V’ and ‘W’?” he asked, teasingly. A frigid gust swept through the watercolor dusk sky, tussling the short rough hair of the stallion and the carefully sculpted scarlet mane of the walking corpse alike. Mirror offered it a quick shake of his head before speaking up again. “Your accent is Trotsylvanian. But your name is… Bitalian?”

“Cirran.” She scowled. “I died the year Equestria vas founded.”

“That’s a lot longer than a hundred years.”

Summer rolled her eyes again. “Vhat’s a few thousand years between monsters? I won’t bore you vith the details of the wars that led me to that death. Vhen Celestia and Luna—”

“You call her that?”

“Never to her face.” The corner of Summer’s mouth twisted up for a flash of a grin. Only a moment later, her tufted ears fell back again and her leathery wings pinched against her back. “It vasn’t more than a few decades after Celestia and Luna came to Equestria that there vas a…” Summer hesitated, looking down at the courtyard below. “…a conflict. The Night Guard vere slaughtered. All but me.”

Image knew better than to speak up. His eyes watched as the thestral’s shoulders rose and fell. “Luna summoned me. She vas lost in rage, and sorrow, and who knows vhat else. She gave me one command. The cruelest command.”

“The kind you can’t disobey?”

Summer nodded. “She told me ‘Make sure this never happens again.’ That vas my order. Do you understand?”

“I think so…”

She scoffed. “You have no idea, Mirror Image. No idea vhat it’s like to have free will stripped from you. The magic keeping me in this sick form knew that if I ever went back to Luna, she vould free me, and my command would be a failure, so I had to hide from her. If I died, I vould fail, so I started eating ponies in the night for the magic I needed to keep my body moving. Not one a year, but nightly. Vhen I had to upkeep the spell myself, the magic made me take this.” Her hoof struck the horn on her brow. “Vhen I lived, a unicorn named Vintershimmer made a spell to transplant a horn. The poor mare screamed so much.”

Image shuddered.

“I’m a monster, Mirror Image, and I can’t do anything to set myself free. It’s long since driven me mad. At times, vhen I close my eyes, I see friends who died centuries ago. I learned to like the taste of blood. Do not dare to tell me you think you understand. Even she has no idea, after I explained it to her face. The old Luna might have pitied me, but Nightmare Moon saw me as a tool.”

“She found you?”

“I came to her,” Summer answered. “Vhen she started mass-producing thestrals for the var, the spell finally buckled. Finally let me accept that confronting her vas vorth making myself known. I hoped she vould free me. I prayed to the old gods of Cirra, but I seem to have outlived them. Nightmare Moon saw the strongest of her servants. A thestral who had spent millennia mastering stealth and magic.” Her tail whipped back and forth once, harshly. “She vasn’t wrong.”

“She’s making you fight?”

“She gave me a new order. One order. And if I complete it, she vill let me go.”

“What order is that?”

“Destroy the Commander, and then return to her,” Summer replied with a genuine smile. Image leaned away from the mare, and her head swept away from the scene below to focus on him fully. “You still don’t understand? Luna thinks it’s motivation, as if I had the free vill to bother vith whether or not I cared. If I kill him, I’ll come back to her—the order is more direct than the one to protect the Night Guard. And when I do, she vill release me. But if I fail, both orders still bind me. So I cannot fail, no matter vhat magic Celestia has used on him.”

Image cocked his head. “You mentioned that before. You said you thought he was like me… immortal, or something? Did she raise him as a thestral?”

“No.” Summer shook her head. “Something ‘purer’. In those early days of Equestria, there vas a necromancer—Mortal Coil. He vas an egotistical ass,” she added a snort of scorn to the comment before continuing, “but also something of a magical genius. He wrote a spell to grant himself immortality, and in doing so, accidentally developed a vay to raise a pony from the dead. Not animate them, but truly resurrect them. That’s vhat the Commander is. Fully and completely alive, in a body that vill never age—”

Image’s mouth fell open. “You mean he’ll still be alive in a thousand years?”

“No,” Summer answered firmly. “He dies tonight.”

Image looked down at the catapults and military stormclouds being assembled below, and then leaned back on his flanks. “You know, that would have been a really great time for the battle to actually start.”

The thestral laughed at that. “Celestia is nothing if not a conservative soldier. And the Commander knows that his little team of elite soldiers von’t survive trying to take the fortress early.”

“The Honor Guard?” Image asked, barely surprised by the thought.

Summer shrugged. “If that is vhat they call themselves.” The mare looked around at the dusky sky and then turned back to him. “I’m being rude. Vhy not tell me about yourself?”

Only a moment’s hesitation preceded Image’s first statement. “Ah, Tartarus, why not?”

Luna caught a glimpse of an altogether too mortal strand of her mane at the edge of her vision. Pulling her body off of frigid flagstones, she reflected that it was a tragically appropriate representation of the way her entire body felt. Joints ached, muscles burned, and the agony she felt at the base of her horn was making it hard to see straight.

“That was… perhaps not worth repeating,” she whispered, more to test her own hearing and to hear her own physical voice than for any intention of communication.

“So… you’re really from the future?”

The phantasmal voice caught Luna off guard, and her head swiveled back and forth trying to locate a speaker. When her eyes met darkness, she ignited her horn. A teal light swept over a surprisingly large room filled to brimming with bookshelves covered in ancient tomes and heavy chests and crates. Seven stone arches offered egress, and at their center, a podium supported a particularly heavy tome.

“I am. You won’t like it. Luna loses tonight.”

The speaker was nowhere to be seen. Worrying, Luna wove together a more complex spell, searching for any crease or fold in the magical field of the room that might hide a pony from sight. Yet the voices ringing in her mind were nowhere to be found.

“Well… Do I win?”

“I don’t know… but I don’t think so.”

“Mirror Image?” Luna slapped her own brow with a wing, and then focused her mind on the necessary spell. The pain took over her sight, but it lasted only a moment. When it subsided, her ears rang with the sound of gilded armor and flesh tumbling in a single ball across the stone floor. “Bodyguard. Eldest. I trust your time in my mind saw you unharmed?”

After a few moments of rather violent disentanglement, Eldest Sister glared at Mirror Image. “Everything’s fine, Mistress.” Luna took note of an icy forcefulness usually absent in the happy-go-lucky mare’s voice. “Where are we?”

“We—rather, I—have not yet discovered. I only just dug my way out of the plane within Tirek’s Satchel.”

Mirror Image stood up slowly, rolling his neck. “Sorry, I didn’t follow. I’ve been about neck-deep in crazy magic for too long. Can you run that by me in smaller words?”

Luna nodded. “Magic can ‘fold’ space to make two points that aren’t nearby become adjacent to one another, but it cannot usually create new space from nothing. When a unicorn enchants a bag like Tirek’s Satchel, they link the space inside the bag to a larger physical location elsewhere in the physical world. When you so cunningly flung us inside the bag to escape the explosion of void crystals in Krenn’s throne room…” Luna slowly stopped as the memory came rushing back. After several seconds of silence, she coughed into her wing. “…after you saved us, the part of the spell that was sustained at the side of the bag began being eaten by the void crystals’ ash and collapsing. You might imagine it like a circus tent losing its supports. While both sides are held up, such a tent is open and easy to navigate. But remove the supports, and one inside finds themselves entangled in miles and miles of fabric.”

“Huh. Alright. So… why stick us in your head?”

“In order to escape the collapsing bag’s magic alive, I had to navigate the… the ‘fabric’... without piercing any of it. If I tore through the spell, we would have been ripped to tiny pieces and thrown out of the bag. I had to work quickly to move my physical body between the magical boundaries—precise and dangerous work. Keeping your physical bodies with me would have made the task nearly impossible. So instead, I put you in the safest place I could think of at the moment.”

Eldest Sister merely nodded. Image awkwardly scratched the back of his neck, chuckling like a colt caught with his hoof in a cookie jar. “Well, Princess, neither of us got hurt—”

“Speak for yourself,” Eldest almost spat.

“—but I just want you to remember that neither of us fought next to you against King Sombra, and I wasn’t actually there at the Castle of Midnight either.”

Luna cocked her head. “You entered my sealed memories?”

“Well, I wasn’t trying to. I just walked up to a memory with all these chains around it, and the chains lunged out and pulled me in.”

Luna shuddered. “Do not do so again. We shall have to speak to Celestia about this. In the meantime—”

Whatever the Princess had been preparing to say, she lost her thought to the unmistakeable echo of hooves on stone.

“…don’t know where he went, but he wanted to talk to you, Roscherk. In the meantime, Twilight, we’ll have a look and see if we can’t find Shining Armor.”

Luna opened her mouth, only to find Mirror Image holding up a hoof at her side, cautioning her to silence. Instead, the trio of ponies listened closely to the next voice that spoke up.

“You still haven’t explained how we’re going to find him down here, Foresight,” Twilight Sparkle complained, unmistakeably. “Shouldn’t we be talking to your guardsponies, or seeing if anypony has seen him in other parts of the Domain?”

“Trust me, Twilight,” Red Ink’s harsh voice echoed from upward—down a flight of stairs leading up from one of the archways. “Even if my brother is an ass, he is the best when you really need to find something. Or somepony.”

“How kind of you, Roscherk. I didn’t know you—Princess Luna!” Foresight rounded the corner, and almost immediately dropped to a knee. Twilight Sparkle wasn’t far behind, the rose light of her horn illuminating a stairway leading some substantial way up from the darkness that played host to the archway. Red Ink, who trailed the group, leapt over the two unicorns and spread his wings to glide to a rest at the foot of the stairs, nearly at a foreleg’s length from Luna.

“Princess… what in Tartarus are you doing in the basement?”

“Well,” Luna began, glancing knowingly at Mirror and Eldest. “That is a bit of a long story, Captain Ink.”

XXVII - Revelations

XXVII

Revelations

Deep in the bowels of Burning Hearth Castle, behind an elaborately sealed ‘alicorn door’ and more flights of stairs than Ink cared to remember, the pint-sized red soldier sat in a sizeable group with his elder brother, Twilight Sparkle, Princess Luna, and her two bodyguards.

“That is a bit of a long story, Captain Ink,” Luna explained, glancing to her guards. “Shall I recite it fully, or in a more condensed version?”

“For now, a short version would be good,” Twilight Sparkle’s concern for answers about her brother was obvious, written unmistakably across her face.

Luna seemed relieved. “That I believe I can offer. Now—”

“Mistress, before you begin,” Eldest Sister interrupted. “Given what has just ensued with Lord Krenn, I would like to speak with Third Brother and the rest of the Night Guard.” Her tone was short and sharp and harsh, but if Ink had to guess, he imagined she was on the verge of tears. Not wanting to interrupt the princess, he held his tongue. Luna offered the mare a nod, and the thestral spread her wings.

“Cannon, wait—” The speaker was Luna’s living bodyguard, an Honor Guard whom Ink had only briefly met once before: Mirror Image.

“Eldest Sister,” she corrected him harshly, before ignoring his request to wait by flying off up the stairs.

A long silence followed. Ink wasn’t a terribly patient pony. He pierced it by tapping his hoof on the stone. “Well… that was awkward.”

Foresight scoffed. “Pointing it out certainly makes it better, Roscherk.”

“No, Captain Ink is right. I should not have hesitated.” Luna nodded briefly in Ink’s direction, coughed rather deliberately into a wing, and began to speak. “Mirror Image, a Private Marathon of the Honor Guard, and I all came to Stalliongrad to meet with Krenn. I had little idea what to expect of the meeting, as Celestia was less than forthcoming. Thus, I was surprised when he began by making demands of me. He wanted back his hoard, which the Commander stole from him two decades ago during some war we had with the dragons.”

“The Dragon Wars,” Twilight Sparkle offered. “We use the plural, but the first two ‘wars’ were really just border conflicts between Stalliongradi gem miners and some smaller dragons. The third one is the one everypony remembers. The dragons ravaged Stalliongrad—” Red Ink coughed heavily into his hoof, earning a glare from Twilight. “—Stol’nograd, and made it all the way to Baltimare before the Royal Guard was able to turn them back. Then, nopony knows why, but after a huge group of Royal Guard were massacred in dragon territory at Treasonfang Pass, Lord Krenn called all the dragons back.”

Luna shrugged. “He explained why rather bluntly. The Commander stole his hoard and held it as blackmail to stop the war. Hence his demands now that we reached peace: to have the hoard returned. He also wanted us to turn over control of Discord.”

“Yeah, right.” Ink rolled his eyes.

Luna shook her head. “He was quite serious. We had a misunderstanding, and briefly fought.”

“What?” Twilight snapped. “You… you fought Lord Krenn? There hasn’t been a fight between two of the rulers since…since…”

Luna finished the thought regretfully. “Since the Twilight War. Do not worry, Twilight; we are not going to war over that argument. I did not leverage the tides against him, and he did not turn the earth against me. What matters is that he pressured me to retrieve the hoard from the Commander, and then disappeared. At the time, I believed the Commander to be dead, so I took Mirror Image and Eldest Sister of my Night Guard to travel to his capital and attempt to negotiate.”

“Wait—” Ink held up a hoof, hoping to stop Luna. “You believed the Commander was dead? Do you mean Mentor is alive?”

“I have spoken to him,” Luna answered.

Ink’s face lit up like Hearth’s Warming lights—metaphorically, rather than the literal and rather incendiary sense that he was also perfectly capable of achieving. “Mentor is alive?” He leapt up, hovering in midair as his forehooves pumped back and forth in a sort of foalish but entirely enthusiastic dance.

“I cannot promise he remains that way, but I have hope. The team pursuing him is skilled, if the report Rainbow Dash gave me in her dreams is accurate.” The princess rolled her neck, eliciting a noisy pop that echoed amid the stone archways surrounding the party of ponies. “Regardless, at the time, I did not have that knowledge. So my guardians and I traveled to Peschera—Krenn’s capital, if you want to call it that. I spoke to Krenn briefly, explaining why I was unable to return his hoard. In turn, he finally told me what it was: an egg.”

When Twilight Sparkle flinched, every eye locked onto her face. “It… it couldn’t be.”

“Is there another dragon egg in Equestria?”

“I don’t know. There must be.” Twilight looked around the room, seeing the eyes of the gathered ponies waiting on her. “That’s just a coincidence. Spike’s egg came from Baltimare; one of the dragons laid it there during the war, and a professor at Princess Celestia’s school brought it back.” When the eyes of the other ponies didn’t leave her, she continued “Princess Celestia wouldn’t lie to me.”

“You have more faith in our sister’s honesty than she likely deserves, Twilight Sparkle. But Krenn’s hoard is a matter I must discuss with the Commander directly if he returns alive, and Celestia if he does not. In the moment, I am more concerned with what ensued afterward. Somehow, some assassin or revolutionary managed to smuggle a piece of void crystal into the center of a log Krenn was using in his fireplace. When he wielded his magic to lift it, the void crystal absorbed the magic and exploded. I do not know if Krenn still lives, or how he has reacted. Only Mirror Image’s quick thinking saved our lives, flinging us into a magical bag. When the void crystal ate its enchantments, the interior of the bag collapsed, and when I managed to climb my way out, we had arrived here.”

Twilight glanced at Mirror Image. “You thought of putting everypony in a microplanar container in the time it took a void crystal to explode?”

“Clever,” Foresight added.

Mirror Image said nothing.

Ink coughed into his wing with substantially less grace and control than Luna had used when she began her story. “So what I’m hearing right now is we’re probably at war with the dragons again, and nopony has any warning or preparation setup whatsoever?”

“That was the point I was getting to, Captain Ink. I will go to the roof of the castle now, and see if I can break into the dream of a dragon somewhere within Peschera. With luck, I will find Krenn, but no matter the outcome, I will have an answer as to what action to take next within the hour. And with that, I shall take my leave.”

“Oh, Princess—” Twilight hesitated in the midst of her own words, though they were enough to stop Luna—wings spread wide in the sizeable cellar—from leaving. “I, uh, I had a question for you. Quickly. I hope.”

“Speak it quickly, Twilight Sparkle. I trust your judgement of its importance.”

“Yeah, um…” Twilight frowned. “This is a little awkward, but I can explain why I ask. Can… can thestrals… reproduce?”

Mirror Image winced quite visibly, and Luna recoiled slightly at the blunt question, though it was Red Ink’s unrestrained laughter that ultimately won the attention of the gathered. “Oh, that is priceless, Twilight. It’s always the quiet ones. Find one of the Night Guard you like, or is there somepony from a history book you really want to raise?”

Ink had been slapped across the face by many mares in his life, but Princess Luna was a new personal best. When the ringing in his ears passed, he wondered how she had moved so quickly.

“Twilight, while I truly believe that you have some better intention than some ponies might be implying, I confess it is lost on me. To what do you refer?”

Twilight took a deep breath. “Well, as you probably know, certain powerful enchantments cast on a pregnant mare can transfer to their foals. I would say that the spell raising a thestral constitutes a very powerful enchantment, and that any orders you had given them might do the same.”

Luna nodded. “I see. You believe you have discovered the offspring of a thestral? While they can under very specific circumstances become fertile, I can guarantee that any commands given to a thestral would not pass on to their offspring.”

Ink glanced over to Twilight. “You think Countess Star is descended from the thestral from the book?”

“It might explain her interest in Typhoon’s body, if she was still bound by Summer’s orders.”

Mirror Image’s ears perked. “Twilight, we should speak. Princess Luna, go. I’ll join you shortly.”

“Of course, bodyguard.” With a pump of her wings, Luna vanished up the steps, lighting the way with her horn as she went.

“Well, that was fun.” Ink chuckled to himself, ignoring the breath Mirror Image drew in as if he was about to speak. “Now, Predvidenie, are you going to look into the rock or not?”

Foresight adjusted his glasses with his magic. “It’s not a rock, Ink, it’s a priceless magical artifact. And before I begin, I would like from your subordinate the same assurances I received from you and Twilight.”

Ink groaned and rubbed his brow with a hoof. “On behalf of the Honor Guard, Foresight, I guarantee nopony is going to get pissed at you. The same way Mentor did.”

“You don’t have that authority, Roscherk Krovyu.” Mirror Image stepped up from where he had been sitting at the far side of the room, joining the far smaller circle of ponies. “And I do not appreciate you speaking on my behalf.”

Ink puffed up his chest, and looked up into Image’s eyes. “I absolutely have that authority. I am the captain—”

“The Commander is still alive,” Image interrupted. “And if he weren't, I still wouldn't follow somepony who tortured one of his own soldiers.”

“Ink,” Twilight began to ask. “What did you do?”

The red stallion glared straight into Image’s eyes. “Thunder Crack knew where Stoikaja was hiding, and he concealed that from me. I was doing my job, saving Princess Luna.”

“You were using her as an excuse for your vendetta,” Image countered. “Now, Foresight—that's what you go by in Equuish, right?—what are you asking me to promise?”

“Well, that —” Foresight bobbed his horn in the direction of a crystal ball resting on a lavender cushion in a recession at the top of a plinth in the center of the room. “—that is Electrum's Orb.”

Image cocked his head for a few seconds before speaking up. “Alright. That's nice. I never went to college for magic, so if that's some famous artifact or something, you're going to have to explain it to me.”

Twilight nodded. “It's the most powerful crystal ball in the world. King Electrum of the Diamond Kingdom made it before Equestria was even founded. It can see anypony whose name you know, and it supposedly suffers none of the constraints of Waltz or Callous models. No need for a focus from the subject, no limited range, no need for a general area to search. It just works.”

“So we're worried about espionage accusations?”

“That or prophecy,” Foresight nervously replied, adjusting his scarf with his magic. When Image's eyes narrowed, the flustered unicorn continued. “I only did it for the Commander. That's how we beat Frostbite even though his mercenaries and resources outnumbered us. The Commander gave me the orb. I promise I haven't been spying on anypony.”

Image snorted. “And now you want to use it to…”

“Find my brother.” Twilight stepped forward. “Please, Mister Image.”

“Lord Image,” Foresight corrected gently.

Image himself rolled his eyes. “I gave up that title a while ago. Besides, my dad's still alive. Just Mirror. Or Image; I'm not picky. Warrant Officer Image if you’re really feeling formal.” He smiled, just a bit. “You can go ahead and use it.” Pausing in thought, he started at the orb for a few long seconds before adding “The Honor Guard could actually use a favor on that front.”

“I'm… glad to serve,” Foresight mumbled. “Let's start with—” He turned toward the crystal ball, ignited his horn, and spoke up. “Shining Armor.”

The shriek of frozen wind wrapped around Shining Armor’s shield. It kept him from freezing to death, and from that fact that he could still feel the piercing pain in his hooves whenever they met the snow-covered stone below, he knew that he was still ‘warm’. Yet, with his eyes locked on the storm swirling in the frozen mountains beyond his magic, he barely had time to feel the chill.

“Do you think they’re still following us, Shining?”

The unicorn’s companion was not handling the dropping temperature well; he felt it every time her coat brushed against his inside the cramped confines of his shield.

He didn’t dare look away from the narrow, frozen path up the cliff face, so he spoke to her over his shoulder. “The flying one? Or the Black Cloaks?”

A midnight blue brow rose. “Is there a difference to us?”

“If it were the flying one, we’d be dead.” Shining cocked his head briefly up the cliff barely more than a leg’s reach to their left. “I’m good at shields, but I can’t hold up an avalanche.”

“That’s not reassuring, Shining.” The unicorn mare’s hoof stumbled on the edge of the sheer drop to their right, and a few clumps of snow fell easily three hundred feet down the mountainside into the impenetrable fog of a howling, unending blizzard. Stumbling, she fell against the heavy beige winter coat he’d wrapped tight around his body. When he helped her back to her own hooves, still keeping his eyes on the storm, the twinkle of amethyst briefly peeked out of the garment; he still wore the cuirass of Platinum’s Ward, even if the helmet was lost. “What happens if the Black Cloak… things… catch up to us?”

“If they could track us in this storm, they would have caught us in Stalliongrad, or Coltpenhagen, or Onyx Ridge. We should be in the clear from them. I’m more worried about what we’re going to find in Neighvgorod. You’re sure you can sneak us past a spirit, Masquerade?”

The assassin laughed, contorting the very subtlest beginnings of frown lines on her royal blue coat. “I’ll be glad to be in my element for once on this crazy adventure, Captain. I make my living hiding in plain sight. I can get us to the Eagle.”

“If you say so… I’ve never been good at sneaking around.”

“He’s alive!” Twilight shouted in a mixture of overzealous joy and self-satisfaction at having trusted her older brother; despite the adulation, her stomach knew a sinking fear. “Was that really Masquerade?”

“It would take a pretty stupid pony to use a wanted assassin’s appearance as a disguise,” Mirror Image noted bluntly. “That might actually be a good sign. They aren’t fighting, at least for the moment, and it appears Shining has the upper hand since he knows who she is. There’s no element of surprise, and all our reports indicate he’s the superior fighter. As crazy as this sounds, Twilight, I think he’s fine.”

“For the moment,” Ink whispered, shooting a knowing glance to his own older brother. “Do we still have those journals Mentor gave us?”

Foresight nodded. “I assume you want the ones about Admiral Blizzard?”

Ink nodded, though his next words were cut off when Twilight grabbed onto his shoulder and tugged him back to match her worried expression. “What’s wrong, Ink?”

Red Ink swallowed heavily. “You heard Armor talk about ‘the spirit’, yes? If he and the bitch are going to Neighvgorod, they’re going to their deaths.”

Twilight’s ears fell. “But… but Shining knows how to fight spirits. He’ll be safe.”

Foresight gingerly adjusted his glasses, and his magic tightened his scarf. “Twilight, what do you know about Neighvgorod?”

“It’s the northernmost city in Stalliongrad,” she answered. “It used to be a Horseatic League trading port, and because it’s a natural harbor surrounded by cliffs, it became the base for the Equestrian Navy for a long time; up until they joined Nightmare Moon in the Twilight War. When they lost the port to Emperor Magnus’ griffons, Nightmare Moon used her magic to freeze the entire city. Now the waters are too icy to sail into the harbor, the mountains are too stormy to cross, and the air is too cold for a pegasus to fly over.”

“You’re close, Twilight.” Ink’s accent only emphasized the grim tone of his words. “But it was not Nightmare Moon’s magic that froze Neighvgorod. Not directly. Have you heard of… What’s the Equiish name, Predvidenie? Smart Clover?”

With a sort of smug amusement, Foresight looked down at his younger brother. “Clover the Clever. What he is asking, Twilight, is whether or not you are familiar with ‘Clover’s Folly’.”

“The last windigo?” Twilight heard wind whistle over her teeth, though she didn’t feel like she’d breathed in.

Ink nodded, mournfully. “I thought you might have heard of it. The spirit makes its nest in the Castle of Neighvgorod, feeding on our hatred. Close to the Brayranga mountains, it’s cold enough your wings will freeze rigid.” Then, with a smirk, he added. “Unless you’re on fire.”

“So we’re going to go?”

“You are not good at being on fire, Twilight. Cute flanks aside.” Mirror Image chuckled at the comment, putting a wide grin on Ink’s muzzle. “Even I cannot fight the windigo. But I can get Shining out. Perhaps Masquerade too, if only to interrogate her.”

Foresight frowned noticeably. “Except that it shouldn’t be possible for that to be Masquerade. The Night Guard caught her… almost a week ago, I suppose. Third Brother was holding her in Commandant Truncheon’s old dungeon.”

Nopony moved. Nopony spoke. The collected group turned as one toward Foresight, who sat back on his haunches.

Finally, Mirror Image stepped forward. “You didn’t think that was information to lead with? Say, when the Princess was here?”

“Not compared to what she was warning us about,” Foresight answered, leaning into the other unicorn’s aggressive posture. “Third Brother has been interrogating her at length, but she hasn’t given much information yet. Not that he actually thought she knew anything we wanted. He was hoping to lure out whoever hired her.” Ink glanced back at the orb on its plinth. “Maybe…”

Ink rolled his eyes. “This is not a time for ‘cliffhanger’, Predvidenie.”

“Sorry. I was just thinking…” Golden magic adjusted gold-rimmed glasses. “When Princess Luna came in by train, some of the rebel leadership stopped her, Roscherk. She brought them in for us: the tigress, Povstantsev, all of them. I put them in a gem-warded cell, but before we could take them to trial or anything, somepony broke them out.” Foresight frowned. “When I heard about Masquerade acting in the area, I assumed she was behind it somehow and I tightened security. But… what if Shining Armor is working with them?”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Mirror Image noted. When Ink glared his way, the brown unicorn held up a defensive hoof. “I’m not trying to play politics. But after the incident with Soldier On—

“Cyka.”

Image rolled his eyes. “If you want to stay on the Honor Guard, you’re going to have to accept sooner or later that you’re the bad guy in that story.”

“She killed my brother!”

“Even if she did, you think the right response was killing her foals?” Foresight and Twilight both winced as the Honor Guard shook his head. Only Red Ink was still, frozen by the condemnation in Mirror’s words. “Soldier On served with us for almost five years. We were friends. Did you think she never told us why she joined the Honor Guard? Did you think we never asked?” Image spat on the floor. “But then you honestly expected we’d treat you like the Commander?”

Making a show of wiping his hooves, Image turned his attention to Foresight. “This isn’t productive right now. I’m sorry. My point is that after what happened in Baltimare, Shining Armor is a lot more sympathetic to their cause than to yours. If he thought there was a risk that Masquerade would be killed off before we could find out who hired her, I wouldn’t doubt for a second he’d rescue her.”

Foresight bit his lip for just a moment, and then nodded. “That does make sense, unfortunately.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Twilight whispered. When the three stallions turned toward her, she held up a hand. “I mean, yeah, I guess it’s important that we find out who was behind all this, eventually. But right now, my brother is going to go into a city where a millennia-old ice monster lives, and the only pony there to help him is an assassin who might still want to kill him if it means she can get away. So can we please stop arguing about who’s guilty of hiring Masquerade and who did something wrong when, and just work together to save Shining?”

The resounding wisdom broke Ink out of his catatonic regret. “I… yes, Twilight.” A shake of his head got Ink’s ears back perked up, and breathed some life into his rough-cut red mane. “I’ll get your brother.”

“Not alone—” Twilight’s cry went ignored as Ink’s wings carried him up the stairs and out of earshot. “Is he hard to talk to for anypony else, or is it just with me?”

Foresight chuckled. “After what I just heard, you’re probably the best at talking to him of anypony ever. Well, except maybe the Commander.”

Image’s ears stood up. “Ah, that’s right. Secretary Foresight, can you leave us?”

“I’m sorry?”

“There’s Honor Guard business I need to take care of with Twilight.”

“Oh?” Realizing the question was prying, or something similar, Foresight nodded. “I’ll give you some space then. Perhaps I’ll arrange some dinner; you both look like you haven’t had a proper meal in more than a while.”

Image and Twilight looked at each other, laughed together, and nodded. Foresight’s hooves clicked on the harsh cold stone floor, until Twilight called out to him. “Oh, one thing, Foresight. When Ink and I got to Stalliongrad, there was a mare with us. A friend of mine, named Going Solo. She kind of panicked when Ink used his fire empatha, and one of the Night Guard took her away to the castle to calm down and check if she was wounded. Can you try and find her?”

“It would be my honor, Twilight.” With those words, the well-dressed stallion walked away.

Standing in the relative darkness of the vast magical vaults, Twilight and Image both stepped toward Electrum’s Orb, still dominating the center of the room.

“I assume you want me to scry the Commander?” Twilight asked.

Image nodded. “Will I be able to talk to him?”

A shake of the head was his answer. “That’s just as impossible with Electrum’s Orb as every other crystal ball in the world. This one is just more efficient and more reliable. Admittedly, a lot more reliable. Let’s see what we get. I hope this works the same as other scrying focii.”

She stepped up to the orb, lighting her horn and contorting her face. In the maddening swirl of emotions around having located Shining, and the threats of Masquerade and the windigo, Twilight almost missed the pressure that her magic was about to wrap around one of the oldest and most powerful magical artifacts in the history of pony civilization.

Almost.

Biting her lip, she whispered aloud. “Steel Lining.”

The image in the orb swirled, misty and white. Not unlike a snowglobe, it swirled and churned, but it never revealed an image.

“Uh… Did I do something wrong?” Twilight asked aloud. Her magic focused on the image, and it zoomed out. The swirling storm changed, revealing not just misty white, but frigid pale blue stripes. And as it zoomed out more, she started to recognize what she was seeing. Cliffs of frozen stone and ice. A thick layer of snow across the flat ground. And resting atop it, pale white skeletons, obscured by a roaring storm. Hundreds of them, some wearing scraps of rusted armor still shiny on their fringes with hints of a thin gold leaf. “What… what is this?”

“Treasonfang Pass,” Image whispered, his voice betraying confusion, but also some hint of understanding. “We traveled through it on the way to see Lord Krenn.”

“But that can’t be right. Even if the Commander were dead, he wouldn’t be in Treasonfang Pass. The battle there was twenty years ago!”

“Unless Steel Lining was never his real name.”

“Huh?”

“I need to ask you a strange question. Eight years ago, we ceded a strip of territory in Zebrica to the griffons. Do you know about any pony cities in that area? Villages?”

Twilight gave the stallion a confused look as her brow wrinkled in thought, and her tail ticked like a metronome. “Well… the only places that come to mind are Nimbus and Zephyrus. But those aren’t what you’re looking for; they were both Cirran cities from thousands of years ago, well before Equestria was founded.”

“I thought so. Hold the spell.” Image approached Electrum’s orb, staring directly into its depths. Though Twilight followed his directions, she watched him with a mixture of confusion and sheer curiosity. She saw his throat bob once, swallowing as if unsure of whether or not he wanted to continue. It was only a slight movement, though, before his resolve was set and his lips parted to speak a single name.

“Hurricane.”

“Okay, it’s official. Walking sucks.”

Rainbow knew she was beginning to figure out Soldier On’s humor—drier than the Suidan wasteland though it was—when she picked out the little twitch on the giant mare’s cheek. “That’s the price of making a point, Rainbow. I can carry you again if you want. You make a decent scarf.”

Rainbow’s eloquent response was to stick her tongue out at Soldier On.

“She’s right,” the Commander noted, gesturing to the orange horizon. “We ought to stop and make a fire before the desert gets cold. Reckoning, see if you can scavenge something for us to eat. I’ll handle fire.”

Deadeye’s stiff salute signaled his understanding, though his departure was short lived, as the Commander suddenly lunged forward and grabbed his shoulder. “Sir?”

“Identifier?”

Whatever the word meant, Rainbow could only guess. She watched as Reckoning scratched his chin for a moment, and then spoke sternly. “Mongrel Sixty-eight. But do you think we really need them? It’s a long way north until we’re anywhere near the hive.”

The Commander nodded. “It is. But I don’t want to take chances. We’re all high-value targets—Rainbow especially. I’ll use… Coil, Curtain, Cyclone, Silver.”

Deadeye made a sputtering noise with his lips. “Well, I couldn’t guess it.” As if those words were an answer, Reckoning spread his mismatched wings and took off into the desert.

Only when her father had turned around did Rainbow speak up. “Uh, what?”

“We’re approaching changeling territory, Rainbow. Their hive is in the badlands on the Equestrian-Suidan border. We use identifying phrases like those so that if we get separated, we know we aren’t welcoming in a threat. They’re made of personally significant words in a random order, so that even if a changeling somehow knew a great deal about your personal life, they wouldn’t be able to guess.”

“Huh.” Rainbow nodded. “I guess that makes a lot of sense. So I could use, like, Loyalty, Wonderbolts?.”

The Commander’s response was a slow nod. “It could work. But we generally prefer using proper names. Everypony in Equestria knows you’re the bearer of Loyalty and you’ve performed with the Wonderbolts enough that it isn’t a stretch. ‘Lining’ or ‘Breeze’ might be a good component.”

Rainbow only realized she was scowling when Soldier On patted her on the back—quite gingerly for a mare of that size, obviously going out of her way to avoid the younger mare’s now closed stumps. “Or something only you and Deadeye would really know about; I’m sure there’s something from your whole Zebrica adventure.”

The Commander flashed an expression of some sort of judgement in On’s direction.

“Okay,” said Rainbow. “Um… Fallaner, phage, Breeze?”

Two nods met her proposal. “Okay, I can remember that. What’s yours, On?”

“Relentless, Unyielding, Midnight.”

“Hmm… I don’t get it.” Rainbow swallowed hard when a flash of obvious pain appeared on Soldier On’s face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to, like, hurt your feelings or anything.”

“I know, Rainbow. I’m not angry. And you had no way of knowing. Relentless and Unyielding were my foals.”

“Were your… Oh.” She wasn’t sure what else to say, and so for a spare few seconds the three ponies sat silently. Finally, Rainbow lunged at the larger mare, trying to wrap her in a hug. Though her forelegs were fall too small to encircle the earth pony, the motion put a little bit of a smile onto On’s otherwise stern face.

“I won’t burden you with that story, Rainbow. It was a long time ago, and there are more important things to talk about.” The earth pony looked pointedly at Rainbow. Then she waited. “Something involving a name I hadn’t heard before, perhaps?” And then waited some more. A fake cough into her hoof may have been involved.

“She might mean me, Rainbow.”

“Oh! Do you mean Typhoon?”

From the sheer sound it made, the collision between On’s hoof and her face might have cracked her skull. “Yes, Rainbow.”

“Not now.” The Commander waved a wing in the air as if the impending discussion were smoke to be shooed away. “Rainbow, is it safe to assume the Typhoon you spoke to is the daughter of Commander Hurricane?”

Rainbow’s moment of shock clearly answered the question. “How did you know that?”

“Storm names aren’t very common in modern Equestria. And Twilight Sparkle talked about that mare at length while she was doing research on Commander Hurricane’s journals.” His glance turned north, briefly. “We should wait to have that discussion until Celestia is present. In the meantime, I think you should start by telling us what happened in Zebrica.”

Rainbow stared at her father for a few seconds before offering a nod. “I guess. It’s kind of a long story.”

“Take your time,” was the Commander’s reply.

“Rainbow!” Twilight shouted, staring at the stumps that were her shoulders. “Oh, Rainbow! How… that’s horrible!”

Image gingerly, hesitantly wrapped a foreleg around Twilight’s shoulders as a sign of comfort. “Whatever happened, Twilight, the Princess has the magic to heal her. And with the Commander there, she’s safer than anywhere else in Equestria.”

“Yeah…” Twilight swallowed hard and drew in a breath. “Right there with… Commander Hurricane…” Looking up at the tan soldier, she swallowed yet another hard gulp. “How did you know?”

“Princess Luna took me into his dreams. He showed me how he remembered the village where he’d grown up. A wheat farm that he said was near Zebrica. But I knew there hadn’t been plains in that part of Zebrica since before Equestria was founded. I didn’t think much of it until Princess Luna sent me into her memories—the ones she keeps sealed up. I saw him in a memory of the Twilight War.”

“You saw the Twilight War?”

Image chuckled. “I volunteered to fight for Nightmare Moon, believe it or not. The Commander would have my head.” As his smile faded, the soldier continued “I guess I can’t blame him. Anyway, while I was in there, I talked to a thestral named Summer—”

“Summer?” Twilight gasped. “But she was a Cirran. She shouldn’t have been in the Twilight War.”

Image nodded. “She said so herself. Princess Luna gave her a command that she could never complete. Something about protecting the other Night Guard from something that happened a long time ago. I don’t know the history that well. But it forced her to stick around, and to hide from Princess Luna so she wouldn’t be released from the command.”

“That’s horrible!”

Image nodded. “She only came out of hiding because of how many of Nightmare Moon’s thestrals were being killed, and how many new ones she was making, during the Twilight War. Nightmare Moon gave her a new order—kill Hurricane.”

Twilight nodded. “That makes sense. So Princess Celestia raised Commander Hurricane to fight in the Twilight War. He and Typhoon both knew a lot about fighting thestrals…” Twilight’s words trailed off.

“...so I’m going to take it you just realized something…” Image watched as Twilight’s horn flared and she teleported her way up the stairs. “...important?” Rolling his eyes, the weary soldier began to walk his way up into the heart of the Stalliongradi capital.

For Ink, the defining features of the Burning Hearth throne room were the innumerable scorch march covering its stone floors and walls. He’d put most of them there, but some were much older than him. If the stories father told were true, they dated back to the days when Tsyklon sat in the big throne at the other end of the hall—and thus, after he’d burned the gaping hole in the solid steel doors that might have actually blocked the entrance once upon a time. These days, it was Ink’s personal training ground: somewhere he could go to really stretch out his wings and let his fire go without worrying about burning anything down. All the cloth had long since been removed. Only stone pillars and a stone throne sat atop a stone floor, between stone walls and beneath a stone ceiling.

Ink wasn’t sure he was happy to see another pony in the huge, dark room. Still, business came first. Standing between the twisted, fire-warped steel doors, he lit up his wings, scanning for the thestral. His little show of flame did not light the whole room, but it was enough in the sheer darkness to illuminate a figure sitting in the old throne at the far side of the chamber. The thestral was huge, probably on the verge of Stoikaja’s size. He sat upright in the throne, his wings sprawled out over the arms of the seat, and one of his forelegs propping up his chin. The other played with the hilt of Infernus, the unreasonably long blade of almost rusty red that Stalliongrad had used for public executions since long before Ink was a foal.

“You’re Third Brother?”

A snort was the first answer Ink got. The pony sat upright in his seat, letting his hoof fall away from his chin. “In more ways than you know, Roscherk.”

“Not ‘Commander’? Or ‘Captain’?” Ink smiled, walking forward. “I guess the Night Guard aren’t really military ponies, so I’ll forgive that. What’d you do to get yourself turned into a thestral? Robbery? Murder? Tax Fraud?”

“Torture,” Third Brother answered coldly. “Political.”

“Hmm.” Ink nodded. “Fair enough. And you’re the one who caught Masquerade?” His hooves crossed the center of the throne room, and the direct light from the flames on his wings caught the other stallion’s hind hooves. “I hope you didn’t torture her too much yet. She and I have a score to settle. How’d you pick her out?”

“She did not impersonate you well.” Third Brother dragged Infernus across the floor, and the line it left behind glowed a potent orange.

Ink’s eyes widened just a bit. “She was disguised as me?” He spat on the floor. “Should I be proud or pissed off? How could you tell she wasn’t me? Couldn’t hold her gin? Or was she lousy with mares?”

Third Brother leaned forward; fiery light spread over his leathery wings, but it still left his muzzle in the shadows. “She didn’t recognize me.”

“Recognize you? Am I supposed to recognize you?”

A leathery wing snapped forward; something dark and heavy flew through the air, striking Ink across the muzzle before he could get up a hoof or a wing to protect himself. It was softer than he’d expected; heavy fabric, but not steel or stone. It was familiar. Pulling it off of his face, he recognized his most prized possession. “My jacket! Thank you…”

Third Brother’s face was a frown, one which only revealed the tips of his prominent fangs. But now that it was in the clear light of Ink’s flames, even with grayer fur and a thinner muzzle, his face was unmistakeable.

“Polnoch?”

Ink dropped his jacket completely forgotten in stunned recognition of a pony he’d thought lost. His hooves dug into the stone, throwing himself toward his younger brother.

Then he heard the crack of thunder.

When his vision settled from stars, what might have been minutes later, he was laying on his back in the darkness. He could feel the chill of the stone. His wings had gone out—that usually meant he’d lost consciousness. Of course, all of that was secondary to the throbbing pain in his brow. He could feel something wet; was he bleeding? A flare of fire cauterized the wound, if there still was one, and lit the room again.

Polnoch stood on his hind legs on the dais just in front of the throne, one leg still resting on Infernus, and the other held aloft in midair as if it had frozen after a punch.

Ink’s voice fell into Stalliongradi almost out of reflex. “What the fuck, Polnoch?”

“That was for Stoikaja,” he answered, calmly.

In his confusion, Ink barely found the focus to stand up. By the time the throbbing in his brow settled from the motion, Polnoch was only a leg’s reach away, looming in front of his older but substantially shorter brother. “What are you talking about? Are you mad I didn’t catch that bitch—”

Another crack of thunder. Another flash of stars. Ink’s wings were still alight this time, but the pain was overwhelming. He hadn’t even gathered his sense of balance when the thestral spoke up again.

“Hold your tongue for once in your entire life, Roscherk, and listen to me! I’m your Ghost of Hearth’s Warming Past. You’re on a dark path.”

“Kiss my mark, Polnoch. I work for five years trying to avenge you, and the first thing you do when we meet is punch me in the face and spin some crap story about me being the ‘bad pony’?” Ink struggled to his feet, the fires on his wings growing larger until they doubled his wingspan. “Yeah, I fucked up. I was pissed. In case you hadn’t noticed, one of my best friends killed my brother!”

Third Brother’s lip peeled back, revealing his flesh-tearing fangs. “Stoikaja didn’t have anything to do with my death.”

“Yeah, and I didn’t have anything to do with snapping off Frostbite’s horn. I just have it in a box upstairs because I bought it at a Celestia-damned auction! Do you think I just pulled the accusation out of my ass? I caught the middle-pony for the contract, and he pointed at her. I found the account in Lubuck she used to save up the money to hire Masquerade. What else was I supposed to do? Let her off because we were friends in the revolution?”

“Did you ever ask her?” Third Brother’s voice remained steady, in contrast to Ink’s rushed words and harsh scowl. Only the steady swish of his tail indicated any irritation.

Ink took two strides toward his younger, larger brother. The flames spewing from his wings were wide enough to engulf the pillars holding up the balconies on both sides of the room. “You know, Polnoch, I can’t remember. It was a little hard to think about that on account of her trying to buck a hole through my skull.” His forehooves stopped on the lowest step of the dais holding the physical throne of Stalliongrad. “I was going to say you sounded like Predvidenie, but that isn’t really fair. You sound like Dad.”

Third Brother nodded. “If Father would have listened to Stoikaja, I would rather emulate him.”

Ink swung for his brother’s neck. The thestral’s magically-enhanced speed easily blocked the blow, but he lacked the insight to avoid being flipped over Ink’s flaming wings and bodyslammed onto the stone steps when the smaller pony leaned into the blow. Rolling twice, Third Brother caught himself on his hooves and rose to his full height, no worse for the wear beyond a few singed hairs on his chest. His expression had not changed.

“Did Luna cut off your balls? Or do they shrivel up on their own when you die? I’m not about to forgive Stoikaja for killing you, no matter what the ‘friendship princesses’ say. Mentor would do the same. My little brother would have too, if she’d killed me.”

“Mentor did ask Stoikaja,” Third Brother retorted. With a sneer that bared even more of his fangs, he continued. “So did your little brother, Roscherk. Did it never occur to you to ask why he took her onto the Honor Guard, but he hasn’t spoken to you in five years?”

The fire consumed the room. It touched both walls, and rushed past Third Brother toward the door. The thestral’s wing extended toward his older brother, creating a thick wall of ice to protect him from the flames.

“Still thinking with your wings.” Third Brother spat, and it turned to smoke in the inferno surrounding him. “Roscherk, calm yourself.”

“Calm? You tell me Mentor betrayed me and you ask me to be—”

Golden arcana wreathed the outline of a horn on Polnoch’s smooth forehead, and telekinetic magic slammed Ink against the wall. His fires wavered. “Listen to yourself, Roscherk. Mentor would not betray you.”

“No! But—”

“He knew, Roscherk. He knew she didn’t do it.”

Ink’s hoof lashed out from within the grip of his brother’s magic, striking the wall. Stone melted into magma at his furious blow, dribbling down the wall. “Then… everypony I killed…” The fire surrounding Ink’s wings slowly faded away. “All those rebels. All my soldiers.” Shuddering in the grip of the magic, Ink looked up to his brother’s slitted eyes. “Her foals…”

“My foals. Neustannaja and Upornyj were my foals.”

Ice.

Sheets of ice swept across the flagstones. They coated walls, swept up columns, and sealed the steel doors tight. Ink fell from his brother’s magical grip and stumbled, his hooves struggling to support his weight. He felt hollow. empty. “No…” he whispered. “No. No. No!” The crescendo continued as his body burst once more into flames. “I can’t… No. There’s no way. No fucking—”

“Save your breath,” Polnoch’s soft-spoken words somehow stopped him; his almost emotionless expression providing greater condemnation than Ink could imagine. “I can never forgive you for what you did to them, Roscherk. And I can never forgive you for what you did to my wife.”

Ink winced, and then lashed with sloppy blows Polnoch casually sidestepped. “Why? You never told us! I wouldn’t have even considered—”

“After I died.” Third Brother closed his eyes, and swept his gaze away from Ink, staring back at the doors out of the throne room. “Luna gave me this body because of the torture I did for Frostbite and Commandant Truncheon. The first thing I did was reveal myself to Mentor. That’s why he took Stoikaja onto his guard. So that we could be together.”

“Mentor knew about you?” Ink’s wing flared out and a tongue of fire engulfed a pillar of stone. It melted to magma, and a stone balcony millennia old crumbled to a pile of dust, rubble, and molten slag. “He knew, and he never told me—”

Polnoch nodded somberly. “After you killed my foals, we agreed to wait until you would at least be able to hear the truth. It’s been a long five years. He married us. It had to be in secret; we couldn’t tell the Princesses. I had wanted to since Upornyj was born. But with the revolution, and then the fight over Frostbite’s spoils, I never had the chance.”

Ink drew in a furious breath; at the back of his throat, a golden glow was easily visible. Smoke leaked from his nostrils. “You never told us you had foals.”

“Mentor’s advice.” Polnoch still stared away, avoiding Ink’s pathetic expression. “After Frostbite’s soldiers assassinated Aunt Icicle, we let mentor hide them at Countess Star’s orphanage.” The thestral sighed, a conscious choice for the breathless creature. “If I had told you, would it have been different?”

“Of course—!”

Polnoch’s next blow picked Ink up bodily, hurling him onto his back on the ice his empatha had spread over the floor. With a dull crunch, the Honor Guard’s shoulder slammed against a stone wall, stopping his slide. “Do you hear what you just said, Roscherk? Do you understand now?”

Ink shuddered in pain and guilt. “What the fuck do you want me to do, Polnoch? I’m not some fucking necromancer! Ask Twilight Sparkle, or Predvidenie! All I can say is I’m sorry! Okay?” His shouting paused for a moment, replaced by panting. “I’m sorry, even though it’s worth less than the snow on the fucking street. I’m sorry, even though you don’t care because it can never change anything! I’m sorry, even though I don’t deserve your forgiveness!”

Polnoch shook his head. “If you had know they were my foals, you wouldn’t have killed them?” He paced forward, hooves cracking the smooth ice to grant him traction. “And you call yourself a guard? No. You’re a monster. You killed those foals not because of anything they did, but because of who their mother was.”

“It was an accident!” Ink bellowed. “I only wanted Stoikaja!”

Blue flame wrapped Polnoch’s wings. “That is not the story Stoikaja tells. With what I do know, Roscherk, who do you think I should believe?”

“I…”

Ink watched as the thestral loomed over him, his expression almost completely impassive. Only the crease where his brow met his muzzle said anything of his unbridled fury.

“I know.” He shook his head. “I can never forgive you, Roscherk, but I know you are sorry.”

Ink forced himself to pull in three breaths. The chilled air felt like molten lead in his lungs, weighing him down and threatening to drown him even as they burned. “What…” his words failed, and he stuttered to start again. “What do I do, Polnoch?”

He leaned down, looking his older brother squarely in the eyes. “Go out. Find Stoikaja. Throw yourself at her hooves and beg her to forgive you.”

“—a diplomatic incident, Sister? Praytell, what do you think I have just described? A void crystal detonated in Spike’s personal chambers.”

“Krenn’s personal chambers,” Celestia corrected gently.

Luna growled, and stomped a hoof. In the unshaped dreamscape, it produced very little by way of noise, but the motion served to highlight the younger sister’s displeasure despite the silence. “Is this truly the time to play at names, Celestia? Equestria could well be at war in a matter of days—less if the blast killed him or incapacitated him. And we’re without both your bodyguard and Shining Armor.”

The elder alicorn turned her head to the side, gazing off into the starry void of her own unformed dream. “I am aware of the danger. Luna. You do not need to repeat it to me.”

“Are you, Sister? Then tell me, why is it that you seem so calm?”

“It’s a practiced skill, Luna, I’ve told you before. For the benefit of other ponies—”

“Do not lie to me, Celestia.” Luna stomped forward again, silently. “Mortal ponies might not see through the mask you wear, but I do. Right now, I see no mask.”

Celestia drew in a slow breath, and then released it. “You’re right, Luna.” Then, as if only just realizing that her sister was standing before her, the taller mare shook her head and blinked. “Of course you’re right. You always knew.”

Luna rolled her eyes. “So, do you intend to tell me why it is you are so calm in the face of impending war?”

“Luna, I knew what Krenn wanted.” Celestia winced at the wounded expression on her sister’s face, but she continued before the younger alicorn could interrupt. “I know that he seeks his last egg. And I know where it is.”

“Why lie to me?”

Despite the pain it involved, Celestia looked straight into her sister’s eyes, noting the pinch in Luna’s brow below her horn, and the subtle tic in her left shoulder. “The Commander’s death afforded us an opportunity. He was the one who stole Krenn’s last fertilized egg. That is all Krenn knows. I wished to let Krenn believe that his hoard was lost with the Commander. Because I was present for the war that saw the egg stolen, he is likely to be distrustful of me. But you carried the message Equestria needed to send honestly, because you had no idea it was untrue.”

Luna rubbed her brow. “But why keep the egg, Celestia? With Krenn threatening war, would it not be better to just return it?”

“The threat of war is exactly the reason we can’t return the hoard.” Celestia’s wings rose and fell with a heavy breath. “What I tell you now, Luna, must never be spoken to anypony, living or dead. I assume you remember the source of the dragons’ curse?”

“Krenn wanted endura for the dragons, and he asked Discord for strength,” Luna recited. “That’s why Discord stole his fertility, and his wing and leg. But he caused them to grow strong from their greed instead of their magic.”

“Yes. Despite the fact that individual dragons consider their greed-fueled growth a curse, from the perspective of their race, it is a military asset. Twenty years ago, when Stalliongrad fell and the dragons nearly swarmed over Canterlot, it was from no lack of military strength or industry on our part. Equestria simply could not compete with thousands of full-sized dragons. It took dozens, sometimes even a hundred guardsponies to kill just one of the creatures.”

“I am aware of the power of a wyrm, Celestia. What is your point?”

“Discord can undo the curse he placed on the dragons—but undoing magic that required a sacrifice requires similar sacrifice.”

Luna’s mouth fell open. “Celestia, you cannot—”

“Our obligation, Luna, is first and foremost to Equestria. Though I wish our neighbours shared the same sense of friendship as my student, I learned long ago not to trust them blindly. I will not move my hoof against the dragons, but if my hoof is forced to choose between them and our ponies, I know where my loyalties lie.”

“So this is what you want my role to be in Equestria? Kept innocent and blind so that your schemes can—”

“My schemes?” Celestia’s hoof crossed her peytral, as if her heart were wounded. “Luna, you sound like you believe I’m going out of my way to deceive ponies.”

“No, you’re going out of your way to deceive Spike.”

“Krenn,” Celestia grumbled—truly grumbled, as Celestia only dared to do in the isolated presence of her younger sister—before focusing her voice again. “You’ve missed a thousand years, Sister. Not just for nations and ideas, but for the five of us. I’m sorry if I sound harsh, but that friendship is well and truly dead for me. And I cannot sacrifice the security of Equestria for the personal satisfaction of restoring it.”

Luna’s hoof pulled at her starry mane. “Has it not occurred to you, Sister, that restoring your friendship with Spike would also guarantee us peace?”

“Every day, Luna.” Celestia closed her eyes, and a few tears trickled brooks in the fur of her cheeks. “But I cannot betray the friend I value more.”

Luna glared at her sister. “So what would you have me do?”

“You don’t need me to hold your hoof anymore, Luna.” Celestia’s wings slid down her side, tired and ashamed. “I can solve this problem, but my method would do so at the cost of pain, and suffering, and no small measure of death. You still have the chance to spare us that pain. Please, save Equestria, so I don’t have to.”

“Okay?”

“Okay.” Solo leaned forward, kissing the thestral square on the lips, and briefly letting her tongue dance with its dramatically colder counterpart. As they broke apart, the living pegasus shivered. “Brr…”

“Well, I’m dead. What were you expecting?” Seventh Sister grinned around her fangs. “Thanks, though. I’ve missed you, Solo.”

“Yeah, you too, Eye. Thanks for being here for me.”

Both mares turned when the door creaked at the far side of the elaborately equipped guest room in Burning Hearth Castle.

“Ah!” A unicorn stallion unfamiliar to Solo nodded to her over the tops of his gold-rimmed glasses. “Here you are!”

Solo cocked her head. “Do I know you?”

“Oh, forgive me.” Stepping inside without really asking permission, the blue unicorn ignited golden magic and adjusted a scarf he wore rather like a necktie. “Call me Foresight. I’m the Secretary of Stalliongrad.”

Seventh Sister chuckled to herself as she cut in. “He’s your new coltfriend’s brother, Solo.”

“Coltfriend?” Foresight’s eyes widened behind his glasses. “I was led to believe you didn’t get along with Roscherk. Not that you—”

“She’s being sarcastic,” Solo clarified, eyeing the unicorn with some measure of distrust. He smelled like money. Way too much money, if her eye for fashion wasn’t failing her. “Where’s Twilight?”

“She sent me to find you.” Foresight nodded to the door. “If you’ll follow me, I can take you to her. She isn’t far.”

With a slap of leathery wing against flank, Seventh Sister sent her friend marching out of the room. “Be careful with her, Solo. They say if you get Twilight Sparkle hurt, the line to cut you into little pieces would stretch all the way around the palace.”

Solo turned to reply, only to find the door to the chamber already closed by Foresight’s magic. “Apologies, but we’re in a bit of a hurry,” he explained. “To provide a very short summary, there is a significant risk we’re going to be at war with the dragons within a week or two.” His hooves struck the floor with such force that they clicked in spite of the heavy rug separating their keratin from the wooden boards that made up the hallways of the ancient castle. “If you’re more of a glass-half-full kind of pony, Shining Armor is alive.”

“Yes!” Solo pumped a hoof, using her wings to carry her along. They ducked her around a tight corner, and into a far larger hall of the castle, seemingly connecting some set of main, more important rooms. “Alright, where is he?”

“Glass-half-empty,” Foresight answered. “He’s with Masquerade—not a prisoner or anything of the sort. But the two of them are walking into the lair of one of the oldest and most dangerous spirits in the history of Equestria.”

Another turn in the hallway.

Solo swallowed. “Okay, we can do this. Twilight’s stupid good at magic. We’re gonna go rescue him, right?”

“Twilight Sparkle certainly isn’t,” Foresight answered firmly. “We’ll likely have my brother go. His fire magic—”

“Are you kidding?” Solo grabbed the relative stranger by his shoulder and spun him around. “Not a chance in Tartarus am I letting Red Ink go anywhere near Shining Armor on his own.”

“Private Solo,” Foresight paused mid-statement, mouth open. “Am I remembering your rank correctly?”

She replied with a silent nod.

“Yes, well, Private Solo… I’m afraid that decisions made by the Commander of the Honor Guard are somewhat beyond your place to question, aren’t they?”

Solo decided very quickly that she did not like Foresight very much. “He tried to kill Shining Armor. You hear about that? Or that he killed—”

“We are not going to have this conversation walking down a hallway,” Foresight interrupted quite forcefully. “Nor I suspect, will it continue elsewhere. Twilight!”

Solo hadn’t even noticed her ward at the extreme opposite end of the hallway they had just turned onto, up until Foresight’s voice echoed off the stone. Twilight turned to look at them, and her face lit up. “Solo! Are you okay?”

When Twilight collided with the older mare in the form of a tackle, Solo stumbled under the other mare’s weight. “I’m fine, Twilight. Maybe wait until somepony says so before the hug-tackle.”

“Sorry…” Twilight released Solo and rubbed the back of her neck with a hoof. “Pinkie Pie must be rubbing off on me.” The momentary embarrassment faded quickly. “Did you hear about Shining?”

“I told her, briefly,” Foresight added. “And with apologies, Twilight, I suspect I need to go find Roscherk.”

“Sure, Foresight. Thanks!” Twilight waved briefly as the well-dressed stallion vanished into the mess of intersecting corridors defining the palace. When he was gone, she turned to Solo. “So, yeah, we need to go find Princess Luna.”

Solo nodded earnestly. “So we can make sure Red Ink doesn’t get sent to save Shining?”

“What?” Twilight shook her head. “No. I mean, we’re going with him, but that’s not what we need to talk to Luna about.”

“Twilight, there’s no way I’m letting him anywhere near Shining. After Baltimare—”

Twilight held up a hoof, and Solo honored it. “Going Solo, after what we’ve been through here in Stalliongrad, I trust you. A lot. And I consider you a friend.” She sucked in one hesitant breath before continuing. “I trust Red Ink too. And I know that this is hard for you to accept, but he’s a different pony than the one who hurt you in Baltimare.”

“Ponies don’t change, Twilight.”

“What about Princess Luna?” Twilight asked. “Or for that matter, what about me? I used to want nothing to do with other ponies as ‘friends’. Now look where we are.”

Solo rolled her eyes. “He’s different, Twilight. He’s evil. Have you seen the way he looks at other ponies? Like he doesn’t even care?”

Twilight frowned. “You have no idea how much he can care, Solo. I… I understand if you don’t want to be his friend. I can’t ask that. I can’t ask you to forgive him, either; not really. But if you can’t do that, than at least try to look at it logically. Ink is the best fire empath in Equestria today… maybe ever, if some of the things I’ve heard are true. We’re headed into the last Windigo’s nest. We need that magic, whether we like it or not.”

“I. Don’t. Care.” Solo looked straight into Twilight’s eyes, pressing a hoof against her shoulder. “I can’t be around him. And what happens if he loses it and turns on you, like he did to Shining? I know you’re the ‘best wizard’ or something, but can you fight him?”

“He would never do that to me,” Twilight replied, earnestly. “But we can talk about this later. I really need to get to Princess Luna. Come on.”

Solo once more found herself following a unicorn through unfamiliar halls in an ancient frozen castle. She darted left and right, her wings making it relatively easy to keep up with Twilight’s hooves. “Do you know where you’re going?”

“I think so,” Twilight replied. “Commander Hurricane’s journals were pretty explicit about this place. Also, the architectural style is really similar to the Castle of Everfree, and I’ve done enough research there to know how to get around. We just need…” She rounded a corner and donned a huge smile when she found a massive spiral staircase. “…the central stairs.”

Rolling her eyes, Solo dropped onto her hooves and folded her wings. “You’re not impressing me anymore, Twilight. You already know too much ancient history stuff for me to even be surprised.”

“Sorry. Let’s go.” Twilight didn’t wait for any confirmation before bolting up the stairs.

Fading out of the dreamscape was not an uncomfortable experience, but it always sent a tingly shiver across Luna’s coat—not unlike electricity. “Eldest, are you here?”

From some shadowy corner in the opulent sitting room that had become Luna’s makeshift command center in Burning Hearth, the thestral in question swooped down to her leader. “Princess. You alright?”

“I will survive,” Luna answered her, curtly.

Eldest bit her lip with a fang—not quite hard enough to draw blood, but only just. “That wasn’t exactly what I was asking, Princess. You seem pissed. I totally get if you don’t want to talk about it, but—”

“Celestia has been lying to me,” Luna replied. “And using me as a tool to lie to Krenn. I do not believe I should elaborate further. At least, not at the moment.”

Eldest wrapped a leathery wing around the Princess. “Sorry.”

“Your presence is, as ever, a boon, Eldest Sister.”

She nodded. “I do what I can. What’s our next move?”

The question was answered not by Luna, but a knocking at the heavy chamber doors.

“You want me to send them away?” Eldest asked.

Luna frowned. “Absolutely. But with circumstances as they are, I cannot afford to.” Her horn ignited in turquoise, and the doors to the chamber opened with perhaps unnecessary force. Luna’s brow rose at the ponies on the other side. “Twilight Sparkle?”

“Princess Luna,” Twilight greeted, offering a bow. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything, but I think this is important.”

“You have my attention.”

Twilight coughed into her hoof. “Umm… this is gonna be a lot to take in, so bear with me. I think I know who hired Masquerade.”

Eldest and Luna exchanged an extended glance—the former in disbelief; the latter, shock. “I assume you’ve got some evidence,” Eldest prompted.

“That’s why this is gonna be a lot to take in. Princess, you remember that I asked you if thestrals could reproduce?”

Luna saw her thestral companion’s ears fall to her scalp, and ridges appeared on Eldest’s muzzle as she donned a scowl.

“I recall,” Luna replied as diplomatically as she could manage. “You mentioned a Countess Star?”

“Precisely.” Despite careful word choice, Twilight’s voice carried an obvious tone of nervousness. “She asked me to retrieve Typhoon’s body from Onyx Ridge, under the auspices that there was some family secret she needed to ask Typhoon’s soul for, and she needed the body as a focus for a seance.”

“I see…”

“I told her I wouldn’t do it, but our search for Shining Armor took us to Onyx Ridge anyway. And inside, to my surprise, we found Typhoon’s body, perfectly preserved in a block of her own empathic ice.” Luna drew in a short breath as her only show of surprise, and only moments later realized that her own ears were sliding back as he remembered the mare she knew so many years ago.

“I left the body alone, but—in part out of desperation—I took Heims Osculum, and a final journal that Typhoon was apparently carrying with her when she went into Onyx Ridge, hunting Summer.”

“Summer…” Luna turned to Eldest. “She was Second Sister, thousands of years ago. I made a terrible mistake and gave her an order she could never complete. I keep the Second title empty in her honor.”

“What happened to her?” Eldest asked.

Luna’s head turned away, staring at the right wall of the room, away from all the other ponies present. “She would have died in the Twilight War. Along with all the other thestrals I selfishly created…”

“She didn’t die.” Twilight’s words cut through the pain in Luna’s memory, fighting against the seal that locked away her memories of her time as Nightmare Moon. “At least, that’s what Mirror Image thought when he was in your memories, Princess”

“He went into my sealed memories?” Luna’s voice betrayed no offense, but simply surprise.

Twilight shrugged. “I don’t know about what happened there. All I know is this. If what Mirror Image says is true, your last order to her was to stop the Night Guard from ever being wiped out again.”

“That is… It has been a long time since I considered those memories; they are still stored in our vault beneath Canterlot. But I believe the paraphrase is close. I do not follow how this leads to Masquerade.”

“Okay.” Twilight swallowed hard. “I hope this doesn’t sound horrible, but try and understand why I’m saying it. If something happened to you, there would be no more Night Guard, right?”

Luna nodded.

“But that wouldn’t be a massacre like what happened in the Twilight War, or…” Twilight let her voice trail off, and the message to Luna was clear. After a few seconds of silence, Twilight continued. “Celestia would let them go, right?”

“That was our agreement,” Luna replied. “If ever I were not able to support the Night Guard, Celestia would pardon them, and send them to the Summer Lands immediately.” As each word passed her lips, her eyes widened in further realization. “So… you believe that Summer seeks my death so that she can complete the command I gave her?”

Twilight nodded. “Either that, or she just wanted revenge. Either way, it makes sense. If she’s still ‘your thestral’, she couldn’t make an attempt on your life herself. If you even said ‘stop’ to her, her whole plan would be up.”

“So she hired Masquerade…”

“And when Masquerade failed, she would have had to turn to somepony else.” Twilight nodded. “But, of course, after what happened with Masquerade, there was no way another assassination was going to get close to you. So she needed somepony different.”

Luna’s brow stitched into irritation. “Typhoon?”

Twilight nodded. “That’s what I’m afraid of.”

Eldest Sister sat up. “I’m gonna be honest, Miss Sparkle. That sounds like a lot of conjecture. All the pieces fit together, sure, but you’re making a big assumption about why Countess Star wanted Typhoon’s body. Otherwise, how do you even know she’s this secret thestral you’re proposing?”

“A couple reasons,” Twilight answered. “First, she’s maintaining a powerful nightmare illusion on herself at all times. The same kind Masquerade used to sneak into the Canterlot Palace and impersonate the Commander. Secondly, she was helping Foresight with his obelisk project to end eternal winter, and she gave him twelve thousand thaums of fire empatha.” The words meant nothing to Eldest or the pegasus mare at Twilight’s side, but Luna caught herself gasping again. Twilight continued unabated. “That’s an almost impossible amount of magic for a unicorn to convert into empatha, but Summer was a pegasus before she died, and her specialty was fire.”

Luna’s eyes widened. “That’s…”

“I suspected something when we first met her, and she showed me an original painting of Cyclone, and expressed personal knowledge of his rebellion against Hurricane. But I didn’t think anything about it beyond some personal interest up until earlier today, when she demanded Typhoon’s journal and Heims.”

“Where are they now?” Luna asked.

“I gave them to her.”

The blue pegasus at Twilight’s side grabbed her shoulder. “What?”

“I didn’t want to start a fight with her if she was the contractor. I’m not a soldier. And I wanted to talk to Princess Luna to confirm before I did anything.”

Twilight’s companion rolled her eyes. “So you just gave her the magic ice sword?”

“Not before I put a Mage’s Mark on the journal.” At a look of confusion from both her living companion and Eldest Sister, Twilight elaborated. “It’s a pretty simple spell to help you keep track of things you care about. You can’t keep more than one or two active at a time, so you can’t do it to everything. But it lets you know what direction the mark is in, no matter where you go.”

“So you know where Summer is?” Eldest Sister pressed. “You can track her?”

Twilight nodded. “Sort of. It’s just direction, not distance, so I have to start walking or take a train or whatever if I want to actually find her. But you’ve got the basic idea right.”

Luna stood up, shaking her head. “It had to be you, Twilight Sparkle.”

“I’m sorry? Is something wrong?”

The alicorn shook her head. “No, Twilight, you did well. Extremely well. But because you were the mage who made the mark, I must send you after Summer.”

“What?” Twilight shook her head. “No, I have to go save Shining Armor. He’s up near Neighvgorod—”

Luna cut the young mage off by spreading her wings. “I understand your concern for your brother, Twilight Sparkle. But we have many skilled soldiers who can capable of embarking on a rescue mission, now that we know his absolute location. We can send your companion here,” Luna dipped her horn toward the blue pegasus in the black vest at Twilight’s side, “if that settles your concerns. But unfortunately, you are currently the only pony who can track down Summer. My Night Guard will need you to lead them, so that they can stop whatever plan my wayward thestral is enacting. And they will need a necromancer to bind her soul when her body is destroyed, so that I can send her to the Summer Lands and spare her further suffering for my mistakes.”

Twilight winced. “Princess… I’ve never really done that kind of necromancy before. I mean, I read enough of Morty’s work to know the theory, but wouldn’t it be better if you came? You can just tell Summer to stop and end the order without any violence.”

“If only I could.” Luna turned her head to the window behind her, and the constant snowfall outside. “Though Summer is a terrible mistake, and one that weighs heavily on my heart, she represents a very small threat compared to Spike…” When Twilight wilted, Luna caught her words. “Krenn. Forgive me for an uncomfortable name. Though my sister has been heavy on my conscience, she does speak the truth. I can only be in one place at a time, and working to prevent war with the dragons will do Equestria far more good than dealing with Summer first-hoof.”

Twilight swallowed. “So you want me to… fight Summer?”

“Absolutely not.” Luna shook her head adamantly. “The Night Guard will handle the fighting. You need only lead them to her, and then bind her soul so that I can guide her to the Summer Lands instead of condemning her to the Between.” Luna’s horn ignited, and the moon-shaped diamond in her peytral flew to rest in the air in front of Twilight. “Take this. I carry it for just such a purpose, in case one of my Night Guard falls in my service. I wish I did not have to thrust this responsibility upon you, but I have nopony else to turn to.”

Twilight stared at the gem for a few long seconds before speaking up. “I understand, Princess. I won’t fail you.”

“I will send my personal bodyguard in your stead. He, your friend, and Commander Ink ought to prove a sufficient task force.

“Princess—”

Twilight cut off the mare at her side. “That seems reasonable, Princess Luna. Thank you.”

Eldest Sister walked over the Luna’s side. “This old thestral… she’s a fire specialist and knows advanced illusions. Anything else I should know?”

Luna shook her head. “You aren’t going, Eldest. I need you to accompany me back to Peschera in Mirror Image’s absence. You also spent too much mana in your journey with me already. Third Brother will lead the hunt for Summer.” With what she hoped was a gentle smile, the princess added “He is the strongest of you, even if I trust you far more, Eldest.”

Eldest shrugged. “C’est la mort.”

“Take Twilight to Third Brother, then return, and we will embark immediately.”

“Yes, Mistress.”

Luna looked Twilight squarely in the eyes. “It would appear we all have new journeys to embark upon, Twilight Sparkle. I regret our reunion was so brief, but I hold on to hope that when next we speak, our circumstances will be far better.”

“I hope so too, Princess.” Twilight nodded. “Good luck.”

Author's Note

See this blog post if you're interested in my thoughts on the completion of this narrative.

I - Spectre of War

Author's Note

Hello, everyone.

Just a forewarning for anyone discovering this for the first time, especially after reading Beginner's Guide to Heroism or Tales from Everfree City: this fic, Ghosts of the Past, has been stricken (by my own hand) from the Price of Loyalty canon. This isn't work that I'm especially proud of, as the narrative's exploding focus exceeded my capabilities at the time as a writer.

Nevertheless, if you do choose to read on, I hope you enjoy it. There's a comment by me somewhere in the history of this fic that outlines what the sequel would have contained, had this story continued.

-LL

I - Spectre of War

Where Loyalties Lie
Act II: Ghosts of the Past

by Loyal Liar

Pre-Read by SatoshiKyu, Roflknief, and DarkPhoenix
Russian Translations provided by Keyesty
Cover Art by Ruirik

I

Spectre of War

1453 A.S. marked the first year that 'A.S.' ceased to represent the Age of the Sun, and began to represent the Age of the Sisters. It was a change that had been a long time coming, requiring royal intervention in book publishers and calendar printers and all manner of other sundry industries. It had also taken hours upon hours to meet with individuals and protesters of all shades, let alone the time spent in letters and ink written to those too far away to petition in Canterlot personally.

And so, despite the issue having been handled prior to the start of the new year, it was not until January the Nineteenth that Her Royal Highness, Princess Celestia of Equestria finally found the new, rare, and almost alien joy of a truly boring day. Her plans included a delightful tea with her younger sister prior to Luna's diplomatic departure, a calm stroll through the gardens, and perhaps the time she needed to share some correspondence with her student.

All those hopeful dreams were crushed into a fine powder and blown away when the doors to her throne room opened, and a pair of familiar ponies strode in.

"Princess," Captain Shining Armor greeted, removing his helmet and kneeling. His companion, a civilian, followed suit with the curious curtsy favored in Bitaly. She rose with an annoyed yet proud smile on her face.

"Your commission has been finished as you ask, your Princess." A thick Bitalian accent carried through the mare's words. Her name was simply Venus, an earth pony sculptor from the island of Milos. Her fine, marble-toned coat hid well the tell-tale flecks of dust, though the brown belt around her midsection that carried the tools of her trade was considerably less subtle. "I have done as best as anypony could hope to do, but the crack will always be shown. I must wonder why you insist I work upon such a strange statue, and in such a poorly lit space."

Shining and Celestia glanced up at the sound of wings descending from above. "We didn't pay you to ask questions, sculptor. The money should show up in a week." Though there was the obvious tone of a Stalliongradi accent to the way he spoke, it was restrained behind a clear and forced pronunciation of each and every syllable in his thoughts. Each and every one of his words was permitted to find the ears of the gathered ponies before he landed. Four steel horseshoes touched the ground, bearing all the subtlety of a train wreck. Shining could plainly see the cracks left by the stallion's landing on the ancient marble. "You are dismissed," the pony finished bluntly, as he began a calm walk toward Princess Celestia as though he could assume that the mare had already left. "Can we go see her now?"

Venus left in something of a huff, probably offended that it hadn't been Celestia who thanked her and sent her away. Shining Armor stood his ground, glaring daggers at the stallion who had descended from the thin mantle that sat just below the room's ceiling. "Red Ink. I'm surprised you're still here." The insinuation in his tone was obvious.

"I had an..." he paused not for lack of words, but for deliberate effect. "...assignment." Ink flexed his wings, and embraced the sensation of his the wind on his feathers, freed from their casts. "Or are you trying to say you won our bet?" The Stalliongradi shook his head and chuckled. "The way I hear it, our 'masterpiece' downstairs beat you pretty easily. You had to have a civilian save your life, right? Speaking of which, how's your shoulder doing?"

Shining felt a hoof hover its way to the base of his neck, where a dinner knife had delivered a nearly-lethal blow almost five months prior. All that remained was a scar, and the occasional twinge of pain. He lowered his hoof quickly and shook his head. "Fine. I take it your chest is healing well?"

It was a more barbed statement than Shining had been dealt, but Red Ink took it in stride. His own hoof reached up to his shoulder, where a formal military award sash covered his own scar. The fabric was pulled away without ceremony or attention, falling to the floor as nothing more than a glorified ribbon. What it had once concealed was now laid bare. A line of bare flesh, no less than six inches wide, stretched all the way from his right shoulder down and across his chest until it stopped beneath his left foreleg at the top of his ribcage. The red, sore skin was in its own way even redder and more visceral than the bloody tone of his coat. "Not healing at all. I'd rather remember it, and not make the same mistake again. Then we'll see who loses our bet."

"Stallions." The curious quality of the word was that Celestia gave it no extra attention. Its tone carried no obvious implication or demand. Nevertheless, the authority of its speaker brought silence to the pair of guardspony leaders, whose heads snapped away from each other and in her direction. "I suggest that we stop wasting time amongst ourselves and head down to visit Masquerade."

"Of course, Princess." Ink stepped away from the carpet at the center of the room, then folded his right foreleg across his chest and bowed steeply. "After you."

The alicorn made no particular notice of his adherence to protocol and respect, but as the two captains took up even strides in her wake, Shining felt the need to speak up. "You've changed, Ink."

"I'm glad you've noticed, Armor. Most mares can't tell that I've bulked up."

Almost immediately, the little credit Ink had earned was gone. "I'd never doubt Twilight's teachingbut I am surprised that anypony could beat courtesy into you."

Ink chuckled as he shook his head. "I wish that was Twilight's work. Her friend Rarity held it over my head every time she fixed my coat. Although, Equiish wasn't the only thing your sister taught me." The Stalliongradi's brow rose and fell suggestively, until he could no longer maintain his composure and broke out into a chuckle.

Shining Armor growled. "Clever."

"Captain Ink, while I do admire your less violent sense of humor, I would appreciate it if you wouldn't demean my student's honor in my presence."

"Apologies Princess," Ink replied with a smirk. "Perhaps when I next encounter Princess Cadance, I'll have a joke more to your taste." There was a moment of silence, and then the clear sound of hoof meeting face. By the time Celestia had turned around, Red Ink had regained his footing, and Shining Armor was innocently rubbing his right fetlock.

"Apologies, Princess," the unicorn muttered.

Celestia let out a soft sigh as she turned back to her path. "I trust you two haven't forgotten who we're dealing with."

Shining Armor nodded, but Ink responded with a laugh. "Don't you mean what we're dealing with? She's still a rock, isn't she? Or did Armor screw it up that bad?"

Shining narrowed his eyes as the three ponies continued on their way. "If we intended to leave her that way, Captain Ink, we wouldn't have bothered with a sculptor at all. But, in case you have forgotten, we still don't know who was ultimately behind the plot to assassinate Luna. Since that pony still constitutes a threat to Equestria, we're going to try and interrogate her."

As they spoke, the trio had made their way down from the palace throne room, along narrow carpeted hallways past the palace infirmary and the council room. Their path then turned to a narrow spiral staircase that they traversed in single file. It led to the Honor Guard's rather large office wing, which Shining had assumed to be their destination. Celestia, however, did not stop on that floor, instead continuing her descent down a spiraling stair.

"Are we headed to the old crystal mines?"

"Not a part of them that you are familiar with, Captain Armor. Our destination lies much deeper." Celestia offered no more explanation for the moment, instead continuing on her steady downward pace. Shining watched as a heavy oak-and-steel door passed by in the staircase. He could recall ordering its installation shortly after his wedding, and more recently, using it to sneak a pair of criminal informants into the palace right under Red Ink's nose. He smiled just a bit at the memory, though he kept it to himself.

At both times, the fact that the spiral stairs continued further downward had been a matter not particularly worthy of his attention. He had been informed that the deeper path was not a security risk, and that was all he had cared about. Now he was wondering about his destination.

It very shortly became obvious that something significant to the Princess was ahead. This fact was made clear by a pair of huge steel doors that seemed to mark the end of the stairs. Hundreds of gems set into their faces ignited at the prompting of Celestia's magic, taking on a light of their own in a peculiar order. The process took only a moment, but in that time, Celestia spoke again.

"I trust you will keep your hooves to yourselves for now. This place is special, both to Luna and I. Only an alicorn can open these doors. I could think of no place more secure to contain our assassin." The doors swung open absolutely silently, with the slightest nudge of her magic, revealing more stairs. They continued to spiral around a central pillar, but that was where similarities ended. Rather than a wall to mark the 'outside' of their spiral, the continued passage was simply open, without railing or guard. In every direction, the thousand-foot drop extended down to the floor of an enormous cavern, at least a half a mile from wall to wall. Everywhere were the broken shards of once titanic crystals, some of which hung down in huge clusters a thousand feet long from the ceiling.

"Do not fly, Captain Ink," the Princess warned. "Please follow quickly. We have a long way to go."

Shining was left with a hanging jaw as he followed after Celestia. "What is this? I had no idea–"

"I've kept this place secret for some time, Shining Armor. Some thirty-eight thousand years ago, prior to the discovery of crystals in the frozen north, this was the greatest stockpile of magical gems and crystals known to pony kind."

"Thirty-eight thousand years?" Red Ink scanned the cavern in awe. "That's a lot older than Stol'nograd."

"It is. They've been sitting here for ages, but the Mountain of Dawn was first mined not long after Equestria was founded, about the same time as your home. For instance, take a look at that amethyst." Her wings indicated a huge purple gem jutting up out of the ground at in a distant corner. A rather large slice of the glistening stone was missing, clearly cut away by sharp blades or potent magic. "If my memory serves, that stone there was the source of Platinum's Ward."

Shining Armor glanced down at the purple gemstone cuirass covering his body, and then up again in silent awe. Celestia's urgent steps ignored his surprise, and she continued her brisk pace as she spoke.

"After Discord's influence took hold of the Everfree, I chose to place a new palace in Canterlot because of these caves. They have..." she paused to consider her words before concluding with "...sentimental value."

After that, she chose not to speak, and neither of her subjects felt up to the task of breaking her silence. Instead, they descended in silence until they reached the cavern floor. From there, Celestia wandered to the nearest of the space's natural walls, where five rather large archways were carved out of the rock.

"This one here," she observed, moving toward the leftmost passage.

"Are they all cells?" Red Ink asked.

"No. Only one, and even then, only in a manner of speaking. They are, however, private. Do not speak of what you've seen here. In fact, you would do well to forget it." She ignited her horn as she reached the tunnel she had indicated. Her horn nearly scraped the ceiling as she walked the passageway. Thankfully, this third leg of their journey was short for a change. It ended bluntly in not so much a door as a sheer wall of smooth, almost oily black crystal.

"Princess?" Shining Armor stepped forward, only to feel the magical glow of his horn ripped away. It flew into the stone without pause, accompanied by a brief but piercing ringing. "Isn't this-"

"Void crystal, yes. But not King Sombra's. I've had this for some time. There was the risk that Masquerade would, given time, saturate any ring of lodestone we might use to restrain her magic. I fashioned a cage that would hold her forever." Celestia's horn ignited in a golden aura, and the crystal refrained from consuming her power.

"That isn't what I meant." The Royal Guard leader stepped up to the nearly flat surface. "Did you build this yourself? I could have gotten some guardsponies, rather than force you to do so much work."

Celestia smiled slightly and shook her head. "I built this prison myself because I would prefer that only I know of its weaknesses. In theory, its guard can be broken, but there aren't many creatures in the world with the magic and the knowledge to break it. This way, there is no record, and thus no weakness. Should I have to use it again in the future, I can rely on it completely. And you forget, Captain Armor, but I do not only have wings and a horn." Celestia's slender right foreleg pressed calmly against the wicked crystal, and it shifted slowly. "The strength of the Earth Ponies' Endura is also a gift I possess." The crystal slid aside, revealing a hemispherical chamber no more than ten feet in diameter. A single glowing white shard hung in the air to provide illumination.

The light was quickly drowned out by Celestia's magic, which conjured an orb of golden energy in the center of the chamber. It faded before long to reveal a crisp marble statue of a unicorn mare, clearly pleading for her life. "Ink, close the door. Armor, a lodestone ring."

As the burly pegasus set about the unenviable task of pushing the rather heavy rock back into place, Shining Armor produced a smoothed gray stone ring, hinged on side, and with a small lock on the other. Celestia took it in a surprisingly dexterous wing, and snapped it onto the statue's horn. She glanced back over her shoulder, where Red Ink had finished his task.

"Remember, stallions, this mare is very dangerous. If she somehow manages to gain control of her magic, you have my full permission to remove her horn."

Shining drew back a step in surprise. The comment seemed uncharacteristically bloodthirsty for the normally peaceful princess. "Are you sure, Princess?"

"She very nearly killed my sister, Captain Armor. I'm not risking her taking another life. If she has to suffer, we can say with confidence that she has earned it."

Red Ink shrugged. "You should always be prepared to take that sort of action. I didn't think it needed to be said."

Celestia nodded to the more violent of the captains. "I say it as much for her benefit as yours."

"She can hear us?" Shining asked.

"Yes." Celestia's horn ignited with magic again. "Let's see what she has to say in return."

The light was so bright in the tiny space that Shining had to squeeze his eyes fully closed. All he could see was the blinding red of the blood pumping through his own eyelids. The pain lasted for almost a minute. When it faded, he could hear pained panting coming from the floor, accompanied by a single gasped utterance. "Damn."

Shining opened his eyes to see Masquerade laying on the ground in the same tattered, burnt black dress she had been wearing five months earlier. He could see spots where his own magic had burnt the fabric, marking near-scores that had never quite come close enough. She clutched tightly to her right foreleg, which the guardspony had found snapped off in the grass of Ponyville not long after she had been petrified.

Celestia showed no sympathy for the mare's pain. She had lowered herself to sit in a stiff formal posture. Though she did not look up from Masquerade, she dedicated her wings to directing that the guardsponies flanking her do the same. After only a moment's hesitation, Red Ink circled around the assassin and sat down behind her, opposite Celestia. Shining's choice was to remain close by the princess' side.

Masquerade panted and moaned for what seemed an eternity, before her eyes seemed to finally come into focus. "Princess." She rose to her hooves, though her balance wobbled and she squinted in pain when she placed weight on her right foreleg. The motion took a few seconds, but it ended in a bow. "I wish you'd just killed me."

Celestia glared. "That is Luna's decision. She may even offer you redemption, but–"

"I won't take it," Masquerade interrupted, tossing a hoof at the Princess not in threat, but in insult. "Save her the trouble."

"I'd love to," Ink remarked, stepping forward and pinning the mare to the ground by her neck. She struggled, but the stallion's bulky build made him the obvious winner.

"Roscherk Krovyu? Wow, it has been a long time."

The pegasus pulled back a hoof, quite clearly ready to snap her neck. Shining Armor tossed a telekinetic burst into the pegasus' side, sending him toppling off the mare. "Control yourself, Ink!"

He growled, and his face contorted in anger. It took a moment of that glare for his breathing to come back under control, and then he sat down and nodded. "I hope Luna lets me kill you when she decides she's had enough."

Celestia responded with a clearly controlled fury of her own. Shining had never heard her voice so totally even in tone. It was frightening simply by how academic, how utterly sanitary it sounded. "Masquerade, we are here to ask you a number of questions. If you answer truthfully, I will advise my sister toward mercy on your soul. If you choose not to provide answers, they will be ripped out of your mind."

"Wow." Masquerade smiled, and shook her head. "Sorry, Princess, but that doesn't really sound like the benevolent mare you're supposed to be. I think I'll call your bluff."

"My hooves are clean in this, Masquerade." The Princess accompanied the motion by rubbing her gilded shoes against one another, before turning to the door. "Captains, you have your suspect. I will be waiting outside."

Rainbow Dash soared on radiant wings, landing in the fetlock-deep snow just outside the small farmhouse of Sweet Apple Acres. Nopony was around, but that was a concern that could be easily fixed. The wind whipped past her with surprising strength.

"Hey, AJ, you home?" The shout was, to use a completely inappropriate metaphor, loud enough to wake the dead.

"Gol' darnit, Rainbow!" Applejack shouted just as loud, bursting out of the house. "Ya'll 're late again!"

"Well, sorry," she answered sarcastically. "Maybe I have better things to do than these stupid therapy sessions. You know, like managing this crazy storm."

As if in recognition of the words, a potent gust of wind swept up from the west, forcing Applejack to pin her hat to her head with a hoof. "Yeah, that griffon king sure did a number on us this time."

"Emperor," Rainbow corrected. "But this isn't his fault. Ponyville is the hardest weather assignment in Equestria. The Everfree messes with everything. I had a perfect wind curtain set up, but of course we had to get a gale from the stupid forest to throw everything off. I've done what I can, but we're out of clouds for this week, so we'll just have to tough it out. Just like this stupid meeting."

"It's for yer own good, Rainbow, and ya know it. Now, come on. I know ya' don't like the barn best of all, but its outta' this weather, and I figured what the hay, why not crack open a barrel of cider? It's spiced and warm."

Rainbow's tongue hung out of her mouth for just a moment, before she regained her focus. "Right, well, I guess I'll put up with it then. If only for the cider." The faux-sarcasm earned a smug grin from Applejack, who gestured to the huge red barn next door with a casual flourish.

"After you."

Inside, the barn was surprisingly warm. Nevertheless, six bales of hay had been laid out in a circle around a hanging oil lantern. Blankets sat atop each, though most had been pulled up and draped over the shoulders of their occupants. Four mares were already seated. Rainbow couldn't help but feel just a bit more comfortable in the presence of their smiling faces.

"Hey, girls."

"Hiya, Rainbow!" Pinkie Pie leapt up from her seat with a smile. "Oh boy, we finally get to start!"

"Pinkie, please calm down. This isn't just some story circle; Rainbow is sharing something very personal with us." Rarity accompanied the words with a calm but forceful hoof which pushed Pinkie back down onto her hay.

"Sorry," the excitable earth pony muttered, rather dejectedly.

Behind Rainbow, the barn doors closed. "Well, ya can get started whenever yer ready. I'll get some mugs of cider up like I promised.

Rainbow took her seat and started to think. "Where was I last time?"

Pinkie Pie jumped up again. "Oh! There was that scary elk, and-!"

Fluttershy curled up in her blanket with an uncomfortable squeak as Twilight spoke up. "Pinkie, she was well past that point. Rainbow, as I recall, you were telling us that you had left Gilda behind, and were out looking for Mr. Reckoning."

"Deadeye."

"What?"

Rainbow shook her head. "Sorry, I guess it's just weird hearing anypony call him that. It was just Reckoning, or Deadeye." She suppressed a small, sad chuckle, directly quoting the way the nigh-elderly pony had introduced himself months earlier. "Anything but 'Dead'."

Applejack moved from pony to pony, offering them warm wooden tankards. "Well, I figure that about sets us up then. Go ahead whenever yer ready, Sugarcube."

Rainbow looked over the faces and nodded. "Well, I found Reckoning in this big windy clearing." The blustering force whistling against the barn doors added a surprising realism to the story. "At first, I thought he was okay, so I called out to him." In her mind, she could still see the guardspony, in his bloody torn brown safari shirt, flapping desperately into the unstoppable gale billowing off of the Palace of the Winds. "But the griffons followed me."

"What?!" Pinkie gasped more loudly than was strictly necessary.

"Gilda wanted the other griffons to accept her, so she used me. Betrayed me." Rainbow sucked through two quick breaths. "It worked. I led them right to him."

"Rainbow, darling, that wasn't your fault."

"Thanks, Rarity," she muttered without meaning a word of it. "Anyway, Gilda had brought the Praetorians, and their leader. Her 'coltfriend', Gaius."

"Wait, Rainbow, you fought the Griffon Praetorians?" Twilight's mouth hung open in shock for a moment. "They're the most elite guard in all of Grivridge! They're like our Honor Guard!"

"Twi, why don't ya let Dash finish her story?" Applejack asked quietly but forcefully.

"Oh, right, sorry."

In truth, Rainbow had relished the distraction. It let her taste the delectable mix of cinnamon and cloves in the warm, thick, hard Sweet Apple Cider that Applejack had provided. The warmth of the drink and the subtle burn of the alcohol felt fantastic in her throat, though they did little for her heart and soul. It would have to be enough to pretend.

"I'm not sure the Honor Guard are quite what you think, Twilight. But anyway, Gaius first tried to get rid of me, and said I could go. Apparently, Gilda at least did that for me. He just wanted Reckoning. I tried to explain about his flashbacks, but he told me to shut up. He called me by my mom's name again." She paused, fully capable of going on, but unwilling to do so. The barn was dominated by silence, and her story continued in a much slower, quieter voice. "Gaius started fighting him. I tried to stop them, but Gilda got in the way. We fought. Badly."

Fluttershy leaned forward out of her blanket with a look of surprising determination on her face. "That horrible, mean... argh!" The rather guttural noise caught the attention of her five friends; when she realized this fact, she retreated back within the folds of her blanket.

"How did that make you feel, Rainbow?" Twilight asked.

Inwardly, Dash groaned. It was the part of her stories she hated the most. Far worse than drudging up the uncomfortable memories, or putting up with her friends' judgments and comments, she despised when one of them would drag out an analysis and force her to analyze her feelings. In her mind, the better choice was to simply endure the sensation and get it over with.

"I was mad, Twilight! What do you expect? I mean, sure she was a jerk, but she was like my oldest friend too! I didn't expect her to stab me in the bucking back!" Rarity and Fluttershy winced at the crude language, but it was a different mare who chose that opportunity to speak up.

"Of course, Rainbow. I think we can all understand that." Twilight nodded, glancing around the room as if she were the counselor at an alcoholics meeting. She didn't have to say anything at that point; the girls knew she expected one of them to speak up.

"Ah can't figure that felt good for you, Rainbow, but what about Gilda? What'd ya say to her if she were here, right now?"

Rainbow rolled her eyes. "I'd tell her to go home and get out of my face. I don't want her here, and neither do you. Hay, haven't I told you this a thousand times already? I don't want anything to do with them anymore! No guardsponies, no griffons, no crazy zebras, and no stupid princess!" The last of the words ended with her hoof striking the bale of hay she was resting atop.

"Well, Rainbow..." Twilight began, unsure where to take the sentence. Her mind finally found its way back to restoring the status quo by incredible bluntness. "I don't think The Princess is involved in your story right now. Why not just keep going?"

The heavy-hoofed term for Celestia had become a necessity simply because of how much the thought of the mare angered Rainbow. She suppressed her emotions only for the sake of sparing herself another argument.

"Yes, dear, please do," Rarity urged in the ensuing silence.

Rainbow sighed, but then reluctantly continued. "I knew I needed to get back to Deadeye. I knew he was in trouble; there were six griffons, and he wasn't going to run away. Not while he wasn't thinking straight. So I kicked lightning at her."

There were a number of gasps. Rainbow shook her head slowly. "She was still alive. I could see her breathing." Breaths were released synchronously, as the mares who had the luxury of not knowing such violence reacted to the revelation.

Pinkie chose the momentary pause to speak up again. "You still have to show us that, Rainbow! I mean, I know we saw it at the funeral, but its super-duper cool, and–"

"Why, Pinkie? What's the point?" Rainbow groaned. "I have to feel excited, or at least driven to it, but whenever I try it, I just remember Deadeye. I'd rather forget about the whole thing. Besides, what point is there? All it can do is hurt ponies. It isn't going to help any of my tricks." Rainbow neglected to mention that her few attempts to repeat the technique since the guardsponies' funeral had failed utterly. The memory of Reckoning's death stole her motivation and excitement without fail, leaving her legs devoid of magic. She had no intention of sharing the emotion with her friends, however. It seemed too personal a burden, though she knew she would be better off without it.

"Sorry, Dashie." Pinkie lowered her head and huffed.

"Whatever." It wasn't much of an answer, but Rainbow had honestly hoped to finish her story that day. "I came back, and saw Reckoning fighting all the griffons. Gaius was holding back, using magic. He made a bunch of steam, and tried to use it to grab Deadeye. When I called out, he grabbed me with it instead. I couldn't break out."

"That's horrible!" Fluttershy cried. "Could you hear what was going on?"

"I could see it," Rainbow answered dully. The girls shared concerned looks, but she didn't wait for further interruptions. "Reckoning held his own for a while, but Gaius eventually won. He stomped on Deadeye's wing, until it broke." Cringes spread across the room. "Then he picked him up, and threw him in the canyon."

"Rainbow–"

The pegasus ignored Twilight. It would be better to get it over and done with, like ripping off a bandage. "I finally broke free, with a sonic rainboom. I tried to fly down and save him, but I..." The hesitation was brief, but it spoke volumes about the mare's attitude. "I was too slow."

"Oh, Rainbow, that isn't your fault."

"You think I don't know that, Rarity?" Rainbow snapped, followed by a moment of panting in anger as her eyes glanced along the faces of her concerned friends. Her mug of cider bounced off one of the barn's support pillars, spilling over the hay piled against the wall. "Look, all I want is my old life back, okay? I don't need you to drag me out here and make me tell stories. I don't need this therapy crap. It's a waste of time! I'm going home. " She stormed over to the barn door and threw it open. "Come find me if you decide you want to do something fun for a change."

Outside, the uncontrollable wind blew the gentle into a misty veil of white flecks. In the distance, the vague shadows of barren-branched apple trees supported the weight of teardrop icicles. The winter seemed mournful, in a time when Rainbow would have much rather been rid of the sensation altogether. She glared into the mild storm and took flight, before any of her friends could follow her outside.

Her flight was short-lived, however. The Everfree's biting winds stole the heat from the blood of her wings in only a few seconds of sheer speed, leaving them stiff and numb. A pegasus could endure most normal wind, but Rainbow knew better than to fly against the forest that ruled itself. She contemplated returning to her home, but ultimately discarded the idea. It was a long way, and she was quickly finding herself desperate for even just a bit of comfort. As if to tempt her further, she could see the glow of light from somewhere in the orchard below. It was a simple matter to descend calmly through the slanted snowflakes, permitting her to land at the foot of a small wooden walkway. Her eyes traced their way up the ice-slick surface, to a simple lacquered wooden door, flecked with frost. Above it, and to its sides, windows shed a faint orange light.

Her hooves proved sure on the slick surface of the ramp, carrying her to the door of the Crusader's clubhouse. She didn't bother knocking, figuring there wasn't much of a point. The door swung inward with a simple push, driven more by the wind than the force of her hoof. After ducking inside, she pressed the door closed again, finding much more resistance in moving it the opposite direction.

"Rainbow Dash?"

Of course the squirt would speak up first. Rainbow turned around, only to find a surprising revelation. Scootaloo was alone, curled up in a sleeping bag beside an old farm-style lamp on the floor.

"Hey, kid. Where are your friends?"

"Oh..." Scootaloo looked away almost guiltily. "I just kinda wanted to be alone for a while."

The words brought a small, sad smile to Rainbow's face. "I know the feeling, kid. I'm not gonna ask if you don't want to talk about it. You mind if I join you, though?"

Scootaloo's smile was both wider and more genuine than Dash's. "Of course not!"

"Thanks." Rainbow paced over and curled up on the wooden floor beside her number-one fan. "What's going on with you these days?"

"Not much." She tossed back the top of her sleeping bag, revealing a pair of growing wings as well as a flank that had stubbornly remained a plain orange. "It's been two years, but everypony else has theirs, and–"

"Scootaloo, listen," Rainbow interrupted, holding up a hoof. "Maybe I'm a bad role model for this. Hay, I'm a terrible example for this, but life isn't always about being first."

"It isn't?" Scootaloo asked, cocking her head to the side in surprise at hearing the racer make such an admission.

Rainbow broke into a wide smile. "Nope. It's about being the best."

"Oh!" The filly laughed alongside her mentor. "Well, I've been practicing my flying every day just like you said."

"Good. How's it coming?"

"Well, I can hover… a little… if I jump…" With each continued admission, the young mare's happiness slipped just a bit.

"It'll take some time, Scootaloo. You've just got to let your wings grow, and practice in the meantime."

She huffed. "I know, but they're taking so long! I wish we could just go practice, but…" She nodded in the direction of the storm howling against the clubhouse door.

Rainbow nodded, before a subtle memory tugged at the back of her mind. "Hey, hold on. Who says you need to go outside to get better at flying? I've got an idea. Do you have a bucket or something?"

"Huh? Oh, sure. It's over there in the box of gear. We were using it to try and be 'Cutie Mark Crusader Fire Brigadiers."

Rainbow walked over to the box, pulled out the small metal bucket, and turned to the door. It opened to a gust of frigid wind, and when the gale was gone, so was the elder of the two mares. She returned only a few seconds later, having filled half the bucket with snow.

"What's that for? Applebloom got mad at me the last time we had a snowball fight in the clubhouse."

Rainbow chuckled. "Please, kid. This isn't even enough snow for one Rainbow Dash snowball. Nope, I'm gonna show you something cool. First, though, we have to melt this." Rainbow pulled the glass casing off the lamp that Scootaloo had set in the middle of the room, and held the metal bucket over the open flame. From there, it didn't take long to produce about half a liter of still rather cold water.

"Just water?"

"Yep. Wanna see a magic trick?"

Scootaloo nodded with excitement. Rainbow closed her eyes, and lowered the tip of her wing into the water. For just a moment, she could picture herself at the edge of a lake in the heart of Zebrica. When she had first done what she was aiming to do, it had taken memories of her youth, in the hallways of Cloudsdale General to produce the necessary emotions. Now, just the thought of that lakeside was enough. She opened her eyes, and flicked her wing forward.

The ice froze in midair. A trio of foot-long icicles impaled themselves on the wooden wall beside the door. Scootaloo gasped in shock. "Whoa!"

"I thought so too, the first time I saw that." Rainbow spared herself a moment to shake off the sorrow inherent in the magic before she continued to speak. "That's pegasus magic. I guess it's really supposed to be called Empatha, if you actually care. You wanna try?"

"Do I?!" Scootaloo lunged out of her sleeping bag, dunked her wing in the bucket, and thrust it forward quickly. Rainbow glared as she was drenched with near-freezing water.

"Thanks, Scootaloo."

"Oh. Sorry, Rainbow Dash."

"It's fine," she answered, rolling her shoulders back and forth rather like a dog to shed the cold water. She failed to notice how many of the Crusader's crayon-drawn maps were splattered by her action. "Making ice isn't just about splashing, though. Our magic works based on how you're feeling. You have to feel sad to make ice."

"Sad?"

"Yeah, like…" Rainbow let her words trail off as she paused to think. "Like, when I did the Sonic Rainboom the first time ever, it was because of desperation. I needed to win that race. And then, later, I needed to save my friends. But now that I've done it a bunch, the feeling isn't as important. I can do it just about whenever."

"Oh!" Scootaloo nodded. "So is this like how Mr. Ink was able to light himself on fire?"

"Yeah, but I don't know how to do that. Please promise me you won't try to light yourself on fire. Now, why don't you try again?"

The cookies were good, and the beverages (saying 'tea' was a stretch) were excellent, but only the company could be described as exquisite. The exorbitant spread separating the two sisters had been laid out in an ornate pattern, clearly indicative of the unnecessary salary provided to whichever of the three stallions available for the task had actually ended up delivering them from the palace kitchens to the small lounge.

"So tell me, Sister, how was Roam?"

"We–"

"Eh!"

A thin red blush spread over dark blue cheeks. "I was most disappointed to find that the practice of public sparring in the Grand Hippodrome had been abandoned by the Bitalian Guard. Also, Prince Sforzando was very… vocal with his opinions."

"Did he offer you a full cask of his private vintage with dinner?"

"Truthfully, sister, he offered his entire cellar."

The alicorns shared a hearty laugh, smiling more honestly than either often had cause to on their own. "Then, like the wine, he has only grown bolder with age. I hope that these words stay between us, Luna, but I cannot stand that stallion. He makes an excellent ruler, but his personal touch is unbearable. If you'd like, we can return Marathon to the task of bearing messages to him."

"Though I do share your feelings, sister, his personal lack of taste is a small price to pay for our–"

"Luna!"

The younger sister's brow creased in focus and self-disappointment. "Truly, sister, 'tis a struggle to sit through this new tongue. Whence is the distinction between us–"

"You did it again!"

"No, Celestia, that time I meant you and I. 'Tis correct, is it not?"

"Yes, I suppose it is." Celestia sighed. "I'm adding 'whence' to the list, by the way. Use 'where' instead."

"Surely you are the cruelest of mentors, Tia."

The elder bore the slightest hint of a smug grin. "It's working, isn't it? Now, you were saying something."

"I was going to say 'where is the distinction between you and I and the common pony?'"

Celestia chuckled. "The entire point of eliminating the royal plural was to make our ponies feel more comfortable around us. Or would you rather endure 'Nightmare Night' every day, Luna?"

Luna's thin body moved up and down slowly in a blunt sigh. "As usual, you are correct, sister. Very well. What were we talking about again?"

Celestia sipped her tea gently. The contents of the cup were a secret kept tightly guarded from the Canterlot nobility for fear of shame and disgrace. Still, she preferred the herbal mix (devoid of any actual tea leaves) to any of the more accepted 'Earl Grays' and 'Chamomiles' that her subjects seemed to favor. Across the table, Luna mocked tradition without any sense of humor via a cup of coffee containing so much cream and sugar that it ought to have been called a dessert.

When the short pause for drinks and a slight nibble of a lemon bar in Luna's case was finished, Celestia spoke again. "We were discussing whether or not you were to continue putting up with the Bitalian Prince, or whether I should return Marathon to the task. If I'm guessing correctly, you were going to tell me that being out and about in Equestria was worth dealing with his unique demeanor?"

Luna nodded curtly. "You've grown very good at guessing the words off another's tongue, sister."

"I had the luxury of practicing politics in a mostly peaceful era," Celestia answered. "But that does concern my proposal. You've spent these last few months doing excellent work managing relations with the various domains of Equestria, and I think it’s time we escalated your participation in our rule."

Luna raised a brow. "How so?"

"An old friend of ours is finally digging himself out of a twenty-year slumber."

Luna had to set her coffee down to keep it from spilling. "You speak of Krenn?"

"Yes, I do. As I'm sure you learned while reading up on the history you had missed, the dragon ruler and I had something of a conflict two decades ago."

"The 'Dragon Wars'? I had not realized you involved yourself personally."

Celestia shook her head. "As has been our agreement since Discord, he and I remained away from the battlefield. I suspect you would have found a much different landscape in Equestria had he chosen to fight. No, what I mean is that we were unfortunately unable to keep the conflict... impersonal. To use less formal language, Luna, there is 'bad blood' between Krenn and I."

Luna took a calculated sip of her coffee before nodding in comprehension. "Can I ask why?"

"You are welcome to ask; as I promised, I will not keep secrets from you. However, the fact that you don't have to worry over this issue is the reason that you would be a perfect representative to reestablish proper relations between the dragons and Equestria. That, and I have heard rumor that he was disappointed to have slept through your return. There is no need for you to share in my mistakes."

"You want me to go to Peshchera? To Krennotets?" Luna's smile spread nearly the entire length of her face, sending a warmth into Celestia's heart that could be found neither by the herbal tea traveling down her throat, nor the warmth of the sun shining through the winter clouds and the palace windows.

"Not all the way, no. He has agreed to meet with you in Stalliongrad in two days. Tsar Watchful Eye will host you, and see to your comforts. I'm sure you remember the old castle."

"If it is still as cold as it was in Platinum's day, I remember it well. But is Krenn not nearly as large as the castle itself?"

Celestia laughed a bit, before a sort of shame stopped the nose. "No, not any longer. You will see, Luna."

"Oh, we are so excited." Celestia offered her sister a sort of glare, and with a huff, she corrected herself. "I am so excited." Without the actual excitement in her voice, the sound was amusing.

"I'm glad to hear it, Luna, but I do have a condition for you. I insist that you accept an extra guard."

"Oh, Celestia–"

"I won't allow your life to be at risk again." The mirth in Celestia's tone took on a steeled edge.

"Is Masquerade not imprisoned below in the crystal chasm as we speak?"

"If she were the only threat in the world, that would be a perfect excuse, Luna, but she is not. Krenn will likely bring two of his subjects. I would like you to bring two escorts as well. I understand Mirror Image has done a sufficient job as your bodyguard."

"If one is able to disregard his lewd focus on every mare we encounter, then yes. I still do not see why it would be wrong to simply take a pair of my guard–"

"Absolutely not!" Celestia snapped, spilling her drink. There followed a long moment of silence, and then the empty teacup was lowered gently to its saucer, and Celestia looked away from her sister with shame. "Please forgive my outburst, Luna, but we have discussed this issue one time too many. Regardless of my own opinions, Krenn still remembers our… last conflict. I would prefer to avoid the risk of offending him if possible. Instead, I understand you have enjoyed the company of Private Marathon?"

Luna nodded. "She is a most virtuous mare, though I confess surprise that she forgives my actions so readily."

Celestia's response was one of disappointment. "Luna, haven't we done this enough?"

It was a testament to Luna's newfound self-control that her next words were delivered as calmly as their more pleasant predecessors. Nevertheless, Celestia's trained ear could hear the pain buried beneath the pleasant surface. "Would the Nightmare have existed if not for me, Celestia? Who else can be said to be responsible for its actions, if not its creator?"

"If you want to talk about blame, let me share it. If I had only realized–"

"Please, sister, let us not trot this beaten path again. Though those words were mine own, I had no intention to bring forth such a subject in our time of happiness. Perhaps I might ask a more pleasant question."

Celestia considered forcing the point, but slowly came the realization that Luna would be better off without reopening the wounds again. Perhaps those shallow scars would simply have to remain. "Go ahead, Luna. You don't need my permission."

"Your…" Luna hesitated, glancing momentarily down into the milky surface of her beverage. "The Commander–he passed under your vigil, did he not?"

Celestia's brow raised. "Yes, he did. Why is this a concern for you?"

"Some nights ago, whilst I was walking amongst the dreams of an old mare longing for her lost husband, I was approached by one of ours. I knew not his name, but he bore for me a most curious inquiry–one for which I lacked an answer. I intend to help him. After all, are the Summer Lands not meant to be free of want and suffering?"

Celestia nodded, and smiled. "That is valiant of you, Luna."

"It is my duty to him. Nothing more, though it still brings me joy." Luna drained her cup in a single, rather less-than-regal gulp and turned toward the door. "I shall depart after raising the moon. Until then, be well."

"You too, Luna," Celestia answered to the slowly closing doors.

Outside, a pair of guardsponies snapped to attention. Red Ink and Mirror Image flanked the lounge doors, providing their protection in tandem for their paired wards.

"Princess," they greeted synchronously.

"Captain Ink, I have no doubt my sister will welcome your company within. Warrant Officer Image, we have matters of great import to attend."

The pale tan unicorn stallion nodded to Red Ink before stepping away from the door to follow after Luna's surprisingly brisk pace. His dark brown mane remained perfectly still, combed down around his shattered horn. Her bodyguard had enough sense to wait until Luna was around a few corners from Ink and her sister before choosing to speak up.

"Something wrong, Princess?"

Luna nodded grimly. "Our sister is lying to us with guilt in her eyes. I intend to learn her purpose."

The unicorn shook his head. "Princess…?"

"'Tis within my reason this time, Officer. If you find your stomach holds not strength for what I ask, I shall permit my guard to attend me. Else, walk briskly, and shortly we shall have our answer."

Mirror Image rolled his eyes as he followed, slowly beginning to recognize the path. He asked no questions as they continued down the palace's central stair, past the Honor Guard's offices, and then even beyond the barred door to the deep mines. He did, however, stop when the pair reached a titanic pair of golden doors. It was at that point that a genuinely frightening thought wormed its way through his mind.

"Princess, what's behind–"

"Many things. Hold your tongue, Officer, and I may even tell you some of them." It took Luna barely more than a nod of her head to fill the gemstones with light and leave the door sliding slowly open. The cavern beyond was enormous, and dark.

Suddenly more frightened than he had ever been before, Mirror Image afforded himself the audacity to grab Luna's side and turn her around. "Please, Princess, I need to know. You aren't down here for …" He could not bring himself to finish the cruel thought.

Luna glared at him, slapping away his hooves with no small amount of sheer force. She clearly lacked the compunctions he was facing. "Monitor thyself, Officer. If you would speak of the Nightmare, then speak. Our last defender would not share his fears with me, and in the end such a lack of discussion came near to costing us both our lives." She turned back to the stairs and embarked on her descent as she continued. "'Tis true that what little is left of the Nightmare remains here, but 'tis not why we have come. We seek Masquerade."

"The assassin?" Mirror Image's brow tweaked up at its far right side. "She's down here?"

"Yes, Officer, she is." Luna's dry wit and somewhat bitter sarcasm rose for her next words. "I trust you won't use this knowledge to try seducing her."

The unicorn had to stop his descent to contain his laughter, before sadly shaking his head. "With respect, Princess, if I wanted a mare who could shape shift into my wildest fantasies, I would probably pursue a changeling drone. Though she does have a nice flank."

Grateful for Celestia's absence, Luna drifted into a more familiar manner of speaking. "Art thou not afraid it would drain you of your love, and leave you a broken husk?" Though somewhat amused, Luna's words nevertheless condemned his perversion.

Mirror Image shook his head. "I never said I'd love it, Princess."

"You are truly the most depraved of all stallions, guardspony. In my time, such lechery might have found you driven from Equestria by a furious horde."

Image laughed again. "I have had to deal with angry parents in the past, though I have never been a father."

Luna shook her head almost derisively. "'Tis not hard to believe such a statement. Tell me, Officer, if you pursue mares so readily, why dost thou not fancy us–or rather, me?"

Image shook his head. "I learned very quickly not to mix business and pleasure. Celestia―sorry, Princess Celestia―would probably have me keeping Discord company if she found out, and if she didn't, I'm sure the Commander would rise from his grave to finish this." He gestured briefly with a hoof to the shattered form of his own horn. "I have no doubt that your highness is delightful in bed, but if I die, there won't be more mares in the future."

Luna spared herself another glance at the terrible wound. A gap about half-an-inch across marked a jagged path down Mirror Image's horn. The wound must have been indescribably painful, though the stallion never seemed to comment on it. In fact, Luna might have believed it to be a non-issue for the unicorn, were it not for a single curiosity that had pervaded the five months he had served as her bodyguard. Never once had she seen him use magic. He ate, and opened doors, and signed paperwork, and all manner of other trivial issues as though he were an earth pony. It was a question that would need to be asked some day, but a sinking sensation in her gut made the concept uncomfortable.

Instead, as Luna's hooves set down off of the winding staircase and onto the heavy cavern floor, she changed the topic. "The Commander's fate is why we are here, Officer. You may speak freely, but I do request you retain control of yourself."

Those words were the last that the odd pair shared before they progressed to the massive gray crystal wall that served as the entrance to Masquerade's prison. Rather than struggling with its incredible weight, Luna's left forehoof moved the 'door' as though it were no more than a piece of parchment.

Sitting on her belly in the center of the chamber was a clearly broken mare. One of her eyes opened to look at her visitors, though the other was bruised too heavily to follow the motion. She clearly struggled to offer them a spiteful smile, though her jaw seemed to resist her motion. Broken shards of what had once been a lighting crystal were scattered across the floor. At least one was sticking out of a cut on her shoulder. She offered a tired, pitiful moan as Luna approached.

"Spare us your suffering, assassin. We would speak with you. Answer in truth, and we might offer you mercy as recompense."

Luna's demands were answered with a fragile hoof, which struggled to make the short journey to Masquerade's jaw. She moaned, pitifully, but no words came free. Luna took a step forward for a closer look, only to be stopped by the outstretched hoof of her guardian.

"Let me." Mirror Image strode forward, stopping just beyond a leg's reach away from Masquerade. Her pitiful, one-eyed glance in his direction still managed to hold some degree of spite. He reached out cautiously, tapping at the side of her face. She winced and pulled back, but the stallion was unrelenting. Realizing that the mare genuinely posed no threat, he stepped closer. His hooves prodded as lightly as possible along the underside of her neck, where numerous bruises were visible even over the surface of her coat. After a few minutes of investigation, the stallion made his way back to Luna's side.

"What is her ailment? Is it a trap?"

"No, Princess. Honestly, it reminds me of Soldier On's work. Her jaw is shattered completely. I'm impressed she was able to make that moaning noise."

"Then I shall heal her. We require our answers urgently." Luna stepped forward, lowering her horn to point at the broken assassin. Misty blue magic enveloped her wounded jaw, and with an audible cracking, Masquerade's moans turned into a clarion scream. By the time she had descended from her world of pain, Luna had stepped away, panting and shaking her head. "You are able to speak now?"

Masquerade clenched her jaw slowly, before turning her gaze toward her visitors. "Yes, Princess Luna, I suppose I can."

Luna's brow rose. "Thou do not call me 'Nightmare Moon.'"

"I can still see out of this eye," Masquerade answered. "And I know enough to tell the difference."

"I had expected that to be the cause of your actions."

"You're half-right, Princess. But we're…" She paused to hack up another globule of blood. "…reasonable mares."

Mirror Image spoke up whilst shaking his head. "You've got a funny idea of what 'reasonable' means, Masquerade. Reasonable ponies don’t try to kill the Princess."

She dragged her head along the floor, seemingly unable to lift it from the gray crystals, and turned her attention to Mirror Image. "It's a matter of context, I think, Mirror Image. You've killed ponies, after all."

"Criminals," he snapped. "Not innocents."

"So you call her innocent?" Masquerade shook her head. "That's hardly the point. Somepony who would kill you, Princess, for having been Nightmare Moon is vengeful. Somepony who would do it thinking you still are is insane."

"So which are you?" Image asked, seeing Luna's hesitance to answer.

"Neither," Masquerade responded quickly. "I damn near killed you because I know you're going to be Nightmare Moon again."

"You lie!" Luna shouted, leaning over the fallen assassin.

"Want to bet? A war is coming, Princess. One even Discord couldn't dream up alone, though I'm sure his claws are in it somewhere. If you're still alive, the Nightmare will be back."

Image glared at the assassin. "That's it, then? You did it because of some vague story you think is going to happen? Damn it, Crack was right. You're just insane. I owe him forty bits."

Masquerade smiled sarcastically as she responded. "Well, to be fair, I also did it for fame, and more money or power than you stupid guardsponies could ever possibly dream of. Don't forget, Warrant Officer, I was the Commander for a little while. How is that twenty-thousand bit salary treating you? That's enough for, what, a crappy apartment in Manehattan? Or do you just gamble it all away?"

Mirror Image let out a grim growling noise, but Luna moved herself to the space between her bodyguard and the assassin. "Enough of this, Masquerade. I have questions."

"Wasn't that what Armor and Ink beat the tar out of me for? I assumed you'd come to send me to Tartarus?"

Luna shook her head. "Neither the time nor the decision has come. I have every intention of offering you salvation yet, though you tempt me otherwise. For now, answer a simple question." Masquerade rolled her eyes, and shook her head, until Luna said the words themselves. "Where is the Commander?"

Almost immediately, the mare's demeanor changed. "He's dead. I killed him."

"And then he wrote a letter, after his demise? A letter to my sister bearing information you could not have possibly known?" Luna's horn shed a fell blue light, focusing tightly on Masquerade's face, and then wrapping around her throat. The wounded mare was hoisted into the air, where she found herself face to face with the immortal being she had only months past tried desperately to kill. "Do not lie to me."

She clawed feebly at the mana wrapped around her neck out of fear, though Luna made no effort to actually choke the unicorn. After her efforts proved ineffectual, Masquerade nodded. "I didn't kill him, but he is dead. The boars wanted him alive!"

Her body fell suddenly to the harsh floor, and the snap of her collision was a truly painful noise. Luna turned to the huge crystal slab that was the door. "Thank you, assassin. I will remember your words."

After a terrible grating noise, both the princess and her bodyguard sealed off the prisoner again. Masquerade smiled, and even afforded herself a mild laugh. It had almost been too easy.

Night fell over Equestria, and far to the south, over Suida as well. There, amidst towering red cliffs and cracked plains of brush and stone, a stallion hissed through clenched teeth in sheer agony. The 'Commander' could not see, but his blindness was the result of pain and not of the darkness. All through his body were broken bones, from the crown of his skull to the tips of his ribs. Shards and spurs ripped into his muscles with his every motion, and so in order to spare himself the suffering, he struggled to remain still. It was a futile effort.

The body of a pony has many sensitive areas. Muzzles and necks are surprisingly capable of detecting the ticklish touch of a gentle nuzzle. For more intimate encounters, other areas are capable of bearing even more sensation. These regions have nothing, however, on the intensity of feeling that can be built in a pegasus' wings. It was for this reason that the Commander found himself unable to hold his body still.

Both his wings were broken, and a boar apothecary was setting about 'fixing' them. His first act was to twist the left wing back, until its crest snapped. A shard of bone ruptured through the Commander's flesh and feathers, sticking out into the cold, dry desert air. He screamed for a few moments, until his dry and tired voice failed him. Then, only a hoarse trickle could be heard.

From there, the boar twisted the wing back upon itself, tearing through further flesh as an unnatural angle was formed. What ought to have been a smooth primary crest instead jerked sharply into a right angle, twisted back along the Commander's side. Blood spilled along his left side, and the shining shield flanked by lightning bolts that had once marked the purpose of his life. With the bone set into its new place, bandages and plaster were brought forth.

A pony who had never before been broken in battle was laid low by a doctor's work. Tears streamed from his eyes because he could no longer hold them in. What little of his rational mind had remained over five months of torture knew that he would never fly again. It was a wound that even his body could not heal.

When the second wing snapped, the last of the Commander's dreams of rescue was thrown into a shallow, unmarked grave. No more did the faint promises of some lingering purpose even register in his mind. No longer did he wish to return to Celestia and his Honor Guard. He only wanted death.

Rainbow rolled over in the sleeping bag she had shared with Scootaloo. Though perhaps a bit personal, the cold had been too harsh and the storm too furious to take any other action. A heavy knock had stolen away her slumber, though it had nearly been lost the continued whistling of the wind against the tiny wooden structure.

"Rainbow Dash? Are you there?"

"Huh?" Rainbow twisted slightly, hoping not to awaken her young friend. "Twilight?"

The door burst open, and the sudden gust of chilled air was enough to wash away all memory of sleep. It was slammed shut quickly, revealing the faintest hints of a violet unicorn, buried beneath a foot of thick fabric and heavy boots. "Thank Celestia I finally found you. What are you doing out here? And why is Scootaloo here too?"

"Huh?" the young filly asked upon hearing her name. Though the cold had woken her, she was still clearly drowsy. "Twilight?"

"I found her out here after I left the barn," Rainbow answered with a groan. "What time is it?"

"What time–?" Twilight was clearly furious over the question, as her response devolved into a groan. "Rainbow, it's two in the morning! We've been out looking for you all night!"

Dash's answer was a quick glare, before turning back to the welcome warmth of the sleeping bag. "Well, I'm fine, Twilight. You can head home."

"I'm not leaving you two out here alone! In case you haven't noticed, the storm has gotten worse. A lot worse. You'll freeze to death out here!" Rainbow groaned, but Twilight persisted. "Look, I get it if you want some space, Rainbow, but this is dangerous. At least come back with me to the library. Please?"

The elder of the two pegasi glanced at her young fan, and then nodded. "Fine, Twilight." She crawled out of the sleeping bag fully, and Scootaloo struggled to the same. "No, kid, relax. Just stay warm in there." A wing was lowered to the floor, and then with no small amount of effort, the filly and her warm bag were both pulled up onto Rainbow's back.

Scootaloo squirmed for a moment, contemplating resistance to the offer. Ultimately, however, the warmth of the bag and the comfort of Rainbow's wings proved too tempting to be resisted. She snuggled into the base of her mentor's mane and closed her eyes.

"It might be too windy to sleep out there," Rainbow observed.

"Relax," Twilight answered. "Shining Armor taught me this." Her horn ignited, created a rather small purple orb that expanded straight through the walls of the clubhouse to a distance of about three feet in each direction from Twilight's horn. The mare opened her eyes slowly, and then smiled. "A wind shield," was her explanation. "The air and the snow will still be cold, though."

"I'll survive. Let's get moving."

The two adult ponies trudged out of the clubhouse and struggled to walk down the ice-slick slope that served as its entrance. Once on the ground, Rainbow immediately felt the chill of snow against her hooves. In the dark of the night, the barren apple trees seemed surprisingly menacing. A flurry of wind and snow beat against the edges of Twilight's purple orb, but neither the flecks of snow, nor the biting whistling of the wind reached the pair of ponies inside. In fact, the stillness of the air was unsettling.

The road down from Sweet Apple Acres to the heart of Ponyville was a long one, lined only with trees and devoid of much by way of sights. Off in the distance, to the far left, the Everfree sat blotted upon the horizon. Ahead, the silhouettes of Ponyville's buildings had given up their lights to the embrace of sleep.

"This is kinda weird," Rainbow whispered. "Outside shouldn't be this quiet."

"It's just the spell, Rainbow," Twilight answered with equal quiet. "Nothing to worry–"

The words were cut off perfectly by an audible howl. The ponies glanced at one another with sudden urgency. "Timberwolves?"

"It sounds like it," Twilight answered. "But what could drive them this far from the Everfree?"

"Who cares? We have to get moving." Rainbow turned to the path and broke into a brisk trot. "Come on!"

Twilight followed as quickly as she could, but even burdened with the filly on her back, Dash was clearly faster. She kept pace with Twilight, though the slowed steps spared her both the time and the focus to glance off the worn path and into the nearby trees. The faint silhouettes of creatures were moving against the dull purple glow of the sky. Though they followed their prey, they maintained their distance, as if waiting for something.

Her eyes turned to the other side of the road in time to see a trio of timberwolves closing on Twilight. She reacted too quickly for thought, jumping over her friend in a single motion and bringing a hoof down on the lead wolf's snout. Wood splintered beneath her blow, drawing Twilight's attention and earning a gasp from Scootaloo. Before either could actually speak, however, Rainbow had lunged out with her hind hooves, driving the second away and tripping the third. "A little help?"

Twilight caught herself suddenly, pointing her horn into the woods and firing a trio of magical blasts. None connected, but the light they cast revealed at least seven more wolves in the midst of the storm. Rainbow could spare no more time ponder their number, as the first three were slowly rising to their wooden paws.

As she lowered herself to the ground, her wings rose to form a barrier around Scootaloo. "Hold on, kid."

"Are those timberwolves?"

Rather than answer the question, Rainbow lunged forward at the first to rise. Her hooves moved quickly, wielding a skill that her more peaceful companions had never seen before. Two, three, four, and five times she struck in the span of a single second. By the last blow, the growl of the creature had been reduced to a whimper. It fled with its tail between its legs, though Rainbow's instincts told her that defeating a single foe had not won her the battle so quickly.

Twilight had grabbed a second of the three wolves, and with sheer force of telekinesis, she flung it back into the woods. The force was incredible, but the focus it required of its user stole her focus away from the third wolf. The beast pounced on Rainbow's friend. Its wooden claws and teeth drew blood in shallow blows from beneath her violet coat.

The pegasus' action was almost too fast to follow with naked eyes. She lowered her right wing from the filly on her back, lending her enough force and balance to outright tackle the wolf away. Trapped on its side by the weight of two ponies, the beast had no time to react as Rainbow's hoof came down on its neck three times in quick succession. Unlike its friends, it released no whimper or cry. In the faint light of Twilight's horn, a viscous splash could be seen on Dash's hoof. She flicked it away and turned back to her friend. "Hurry up, Twilight! There are more–" The words died with the sight of another figure in the woods. Something was out there fighting with the timberwolves, though its identity could not be discerned amidst the silhouettes of the monsters.

"What is that?" the inquisitive unicorn asked.

"Who cares? Let's go!" Rainbow didn't wait for a response, bluntly shoving her friend before breaking into a run herself. Though their journey proved short, the library's welcome door could not have arrived soon enough.

To make way for the coming dawn, Luna lowered the moon not from her usual bedroom balcony, but from Canterlot's train platform. The few businessponies and nobles who were waiting to accompany her on the train watched with awed expression as the deed was done simply and bluntly. Luna felt no need to soar into the sky or flare her wings as her sister so often did. Instead, a slight glow of magic was all she truly required.

Private Marathon watched the ponies on the platform idly, with almost the curiosity of a young filly. "Princess, if you'd like me to fetch some breakfast, we have another ten minutes before the train boards."

"We supped well only two hours ago, Private, though we thank thee for–"

"It's 'you', Princess," Mirror Image interrupted. After receiving a fierce glare, he held up both his forehooves as if to placate the princess. "I promised Princess Celestia."

"Of course she would extract such an oath. Let me simply say that, should you happen to forget such an obligation, I would certainly forgive you your oath-breaking. In fact, I might even forgive some of your constant lechery."

Image smiled and nodded. "Understood. If you'll forgive me for asking, why aren't we taking a chariot to Stalliongrad?"

Luna and Marathon shared a glance before both began to chuckle. The latter spoke up. "It's January, Mirror. Anypony flying out in the open would have frostbite by the time they reached the city. Besides, with a train we can relax. Well, by we I mean the Princess and I. You're on guard duty."

"We're on guard duty, Private."

"I beg to differ, Mirror. You're here as the Princess' bodyguard. I'm serving in my capacity as a 'diplomatic advisor and consultant'. I know how you hate big words, so I'll dumb that down for you. It means I get to sit in the cabin with Luna and have fun while you're standing outside the door." She smiled teasingly, intending the words in good fun (even if they were true).

"We suspect our bodyguard has the point," Luna responded. "Relax, Officer Image, our journey will be fun. Perhaps we shall have a snowball fight."

Image turned away only as he heard the train chug up the tracks toward the station. Something in his gut warned him that Luna's subtly hidden playful nature would make Stalliongrad more trouble than it was worth.

Rainbow crept slowly away from Twilight's bed, where a rather small orange filly had finally managed to shake off her fears and fall asleep. Thankfully, the icy wind had ceased its rattling of the library windows, and the storm had subsided to a pleasant snowfall. The door to the bedroom swung open and shut without a creak or a moan, allowing Rainbow's wings to carry her gently downstairs. There, Twilight Sparkle and Spike were seated together on a small couch. Four eyes watched as the pegasus descended, alighting on a small chair opposite the pair. "How are you holding up, Twilight?"

She responded by tilting her head to the side, revealing the heavy white bandages that covered her scrapes and cuts. "I'm fine, I guess. Thanks, Rainbow."

"Hey, don't sweat it. You don't think I'd just–"

"No, really, Rainbow. You saved my life."

The baby dragon sitting at Twilight's side looked up at her with suddenly increased concern. "Are you going to tell me what happened now?"

Before Twilight could offer a proper response, Dash spoke up. "There were some timberwolves out by Sweet Apple Acres. We fought them off."

"You fought them off," Twilight corrected. "I don’t know if I've ever been more scared in my entire life."

"Oh, come on, Twilight. We've done way crazier stuff than that. You remember the Changelings, right? Or, heck, that first time we all went into the Everfree and fought Nightmare Moon–"

"None of that was ever like this though." Twilight shuddered slightly as she spoke. "I mean, they were dangerous, but it was right on top of me. I could feel its breath. And then you just… attacked it."

"I guess I learned something useful," Rainbow admitted. She buried the tiny voice in the back of her mind that noted how much she had enjoyed the surge of adrenaline, and the prospect of danger. Twilight had been in danger. Scootaloo could have been hurt. That risk would never be worth the thrill. Instead, she completed her thought after the moment's pause. "I'd still rather not have to do that anymore."

Twilight nodded, and then walked slowly over to Rainbow and wrapped her in a tight hug. "Thank you."

At first, the embrace was welcome, but a knocking at the door quickly made its lingering presence feel too long. "Uh, Twilight, you gonna get that?"

The unicorn pulled away with a soft laugh. "Oh. Sorry?"

Rainbow collapsed back in her seat as the unicorn and her dragon assistant moved to the door. It opened to a calm winter day, and the voice of a stallion, though Rainbow couldn't see his face.

"Hello. I'm sorry to bother you, but I was hoping you might know where I could find Rainbow Dash?"

The pegasus in question rose to her feet in time to see Twilight backing away from the open door in shock. Lacking the same knowing expression, Spike shrugged. "Sure, she's actually right in here."

The pony who then made his way into the Golden Oaks library caused Rainbow's heart to skip not a single beat, but several. Her eyes widened, and her mind refused to process what she saw. Without better directions, her mouth managed to mumble only a single word in quiet shock.

"Deadeye?"

VI - The Coming Storm

VI

The Coming Storm

The balloon set down at the trailing edge of Mane Street, where the raw cumulus gave way to open air and a sheer drop. That morning, the city of the pegasi was already vibrant and flowing with life. The most select and reputable of shops had beautiful storefronts, with expensive glass framed by skysteel that would not fall through the immaterial structure they were set against. Colored cloudscapes declared brands and caught eyes.

In the middle of it all were countless ponies of every shade and color, flitting about, smiling, talking, and enjoying life.

"Haven't been to Cloudsdale in years," Dead Reckoning muttered. "It's so much bigger."

"It's easy to make changes when you can just pick up some of the ground and make whatever you want." Rainbow smirked at the answer. "Papa used to say that all the time."

"Papa?"

"My grandpa." Rainbow led the way down familiar roads that had marked the explorations of her foalhood. "I always called him that."

"Isn't 'papa' what everypony usually calls their dad?"

Rainbow's brow creased down into a glare that directed itself toward the puffy cloud streets. "My dad wasn't exactly around much, remember? After my mom died, Papa basically raised me." The younger pegasus would have been content to drop the subject at those words, but the option was stolen away when Reckoning's hoof caught her across the chest.

"Rainbow, stop. I didn't want to say anything in front of On, but I need to know. Why are you doing this?"

At first, Rainbow ignored the question. Her thoughts were on the way his feathers dragged across her coat when he pulled his limb away. There was a bit of electricity there, and the warmth was tantalizing and pure. He had all the limber strength of an agile flier and a soldier. He felt the way Rainbow imagined the Wonderbolts had to feel. She smiled.

"Rainbow Dash!"

"What?" She spat out the question on reflex, even as she shook her head to clear the thoughts she couldn't explain. "Sorry..."

"Rainbow, I want a straight answer from you."

"Sure." The mare gestured to the road, and tried to continue walking along with the conversation. Reckoning's hooves stopped her, placed onto both her shoulders.

"You still hate your dad, don't you?"

The word hate made Rainbow twitch within the comfort of his grip. "I don't really..."

His singular eye leaned forward, with a ferocious intensity in its search for truth. She felt the heat of his breath across her muzzle, and the tingles it sent across her coat left her wanting more.

"Why do you want to come with us?"

"Because I–" Rainbow's instinctual response died on her tongue. "Because he deserves a second chance."

Reckoning glared and focused his eye, but the orb was not alone in taking action. Rainbow Dash felt Empatha at the edges of her mind, snapping at her instincts. His Stare was too weak for anything more than unsettling her, but that was its only purpose. "You're lying to me, Rainbow."

Dash tugged her eyes away from his and stared down at her hooves. "I... I don't really know, okay? I just... I know what I told Scootaloo when we were talking about it last night, but when I think about letting you run off without me, it just feels wrong. Like I'd be disloyal, or..." The mare groaned. "I'm bad at this feeling stuff, okay? I just have to do this."

Reckoning released his grip on her shoulders, as he contemplated the answer. Two responses dueled fiercely in his mind. Though he knew which one was right, it was not the one that triumphed.

"Fine, Dash. Let's go."

"Good." As they continued walking, Rainbow couldn't help but sneak a peek at her partner's wing. A part of her considered brushing against him, before the back of her mind reminded her just how uncool such an action would inevitably be.

Their path continued down Mane Street, until it stopped in front of an office structure set apart from its neighbors by its gorgeously designed curves, and the spires of raw cloud that had been formed into faux icicles for the season. Beneath them, a pair of transparent doors opened into a warm waiting room with plush red cloud 'carpeting'.

"Silver Lining and Co," Reckoning read aloud. "Where every cloud has silver lining." His eye swiveled down to the doors, before turning toward Rainbow. “I take it this is the place? Fancy. Glass is expensive in Cloudsdale."

"Yeah," Rainbow answered, reaching for the doors. "It..." Her hoof stopped when it touched the flat surface. "No way."

"What?"

"Feel this. It's not glass."

When Reckoning placed a hoof against the transparent surface, he shivered slightly. "Impossible... Is that skysteel?"

"I don't know, but we can find out pretty easy. Let's go ask." Rainbow shoved open the door with rather less pleasantry and self-control than such a building deserved. Another pegasus mare sitting behind a desk glanced up at the sound of a bell over the door, recognized Rainbow, and immediately went back to her work. Rainbow in turn ignored the receptionist and walked straight down the hall behind her.

Reckoning nearly had to run to catch up, and in the process, he realized just how easy it was to really run in his new body. The fact that he'd lived alone in such inhospitable terrain for most of his later life had left him able to outrun stallions twenty years younger; the problem was that those stallions were still in their late forties. Now, there was no ache in his ribs, and the bones of his shoulders didn't click as he lent himself some speed.

The stallion who had once been aged and gray was so caught up in this long forgotten sensation that he barreled straight into Rainbow Dash as she stood in the doorframe separating the office's long hallway from the waiting room at the far end. The two pegasi tumbled over one another, although both rose quickly.

"Watch it!"

"Sorry..."

"What's all the commotion about?" Both pegasi perked up at the sound of the voice, and turned almost in perfect tandem toward the open doorway on the far side of the room. A third pegasus wandered into the room. His face was dominated by a bushy black moustache, set atop a gray coated face covered elsewhere with laughter lines. Though his expression was initially rather stern, it melted into an almost foalish glee as he took in the room. "Rainbow? You brought home a stallion?"

Immediately recognizing the implication, Reckoning jaw stiffened up. "Uh, Mr. Lining, I–"

Rainbow issued a groan. "Papa, please."

Councilor Silver Lining rolled his eyes in an exaggerated circle, all the while unable to hide his happiness. "You know somepony has to say something about it, right, Rainbow?"

"Yeah, yeah..." Rainbow's grumblings ended when her grandfather extended a foreleg. The embrace they shared was brief but comfortable. Legs slipped over leg, necks curled against one another, and the taller stallion gave an affectionate parental nuzzle to his granddaughter's ear. The motions ended without much delay. It didn't take any longer to share the thoughts they represented. Only when the embrace had ended did any sort of awkward stillness fill the air. Silver Lining waited patiently as Rainbow stared at him with a slight grin of her own.

Finally, the businesspony couldn't take it anymore. "So... are you going to introduce me to–"

"Right, sorry..." Rainbow scratched at her mane for just a second. "Uh, Papa, this is Dead Reckoning. You can call him Reckoning, or Deadeye. Just not 'Dead'. Reckoning, this is my grandpa, Silver Lining."

"It's nice to meet you, Mr. Reckoning."

Reckoning grinned. "My pleasure, Councilor."

"There's really no need for the formality. I guess I could say it's either Silver or Mr. Lining. Just not Councilor. Why don't– going somewhere, Rainbow?"

Reckoning turned in surprise to where Rainbow Dash was staring awkwardly toward the hall behind her. The mare nodded. "Just gotta, uh, use the bathroom." Without giving another opportunity for anypony to speak, she spread her wings and darted off in a rainbow blur.

"Well..." Reckoning muttered.

Silver Lining shrugged. "Happens to the best of us, I guess. Sit down, Mr. Reckoning. Or do you actually prefer Deadeye?" Along with the words, Silver gestured to a seat in the waiting room, and simultaneously tapped the underside of one of his eyes with a wingtip. "Sounds like the sort of name somepony would make up to tease you, honestly."

Reckoning collapsed onto a couch backwards, spreading his functional wing wide and tucking his forelegs behind his head. He looked entirely comfortable as he sagged into the puffy furniture. "I actually earned that nickname before I lost my eye. Back when I proved I could hit a bit somepony threw in the air with a bolt of lightning out of a pair of Nimbostratus shoes."

Silver's brow rose, but he nodded along with the short story. "I see. I take it from the sword under your wing there that you've taken that talent to its violent conclusion?"

Reckoning recoiled momentarily. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"At the moment, nothing more than conversation."

The scout glared at the architect. "Yeah, I've killed griffons. And manticores, and hydras, and a few other strange things besides. It's not like I'm just some murderer–"

"No, you're a guardspony. I knew that the moment I saw your eye and your weapon. Nimbostratus shoes, rather than pure Nimbus tell me you're a designated scout. So now I'm going to guess that you met Rainbow... a bit more than five months ago?"

Reckoning's brow rose slowly, before falling down to his eye like a guillotine. "Yeah. Zebrica. She helped..." He stopped, took a deep breath, and continued. "Honestly, it's more like I helped her save Princess Luna."

"That's my Rainbow." In spite of the tone his earlier words had carried, Silver Lining's calmly reclining form was nearly as relaxed as Reckoning's. His hind legs were curled up beneath him, and he leaned gently on his left side against the plush cushion of the couch opposite the scout's. "I always knew she was going to be great, but now it seems like I see her in the paper twice a year, up with Princess Celestia getting some medal for saving the world."

"She's an incredible mare," Reckoning agreed. For some reason, the way Silver Lining looked at him after that statement changed sharply.

"Earlier, you might have thought it was strange of an old stallion like me to joke about Rainbow bringing you to visit. Normally, that's a mother's place, I know." Silver's smile belied a certain firmness to his words. "But Rainbow is the only family I have left, and I'm the same for her. So sometimes, I have to be her mom."

For just a moment, an image of Easy Breeze returned to Reckoning's mind. He could see the young mare's dazzling eyes, and the way she gently bit down on her lower lip as she smiled at him. It only lasted for a flash, but he wished it had stayed longer.

Silver Lining nodded. "It also means that sometimes I have to be her dad."

"She told me about–"

"Stop." Silver held up a hoof along with the word, and it earned him instant silence. "I know how Rainbow feels about her father, and I imagine that's what you've heard too. If she trusts you to talk about him, then there's a few things you need to understand." The pause that followed was marred by hesitation and doubt. "Steel was my son, and I supported him. When he signed on, I was proud, even if I didn't really show it. I knew why he thought he had to leave, even if I disagreed."

"Lots of ponies joined up in the Dragon Wars. Can't really blame them."

"Oh, that wasn't his first time with the guard. Steel re-joined," Silver corrected. "He started when he was sixteen. I don't know if he ever actually quit. I didn't get to talk to him when he came back. We'd parted on... less-than-perfect terms." For just a split second, Silver Lining's eyes darted to the hallway where he had last seen his granddaughter. There was a surprising deal of pain in the tiny motion.

When Silver looked back, the hurt disappeared instantly. Reckoning couldn't help but admire how well the old stallion hid his feelings. "Easy Breeze–Rainbow's mother–came and found me after Steel left her. She did her best to provide for Rainbow, but she really couldn't afford a foal on her own, with her health failing. Encephalitis. I got her the best medical treatment there was at the time, but all I could really do was prolong the inevitable." Silver's nostrils flared as he took a deep breath. It was the only sign of his concern. "I raised Rainbow when she passed. And for the most part, I think I did well. But all the other foals had moms and dads, and it took her a long time to understand why he wasn't there." Silver sucked down another slow gulp of air, and his eyes wandered away from Reckoning, longing to look at something else.

As he scanned the area, Reckoning imagined that in his natural form, he would have been about the same age as the other stallion. Yet despite their similar lifespans, they couldn't have been more different. Even old, Reckoning had been lean, sinuous, and at least a bit twitchy. Silver Lining, in contrast, had a calm and refined form. There were no scars on his smooth and silky coat. His wings were well preened, and even the bushy moustache that dominated his face clearly saw a daily razor to keep it in line. While the stallion was by no means fat, there was the slightest bit of a bulge to him, suggesting that age and tired bones kept him from getting the exercise he used to. Reckoning took note of all these little details and more in that moment because of just how old Silver looked as his eyes focused on a towering painting set against the wall opposite the hallway back toward the front of the office.

And when Reckoning saw it, his jaw very-nearly dropped. There was a portrait of the Commander, in all his glory. Beneath his black helmet, piercing eyes betrayed the terrible focus that had dominated his every action. Yet the portrait seemed old–far too old to depict the stallion the way he had looked only six months prior when Reckoning had last seen him.

Silver Lining was too busy observing the portrait to notice the reaction on his guest's face. He continued his thoughts unhindered. "Rainbow hates the guard... or at least she used to. But I don't. What I do understand, though, is that the guard is dangerous." Without warning, the stallion's eyes snapped toward Reckoning. "I mentioned that sometimes I have to be Rainbow's mother. I also have to be her father sometimes as well. So I want you to understand me perfectly. If you hurt her, or she gets hurt because of you, I will not forgive you. I might not be young or strong, and I don't know how to fight. But I have influence and a great deal of money. I really hope I don't have to explain to you just how badly those two things can hurt if I put my mind to it. Do you understand me?"

Though there was no Empatha, the sheer dedication in Silver Lining's words belied the need for a Stare. Most anypony else would have been quite intimidated by the threat. Reckoning's throat knotted tight, not at fear for himself, as he was forced once more to contemplate just what bringing Rainbow along on his quest might mean. He nodded, slowly and firmly, and the action seemed to satisfy Silver Lining.

"Good. Now that we understand each other, we should probably get to know one another."

Reckoning found himself in awe at the stallion's social graces. It didn't take long for the tension of the previous words to fade, and yet in the back of his mind, thoughts of Rainbow's safety lingered long past when she had left the conversation.

Not far down the hall from her grandfather and her partner, Rainbow's hooves were clenched tightly against her brow in front of the small bathroom mirror. "Stop!" she hissed. "Go away!"

"If that's what you want, you probably shouldn't be coming to help me, Dashie."

"Don't call me that!" Rainbow shook her head rapidly back and forth, trying to clear her mind. The effort failed miserably in the face of the dark blue-gray stallion. "Gah! You aren't even real!" It took her more self-control than she could normally support to keep from shouting the words.

"Pretending that won't do you any more good than pretending that I died in the Dragon Wars." Steel Lining grinned at his daughter from the mirror, where her own reflection ought to have been. "But soon we'll finally be able to catch up for all those years we missed."

"We missed?" Rainbow slammed a hoof down on the pearly white cloudstone countertop. Rather than cracking, it deformed under her hoof, sparing her the attention of all within the office. "You left! And– and you aren't even here! Get out of my head!"

A knock issued from the door to the restroom. "Miss Dash, are you alright in there?"

Rainbow shuddered. "Uh, yeah, fine. Just... got some gum in my mane. That's all. Sorry."

The receptionist didn't sound convinced when she responded. "Well, I guess if you say so. If you need anything, feel free to yell."

The figment of her father was kind enough to wait until the mare was gone to speak up again.

"I know you miss me, sometimes."

"Go away."

"I know you still remember my voice, when I held you and sang you to sleep."

Rainbow clenched her eyes shut. "Please just go away."

♪ "You are my sunshine. My only sunshine. " ♪ His voice had a gruff tone, but it carried the notes well. They brought tears to her eyes, wringing her heart until the last drops of happiness had been lost to a desert of unwelcome memories.

"That's Papa's song," Rainbow protested, still not opening her eyes to look at the figment in the mirror.

♪ "You make me happy when skies are gray. " ♪

"You're lying. You don't care about me. You never did."

♪ "You'll never know, dear, how much I love you. " ♪

"You don't!"

♪ "Please don't take my sunshine away... " ♪

The singing stopped, but Rainbow remained curled up on the cloud floor for some time, struggling to curl deeper into the puffy white where Steel Lining would finally just get out of her life. Her wings shuddered as she wrapped herself in them. It took a long time for the mare to build up the courage and open her eyes. When she looked in the mirror, she saw puffy magenta eyes and wet cheeks beneath a rainbow mane staring back.

Celestia's brow rose when she found six ponies waiting for her outside the meeting room. She had only been expecting five. Three Royal Guards, whose names she did not know. Thunder Crack and White Flag. And, finally, with tears on her cheeks and fire in her eyes, Twilight Sparkle. When the young mare did not look up to greet her mentor, Celestia's heart screamed in agony. Her face showed none of it. She pulled herself up on the hallway bench beside her faithful student, making do with the vastly undersized cushion.

"Twilight Sparkle, what's wrong?"

"You don't know?" Twilight had no means to control the venom in her words. Yet despite her grief and rage, she recognized her action. "I'm sorry, Princess, I–"

Celestia didn't truly need to hear any more to understand. As she wrapped a wing around Twilight's shoulders, her eyes drifted up and away to another mare. There weren't many ponies in Equestria who could stand up under the Princess' incriminating glare, yet White Flag did not shrink or hesitate. The royal blue unicorn's only reaction was a brief nod. Yes, I told her, the action said. No explanation was given, and Celestia doubted any was truly necessary.

"Is it true?" The words were muffled by Celestia's feathers, and yet the soft rumbling of their speaker shook through her bones. "Is he really...?"

Celestia afforded herself a slow breath. It wasn't used to bolster her courage, but rather to spare her a moment to think. Did she tell the comfortable lie, or the painful truth? How would Twilight react? Would she ever earn her student's forgiveness?

"I do not know." Despite the strain in her heart, her tongue let the words travel free easily.

"What do you mean?" Even with the brief, and rather unpleasant sound of Twilight sniffling to clear her nose, Celestia could hear the tone of curiosity. "I thought you always knew when somepony died."

The question filled the princess with dread. Her eyes flicked away for a moment, coming to rest on the face of Thunder Crack. As dense as the stallion was, she still had to appreciate the little nod he offered her. "Twilight, what I learn of is when somepony's soul is ready to pass on, and requires judgement. But if..." Even Celestia could not keep herself from the harsh intake of air that marked hesitation as she set her hooves down a dark road. "There are evil forms of magic in this world, Twilight, which can stop somepony from moving on."

Celestia jerked as Twilight buried her face further into her mentor's coat. The prod of the mare's horn had a harsh force behind it. "Necromancy. You mean Shining..."

"As I said, Twilight, I do not know. However," Celestia stopped not for her own sake, but to open her wing and look down at Twilight. Though a grown mare, the unicorn was clutched to Celestia's side like a foal. Everypony deserved somepony who could hold them. Celestia wished she had somepony like that. "However, Twilight, your brother would not be the first of Masquerade's victims to suffer that fate."

"No..." Twilight whispered.

"Five months ago, Masquerade killed Lieutenant Morning Star. You remember him, Twilight?"

Twilight nodded, her coat sliding against Celestia's. "He used to sneak me cookies from the palace kitchens."

Celestia rubbed a wing along Twilight's back. "I was unable to send his soul on to the Summer Lands until we caught Masquerade. I had to set him free myself."

"So Shining's gone?" Twilight finally pulled herself away from her mentor, and looked up into vibrant purple eyes. Her tears had dried, and Celestia saw in their place something primal and potent. Something which scared her.

"Captain Ink did not find a body, Twilight. Only the helmet of Platinum's Ward."

Twilight Sparkle pulled away from Celestia. "Then I have to go."

"Absolutely not." They were the first words White Flag had uttered since her harsh revelation.

"Captain Flag, I do not recall asking for your input." Celestia had expected the blunt reprisal to be the end of the issue.

She was wrong. "As Captain of the Royal Guard, my entire purpose is to protect Equestria's citizens. I cannot condone one of the Bearers of Harmony hunting after the assassin. She doesn't know the first thing about battle."

Twilight's sorrow finally lost the ongoing battle with her rising anger. "I'm a stronger mage than you."

"Perhaps," Flag answered. "But you can't learn to fight with your nose in a book. This isn't a horn-measuring contest, and the Element of Magic won't do you any good when the assassin walks up wearing your brother's face and snaps your neck."

"Captain, you are dismissed." The words hung in the still air as both Twilight and Flag suddenly jerked their attentions toward Celestia. The alicorn had spread her wings, gathering the attention of not only the two feuding unicorns, but the other present guardsponies. "You have duties. Go. Now."

Celestia waited until the guardspony was gone before returning her attention to her student.

"Princess, I need to do this."

"Why?"

Twilight's nose wrinkled and her ears flattened. "You of all ponies should understand exactly why, Princess."

"I do," Celestia answered, maintaining her usual calm. "But I need to understand what you intend, Twilight Sparkle. There are ponies in this world who embrace the anger you're feeling right now. Ponies who do not hesitate to kill for revenge, or for what they perceive to be justice. I know you've met some of them. I don't want you to fall to that level. So tell me what you intend, Twilight Sparkle."

"I'm going to go find out what happened. I'm going to find Shiny, or I'm going to..."

"To find Masquerade? To fight her? To kill her?" Celestia proposed the simple thoughts without any incrimination, yet Twilight wilted regardless.

"I have to do something, Princess. That mare... I hate her so much." The last phrase saw Twilight's head twist toward the floor, diverting her head to the side and her eyes away from the judging gaze of her mentor.

Celestia's wing caught Twilight's chin, and brought their eyes together again. Rather than blame or disappointment, the young unicorn found understanding.

"Hate is a powerful emotion, Twilight Sparkle, but I will not do you the injustice of pretending that you have no place feeling it. I share your sentiment. What I want from you, Twilight, is a promise. You must not let that hate consume you. Though her words were harsh, and perhaps even cruel, White Flag spoke the truth. You are not a match for Masquerade. Not because of a weakness of your magic, but because she is a killer and you are a caring mare."

"I... I think I understand, Princess."

"I knew you would, Twilight. You learn so fast. But this is not merely a lesson of your mind. Do you give me your word, Twilight? Will you control yourself, and remember your safety over hatred and revenge?"

It took Twilight a moment to bring the words forth. "Yes, Princess. I promise."

"Then I will allow you to go, Twilight. Shining Armor was on his way to Stalliongrad. I had believed he was with Red Ink, but Masquerade had in fact taken on his form. I've sent the real Captain Ink on their trail. He found your brother's helmet on the ice of the East Channel, under the Dragon-Fire Bridge near Trotsylvania. Masquerade blew out the bridge and the trains have stopped, so I fear you may require another way across."

"I'm sure I can figure something out, Princess."

"Remember the Windigoes' Curse. It won't be safe to travel the tundra on hoof, though I'm sure you know that from your former trip to that Domain." Celestia paused, closing her eyes in thought. It did not take long for her to find her words. "I'll have Thunder Crack go with you, but that isn't to say you should take any risks. If you find yourself in danger from bandits or marauding dragons, or if you find a sign of Masquerade, you are to go directly to Stalliongrad. Luna may still be there, but even if she is not, Tsar Eye will keep you safe until you can return to Canterlot. I would advise you not to bring any of your friends from Ponyville, but I do forbid you from bringing Spike. Many of the ponies in the Domain of Stalliongrad still have strong feelings about dragons."

"Of course, Princess."

"With respect," a rather gruff voice cut in. Celestia's focus shot his direction, and Thunder Crack visibly tensed. "I am the last Honor Guard in Canterlot, Princess, now that Captain Flag is Royal Guard. And I'm absolutely not leaving your protection to these amateurs." The respect in his voice disappeared in record speed as his wing gestured to the other three ponies present. "Perhaps you should send a few of them with Miss Sparkle instead."

Celestia could have very easily overpowered the stallion's sentiments with another direct command, but her words were stopped by yet another interruption.

"Uh, Princess, if you'd allow it... I'd like permission to accompany Twilight. I helped Shin–" the powdered white pegasus mare in gold armor hesitated, coughing awkwardly into a hoof. "That is, Captain Armor, when we were after Masquerade. I might be able to help here. And I can keep an eye on Twilight too."

Celestia's first instinct had been to simply deny the mare outright, but the words held no small degree of logic. "You make a fair argument, guardspony. What is your name?"

"Private Going Solo, your Highness."

"You're sure you're alright, Rainbow?"

"I told you I'm fine, like, seven times already. I just hit my head, Papa. Maybe if you didn't use such dense cloudstone for the countertop, I would have just gone through it."

Silver Lining smiled. "It's marble-grade, Rainbow. I'm not going to make a countertop out of sub-talc cloud."

The discussion was one of many that Dead Reckoning had been privy to in the company of the cloud architect and his granddaughter. For all the focus Rainbow had put on her knowledge of stunt flying in the sweaty depths of Zebrica, she certainly seemed able to keep up with Silver Lining's extensive use of professional terminology. As a career soldier, this left Reckoning out of the loop. "What's cloudstone?"

Silver and Rainbow both turned to the injured pegasus with the full-sized machete at his side, staring at him as if he were insane.

"Uh, you're joking, right?"

"Rainbow, not every pegasus grows up in a cloud city." Silver's wing dipped down into the street, scooping up a hoof-sized ball of puffy raw cumulus, topped with a slight layer of snow. The old stallion batted away the ice, and then passed the lump to Reckoning. "You're probably stronger than an old stallion like me. Crush that down as tightly as you can, Reckoning."

The scout stared at the lump sitting in the curve of his wing, contemplating what to do. Without a good second wing, the pegasus adopted a three-legged gait as his left foreleg dedicated itself to attacking the puff of cloud. Slowly but surely, the white puffy mass got harder and denser under his efforts. Curved edges became more jagged and crystalline. With each roll of his hoof, there was less give. The whole process took no more than a minute, in which time nopony really spoke.

Reckoning held out his wing when he couldn't get the mass any smaller. What he held looked rather like a block of chalk, with rough edges and a jagged texture. "Is that cloudstone?"

Silver Lining offered a brief nod as the grabbed the little rock with his own wing. "Yes, that's cloudstone. Just dense cloud that doesn't dissipate with time. It's an awful lot lighter than real stone too, though of course it still isn't solid to non-pegasi. What you've made here is about talc grade. Excellent for a first try, and passable for something made by hoof. Of course, these days, we've got a factory for the stuff, just like everything else." Silver handed the stone back. "You can keep that if you want."

"When you say talc-grade...?"

"Industry term," Silver clarified. "It just means it's about as hard as a chunk of talc you might dig up from the ground. Nowadays, construction usually uses granite-grade stone. Of course, if you're doing interior decorating or making something fancy like that, you want marble-grade."

Reckoning's eye followed Silver Lining's hoof toward a slightly larger than life statue. What looked like polished obsidian took the form of a solid black pegasus with his wings flared and his head held high. The scout couldn't resist the urge to walk up and tap the statue. Sure enough, his hoof found the material as solid as the mightiest of Canterlot's marble spires.

"Is this..." Reckoning bit down on the urge to use his commanding officer's ubiquitous nickname. "...Steel Lining?"

"What?" Rainbow cocked her head with a clearly confused expression on her face.

Silver Lining, in contrast, gave a light chuckle. "Did you think the portrait in my office was of my son? No. They're both of Commander Hurricane. Wasn't the Hearth's Warming Armor a dead giveaway?"

Reckoning forced himself to release an awkward chuckle after the elder pegasus’, accompanied by a shallow shrug. "I guess I didn't really think about it. What's the statue for?"

"It's been an awful long time since I've sat in a history class, to be honest. Do you remember, Rainbow?"

To the surprise of both stallions, Rainbow nodded. "After the whole Hearth's Warming thing, he took a bunch of his pegasi and pushed all of Cloudsdale here, to get away from the storm in Stalliongrad." At the astonished expressions, Rainbow continued. "Reckoning, you remember what Twilight said in the library? I went with her to Sawra-neigh-voo, and we found his journal."

Reckoning rolled his eye, stepping forward to offer Rainbow a harsh whisper. "It's 'Saraneighvo', Dash. And we're sort of in a hurry here."

"Right," Rainbow nodded. "C'mon, Papa, let's get to the smelter. Reckoning really wants to see that."

Misinterpreting her daughter's enthusiasm, Silver nodded. "Well, we're almost there. Don't want to keep your coltfriend waiting."

Reckoning didn't wince at the little tease Silver had offered. He winced when Rainbow did nothing to oppose it.

Their journey was marked by more small talk, but passed at a faster pace. Soon, the trio had reached a rather boxy structure topped by a trio of smokestacks. There wasn't much time for the scout to take in the sight before Silver Lining opened the windowless, industrial-looking doors and gestured inside.

The dominant trait of the room was a staggering and visible heat. It rose in hazy waves from four deep troughs above the floor, which flowed with what looked like blue and white magma. At one end of each trough was a huge bucket, which was slowly in the process of filling with the thick, goopy substances. The other sides of the troughs were attached to huge furnaces. From time to time, a pony in a heavy-looking gray jumpsuit would fly up with a brick of cloudstone the size of a pony's head, and dump it into a smoking hole at the top of the furnace. From there, the flow of molten mass would begin redoubled.

"Here we have it, Reckoning," Silver began. "This is the reason pegasi aren't all thought of as just soldiers anymore."

Reckoning was in a quiet sort of awe. He'd worked skysteel before, burning cloud with his own Empatha, and forging with a stone, or his own hooves. To compare his efforts to the oozing, bubbling blue rivers of cloud was to compare the shock of fur after walking on carpet to a bolt of lightning.

"A long time ago, skysteel was made by smiths. A pony would go out and grab a chunk of natural cloud. Then crush it down into tight, high-grade cloudstone with his bare hooves and wings. After that, it had to be melted and forged." Silver Lining beckoned both Reckoning and his granddaughter to follow as he progressed up a set of stairs near the door, onto a catwalk overlooking the floor of the smelter. "It'd take a few hours or a day to work one brick like the ones the workers are flying into the furnaces into a small sword or a set of shoes. And, please, don't ask me how the furnaces work. It's some crazy magic engineering I'd rather not deal with."

The huge bucket at the end of the first line had filled. A pair of pegasi workers guided a huge gray claw hanging from the ceiling over the bucket. With a loud crack, the claw grabbed the bucket, and lifted it away. Almost immediately, with the grinding of gears, another bucket rose out of the floor to take its place.

Seeing Reckoning's focus, Silver continued. "Most days we're making household goods, or structural supports. But we take orders from the Royal Guard too sometimes. One of those buckets will cast the lining to four hundred suits of armor. The buckets fill at different rates, but that first line is made of stratus clouds. A bucket fills every twenty minutes or so."

"That's a lot of skysteel. What do you do with it all?"

"Well, a lot of it is pretty mundane stuff. Pipes, doorknobs, that sort of thing. We temper in about 10% of actual surface iron, so it grips better for non-pegasi. The skysteel doesn't just go to Pegasus cities. Manehattan's water system is pretty much all skysteel from Cloudsdale. We also did the railroad into Stalliongrad. I have a co-investor there, who's been taking enormous shipments of cumulonimbus steel for some... weather project or something."

"What difference does the kind of cloud make?" Reckoning asked. "I'd always heard skysteel was skysteel, no matter who made it."

"Oh boy," Rainbow muttered under her breath. "Here we go."

Silver Lining beamed. "Oh, you're interested. Alright, well, there are four primary types of clouds. Like I said, we run stratus in the first row. It's stronger than real steel under a continuous burden, and more importantly, even if you put a lot of force on it, it won't actually deform it. That's what we use for all the guard contracts, as well as for most structural work. Sort of 'generic' skysteel, you could say.

"The second trough is cumulus skysteel. It's actually a little heavier than real 'ground steel', and its weaker too, but it has a really useful property. It holds heat really well, and even makes a little bit of its own. It's mostly used for technical jobs, or as a component in some of our alloys. Oh, and it has a pretty bad reaction to unicorn magic, so we try to avoid it in items that ponies are going to be regularly handling."

Silver paused for a short breath, though he had clearly lost none of his enthusiasm. "That's cirrus in the third trough. It's pretty much the opposite of cumulus. It’s vastly lighter than real metal, only a little weaker, and it has a natural chill. It makes a fantastic condenser for water systems, and it's also great for projects that would just be too heavy with anything else." The old pegasus smiled at the interest on Reckoning's face, as he walked along the catwalk to observe the final trough.

"Last but not least, this is our Nimbus line. It's probably the strangest type of skysteel, and for a long time, we didn't use it for much except as an alloy. The stuff is heavier than a mountain, even if it is just about as tough. Of course, that was before we started working with electricity. Nowadays, we make wiring and light-bulb bases, and things like that out of pure nimbus. It's a great conductor, and if you let it sit, it'll hold charge forever."

"It's what old guardspony shoes are made of," Reckoning noted with a tone of discovery. "I always wondered how that worked."

Silver Lining cocked his head. "I'm not sure I follow."

Reckoning had to remind himself not to give away his age as he continued. "When my dad was in the guard, during the war with the griffons, he said they used to issue shoes that would hold a bolt of lightning. That way, you didn't have to bring live thunderheads into battle. Of course, they were only good for one shot, and even then they weren't usually strong enough to kill like real lightning; just a good shock, or a stun."

A shrug was Silver's answer. "I've never heard of it before, but it's certainly possible. Now, follow me and I'll show you the forge room."

As the ponies progressed, another question came up in Reckoning's mind. "You said you had a co-investor. Do you own this place, Mr. Lining?"

"In a manner of speaking," Silver answered. "I have controlling stock here. I leave the actual management to ponies who know what they're doing; it was just a business investment. Lets me buy skysteel for my projects for cheap."

"So you own the skysteel foundry, an architecture firm, and you have a seat on the Cloudsdale council? You certainly keep busy."

Silver chuckled. "Less than you'd think. I was fortunate enough to have my architecture projects give me a fair deal of success. I might own this place, and the cloud factory, and the hospital, but I don't play much of a hoof in any of them. They just give me the money to keep doing what I love. Well, that, and pay some rather expensive property taxes." Silver shot a teasing grin in Rainbow's direction.

"Huh?" Rainbow asked. The mare had been absorbed watching the ponies in the big room fly around with their various tools.

"I said your house in Ponyville is the most expensive building in the city."

"Well, it is a Silver Lining," Rainbow answered with a smile. "Still the most awesome birthday present ever, since we're talking about it."

Silver laughed. "At least it went over better than the last time I bought you a building for your birthday." Turning back to Dead Reckoning, the older pegasus took a moment to tease a bristle of his mustache away from his mouth. "Anyway, I guess the point is that the only reason I'm still working at all is because it's what I love to do." He twisted to the side to show off a cutie mark of a rather plain cloud with an almost painfully vibrant and reflective silver outline. "Just like you must love to... stab maps?"

Reckoning was thoroughly stumped by the comment. "What do you mean?"

"Your cutie mark." Silver's explanation was accompanied by a drop in the levity of his speech. "You've got a map back there, with a sword or a knife or something through the X. Unless I'm mistaken, you've had it since you got to Cloudsdale."

Reckoning twisted around, confused. There wasn't a dagger on his map. That was ridiculous. It was just a map, with a big...

...knife? No, not really. It was his machete; the same one hanging from his side, buried almost up to its hilt in the parchment. But that was impossible, wasn't it? Cutie marks didn't change.

"Reckoning doesn't have a knife on his mark." Rainbow trotted over toward her partner as if to prove her point. When she came into view of the mark, her eyes flared slightly with surprise.

Reckoning knew he needed to act quickly, and his mind raced for the right words. "It's... not a knife."

"Huh?"

Reckoning turned toward Rainbow, hoping that the eye patch on Silver Lining's side would conceal the painfully obvious wink he shot her. "It's a trowel, right? I know I had to explain that to you too, Rainbow. It does kinda look like a knife, I guess. That's why I was confused."

"Uh... oh, yeah. That's totally it. Right. Sorry."

The only thing that kept Reckoning from burying his face in his hoof at Rainbow's pathetic part in the charade was that it would have made things even more obvious to Silver. Said pegasus spared the two younger ponies a confused look, but ultimately seemed to discard his question. "Right, well, I guess that makes sense." His tone told an entirely different story. "Let's get going, shall we?"

The 'forge room' was really just a glorified store-room, holding shelves upon shelves of large cast-cumulus mold trays. In a workspace at the center of the room, a few workers were pouring molten cloud from one of the huge buckets into a mold for inch-wide pipe segments. On the far wall, three solid steel doors with tiny slits for windows concealed some further area.

"I guess there isn't a ton to see here, but at the same time, this is where things really get made. The molds get filled, and then set aside to cool, with some more magic that I don't really understand. Once they're done, you get skysteel."

Reckoning began to scan the walls for molds of swords, and shoes, and armor. As his attention was occupied, Rainbow spoke up. "Papa, how'd you make the see-through doors to your office?"

Silver Lining grinned. "You noticed. Good for you. Well, it was actually kind of a stupid accident, really. I was up on the catwalk with a cup of water in my wing last winter. One of the other ponies bumped me, and I spilled it in the cumulus feed. Of course, it cooled off the cloud, so we had to throw a big chunk out. The plan was to toss it out in the snow, and then re-melt the whole thing once it was a big slab. Except when the workers went out to haul the slab back in, there were all these glassy spots in it. Turns out, if you make skysteel with pure condensed steam instead of cloudstone, it comes out transparent. We don't really have a production line for anything like that up yet. I made the office doors over the stove at home."

"What's through those doors?" Reckoning interrupted. He'd found the right molds, but it was fairly obvious that asking to cast an entire set of forty custom swords would raise some questions that would be better off avoided.

Silver glanced toward where Reckoning was pointing, at the three sturdy doors on the far wall. "Huh, those? Leftovers from back when this place used to employ actual smiths to work the skysteel by hoof. Some artists rent the rooms from time to time. Otherwise, they're just for show."

Reckoning pondered on that for a moment as his eyes wandered the room. Finally, he settled once more on Mr. Lining. "Would you mind if I... played with one, for a little?"

There wasn't even a moment's pause before Silver Lining answered. "I honestly don't see why not. Help yourself." Silver turned to Rainbow. "I'm going to head back to the office for now. I can make up the guest room for your friend, if you'd like."

"Nah, it's–"

"That'd be great, actually." Reckoning put on a disarming grin, only to find himself feeling as though Silver could see straight through it. "If you don't mind, that is."

"Of course not." The architect matched Reckoning's grin, and then turned to be on his way. "I'll see you both tonight then. Be careful in there."

Rainbow watched her grandfather walk out of the room. By the time she had turned around, Reckoning was already sliding through the door of one of the little rooms. Her wings didn't leave her far behind, even given his lead. She waited until the door had shut behind her to speak up.

"What the hay was that?"

"What?

"Lying to Papa! Now he's going to have his feelings hurt when we don't stay tonight."

For what seemed the umpteenth time that day, Reckoning's sole eyeball spun in its socket. "Write him a note, Rainbow. Tell him we had something come up. Tartarus, he'll probably believe you if you tell him Princess Celestia summoned us. The point is, it got him out of our manes right now." Reckoning tore his eyes away from Rainbow and looked around the room.

A central anvil sat next to a small fire which radiated Empatha in some form. A rack on the wall held tongs, a set of various hammers, and some other miscellaneous tools. Five swirling vats occupied the opposite wall, bearing metal labels. Cumulus, Stratus, Nimbus, Cirrus, and Steel. The air was sweltering, and it smelled vile and poisonous. A faint blue glow dominated the harsh atmosphere.

Reckoning drew his machete from its sheathe and set it on top of the anvil. "On the topic of lying, Rainbow, you could use some practice. You're awful."

"Well, thanks," Rainbow grumbled. "Not like Honesty is an Element of Harmony, or anything."

The stallion grabbed the tongs from the rack, and slid the harness at one end of the handle onto his neck. "No, but it's an important skill when you're keeping your head down like we are. Just like how I pretended I didn't know about skysteel, to get your grandpa to trust me. The Commander taught me that."

"Yeah. No surprises there."

The pain in Rainbow's tone got Reckoning to stop his work. "You don't need to stick your neck out for him, if that's really how you feel. On and I can get this done."

"I'm not sticking my neck out for him." Rainbow got up, walked over, and sat down beside Reckoning. He could feel the warmth of her coat against his own. "I'm doing it for you."

As Reckoning went about forging three ponies worth of gear, it was his shame that he never built up the willpower to push her away.

Luna sat alongside Foresight, feeling a surprising warmth on her coat given the actively falling snow that surrounded the pair. Without the enchantment, the wait for Krenn's so-called 'revelation' would have been unbearable. Instead, for the princess, it was a pleasant experience to look out on the landscape that had so long ago been called her home.

"So you mean to tell us... rather, to tell me, that this spell you hath devised will end the curse that has held this Domain for the past eight millennia? I must find such a declaration hard to believe. Clover was certain her spell would succeed as well, and she was a greater mage than thou."

Foresight shook his head, adjusting his glasses slightly. "I can't claim to have devised the spell. In honesty, it would be more accurate to say that I cobbled it together from dozens of other spells by far more powerful ponies. Some of them more reputable than others."

"You imply there is dark magic in your work?"

Foresight rolled his eyes. "I've never been much of one to believe in magic being inherently good or evil on its own. Certainly there are magical spirits that can be malevolent, but if what I heard of Discord is true, even they can be redeemed. Regardless, my point is that some of the spells I cobbled together were originally made by some less-than-decent ponies, for equally indecent original purposes." The unicorn gestured off the towering castle turret the pair were sitting on and down to the city of Stalliongrad proper. Amidst a mostly level skyline of low wide buildings of brick and stone, a half-finished black spire stretched up a dozen stories into the sky, covered in scaffolding and swarming with ponies who looked the part of ants from such a distance.

"That is the 'Obelisk' you speak of?"

"I honestly couldn't come up with much of a better name for it," Foresight admitted. "It's based on King Sombra's spire in the Crystal Empire. Without access to a single pure block of crystal or the magic of that place, though, I had to improvise."

"It must be expensive."

"Up until a few years ago, it would have been unfeasible," Foresight agreed. "Stalliongrad had always been the poorest of the Domains of Equestria, even before Frostbite burnt away the treasury on his paranoia against Lord Krenn. Fortunately, with the trains and some economic management, I've been able to turn that around. The ponies have jobs again, and the Domain has money. I've invested quite a bit of it in the skysteel smelters that have given us the railroad, and now so many raw supplies for my project."

"So much work must go into such a structure. The open scaffolding must be dangerous, with the wind."

"I have tried to restrict the project to pegasi, but Father stubbornly refuses me. He insists such 'discrimination' would destroy the equality he's trying to create. It's moronic."

"Perhaps," Luna commented. "But his work seems noble nonetheless."

"In my experience, nobility has to be tempered with realism, or it does us no good. Not when earth ponies and unicorns fall off the scaffolding. In fact–"

The conversation was interrupted when the door that opened onto the turreted tower creaked open. The clop of hooves against stone marked the entrance of Tsar Eye, Mirror Image, and Marathon. While the Tsar was his usual even-faced and controlled self, the two Honor Guard ponies were both obviously fatigued from what must have been a long night. Luna could not blame Mirror Image, who had stayed at her door through the whole night. As for the diplomat, if her guilt over lying to Krenn had kept her from sleep, she deserved the feeling.

The ponies were followed shortly by Krenn's bodyguards, Fire and Ice, whose clawed feet scratched in an even but harsh rhythm. The draconic ruler himself was the last to step forward into the open air. Luna observed his limping gait, and the heavy clunk of metal that accompanied his every step. But there was another noise as well. A pained, off-beat tone that pervaded the air far more notably than its volume gave it any place to.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Luna's ears folded back at the sound of a beating heart. Foresight watched her face develop into a shallow scowl, and he felt the mana building in her body. Concerned, he turned his attention to the source of the noise.

"I take it you found what you were seeking, Krenn?" Watchful Eye asked with the height of respect in his tone.

"Yes," Krenn responded, holding up a black bag of something that resembled leather, if not raw flesh. It twitched, beating like a living heart in time with the audible noise.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

"It has been twenty years since I–"

"Krenn, no!" Luna's shout echoed in the open air with magical potency. Stones crumbled from the tower at the sheer volume.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

"This is not what you believe it to be, Luna."

"I know exactly what that is, Krenn. Whatever slight you perceive; whatever pride or jealousy has consumed thee, I pray thou listen to reason. It isn't worth throwing yourself away over!"

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Krenn's foot shifted, bringing his center of balance directly beneath his towering body. The hand clutching his steel staff shifted to a lower, and far tighter grip. "Luna, you have no idea what you're speaking of. Do not get involved here." With those words, the dragon's claws moved to the thin drawstring holding the bag shut.

Luna lunged, wings spread, horn glowing and eyes focused. Blue lighting flew from her, intended for the dragon ruler.

Krenn's wing spread over his body, and it in turn was sheathed in a veil of black flame. All present recoiled at the sheer heat, as Luna's lighting spread across the magical flame and dissipated harmlessly into the air.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

The dragon took the next move, before Luna could even think. Reaching around the neck of his bag, Krenn clasped his staff in two hands as one might a club or a bat. The torsion of his upper body in bringing his wing to bear gave him a frightfully potent wind-up. The dense, lean muscles of his arms twisted beneath his scales as he brought the long metal shaft to bear. It whistled in the wind, moving faster than an arrow, and with more strength than a meteor. Its head found Luna's cheek, unprepared for the blow.

The battle ended then and there in that single blow. The side of the alicorn's jaw caved in with an audible series of cracks. Her wings crumpled and her eyes shut as she was thrown a dozen feet aside. The force sent her spiraling over the edge of the tower, into a sharp dive.

What followed was chaos.

Marathon shouted a primal call as she dove after her ruler. Tsar Eye recoiled, stunned at the sudden display of violence. While clearly unprepared as well, Foresight ignited his horn, ready to cast if necessary, and kept his eyes on the trio of dragons.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Mirror Image focused his attention first on the red bodyguard, Fire. A pale blue aura surrounded the dragon's head. The telekinesis lasted only a second, but in that time, the dragon's head was turned around to face its own tail. The noise that issued forth was more sickening than what had happened to the princess.

"Stop!" Foresight shouted, focusing a minor illusion of pain to distract Mirror Image before he killed another dragon. The stallion's eyes went crossed as visible bolts of white mana bounced between the forked crack in his horn. He fell to the ground unconscious a moment later, his forehead literally smoking beneath his mane.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

Krenn offered a short nod to Foresight, before limping to the edge of the turret. His hand was again wreathed in black fire, and his eyes closed as he focused. It wasn't long after that Luna's shaking, bloodied body came up over the edge, followed shortly by Marathon.

"You nearly killed her!" Marathon shouted.

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

"No, I merely incapacitated her," Krenn answered. "Her Endura will heal that wound in a matter of hours. A day, at most. Her consciousness will return more shortly still." Krenn twirled his metal staff, before bringing it down once more as a sort of crutch. His weight shifted to his usual, more slouched posture. "For all her years of proper speech and rule, she is still our rash, impulsive little sister it seems." Despite the reminiscence in his words, the dragon was clearly not happy. "A millennia ago, this bag held pure darkness. She gave me no opportunity to explain myself, and now Fire is dead."

Thump, thump. Thump, thump.

There followed a silence, punctuated only by the bag's heartbeat, as Watchful Eye and Foresight navigated across the top of the tower to stand beside Marathon over the unconscious bodies of Luna and Mirror Image. Opposite them, Krenn opened his mouth and exposed a forked purple tongue in the direction of his dead bodyguard. The same black fire that marked magic on his hands flew from his mouth, consuming the corpse entirely. Foresight noted a swirl of sparkling white ashes that flitted off into the snowy air, as a charred black patch of nothingness took the place of the corpse.

When the silence had grown not only awkward, but also dangerous, Tsar Eye spoke up. "What is in the bag now? Why did you want to show us it?"

"The aftereffects of an ancient curse on my species. My chance to redeem my kind, and thus my most precious possession. My hoard." Krenn opened the bag. The heartbeat stopped.

It could be said that the roar that followed could wake the dead. It was accompanied by fire and rage, and words in the draconic tongue so ancient that even the surviving dragon bodyguard, Ice, did not comprehend them. And while no true corpses rose in the course of the sound, Luna's eyes flitted open.

Consumed in rage, Krenn did not notice. His head was tilted toward the sky, sending fireballs of pure darkness into the perpetual storm. As if being challenged, or perhaps feeding on his fury, the sky responded with a fierce wind and a denser fall of snow. With Foresight's enchantment down, the ponies on the roof shivered and huddled together against the wind.

"What... what have you done, Krenn?" Despite her pain, and the hesitation in her voice, Luna called out with a volume and an authority that could not be ignored. Foresight lent her both a telekinetic aid and a shoulder as she struggled to her hooves. "I tried to warn you, but darkness–"

The dragon's howl became words understood by all. "You want to speak to me of darkness, Luna? Why not ask your sister! She is the reason Discord's curse still haunts my race, and then she sends him across my borders freely to taunt me! I am not the one who has given in to hatred here!" Krenn threw the bag at Luna's feet, and she gazed into its depth. An abyss stared back at her, dark and infinite, but most of all, empty.

Krenn's anger was not spent, as he limped forward and hunched down to look the mare in the eyes. "I give the race of ponies six months. I will have what is mine, and the Draconequus as well. Give them to me, or I will burn Equestria myself, until your race is nothing but ashes and memories." His head flicked, as a snake striking at its dinner, to point in Watchful Eye's direction. "The lands we spoke of are mine as of this moment. If my kind find ponies there, they will eat well. If this bothers you, take it up with your sun princess. She is the villain of this story." The dragon limped back to his surviving bodyguard.

"Please, Lord Krenn," Marathon spoke up. "There must be something we can–"

It was not Krenn himself, but his bodyguard, Ice, who interrupted. "Pegasus wings were once a delicacy for dragons. If you would like me to have the chance to sample their flavor, I suggest you continue. Krenn has spoken, and his word is fact."

Before anything more could be said, black flames consumed both reptiles. In a dark flash, the pair were gone. Only a blackened stain remained on the stone.

Almost immediately, Marathon turned to the Tsar. "Get an infirmary room ready for–"

"We are fine," Luna interrupted, rubbing her jaw. "Though Krenn is quite strong. As for Officer Image, he requires only sleep."

"Princess, that blow would have decapitated most ponies." Foresight's observation echoed the still bloody open wounds on Luna's cheek. "I'm amazed you survived at all, whatever Krenn said."

"Clearly, we are not most ponies." Luna's words were not so much prideful as simply marked by irritation. "We have had one thousand years of practice honing our skill in battle, including refining the way our body heals. Our healing, our... regeneration is potent. Perhaps our face will not be that which inspires the hearts of artists for some few days, but our jaw functions, our eye sees, and our mind is unharmed. We could likely have fought Krenn to a standstill, were we not taken by surprise."

"Was it truly wise to fight him at all, Princess Luna?" Tsar Eye's voice was restrained, but the tone of condemnation was obvious in it nonetheless.

The princess seemed not to notice his qualm with her action as she offered what sufficed for an explanation. "Had you known what we know of that bag, you would have understood. One thousand years ago, we..." Luna closed her eyes and gave a quick shiver. "I sought out that bag. It was to be my solution to the jealousy I held for my sister. One might say that bag contained Nightmare Moon."

Nopony was exactly sure what to say in response. It was Foresight who had the cunning idea to get the group of ponies out of the rapidly worsening blizzard. His horn held open the door back into the castle, and also levitated the unconscious form of Mirror Image into the castle. To his surprise, the load became much lighter halfway down the spiral staircase. "Princess, don't–"

Tsar Eye strained with the red glow of his horn, which trailed a wisp of sparking smoke as it struggled to lift the unconscious body. "I have him, Foresight."

"Father, your magic isn't nearly strong enough to carry him."

"It isn't a... long journey. You need to... deal with more important things. Get me a stage. I will need to address... the city." Beads of sweat built on Watchful Eye's brow. "Then you must go to the train station. If Princess... Luna's message is true, your brother will be arriving soon. We can't... have an incident. Not today."

Without a word, Foresight's horn ignited. The distinct *pop* of teleportation marked his disappearance. In the absence of his son, the Tsar continued to struggle with the unconscious pony until a sparkling, night-sky aura assisted his own.

"I am well enough to aid you, Tsar Eye, whatever concerns your son might have for me." Luna's voice was firm as she walked up beside him. "May I be of assistance in some other way as well? Perhaps I could help you address your subjects."

"Unless you speak Stalliongradi, I fear showing yourself with a bruised face will only create greater struggles."

"Very well." Luna took a deep breath, as her minor regret betrayed how little she understood of dealing with the masses of ponies who were her subjects. "Tonight, when the moon rises, I shall visit my sister's dreams. Come tomorrow, we should have an explanation for Krenn's demands."

"I hope so, Princess," Watchful Eye answered. "I remember the wars. I truly hope so."

XVIII - The Mare Who Cried Wolf

XVIII

The Mare Who Cried Wolf

Twilight’s breath caught in her throat as sweat dripped down her brow. Her body shivered from the stress of the spell she never thought she’d need to use outside her studies. She felt Serp’s wing wrapped around her horn, and stared into the trailing feathers that blocked the center of her vision, containing the purple light of her magic, she could only see the vargr’s feet as it loped down the stony tunnel.

A spark of magic twinged in the mare’s horn; a small crack from holding a hard spell too long. Twilight was too experienced a mage to lose the spell, but the brief pain did send a little gasp of discomfort out from between her teeth.

The vargr stopped.

Somewhere behind Twilight, Going Solo adjusted the single bladed shoe on her right hoof. The unicorn reached a hoof of her own over slowly, forcing the weapon back.

The vargr stepped toward them. Its paws shifted the loose pebbles on the ground and left pawprints in the frost that seemed to cling to every stone surface. Twilight held her breath.

Two steps from discovering their hiding crag, the creature stopped again. A growl built in its throat, and the steamy clouds from its hot breath slipped around the stone walls and into Twilight’s view.

Gently, Solo gestured to her bladed hoof. Twilight shook her head twice, before biting down on her tongue to suppress the pain that the motion left in her horn. Her spell faded briefly, and it took a new surge of magic to keep the illusion alive.

In that moment of failure, the creature sniffed once. From that one simple breath, Going Solo decided she couldn’t wait any longer.

The creature’s claws were fast enough to draw blood from the pegasus’ side, but the shallow lines he drew came nowhere close to the speed he would have needed to stop her. The mare’s bladed shoe dug into his throat until it found spine on the other side. With a bloody gurgle and a painful wheeze, the creature’s pain overwhelmed its consciousness. And in those mere two seconds, Twilight Sparkle failed to suppress her gasp.

“Should have done that in the first place,” Solo muttered, wiping her hoof on the creature’s coat. “Twilight, are you okay?”

“You just… you killed it.”

“I didn’t hear you freak out when he did it,” Solo answered, gesturing in Serp’s direction. The three-legged pegasus gave Solo an encouraging, if sheepish smile. Unfortunately, given that his teeth had been filed to points, it came across as predatory.

Twilight gestured with a hoof down the hall. “Well, now they’re going to smell the blood.”

“Hide it with your spell,” Solo said, as if the solution were obvious. “Like we were doing here.”

“It isn’t an easy spell, and I’m not good enough of an illusionist to conceal something that smells that bad.” Twilight took two quick breaths. “Look, we’re running out of time. Let’s just get moving.”

Two of the three ponies set to wing in the narrow hallways, and Twilight’s out-of-shape sprinting struggled to keep up with them. She continued around dark corners and past sheer mined walls, hoping desperately that this new passage would hold the key to their safe escape. She rounded a corner, imagining the sight of snow on the other side.

A wing wrapped over Twilight’s chest, holding her a good three strides away from a crag in their path.

“Another dead end?” The unicorn’s tone of defeat echoed the emotions of her two companions. Her ears sagged, and her hind legs seemed to fall out from under her. “Okay, let me think… There’s the passage we gave up on earlier because it was Vargr-carved, and there’s the main mine-shaft.”

“Мы должны пробиться через завалы.” When Serp saw the two mares stare at him in confusion, he ripped a quill out of his wing and thrust the end into the stump of his shoulder. Its tip bloodied enough to write, he tossed it toward Twilight.

“Doesn’t that hurt?” Twilight asked mere moments after finishing her spell.

“How about I bite one of your legs off? Then you can ask me if getting stabbed with a quill hurts,” the pegasus answered harshly. “We should go back to the rubble room, and just blast our way out.”

Twilight shook her head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, except as a last resort. It would make too much noise, and since the hallway caved in already, it’s probably unstable. We might just bring the roof down on ourselves. Plus we don’t even know what’s on the other side.”

“So what do you propose?” Solo wondered aloud. “We go down in the mineshaft you found? You heard all those pickaxes, right?”

“I heard them. But I don’t know what other option we have; that’s the way they brought us in, and it doesn’t look like there’s another way out.” Twilight watched Solo swallow hard, but the pegasus mare had nothing to say in reply. She turned to Serp.

The Stalliongradian shrugged. “You’re the genius here. Blood Stroke would have my kids for letting you two down here.”

“Kids?” Twilight’s brow rose as she took the first steps back down the tunnel. “You’ve got kids, Serp?”

“Probably,” the guardspony replied in a hoarse whisper. Its lack of volume came across from the translated voice from Twilight’s spell. “Never met ‘em.”

“He didn’t mean kids, Twilight.” Solo waited to roll her eyes until she had Twilight’s attention. Then she rubbed her hind legs together in an unmistakable motion.

Serp let a quiet chuckle slip between his filed teeth, though his eyes remained focused, glaring into the darkness ahead and jumping from wall to wall with every step. “No, I did mean children, Canterlot pony. Do you not hear the rumors about Blood Stroke in Canterlot? Haven’t you heard about Resistant?”

“I don’t know that name… Should I?”

“He means Soldier On,” Twilight explained. “The mare we met in Ponyville.”

For just a moment, Serp’s shock broke through his focus. “You met Resistant, and you’re still alive? I guess I didn’t give you enough credit, Canterlot.” He nodded briefly in Solo’s direction. “Well, Resistant hired that hit-mare, Dress-Up Party or whatever her name is, to kill Blood Stroke’s brother. Blood Stroke lost it. He―”

“I don’t think this is the time for stories,” Twilight interrupted, her expression taking a turn for the worse. “Serp, keep a close eye ahead, and if we make it out of Onyx Ridge, you can tell us whatever it is you think we need to know.”

From there, the trio walked in silence, listening to the hisses of breath that seemed to lie in wait around every corner, and the distant echo of hundreds of pickaxes rising and falling into the onyx that gave the fortress its name. Their hooves edged around the corpse of the vargr who had nearly caught them, still lying unceremoniously in the center of the tunnel as his blood drew rivulets through the cracks in the rough stone floor. Either the other vargr hadn’t noticed his absence, or they simply didn’t care, it seemed.

As the sound of pickaxes grew louder, Twilight gestured a hoof toward the left wall of the tunnel. Solo and Serp each extended a wing to touch the stone, and then Twilight let the light on the tip of her horn go out. The darkness consumed them immediately. Only the chill of the stone and the rhythm of the picks guided her path.

Robbed of her light, and feeling the chill of Stalliongradi onyx running up her leg, Twilight felt helpless. With each step, the whispering sound of echoed breath seemed to be just ahead, and she struggled to remind herself that it was most likely her imagination.

The passages seemed to go on forever. Twilight’s right shoulder brushed against cold stone, and she sucked in a gasp, worrying that she’d walked into a dead end. Her hoof pushed forward, and found a solid wall. They hadn’t seen this path on the way in, the mare was sure. Where were they? Had she taken a wrong turn?

Solo’s muzzle bumped against her flank, and Twilight released the small gasp she’d been holding in. It was a subtle noise, but its pitch seemed tuned to echo perfectly the hallways. Little gasps fled down the tunnels, growing distant, but it seemed no less audible.

Solo, Twilight, and Serp waited with bated breath. Twilight felt Solo’s wing wrap over her back. Every thought was spent on waiting.

The strike of picks brought breath back into the ponies’ lungs. Twilight’s hooves moved along the flat surface of the wall, and found where the tunnel continued after a jagged elbow in the stone she hadn’t remembered. But as her hooves continued down the path, the fearful realization that she was only a single loud breath away from the deaths of herself and her companions seemed to tighten her chest and accentuate the icy feeling on her hoof.

After a mere few dozen strides, Twilight’s eyes saw a glimmer of light ahead. The orange glow of what could only be fire flickered on black stone walls, giving the entirely frigid passage a strangely infernal appearance. It reminded Twilight of her trip to Krennotets, though she quickly forced herself to cast the memory of her journey to imprison Discord aside. Her focus was on the path ahead, where the tunnels opened up into a spiraling, vaguely cylindrical pit. Stretching across the open space in the center, at various heights and with no particular ordering, were dozens of rope-and-plank bridges, boards rotting or threads growing worn and tired from the heavy steps of massive wolf-creatures.

Twilight crept up to the lip of the tunnel, where stone gave way to open air and the closest of the rope bridges began. There, she lied down on her belly and tilted her head slowly over the edge, looking down while showing as little of her body to the creatures below as possible.

What she saw nearly stopped her heart. Dozens upon dozens of vargr hacked at the walls with half-rusted picks and heavy hammers. Even more worked with yokes and buckets, hauling misshapen crystals and gems upward across the spiraling path of stairs and rickety bridges.

A hoof pulled back on Twilight’s shoulder, and she turned to find her muzzle mere inches from Serp’s filed teeth. Without saying a word, his wing traced 2 characters in the dust and gravel on the stone tunnel floor.

“Seventy―” The same feathers that had traced the numbers wrapped over Twilight’s face, muffling her continued display of shock. The determination in straining muscles on Serp’s brow seemed an odd contrast to the hopelessness in his eyes. Carefully, he shifted his weight away from the wing on her muzzle, and onto his remaining foreleg. With a nod of his head, he gestured toward the bridge, and then upward. His wing tapped Twilight on the shoulders, pushing her forward toward the bridge. When she hesitated, he flapped his wing once with a quiet forcefulness, dislodging a loose feather. Then his wing twisted, pointing at the offending quill.

Twilight turned back, not to Serp, but Going Solo. Unlike the brutal governor of Saraneighvo, the encouraging nod of the guardsmare offered some shred of confidence. “He’s right,” she whispered. “He’ll have to fly over, so he’ll need to go last.”

Swallowing once as a way to hold down her worries, Twilight placed her hoof onto the first slat of the bridge. The wood groaned, but in a room filled with the clatter of picks on stone, none of the Vargr noticed. Twilight was left to creep slowly forward on the bridge, feeling the old wood shift and groan with her every step. Four steps forward, the wood cracked under her hoof, and she pulled back. The sudden motion left the rope bridge swinging uncomfortably, and Twilight forced herself to look up toward the ceiling to keep her bobbing vision from making her sick.

As the swaying stopped, a glimmer on the ceiling caught her eye. At first, Twilight thought it was a gem or a crystal like the ones the vargr were mining below. A second glance made it clear she was seeing something far more inspiring of hope: ice. She turned back toward Serp and Solo, only to see four wings shuffling her forward. After offering one quick motion of her hoof to point upward with a smile, the unicorn turned her attention back to crossing the bridge.

Two steps later, a wooden slat cracked in half. Twilight eyes widened at the falling pieces of wood; they were aimed straight for a group of mining vargr. For the unicorn, a heartbeat could have been a lifetime. Biting down on her cheek, she forced her horn to light up. The weary appendage protested, but Twilight was too good a mage to fail a spell over a tired horn. Her arcane aura caught the planks a mere dozen feet over the heads of the vargr. With another surge of magic, the planks disappeared in a tiny pop of sparks, reappearing next to Twilight on the bridge.

She sighed in relief as her magic faded. Her hooves set forward on her journey again, and this time they tread with gentle determination. The wood groaned, but it did not crack. In twenty strides, Twilight found herself on the far side of the bridge, steady on solid onyx. She turned back to her companions, and beckoned for them to cross.

As Solo began her crossing, Twilight turned her eyes to the ledge she stood on. To her left, it spiraled down toward another tunnel that surely led to the mining levels. To her right, however, it carved straight upward into the wall. Somewhere, she was sure, it had to rejoin that upper path where she could still see ice clinging to the walls. Her eyes traced the path down into the stone, imagining the likely slope she would be expecting, and the journey back into darkness. Past the mines, however, it seemed likely that there would be fewer of the vargr to fill their paths. Like the diamond dogs of Ponyville, the creatures were notoriously greedy miners; in a busy day, most would be laboring in the pit below her hooves.

An enormous roar of hatred or pain echoed from overhead, startling Twilight into cowering against the solid onyx wall ahead. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Solo lay flat against the bridge slats, just as the echoing of the single noise gave way to the incomprehensible grumblings of the seventy-some vargr miners, who surely had to be looking straight up in that moment. Unable to see them from her hiding place, Twilight turned her focus overhead. Another tunnel leading out of the tall chamber above, devoid of ice or signs of happiness, was instead lit with a vibrant and flickering light. Against the wall, she could see the outline of one of the vargr. It roared again, as its silhouette overlapped with another of the creatures, far larger than the first. Another howl filled the chamber, and the light disappeared.

Everything was quiet for a minute, or perhaps more. The first sound was the clicking of a pickaxe against stone. The next was another. The third was the wood of the bridge groaning as Solo rose to her hooves. With subdued motion, she wiped a wing across her sky blue brow.

Twilight’s heart skipped yet another beat when a burst of flame erupted from the same tunnel, lighting the cavern far more brightly than any of its flickering torches, and unmistakably illuminating the Canterlot guardsmare standing halfway across the rope bridge. Howls and countless words escaped the fang maws of the mining vargr below, but Twilight only needed to hear one. “Пони!”

Pony

“The ice tunnel!” Twilight shouted to Solo. “That’s the way out!” As the roars of the vargr turned to the slap of their paws against stone as they began to climb and run, swarming up like a hive of insects, the unicorn focused her attention and her meager desperate grasp of Stalliongradi toward her other companion. “Serp! Lyod!” Her hoof gestured toward the literal glimmer of icy hope, and her horn gathered its energy. The pegasi spread their wings, and with a groan of protest at the continual strain on her magic, Twilight popped away.

She rarely got sick from teleportation, but the suddenness and the desperation of the spell left Twilight’s gut churning. Below her, what looked more like a thousand giant diamond dogs than the seventy Serp had counted were running up the tunnels and outright climbing the sheer stone of the cavern walls to move toward the ponies. Not three dozen feet to Twilight’s left, the tunnel that had played host to the fireball that began the mess echoed out another roar, and then a voice that Twilight was sure she wouldn’t be forgetting anytime soon.

“Не дайте им сбежать!”

“Was that―?” Solo began, as she landed beside Twilight.

“Fenrir,” Twilight nodded, even as she turned toward the icy tunnel. “We need to go!”

Solo and Twilight were already running by the time Serp landed. Twilight spared him only one glance to ensure he was following before turning her attention back to the path. Roaring and the growing stench of their hunters filled the chilled air of the tunnel, though her eyes paid more attention to the strange clumps of sharp, jagged ice clutching to the walls. At places, the icicles jutted out into the path. At one corner, Twilight felt her shoulder scrape on the ice. The chill seemed unnatural; too cold to be mere ice. Simply from the touch, ice gathered on her coat around the wound.

One of the wolves howled, too close behind. Twilight turned back over her shoulder, just in time to watch Going Solo stab the vargr in the brow with her single bladed shoe. As it howled in pain, Serp spared a motion to stomp on its knee, sending spurs of bone flying free out the back with the crack of a bolt of thunder. Anger turned to agony in the creature’s voice. It kept howling, up until the moment that a burst of flame turned it to ash, ending its suffering.

In the ensuing smoke, the silhouette of a gigantic vargr loomed strong, snarling as its left hand glowed with crimson magic, and tongues of fire licked up its arm. Fenrir didn’t bother taunting the escaped ponies as he had before. Extending his gem-covered hand, the alpha vargr unleashed a burst of flame, intent on consuming all three in a single ‘spell’. Gritting her teeth, Twilight tilted her head forward and focused her horn.

“The most important part of the shield is balance, Twily. It’s only as strong as its weakest point.” Twilight could hear her brother’s lecture in her ear, drowning out the sounds of the pursuing creatures, and even the fiery explosion that extended from Fenrir’s hand. Her magic stuttered once, and she felt a long crack open on her horn. Surreally, she caught her mind wondering how many weeks it would take to heal, instead of worrying about whether or not she would survive the day. Her mind never questioned the strength of the wall of rose mana that stretched to fill the hallway.

Painted in red, Twilight’s eyes closed as she took a moment to catch her breath. Her horn was beyond sore, and it screamed with pain at the force it took to hold back the inferno. She knew she was nearly spent for fast, strong magic. Two more spells, at most, and she would be done. She didn’t have the strength to play with shields.

“Sometimes, the best shield isn’t made of magic.”

“Twilight, what are you doing? Let’s go!” Solo’s hoof grabbed Twilight’s shoulder. The younger mare shrugged off the motion.

“I’ve got a plan,” Twilight answered. “Both of you stand back.”

“You aren’t going to do something dumb, are you?” Solo asked, even as she guided Serp away from the mage.

Twilight didn’t answer. Her focus was on holding the shield up, even as she built up a greater supply of mana in her horn. The pain made her vision blur, and left her hooves feeling unsure and dizzy. When dark spots began to overtake the inferno in her vision, she gritted her teeth and let the spell go.

A blinding burst of rose light shot up into the stone of the ceiling, striking with a piercing noise somewhere between a crunch and a crack. The cave shuddered for only a moment, and then the stones began to fall. Twilight’s shield faltered, but through it, she saw Fenrir give up on his fire as he brought up a blue shield of his own to protect himself from the collapsing tunnel. With a few quick steps backward, Twilight got herself out from beneath the impending cave in, and collapsed onto her side from exhaustion.

“Разъебать его в тартарарам!” Serp growled, his jaw slack.

Going Solo had nearly nothing to say, and so instead rushed over to Twilight’s side. When the unicorn looked her in the eyes and smiled back, Solo placed a wing over her face. “That was insane, Twilight. You saved our lives.”

“Thanks…” Twilight groaned, then stretched out a hoof to try and stand. Solo helped her up with a wing, and soon, the unicorn found herself resting against the guardsmare’s padded vest. “But we still need to get out of here. Let’s get moving.”

The wall of rubble cracked, ever so slightly, and Twilight turned toward it in silent shock. They couldn’t be through that fast; even she couldn’t lift that much stone. What she saw was much more comfortable: in the cracks between the rocks, smoke and an orange glow had begun to show themselves.

“Is he burning his way through?” Solo asked. “Twilight, tell me that isn’t going to work.”

“As long as we don’t sit around here, we’ll be gone by the time they get through.” Twilight turned back to the ice-studded tunnel. She rubbed a hoof across her brow, embracing the way that the passage had stopped shifting. “I think I can walk now, Solo. Thanks.”

As the trio of ponies ventured toward the precious surface, the clumps of spiked and bladed ice seemed to grow more frequent, until at one final corner, Solo had to actually smash a path through a literal wall of jagged blue and white with her bladed shoe. Behind it, the rough onyx gave way to smooth blocks of worked stone. Much of the room was dark, lacking any torches or lights, and the air was crisp with the truly unnatural chill. Twilight’s eyes could only pick out a single glimmer of something in the room.

Lacking her hesitance, Serp limped forward and extended his wing. The flames that covered it weren’t large enough to even bring warmth to the room, but they cast it in some semblance of light. What that light revealed left Twilight staggering backward, her voice suddenly missing from her throat.

The glimmer at the far side of the room came from a massive block of ice, long and rectangular, in the shape of a coffin. Rather than jagged edges, its sides were smooth, too round at the corners and too flat on the sides to have been worked by tools. Inside the coffin, Twilight saw a pony.

Easily sixty years old, the mare had a tan coat, and her mane and tail were striped in the colors of autumn leaves. The wrinkles on her face were tough and rigid, seeming to perfectly match with the long, thin scar down her brow and skipping just barely over her right eye before continuing on her cheek. Plates of skysteel covered her body, and in her hooves, she clutched tightly to a rather thin book, and a sheathed saber.

“What is that?”

“Тут нет выхода,” Serp observed behind her, sounding disappointed and angry.

“There’s no way…” Twilight walked forward, stepping past Serp to approach the mare’s final resting place. “Countess Star must have known… but how could she possibly have…”

Going Solo stepped up past Twilight, placing a hoof on the ice. Almost immediately, she pulled it away with a gasp. “What is this? Who is this, Twilight?”

“It’s Typhoon,” Twilight explained. “Commander Hurricane’s daughter. Countess Star wanted us to bring her body back. I assumed she meant some bones or something, but it would be incredibly unlikely any survived for eight-thousand years. Countess Star must have known Typhoon was here like this. The question is: how?”

“Вы ваще слушаете? Мы, блять, замурованы!” Serp’s growls grew more irritated. Twilight spared him a glance, and found him glaring her way. Between his teeth was a feather, its quill stained with his own blood.

Sighing, Twilight released a quick burst of spells. The crack in the coat of her horn ached like a sore muscle, but she forced through it. Her new translation spell didn’t take a large volume of magic; it merely possessed a complex formula.

Serp wasted no time in voicing his opinion. “Are you two having fun with soldier-mare? There isn’t a way out of this room!”

At first, Twilight didn’t believe him. It didn’t make sense; there had to be a way out. Otherwise, the room wouldn’t have worked stone. It was clearly pony-made, rather than the rough tunnels the vargr preferred. But as her eyes swept the walls, the reality sunk in alongside the chill. The only way out was back the way they had come, toward a cave-in and a small army of monsters.

Solo’s head began to move more and more frenetically with each passing moment. “No… no, that doesn’t make sense. There’s all this ice here. She’s still frozen. It has to be getting down here somehow, right?”

A gentle hoof settled on Solo’s shoulder. Twilight found her words much harder when she saw the desperation in the other mare’s eyes. “Solo… it’s from her. It’s Typhoon’s Empatha.”

“That can’t be right,” Solo countered, almost too quickly. “You said she died thousands of years ago, right? It would have melted―”

“Solo, please…” Twilight forced herself to swallow. “Magic can last a long time. In Canterlot, there are books Starswirl the Bearded enchanted that still have his Arcana in them.”

A shudder from Solo’s shoulder traveled up Twilight’s leg. The pegasus brushed her companion aside with a wing, and half-stumbled forward. Her eyes flicked toward Serp, and then around the room. Finally, she settled on the frozen form of the long dead pegasus within her coffin of ice. With a cry of desperate rage, Solo lifted her shod hoof, and brought her weapon down on the ice. It cracked slightly from the first blow, but its assailant wasn’t done. Again and again, the pegasus brought her hoof down on the ice. Twilight stepped forward to stop the mare, only to find Serp’s wing blocking her path.

“Don’t waste your breath, Sparkle.”

“But she’s going to hurt herself!”

Serp scoffed, shaking his head as he revealed his fangs. “On a block of ice? It’ll be a sunny day in Novigrad. Give her space and she’ll get her head on straight. I have a question.”

Intrigued, Twilight followed the stallion to the center of the room, where he sat down and looked her squarely in the eye. There was a glint there, even beyond the reflection of the fire on his wing, that left Twilight feeling more than a bit uncomfortable.

“What time is it,” Serp asked.

Twilight cocked her head. “How should I know? We’ve been underground for who-knows how long.”

“Do you have a spell?” Serp pressed. “Or some way? I need to know who I’d be talking to.” As Twilight wondered what he meant, Serp reached into his mouth with his non-flaming wing. A sickening crack ensued, and he produced a blackened withered tooth.

Twilight held a hoof over her mouth, and she was sure her cheeks flushed a momentary green. “Wh-what was that?”

“It’s how I am going to save you and your friend. This tooth is from Blood Stroke’s mentor. He called it ‘Hole Gem’.” The wing holding the fake tooth shuddered with a slight gust of wind, and the tooth began to hum with an unmistakable pitch as it ate the stallion’s magic. For just a moment, Twilight’s memory brought back the image of slitted green eyes.

“Void crystal?” Twilight gasped. “You’ve had that in your mouth?”

“The root is covered in steel,” Serp explained, rolling it over to reveal the metal, “so that it does not take my magic. Blood Stroke has a knife made of this, which he uses to take away the magic of criminals. He gave Hammer and I a tooth this size each.”

Twilight stared at the little black crystal with a respectful fear. “I know it eats magic. Do you know what happens if it eats too much?”

Serp nodded. “It starts growing. And if it cannot grow, it explodes with raw magic. I have seen how large. We used a piece the size of a shoe during the Revolution, and it нахрен leveled half a city block in Coltpenhagen. This should be more than enough to kill those vargr. Do you understand now? I need to know if the sun is out, or if it is the moon.”

Twilight’s jaw dropped in understanding. “No, Serp…”

“Do you have a better plan? Make friends with the vargr?” the stallion taunted. “I’m not blind. You almost passed out when you caused that cave in. Canterlot over there is having a panic attack. I’m missing a leg. We’re never going to sneak past them or trick them now. This way, at least you two make it out.”

Twilight shook her head in protest. “But you can’t just kill yourself!”

Serp rolled his eyes. “Sparkle, your friend was right. If I die here, the Princesses will damn me to Tartarus. Maybe they don’t get what it was like to fight rebels, maybe they don’t care… maybe I really am a bad pony. It doesn’t matter. If I go to Celestia and I tell her that I died to save Twilight Sparkle, I know what I will get. It is a much better life than this one.”

“That doesn’t mean you should just kill yourself.” Twilight took a deep breath. “Look, I’ll think of something, okay? We’ll think of something. Just give me some time.”

Serp shrugged. “I’ll wait as long as it takes them to burn through the wall either way. Here’s hoping you come up with something.”

“Okay… wow, no pressure.” Twilight turned back to where Solo was assaulting Typhoon’s frozen coffin. The continued blows against the ice were still far from posing any threat to the ancient preserved corpse, but the cracks had nearly reached Typhoon’s book, and the sheath of her sword.

The corners of Twilight’s mouth twitched up, just a bit. “Solo! Stop!”

Going Solo reacted as if she had been slapped. First she paused, and then she turned slowly toward her ward, though her attention was momentarily consumed by the frost and ice coating her hoof.

“I know this is stressful, Solo, but I think we should all try to relax. Princess Celestia always liked to tell me that the worst thing you could do in a dangerous situation is get emotional. Okay?”

Swallowing once, Solo nodded. “Sorry.”

“It’s fine,” Twilight answered. “I understand. I need your help, though.”

Solo nodded again. “You’ve got a plan.”

“I’ve got something at least. I need you to get that book out of the ice.”

The request earned a confused look. “But I thought you just said to stop…”

“Well, I didn’t want you to just lose your temper and hurt the book. I need to be able to read it. Once you’ve got that, I might need Heims Osculum too.”

As Twilight pronounced the ancient Cirran words, the voice coming from Serp’s quill as it scrawled on the ground translated them. “Winter’s Kiss.”

“She named her sword?” Solo shook her head, as her hoof went back to work on the ice. “Real classy there, Typhoon.”

“Actually, it was traditional for ponies to name swords in those days. There are still more than a few old Cirran swords that are still around today. Infernus, Ensis, Procellarum. Honestly, I can’t believe we just found Heims Osculum. It’s the last one of the stormblades, and it’s been thought lost for generations.”

Solo brought her hoof down with another forceful blow. “Since we’re waiting on me to break the ice anyway…” She gritted her teeth and smashed her hoof down again. “...what’s a ‘stormblade’?”

“It’s Commander Hurricane’s last name.” At Solo’s confused expression, Twilight chuckled. “I didn’t quite mean that literally. In those days, a pony’s extended family was called their gens. Each gens had a name; Hurricane and Typhoon’s was ‘Stormblade’. I don’t know exactly why; most of the history of Cirra prior to the migration is lost. Hurricane name his sword, the Gladius Procellarum, in honor of his gens. Each of his children also hoof-forged a sword, so collectively, they’re known as the stormblades: Procellarum, Infernus for his son Cyclone, Heims Osculum for Typhoon, and Aestas Melos for his youngest, Gale.”

“Summer Song,” translated Serp’s enchanted feather.

“Princess Celestia has Aestas Melos in a case in the Royal Library, Infernus is kept in the throne room of Burning Hearth Castle in Stalliongrad, and Procellarum was still in use by the Commander of the Honor Guard until Masquerade killed him. I guess it’s the lost sword now.”

“Well,” Solo chuckled to herself. “Maybe I’ll have to invest in a pith helmet when we get back to Canterlot, since I’m a famous archaeologist now.” Turning with her wings outstretched, she proffered a book. “Wow, the ice did a number on this thing. The cover feels weird. Is that what ice does to paper?”

Twilight smiled. “The book is fine, Solo. It’s bound in leather.”

Solo’s eyes widened, but she at least maintained enough control not to drop the ancient book. “Okay, uh, what are we looking for in this thing?”

“Well,” Twilight began as she flipped the cover open, “That tunnel we came in through is vargr-made. But in Typhoon’s time, there probably weren’t any vargr in Onyx Ridge; the fortress was occupied by bandits and crystal barbarians. So she must have gotten in somehow.”

“You think there’s some sort of secret passage?”

Twilight shrugged. “I won’t know until I start reading. Give me a minute…”

The first few pages were a familiar description of Typhoon’s departure from Everfree City at the end of the Shadow War. Knowing that the record predated her death by some two decades, Twilight flipped to the end of the volume, only to stumble upon a mass of blank pages. Her horn moved them carefully, the spell so easy and so practiced that she barely even felt it at work, despite her fatigue. Ultimately, she came upon a page scrawled in a shaky, yet familiar Cirran script.

Cy-,

I have no doubt you’ll be the one to find me. Don’t be sad; fifty-three years is a long, healthy life. I got to see my son grow up, and meet my grandfoals. I guess my only regret is that I let that stupid bandit get me between the ribs. I’ve frozen the wound so I won’t bleed out, but I’m living on borrowed time; I know I won’t ever make it out of this fortress alive.

Give this journal and Heims to Tempest; I know Father helped him make his own sword, but maybe it’ll be a good fit for Maelstrom or Blizzard when they grow up.

I just realized, I do have another regret. While you’re in Everfree, tell Gale I’m sorry. She and Celeste were still wrong about Father, but I shouldn’t have let that be the last thing I ever said to her.

And don’t be such a stranger to her yourself. She is your little sister, after all, even if your foals are older than her. It wouldn’t hurt for you to be a real uncle to Tempest.

What I’m trying to say, Cyclone, is to tell the whole family I love them. And to tell them all goodbye.

Ante Legionem nihil erat, et nihil erit post Legionem.

-Ty

“Twilight, I got it,” Solo proclaimed, stealing the unicorn’s attention. The guardsmare pulled the weapon free of the ice, clutching its sheath between her teeth. “Wow, this thing is light.”

“It’s pure skysteel,” Twilight explained. “Most modern guard weapons are part ‘ground iron’, which is a lot heavier, but much more resistant to Arcana. If you pull it out, you’ll see―”

A distinct hissing noise echoed down the hallway behind the unicorn, and a burst of orange flame lit the walls. As the sound settled, Serp rose from his resting place, clutching his void-crystal tooth between his teeth and spreading his wings. “Both of you,” he growled around the tooth. “Once I’ve cleared the way, don’t waste your нахуй time. You’ll only get a bit.”

As Serp readied himself, Twilight took careful notice of the smell of fire, and the hiss of the flames meeting Typhoon’s ancient ice. Instead of roars and the slap of paws on stone, however, all the unicorn heard was a single steady rhythm of something like steel clicking in time against the tunnel floor.

As the source of the wound grew closer to the final turn, where it would be visible to the room, a bulky shadow, low to the ground, was cast against the tunnel wall. And as the source of the flames rounded the corner, a familiar voice spoke up in Equiish, though tinged by a heavy Stalliongradi accent.

“Welcome to Stol’nograd, Twilight. It’s been a long time, hasn’t it?”

Twilight’s jaw dropped at the face that rounded the corner. It took her a small eternity to unleash even a single word.

“Ink!?”