Celestia, from the back of her sister and her's royal pegasus drawn carriage, sat still. Very still. Her expression stony and tense as she stared intently straight ahead. She was stern and intense, focused deeply on the task at hand, carefully foreseeing every possible outcome of the scenario before her. By the time they arrived in Ponyville to assess this so called “invasion,” she would have developed a foal-proof course of action that stood no chance of failure.
At least, that's what anypony else would see by looking at the princess. Her slightly less ancient sister sitting next to her knew full well that she was panicking like a filly behind that highly developed poker face. As serious as the situation was, it was somewhat amusing to the Princess of the Moon watching her sister like that and knowing she was the only pony in the world that saw the truth.
That's not to say she didn't care about the fates of Twilight and her friends. To the contrary, she felt indebted to the six of them for purging her dark side with the Elements of Harmony the year before, not to mention helping her find a new meaning for the dreaded “Nightmare Night Festival.”
However, spending a millennium in exile taught Luna patience, among other things, including the habit of repeating thoughts to herself to fill up empty time. They had been out with a division of pagasi soldiers flying their way to Ponyville since early morning. Three more divisions of earth ponies and a handful of specialist unicorn squads were to follow them on hoof and would take an extra day to arrive. There wasn't anything she could tell her sister to ease the strain of the situation so she just let her be for the moment. There was plenty of empty time here to ruminate on things she already knew so she went about it again
Luna closed her eyes, exhaled deeply, and relaxed, lying down on her stomach. In a kind of meditative state, she recalled the events of the past day one more time.
“Yesterday afternoon, Sister received a message that some hostile force arrived in Everfree Forest. Neither of us could imagine who, as there are no standing conflicts with anyone. There isn't even a hint of citizens being disgruntled, let alone forming an army in Everfree. That place was always very special and ominous though, even back in thine own time. Nothing good comes out of those woods.
“Well, that's not entirely true,” Luna thought to herself with a faint smile that she tried to hide from Celestia, “One good thing went in there once.
“It twas precisely that reason that Celestia didn't want them going into Everfree in the first place. She's spent nearly two decades grooming that talented young mare, and she doth not wish to lose her there to some wayward monster while she could help it. Granted, they had been sent on dangerous and important missions before, but only because she anticipated exactly how the six of them would respond to the situation and more or less predetermined that they would be fine. Well, not so much predetermination as it was precognition.
“That is the wonderful thing about being immortal: there's so much time to plan. After the first millennium or two one hath pretty much seen everything, so nothing surprises one so much anymore either way. Sister knew exactly why that dragon was perched on that mountain when she received the report on it, she knew exactly what it would take to make him leave, and she knew exactly that the six friends had what it took to make him do so. They would figure it out for themselves once the time came.
“It was in that same manner that she orchestrated Nightmare Moon's, er, our final downfall. She had many centuries to prepare and we did leave a very clear prophesy. Had our thoughts been a bit more … composed during that time perhaps all might have turned out differently. But then again, she likely would have anticipated that as well. She always does …” Luna sighed and furrowed her brows.
“She hath also predicted what would happen if she took that dying phoenix down there as well,” Luna thought, rolling her closed eyes. “She doth so much enjoy showing off like that.
“That is the difference between her and us. She is the the brightest being in the sky, and she'll make absolutely certain that everypony knows it, even if it means creating a heat wave that everypony would have been perfectly fine without.
“We, on the other hand, are the moon. We assume nothing and demand little, save respect. We do not shine as bright or speak as loudly as Sister – Well, maybe not so much now as she hath abandoned the royal voice. Oh, if only that Twilight Sparkle had heard her declarations instead of ours…” Luna added with a slight chuckle to herself, “We are more passive and subtle.
“But we're digressing, aren't we? Back to the matter at hand, Sister did not anticipate this turn of events, which is why she is so distraught now. She ordered that Twilight Sparkle and her friends to refrain from venturing into the forest until we arrive to handle the matter ourselves. Even as she penned her response to stay put, she told me that the lot of them were long gone, and that her draconic assistant would be unable to catch them.
“With a royal declaration, we awoke a handful of soldier divisions and deployed them to Ponyville. With all deliberate speed we are now making our way there as well with the hopes that they're all still alright.” Luna finally concluded to herself with a short nod.
“Are you finished?” Celestia asked.
“Hmm?” Luna replied, opening her eyes.
The elder sister watched her sibling from the corner of her eye. “You've been lying there making faces to yourself for half an hour. Are you meditating again?”
“We are taking this opportunity to enjoy the journey. We have nothing to engage ourselves for the time being, so we are giving ourselves to the wind in our mane.” The younger sister replied, brushing a hoof through her hair with a disinterested expression.
“Your mane is ethereal.” Celestia said flatly. “The wind cannot touch it.”
“All the more reason to concentrate. We must make it billow in the wind's stead.”
“Such an act is without purpose. Have you nothing better to occupy your mind?”
“Beauty is a purpose unto itself. You must agree, otherwise you would not cause your own mane to flow as well.”
“Very well then, I shall cease,” Celestia said and immediately did so. Not just her mane but her tail both instantly stopped moving and hung in the air. “Does this make you happy?”
“Only if it makes you happy, dearest sister,” Luna said with a warm smile while nuzzling her elder's side with her nose. “Of course, that leaves the full burden of ethereal mane waving on our shoulders alone. Nonetheless, we shall persevere,” she continued, holding the back of her hoof to her forehead dramatically. After a second of pretend concentration, her mane and tail began to billow and flow even more than it had before.
The two sisters stared at each other for a moment. One's hair was immobile as stone while the other's flapped about erratically like flags in a hurricane.
Then they laughed, and their respective mane motions returned to normal.
“Thank you for that.” Celestia said, returning the nuzzle her sister had given her.
“We shall always be at your service, defying your orders and instigating needless arguments.” Luna said before they both burst out laughing again.
As per her usual routine, Rainbow Dash awoke sometime around noon. Finding herself laying on her stomach, she rolled over. A series of sharp pains shot through her side, and she immediately rolled back.
“Ow! What? Oh.” Dash stammered as she remembered where she was and why. She stretched out her legs and wings and sat up in bed, causing the sheets to slip off her shoulders. She was in the hospital bed she went to sleep in last night. Looking around, she noticed that Pinkie Pie was still in the next bed. Or, she assumed that was Pinkie. Whoever was under those covers was buried so deep in them it was like she was hiding.
Dash looked down to inspect her stitches. She had a couple shaved spots on her sides that exposed her closed up wounds. She stuck her tongue out in disgust. They were a bit unsightly, but looking at them more she thought they looked kind of cool. She had her own set of battle scars. Vanity wasn't exactly her strong point, but she did love attention. She could make them work for her.
After doing a quick routine of wing calisthenics, Dash lifted up out of bed and flew over to the mysterious hiding pony at the other side of the room. Her body was sore but at least her wings were intact. She preferred flying everywhere anyway.
“Hey Pinks, is that you?” Dash asked, poking the hiding form on what she assumed was the head.
A pink leg untangled itself from the pile of blankets and swung blindly at Rainbow Dash. “Leave me alone!” Pinkie whined.
“Sorry. Did I hurt ya? Are you still banged up down there?”
“I'm fine.” Pinkie pouted.
“Hmm … You know what? I think we need breakfast. Whattya think? Wanna head on over to Sugarcube Corner and get something to eat?
“No.”
“Whattya mean 'no'? I've never known you to turn down a treat. Come on, let's go have some of Ms. Cake's blueberry pancakes.” Dash said, reaching down to pull on Pinkie's sheets.
The depressed party pony responded by hunkering down under her blankets even tighter. This only encouraged Dash to pull harder. After a brief tug of war, the pegasus had lifted the sheets entirely into the air with Pinkie dangling from them by her teeth. Her tail and mane were still straightened.
With a sigh, Dash let go and Pinkie landed on her rump back on the bed. The sheets draped over her as they fell.
“What's your problem? I haven't seen you like this since –“ Dash started, then stopped with a gasp. “Since your surprise party! You're not going to replace me with a pile of rocks again, are you?” she added, eying Pinkie suspiciously.
Pinkie growled in frustration and pulled the sheets off her head. “I'm not going to replace you all this time! It's just that … that …” She trailed off.
Dash landed and rested her forelegs on Pinkie's bedside. “Come on, whatever's bothering you, I'm sure it's nothing a breakfast muffin with extra blueberries with rose petal frosting can fix!”
The pink pony closed her eyes tight and gritted her teeth. Then she exploded. “It's just wrong! Everything's wrong! And everything's always been wrong and I just never knew it! It's like when you throw a party and you get everyone you know invited and they all come and it's super duper fun but there's other ponies who don't get invited, not that you wouldn't invite them you just didn't know them so they didn't come, but even if you did invite them they wouldn't come because they're all grumpy un-party ponies or even anti-party ponies and that's the worst kind!”
Pinkie panted, almost worn out from her run-on sentence. The exertion tugged at the stitches on her chest, and she held a hoof to them.
“Do what now?” Dash asked, dumbfounded.
“How can there be anti-party ponies!?” Pinkie demanded, tearing up just a little and ignoring the pegasus' question. “Sure, we met all kinds of meany-pants creatures before, like Discord and Nightmare Moon. Except Nightmare Moon was just Luna being sad and grumpy, and Discord was having his own kind of party. And don't even get me started on Gilda! She's the closest I've met to an anti-party pony, and she's not even a pony! How can she not like parties? How can anypony not like parties?! It makes no sense!
Still clutching her wound, Pinkie kept panting heavily. She stared at Rainbow Dash as though she could answer her questions.
“Okay, I have no idea what you're talking about.” Dash said “Who said anything about parties? Does this have something to do with the valponies?”
“This has everything to do with the valponies!” Pinkie shouted, jumping into the air and flailing her legs. Dash jumped back in surprise.
“Alright, alright, just chill. I'll tell you what, I'll go get us some waffles with a side of daisies and you can stay here and … figure out … something … whatever it was you just said,” Dash suggested, slowly backing up with an awkward smile. She made a bolt for it as soon as she was outside the door.
Pinkie growled in frustration and burrowed herself under the covers again. “Parties make ponies happy.” she whispered to herself. “Happiness is life. If somepony doesn't like parties, then that means … ”
The lonely pony buried her head under the pillow. She touched a hoof to her wound one more time. “How can anypony not like life?”
Twilight splayed herself out on the wooden floor of the highest balcony of her library tree house. She tried desperately to think of anything other that the events of the past day. She tried going through a mental map of Ponyville as if to consider a better layout of the village, but the thoughts of each of her friends' homes stuck out menacingly in her mind. She tried going through an inventory of all the spells she knew, even attempting to do so in alphabetical order.
She got as far as the 'D's with Detect Gemstone before an unpleasant image crept into her imagination: Rarity limping through crags on three legs as she struggled to pull a wagon of gemstones behind her. Then came Detect Life Force and the vivid memory of reassembling one of her best friend's spinal cord.
“Stop it! Think of something else.” Twilight told herself and rolled over, facing the sky.
Being shortly past noon, Twilight found herself staring directly upwards facing into the sun. She squinted and held a hoof out to shield her eyes. The weather pegasi must have cleared out the gloomy clouds from the day before and the full force of Celestia's blessing was smiting her retinas.
“Oh no, Princess Celestia …” Twilight moaned to herself, covering her face with her hooves. “What will she think? She'll probably be upset with me for getting my friends hurt. She'll be so disappointed. After all the things I've written to her about the importance of friendship and all I've learned about magic, she would understand more than anypony how I should have known better.”
Twilight got up and cowered into the shade of the branches closer to the inside of her house. Getting out of the shining rays of Celestia's condemnation coming from the sun made her feel a little less guilty. The movement of something inside caught her attention. She looked down and saw Spike walking across the main floor of their house, shelving books. She watched him move about the room, climbing up and down that ladder and shifting books around.
“Oh, Spike, you dependable little squirt.” Twilight whispered to herself with a smile as a tear formed in her eye. “No matter what happens you're always right there helping me out. At least you're okay.” She leaned over to rest against the glass of the window. “Maybe you might have been better off if I hadn't hatched you … Where would you be now if I hadn't? Probably an assistant to some other pony. I know that test wasn't really about hatching the egg, there's not enough dragon eggs lying around for everypony in that academy, but somepony else might have been able to hatch him. Somepony who was as good with magic as I am, just a bit more dependable.”
Twilight pushed off against the window so she could lie back down again. As she did, a stray splinter wedged itself into a sensitive spot near one of her wounds from the night before, causing her to flinch and yelp. Her scratches were minor compared to the others, so Nurse Redheart had only spent a few minutes to bandage her up while diagnosing her with exhaustion. Twilight removed the offending piece of wood with her telekinesis and tossed it off the edge of the balcony. She took a moment then to heal her wounds and clean the dried blood. So as not to disturb Spike, she teleported a wash towel from the kitchen downstairs to clean herself. As she removed the bandages she bundled them up, wrapped them in the towel, and set them aside. She hissed in pain repeatedly as the medical tape tugged at her coat when she telekinetically peeled them off.
The sound of a creaking metal hinge caught the unicorn off guard. “Twilight? You're here!”
Spinning around, Twilight saw that Spike had come upstairs and opened the door to the balcony she was on. He immediately threw himself at her and hugged her neck. She was deeply grateful that he didn't have to see her covered in bandages, but she still had the evidence balled up behind her. “Oh! Hello Spike. I was just getting some fresh air. It's nice and sunny out here, isn't it?” She replied with a nervous smile.
“Nice day?” Spike asked, surprised. “Is that all you have to say? Where have you been?!” He demanded, flailing his arms around.
“You know where I was. You sent the letter to Celestia herself.”
“But you didn't hang around long enough to get her reply. She didn't want you to go. She said it was too dangerous!”
Twilight hung her head. Her ears lied flat against her head and her tail drooped. “Oh, I know Spike, it's a disaster!”
The unicorn took a deep breath, preparing to unload everything on her mind and about what happened. But then she stopped. She thought about what she had just said to herself. “Where would you be now if I hadn't? Probably an assistant to some other pony. Somepony who was just as good at magic as I am, just a bit more dependable.”
“You know what? It's nothing you need to worry about.” Twilight said at last.
“Nothing? Whattya mean, 'nothing!'”
“I said, it's nothing you need to worry about. I'll take care of it, Spike.” Twilight said. She then magically picked up the wad of bandages and went back inside. She made certain to keep herself between them and Spike so he wouldn't see what she had.
“What are you up to?” Spike said, following her.
“I'm not up to anything.”
“I know you're up to something right now. Your horn is glowing.”
Spike followed Twilight as she walked down the stairs, still keeping the evidence from the previous night out of sight. She didn't answer him.
“What was that? Are you hiding something?”
Spike tried to clamber onto Twilight's back so he could get a better look at what she was doing with her magic. She bucked gently and knocked him off. He bumped against the floor as he fell, but she knew a knock like that wouldn't hurt him. She giggled as he glared at her. “Come on, Spike, you'll have to try better than that!”
“Oh, no you don't. You're not getting away that easily!”
Spike pounced at her again, managing to cling to her rump. She galloped in a circle around the room as fast she could trying to dislodge him, laughing all the way. Spike practically forgot why he was trying to catch her in the fun of the moment. During one pass, the unicorn dropped the bandages into a trash can and telekinetically pushed them to the bottom.
Suddenly, Spike shouted out and let go. Thrown by the centrifugal force of Twilight's running, he rolled end over end until he hit a bookshelf. A couple books fell from their places, one of which landed on his head. Pulled from their momentary revelry, the unicorn galloped up to the fallen dragon.
“Spike! Are you okay?”
“Me?! What about you?!” His expression was one of deep concern.
“What about me?”
“You're bleeding!”
Twilight briefly panicked at the thought of having missed one of her cuts and letting Spike see. She glanced over herself and saw a small batch of dried blood on her flank. Apparently she was interrupted before she could clean that one off back on the balcony. “Ah! That's from, uh, I was-”
“I'm so sorry, Twilight! I didn't mean to scratch you! Dragon claws, you know? They really sharp. I try to trim them. Well, sometimes …” The baby dragon stammered, hiding his hands behind his back.
Suddenly, a hoof pounded on the front door.
“Don't worry Spike, this wasn't you, I promise. You just go get the door and I'll go clean up, okay?” Twilight said, then headed towards the kitchen to get a damp cloth.
“Oh, if you say so,” Spike replied, heading towards the door. “Wait, then where did that come from?!”
“The door, Spike!”
The baby dragon threw his arms up in exasperation and went to answer the door anyway. When he did, he was met by a stony faced pegasus guard.
“Spike the Dragon? Princess Celestia requests the presence of Twilight Sparkle immediately at the town hall.”
Spike stared at the soldier for a moment in dumb silence. Of all the ponies he could have predicted to arrive at that time, a royal guard was not one of them. “Uh, sure. Wait here, I'll get her,” he said with an uncomfortable grin before slamming the door and running to the unicorn in question.
By the time he got to her, Twilight had finished cleaning herself off and tossed a towel into the laundry. “Who was it? Did you just leave them at the door? You know that's very-”
“What did you do Twilight?!” Spike demanded as he grabbed her face and pulled it down to his. “There is a royal Equestrian guard here to arrest you and take you to Celestia himself!”
“Arrest me?! Why would he arrest me?!”
“Okay, maybe he didn't use the word 'arrest,'” Spike said, letting go of Twilight's head. “But he said he was going to take you to see Celestia at the town hall.”
“Princess Celestia is here?!” Twilight screamed, frazzling some of the hair in her mane. “Why in Equestria would she be here?!
“Oh yeah, she said she'd be. Didn't I tell you that?” Spike asked sheepishly and turning away. “It was in the letter from yesterday. You're usually around when I read them the first time, so I just kinda felt like you already – oh.” He started to explain before realize that the pony he was talking to had already teleported away. In fact, she had gone to the restroom to freshen up, comb her mane back down, and returned to the door before he had finished talking.
While the royal guard escorted Twilight to Ponyville's town hall, she was a nervous wreck. Her mane kept curling outwards in odd directions as she rolled over the different possible outcomes in her head. She kept stopping to brush it down with a hoof but it did little good.
“Okay, nothing's really wrong. She's just here to receive my report on what happened. She doesn't know that everypony's hurt because of me. Yet. She doesn't know yet. I am going to tell her now, and then she'll know. And then I'll be in serious trouble. But right now, I'm not. That's a good thing, right? That means she won't banish me and throw me in a dungeon in the place she banishes me to. At least not immediately. I should enjoy these last few moments of daylight before I find myself in the center of the moon. Luna will help me escape from the moon, won't she? Sure she will, we're friends. Except for that one time I threw the power of the elements of harmony at her. Well, she appreciated that afterward. Maybe after a thousand years or so Princess Celestia will let me come back. If I live that long. Maybe Luna can show me how to do that too.
“No! No. Princess Celestia is not going to banish me. Probably. Most likely. Fifty-fifty. At any rate, I should really just be prepared to explain what happened in a calm, level headed manner. I just need a few minutes to put my thoughts together.”
“We're here. The Princesses are awaiting you inside.” The guard said, coming to a stop in front of the porch around the town hall across from another armored pegasus.
A few more strands of Twilight's hair went haywire and she mentally shouted an expletive she didn't commonly use.
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