Tales of Harmony

They arrived outside of Mareshire's walls just a bit after sundown. True to Lux’s words, they had been forced to to take a little detour to reach their goal. There weren't many hiding places between the forest and the city that could provide them with cover, so they had been forced to follow the forest’s treeline, until they found a place that was close enough to the city, to risk crossing.

Because of that, they had only managed to reach their goal, a small unassuming outpost, located right in the middle of the city’s west wall, mere moments before the deadline Eclipse had set for them.

According to Lux, the outpost was mostly abandoned, ever since an particular nasty parasprite infestation had completely ruined the western fields for the next decades to come, forcing most of the farmers to relocate their crops further towards the eastern edge of the city. These days, there usually weren't more than one or two guards stationed at the place, who mostly relied on the city's magical defense system to do their job for them.

Said system was what Lux had been mostly afraid off during their track towards the city. He had tried to warn them about the system, but Dawn had assured him that it wouldn't be much off a problem.

“Relax,” she had said. “I’ve been inside the city a couple of times now. Trust me, I know what is waiting for us. We’ve dealt with it before.”

Lux hadn’t been quite so certain about their success as Dawn seemed to be. He had considered voicing his doubts, but that was when they had run into the pegasus stallion, forcing all of them to focus on more pressing matters. Briefly he considered bringing up the subject again, but decided against it. It was far too late to turn back now anyway. He’d have to wait and hope that the others knew what they were doing.

Instead he focused his attention on the outpost, waiting for Eclipse's signal. He didn’t have to wait long. He had only waited for a couple of minutes, when he noticed Eclipse signal, a slight but consistent flicker in the light above the outpost, forming a brief but clear pattern. As quietly as possible, Lux gestured for the others to follow and together they hurried over to the open gate.

As they approached the gate, the light above suddenly shifted from white to green, causing all four of them to simultaneously shudder, as an electric tingling run down their spine. They were being scanned by the light, dozens of different spells running along and through their bodies, all of them designed to identify and stop any non-unicorns from entering the city.

Pausing in his track, Lux glanced over to the harmonites. He was half expecting to see them lying on ground, convulsing in pain as the defense system did its job, yet to his utter amazement his travel companions seemed to be completely unfazed by it. Without so much as a second of hesitation in their steps, they simply walked through the light, directly into the middle of all those spells that had been specifically created to keep those like them out of the city. On the other side, they paused and turned to Lux.

“You coming?” Blaze asked a mischievous grin on her lips. “Or do I have to carry you? You remember your friend told us to hurry, right?”

Pulling himself out of his stupor, Lux nodded and glanced towards the outpost. Wordlessly he walked over to where the others were standing and took his place at the front as their guide.

“How?” he asked, as he began leading them away from the outpost and towards his father's shop. Now that they were inside the city, he figured they didn’t need to be quite as stealthy as before, so he felt safe enough to ask.

“It’s pretty easy, really,” Dawn shrugged. “Do you want the short or the long answer.”

“Short one,” Lux replied without thinking. He wasn't sure if he could handle a drawn out explanation at the moment. His mind was already overloaded as it was.

“Arrogance.”

He waited for Dawn to continue, but she didn't.

“Okay…” He sighed. “I guess I will take the long answer instead.”

“It’s pretty simple,” Dawn sighed. She closed her eyes, as if trying to remember something she had heard a long time ago. “The unicorn mages who came up with those defensive spells, assumed they were the only one with the knowledge and experience to understand and cast spells powerful enough to trick their system.

“Neither earth ponies nor pegasi can actively channel their magic the same way unicorns can, so they weren’t afraid that any of them would be able to bypass their creation. And regarding rouge unicorns like me and others in Harmony; well, they didn’t consider us much of a threat either. After all, it were mostly merchant and warrior families that joined Harmony. Nearly all of the nobles and the scholar families remained loyal to the kingdom, so they figured they were smarter than us. Or at least smart enough to deal with everything that we could come up with.”

She paused and opened her eyes, a devilish smile on her lips.

“Of course, they never really considered that by sharing our knowledge between the tribes and combining it, we would be able to use out magic in ways they never even considered.”

She nodded back to the outpost and rolled her eyes.

“The spells they are using to identify non-unicorns all use one three factors to differentiate between unicorns and non-unicorns.”

She used her magic to grab a couple of identical looking crystals from her bag, then she levitated them in front of Lux.

“Step one,” she said and the first crystal floated closer to him, ”is to scan whether or not the target is a pony. That one is pretty easy to pass.”

“Step two,” she continued and one of the other two crystals floated towards Lux, replacing the first to hoover in front of him. “This test checks whether or not has a horn. Simple, but effective.”

“The third one,” the last crystal floated towards Lux, again replacing its brethren, just like the one before it had done, “checks whether or not that horn is natural or created by other means. This includes most form of illusion magic or simple craftsmanship to create a fake horn.”

“But that won't work on you,” Lux said, comprehension slowly dawning on his face. “You are all proper unicorns. Anatomical speaking at least.”

“Indeed,” Snow said with a slight bow of his head, while Dawn placed the crystals back into her bag. “The unicorn elders, who designed this city's defense, never even considered the possibility of an transmutation spell on this level, nor the possibility that anyone would willing partake in it, if it did exist. That is why, in order to trick their system, my sister and I choose to undergo our little change in appearance. Regardless of how … unpleasant it is.”

“And that is enough to trick the scanners?”

“It is,” Dawn said. “Now, keep in mind that what I just told you is a very basic explanation of the process and while it can be summarized in this way, the actual procedures to make all of this work are a lot more complicated than that.”

“Fascinating.” Lux rubbed his chin, as he thought about everything he just heard. “I really need to take a look at how exactly all of this works.”

He suddenly paused, his expression growing serious.

“Later,” he added. He paused in his track, his eyes focused on a small building at the end of the road. “Once were done here.”

He turned to the others, who already knew what he was about to say, and were busy preparing for what was to come next.

“Well then” Lux said grimly, as he stretched out a hoof in a mockery of an welcoming gesture. “Welcome to my home.”